I was at the British New Testament Society conference this week, held at the magnificent St Patrick’s Pontifical University, Maynooth, in Ireland. This is the paper that I presented in the Divine Christology in Paul’s Letters session. It is a slightly updated summary of my argument in In the Form of a God: The Pre-existence of the Exalted Christ in Paul. I have not included footnotes. Providentially, Crispin Fletcher-Louis, author of The Divine Heartset: Paul’s Philippians Christ Hymn, Metaphysical Affections, and Civic Virtues, was the other presenter. We agreed on some things. We disagreed on a lot more.
I suspect that “fake news” is a piece of trashy political sloganeering that will blow away when the wind next changes direction. But the larger picture is troubling: digital technologies, in different ways, on different levels, are undermining our sense of what is real. Katherine Viner wrote in the… ()
I think that something quite straightforward is going on when Paul writes that Jesus was en morphē theou—literally, “in form of god” (Phil. 2:6). English translations usually render this “in the form of God” or perhaps something like “in the nature of God.” But if there’s one thing that… ( | 2 comments)
In the Christian West, in the pre-modern world, the parish church met the religious needs of people living in the parish. It was necessitated by and sustained by a culture that had been in place, in one form or another, since the conversion of the Roman Empire under Constantine and his… ()
The relationship between Jesus and Paul is much disputed. You will often hear people say that Paul turned the generous, kind, and progressive religion of Jesus into a monstrous theological and ecclesiastical system from which we are still recovering. Or that Jesus died for our sins and Paul told… ( | 6 comments)
A narrative-historical approach brings into view the large-scale, national and civilisational events and processes that frame “theological” reflection. What it comes down to is that we cannot properly understand Jesus without taking into account the foreseen war against Rome, or understand the… ()
The standard evangelical response to the climate crisis is that the church should preach and practice creation care as a witness to the good news about Jesus. ()
We screened the People’s Emergency Briefing film in the week before this message, so the climate crisis loomed menacingly. In the film, Jennifer Saunders of Absolutely Fabulous fame asks a good question: “What’s the matter with us?” What is the matter with us as a civilisation? ()
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