I have been researching vocation from a theological perspective for the past 18 months. It is a broad subject with an ever-growing bibliography. Many people, especially youth who are making career decisions, struggle with this topic. Vocation tied into my earlier theology of work research. I made a …
Postmodernism
During my early seminary education, a professor stated that we were living in the postmodern period. I had never heard this term before and thought that we were living in the modern world. How can there even be a period that is beyond modern? His statement defied logic. We didn’t study history …
Candid Conversations
My father once told me about a humorous meeting when he worked at Exxon. The Division Manager was presenting the quarterly results to the Vice President. This was pre-PowerPoint when presentations were done on plastic slides shown on an overhead projector. The Division Manager displayed a Human …
Afghan Refugees
In early February of 2020, my wife and I flew back to Austin from Victoria (Canada) with a stop in Seattle. As we went through US immigration, we noticed Asians wearing masks. We had heard of a worrisome illness in China but their mask wearing did not alert us of the coming COVID pandemic. This was …
Virtual Reality
Last week, I participated in about ten Zoom meetings. Four of the Zoom sessions were church related: Sunday morning class, worship, Men’s Bible Study, and an Emmaus reunion. Each meeting lasted about an hour and were beneficial since I was unable to attend in person. The other Zoom meetings were …
Afghanistan
I, and perhaps most Americans, have been watching the collapse of the Afghan government to Taliban forces. It happened so swiftly after twenty years and billions of dollars of support from Western governments. I vividly remember the two commercial jets colliding into the New York City Twin Towers as …
Christ & Culture (Conclusion)
This is my seventh and concluding blog on H. Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture (HarperOne, New York, NY, 2001). In the first blog, I introduce the author and his definition of culture. The subsequent blogs describe Niebuhr’s five motifs that classify the various ways Christians confront …
Christ the Transformer of Culture
In my last blog, I discussed the second of the three central motifs, Christ And Culture in Paradox, in H. Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture (HarperOne, New York, NY, 2001). He names this ‘family’ dualist as they live within the paradox of human sinfulness and God’s grace. I now turn to …
Christ and Culture in Paradox
In my last blog, I discussed the first of the three central motifs, Christ Above Culture, in H. Richard Niebuhr’s book Christ and Culture (HarperOne, New York, NY, 2001). He names this ‘family’ synthesists as they are more concerned with Christian culture than trying to Christianize culture. In …
Christ Above Culture
H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) wrote Christ and Culture (HarperOne, New York, NY, 2001) in 1951 to answer the “enduring problem” of how Christians live within culture. In my two previous blogs, I first wrote about the radical Christ Against Culture and then followed with the counter position, Christ …