All tagged terminal absurdity
My friends grew concerned when their church changed its vocabulary and stopped preaching both forgiveness of sin and Jesus as sacrificial Savior. It made me wonder, who hates the atonement and why? Was it really only St. Paul who emphasized Jesus' atoning death? In this episode I also discuss Adam Curry's presence on Joe Rogan's podcast, whether tolerance is a Christian virtue, recent revelations about January 6, and I share poignant things I've learned reading The Gulag Archipelago. Come think and laugh with me!
With global warming all the glaciers are melting and the islands are being flooded, right? We'll take a careful look. We are causing Earth to approach catastrophic levels of sea rise, right? Hundreds of millions of people live under immediate threat of being flooded into annihilation, right? Let's study it. Why do I find the ancient Roman city of Pompeii so amazing? All of that and more in my continuing climate change series. Oh, and what about the recent increase in IRS agents? What does that indicate about where America is headed? Come think and laugh with me.
Jesus' coming, contrary to so much bumper-stickery blather out there, was anything but peaceful. He came to do battle. Significantly, that battle was against "e"lohim who rule the nations. Jesus rejoiced as the 70 he sent out in his name drove out demons. And he enjoins our service in the Marine Corps of the Spirit to continue that battle. But for me? I get exhausted by the spirituality of warfare. So what do I do?
From an anthropological angle all religions have their contact points: totems, idols, altars, temples, and meeting places. I work through a significant Old Testament example and then show how (audaciously) Jesus declared himself to be the new (and eternal) meeting place with God. Applying that background I work through the logic of rejecting things just because they have been abused. Let's reason from a Christ-centered, biblically informed worldview.
What happens when we don't flatten the biblical portrayal into a metaphor? What if the Bible is as particular and vivid as it comes to us? What does reducing it to a metaphor say about us? What does leaving it as a vivid-mind-blowing story imply about God? We explore still more detail about the angel of the Lord and what Jesus has to say about him centuries later. I also reflect on guns and Ukraine.
