My Notebook, Extras & Experiments

Maybe I was wrong

For several years now, I've argued that everything in the bible was completely fulfilled and finished almost two thousand years ago.

I think I might have been wrong.

My reason for the conclusion was rather simple: I, like most in the Church of Christ, assumed there was this one, big, cataclysmic event on the horizon. And when I began to notice that this one big cataclysmic event was both expected and experienced in the first century, I assumed that that was it, and the whole thing was done.

His enemies beneath his feet...

For a while, I've been trying to puzzle out the chronology of 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, and finding it incredibly difficult. But here's a little bit of what I've noticed.

Hebrews 2:5-9 talks about everything being put under Jesus' feet.

Walter Wink

Walter Wink is primarily significant to me for his work in defining the concept of The Powers and tying that together with Christus Victor atonement theory. Briefly put, his idea is that the scriptural world-view is based on seeing humanity as controlled by legions of different "principalities and powers". He suggests that we take this viewpoint seriously, and explains how they were referring to the very real cultural forces that are present in everything from mobs to political institutions.

References for Christianity as Anthropology

Most of my currently forming understanding of Christianity sees it as a confrontation with the political, systemic, and psychological forces that shaped humanity from the beginning. My understanding is a synthesis of ideas expressed most notably in

Escaping Google

Recently Google has changed its privacy policy, causing a lot of people to feel uneasy about the amount of search history that Google has on them.

Lifehacker and the EFF have put together guides for removing your search history from Youtube and Google Web Search, respectively.

Death and The Knowledge of Good and Evil

Let's talk about Adam and Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Many people believe this story is about the first humans becoming mortal. God had warned Adam and Eve that in taking the knowledge, they would die.

But the story seems to be telling us something different. When Adam and Eve take the knowledge, they don't immediately die. Instead, they experience immense shame, and a breakdown of their relationship with each other and with the natural world.

Theistic Reality

Theistic Reality is a term I coined (for myself, anyway) to refer to the set of expectations we would have about a reality in which God exists. Since it is nearly impossible to define what "God" means as a being, our best bet is to lay out what kinds of implications God would have for the rest of existence.

Example 1: Believe or Don't Believe
Example 2: The Existence of God

Panentheism

Panentheism is the understanding of God as intimately connected to, and yet beyond, the universe we experience. This is distinct from pantheism, which sees the universe as equivalent to God.

Panentheism is an attempt to capture philosophically what the scriptures say about God's pervasive presence. Paul seems to express this idea: "For in him we live and move and have our being".

Non-Metaphysical Christianity

The understanding of Christianity and the scriptures as speaking directly to experienced realities, rather than trying to map metaphysical existence.

Historical Narrative Interpretation

The idea that the scriptures should be understood as stories and conversations arising within particular circumstances in world history. As such, they should not be interpreted as if we were reading a theological text, an encyclopedia, a set of moral rules, or a philosophical work. Instead, we should seek to understand the story as they saw themselves within it, and try to tease out where the arc of that story leaves us today.

Particularly expressed by Andrew Perriman.

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