Theolog

Room for doubt

By Sarah S. Howell

“Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.” Frederick Buechner

Doubt is underappreciated these days. It’s not welcome on Wall Street, in classrooms (on either side of the evolution debate) or even in the pulpit.

The virtues of going creedless

By Bob Cornwall

In an earlier Theolog post, Jonathan Marlowe lamented the seeming abandonment of the creeds by fellow Methodists who sang that God is bigger than the creeds. Marlowe found their sentiment cavalier and lacking in substance.

My denominational family prides itself on going “creedless.” We once proudly chanted to the world: “No Creed but Christ; No book but the Bible.” Casting off all the encrustations of tradition, founder Thomas Campbell declared his independence of divisive creeds and joined John Locke, hoping to unite a divided church by embracing a simple Christianity. He chose Peter’s confession of faith: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Since it was good enough for Jesus, we believe, surely it’s good enough for us today.

Metaphors for Spirit

By Debra Bendis

I’ve been reading Acts this summer with a vibrant, engaged and committed group of adults. They’re excited to read about the adventure of the early church. They identify with the intentions of the apostles and with the challenges faced by the churches in Antioch, Corinth and Lystra.

But what the group struggles most with each week is the Holy Spirit.

Christians going creedless

By Jonathan Marlowe

It’s popular to dismiss the creeds as relics of an ancient past that try to limit the limitless God. At my United Methodist Annual Conference, we sang a hymn that proclaimed God is “greater than our creeds rehearse.” A speaker said, “As I get older and wiser, I find that I have less articles in my creed, but more faith in God.” Shouts of “Amen” rose from the congregation.

Besides ignoring the fact that the Apostles’ Creed is part of our baptismal liturgy and that our Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith are binding on all, this anticreedalism has other problems.

Tribute to a pastoral theologian

By Jason Byassee

I never actually met Robert Webber, who died a few weeks ago, but I’ve been around institutions he changed forever. His influence is still palpable at Wheaton College, where he taught for decades. Many alumni trace their careers in academic theology directly to his influence, while many current students who’ve never read him have become Anglican—demonstrating the continuing viability of the trend Webber traced in his Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail. At a Wheaton theology conference on Ancient/Future Faith (another of his 40-odd book titles), everything that speakers had to say about the church’s need to recover theology, exegesis, worship and life from the early church seemed a footnote to Webber.

Binocular vision

By Jonathan Marlowe

"No hard feelings," she said, "but I need a religious community that allowed me to think for myself. I got to the point that I can no longer hold all the old Christian beliefs enshrined in those ancient creeds. I need something that embraces science."

She was explaining her gradual drift away from our United Methodist congregation to a Unitarian-Universalist church down the road. I was caught off guard and stumbled through my response. "We believe in science, too!" I stammered, but the issues were already settled in her mind. Perhaps if I’d have known who John Polkinghorne was, we might at least have had a more interesting conversation.

Healed by the Spirit?

By Jason Byassee

My friend’s daughter was recently cured of a lifelong, debilitating medical condition. Really.

All her life she’s been allergic to milk products. She could break out in a rash if another child at the same table blew bubbles in his milk. Fortunately for her, her family is Pentecostal, which seems to mean the Spirit listens to their prayers.

Email theology

By Tim Larsen

Is anyone else becoming an email theologian? It happens several times a month—I receive an email from a complete stranger soliciting theological advice. He or she is perplexed about some hot-button issue of Christian thought or living, sometimes volunteering that the issue is pressing in on them for personal reasons. I don’t think I’m paranoid, but occasionally I wonder if these emails are some sort of trap.

No more Jesus discoveries

By James Howell

I really wish they’d stop finding old bones that allegedly belong to Jesus, or old gospels that portray a different kind of Jesus, or film clips of Jesus being brutalized. Yeah, I know: the bones were found a couple of decades ago, the gospels even longer ago, and— oh, right… the Mel Gibson film wasn’t real either.

Blogging the will of God

By James Howell

I’ve just spent a month with my congregation studying “the will of God.” A local talk show interviewed me on the subject, and the host, not the friendliest interlocutor on matters of faith, posed a hard question just as the producer was gesticulating that the commercial break was rushing headlong our way: “How can you know what God wills? Give me an answer in three seconds.”

Epistolatory theology

By Timothy Larsen

Is it just because I’m an evangelical, or is the letter an undervalued theological genre?

 No book of modern theology has had a greater impact on my thought than Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. If only one work of Bonhoeffer’s could be saved for posterity, I would vote for it. If he had lived to send it to a publisher, however, I can easily imagine a catalogue of complaints and recommendations for re-thinking the project.