509 results for tag: blog

Death Swallowed Up (You’re Not Disposable!) – Greg Albrecht

One of the great lessons and legacies of the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus is that our temporary world does not have the last word. Easter tells you and me that we are not disposable. Easter tells us that even while our bodies age and shrink and wither away—there will be a day when our bodies, like the body of Jesus, will be resurrected. God will never throw us away! During the second half of the 20th century our consumer culture turned into a throw-away-culture the likes of which the world has never seen. Plastic bottles are one of the premier examples—use the bottle once and then throw it away. Paper plates, disposable diapers and ...

“But if there’s no hell…” We don’t deny there’s a hell. Brad Jersak with David Goa

Even after my most recent CWRblog post about hell, titled "What if you're wrong about hell?" I still can't tell you how many people object with a question that begins, "But if there's no hell..." How many times have I responded, "Of course there's a hell! I've been there—seen it with my own eyes, my own heart and my own Bible." The issue is not the existence a hell, but whether we have the eyes to see its true nature. To that end, I raised the topic with my godfather David Goa, who always knows how best to set me straight. The following notes represent my best effort at distilling the essence of our conversation: We don’t deny there’s ...

Root Fears & Angry-god – Brad Jersak with Dave McFadden

Root Fears & Hot Button Conversations Since the beginning of this calendar year, in literally every conversation I’ve had with Christian leaders and churches, two hot button topics came up, and not at my request. The questions raised were about: * INFERNALISM: the hell of eternal torment, and * INCLUSION: sexuality in Christian communities. Scary stuff, right? Or it used to be. What we had only whispered privately a decade ago, for fear of fomenting division or provoking reprisals, has now grown into open conversations in earnest. But despite this refreshing new boldness to voice our private thoughts, a strain of fear continues ...

Did Jesus’ Crucifixion Satisfy God’s Wrath? Greg Albrecht

An idyllic, beautiful setting surrounds a rambling country estate in rural England. It's 1935, and this pastoral setting provides the backdrop for the initial scene that plays out in Atonement. During the brief respite between the first and second World Wars, Cecilia Tallis, a rich young lady in her early twenties whose family owns the estate discovers she loves, and is loved by Robbie, a young man whose mother is the housekeeper at the Tallis home. As the love story begins, we are also introduced to Briony, Cecilia's younger sister. Briony is an aspiring writer who is, in her coming of age 13-year-old way, envious of the courtship enjoyed by ...

Papa’s Love & Frightening Warnings – Brad Jersak

“Bradley, don’t touch. You’ll burn your little hanny [hand] right off.” —Irene Jersak The Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,  for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” —Genesis 2:16 “If you’re right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.” —Jesus Christ “Hot!” – Mom’s Warning I was perhaps 6-years-old. Maybe at Uncle Henry and Auntie Florence’s house. I remember fixating on Auntie’s red-hot stove element. I recall my mother’s dire warning. “Bradley, don’t touch. You’ll ...

“Light & High Beauty” in the Shadow of Mt. Doom – Brad Jersak

In February of 2020, I had the great privilege of hiking the Tongariro alpine crossing, site of Mount Ngaurunoe, New Zealand's third most active volcano, made famous as the image of Mount Doom in the Lord of the Ring movies. My guide (or Sam Gamgee, if you will) was my dear friend Clinton Sanford, who trained me for the 12-mile, 9-hour trek, which included a 90-minute grueling climb up "the devil's staircase." Good fortune or divine providence granted me the unexpected company of Brian and Peri Zahnd, whose travels coincided briefly with mine. We were also accompanied (and fed) by Sarah and Bruce O'Brian (from El Rancho Camp). At first I had ...

I must confess – Ed Dunn

I must confess I enjoy a special tradition on the morning of each new New Year’s Day.  With my college Sophomore, Lauren, upstairs and still fast-asleep, I like to bundle up, coffee up with a large “to-go” thermos and sneak quietly out of the house.  The sun is rarely up as I do. What could be my destination so early on the first day of each new year?  That’s simple.  I like to make my way with the crowds of excitable spectators hurriedly streaming southward towards a world-famous piece of real estate.  I like to join in with one million or so other fans on their way to the narrow sidewalks of Colorado Boulevard.&...

The Light has won, is winning & will win – Brad Jersak with Kenneth Tanner

The Light is Winning Passover is coming. A time to remember how the people of God were quarantined in their homes behind blood-marked lintils, praying for deliverance from a deadly pestilence and quietly sharing what they thought might be their last supper. A time to remember Christ's final passover meal, his Last Supper with friends and anticipating the great exodus his own death would achieve. A time to remember that the shroud of death was removed from all people through the victory of his resurrection.  For some, these days are understandably a time of darkness, death and fear. Once again, we hunker down in our homes, wondering when this ...

Why the Father Didn’t Seek the Prodigal (because he did) Brad Jersak

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). There it is. The gospel of grace distilled perfectly through Jesus’ own words. That statement encapsulates the reason for Christ’s Incarnation, his earthly ministry and his final Passion, in which he pursues humanity even into death. Even hades could not separate us from the relentless love of the “hound of heaven.” Christ describes his “seeking and saving” mission in the three great parables of Luke 15: the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost son. In each of the parables, the obvious punchline is how heaven rejoices when what was lost has been found. This ...

The Virgin Birth is a Christological Faith-Claim – Brad Jersak

"For us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was Incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary." The Gospel claims  to Mary's virgin birth (or conception) of Christ is far more than borrowed mythology co-opted from a host of earlier hybrid god myths. The historic Christian faith received it as a revelation delivered through the Gospels of Luke (1:26-38) and Matthew (1:18-25). Yes, we know that the original Hebrew prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 was not about an actual virgin (and can be rendered "young woman") nor even, initially, about Mary or her Son. But the Gospel accounts are very specific on this point: in the story, both ...

Pain, Belief & the Suffering of Children – Brad Jersak

PAIN.Has it crushed your faith or made you a believer? Nativity & Massacre of the Innocents As Christ-followers celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, we also anticipate the tragedy in Bethlehem known as "the massacre of the innocents," when King Herod sought to cut short the Messiah's life. The story is recounted in Matthew 2. 13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for ...

Our Final Authority: Bible or Jesus? Brad Jersak

Our final authority It was one of my classic last-minute cancellations. A church whose pastor and elders had invited me to speak on prayer found themselves awkwardly withdrawing their invitation. The pastor had moved on and the interim minister had done some digging. He was offended that my church (Fresh Wind at the time) had nothing in our statement(s) of faith about the Bible. That was because our doctrinal statements were the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed. I told him that I was not comfortable with creating statements of faith or redacting the great creeds. In the end, what he explicitly demanded was this confession, similar to many confes...

The Logic (and limits) of “Christus Victor” – Brad Jersak

The Logic of Penal Substitution As a young, gungho Calvinist in the 1980s, I composed a 180+ page M.A. thesis / apologetic for penal substitutionary atonement, titled "The Nature of Christ's Suffering and Substitution." In retrospect, I'm embarrassed by my anachronistic reading of the early church, my inability to distinguish the difference between "exchange" and "substitution," and my assumptions about the necessity of wrath-appeasement. If that's all gobbledygook to you, the reader, no worries. We'll get to the good stuff momentarily. I will say in my defense that at least I knew the Cross was central to Christian faith, whatever it might mean. D...

“Be Perfect”? A Fragile Faithfulness, Fraught & Freighted Brad Jersak

Question:  In light of Christ’s revelation of God’s saving grace, how are we to understand his statement, “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect”? (Matthew 5:48) Response:  Imagine trying to be the perfect human! Imagine striving to be perfect like Jesus was perfect! Imagine trying to be as perfect as God himself! If we were to take Jesus literally there, we’d either be deluded in our perfectionism or exhausted all the time. It’s just not possible and even seems completely pointless.  Religious or moral perfectionism makes for a fragile faithfulness … fraught with peril and freighted with crushing ...

Christ or Crake? Mortality is the Fear of Death – Brad Jersak

In Oryx and Crake, the first novel of Margaret Atwood's dystopic Maddaddam trilogy, a character nicknamed Crake argues that mortality is not merely death, but also the anxiety-inducing and violence-producing foreknowledge and fear of death. Crake's solution to mortality is profoundly catastrophic, but his diagnosis is in some ways, spot on. Two great thinkers who've shed important light on the phenomenon of "death-anxiety" are Ernest Becker, in his 1973 work, The Denial of Death, and more recently, Richard Beck in The Slavery of Death. Both writers think about the ways we live in denial of death and how this creates deep-seated neurotic ...

Inter-faith Dialogue with Christian Atheists – Brad Jersak

In October, 2019, Paul Young and I were fielding a Q&R time at the Grand Embrace retreat in Aldergrove, Canada. It was the first time I've been asked for a response to "Jesus-following Atheists" (aka "Christian atheists"). The question was raised by another dear friend, musician Kevin Boese. He's a huge fan of the Canadian rock band, RUSH, and an avid listener of the Liturgists Podcast, which might be where Kevin first became familiar with this idea of Christian Atheists. I did my best to respond in the moment, but left unsatisfied. I feel that to engage them, I'd want to assume far less about what they believe and practice, and I'd like to ask ...

The Finished Work (before, during & after the Cross) – Brad Jersak

INTRO – “The Finished Work” “The finished work” has become a popular catch-phrase among those who faithfully teach God’s unconditional grace. This reassuring phrase comes to us from Christ’s dying declaration of divine love’s great victory. “It is finished!” he cries with his final breath (John 19:30). Although Christ’s last words were likely spoken in Aramaic or Hebrew, the Greek word John the Beloved uses to translate Jesus’ words in his eyewitness account is tetelestai (from teleo, the verb form of the noun telos). This bit of linguistic trivia matters because to John, Jesus was saying something far more than “it’s ...

Of Heretics, Kings and Foxes – Brad Jersak

The [heretics] act just like someone who finds a beautiful image of a king that has been constructed by a skillful artist out of precious jewels, and then breaks down this statue of the king into pieces and rearranges the gems into the form of a dog or a fox, and even then, does a poor job of it. And then they maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skillful artist had constructed. They point to the jewels that had been beautifully assembled by the original artist in the image of the king, but have now tragically transposed the king into the shape of a dog. And exhibiting the jewels, they deceive the ignorant who ...

Christian Polytheism – Brad Jersak

This article is an excerpt from A More Christlike Way (CWR press, 2019). It was risky business for early Christians to hold up Christ as the image of the one true God. Their gospel confession demanded a rejection of Rome’s pantheon of pagan gods and the emperors’ demand for worship. And that meant persecution. But at least the choice was straightforward: Jesus is Lord and Jupiter is not. Jesus is Lord and Diana is not. Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. But today, how are we to navigate the problem of polytheism (the belief in many gods) within Christianity? Let’s say there’s still a militaristic god of war, a patriotic god of ...

Struggling with Moral Superiority – Brad Jersak

SELF-REFLECTION: Have you ever been tempted to think yourself morally superior in any way? I feel morally superior to people who come off as morally superior. This is a big problem. I'm like a third party in the parable of the Publican and the Tax Collector praying in the Temple, and I'm saying, "Thank God I'm not like the Pharisee!" thus becoming one myself. So ironic and similar to actor Michael Cain's line from one of the Austin Powers movies: There are two types of people I can't stand: "Those who are intolerant of other cultures ... and the Dutch." Just as I'm becoming less intolerant of my Evangelical backstory (less shame at ...