parables of a prodigal world

One of the primary reasons that Christmas has been transformed, in the last few centuries, from a celebration of the appearance of the most revolutionary, paradigm-shattering human being in history to a tame, heart-warming children's festival is, I believe, due to the centrality of the "virgin birth" (or, more properly, the "virgin conception") narratives. Enlightenment modernism, with its foundation of objective, scientific rationalism, its closed-continuum of a cause-and-effect universe, has disallowed the truth of these accounts before the inquiry could ever get started because, if the virgin conception stories are true, they would undermine its entire worldview. But at the start of an age where that worldview has, in large part, already been undermined, it would serve us well to go back and re-examine the virgin conception narratives if we are to stand any chance of rescuing Christmas from the commercial interests that have hijacked its revolutionary message...

My first post in this series dealt with the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. This one concerns an E-mail I received from an old high-school acquaintance. Pretty broad category, this whole "gospel" thing. In 1990, a friend was killed in a tragic car accident. My friends and I had just started a band, and I wrote a song to try to deal with my thoughts and feelings in the midst of that tragedy. It was the first time I had put pen to paper to relay my thoughts and feelings to the world. What emerged was a scathing indictment of the notion of God, in light of my experiences with the tragedy, a lyrical shorthand summary of the Problem of Evil. The other day, I received an E-mail message from someone very close to the kid who died in 1990. We were never very close, and I remember him only from the circumstances surrounding the incident, primarily because of his utter devastation. His message to me was that he had stumbled upon my website about my forthcoming book, my latest attempt...

No lengthy post today. Far too tired. Started my Christmas shopping, got a tree, decorated it and put those flashy lights all around the house. With the time and the money I spent, I could have cooked a hot meal for a few dozen homeless families. "He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him." Merry Christmas, Raffi

I don't know about you, but I've had quite enough of the abstract, theoretical discussion about what the gospel is, whether justification by faith is part of the gospel or results from the gospel, whether Christ's righteousness is imputed, imparted, or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I'm as fascinated with these topics as the next amateur theologian, it's just that when I read the Bible, and specifically the New Testament, I find very little abstract, theoretical musings about "the gospel" and a whole world of real-life, on the ground, flesh and blood discourse about the the gospel in practice. One of my favorite stories by N.T. Wright is his recounting of how, during a theatrical presentation of the life of Jesus, there was a man in the audience who had never heard of Jesus, and he sat enthralled during the production. As the story approached the climactic scenes, the man stood up and shouted, "They're not going to kill him, are they?" Th...

I and others keep talking about N.T. Wright's "Big Picture," his overarching theological vision, etc., and it just occurred to me that there is very little discussion about what that "Big Picture" is. In one sense, defining Wright's "Big Picture" would be an exercise in missing the point, and I would hope that people would engage directly with his work in order to get a clear vision of the full scope of what he's trying to say. But to the extent that it can be reduced to a summary, to the same extent and for the same reasons that a majestic mountain range can be reduced to a topographical map, I think the following excerpt from The New Testament and the People of God works quite well: Reality as we know it is the result of a creator god bringing into being a world that is other than himself, and yet which is full of his glory. It was always the intention of this god that creation should one day be flooded with his own life, in a way for which...

As I was listening to an audio post (from a link from the the N.T. Wright Page ) of one of Bishop Wright's more recent lectures concerning his exegetical overview of the Book of Acts, one portion struck me as so fascinating that I couldn't wait until tomorrow to share it. I've been commenting of late on John Piper's critique of one narrow aspect of Wright's theological vision (as have Trevin Wax and Ken Schenck ) in his new book, The Future of Justification . My take on Piper's book has been not so much a criticism of his particular points but of his overall vision. I don't necessarily agree with the particular points, but my concern is more on the meta- level, while Trevin ad Ken get down into the nitty-gritty (which I greatly appreciate and by which I have been illuminated, by the way). But I think the following passage is a good example of the fundamental difference between Piper's vision and Wright's. Beyond the particular disagreements, beyond ...

My friend Trevin Wax has two posts in today's session of what has come to be one of my most frequented blogs, Kingdom People , one dealing with John Piper's critique of N.T. Wright's understanding of the definition of "the Gospel," and the other with a brief exegetical examination of the Parable of the Prodigal Son . I agree almost word for word with the former, and I especially appreciated the illuminating difference Trevin points out between "the definition of the Gospel" and "sharing the Gospel." Regarding the latter, though, anyone who knows me knows that I am a pretty big fan of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, for obvious reasons. I have just completed a book manuscript, which I hope to release in the near future, that chronicles my testimony through the lens of the Parable, tentatively titled Parables of a Prodigal Son: The Theologically Grounded Testimony of an Ordinary Scoundrel . Shameless plug here. In today's post, Trevin says...

C.S. Lewis was so instrumental in formulating my earliest understanding of Christianity that I still have a hundred or so C.S. Lewis quotes floating around my head (and on my computer). Although there is much I now disagree with Lewis about, I don't think I'd be able to arrive at that place of disagreement were it not for him (if you know what I mean). Well, then, here they are: "The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a sunhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it." "The Scotch catechism says that man's chief end is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him." "We may note in passing that Jesus was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He d...