In the banner photo is Abbey and I providing meals for the poor living at a dumpsite.

We Bring Our Self to the Text

As I age I become distinctly aware of how our moral conscience and the totality of all that encompasses the image of God in us; insight, rationality, active redemptive compassion, relational connectedness with all creation (particularly humanity), our creativity and our capacity for keeping promises must be incorporated into our interpretive efforts when reading scripture.

I have often said that we 'bring ourselves to the text'. I will say some of history's most celebrated theologians with their horrific views on God and reality reveal themselves to be unfit as biblical interpreters or theologians. We are plagued with their useless writings and ignore their inconsistencies of Christlikeness that pollute Christian history with their murders and inquisitions.

I'm too old now to bother with religious absurdities that promote a god stripped of goodness by scriptural readings that terrify anyone with a rational mind and an open heart. There is no violence in God! The problem of evil is unsolvable but God can and will heal us all.

I understand (in part) that to raise up children of God from the ground is a task that only God can accomplish and God has said it all from a cross when God let us kill his only begotten son, the incarnate Lord who opened wide his arms to embrace all of humanity and took Love's culpability for our existence upon himself. Love alone held Christ to the cross so he prayed, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do".