ken wilson online

Been uneasy about hell for years now. But something coming clear. Softening or weakening the teaching on hell isn’t the long term answer. It’s completely understandable that it’s happening as it’s a response to a real abuse of the teaching (often terrifying the very people God means to comfort and comforting the very people God means to terrify.) But the fact is, Jesus is the figure in the Bible most closely associated with hell. Before he hits the scene, it’s the foggiest, the murkiest thing. But that’s the key. Jesus alone can be trusted with this. The teaching on hell is something we’ve abstracted; that is, taken out of context, removed from it’s intensely personal connection with Jesus. We’ve plucked it up like a piece of fruit and put it in our 12 point statements of faith, where it’s been separated from his voice; and there, it’s rotted. Jesus spoke on hell through angry tears. He spoke in the context, always I think, of defending the poor and oppressed, warning their oppressors of hell. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m off to our MLK day world cafe at church, then a blues concert at the Ark in A2 this evening. So I’ve got MLK on my mind today. Great op-ed piece in the NYT this morning with a wonderful quote from the man himself: “So this morning as I look into your eyes and into the eyes of all my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world I say to you: ‘I love you. I would rather die than kill you.’The love of enemies is the pressing concern of the Spirit, the challenge, the demand of the Spirit to the church in the 21st Century. We’ll be judged on this one, so I’m thinking we better bore down into it. Read the rest of this entry »

Katie, from Hile Design is working up a masthead for this here blog.  When she asked me if I had any design ideas, I mentioned Wilson the volley ball in my favorite movie, Cast Away. Katie chuckled until she discerned that I was serious at which point her countenance clouded.  Here’s the thing: Wilson is the best supporting actor in that movie, maybe one of the best supporting actors in all of film.  Tell me you weren’t sad when Hanks lost him out on the raft when he was leaving the island.  After the movie was over, I felt enormous pride in my last name.  I came very close to standing up in the theater to say, “I am Wilson!”  Of course, you never know how close you really are to doing something until you’ve done it.  Then you know you were close.  I think I was close, though.  What is it about Wilson in that movie?  He’s the guy who helps Hanks start the fire, remember?  He’s the guy who kept Hanks human, as a matter of fact.  ”I am because you are.”  African proverb.