9/10/2010

At Last! Biblical Theology for our time.

Its been sunny and warm down here in Lewes, the small town by the bay and the big water. And yet I find myself filled with the gloom of unfinished dreams, unrequited love of country, and of watching church become a side-show with high impact but little prophetic relevance or pathetically unable to act on its prophetic stance.  Things are dumbed down all around. Health care sucks, the country is still at war and the faith community is filled with crazy people claiming to be Christians while at the same time capitalizing on 9/11.

And then a breath of fresh air. Finally, someone who tongue in cheek none the less hits one out of the park for biblical theology.  Simon Mein of SimonSurmises has written an essay that puts all the events of national political and religious life into true focus. He isolates the passage from Holy Writ that prophetically says it all. It is of all things in Second Peter, 2:22. His essay is titled, ERRATIC INERRANCY.

All I can do is recommend that you go and read it. Here is a short taste of it. 

Simon writes, "Imagine, then, my complete disorientation when it suddenly seemed clear to me (I suppose in evangelical terms, I experienced a conversion moment) that the contemporary political situation in the U.S.A. is clearly foreshadowed in Scripture."

Imagine indeed! 

Whatever else one may say about Simon's surmises, he can be droll and wise all in one swing.
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5 comments:

  1. John Sims10/9/10 6:40 PM

    A clever and erudite essay, and - sadly - right on target. Thanks for the link!

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  2. Counterlight10/9/10 8:37 PM

    Clever, but depressing

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  3. Anonymous11/9/10 8:48 AM

    Clever? How so? By taking on fundamentalist instead of stepping up to the larger task of showing how the Scriptures are indispensable for knowing Christ and God and can be trustworthy in a basic but not tight inerrantist way?

    And I think he must have entered seminary late, judging by the reference to James Barr, which tends IMHO--I say, tends--to lead people to popularizers and away from the slow careful thinking that has been done by so many non-fundamentalist over the years. I just recommended David Kelsey's The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology, something I would ask first year seminarians to read BTW, a simple sample of something really worth reading.
    John 2007

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  4. Anonymous11/9/10 9:48 PM

    Every religious service I've ever been to has left me feeling as if I were talking to the ceiling.
    Boring. And I had to pay for it, give money to strangers. For what?
    Why bother?

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  5. Elizabeth Kaeton13/9/10 9:29 PM

    Hmmm . . . I think the last "Anonymous" has also made a similar . . ."contribution" on my blog. It may be a hopeful sign that s/he's reading our blogs - a sort of "Last Chance Saloon" for doubters and seekers. Or, it may be a sign that our blogs are utterly without redemption. Probably both are true.

    As for Simon Mein - I had the great privilege and joy to met him last month at ASRB and he totally rocks!

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