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OF WIDOWS AND KINGS
Where the lectionary meets the events of the day I have been working on a post about Julian of Norwich, the 14th century theologian, as part of my “Retrieving Theology” series. I’ll post it in a week or so. Julian is a fascinating theologian. As Denys Turner argues, she’s not really a mystic, the category into…
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OF GOD AND OCTOPUSES
ON GOD AND OCTOPUSES Retrieving God A few posts back I proposed to engage, along with you, my readers, in the work of theological retrieval. The challenge of theological retrieval is to recapture in a new time the excitement and insights of old theology. I tried to do a bit of that with the Reformed…
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THOUGHT CONTROL
THE PERILS OF BEING TALKED ABOUT It was an introductory Bible and Theology class at a small Christian college—a required course at the time. The students, mostly freshmen, many with Christian school educations, were bored before they arrived in class. I remembered taking the same class when I was a freshman and finding it almost…
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PLAY IT THE BEST YOU CAN: ESCHATOLOGY AND KATIE KITAMURA
Katie Kitamura, Audition (Penguin Random House, 2025) Preachers should read novels. Good novels open what otherwise we would not see. What’s more, novels teach preachers (all of us, actually) how to read. How to read, among other things, the Bible. The Bible is frequently novelistic. Or, better, novels are frequently biblical. The ancient Hebrew writers—the writers of…
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Begin with Belonging
Retrieving Election Begin with belonging. Churches (not just churches but many religious groups, regardless of the faith they espouse) begin from the opposite direction: they tell you that you don’t belong, that you will belong only if you believe what they believe, if you take the membership class, if you say the prayer, if you…
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WALKING ALLEYS
A Labor Day Meditation WALKING THE ALLEYS A Labor Day Meditation My wife walks alleys. We live in a neighborhood that has alleys. Newer subdivisions mostly don’t have alleys, but in this older part of town alleys are everywhere. If the streets are front doors for the neighborhood, the alleys are back doors. Like back…
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THE WORK OF THEOLOGICAL RETRIEVAL
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NAMING WHAT CANNOT BE NAMED: MEDITATIONS ON THE PAST, PART 4
I had thought to conclude this short series on the necessity of history with my last post, available here. I had planned to move on in several different directions, including some thoughts on the significance of the Reformed theology of the divine decrees, trying to retrieve from that seemingly stale theology something of value for the…
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THE HISTORICAL ADAM AND OTHER MYTHS: MEDITATIONS ON THE PAST, PART 3
The importance of the past In his introduction to Athanasius’s On Incarnation, C. S. Lewis suggested that one should read at least one old book for every new one. By old, he had in mind books from the previous century and beyond. He mentions in a single breath St. Luke, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas,…
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RESURRECTING THE PAST: MEDITATIONS ON THE PAST, PART 2
“‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ [O’Brien] said. ‘Repeat it, if you please.’ ‘Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past,’ repeated Winston obediently. ‘Who controls the present controls the past,’ said O’Brien, nodding his head with slow approval. ‘Is it your opinion,…