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…
By: gfesadmin on September 28, 2012
In the second half of Elliot’s Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction, I was drawn to the contemporary theories of Castell, Beck and Urry’s describing societies as ‘Network, Risk and Liquid’ Societies. Although these theories have received their fair share of criticism, particularly, for being exaggerated and confined to today’s ‘bourgeois’ in the Mega cities, they…
By: gfesadmin on September 28, 2012
Often I hear the phrase “It is what it is”. It is a way to respond to stressful personal and political situations. The phrase is one of acceptance for the way things are instead of becoming overly anxious about them. But it is so prevalent that it seems like an attitude of disengagement. Recently, I…
By: gfesadmin on September 28, 2012
Globalization impacts the majority of people. In other words, most of the world is being impacted by the rest of the world either directly or indirectly. This effect can be seen in biblical history, modern detestable social settings, and in major fast food giants. King David Prior to becoming king of Israel, David experienced the…
By: Joy Mindo on September 27, 2012
The second half of the book deals with the contemporary social theory, feminism, post modernity and networks and globalization which are social phenomena after the 1970 and projected into the future. Habermas wrote about the democratization of society where the public was open to dialogue and form opinions on issues that affect them in society.…
By: gfesadmin on September 27, 2012
This week in our D.Min cohort we finished the last half of Anthony Elliott’s Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction. One theme that particularly resonated with my life and ministry is postmodernism. I have personally been reflecting on and interacting with postmodernism for much of my life. Furthermore, one of the key topics of the last two…
By: gfesadmin on September 27, 2012
My church has an own Facebook account for six month now. It was hard to convince the church board of the purpose and sense of this new media endeavor. My point was quite obvious, to me social media profiles are unavoidable in our high technological and interconnected world. We have to rather discuss the HOW…
By: gfesadmin on September 27, 2012
“Woman of Pakistani origin is Norwegian Culture Minister”, screamed one of India’s top dailies in its front page headlines on the 25th of September. Hadia Tajik”is the first Muslim and the youngest Minister ever in Norwegian political history”. The news article further closes with this very remarkable statement by the Prime Minister of Norway who…
