Where I disagree with N.T. Wright: Paul, Soldiers, & Leaving Violent Professions Behind
So, in regards to Paul: it seems to me that Romans 12 and 13 assumes a separation from the state. In other words Paul continually talks about the church and the governing authorities as two separate entities – never one in the same. Paul, in my opinion, would invite converted soldiers to ask hard questions about their vocation. I don’t think he would have a hard and fast law about how they should respond to Christ, but I am pretty sure that Paul would say vengeance belongs to God (and in limited ways to the pagan State as God attempts to keep evil at bay) and not to the Christian-wielded sword. Solid discipleship in a peer-to-peer fashion involves helping people come to these conclusions on their own.
Human beings do not control the institutions and ideologies of which they are a part. The institutions and ideologies control and dominate human beings. How so? The principality and power usurps the role of God, inserting and making itself the goal of human existence and the foundation of human worth and significance. Basically, the principalities and powers become idols and we, in serving the powers, engage in idolatry. We come to worship the creature rather than the Creator
Why We Need to Do Our Own Math, a Guest Post from David Park
The gospel is not meant to be sensical; The gospel is foolishness, the Apostle Paul said so himself. Our ability to acknowledge the factors that influence our theological calculations will really help acknowledge an x-factor and the movement of the Holy Spirit throughout the ages in church history. And as others show us the working out of their problems to which Jesus was the answer, we will see our own cultural and theological idols more clearly. Jesus will be more clear, not less, as we all share our work on the problems.
Even today, many schools of preaching continue to teach the superiority of positive commands to moral commands — and certainly Church of Christ theology shows this attitude. After all, it’s the positive commands that we believe serve as “marks of the church.”
Many of us have experienced the kind of Christianity this reasoning has produced — a Christianity that damns over every violation of positive “law” and grants grace for violations of moral law, a Christianity that defines its borders by adherence to every fashionable inference rather than faith and love and the Spirit, a Christianity that can make no sense of Romans and 1 John and Jesus but happily claims perfect knowledge of the two passages that mention singing.
Why Roe v. Wade is growing more vulnerable
In 1973, the justices stumbled into an enduring controversy and launched the country on 40 years of political and medical turmoil. Because the court acts only passively through cases appealed to it, the court cannot fix the problem, unless it relinquishes its self-appointed role as a sort of national abortion control board and returns the issue to the people and their representatives in the states. The cracks in Roe, under the pressure of its internal contradictions, grow inexorably, year by year.
6 Things to Never Say to a Bereaved Parent
If you’re a bereaved parent, you can probably count on at least five hands the number of phrases you wish people would never, ever say to you. If only there was a way for the world to learn how to speak compassionately to the brokenhearted. What many people believe is a comforting statement, most often is not. It usually feels more like a slap in the face or a swift punch in the gut. Or like an uncontrollable need to vomit. Or all three at once. There seems to be a large gap between intention and what’s actually being communicated to those of us who are hurting.
Cynicism is so undetectable because it is so justifiable. It wears a mask of insight and godliness, but it conceals festering wounds of harbored bitterness against God and neighbor. We need to understand cynicism, because the masks we wear tell us about the wounds we hide, and point us to the Savior who yearns to mend them.
AP Fires Photographer Who Altered Syria Photo
Photographer Narciso Contreras used editing software to eliminate a colleague’s camera from his photograph of a Syrian opposition fighter, the AP said Wednesday. The AP did not find any other altered images among the hundreds of photographs Contreras submitted to the agency, but it scrubbed his work from its public archives regardless.
At least 50 scalded in the US after trying boiling-to-frozen water trick
The LA Times found that at least 50 people on social media complained that they or their friends were scalded by hot water on Monday and Tuesday. Others have posted photos of their injuries on Instagram, and some have even mentioned visits to Accident and Emergency to receive treatment for their burns. St Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri said on Tuesday it had treated two children for burns after trying the trick.