The Scriptorium Daily

Author: Matt Jenson

  • Karl Barth: The Word of God and Theology

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    Matt Jenson
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    Karl Barth, The Word of God and Theology, trans. Amy Marga (New York: T&T Clark, 2011), 242 pp. (review copy courtesy of T&T Clark) Annie Dillard once wrote that she did ‘not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?…

  • Whither Trinitarian Theology (Holmes pt. 3)

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    Matt Jenson
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    See the other essays in this three-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Fred Sanders and Matt Jenson finish their series of posts on Steve Holmes’ new Trinity book, with a discussion about his overall project and what it suggests for trinitarian theology. Jenson: Holmes steers awfully close to despair at the end of his…

  • Stop Using the F-Word

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    Matt Jenson
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    As we careen at breakneck speed towards the legalization of gay marriage, as people yell and stamp and scream and justify and demonize, consider this moving, quiet, patient, eloquent plea (with a follow-up) by an anonymous writer to just stop using words that freeze, reduce, diminish and thrash gays and lesbians.  I was attracted to comic…

  • What Rob Bells Talks About When He Talks About God

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    Matt Jenson
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    Rob Bell’s new book just came out. In its title, borrowed from one of Raymond Carver’s short story collections, Bell promises to lay bare What We Talk About When We Talk About God. Carver’s quietly aching scenes of love, or perhaps more of the reality of failed and blocked and misconstrued gestures towards intimacy that pass…

  • The Difficulty of Ecumenism

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    Matt Jenson
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    Every Christian must be ecumenical. That is, every Christian must devote herself to the unity of Christ’s church–a unity that witnesses in the world to the love of the Father for the Son and to their love for those sealed by the Spirit of adoption. Ecumenism is part and parcel of the church’s mission, and…

  • Does It Make a Difference? (Forsaken pt. 4)

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    Matt Jenson
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    See the other essays in this four-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. In our final installment talking through Tom McCall’s Forsaken, we consider McCall’s fourth chapter and conclusion, in which he takes two looks at the question of “why it matters”. Jenson: Continuing on from the last post, where Fred pointed out…

  • McClymond & McDermott: The Theology of Jonathan Edwards

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    Matt Jenson
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    Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2012), 757 pp. (review copy courtesy of OUP) “Imagine a Christian dialogue today that included adherents of ancient churches–Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic–with various modern church bodies–Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, Disciples of Christ–as well as an ample representation from…

  • Becoming a Christian

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    Matt Jenson
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    Little of the growth in my life comes from learning something new. Instead, it comes from learning—really learning—something old. Or it comes from getting inside something I’ve known about for a long time. It comes from re-examining, from walking over the territory yet again, hoping that a fresh look will yield a sense of things…

  • Proving the Resurrection

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    Matt Jenson
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    I’ll admit it. I’m skeptical about attempts to prove the existence of God or, indeed, any of the major tenets of the Christian faith. Reinhold Niebuhr once quipped that ‘the doctrine of original sin is the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.’ I’m not sure I’d even go that far. There’s a lot…

  • Ephiphany and the Bible

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    Matt Jenson
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    On Friday, the Church celebrated the feast of Epiphany, reveling in Christ’s revelation to the Gentiles, and to the world. This day marks his going public, the laying bare of the secret long hid in the counsels of God and only whispered in the prophets. Isaiah looked forward to Epiphany: ‘The people who walked in…

  • Does God Have to…?

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    Matt Jenson
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    I’ve spent much of this week talking with students about Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man). We don’t lecture in the Torrey Honors Institute; we discuss. To start off a class, we try and develop a crafty question, one that immediately sets the students before an issue at the heart of the text…

  • Does Bono Really Believe in Love?

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    Matt Jenson
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    My dear friend and Scriptorium Daily’s own Paul Spears is at the U2 concert tonight with his lovely wife Lisa. Tomorrow night, my old buddy Mike French gets to go. They will bask in the glow of 30 years of the best rock-and-roll ever right here in the middle of Orange County. In only mildly…