Marginal Christianity

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Howard Snyder (Based on a non-canonical hypothetical conversation between Jesus and Thomas.) For forty days after his resurrection, Jesus met often with his apostles, speaking about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). The apostles asked many questions about times and seasons, and about God’s plan. One day Thomas said to Jesus, “You rose from the dead and defeated Satan! But there is still so much violence and evil in the world. Why?” Jesus replied, “As I have often told you, there are many things you do not understand now, but you will know later.” Thomas said, “But can you give us some help now? We are troubled and puzzled that we still see so much suffering and evil all around us!” read more at: http://howardsnyder.seedbed.com/2016/03/08/problem-evil-solved/

Christian theology says both “Yes” and “No” as it announces its good news to the world. Its positive word concerns what God has done, is doing, and will do for the world. Its “No” concerns views that misstate, mistake, or deny aspects of that positive announcement. Attending to the “No” is a crucial part of our struggle as God’s subversive counter-revolutionary movement for it is precisely these misstatements, mistakes, and denials we seek to subvert and present an alternative to. Creation-Evolution? From the get-go the loudest No to be said in the discussion of creation is the creation-evolution or science-faith issue. And the no has to be said to the entire discussion. I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on it here. But I want to say loud and clear that this is a pseudo-issue. Science asks and answers questions of what is there and how it got there. Though it is an ongoing discussion among scientists there is a stable consensus in the field that some form of evoluti...