“We don’t need the bible to know evil sucks,” writes Tom Oord, who has now taken off the gloves in his forthcoming work, God Can’t. In what might be his most transparently honest work to date, Tom goes after the Golden Calf of Christian theology: the idea that God Can do anything. Hang on tightContinue reading “God Can’t: A Review”
Tag Archives: religion
We Are What We Do
There is an adage oft repeated by professors of history, theology and bible: form and content, form and content…are two sides of the same coin. To a fledgling student of these disciplines this statement sounds strange, even awkward. As people in cultures, we have preconceived ideas of the meaning of history, what we believe aboutContinue reading “We Are What We Do”
Jesus and Islam: The Perfect Scapegoats
“Christ is not divinized as a scapegoat. Those who take him to be God – Christians – are the ones who do not make him their scapegoat,” writes Renee Girard in his text Quand Ces Choses Commenceront. Girard’s work attempts to reveal the role that violence and victimization play in the organization of human societyContinue reading “Jesus and Islam: The Perfect Scapegoats”
God is Nothing: Lacan Wrestles with Thing 1 & Thing 2
“In the symbolic order, the empty spaces are as signifying as the full ones; in reading Freud today, it certainly seems that the first step of the whole of his dialectical movement is constituted by the gap of an emptiness” -Jacques Lacan in his “Response to Jean Hyppolite’s Commentary on Freud’s ‘Verneinung.’” Everyone wants something. Continue reading “God is Nothing: Lacan Wrestles with Thing 1 & Thing 2”
Zizek reads the Bible: Thoughts on Incarnation
/ The incarnation is the perverse core of Christianity and the perverse core of the perverted god’s that desire the absolution of a person for the sake of their own divine egos. When the falsely innocent Christlike figure of pure suffering and sacrifice for our sake tells us: “I want nothing from you!” fails miserablyContinue reading “Zizek reads the Bible: Thoughts on Incarnation”
The Christ Aporia: his last name is not Christ and he’s not your friend
Aporia…confusion is of the devil, but aporia is of the Father -this is the least one can say about a definition of the Christ, a symbol as rich as it is dense, as familiar as it is foreign. Or one can say it as John Milbank does in his seminal text, The Word Made Strange,Continue reading “The Christ Aporia: his last name is not Christ and he’s not your friend”
Who needs the death of Jesus? We have Facebook
The widespread use of twitter, tumblr, Facebook, etc, and the past success of the movie “Social Media” and the accolades it received across various Hollywood awards shows should have gained the attention of the church and thoughtful followers of Jesus. Yet, this is not the case. Normally, us self-professed Christian folk can dismiss the latestContinue reading “Who needs the death of Jesus? We have Facebook”
The Perverse Core of Atonement: Sacrifice or Relationship?
For me, all doctrines and dogma are “fair game” and worth critical examinination. A faith that is not able to withstand questions is an antique to be admired, not a faith that dares to walk and encounter the world with us. The atonement, by virtue of its function in faith and theology, cannot be anContinue reading “The Perverse Core of Atonement: Sacrifice or Relationship?”
“I See Dead People”: Zombie Apocalypse or Resurrection of Jesus?
At the core of Christianity is a belief in the para-normal; there is nothing more para-normal than resurrection. Can we at least agree on this one point before you read the rest? The recent craze over the “zombie apocalypse” has got nothing on dead people coming out of tombs. Long before Woody Harrelson and “Zombieland,”Continue reading ““I See Dead People”: Zombie Apocalypse or Resurrection of Jesus?”
Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?
On occassion I will also post reviews to ParanormalChrist…Here is the first of many installments. This is a book review I wrote and was published in Review and Expositor: A Baptist Consortium Theological Journal over James Dunn’s little monograph, “Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?” This an edited and amended version so as to make my points,Continue reading “Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?”
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