This is a curated archive of my writings from this blog (name explained here) and from a blog called Theology Out of Bounds (which I shared with some office mates in 'College Bounds' at Aberdeen). These posts span many years, changes, and places, and so should carry the caveat that they were thoughts (and sometimes works) in progress rather than the articulations of life-held positions.
2020-21
Luxury's The Latest and the Greatest: A Tribute to a Neglected Rock Album
Responding to misconstruals of Ambrose University (with comments on systemic racism)
2016-19
Kuyper on Gender: Case Closed?
Barth on Gender: A Thought Experiment
What Became of Preaching? (asks a preacher 50 years ago)
How Good Writing Raises Empathy (not snobbery)
A Conversation Waiting to Happen (by O'Donovan)
Kierkegaard: A Single Life (by Backhouse)
Bonhoeffer on Truth-Speaking
2015
Bonhoeffer on Freedom and Responsibility
A Review of 'Your Fathers, Where Are They?' by Dave Eggers
How Great (and how Fearsome?) Thou Art
Grandma Lois
An Open Question to City Council (about chalk)
On the Church and Planned Parenthood
2014
If a Woman Aspires to be an Elder, Does She Desire a Noble Task?
Scot McKnight's A Community Called Atonement
Karl Barth on Gender Relations
Transfiguration, Second-hand
Appreciating the Book of Common Prayer
- Te Deum Laudamus
- Building from rather than dismissing it
Ehud and the Book of Judges [sermon excerpt]
- Deborah's Song
- Gideon Settles
- Samson the Superman
From Gilead: The Strangest Thing About Being in the Ministry
- The Worst Form of Forgiveness
- Forgiven is Half the Gift
- Don't Look for Proofs
- Against Defensiveness in Principle
- On Prophets and Pharisees
- Confusion Where Theology is Concerned
The Shooting in Ottawa: Discerning Motives, Meanings, & Responses
- 'In the global village, fire can jump from roof to roof'
Vonnegut, on Writing
- The Unicorn Trap
2013
Preacher as Pastor: Shepherding the Community in the Word
What Jonah Shows the Church (from Barth)
Readings in J.K. Carter's "Race: A Theological Account": Prelude
- Cornel West
- Michel Foucault
- Immanuel Kant
- Albert Raboteau
- James Cone
- Charles Long
- Interlude
- Briton Hammon
- Frederick Douglass
- Jarena Lee
- Postlude
[Updated] History of the C&MA in Canada and Women in Leadership
Only Speakers Can Quiet Down: Re-reading 1 Corinthians 14:33-35
2012
The Table (a short poem)
The Giver is Given Up: Jesus' Death in Matthew [part1] [part 2]
"The Bible is an important part of"
Robert's Rules of Order: Meet Political Worship
A History of Gender Roles in Canada's C&MA
On Gender Roles: Who are the Daughters of Zelophehad Today?
- Tinker, Tailor, Complementarian, Egalitarian: Looking at our Labels Again
- Why IS the Gospel Coalition Complementarian?
- Karl Barth on Gender Roles in the Church
2011
Don't be so Cross-Centred That Your Lord is Dead (from Barth)
Complicity and Change (Barth on responsibility)
On Unity: for Rachel Held Evans' online "rally to restore unity"
K'naan's Take a Minute (An Easter Reflection)
"On the mount of the Lord it will be provided" (Sufjan Stevens' Abraham)
Apocalypse Now: Sufjan Stevens' John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
Rob Bell, Love Wins, and Karl Barth
- What wins in your Doctrine of Election?
- Look at Lotso: What might the likes of Martin Bashir learn from Toy Story 3?
- Karl Barth on God's Judgment
- Re-examining the C&MA Statement on Hell I, II, III, IV, V, VI
Willie James Jennings' Social Imagination
- Multi-culture and the Christian Imagination
- Leadership: Always the Host and never the Hosted?
- Questions about Franklin Graham
- Church in World: Jennings and the Christian Social Imagination
Niche Churches & Prefab Cultures (why Driscoll's right but has got it all wrong)
The Resurrection of Pastoral Ministry
Solzhenitsyn's Speech and our Fragmented Stories
How to Treat People Like Tax Collectors
To Learn to Love Your Neighbours must You Learn to Love Yourself?
Chrysostom on Submission in Marriage
Future Men vs. Fathers and Sons: Further thoughts on gender typology
The Genesis of Forgiveness I, II, III, IV
2010
The Sins of Memory and Forgiveness
The Grace to Say "Our Father in Heaven"
We are no Longer Citizens We are Consumers
Honouring Veterans with a War on War
Taking Sin Seriously by not Taking it that Seriously (from David Kelsey)
On Karl Barth & No Country for Old Men (KBBC essay)
At the Neighbourhood Mosque
Everyone's A Theologian I, II, III
Back to The Shack
A Punch in the Face
2009
A Brief History of Christian Forgiveness, part 1 and 2
The Walk (a short poem)
- More Walk, More Talk
- Guilt
Into the Ivory Tower
Dead Poets and the Power of Persuasion
Bad Words II: 'No Crying He Makes'
Evasive Manoeuvres and Propaganda do not an Alliance Make
Out of the Comfortable Quiver
A Little Church Satire
2008
On Pastoral Leadership Today (in Ministry Magazine)
Feats of Flight and the Tower of Babel
TF Torrance on the Locus of Church Unity
The Night Here Comes Again (after newborn twins)
Birth Day (a tribute to my mom)
General (Dis)Assembly: intro, part 1, 2a, 2b, 2c, and 3
Slavoj Žižek and Infinite Justice
The Prince of Peace Smokes a Peace Pipe
The Apology (by our Prime Minister)
Unity in What?
The Rain (a poem)
Of Disproportionate Importance (a random list)
Snow on the Dome at St Paul's Cathedral
An Approach to Biblical Hermeneutics
Excessive Epistemology Becomes Cognitive Cannibalism (from L.T. Johnson)
The Epistemological Side of Faith in the Crucified
Valedictory Address (at Briercrest Seminary)
2007
Facing the Complexity of Justice and Evil (a book review)
Church Re-formation? (part 1), part 2
You Gotta Love the Church
Lament of an Evangelical (a poem from seminary chapel)
Life in the Mess (a class)
Bergman and Chesterton: Struggling to Express the Unthinkable
The Travesty of Blanket Forgiveness
The Alienating Strategies of the Seeker Sensitive Movement
The Leadership Summit's Inordinate Triumphalism
Common Interests and Community
What Did I Miss? (the Lord's Supper)
This Side of Sunday
The Dozen Worst Movies I've Ever Seen
Communion and Consensus (from Sidney Lumet)
2005-06
I've Solved the Worship Problem (some sarcasm)
What Happened at Bethlehem?
Position Paper on Women in Leadership
Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul: A Review
Shake Hands With the Devil: A Review
Blood is Hard to Ignore (on communion)