Evangelogia

The views expressed here are provided as a resource for furthering culturally-engaged leadership through theologically-informed reflection about every aspect of contemporary life. Neither Union University nor The Institute for Intellectual Discipleship necessarily endorse the content expressed in this blog. The content of each entry solely reflects the view of its author.

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The Zacchaeus Hermenuetic

June 17, 2013 -

The sweeping global changes wrought by the industrial and digital revolutions make it difficult for Christians to grasp the contingency of human artifice. Although creation itself is not eternal, the witness of Scripture signals a normativity for nature that cannot be claimed by any aspect of culture.

On the sixth day of creation, God surveys all that “he had made” (Genesis 1:31) noting, as he had on the five days previous, the inherent goodness of his created works. What is striking about the Genesis 1 creation narrative is that the goodness of what God makes consists in its givenness - i.e., in the very fact that it exists. Because water, land, heavenly lights, plants, trees, and animals are all declared “good” prior to the creation of man, their goodness is not merely a function of their use. Rather, they are gifts, gracious signs of God’s presence in reality.

As the so-called “cultural mandate&rdq... read more

Romans 1 - Darkened Hearts, Futile Thinking

May 23, 2013 -

The deep unity between truth and goodness is often illuminated by failures in logic among those who lack moral clarity. To put it plainly, a loss of clarity about moral virtue is inevitably accompanied by an inability to reason soundly altogether.

The most recent cultural exhibit is the Boys Scouts of America’s (BSA) decision to “remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone.” Given that the BSA oath includes a pledge to be “morally straight”, the utter illogic of this decision is staggering.

Either the commitment to moral rectitude includes as part of its tacit content an orientation toward traditional male sexual maturation (i.e., chastity or traditional marriage) or it does not. If it does, then the move to allow members who implicitly reject such... read more

"One is the loneliest number . . ."

May 22, 2013 -

Political “conservatives” (i.e., those who love mammon more than God) are fond of pointing out that Americans are increasingly a society of takers - a people who view themselves as being entitled to be on the receiving end of coerced generosity (i.e., government tax dollars). To whatever extent such sweeping claims about societal grasping are true, the realities to which they point (again, if true) should not be surprising.

The decline of traditional marriage (i.e., husband, wife, children) in our culture is well-documented. Everything from divorce, indefinite cohabitation, deliberately childless marriages, and same-sex partnerships have eroded our cultural capacity to apprehend what marriage is for. What has not been sufficiently appreciated is the relationship between this particular form of social or moral decay and the purported economic one.

The relationship is simple. Among other things, marriage is a means by which Go... read more

Christianity 1.0

May 7, 2013 -

Theological glosses are woefully inadequate justifications for Evangelicalism’s on-going technophilia. Nonetheless, they don’t seem to be going out of fashion. Consider, for example, this quotation from Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith: “Christianity is fundamentally a communication event. It is God revealing God’s self to the world. And God uses a large variety of media to accomplish that revelation.” Appearing as it does as an epigraph to the introductory chapter of a recent book, the comment serves to bolster the 21^st century understanding of the Great (techno)-Commission: “Go ye therefore into all the world and leverage technology, tweeting in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to like all things whatsoever I have commanded you to p... read more

As often as you drink this cup . . .

March 11, 2013 -

Commenting on New York’s impending restriction on container size for sugary drinks, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday, “all we’re doing in New York is reminding you that it’s not in your interest to have too many empty calories.” Bloomberg went on to explain that “what government’s trying to do is to inform you that if you’re overweight and you have all these empty calories and you keep eating, that your health is going to suffer and you’re going to live a not as healthy and a shorter life.”

Without a doubt, it is a role of the state to seek the common good. As a matter of philosophical necessity, given the fallen nature of human beings, this will inevitably require that the individual liberty of some must, at times, be restricted for the sake of the well-being of the whole.... read more