Reading list on atonement
Atonement, Justice and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church by Darrin Snyder Belousek. Eerdmans, 2012. Instead of Atonement: The Bible’s Salvation Story and our Hope for Wholeness by Ted Grimsrud. Cascade Books, 2013. Jesus Christ Our Lord: Christology from a Disciple’s Perspective by C. Norman Kraus. Herald Press, 1987.…
Atonement metaphors/theories
Christus Victor/Ransom When humanity sinned in Genesis 3, they fell under the control of Satan. Due to personal sin, no human being was able to pay the ransom to free humanity, so God came among humanity as Jesus, sinless and able to pay the price. If Satan had known that Jesus was “God in the…
Atonement
In the 1990s, when the Mennonite church in Ontario was deciding whether to add Hymnal: A Worship Book to its pews, a dear (now departed) saint approached me, saying, “I hear that they’ve taken out all the blood songs.” The person wondered if this important part of church heritage and theology was going to be…
The Wounded Heart of God
“The Wounded Heart of God: The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin” by Andrew Sung Park is not light bedtime reading. Yet, I think this is one of the most influential theological books that I have read. The thorough articulation of the concept of “han” fills the gap of what I…
Debating the existence of my caring about the debate over the existence of God
I recently had a conversation with an atheist that did not fit the narrow conception I had of how that should have gone. It was a helpful and constructive experience. In any event the encounter spurred me to do a little snooping around on the internet for local atheist blogs and see what was happening…
The mockery of careful planning
I have always been a little uneasy with Jesus’ parable of ‘planning’ (Luke 14:28-31). Jesus asks whether the people would not plan ahead of time to make sure they had sufficient materials to complete a tower and sufficient soldiers for victory in war. The ‘moral of the story’ as I have received it is that…
Thoughts on School for Leadership Training Opening Worship
The chapel was filled with faces, many of them known to each other, younger, older, in between, all excited, anticipating the next few days. We began in worship. The room was suddenly filled with harmony of voices. I hadn’t heard singing with that many in a while… “I sing the mighty power of God.” Introductions…
Christ, Who Fills Everything in Every Way
This past Sunday I preached on Ephesians 4:4-16. I wanted to draw attention to two themes in the book. First is the abundance of language about abundance. Believers are filled with riches, power and wealth. Second, this is set within the context of the body of Christ which (who) fills all things. A broad theme…
