The Theologian's Table

           The year is 2015 and despite opinions about two recent events racism has steadily and thankfully declined since the civil rights era. As of 2010 the U.S. Census reported that 9 million people were claimed to be more than one "race." In my personal life I know of many inter-racial families and marriages. My brother is married to a woman from Venezuela. I have beautiful nieces and a nephew that are half Hispanic and half White. My wife takes care of a little girl whose mom is White and whose dad is African American. My own son is largely Native American from his mother's side and European from my side. So it would seem the United States has mostly moved towards multi-cultural tolerance and acceptance.      Imagine my surprise when I hear out of the mouths of some people that everyone needs to stick to their own kind. What makes these word worse are the fact that they are uttered out of Christian's mouths of any bac...

Mary Ann Morgan  - "Worshiping hand on blue" - Flickr Disclaimer : They say honesty is the best policy, but it can sometimes lead to hurt feelings or offense. What I have to say in this post may hurt some. All I can do is apologize in advance and tell you that writing posts such as this helps me sort through my thoughts and clarify my positions. Of course, feedback is always welcomed. Generalizations           I'm not sure if the average Southerner is aware that there are certain stereotypes pitted against them when it comes to spirituality. It may not be the case for every Northerner to hold these views, but this one did. What I'm talking about of course is the stereotype that most Southerners who go to church are swinging off the chandeliers, speaking in tongues, falling over in the aisle types of worshipers. Or they are people who check their mind at the door, sing hymns and passively listen to a preacher shout fire and...

See what I did here?      Like the local bar-b-que, living life in the south for the past 5 years has been a sweet and savory experience. LA may have a Starbucks across the street from each other, New England may have have a bar on every corner, but here in Georgia we have churches right next door to each other! Although I wouldn't mind a Starbucks on every corner... Here there is no terrible rush, unless you're on the interstate, but overall there is a more relaxed pace of life. Perfect strangers are friendly enough to wave at you while you're walking by and small talk is an art form. The summers may be hot and humid, but most every place has a/c. The winters are just cool enough to give you the taste of the season and it rarely snows (despite the recent snowpocalypse).       There, now that I have the staples of the South out of the way I can talk normally. Everything that I mentioned above is true, but there is much more to the South ...

     When my son was around 3 years old one of his favorite movies was Lady and the Tramp 2. In this movie, the son of the the title dogs was a rambunctious little guy and he would get into all sorts of trouble. At one point in the film the puppy exclaimed, "Are there are is rules, rules, rules" and then he ran away from home. Funnily enough my son parroted the line at me when he got in trouble one day, needless to say I didn't let him watch the movie as much after that. The Situation in Leviticus Imagine yourself among a massive expanse of people, so massive that the ruler of the foreign land you just left feared your people's number so much that he had all of the youngest offspring killed. Now your nation is traveling the desert towards a land that was promised to you by God. The logistics of this whole exodus are mind-numbingly incomprehensible to you and people are getting sick, people are getting tired, people are getting lawless. To top it off, you...

God is Love The book of John, the most theological of all four gospels. Out of this book we get the most famous Bible verse of all time. You see it painted on the faces or giant stomachs of football fans, you see it tattooed on the bodies of reformed tough guys, or you hear it quoted by misleading politicians clamoring for the Christian vote, it's John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." It is this love that is the theme of John and it is poured out in every chapter. It is this love that gives the Christus Victor view of the atonement major ground to stand on. That the death and resurrection of Jesus was not a business transaction between two parties, but a selfless, covenantal fulfilling of God's promise to redeem us. This love, that was in the beginning with God and was God, became flesh, yet still fully God, wrapped in humility to reconcile us back to the Father. Oth...

Jesus, the Perfect Human As I mentioned in my previous entries, each gospel has a unique perspective on the mission of Christ. Luke's target audience were the Greeks and his portrayal of Jesus was to show that he was the perfect human, someone we should all aspire to be like. The reason for this was because the Greeks of Luke's day spent a lot of time debating on what the perfect human should be like, so through out the text Luke gives examples of why Jesus is this ultimate person. Luke the Physician Luke was a doctor and a historian and this is reflected in his style of writing. He was very concerned with not only depicting accurately the ministry of Jesus, but also Jesus' past. He tells of how an angel came to John the Baptist's mother(John is Jesus' cousin) and told her that her child would prepare the way for the Messiah and tells what happened between that event and his birth. He next covers the events of what lead up to Jesus' birth, but instead ...

     So, I read through and studied the Gospel of Mark for the first time and I'd like to clarify something. In my entry about Matthew in regards as to the themes of what each book covered I was a little mistaken on the theme of Mark of Jesus being a teacher. While that's not far off It conveys more of a sense of Jesus in action through miracles to display His divinity. Mark has a faster pace than the rest of the gospels and is the shortest of the four. His target audience were Roman Christians and they, who unlike Matthews audience, used a more common language. Another thing I learned is that Mark was not one of the 12 original disciples, but rather a possible friend of Jesus(Mark 14:51), he also joined the apostle Paul on his first missionary trip. The Gospel of Mark is pretty great and one of the reasons, as I mentioned above, is because of the target audience. Not to downplay their education level, the text is written how a popular novel would read, but Mark fulf...