Tag Archives: kenosis
Giving up the self for Lent – Wisdom in Tom Wright and Tom Waits
A few years ago I wrote a book called Freedom of the Self that was an extended reflection on what it would mean to embrace the call of Philippians 2: 5 – 11 as more than a designation of Christ’s servanthood and self-emptying of the Divine, but a syllabus for the life we are to be living as what I called “the kenotic self”. The word ‘kenosis’ is the … There’s more to read here.
Emergent vs. Progressive: Phyllis Tickle, WB Yeats, Toad the Wet Sprocket and learning to let go
Last year I published a book entitled Freedom of the Self which was essentially an extended meditation on missional and emergent theology in light of kenosis. The book gets into areas of Continental philosophy as well and is one of those arguments in theology that often casts you as a radical, heretic, apostate or worse. One of the points I tried to make in the book is that the … There’s more to read here.
Stained and poured out: Baptismal vows, Acts 15 and being the stained community of God
This past week I have been fortunate to be with a group of good friends of pastors, elders, and professors through a program called the Re-Forming ministry project through the PCUSA. We have had some rich, at times challenging, and ultimately humbling and unifying discussions. Through breaking bread together, laughing together, at times weeping together, and worshiping God together, strangers have become friends and these friendships are changing the way we … There’s more to read here.
Lenten release: (just about) everything I learned about Lent I learned from U2
As I discuss in the opening chapter of my 2010 book Freedom of the Self, popular music since the late 1960’s has been replete with claims of what it means to have identity in the world. Whether our sense of identity is bound up in the longing for love, the loss of our past, or the social injustice that removes people from seeing their true beauty and worth, popular … There’s more to read here.
True Myth – there is no faith without fantasy
Artist Dan Meth recently posted a map of the ‘fantasy world’ that pulls together over 30 different fictional/fantasy worlds into one glorious landscape – Narnia, Middlearth, Earthsea, Wonderland, Never Never Land, Oz, Whoville, Florian, the Land of the Lost, you name it. What I love about the map is how by glancing at it I am drawn back into the narratives, characters, plotlines and epic grandeur of these places that … There’s more to read here.
top ten albums of the decade – a long ode to 9/11
Where were you on September 11th, 2001?
As for me, I was nine hours ahead of my family and friends in Seattle as I was finishing a day of work. Sitting in my office in the Divinity faculty at the University of Glasgow, I received a phone call from Diana saying that “something was happening in New York” and that I should log onto the computer. An hour later I … There’s more to read here.
k(no)w (you)r(self): The Missing Art of Being K(no)wn in Christianity
Some of you know that I have been working on a book project looking at the nature of “kenosis” in Christian identity formation. “Kenosis” is a Greek term taken from Phil. 2:7, where Christ is spoken of as having “emptied himself” (NRSV) as the true mark of what constitutes humanity. There has been much discussion about this entire crucial passage (2:6 – 11), and the scholarship surrounding the exegetical history of … There’s more to read here.
Doctrine and the obstacle to life – Walsh’s book
I am reading David Walsh’s The Modern Philosophical Revolution: The Luminosity of Existence right now and am just thunderstruck with how clean, concise and thoughful he is. A fantastic read and truly a must for my continental geek friends out there.
Here is a great takeaway on the nature of Faith as Walsh reflects on the legacy of Søren Kierkegaard:
Faith is always in what we cannot know. It
Throwing flowers at the Ego: finding the heart of religion
Recently I was poking around on wordpress.com (the new home for the blogsite) and checking out other blogs about religion. The introduction to the ‘blogs about’ section on wordpress.com for ‘religion’ has the following statement of purpose:
One of the many gods and goddesses the ancient Aztecs of Mexico worshipped was Cihuacoatl. Her temple was dedicated to soldiers and mothers who died in childbirth, which makes sense — both
