How Cruel is Your God?
I’m endlessly fascinated by how people relate to God by way of images and figures that are important to them. Their preferred images of God may tell us more about their religiosity and about...
Tagged: God
Politicians Shouldn’t “Wear God”
I’m trying to think of a more superficial assessment of American religiosity than this Washington Post piece about Romney capturing the “God vote” at the debate, but nothing comes to mind. Zack Beauchamp calls...
Thursday Theological Inquiry: God as Self-Emptying
My imagining of God has evolved some over the years as I’ve moved from accentuating figures and terms of power (almighty, omnipotent) to highlighting those of humility (kenosis, self-emptying, weakness). These days I am...
Thursday Theological Inquiry
I’ve been told that I know shit about theology by one who, being a priest impressively learned in the subject, would know. Nevertheless, I would like to begin weekly posts offering propositions from that...
God: The Decider
Popular theologian and preacher John Piper, a Calvinistic Baptist, professes image of God that I call “The Decider.” Here’s Piper, playing defense for his genocidal deity: It’s right for God to slaughter women and...
God Isn’t Here
Thunder, wind, and hail woke us up about 3:00 am last night. At the kind command of my wife, I got out of bed, stumbled downstairs, and got online to check for any tornado...
What Does Invoking God Get You in Ethics?
Not much, says Julian Sanchez, and he’s right. Over the past decade, I’ve moved away from religious faith as an explanation for why the universe exists, why it is the way it is, and...
Excremental Deity
In his diary, Evelyn Waugh reminisced about his friend Randolph Churchill’s response to reading the Bible for the very first time: “My God, what a shit God is!” Yeah, I say with a sigh....
The Cloister of the Universe
Orthodoxy has it that God is all powerful–omnipotent–and yet the story remembered and retold in the Paschal Triduum that begins this evening–Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday–speaks of a weak God, a figure...
Gospel Power Plays
Richard Beck of Experimental Theology reads Jesus’s statement “Call no man on earth father” as an attack upon patriarchal power structures and upon power plays in general: So the issue isn’t really about gender,...
