Samuel Wells
Night out in London
I recently spent a night on the streets of London. I had two companions, who wondered if I was checking up on them in some way.
Ethics of Hope, by Jürgen Moltmann
Here’s the thing about Jürgen Moltmann. Almost everything he says, you feel you’ve read somewhere before. Now there could be two explanations for this. One, that he’s a creature of fashion: that, like everyone, he speaks out on the environment; on the analogy between the discourse on human rights and the relation to soil, sea and sky; on justice for the oppressed; on God’s coming future. Or two, that he’s a creator of fashion.
A Public Faith, by Miroslav Volf
Of the rewriting Christ and Culture there
shall be no end. Miroslav Volf is too sophisticated a theologian to
rehash or imitate H. Richard Niebuhr's celebrated fivefold schema, but A Public Faith remains in the shadow of Niebuhr's defining work.
Grassroots power
Does Jeffrey Stout's church have a god? One might say his god is democracy. But surely democracy is an ethic rather than a theology.
Christianity and Contemporary Politics, by Luke Bretherton
I'll be giving Christianity and Contemporary Politics to my graduate students and others seeking to become authors and academics....
God adores us
The three readings for this Sunday have few obvious connections. But they do each point to forms of holiness: Genesis points to vocation, Romans points to faith, and John points to rebirth.
Sunday, March 20, 2011: Psalm 121; Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17
Faith, birth, vocation: our readings offer us profound, intimidating terms for thinking about what it means to be in relationship with God.
Free and flawed
The first Sunday of Lent is the best time of the year to talk about sin. Many people in the church, especially the mainline church, are stuck when it comes to the overlap of sin and sensuality. No one really wants to be the pastor who comes over all judgmental about sex.
Sunday, March 13, 2011: Genesis 2:15-17
The serpent was right: when Eve and Adam ate the fruit, they did not die; they saw more clearly.
How should we live?
No one has done more than N.T. Wright to make the broad sweep of the scriptural narrative speak vividly to laypeople--while challenging the academy by pressing profound motifs as far as they can go.
Doctrine of children
Adults underestimate children's capacity to experience God and reflect on that experience. This inhibits the gifts children and the church can bring to each other.
Ways of peace
There isn't a tidy way to write about forgiveness. It's the whole gospel, for sure....
Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology
Theology sits precariously between two precipices. On one side is a sharp drop called “Too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use.” On the other side is an equally sharp drop called “Speaking about humanity in a loud voice.”If these precipices endanger theology in general, they are particular hazards for the branch of theology known as anthropology. David Kelsey is sure at every step to avoid the second danger. His magisterial two-volume theological anthropology offers an exemplary approach to avoiding it.
Rowan's Rule: The Biography of the Archbishop of Canterbury
The wise Anglican priest who instructed me in how to go about hearing confessions closed his lesson with some memorabl...
No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims About Jesus
Theologians and biblical scholars don’t usually trespass into popular religion....
The Fear of Beggars: Stewardship and Poverty in Christian Ethics
Why is that man holding a sign, Daddy?” “He wants us to give him some money.” “Why does he want money, Daddy?” “B...
Five different lenses for reading "render unto Caesar"
No political ethic without social location
Remade: Matthew 22:1-14
When early Christians saw the word robe, they thought of one thing only.
A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming
A theological engagement with the current global environmental crisis needs to do four things....
