Every church, every pastor, every denomination has their interpretations of the Passion of Christ (including his suffering, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and return). One oft-quoted Bible verse is John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”….
[Repost] The Cross’ shadow in the Holy Land: Violence, vengeance and victimhood
Exclusive: David Gornoski urges Christians to repudiate ‘collateral damage’ as a means of revenge By David GornoskiPublished November 3, 2023 at 6:48pm The Israel-Palestine vortex of human suffering that has flooded eyes on social media over the last weeks has been stupefying. As a result, many people have been rendered numb to the human empathy…
Some notes from Robcast 354: A guy is asking the other guy
(11.30 minute mark of the podcast)“And this was in this process… Jesus the Christ kept appearing to me,he’s like, “You’ve been telling my stories for 30 years, good job, Rob Bell, but do you want to be done because it’s been enough for you” He’s very funny by the way – he’s like 10 steps…
You Are Accepted by Paul Tillich | Read by Peter Rollins
I learnt that sin has been misunderstood over the centuries of the history of Christianity – it is not an immoral act, nor should be used in the plural, for such meanings are far removed from the original christian tradition; rather, sin is separation, which is threefold – separation among individual lives, separation of a…
Notes on An Introduction to Rene Gerard | Part 5 : Atonement
I learnt that atonement or (at-one-ment) is about being reconnected with the divine through Jesus and thus being “at one” with God again, and that there are different ways in the history of Christianity to explain how that works. One problem with the penal substitutionary theory is that God isn’t really God if He needs…
Notes on the new perspective on Paul’s writings in the New Testament
I learnt that the first approach from the German Tuebingen university uses Hegelian dialectics of thesis, antithesis and synthesis to make sense of the differences in Peter’s theology and Paul’s theology, in a way that exhorts today’s churches to seek to learn from one another instead of allowing conflict narratives to divide them, so as…
What does the post-woke vision for social equity look like to me?
“While anti-woke rhetoric serves only to increase divisiveness, deny the existence of oppressive and toxic systems, and lend legitimacy to extremist ideas, a post-woke methodology of social engagement offers strategies that are able to collaborate with the human nervous system rather than over-stimulate it and shut it down. This would, in theory, lead to an…
Discussion on “Is psychoanalysis Christian?”
I understand the discussion between Peter Rollins, Alfie and Eliot to be about viewing psychoanalysis from the perspective of christian theology and religion, where Pete proposes both theoretical and liturgical approaches to Christianity by creating a space for community to experience our lack or self-divided version of ourselves. I learnt that Pete spoke about retroactive…
Prayer for perpetrators of death penalty and state-sanctioned violence
Two thousand years ago, a man was hung on the cross by the cruel authorities, and he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Yesterday morning, a man was hung by Singapore authorities who insisted that he knew what he was doing. All he knew back then was that he…
The Mystery of Christ 