By: gfesadmin on October 11, 2012
To all those people doin’ lines, Don’t do it, don’t do it. Inject your soul with liberty, It’s free, it’s free. Salvation, salvation, salvation is free. Salvation, salvation, salvation is free.” As I pushed my cart down the cereal aisle today, the Cranberries’ song “Salvation” poured from the intercom speakers. Before heading to the grocery…
By: gfesadmin on October 11, 2012
David Ford opens his book, Theology: A Very Short Introduction by writing about overwhelmings. As I understand it, overwhelmings describe various human conditions and experiences (love, war, poverty, joy, suffering) that are readily present in the human life and which require appropriate reflection and response. This reflection and response can easily be described as theology. …
By: gfesadmin on October 10, 2012
The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains that the chief end of man is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” While, I have heard this line of theology repeated many times, I have never truly understood the scope of its theological depth. To be honest, worship is something that has often been very difficult for me. …
By: gfesadmin on October 10, 2012
“Asato Ma Sad Gamaya; Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya, Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya; Om Shanti Shanti Shanti”. This ancient Sanskrit prayer / mantra is recited regularly by the philosophical Brahmin disciple to his Guru. It translates as follows: Lead Us From the Unreal To Real, Lead Us From Darkness To Light, Lead Us From Death To…
By: gfesadmin on October 6, 2012
“Theology does not invent beliefs; it finds beliefs already among Christians and critically examines them.” This is one of the many helpful definitions of theology that Stan Grenz and Roger Olsen supply in their book “Who Needs Theology. Chapter 5 particularly reminds us that Christians already possess beliefs before they may even recognize that they…
By: gfesadmin on October 5, 2012
Who needs theology?“All do” (Grenz, Olson, p.46). Even @Justin_Buber www.Twitter.com/Justin_Buber and @KimKierkegaard www.twitter.com/KimKierkegaard Enjoy Mashup theology!
By: gfesadmin on October 5, 2012
The wisdom literature section of the Old Testament offers a very practical side of theology, speaking to the institute of marriage, the journey of becoming wise, and the reality of the vanity of this life. Books like Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes each speak to everyday life. Song of Solomon One school of thought…
By: gfesadmin on October 5, 2012
I walked past a Buddhist temple and watched devout individuals burn incense. I observed Hindus in a ritualistic ceremony with a priest chanting ‘slokas’ and briefly watched a video on the glory of the Quran as I shopped at Mustafa, a famous Muslim store in Little India, Singapore. My immediate instinct was to reflect on…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
When the weather shifts in the Northwest the mornings are cool and the days are warm. Fog happens. It blankets the scenery covering the waters, hovering over the trees tops mysteriously. When you travel through the fog you have to slow down to get your bearings. You are wise not to travel at the same…
By: Joy Mindo on October 4, 2012
In the last two years, I have asked God questions that I would not have dared to ask him in all my ten previous years in theological training and pastoral work. I knew all the definitions of theological terms and I had all the answers, supported by church history, anthropology and missiology. My intellect had…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
This week we were reading a book on the question ”Who needs theology? (by Stanley J. Grenz and Roger E. Olson). The authors are enfolding their answer to this question. ”Who needs theology? And their answer is quite simple: “All do.” (p. 46) So what is the book really about? Grenz and Olson are presenting…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
About my soul. They thin my heart with little things And my life with change Oh in so many ways I find more missing every day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el75UyYO554 Wilco in their song “Theologians” express the commonly held position from Christian folk thought to atheistic ambivalence about theology: it offers very little about the practical and complex…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
GayMarie and I were always close, really close. I never knew her mom or her dad but we were inextricably linked by blood and some magnetic relational chemistry. Her mom was killed in an auto accident when GayMarie and I were about 4 years old. After her mom’s death she and her baby sister went…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
Despite the fact that India has had two millennia of Christian witness, and that coupled with the fact that Hinduism is openly inclusive, the Gospel has not taken roots in the heart of its people. Christians in every generation have continued to ask the question “why”. That still remains one of the biggest challenges for leadership…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
WHO NEEDS THEOLOGY? I was tempted! Into a 10 hour flight to Brazil, I began surfing the media console seeing what movie options I had. There it was – Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter! No, I wouldn’t watch something so stupid, but yet it lured me in with the first line. “History prefers legends than men.” …
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
A few weeks ago I was on a 16-hour plane ride to South Africa. Sitting next to me was a 21-year-old college student, Aileen, who was spending three months in Namibia for a study abroad program. I generally try to avoid long, drawn out conversations with folks on a plane that I don’t know. That…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
It was a dreary South Carolina day in the fall of 2001. I had just left my New Testament Theology course and was wrestling with trying to understand the content which was just delivered. In class that day our professor was trying to land the concept of the incarnation. Specifically, what it meant for Jesus…
By: gfesadmin on October 4, 2012
In Who Needs Theology by Grenz and Olson, I identified with a story Olson told about a student who was struggling with understanding the concepts of Theology in his classroom. The student asked if she could talk with Olson after class. She said “Why don’t you just tell us what the truth is about every…
By: gfesadmin on October 3, 2012
Grenz and Olson, in their book “Who Needs Theology?” introduce arguments for studying theology. They also present some of the arguments that have been used against theology, such as the “Killjoy Objection.” The authors present a scale from Folk Theology to Academic Theology and discuss the theologies in between these extremes; as well the intricacies…
By: gfesadmin on September 28, 2012
I was in an Executive Board Meeting the other day. The Chairman of the Board of a Retirement Community I supervisor was noticeably concerned that the CEO of the Retirement Community had not been more transparent about a serious deficient Medicare Federal survey their Skilled Nursing Facility had recently received. Apparently, the CEO was…
