God Hates Cretans? (and other passages of Scripture we’d rather not talk about)

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As part of our series on learning to love the Bible for what it is, not what we want it to be, we’re working our way through Christian Smith’s book, The Bible Made Impossible, In it, Smith tackles the problem of  “biblicism,” which he defines as “a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity, self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability.”  Biblicism f... read more

I Could Have Used This Book Twelve Years Ago: A Review of “The Evolution of Adam” by Peter Enns

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Within the first week of my freshman year of college, my Introduction to World Literature class included a reading of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian myth about a hero who is described as 1/3 man and 2/3 god. As we read the text together in class, I couldn't help but notice some striking similarities between this text and the familiar texts of Genesis and Ecclesiastes, but when we got to the part where Gilgamesh speaks with Utnapishtim, a survivor of the Great Flood, I disintegrated into a ... read more

A very "biblical" blog post

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  “Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read’st black where I read white”- William Blake In the coming weeks, we’ll be diving into some excellent books about how to read the Bible—N.T. Wright’s Scripture and the Authority of God, Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation, Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book, and more—but before we get there, we’ve got to do a bit of deconstructing. We’ve got to talk about how not to r... read more

Are Christians really “People of the Book”?

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This is related to our earlier discussion about biblicism...  Back in December, I found myself scratching my head over a paragraph in an article by Anthony D. Baker in Christianity Today: “The first thing Muslim children learn about Christians is one of the last things Christians learn about themselves: we are a 'people of the Book.' Perhaps we ought to ask how to make this observation from the Qur'an true, once more, among those who fellowship around the Bible. How can we form ou... read more

The problem of biblicism

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So I’ve added another six or seven books to my “biblical” reading list, thanks to your suggestions for best books about the Bible. (Good thing I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas!) But before we get into those, I want to spend a few weeks with Christian Smith’s excellent book The Bible Made Impossible. As important as it is to seek out better ways of reading the Bible, I think we have to start by deconstructing a bit, and Smith does a good job of addressing what has... read more

Esther and Vashti: The Real Story

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When I was a kid, I imagined Esther to be something of a beauty pageant contestant. I figured that, in addition to her twelve months of beautification, she must have performed a talent and answered questions from a glass bowl before winning the heart of a love-struck King Xerxes.  I never learned in Sunday School that Esther, whose Jewish name was Hadassah, was forced, along with perhaps thousands of virgin girls from Susa, into King Xerxes harem. Or that the king had banished his first ... read more

What are the best books about the Bible?

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For the next several months, we’ll be devoting Monday posts to conversations about the Bible. I’d like to discuss a few books during that time. So far, these titles are on my list of possibilities. Which ones interest you the most, and what would you add to the list? Eat This Book by Eugene PetersonInspiration and Incarnation by Pete EnnsThe Bible Made Impossible by Christian SmithHow to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart The Blue Parakeet... read more

“Honesty above propriety” - Jim LePage takes a new look at the Bible

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After I first came across Jim LePage’s Word series online, I couldn’t stop thinking about the stunning, poster-style images he created for each book of the Bible. Jim is a graphic designer from St. Paul, Minnesota, who, in addition to doing freelance design work, serves as Design Manager at Woodland Hills Church, where Greg Boyd is a pastor. What I love most about the Word series is that it manages to capture some of the most beautiful, compelling, bizarre, troubling, violent, a... read more

Loving the Bible for what it is, not what I want it to be

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My relationship with the Bible has been a lot like that of a daughter to her parents.  I’ve been through the happy, childlike dependency stage, the one where I believed the Bible was impenetrable, the stories of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, and Joshua and the Battle of Jericho as true and as good as my mother’s scent.   Then, as a young adult, I fumbled through an angry stage, one where I realized that after Joshua “fit the battle of Jericho,” God told him... read more

Idols of Paper and Ink

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Today we continue working our way through Evolving in Monkey Town with an excerpt from Chapter 17, entitled “Sword Drills” Sometimes I wonder who really had the most biblical support back in the 1800s, Christians who used Ephesians 6 to support the institution of slavery, or Christians who used Galatians 3 to support abolition. Both sides had perfectly legitimate verses to back up their positions, but in hindsight, only one side seems even remotely justifiable on a moral level. O... read more

Better Conversations About “Biblical Womanhood” (Part 2)

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photo © 2009 Jamie | more info (via: Wylio)   So yesterday I pushed back a little bit at Tim Challies and those in the biblical womanhood movement who teach that the Bible speaks against women “letting themselves go.”  I noted that part of the problem is that we have grown so accustomed to using the word “biblical” prescriptively (to mean, “what God wants”) rather than descriptively (to mean, “that which is found in the Bible”), we... read more

In Search of a Better Conversation About Biblical Womanhood (Part 1)

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photo © 2009 Jimmie | more info (via: Wylio)   This morning, pastor and blogger Tim Challies responded to a post I wrote a few months ago entitled “Thou Shalt Not Let Thyself Go?”  The original post, which I wrote as part of my year-long experiment in biblical womanhood, evoked more than 250 comments and remains one of our most-read posts of all time. It examined a popular teaching among some Christians that women should maintain a certain standard of beauty throug... read more

Flawed Interpretations: From the Beginning of the World to the End of It

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You’re in for a treat today, because our Saturday guest post comes from Dan Evans—entrepreneur, Web administrator, and husband extraordinaire!  Like me, Dan grew up defending a young earth creationist view of origins based on the conviction that the Bible spoke definitively on the issue. Today he looks at the similarities between that approach to biblical interpretation and the approach used by Harold Camping to predict the end of the world. *** Harold Camping has a message ... read more

Discussing the Bible: Seven Rules of Engagement

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  I have mentioned before that I believe evangelicals in the U.S. are about to engage in a big conversation about the Bible—a conversation about how we interpret it, how we apply it, how we talk about it, and how we relate to it. My hope is that we will move forward with a more nuanced, inclusive, and humble approach to the Bible, one that leaves room for a diversity of interpretations and applications while preserving the Bible’s time-tested value and authority. To do thi... read more

The apologetics movement created a monster...

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Tomorrow we will continue our series on faith, doubt, and relationships. In the meantime, let’s discuss an excerpt from Evolving in Monkey Town. You might say that the apologetics movement had created a monster. I’d gotten so good at critiquing all the fallacies of opposing worldviews, at searching for truth through objective analysis, that it was only a matter of time before I turned the same skeptical eye upon my own faith. It occurred to me that in worldview class, we laughed ... read more

The Bible as a Book of Questions

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photo © 2010 Savio Sebastian | more info (via: Wylio)   The Bible is meant to be a conversation-starter, not a conversation-ender.  One reason I think the Bible is such a powerful conversation-starter is that it asks the questions that are most important to humanity without providing neat and tidy answers in response. Instead, it speaks to us through poetry, proverbs, letters, laws, prophecies, philosophy, history, traditions, and stories.  God chose not to communicate &nb... read more

Huck Finn, the Constitution, and the Bible

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“I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn   Mark Twain is just about my favorite author of all time, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of my favorite books. I loved it the first time I read it. I loved it the second time I read it. And now just thinking about Huck and Jim floating down the muddy Mis... read more

Biblical considerations for an inclusive view of salvation

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photo © 1999 Ryan | more info (via: Wylio)   In light of our conversation about Anne Frank yesterday, I thought I’d repost this rather lengthy piece from 2008 (back when I thought people liked to read 1,000-word blog posts) that details some of the biblical support for a more inclusive view of salvation.  Now I’m not a biblical scholar, but these passages of Scripture have informed my view of the “un-evangelized” and given me much hope regarding God&rsqu... read more

If marriage is not eternal…

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  photo © 2007 Dr. Wendy Longo | more info (via: Wylio)   I’ve been spending a lot of time lately researching the theological underpinnings of the complementarian/egalitarian debate.  And what I’ve found is that complementarians (those who advocate specific, hierarchical roles for men and women in the home/church/society) rely heavily on a few passages of Scripture: Genesis 1-2, Ephesians 5, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Peter 3.   (You will notice that these are the pa... read more

“Biblical Baking” Gets Controversial at Houghton College

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photo © 2007 Klara | more info(via: Wylio)   I’m a big fan of Houghton College, mainly because some of the nicest people I’ve met through the years claim it as either their employer or alma mater.  (I’m talking about YOU, Dave, Lori, Nolan, Andrew, and Kaylan!)  So I was interested to see that the “biblical womanhood” debate has really heated up over at Houghton.   Apparently, a female student launched a club (and corresponding Faceb... read more

The Bible, Polygamy, and “Sister Wives”

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While watching reality TV the other day, I asked Dan “Do you think this stuff should be on TV or do you think it’s exploitive?”  “Yes,” he said.  He was kidding of course, but the conversation highlighted the main reason we typically avoid watching reality TV despite its inexplicably addictive qualities.   Lucky for me, I get to count my latest indulgence—TLC’s controversial “Sister Wives”—as research for my next book.... read more

What women want…I think

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(Photo by Foxtongue) The blogosphere is buzzing once again about the topic of women’s roles in the church, home, and society. I’m not exactly sure how it started this time. Maybe it was a controversial cover story in the Atlantic Monthly entitled “The End of Men.”  Maybe it was Matthew Paul Turner’s response to John Piper regarding women who work outside of the home (and the subsequent firestorm in the comment section).   Maybe it was Emerging Mumy... read more

Anne Coulter speaks on behalf of Jesus Christ?

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So I gotta call Summit Ministries out on this one. I noticed an interview on the homepage of their Web site in which Anne Coulter was chosen to represent a “decidedly biblical perspective” on David Wheaton’s Christian Worldview Radio Program. Coulter was described as a favorite guest of the show, which is sponsored by Summit Ministries. In the interview, entitled “The Victimization of America,” Wheaton describes concern for the hurting and oppressed as an anti-bibl... read more

Book Club Discussion: Big Important Questions

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Today we continue our discussion about Phyllis Tickle’s fascinating book, The Great Emergence. As we learned last week, Tickle’s premise is that the Church experiences a great paradigm shift every 500 years, and we are in the midst of one presently. According to Tickle, each time of re-formation has the same central question: Where, now is the authority?   During the Great Reformation, Christians challenged the authority of the Pope and rallied around the cry sola scri... read more

Book Club Discussion: Discernment or Hypocrisy or a Little Bit of Both?

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Part 3 of The Blue Parakeet addresses what author Scot McKnight refers to as “patterns of discernment” for reading the Bible. McKnight has already established the fact that we all pick and choose (or adopt and adapt) when reading and applying Scripture. Here he seeks to analyze how and why we do it. [Aside: Anyone who still thinks that good Christians do not pick and choose, and wants to continue to argue this point, must answer the following questions before posting a comment: #1 ... read more

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