Christmas 2019. Christians around the world celebrate that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Feelings of wonder fill us and hope, perhaps, that this enfleshment will somehow materialize...
Religious Trauma, Fundamentalism, Spiritual Abuse, Atheism, Bonhoeffer, Radical Theology and Other Topics I Write About
I address a number of topics on this website. My main concern is to be a theologian who makes the content of the Christian faith concrete and relevant for our...
Martyrs, Madmen, and Marauders: Six Ways Christian Missions Needs to Change
There has been much talk about missions lately in the wake of the death of a young missionary, John Chau, who, against government regulation and common sense, went on a...
Seven Ways to Overcome Religious Trauma Syndrome
Religious Trauma is a real thing. I know it. I feel it. I see it in others. And there is official recognition these days! A few years ago, I interviewed...
Wetenschap en de Irrelevantie van Theologie
Vanaf het moment dat de moderne wereld van zich liet horen is christelijke theologie in de verdediging geweest. Gaandeweg nam die verdediging steeds meer het karakter aan van crisismanagement. Steeds...
Partying As the Bullets Fly: The Absurdity of Prophetic Fulfillment Without Justice
While the United States celebrates the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the Israeli army shot and murdered 58 Palestinians. Yesterday Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary...
“A Perfect Circle” as Public Theology
When the word theology is mentioned people either have no idea what you are talking about or they think you’re talking about something religious. This week I listened to the...
I Believe in Predestination But God Has Nothing To Do With It!
Actually, I don’t believe in predestination. We are not robots! I hate predestination and consider it one of the great heretical ideas that have crept into Christian theology, first by...
A Sundered Cross: Evangelicalism and the Public Sphere
A Devotional on the Cross Imagine a cross. The cross has a vertical pole and a crossbar. It is not hard to imagine the vertical pole representing the dynamic between...
Misogynistic Theology: Keeping Women Out!
A transcript from audio on the Desiring God website on January 22 gives Piper’s answer to the question: “whether women should be models, mentors, and teachers for those preparing for...
Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of Mark
The strange Jesus of Mark After not having read the Gospels for a few years and after abandoning the standard paradigm of already knowing who Jesus is and what the text means...
Jesus Among Sinners
(My recent blogpost over at Whiteboard//Blip) There she stood. She had been shamefully and publicly exposed as one committing adultery in a society that has only one outlet for sex:...
Het christelijk geloof als levensbeschouwing
I wrote this article for Dutch newspaper Reformatorisch Dagblad in December 2011. While my opinion concerning the relevance of the arguments for God’s existence has radically changed, I still consider...