Justifying ourselves
I am reading a book that is blowing me away: Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer, the contemporary German theologian who is sort of the Lutheran answer to radical orthodoxy. Instead of reading it all,...
View ArticleFrom justifying God to justifying existence
More (see my last post on the subject) from Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer. . . Not only are we always judging, condemning/justifying ourselves and each other, we also judge, condemn/justify God....
View ArticleNote on the “justifying” series
I’ve been doing a series of posts about what I am getting from a book I am reading: Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer. (For earlier posts on the subject, see this and this. and this.) He makes the...
View ArticleThe Pope’s preacher says Luther was right
British religion reporter Christopher Howse tells about a sermon from Pope Benedict XVI ‘s preacher, Fr. Raniero Cantalamesa, that basically concedes that Luther was right on justification. Well, sort...
View ArticleSubverting people’s need to constantly justify themselves
In the discussion of Michael Lockwood’s new book The Unholy Trinity: Martin Luther against the Idol of Me, Myself, and I, the author himself joined in. He explained what he was getting at in his book...
View ArticleLiving under the law
More from David Zahl., who distinguishes between the big-L “Law” (of God) and the little-l “law” that people today try, futilely, to live by. . . . The latter too is a sign of how people today are...
View ArticleSocial Media and Justification
Again, Rev. A. Trevor Sutton, the co-author with me of Authentic Christianity: How Lutheran Theology Speaks to a Postmodern World, is studying the relationship between technology and theology. He...
View ArticleWhy the Church Falls
The Reformers said that the doctrine of justification--that is, how sinners are put right with God through the work of Christ--is "the article upon which the church stands or falls." Today in many of...
View ArticleChrist as Our Substitute
Many contemporary Christians are drawing back from the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement--that Christ bore our sins and died in our place. But their criticisms tend to neglect the doctrine of...
View ArticleWhat Happened at the Cross
What happened at Christ's crucifixion was an act of divine omnipotence that was more monumental, more miraculous, and more mind-blowing than the Creation. It entailed, in effect, a cataclysm within...
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