Marginal Christianity

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/jacobs/am-i-a-conservative/ By Alan Jacobs • May 31, 2013, 7:55 AM Am I a conservative? Heck if I know. All I know for sure is that the good people here at The American Conservative are interested enough in what I have to say to give me a platform on which to say it. For which I am genuinely grateful. I am not and never have been a Republican. I feel roughly as alienated from that party as I do from the Democratic Party. I hold a number of political views that strong-minded Republicans typically find appalling: I think racism is one of the greatest problems in American society today; I am not convinced that austerity programs are helpful in addressing our economic condition; I am absolutely convinced that what many Republicans call free-market cap...

Friday, 31 May 2013 http://www.faith-theology.com/2013/05/karl-barths-theological-method-some.html A post dedicated to Oliver Crisp, to celebrate the launch of his new open access Journal of Analytic Theology .   One of Karl Barth's most characteristic patterns of thinking – you'll find it everywhere in the Church Dogmatics – goes something like this: (1) God has done x (2) Therefore God can do x (3) But God doesn't have to do x (4) Therefore x is an act of God's freedom (the Can) and God's love (the Doesn't-have-to) (5) By recognising God's Can and God's Doesn't-have-to in x , we understand x as revelation (i.e., a revelation of the God who loves in freedom). Some observations and queries about this pattern of thought: a. This might be called a theological method, but it is the furthest thing in the world from a generic method for producing knowledge. It would be more accurate to call it a distillation of B...

 by David Fitch May 28, 2013 davidfitch http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/?p=3733 Recently Life on the Vine and other churches  gathered as a group of church planters to discuss how we might lead our churches into our surrounding communities. I started the discussion with describing the difference between “Looking for a Project” in the neighborhood  and “Developing a Presence” in the neighborhood. We discovered just how fundamental the question of posture is to incarnational presence in the neighborhood. Here’s some of our takeaways. The Difference Between “Project” versus “Presence” Often a church seeks to engage the community by “ looking for the Next Project.” We seek a “need” in the community where we can help, bring resources and the love of Christ. What can happen though with this mentality is we A.) come to the project out of a posture of “pretending not to need.” We come with resources from a distance, not listening to the lives of people...

Orthodox christology has insisted on both the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ.   In practice, however, the emphasis has fallen on the “fully divine.”   Jesus’ humanity has usually been used to anchor his story in first century a.d. Palestine and to highlight his solidarity with us viz-a-viz his human energies and emotions.   Liberal christologies did more justice to his humanity and its normative or at least insistently exemplary character.   Unfortunately, it did so at the cost of rendering the “fully God” side of the statement opaque or non-existent.   I want to suggest that if we take both the Orthodox and liberal views seriously we can fashion a more adequate and fully Orthodox christology. The orthodox insistence on the full humanity and deity of Jesus Christ is, in my judgment, well-founded though often its execution leaves something to be desired.   Liberal christologies contribute that “to be desired” element by raising the human Je...