God's love

To say creation is ex nihilo is to say that divine love is the only power at work in the creation of everything.

It’s all fun and games until your political enemy calls you “dear sister in Christ.”

Luther said we can judge a tree by its fruit. He never said doing so would be easy.

Vittorio Montemaggi shows how important it is not to get stuck in the inferno.

Could the Spirit's love be poured into the hearts of people untouched by the incarnation? Could non-Christians be lovers of the only God there is?

Jon Levenson's new book reflects on the theme of the love of God in the Hebrew Bible. The three components of his subtitle suggest the range and depth of his exposition.

At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, President Obama urged humility about “a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith” to the point where we commit atrocities, like slavery and Jim Crow, in the name of Christ. Critics quickly denounced Obama’s comments as un-American, while supporters defended their accuracy. But few have asked why Obama did not also link Christian conviction to the campaign against slavery and racial injustice. 

His theology is telling.

Looking back to history to find yet another approach to atonement will not solve the problem, but a reconsideration of the physical or mystical theory of how Christ saves us might contribute to more fruitful and civil conversation.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? asks Isaiah. Those with ears to hear, let them hear, says Jesus. Day to day pours forth speech, says the psalmist, but God’s speech is pitched in such a register that many cannot distinguish it from silence.

We employ human terms to communicate who God is to one another. But God uses not only words, pictures and images, but Jesus, the Word become flesh and dwelling among us. We look for ways to express who God is, and here God is among us in Jesus Christ, feeding, forgiving, healing and reconciling.

In the New Testament, God's "violence" is a precondition of human nonviolence.