[Reflective rambling alert, to those who prefer more substantive stuff.] I’ve answered this question before, but it was brought back to me over this past weekend when someone who knows me well enough to know better described me as “a solid evangelical.” Say what? He definitely intended it as a compliment, but I was somewhat…
Yesterday I wrote about the significance of the theory of evolution for the view of evil, particularly whether physical death is the result of human evil. Understanding Christian views on this topic requires some knowledge of the doctrines of creation and the fall, and secondarily of redemption. One of the most contentious issues in the…
Today I went on a sort of odyssey through a couple of theologically conservative blogs. My journey started at Adrian Warnock’s blog, where he has another quote from somebody supporting penal substitutionary atonement (PSA): While not denying the wide-ranging character of Christs atonement, I am arguing that penal substitution is foundational and the heart of…
I found Theo Geek via Peter Kirk, and it was a very worthwhile find. Peter links to a number of posts in Andrew’s review of Pierced for our Transgressions. Having read them all, let me commend them to you. (I must disclose that I have not yet read PFOT. I do intend to as I…
I spent a little bit of time today reading Eastern Orthodox material after some comments on previous posts caught my interest. So here’s an interesting quote that I found. I wonder how this sounds to other western ears? That Augustinian conception about a compulsory salvation or damnation is something inconceivable for Greek Patristic thought, something…
I want to promote some comments so that more people see them. Mark Olson (Pseudo-Polymath) commented on an earlier post: If you have the time, could you relate this statement First, no matter what stream of Christianity one belongs to, the atonement comes out somewhere near the center. With this: On the subject of the…
Somehow it seems as thought advocates of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) as the key model of the atonement (I’d prefer metaphor) can’t stay kind and respectable. I wonder why it is that those of us who think that one needs to consider the character of God in terms of love, mercy, and forgiveness as well…
It has probably seemed a little odd that I, as a non-evangelical, would follow the atonement discussions as closely as I do. To the extent that I have managed to do so, it has been for two reasons. First, no matter what stream of Christianity one belongs to, the atonement comes out somewhere near the…
In a previous post, Adrian Warnock said there were two reactions to his interview with the authors of Pierced for our Transgressions. I’m guessing he referred to the favorable and unfavorable, and intensely so in each case. In the rest of that post, he implied pretty strongly that those of us who are opposed to…
Adrian Warnock is again posting on the penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) issue, now about an interview with the authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions. Now I’m not going to post on PSA today in detail. But Adrian manages to demonstrate some aspects of this discussion from his side of the fence that annoy me-no, that’s…