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Why Katherine Sonderegger Gets 10 Pages a Day: A Review of Her Systematic Theology
If your fine-grain theological vocabulary has grown a little rusty with lack of use, as I’m afraid mine has, you will find Katherine Sonderegger’s Systematic Theology: Volume One, Doctrine of God [Fortress, 2015] daunting. I’m not ashamed to say that it took me nearly a year to get through it. By this fall, however, I →
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Security in An Age of Gun Violence
The recent shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas got our attention because of its grisly violence and its location – a church in the midst of Sunday worship. It was a church like many of ours on the Eastern Shore. A video of the church’s service the week before the shooting made the rounds on the →
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the Reformation(s)
For many years, I taught Reformation history as part of the Course of Study School at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas. I didn’t want the course. My interests were medieval and contemporary, not the stodgy theological arguments of Luther and Calvin. But there was a year when the regular faculty member couldn’t teach it. →
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The Myth of the Cosmic Skybox
It has finally happened. I seriously had the thought that I would not attend an event just because I knew that, two days later, I would receive the dreaded email evaluation. “It will only take 5-10 minutes of your time,” the email will say. Great. I’ll get to it right after the questionnaires related to →
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A God’s-Eye View: The Heartlands Interview with Katherine James, 3 of 3
A town named Trinity is bound to have some things to say about God. In this final segment of my interview with debut novelist Katherine James, (whose book, Can You See Anything Now?, was published in October), we dig into the the book and find a Christian vision. For previous segments, click here. One of the →
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Shhh! Do You Taste This in Prayer?
I understand the desire to lift up our neighbors in their difficulties in prayer. In fact, it’s what we’re told to do. Paul tells the Philippian church to do just this at the close of his letter: ”Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be →
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Taking Hospitality Out of the House (& Keeping Worship Weird)
Preachers are fond of quoting Annie Dillard’s devastating critique of worship as she experienced it in a traditional church: On the whole, I do not find Christians outside of the catacombs sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no →
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Coming Off Leave(s)
Leaves don’t so much change color in the fall as they become what they’ve always been. The chlorophyll that gives all deciduous trees their summer uniform of green begins to break down in the cooling days of autumn. The carotenoids in the leaves remain, lending trees their brilliant yellows and oranges. Those colors have always →
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Rural Soul: Evolution of a Liberal, Guest Blogger – Sara Keeling
I’m traveling back from Israel & Palestine Monday, but not before the Rev. Sara Porter Keeling continues her guest hosting with a post on anthropology, theology, and the continuing journey of discerning the Word. Many thanks to Sara for bringing her rural soul to Heartlands while I’ve been away… Does loving our neighbors look like →
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