Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again, Greg Laurie & Ellen Vaughn, Baker Books (Grand Rapids, MI), Movie Edition, 2023, First Edition, 2018, 255 pages plus notes, ISBN: 978-0-8010-9500-9 I came to age during the Beat Generation. By the time the Hippie Generation rolled around, I was […]
Portús na hÉireann: A Book of Hours
Portús na hÉireann: A Book of Hours according to the Columbanian Tradition, Dustin A. Ashley, Resource Publications (Eugene, OR), March 3, 2022, 193 pages, including Introduction and bibliography. ISBN: 9781666738278 Praying the hours opens us to a deeper recognition that each day is holy, that the world and all that’s within is sacramental. Praying the […]
A Celtic Book of Dying
A Celtic Book of Dying: The Path of Love in the Time of Transition, Phyllida Anam-Áire, Findhorn Press (Rochester, VT), 2022, 204 pages including glossary, appendix, and index. ISBN: 978164112984 When I was a pastor and had to deal with bereavement or minister to those on their death bed, I always struggled with what to […]
The Writing Has Begun
The writing has begun — or I should say, loose paragraphs — and coming together. I’ve been posting “feeler pieces” here and there (such as what posted in the Open & Relational Theology Group) looking for, and receiving feed-back. As I ponder and research, I can’t get away from notion that the Incarnation is the […]
Time for a Completely New Sort of Theology?
I am going to share some personal pondering (in the form of questions). But first, As I peruse various groups on Facebook or essays here and there on the web, it seems to me that just about all of it a rehash of old thinking, old theology, in new guises. Nothing really different, but the […]
Finding Faith in a Secular World (A Review)
Mystery without Magic: Finding Faith in a Secular World, Russell Pregeant, second edition, revised and expanded. Process Century Press (Anoko, MN), 2022, 241 pages, including study questions and notes, ISBN: 9781940447551. I love language. Russell has a way with it. His style is informative, while laid back. When Russell writes it is Pastor Russell […]
Open & Relational Theology
This, I believe, is the third book I have reviewed written by Thomas Jay Oord. All of them have been in one way or another about what Oord calls an “open and relational theology.” In such a theology, God’s “pluriform love” resides at the center. “Pluriform love,”* according Oord changes both our human perception […]
- Ecclesiology
- ...
For the Healing of a Nation (A Review)
For the Healing of the Nation: A Biblical Vision, Russell Pregeant, Foreword by John B. Cobbs. Jr., Cascade Books: Eugene, OR, 2016, paper, $41.00, ISBN: 975-1-4982-3539-6, 335 pages with Epilogue and bibliography. An easy read written with honest humility For the Healing of the Nation is a profound coming of age story that provides the […]
God Can’t, T. J. Oord (A Review)
God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse and Other Evils, Thomas Jay Oord, 2019, Grasmere, Idaho, SacraSage Press, Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-948609-12-8, $17.99. How can I believe in God and love when evil abounds, tragedy strikes and abuse happens? If you are struggling with God’s love God Can’t is written […]
The Elephant is Running, B. G. Epperly (A Review)
The Elephant is Running: Process and Open Relational Theologies and Religious Pluralism, Bruce G. Epperly, 2022, Grasmere, Idaho, SacraSage Press, Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-948609-63-0, $19.99. The Elephant is Running is not about elephants, it’s about creative transformation and evolving spirituality. It is a book for any Christian who is struggling with the narrow confines of traditional […]
A Larger Hope? (A Review)
A LARGER HOPE? Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich (Volume 1), Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, forward by Richard Bauckham, 2019, Eugene, OR, Cascade Books, 286 pages including Preface, two appendices, and bibliography. ISBN: 978-1-61097-884-2. A LARGER HOPE? Universal Salvation from The Reformation to the Nineteenth Century (Volume 2), Robin A. Parry with […]
Churches and the Crisis of Decline | Andrew Root (A Review)
Churches and the Crisis of Decline: A Hopeful, Practical Ecclesiology for a Secular Age, Andrew Root, 2022, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, ISBN: 978-1-5409-6481-4 For the sake of full disclosure, I approach Churches and the Crisis of Decline as both a Universalist and Progressive Christian. This puts me at odds with Andrew Root’s more traditional […]
It was a BAD, not good, Friday.
“A bad Friday” Why do we call it “Good Friday”? Not in any way was it good for Jesus. It was a cruel, agonizing, vicious death that Jesus suffered. Nothing good about it. Yet we insist on calling it “Good Friday.” Is it because we’ve made his bloody death all about us? All about getting […]
The Table (Part 2)
The Table [Part 2]I came to the Table, I fell to my knees, I cried, “God forgive me! Make me worthy to eat the bread, Drink the wine.” I came to the Table To get right with God, Instead, God said, ”You are alright with me.” I had it backwards. Coming to the table is […]
Pluriform Love by Thomas Jay Oord: A Review
Pluriform Love: An Open and Relational Theology of Well-Being, Thomas Jay Oord, SacraSage Press, 2022, paper, $, ISBN: 9781948609579, 253 pages with notes, bibliography and index. God is Love My mother told me that this was the very first bible verse I learned. I learned it to recite on Children’s Day. I couldn’t have been […]
Brewing Theology: A Pilgrimage
Personal theology ought always to be a pilgrimage, a work in progress, stemming not from dogma, but from our own God experiences. Like pilgrimage, our personal theology should give expression to our doubts and questions. Like pilgrimage, our personal theology should give expression to our own deaths and subsequent resurrections. And, like pilgrimage, which by […]
The Devil’s Redemption?
The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism (Two Volumes), Michael J. McClymond, 2018, Baker Academic, 1325 pages, including appendices, extensive bibliography, and index. I must admit that the first thing that the title, The Devil’s Redemption, conjured up in my mind was the book by Ordin K. Cambel with the same […]
Holy Victims and the Invention of the Atonement (A Review)
The Body of the Cross: Holy Victims and the Invention of the Atonement, Travis E. Ables, Dec. 7, 2021, Fordham University Press, 260 pages, including notes, extensive bibliography, and index. It was the title, well actually the subtitle, of the book that caught my eye: “Holy Victims and the Invention of the Atonement.” Being a […]
January 6: Epiphany or Theophany
In our Western Christian tradition, Epiphany celebrates the visit of Magi to the Christ Child. In so doing Epiphany emphasizes God’s physical manifestation through Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. In other words, in Western Christianity WE become the focus of Jesus’ ministry. It is all about us Westerners. In Eastern Christianity, the Day of Epiphany […]
Theology 2.0
Theology 101 Updated – Still Speculative, Progressive & UniversalistNow that I have some time, it is time to rethink my “Speculative Theology” as posted on the website way back when. Here’s the beginning of the my new speculative theological thinking (which is in need of more thought and better wordsmithing): When the word “speculative” is […]