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In our post-Christian society many skeptics, atheists, and agnostics assume that the Christian faith involves belief in spite of a lack of evidence and that Christianity encourages its adherents to be satisfied with not understanding the world. This is untrue. Christianity has a legacy of thought and logic, and a convincing case can be made that modern science and Western culture could only have sprung from the Judeo-Christian worldview. Although questions of origins, purpose, and meaning are not easily proved true in a “scientific” or empirical sense, things can be true without empirical proof. It does not follow that religion is untrue or that religious belief is for the credulous and the gullible. Many of the presuppositions underlying any worldview cannot be proven empirically, and acceptance of many of the truth claims of atheism and postmodernism requires just as much faith as acceptance of the fundamentals of Christianity. This book is an attempt to demonstrate that biblical Christianity is true, in the sense that it is a logical interpretation of reality and our lived experience, and that the implications of Christian faith make more rational sense than a rejection of that faith.
Richly written, Jesus the Holy Fool combines diverse images from religious traditions, world literature, Jungian archetype, and Scripture. Weaving the best theology and spirituality, Jesus the Holy Fool is a fresh and inviting Christology. The Scriptures tell us that religious leaders thought Jesus was "possessed," and his own family thought he was "crazy." In his open table fellowship, choice of followers, radical passion, and his death and resurrection, Jesus was willing to appear as a fool for the sake of God's reign. His teachings--especially the parables, paradoxes, and the beatitudes--advocate a way of life that is grounded in Holy Foolishness. Through an archetypal examination of the fool motif as it applies to Jesus in the Gospels, Jesus the Holy Fool develops the connections between holiness and folly. Offering new insights into Christology and exploring its practical pastoral ramifications, Jesus the Holy Fool presents Holy Foolishness as a paradigm for the Christian journey and as a new model of what it means for us to be church.
Cliffe Knechtle offers clear, reasoned and compassionate responses to the tough questions skeptics ask.
For everyone who has been touched by the story of St. Francis, this book will deepen that understanding and provide a new perspective on his enduring legacy. Retelling his story, along with social and theological reflections for today, the authors--both Catholic and Protestant--present a new picture of the ever-popular saint. Francis' way speaks loudly to those who long to do something about inequality and poverty, about consumerism and spiritual emptiness. For this revised edition, the authors have taken special inspiration from the example and witness of Pope Francis, who has demonstrated the enduring challenge of St. Francis--especially in responding to poverty, the cause of peace, interreligious dialogue, and the urgent challenge of ecology. (Back cover).
The first two chapters of Paul’s first epistle to the Christians of Corinth, written in the fifth decade of the first century, have played a significant role in the history of Christian theology. Interpreting the central event in Christianity, namely the crucifixion of Jesus, Paul reflects on the wisdom and foolishness of God, which he opposes to the world’s wisdom. According to Paul, the “word of the cross,” which is “foolishness” to some and “scandal” to others, leads to an upheaval in one’s way of thinking. For two millenia, theology has often turned to these passages in order to sustain its reflection. Many central questions emerge from Paul’s text on the meaning of a crucified Messiah, on God’s omnipotence, weakness, and suffering. This volume hopes to achieve two things by seeking to place exegetes, historians, philosophers, and theologians in conversation: to better understand Paul’s text and its reception and also to examine the ways in which it can nourish our theological reflection today.
An amazing story of a missionary couple's journey into the toughest places on earth is combined with stories about remarkable people of faith they encountered to challenge and inspire those curious about the sufficiency of God.
A world-renowned sociologist argues that evangelical biblicism is impossible and produces unwanted pastoral consequences.
ABOUT FOOLISHNESS - By Gary Villamor It was suggested in the 1960's that God was dead, or at least, that the Bible was no longer relevant. Even though I hadn't been raised in the church, this was disappointing to me: I was in my twenties, I was recently married and I had just become a father when I heard the news. Over the next couple of years I read the ideas of perhaps two dozen different philosophers and investigated the religions of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, looking for the truth. Nothing satisfied my thirst, and quite frankly, I was becoming frustrated: It occurred to me that perhaps no one had the truth - perhaps no one actually knew how the world happened to be here, why we are here, and whether or not there is any reason to believe that our lives continue beyond the grave. Is this all there is? I wondered. It seemed crazy to me that nobody knew the answers to these questions - utterly foolish! One day I picked up the Bible to read, however, and even though I didn't understand a great deal of what I was reading, it was evident to me that this was not philosophy, nor was it religion in the same vain as those other faiths I had looked into earlier. Needless to say, when I got to the New Testament I was stunned to read about the person called Jesus of Nazareth. His claims to be the Son of God, to be the "bread of life, and to be "the way and the truth and the life," were so outrageous, and yet, so absolutely believable, that I looked forward every day to a time when I could read the story again. Almost fifty years have passed, but I find the story no less fascinating and trustworthy today than I found it to be the first time through. Whereas the worlds great religions all tell us how we might find God, the Bible tells us the lengths God has gone through to find and care for us. It's a huge difference! Many people in our society today think of the Bible as foolishness - mythology at best, but perhaps nothing more than superstition or Pablum. Interestingly, many people living in the first century A.D. also considered the wisdom of God to be foolishness, preferring to trust in their own wisdom. Walking by faith is challenging, so I understand why people are hesitant to put their trust in a God they cannot see. That's why I wrote Foolishness - to help people see God. Here's the thing, Jesus "is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Heb. 1:3). In other words, if we've seen Jesus we've seen exactly what God is like. Foolishness, therefore, helps us to fix our eyes on Jesus (Heb. 12:2). By watching the man and his ministry, Jesus creates an intimacy with us - We can actually find ourselves on the pages of the Bible - it comes to life for us. Baptism and the Lord's Table become windows for us, through which we see ourselves as a part of God's plan. Finally, the church begins to make sense, despite its flaws, and we find ourselves busily waiting for the Lord's return.
This study takes a Christian perspective on the entire Bible, rather than simply the New Testament. David Wenkel asks: Why did Jesus have to be beaten before his death on the cross? Christian theology has largely focused on Jesus’ death but has given relatively little attention to his sufferings. Wenkel’s answer contextualizes Jesus’ crucifixion sufferings as informed by the language of Proverbs. He explains that Jesus’ sufferings demonstrate the wisdom of God’s plan to provide a substitute for foolish sinners. Jesus was beaten as a fool – even though he was no fool, in order to fulfill God’s loving plan of salvation. This analysis is then placed within the larger storyline of the whole bible – from the Garden of Eden to the story of Israel and beyond.