Scripture – Page 12 – Episcopal Cafe

John and “the immersion
of mind change”

December 13, 2008 1 Comment

Despite the popularity of the old book, I’m OK, You’re OK – I don’t believe that. I am not O.K. And neither are you. Not on our own. Not as we are. Not without the Grace of God. As Mark explains in the first verses of the first chapter of the first Gospel — the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ for all people happens when Grace works within us, making way for God’s mercy to get through.

On taking Scripture seriously

December 6, 2008 No Comments

The Anglican Scotist is among those sick of listening to conservatives blather that the Episcopal Church does not take Scripture seriously. Some of us think that they have latched on to this issue to persuade themselves that their desire to leave the Episcopal Church is driven by something greater than their distaste for homosexuals. The Scotist takes a more academic approach.

The Bible’s Buried Secrets

November 23, 2008 1 Comment

Last Tuesday, the PBS program NOVA featured The Bible’s Buried Secrets, which focused on what both biblical scholarship and archeology tell us about the events described in the Hebrew Bible. It is safe to say that biblical literalists will hate the program. Most prominent biblical scholars, however, had only praise for the program. It broke no new ground, but fairly described the state of the scholarship.

God’s treasure

November 22, 2008 No Comments

God isn’t looking for a creation of puppets, whose every action God controls. God isn’t looking for robots, created to do exactly what God says. No, God has created a universe and from it He is working to build a household of members who do, who act, who unleash God’s blessings they have stored within. Each according to ability.

The vernacular

November 6, 2008 No Comments

Courtney Stewart of the Bible Society of the West Indies talks to Riazat Butt about a project to translate the Bible into Jamaican patois

A Christian skeptic examines our politics

October 9, 2008 1 Comment

There is no one way that politics and religion interrelate. It’s a many-sided relationship, sometimes mutually supporting, sometimes contradictory, never simple. And this time of year, I’m reminded that whatever politics thinks of organized religion, there’s always been a strand of our religious heritage that has been deeply skeptical of organized politics.

Jesus amidst the moneychangers

October 1, 2008 1 Comment

The Messiah has come. Not with a bail out to preserve a failing temple economy, but to offer a whole new economics of salvation. For the Gospel economics of salvation is not capitalism, or socialism, or religious hypocrisy. It’s grace.

The origin of the species

August 31, 2008 1 Comment

What Darwin dealt a death blow to was one very poor argument for the existence of God, namely the argument from design. This argument figures nowhere in the Hebrew Bible. It does not even belong to its world of thought.

How not to preach the parables

August 10, 2008 3 Comments

It’s a curious thing that pastors often find it so difficult to preach Jesus’ parables. In truth, the only hard thing about the parables is that they are so simple, so straightforward in what they claim and what they demand. They are so simple that we need to make them difficult in order to escape the piercing gaze of Jesus. Or perhaps some pastors feel they need to soften the parables in order to protect the congregation from God.

Conversations with Paul

August 7, 2008 No Comments

When I am in my less generous moods, I rant and rage at Paul: How dare you say that women are to be silent in church? How dare you say slaves have to obey their masters? (Slaves!? Slaves?!?!)

But the deepest conversations come from when I can’t figure out what Paul is trying to say. Lord knows, he’s quoted all the time by anyone and everyone who wants to make a point on any and every subject.

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