St Joseph (Photo credit: Lawrence OP) We know Joseph gets downplayed at Christmas. I suppose it is understandable. But let's just take a moment to think about his role. David Zimmerman in "Comic Book Character" notes that mankind takes on four major roles in the Bible. In the Bible, God clearly takes on the role …
Month: December 2012
Absurdist Contextualization: A Serious Business
Few things are as boring, generally, as reading a work on sound theology. Yet if you go into a bookstore (Christian or otherwise) there are shelves of Christian Books. You can find books on: How to be rich (and telling that there is something wrong with you if you are not rich) How to be …
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Three Symbiotic Ministries in the Church
I like to describe churches as having three basic ministries. These are: 1. Community Care. Care and development of people within the church family. 2. Church Growth. Activities that would expand the local church family (outside biological growth, I suppose) 3. Missions. Activities that focus on expanding the kingdom of God without necessarily expanding the …
Argument for God, Occam’s Razor, and Culture
<Warning!! In ancient times I was a mechanical engineer and for a while a nuclear engineer. So I used to know something about physics. Now that I am a theology type... I have fallen behind in the natural sciences. So if you are underwhelmed with the science side of this post, no problem... but I …
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Searching for “Radical” Christians and Dynamic Equilibrium
I have seen numerous articles FB posts, podcasts, and such talking about how people (particularly youth) are supposed to be “radical Christians.” I was originally going to write a cautionary note on this. To me the term “radical” suggests rebellious and reactionary (and noisy and odd). And while there is some truth in this, there …
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Christmas. It’s Okay… Really.
christmas 2007 (Photo credit: paparutzi) A few thoughts on Christmas. May as well get the thinking started now. 1. It is OKAY to Christianize a pagan holiday. <An Issue of Contextualization.> Some are bothered by this and make this a big issue at certain times of the year. But Christianization is simply the subversion or …