Dear Theophilus

Here is my attempt at "Romulus" by Sufjan Stevens. Hope you enjoy! Once when our mother called, She had a voice of last year's cough. We passed around the phone, Sharing a word about Oregon. When my turn came, I was ashamed. When my turn came, I was ashamed. Once when we moved away, She came to Romulus for a day. Her Chevrolet broke down. We prayed it'd never be fixed or found. We touched her hair, we touched her hair. We touched her hair, we touched her hair. When she had her last child Once when she had some boyfriends, some wild. She moved away quite far. Our grandpa bought us a new VCR. We watched it all night, but grew up in spite of it. We watched it all night, but grew up in spite of it. We saw her once last fall. Our grandpa died in a hospital gown. She didn't seem to care. She smoked in her room and colored her hair. And I was ashamed of her

I had a few more people ask me some questions about the rapture so I am undertaking my most concise, clear cut effort to do away with rapture theology. Let’s start by saying that not one church father over the last 2000 years has believed in any thing like the rapture. There are no church creeds that affirm a taking away of Christians to heaven. There are no denominations that officially uphold rapture theology that were created before 1830. Rapture came about in the late 1700’s and find it’s foothold in the 1830’s. John Nelson Darby , considered the Father of Dispensationalism, spread his rapture theology around Plymouth Brethren circles for years. This culminated with some other false beliefs about prophecy, future, one-man anti-Christ, and so on. These ideas found there way in Matthew Henry’s Commentaries and into the Scofield Reference Bibles. The idea gained more and more popularity. Dallas Theological Seminary grabbed hold of the theology and some of their presidents wrot...

"Ideas have consequences... The hope of impending departure can lead believers to abandon interest in the world and its problems. The expectation of deteriorating conditions prior to the soon-approaching rapture is morally corrosive, encouraging pessimism, fatalism, and the forsaking of political responsibility. Disengagement from the problems of the world is ethically indefensible, but it is all too common among today's prophecy elite. Their books tell us that nuclear war is inevitable, that the pursuit of peace is pointless, that the planet's environmental woes are unstoppable, and so on." Craig Hill, In God's Time   So, Harold Camping is predicting the end of the world.... AGAIN? What's new... but this time it seems to be in my face everywhere. Since this has become common knowledge now, I thought I would spell out a few things from my studies for the people around me trying to get a grasp on the situation. This will be a historical/ theological lesso...

The news came... it lit up twitter like a fire storm. The people wanted to know but the mystery mixed with hope was palpable. CNN was so sure of themselves. And then Obama speaks; it's true. I was overjoyed, but... This 'but,' this tension. Dig deeper. What is it? All my friends are excited. All my Christian friends are quick to throw the first stone. I responded, " Let not death nor violence be glorified but may justice and peace be long lived." This remains true. Death and Violence should never be glorified. When Jesus said, " ...all who draw the sword will die by the sword" he wasn't just speaking about how his disciples weren't supposed to use violence or merely waxing eloquently, he was speaking a profound truth: when violence is used against violence, only violence wins, only violence is exalted. Will he be replaced? Will Al Qaeda retaliate? Will this make Al Qaeda stronger? Or does it dissolve it? But what about Bin Laden? Surely i...

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/04/28/what-difference-does-easter-make/ Scot McKnight, a new testament scholar, poses some great thoughts about Easter. I love the opening question and think every Christian and church should have to answer it: We tend to be Good Friday in our gospel: Jesus died for us. We tend to be Good Friday Christians too: my sins are forgiven. What good is Easter? What difference does the resurrection make for life today? The church is decisively Good Friday... it is when the church can answer and live out the question at hand, then we will move beyond this rut we're in. Happy reading and blessings!

Today is Easter, the celebration of the anniversary of Jesus raising from the dead. I am not going to spend significant time trying to convince anyone that the resurrection happened. I am assuming either you believe it or you don't. Though, I do believe that any student of life should honestly seek the validity of the claim. There are a lot of reasons to believe that it happened and only one to believe it didn't and "It's too mind blowing" isn't a good enough reason to dismiss it. Let's begin, rather, with what the Resurrection means. Resurrection is an interesting idea in itself. First, we have little to no information about it in the Old Testament (before Jesus). In the Old Testament the death/ end times scenario was pretty basic. There was a place called Sheol. Every single person went there, good or bad. There were glimmers about being with God. The Psalms talk of it, Elijah was raptured to it, and a few other occurrences, but basically sheol was t...

When I became a Christian, I read the New Testament immediately and all the way through. I couldn't get enough. Christ revealed himself to me in ways unimaginable. I was forever blessed. I had a great mentor who allowed me to ask many questions. There were a few that stuck with me for a very long time. Good Friday has one of the biggest. It wasn't until 2 years ago I found my answer. My question dealt with reconciling Jesus' words on the Cross with his mission. He predicted his own death, even death on a cross, yet when he was on the Cross he screams out, "Eloi, Eloi lema Sabachthani?!" Which translated means, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?!" How could Jesus decide the God had forsaken him? Jesus knew he was going to die like this? I could understand crying out in pain. I could even understand crying out for mercy or even to be released. But concluding that God had abandoned him, that seemed like he was calling the whole thing off. Unt...