Theology for the Masses

The 247th Christian Carnival is up over at Rodney Olsen [dot] Net.  There are some pretty good posts up there this week.  Here are some of my favorites:

Tiffany presents So Right, You’re Wrong as she delves into the discovery that being right isn’t nearly as important as being humble and teachable over at her blog Fathom Deep: Sounding the Depths of God.

Rey from the Bible Archive shares what he describes as his likely heretical vision for the western Protestant church in The Once and Future Church.

Raffi Shahinian’s contribution is the post Top 10 Things I Learned from N.T. Wright, Bart Ehrman and The Problem of Evil posted at parables of a prodigal world.

Ken’s post Literalism and the Ascension discusses what it means, and whether it is legitimate, to take the Bible’s miraculous stories “literally” over at C Orthodoxy.

You can investigate how people’s ideas about sacrifice differ from those of the ancient world and a bit about the impact of this for teaching a passage such as Hebrews 7-9 at Henry’s Participatory Bible Study Blog with the post Sacrifice Then and Now.

I got excited for a bit when I saw Tiffany’s name up there.  Wrong Tiffany.  This Tiffany’s thoughts were also good.

The latest Christian Carnival is up over at Diary of One.  Here are some of the posts that stuck out at me.

• Postmodern Philosophy for the Rest of Us–Part 1
• My NLT Odyssey: A Bible translation story
• Bible Study: Jesus’ Use of Q & A

John F. Hobbins over at Ancient Hebrew Poetry has a great little bit about the nature of confessional scholarship nestled in a great gut check post on the complegalitarian debate.

As a confessionally engaged biblical scholar, I have a bottom line: it should be possible to discuss the meaning of biblical texts with the intention of allowing them to speak to us on their own terms, rather than exaggerating their weight when they “score one for our side,” or engaging in damage control when they do not support the position we hold dear.

The complegalitarian blog, which invites actual discussion between comps and egals, invites Completarians to explain what Egalitarians totally do not get (about Complementarians).

Sillyness abounds!  Some of you might be ahead or behind the LOLz Cats thing, but I must send along the LOLz Cats Bible!  Here is a little bit from John:

1 In teh beginz is teh cat macro, and teh cat macro sez “Oh hai Ceiling Cat” and teh cat macro iz teh Ceiling Cat.2 Teh cat macro an teh Ceiling Cat iz teh bests frenz in teh begins.

3 Him maeks alls teh cookies; no cookies iz maed wifout him.4 Him haz teh liefs, an becuz ov teh liefs teh doodz sez “Oh hay lite.”5 Teh lite iz pwns teh darks, but teh darks iz liek “Wtf.”

Some friends and I have been going through Rich Chrisitans in an Age of Hunger.  I think we spend two or three hours discussion the first two chapters and tangetical issues the other night.  One of the things we brought up is our lack of knowledge of micro-loan institutions.  The Bible Money Matters Blog, while discussing what we can do with out historically abundant wealth, brings up one such micro-loan institution, Kiva.

Update: Cheapham has done a bit of research on micro-loans and suggests Opportunity International as a good micro-loan provider.

The 218th Christian Carnival is up over at Kiwi and an Emu.

218th Christian Carnival

Some highlights:

The Melchizedek Tradition from the Bible Archive

Cherishing Fidelity is an examination of Proverbs 3:3 over at Light Along the Journey

Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33? looks at why we can’t seem to apply what Paul writes here to the church today from carnival hostee Kiwi and an Emu.

This is an open call for links to add to the blogroll. What Christian-related links would you include and why?

The latest Christian Carnival (CCXVI) is up over at Crossroads: Where Faith and Inquiry Meet. Check it out.

Christian Carnival CCXVI–At Crossroads Today

Here are some of the highlights:
John 18:1-4 – Getting Christological Perspective – A good post on the dangers of looking through scripture with a singular, forced perspective from Deep Bible Study. (Hint: the danger is heresy)

Why This Friday is so Good – As Good Friday approches, Brain Cramps for God looks 50 fifty reasons the Bible gives for Jesus’ coming to die. (We’ll forgive the use of Piper! ;) )

A different view of Scripture by Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength – A “||” reading of scripture.

The latest and greatest Christian Carnival is up over at Thinking Christian. Check it out:

Christian Carnival CCXIV

Here are some of the highlights (excepting therefrom our posts!) (now with pithy quotes!):

Muslims Worshiping But Not Worshiping God

Nevertheless, it seems completely ludicrous to me to claim that this being that is falsely and ungenuinely worshiped by Muslims is not God. Muhammad intended to refer to the God long worshiped by Jews and Christians that Muhammad when he said all those false things about God. The being he misrepresented and twisted all sorts of things about is the God of the Bible. I don’t know how the historical facts can get around that.

Is Systematic Theology Bad?

Systematic theology, like biblical theology and historical theology, like pastoral counseling and evangelism training, is a tool created by flawed, God-loving Christians for the service of the saints to the glory of God. It’s an important tool in the Christian faith, and its occasional misuse should not deter us from its regular use.

War and Religion

The human race is great at finding reasons to slaughter each other – but religion has neither been the chief cause or the principle feature of that slaughter: not even close.

The Importance of Silence

Living in evangelical communities for most of my adult life, I have often heard, and then corrected, ignorant arguments against liturgy as dull, boring, and repetitive. Didn’t these people realize liturgy is one of the best opportunities for a person to interact with God in the midst of other believers—to be the local body of Christ?

This comes from my favorite blogger, April DeConick of The Forbidden Gospels Blog

The question of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is a fine example of this as we have discussed on this blog and others in the past. As a historian, this is not a historical event because dead bodies don’t rise. It is a faith event. Even the second century Valentinians seem to have understood this. What did the Valentinian teacher tell Rheginus about this? He said quite bluntly, “For, my child, ‘the dead shall rise!’ belongs to the domain of faith, not of argument.”

I don’t want to give it all away here, so go there: What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? My perspective

• Fundamentalist Atheism from The Daily Scribe
• Out of context theology winner from The Daily Scribe
• That Platonic Daimon again… from The Forbidden Gospels Blog
• Christianese Translated from Reverend Scottie
• Personal Impressions of Brian McLaren’s Church from open source theology – Posts
• Reading Romans eschatologically from open source theology – Posts
• obsessed yet? from CRN.Info and Analysis

BOOK REVIEW : A Review of “Become a Better You” by Joel Osteen from Challies Dot Com
A scathing review of our favorite Bible exegete.

Osteen seems unable or unwilling to bring the power of the gospel to bear on life–real life. Life, he teaches, is not a meant to bring glory to God, but is meant to bring blessing and ease to the individual.

CHRISTIAN HISTORY : Skarsaune and the Jerusalem Council from The Forbidden Gospel’s Blog
DeConnick talks about a plausible explanation of the Jerusalem council, given the contradictions in Paul’s letters and Acts.

1. Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem: Gal 1:18=Acts 9:26-30
2. Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem: Gal 2:1-10=Acts 11:30; 12:25
3. Antiochean Affair: Gal 2:11-14=Acts 15:1-3
4. The writing of Galatians: before the council in Acts 15
5. Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Council: Acts 15:2-29

DeConnick thinks that there are some problems with this, but that it is a good start. She follows up this post with What about this scenario? where she proposes a new sequence of events that is too long to quote here.

RELIGIOUS THINKING : Inerrant, infallible, inspired from 4Simpsons Blog by Neil
A devotional conclusion on Christians and the [un]holy trinity of loaded i-words: inerrant, infallible, and inspired.

We can read the Bible with confidence that God has transmitted his Word to us accurately. Sometimes the words inerrant and infallible are too loaded with various meanings to be helpful, so I like to emphasize that the original writings of the Bible turned out just the way God wanted them to.

RELIGIOUS LIVING : The Center from Bentch.com

“Each day you have to decide, am I going to be Christ-centered or self-centered?”
I love this because it reminds me that life is not all about me. It is about showing others Christ’s love.

BIBLE TRANSLATION : Gender language literally speaking from the Better Bibles Blog

I have to wonder if most people really do think that gender neutral language is less literal than gender specific language. Each case has to be assessed in isolation and then the group as a whole.

First, brothers and sisters…

Better Bibles Blog :: Can you stomach translation of Matt. 1:18?

Wayne Leman looks at the translation of Matthew 1:18, focusing on phrasing issues.

but Jesus Christ-of the birth thus was.
betrothed the mother of-him Mary the-to
Joseph-to, before they.came.together was.found in
belly having by spirit holy.

For those who are interested in the issue of literal or essentially literal or word-for-word translation, we should note that “was with child” is not translated according to any of these translation approaches. English “was with child” is no closer in form to literal “having in the belly” than is English “was expecting” or “was pregnant.”

What I’m Reading :: Which Bibles are the Best?

In this post, David McKay compares the ESV to the TNIV. Overall, he is fair to both versions and gives the pros and cons of each.

I think that if we are to understand a collection of writings that is over 1900 years old, we need all the help we can get. We need to know what the original says, but we also need to know what this means. We are fortunate that excellent translations like the ESV and TNIV have been produced, but it does not help us when one version is promoted in a misleading way which hints that it is the only really reliable version. it is also not honest to say that a version which aims to use less interpretion in its text is essentially literal when it has interpretation on every page.