Understanding Violence
For 2020, we're spending the entire year exploring the Bible, its story, and significance for us as followers of Jesus. Here is our working definition of the Bible: “The Bible is a library of writings that are both divine and human, that together tell a unified story, which leads us to Jesus.”
This past Sunday we continued in our latest, and much anticipated, mini-series with the ‘Year of Biblical Literacy’ called ‘The God I Don’t Understand.’ We dove into the topic of ‘Understanding Violence’ and the oft paraded objection to Christianity of Israel ‘committing genocide.’ Take a listen and explore how this ad hominem argument actually misrepresents what the text is actually saying and dive into what Holy War really is.
Here are some of the resources that Daniel mentioned:
‘The Skeletons in God’s Closet’ — Book by Joshua Ryan Butler
‘Is God a Moral Monster?’ — Book by Paul Copan
‘Unbelievable Podcast with Paul Copan and Greg Boyd’ — Podcast with Justin Brierly
‘Reflections from a Christian scholar on Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Marxism, and Biblical Ethics‘ — Essay by Kelly Hamren
‘The Incompatibility of Critical Theory and Christianity’ — Article by Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer
‘Critical Theory and Christian Ethics’ — Article by Andrew T. Walker
Like thousands of churches worldwide, this global pandemic has forced us to be creative in our response — both in terms of how we gather and how we serve our community. Though we believe the normative pattern established in Scripture for community anticipates embodied presence of the Gathered Church, there are certain times where that’s not as safe. We find ourselves in such a time and are thankful to be able to leverage the digital landscape to remain faithful to plugging into community. This week’s Gathering came by way of smaller House Gatherings (following local, state, and federal guidelines) via YouTube Live. We’d love for you to join us next week!