Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the different and complex array of elements that make up ‘authority’ for Christians, from official ones like Scripture, creeds and canons, and hierarchy, to those which few people would suggest should be authoritative, but yet unavoidably impact our faith and theology, such as reason and culture. Today … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: Experience
There’s a popular saying out there that says “Hurt people hurt people.” It’s a helpful proverb that reminds us that people who are acting out are often acting more out of their past hurts and patterns than out of anything in the present. We see this at work everywhere from the playground to legislatures to … Continue reading Mimetic Love: A Reflection on 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Unlike the other two ‘bad boys’ of Christian authority, reason and experience, which have been much talked-about over the centuries, the topic of today’s post, culture, is not one that’s been the subject of a lot of debate in theological circles until the past century or so. But, just like a lot of the other … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: Language and Culture
Today, as this series on the question of authority within Christianity starts to draw nearer to its end, we turn to away from official sources of authority to the concept’s ‘bad boys’, things that people have been reluctant to consider reliable enough to consider authoritative, but which we all end up trusting to some extent … Continue reading Who Do We Trust?: Reason
[I was well into writing this week's post when I realized I was saying pretty much exactly what I wrote three years ago when this reading last came around in the lectionary. So, here's that original post once again.] There's a great scene in a classic episode of The Simpsons in which Homer, having been … Continue reading The Freedom to Love: A Reflection on 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 (Repost)
Matthew Root 