Marginal Christianity

Herma and Herman Neutics on "A Theology of Ya'll' Biblical theology is a theology of Ya’ll (or if you’re a northerner, “youse guys,” remembering that in this locution “guys” is generic). Since I’m a southerner, I’ll stick with “ya’ll.” In a “Me, Myself, and I” world this is a serious matter. Before we even open the book we have a barrier to understanding it because of the world we have been socialized into. The kind of faith we have in our part of the world is that of the individual relating to God as an individual. Church for many of us is an optional extra, a help if we need it. Alone with Jesus in the garden is an image that resonates deeply with many of us. The basic thrust here is that the Bible speaks to and about the community, Israel and the church. Most of its imperatives (commands) are issued to the above in the 2 nd person plural (ya’ll) not “you” singular. Even when the singular “you” is used, often it is for rhetorical reasons. That is, it spea...

Reelation 141:5 and 15:1-4 – Character of resisters A t-shirt I saw in the mall read, on the front, “Fool for Christ,” while on the back it asked “Whose Fool are You?” And that’s the question Revelation places before us too. As Bob Dylan sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Whose fool?   Who do we serve? These prefaces to ch.14 and 15 offer a chance for us another way to stand back and take a look at who we are and need to be to enact faithful resistance to beastly orderings of life that foster injustice and oppression of the haves over the have-nots. We can hold these two passages up as a mirror to reflect on where we are in our growth as “resistical” believers. [1] Revelation 14:1-5 and 15:1-4 1.        Resistical believers know who they are. They have God’s name and the Lamb’s name written on their foreheads (14:1). This sign of ownershi...

Posted by W. Travis McMaken Kimlyn J. Bender, Confessing Christ for Church and World: Studies in Modern Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014). The first “word” is “The Word of God in Jesus Christ” (p. 272). This has to do with Christian particularity. Bender reminds his readers – by way of Barth – that any Christian response to atheism must be properly Christian, and not vaguely theist: “Theism may appear as a proper response to a growing atheistic secularism, but for Barth, such was fool’s gold. Theism may be an appealing alternative to a generic secularism for those who lament the loss of so-called Christian culture, but generic theism is helpless before a true idolatry” (p. 273). The second “word” is “A Word of Judgment” (p. 273). Here Bender draws on Barth’s criticism of religion to make the point that atheism is “but a new form of religion, which is itself a very old form of idolatry” (p. 273). This is...