I am going to use a quote from one of my favorite authors and that is Philip Gulley from his book The Evolution of Faith: How God is Creating a Better Christianity: Some Christians have thus concluded that we are our own worst enemies, that our best option for a viable future lies in our determination to embrace a rigid faith in order to stave … Continue reading Own Worst Enemies…
With this post I am going to introduce you to a book that has had a pretty profound affect on my faith. It is by Robin Meyers entitled Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus. Here are a couple of quotes from the book that will provide fodder for this post: Strangely, we have come to a moment in human … Continue reading Beliefs vs. Practices….
This post will be sort of a first review of the book entitled The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith. I say sort of because I will primarily be discussing something that the book brought to mind and not the book itself. The book is primarily about how many evangelicals have put the Bible into an impossible position by their very narrow interpretations. It goes into … Continue reading What We Read….
This is a continuation of my discussions of the book entitled “When God Is Love” by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland. Here is the quote for today: Working to make the world a more gracious place wasn’t a priority in the churches of my childhood. Some of this negligence was a result of apolcalyptic interpretations in which the world was doomed and damned anyway. One … Continue reading If God Is Love (Part 5)
This is the fourth post in the series on a book by Philip Gulley entitle If God Is Love. Here is the quote for this one. This wrestling with our theology, though absolutely necessary to spiritual growth, often puts our lives out of joint. On several occasions, I thought, “Remind me again why I wanted to question and challenge the beliefs I was taught.” The … Continue reading If God is Love – Part 4
This is a continuation of my expose of the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God Is Love. In this post he talks about Dualistic Theologies. Dualistic theologies reduce the questions of life to one: Are you saved? Nothing else matters. The purpose of life it to answer that single question. Of course, simply saying “yes” is not enough. You confirm your salvation by accepting … Continue reading If God is Love… Part 3
This is a continuation of my collection of snippets from the book by Philip Gulley entitled If God is Love. The Psalmists boats, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with perfect hate. I count them my enemies” (Psalm 139:21-22). Hatred, when directed at those we have judged wicked, becomes … Continue reading If God is Love (Part 2)
Here is an excerpt from a book entitled “If the Church were Christian” by Philip Gulley. Several years ago I visited a museum and saw the skeleton of a dinosaur. As I read the plaque, I learned only a handful of the bones were original, that the remainder had been fabricated based on a paleontologist’s extrapolation from the authentic bones. In many ways, this is … Continue reading Is the Church Christian?
With this post I am reviewing a book named Genesis One – A Scientific Perspective by Hugh Ross. Hugh Ross is a noted astronomer and the founder of Reasons to Believe which is a foundation dedicated to reconciling the Bible with scientific findings. This short 34 page book goes line by line through Genesis 1 – 17 and shows how each passage is backed up by scientific … Continue reading Genesis One – A book review
Anyone who has even skimmed the Gospels knows that one of the major themes of Jesus’ words is love. Jesus tells us it is not enough to love your friends; you must even love your enemies. Wouldn’t it be nice if only we Christians and other God believing people took those words to heart. I recently was directed by a friend to … Continue reading Have a Little Faith
I found an interesting book a while back by Phyllis Tickle entitled “The Words of Jesus”. Phyllis Tickle is the founding editor at Publishers Weekly and is author of more than two dozen book about Christianity. In this book she attempts to take the red letters found in the Gospel accounts and separate them from the surrounding text. She does this, among other things, in … Continue reading The Words of Jesus
I just finished the book Letters from a Skeptic by Greg Boyd and I must say I was profoundly moved by the contents. The book is essentially a series of letters between Dr. Boyd, who was once an atheist, but now a noted theologian and his unbelieving father Ed. The letters took place over a two year period and covered … Continue reading Book Review – Letters from a Skeptic
Continuing on with my review of Reggie McNeal’s book “The Present Future” we will now look at his 2nd reality. The shift from church growth to kingdom growth. In this section Mr. McNeal is trying to tell us that we are more interested in doing “church” than we are of making disciples. Here is a meaningful quote: The North American church culture is not spiritual … Continue reading The Shift from Church Growth to Kindgom Growth
I want to close out this outreach series with a review of a book by Reggie McNeal called “The Present Future – Six Tough Questions for the Church”. Actually, the book should be entitled “Six Realities that need to be overcome”. Mr. McNeal is the director of leadership development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. I want to up front admit that this is … Continue reading The Present Future
Today I am going to talk a little about a book entitled “If God is Love – Rediscovering Grace in an Ungracious World” by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland. I must admit up front that I am somewhat fascinated by the Quaker religion of which both of the authors are ministers. Although one of them came through Baptist and Methodists to get there. … Continue reading Book Review – If God is Love
There are a lot of different views of what the Founding Fathers of the United States believed when it came to God. Many evangelicals like to say that we were founded on Christian principles and that is what makes us so unique, some would say superior, but I definitely don’t buy into that. I found the book entitled The Faiths of Our … Continue reading The Faiths of our Founding Fathers
I am going to spend this post studying John Howard Yoder and particularly his book The Politics of Jesus written in 1972. Here is what Wikipedia says about him. John Howard Yoder (December 29, 1927 – December 30, 1997) was a Christian theologian, ethicist, and Biblical scholar best known for his radical Christian pacifism, his mentoring of future theologians such as Stanley Hauerwas, his loyalty … Continue reading The Politics of Jesus
On the last post I let it be known that I am definitely not a Calvinist. I will give you a few more reasons on this post. Some time ago I read a book entitled Why I am not a Calvinists by Jerry L. Walls and Joseph R. Dongell that very much influenced my views of Calvinism. For those of you who … Continue reading Why I am not a Calvinist
I am going to spend the next few posts reviewing books that I have recently read or reread. I must admit that the emphasis of these current reviews are to generally show areas that some, if not many, Christians believe but I tend to disagree with. As always, even if as I disagree with these things I will respect your not seeing things the same … Continue reading RC Sproul Book Review
Let me start out by telling you that this post is not about Jesus being a radical but there is definitely some truth to that statement and I will address that in a future post. I know this title is kind of confusing. Is there really such a thing as an “ordinary” radical. I don’t know but that is what Shane Clairborne calls himself. Shane … Continue reading An Ordinary Radical??
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