Barnabas File

Although I say that I am not a theologian, my seminary professor friends persist in saying, “Every believer is a theologian.”  From their perspective, whenever you ask a question that involves faith, your relationship to God, or God’s relationship to the world, you are doing theology. When my twelve-year-old granddaughter brings up the violence in the television miniseries “The Bible” and I ask her, “How do you handle that?,” I am asking a theological question.  Why does God not only allow violence but, according to the Hebrew Bible, condone it? We ask theological questions all the time. First, we ask these questions in the midst of life.  When we encounter pain, death, and violence, we try to make sense of it all and, as religious people, practice this sense-making in the context of our Christian commitment. Second, we often ask these questions when we experience personal relationships that confuse or hurt us.  When trust is broken, commitment i...

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”-- John 16:33,NIV Earlier this month I attended a Mental Health Conference which featured a presentation by Timothy Jennings, a psychiatrist who studies the influence of various factors—diet, exercise, stress--on depression.   A lot of what he said was way over my head, but these two statements got my attention: “Religion based on fear damages the brain.   Religion based on love is healing to the brain.” Now I certainly cannot follow all the research that led Jennings to that conclusion, but as a Christian believer, his findings make sense to me.   This got to thinking how our view of God impacts our thinking, our mental health, and our subsequent actions. Kim Davis, the county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, has stated that issuing marriages licenses to gay couples is a violation of God’s authority and her consc...

 According to an Associated Press story , Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal has apologized for an e-mail he sent earlier this month where he quoted Psalm 109:8 in reference to President Obama:  “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.” The next verse (which he did not quote) says, “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” O’Neal apologized last week, saying he did not intend to offend anyone. He said the Bible verse was meant to call for Obama to be defeated in the upcoming election. His response included this statement: “I understand the debate over the verse interpretation, about which I have explained and for which I have repeatedly apologized to the extent anyone misconstrued my intent or was otherwise offended.” Speaker O’Neal has adopted what has become the response when one commits an error.  Basically the speaker is saying, “If you were offended by what I said, I am sorry that you interpreted what I said in such a way...