The (Lieben)GOOD LIFE

  My reflections on the way our technological age is shaping us at Intersections . Enjoy!

  Rillera, Andrew R.  Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus's Death . Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2024.   Reviewed b y Kelly D. Liebengood Jesus saves. But how ? And in particular, what did Jesus accomplish in his death? Historically, most Protestant traditions have replied that he died to offer himself as an atoning sacrifice. That is, in his death, Jesus stood in the place of sinners (substitution) and took upon himself the punishment for sins (penal) that they committed in order to appease God’s wrath, to satisfy his justice, and to secure forgiveness of sins (atonement). In Lamb of the Free , Rillera disassembles the building blocks for this prominent interpretation of Jesus’s death (often referred to as penal substitutionary atonement [henceforth, PSA]), and replaces them with an account of the saving significance of Jesus’s death that is coherently aligned with the logic of Old Testament sacrifice and the prophetic expectations t...

  Made to Be Known, Known to Bring Peace.   We all come into the world looking for someone who is looking for us.   This is one of the most significant insights of neuroscience: our brains together with our bodies are made in such a way that they need others in order to function properly. In other words, at the very level of biology, physiology, and chemistry, we are designed to be interdependent; we are made to thrive by living in a community of vulnerability. We need to be seen by another, to be noticed by another, to be attended to by another, to be known, and to be cared for.   This is not a unique insight, of course. Genesis 1-2 tells us a similar story. It is not good for us to be alone. The world is an intricately ordered place of hyper-relationality. That is to say that all things function best when they are in right relationship with God’s ordering. Humans flourish when they are in right relationship to God, right relationships with others, have a prop...

* From David Lyle Jeffrey,  Luke (The Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible), pgs. 150-151) The theme of the conjoined commandment to love God in a total, all-encompassing way, and out of that to love the neighbor as oneself, was regarded by medieval writers as one single and basic rule for the Christian life. They referred to it as the law of love. There is much biblical warrant for this compression...The good Samaritan story casts a practical light on the love of God for the kosmon ("world") (John 3:16), which those who reciprocate his love are called to imitate at many levels. There is a polyvalent aspect to the good Samaritan, who reminds us by his action that on the biblical definition, "God is love" (1 John 4:16) is a wider sense than might occur to us. Since Jesus himself is the "image of the Father" (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; 3:10; Heb. 1:3), what he is teaching us in such passages is primary theology, intensifying what he has already told his ...

Note to self.  It is the beginning of the new academic year, and I feel that I need to remind myself of something. This is not a criticism of my institution; my provost and president are very supportive.  LeTourneau University, where I work, is a tuition-dependent institution of higher education. This is our reality--and the reality of most universities in the US. Almost all of our operational funding, including the cost to instruct students, comes from matriculation fees. We have very little margin for error with regard to recruiting students. Faculty members are very aware of this, and they work hard to do all they can to attract and serve students.  As important as it is to attend to this reality, I think it is equally important to remember that a university like ours, a university that is trying to not only form students but also to have a positive influence in our academic disciplines, does not only exist for students. While we are primarily  a teaching...

 I continue my work on a grant for the School of Theology and Vocation at LeTourneau University. In part two, the granting body asks, What are the characteristics of thriving congregations? Here is my draft in response: At our core, we share the conviction of the Lilly Endowment, that “local congregations have been and will continue to be the primary form of Christian community”. Even though LETU is an institution of higher education, we aim all of our curriculum towards the end of “equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4.12). But it is important to underscore that by this we do not mean that we only train people for professional ministry. Rather, we encourage and prepare students from a variety of majors (STEM, humanities, and professional degrees) to embrace the way in which their faith shapes and animates every aspect of their lives, and how all of their gifts, talents, competencies, and privileges can and should be leveraged ...

I am working on a grant for the School of Theology and Vocation at LeTourneau University. The grant application asks the following questions: What are the challenges congregations today? What are the most pressing cultural and social shifts affecting congregations?  Here is my first crack at a response: Through our Lilly-supported Passage Institute for Youth and Theology , and via our engagement with a variety of undergraduate students (from the STEM disciplines, the humanities, and professional degrees programs) at LETU, we have a unique and revealing window into the life of churches within our network of influence. Additionally, over the past five years, the teaching and research that has been done through the School of Theology and Vocation (SoTV) has provided a platform in which we have been able to host on our campus enrichment events, colloquiums, semester-long seminars, theology camps, and round table discussions that have given us the opportunity to engage face-to-face with...

Wilderness Christianity, Part 2: Hebrews In this series we are exploring the way in which New Testament authors draw on the wilderness tradition in order to shape Christian identity and mission.  In part 1, we looked at the way in which 1 Peter characterizes Jesus as the Passover lamb who has actualized a new or second exodus in which believers have been ransomed (liberated) from the futile ways of life handed to them by their forefathers and now learn a new culture or way of life as they are gathered to participate in Jesus' faithfulness while enduring hardship, suffering, and alienation by their compeers. Peter encourages his readers to think of themselves as "elect sojourners" (1.1), a privileged people with a calling (that is a recapitulation of the wilderness calling of Exodus 19.4-6 [1 Pet 2.4-10]) to represent God in the midst of a hostile and idolatrous world; a people  whose allegiance to the Christ is being tested in a variety of ways as they journey towar...

One of the more interesting, and often neglected, themes in the New Testament is that of the wilderness. For a number of New Testament authors, they look to the wilderness as a helpful way of understanding what Jesus has accomplished and as a way of fomenting Christian identity and mission. To be clear, the wilderness these New Testament authors have in mind is Israel's sojourn out of slavery from Egypt and towards their inheritance, the Promised Land. This journey is cataloged in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and remembered in a variety of Psalms (e.g. 95, 105, 106). But it is important to note that in the Old Testament itself the Exodus story becomes the paradigm for a future restoration that will impact not only Israel but also the entire world. In a variety of ways, Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, and Zechariah speak of a day in which God will again redeem His people from exile and slavery and fulfill His co...