11 quotes
The lives of the saints are the hermeneutical key to Scripture.
Christians know that Christianity is simply extended training in dying early. That is what we have always been about.
I do think, in spite of the considerable evidence to the contrary, that theology can and should be, in some of its modes, funny. Theology done right should make you laugh.
The Work of Theology (2015)
We complain of the increased tempo of our lives, but our frenetic lives are just reflection of the economic system that we have created.
Pacifism, therefore, is not just an attitude about war, but it entails the belief that God, through Jesus Christ, has inaugurated a history that frees all people from our assumption that we have no moral alternative to war.
Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society (1985)
Huebner observes that my use of laugher is my attempt to practice theology in a manner that refuses the attempt to manage the world. In short, my use of laughter is “an appropriate theological antidote to the Constantinian desire for control.”
The Work of Theology (2015)
Consider the problem of taking showers with Christians. They are, after all, constantly going on about the business of witnessing in the hopes of making converts to their God and church. Would you want to shower with such people? You never know when they might try to baptize you.
My use of laughter is my attempt to practice theology in a manner that refuses the attempt to manage the world. In short, my use of laughter is “an appropriate theological antidote to the Constantinian desire for control.”
The Work of Theology (2015)
Ralph Wood argues quite persuasively that the Christian vision of the world is fundamentally comic. Drawing on the insights of Karl Löwith, Wood observes that because Christians do not, as the ancients did, regard the universe as eternal or divine but as created, comedy is made possible by the acknowledgment of the sheer contingency of all that is.
The Work of Theology (2015)
We are willing to worship a God only if God makes us safe. Thus you get the silly question, How does a good God let bad things happen to good people? Of course, it was a rabbi who raised that question, but Christians took it up as their own. Have you read the Psalms lately? We're seeing a much more complex God than that question gives credit for.
The disciples ... are capable of peacemaking because they are sustained by the purity derived from having no other telos but to enact the kingdom embodied in Jesus. Yet such a people may well be persecuted, as Jesus was persecuted, because they are an alternative to the violence of the world that is too often called "peace."
Matthew (2006)