A postmodern paraphrase of Philippians 2:5-11

The Incarnation is the mad story of the undeconstructible God who did not consider undeconstructibility as something to be grasped, nor did he despise deconstructibility, but rather taking the “human, all too human form” of a servant, he humbled himself to the point of inhabiting the very deconstructible structures of human law and culture—even to [...]

Subverting the rhetoric of American empire

Brandon Rhodes has written an EXCELLENT article at Jesus Manifesto called “Severing the Rhetorical Roots of the Empire“. In it he lists some quotes, inviting followers of Jesus to creatively rewrite them to displace idolatry and blasphemy with subversive truth, just as Paul and other early Christian authors rhetorically usurped Caesar’s place of privilege and [...]

Galatians 3:28 and gender equality

One thing I’ve heard on a couple of message boards lately is the statement that Galatians 3:28, which says “For there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, but you all are one in Christ Jesus”, does not in fact refer to a social equality that is expressed in the practice [...]

Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire, by N.T. Wright

article link
The good Bishop of Durham has summed up a lot of things quite concisely in one article that I spend pages and pages on this blog discussing. He goes briefly over passages from Romans and Philippians within the framework of a discussion of the term “Gospel” and Paul’s conception of Jesus as Messiah and [...]

another thought on Romans 13, the oppressiveness of Christianity

my original post on Romans 13
This pertains, actually, to Paul’s immediately previous statement about repaying evil with good. Could it be that Paul has in mind that the Christians, as a sect with subversively dangerous ideas to the Empire, should keep their noses so clean, as it was, that the officials could legitimately find [...]

Love of money and corporations

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. — The Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 6:10)
Or, as it is rendered in The Message, by Eugene Peterson:
But if it’s only money these leaders are after, [...]

Paul and counterculture theology/civil disobedience

In a comment to my post on Romans 13, Tim said he wasn’t convinced that Paul actually advocated some kind of civil disobedience, so I decided to post a short analysis of two passages from his letters that I think illustrate otherwise, or at the very least make allowances for civil disobedience in a New [...]

a brief case for a different framework of understanding on Romans 13

Particularly, Romans 13:1-7.
(this is an expansion of material I have written elsewhere)
One of my goals with this blog is to begin articulating a Christian theology of resistance to the oppressive forces that have entirely too much power in this world. It is my understanding that Christianity in its ancient context was extremely revolutionary, nonviolently, and [...]

USAmerican self-determination ideals and contradiction

(this is an expanded version of material I have written elsewhere)
I find it odd that the United States celebrates its self-determination as a nation-state on July 4 when politically we have quite a history of denying the same to others when it suits certain political purposes, generally business-related. For example, the Phillippines in that oft-forgotten [...]