The way of imagination

      No one reads the Bible in a vacuum .  Also, the Bible is not self-explanatory.  Reading the Bible, like reading any text, involves the reader in the process of interpretation – what does this text mean?   Everyone who reads the Bible does so within a certain culture at a particular moment of history, perhaps as a member of a religious community who holds certain official beliefs about Scripture (inspiration, revelation, etc.).  All of these factors contribute to how we understand the Bible and how we seek to live in light of what Scripture says.  As westerners, or as members of peoples who were colonized by western nations, we are members of a culture/civilization which has been reading the Bible for almost 2,000 years.  When we open the Bible, we join a 2,000-year-long conversation – a conversation which has often resembled a heated debate.  No text has had a greater influence on western culture than the Bible.   The Bib...

Operation Juno.   Receiving and giving orders – that was an important part of my training during boot camp this summer.  During the exercise called Operation Juno , we spent several days in the woods at the Farnham training centre.  I recall preparing to lead my “section” (a group of 8 chaplaincy candidates) during a combat scenario…  It was 4 a.m. on a Friday.  All was quiet at Forward Operating Base Passchendaele .  There I was, dressed in my combat uniform, with cam-stick on my face, sitting on a bench waiting for the Warrant Officer to arrive and deliver his orders for the next mission.  As I sat in the dimly-lit shack, I fought to stay awake – it had been two days since I had gotten any sleep.  In our shelter, my 7 comrades from 2 Section were waiting for me to return and give them the initial briefing that would allow them to begin preparations for our mission while I completed preparing my official orders for them. Soldier of Christ....

Executive Summary      In what follows, I (briefly) tell the biblical story of redemption/salvation, understood as being the fulfillment, in and through Jesus of Nazareth, of the promises of God to Abraham (around the 20 th century B.C.).  One could define the (Hebrew) Bible as being the story of how the Creator God promised to save/rescue the world through Abraham and his descendants, and the “New Testament” as being the story of how God fulfilled those promises in and through Jesus, understood to be the Messiah (promised King) of Israel and therefore, the Lord of the world.  As far as biblical soteriology is concerned, it’s all about Abraham (and by extension, the nation of Abraham’s descendants, Israel ).  This “Israel dimension” of biblical theology has often been neglected in Christian doctrinal theology, but is now making a comeback within the world of biblical studies thanks to the recent prominence of narrative approaches to theology. ...