CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Marvin Lindsay's blog

My next contribution to the peace, unity and purity of the church will be to teach a course on early Christian sexuality. If we're condemned to fight over sex ad infinitum, I want both liberals and conservatives to know that neither has history on its side.

Imagine a time when substantial numbers of Christians regarded procreation as a great evil. Imagine a time when the counter-cultural "left" practiced sexual renunciation. It's not some science fiction future. We've been there and done that.... READ MORE.

Marvin Lindsay's blog

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." True dat. But most people subscribe to a canon within the canon, whether they admit it or not. In other words, some texts or books are more important than others.

My Old Testament professor, Walter Brueggemann, suggested that we consciously adopt a canon within the canon. Pick 40 indispensable Old Testament texts and 20 indispensable New Testament texts, and that collection can be the core of our personal biblical theology.

Brueggemann was not endorsing Jefferson's taking a pair of scissors to the Bible and excising the texts he didn't like. Rather, he wanted us to think long and hard about what is peripheral and what is central.... READ MORE.

Marvin Lindsay's blog

A short passage in Volume Three of Tillich's Systematic Theology sparked a lively discussion Tuesday. Tillich maintains that what it means to be a Christian at the most basic level is not believing that Jesus is the Christ, but wishing to affiliate with a community that does believe he's the Christ. Tillich wants to assure people who are struggling with the whole symbol-system that is Christianity that their doubts do not disqualify them from Church fellowship.

In other words, If you can't believe, rest assured that the Church can believe for you.

There's something right and true and proper about this. It agrees with the observation that my friend David once made in a sermon on Doubting Thomas.... READ MORE.

Marvin Lindsay's blog

A classmate of mine taught Sunday School this past week. She's been doing this "Prayer through the Centuries" theme, and Sunday it was Friedrich Schleiermacher's turn. Who knew that Schleiermacher had anything to say about prayer? Not I; I got my MDiv at Columbia, where Schleiermacher was the enemy.

Once you weed whack your way through the horrible dead German theologian syntax, the content is quite good. He says that true Christian prayer is that which one prays in the mind of the whole Christian Church.

This makes sense, especially when we're praying about a personal crisis. The whole body of Christ has seen a lot more people die too soon and some not die soon enough than any one of us.... READ MORE.

Marvin Lindsay's blog

Jim West has composed some anti-Lent screeds that sound like they've been preserved in amber since 1525 and contain all the snark of the contemporary blogosphere. Quite a rhetorical feat.

A question about Lent is really a question about how Christians sanctify time. A big difference between early Christians and pagans (both Romans and barbarians) was how each marked time. Pagans believed that time was cyclical, and religion's task was to appease the gods in order to make the endless cycle of death and rebirth run as smooth as possible. But Christians believed that time was linear. History is hurtling toward an End, a final judgment, and the judge has already appeared in history.

As pagans converted, the pagan way of reckoning time got Christianized.... READ MORE.

Marvin Lindsay's blog

I read with sympathy, and some frustration Halden and his community's exploration of Providence, John Piper-style. Sympathy because I too think that Piper is quite wrong to surmise that God sent a tornado to punish the Lutherans for ordaining gay clergy, or that God ordained that 3,000 innocents be slaughtered on 9/11.

But the frustration is that, sooner or later, Piper's doctrine of providence deserves a more serious response than name-calling (such as condemning Piper's words as demonic, insane, or even worse--liberal!) I realize that at Inhabitatio Dei "liberal" is fightin' words (emancipation of slaves, the germ theory of disease, and all the other good stuff of the last three centuries be damned!) but John Piper is not a liberal, and calling him one is not a cleverly contrarian insult.... READ MORE.