When safety becomes a god: Christopher Cook warns, “We’re living in a cultural moment where safety has been enthroned as the highest virtue. You hear it everywhere: “I need to feel safe here.” “I need to feel seen.” “I need to feel welcome.” On the surface, these phrases sound kind. Compassionate, even. But beneath the sentimental polish, there’s often an unspoken expectation: ‘Don’t challenge me.’”
A biblical pathway to emotional wisdom: Dan Brewer says, “Our emotions are not a flaw in God’s design. They are not a curse either—they are a gift.
Feelings matter. Even if we are certain that truth is firmly in our grasp, it isn’t appropriate to use it like a whip on the back of the skeptic.
In a desire to restore the balance of perceived power, contemporary Western culture has offered a wider berth for those who have historically wielded less power. Our culture declares that our privilege determines whether or not we are allowed to share “our truth.” Intersectionality doles out chips based on a group’s power. Those who come from advantaged portions of society are given fewer chips in order to balance the conversation.
Who among us, if given the possibility, wouldn’t take an extra hour in the day or an extra day in the week?
We stuff life to the fullest and then sprinkle more on the top. Why put your kid in one club when you can put them in a club and a sport? Why follow one sport, when you can follow all the major sports? Why be smart, when you can be smart and healthy? Our flesh tempts us to pack more in; Jesus tells us to live with single priority.
How Christians can inadvertently moralize unpleasant emotions: Brad Hambrick asks, “’What percentage of our unpleasant emotions are accounted for by sin and how much by suffering?’ The simple answer is, “We don’t know.” If anyone says with confidence that most unpleasant emotions are caused by one or the other, they are merely revealing their bias.”
Everything matters: Christa Threlfall says, “It’s not enough to eliminate the “big sins” that other people can see; Jesus wants every part of our being to belong to him.”
What do you want in life? Fame? Power? Money? Beauty? There are few who check off more of these boxes than Johnny Depp. One of the most recognizable people on the planet, Depp is one of only four men to be twice named the Sexiest Man Alive. His net worth peaked at over $800 million.
Who wouldn’t want to be Johnny Depp?
And yet, all it takes is a quick scroll through the web to see that this man’s life inspires more pity than envy. A few year’s ago Johnny Depp’s ex-wife, Amber Heard accused Depp of domestic abuse. Depp fought back with a lawsuit charging Heard with abuse.
Who among us, if given the possibility, wouldn’t take an extra hour in the day or an extra day in the week?
We stuff life to the fullest and then sprinkle more on the top. Why put your kid in one club when you can put them in a club and a sport? Why follow one sport, when you can follow all the major sports? Why be smart, when you can be smart and healthy? Our flesh tempts us to pack more in; Jesus tells us to live with single priority.
Miles begins A God of Many Understandings? with an event I remember well: “On Sunday morning, January 18, 2009, Gene Robinson, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, stepped to a podium near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, to open the inauguration festivities for Barack Obama with an invocation and began his prayer, ‘O god of our many understandings, we pray that you will…’” (1). That simple opening to his prayer hit me like a tidal wave that day. “O god of our many understandings (?!)” At the same time I felt befuddlement, anger, and a sense that in that very phrase, Robinson had profoundly captured the essence of our modern religious sensibilities.
There have been plenty of books published over the recent years that have decried the slippage in the American church’s commitment to the exclusive claims of the gospel. But I promise you none have been written that are quite like this. The ambitious nature of Miles’s book is remarkable. The book is a biblical-theological tour de force that deals with a host of issues relating to the topic of the exclusive nature of the gospel.
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