Leadingchurch.com

Patheos

An interview on Jesus Creed

Moore: Will Willimon has famously said that the Christian life presents a “thicker, richer, fuller, view of reality.”  Willimon came to mind while reading your book as there seem to be a reoccurring theme that doubters started to question the “thinner” and thus less satisfying claims of materialism.

Larsen: This is very well said.  (And I like Willimon too!)  For years, they thought they were smarter than everyone else because they could critique every argument – I can show you why the Bible is wrong, why Christian morality is wrong, why miracles could not have happened, and so on.  They slowly began to realize, however, that it is easier to tear down than to build up.  What was their own view of the meaning of life?  What was their own basis for morality?  And so on.  They then realized that any position is assailable.  It was not that Christianity was particularly untenable, it was just that Christians were willing to stand for something.  Once they got that far, they started to compare views and came to see Christianity as the least assailable account of the human condition, the meaning of life, and the proper way to live, of all the alternatives.

Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/05/24/doubting-doubt-an-interview-with-timothy-larsen-by-david-moore/#ixzz32f7ydCuP

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2014/05/24/the-grieving-of-boz-tchividjian/

Powerful.

Buzzfeed

This was something the evangelical students in my program at Yale talked about often: the behemoth of doubt that sets in as your airtight hermeneutic of scripture is drained from the bottom. Christians from other traditions didn’t have it so bad. Catholics, for example, could fall in the same academic dunk tank and emerge with the same doubts about scripture, but they could still lean on other things their denomination held sacred and used to interpret the text, like the Catechism, papal infallibility, and the sacraments. We evangelicals, with our infallible view of scripture ripped from our hands, were left gasping for air. If you crumple and toss out a literal reading of the Bible, then what does it mean to talk about Jesus literally dying for your sins?

• Doctrinal positions
• Brief history of the ECC

Peter Enns interview Chuck De Groat

Early Christian theologians saw sin in a more complex way than we do.  If you define simply as bad behavior, it makes the solution seem simple–just behave better! Early Christians used the word “passion” to describe sin, and the “passions” were understood relationally.

Carey Nieuwhof

The Atlantic