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We may have houses, but as a people/a culture, we have no home. We are in exile. We are alienated from the very creation we are a part of. Continue reading
Author Archives: susan
A Clash of Worlds: Luke 10:25-37
(This sermon was preached 39 years ago. I was a college professor teaching religion in a Baptist college. Fundamentalists had chosen me as their target in that college with the intention of having me fired. Susan and I decided that we were no longer Baptists. The straw that broke the… Continue reading
Cruciformity
Tell me what you believe about God (God’s nature, how God is present and acts in the world, God’s aims for creation, etc.) and I can understand what makes you tick. Anyone who knows me is aware that I love theology. Theology is a human attempt to understand God. All… Continue reading
Country and God, Part Three
(In part one of this series we looked at the prophetic criticism of Israel’s national religion which viewed God as the defender and justifier of a blasphemous and idolatrous arrangement. The priests served the king and not God. They propped up the royal regime by claiming that YHWH was on… Continue reading
Country and God, Part Two
As citizens of a supposed democracy, we may think we are exempt from the mistake of confusing God with country. We have no anointed kings (although #45 would love to assume such a title). But we do have a system where many of the same dynamics are at work which characterized kingdoms and empires. As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” (or in this case as rotten). Kings and emperors have been replaced by oligarchs, corporations, and ruthless politicians. Continue reading
Country and God, Part One (Amos 7:10-27)
Read the Scripture Sometime around 760-750 BCE a man from the kingdom of Judah was called by God to become a prophet. This call marked the beginning of Israelite Classical Prophecy, one of the most amazing and influential religious movements in the history of the world. The prophet was a… Continue reading
Paul and the Gospel, Part Seven
Two useful words when considering the role of Scripture in formulating our individual and corporate theologies in our unique time and place are exegesis and hermeneutics. Exegesis comes from the Greek word exthegeisthai meaning “to lead out/to explain/to interpret”. Exegesis is a critical investigation of a text within its various… Continue reading
Paul and the Gospel, Part Six (Accompaniment, Incarnation, Solidarity)
Within the Jewish and Christian faiths, creation and redemption are intimately related. Creation is ultimately the product of the will of its Creator. Such a creation is cherished and sustained by God. God, who is omnipresent, is present through each part of creation from the intricacies of the atom to… Continue reading
Paul and the Gospel, Part 5
The challenge of our time (as with all times) is to find metaphors which reveal the essence of the gospel in ways which speak to us in our unique cultural context. In our last article we looked at the different metaphors the writers of the New Testament used to communicate… Continue reading
Paul and the Gospel, Part Four
The use of metaphors is a very important way for humans to express themselves and abstract or complex concepts and actions. Here is a useful definition of metaphor: A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn’t literally true, but helps… Continue reading
