I was on the train from Newcastle to Sydney a few weeks back. It was a Sunday afternoon and the train was packed. I was sitting in one of the designated quiet carriages where conversations must kept to a minimum, phones are to be put away, and if you listen to music you must do so through headphones. At Gosford a woman of similar age to me boarded the train and set beside me. She was rather...
Sometimes Jesus surprises me. Sometimes he confounds me. In his parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46) he both surprises and confounds. I grew up an orthodox Evangelical. At the centre of my faith was the conviction that I am a sinner saved by grace. So what do I do with Jesus’ story of the sheep and goats, because it sure doesn’t sound like salvation by grace through...
What do you do when you can no longer give yourself to the Jesus of your childhood? That’s the question Marcus Borg, Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State Univerity poses in this short book, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Borg was raised in an evangelical Lutheran church where he learned that Jesus was the divine Son of God who took human form to die on a...