Losing the Plot spectrummagazine.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spectrummagazine.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Other Brother
July 22, 2021
The parables of Jesus are interesting and complex. There was a time when people believed that parables were complete allegories, and every detail of the parable had a corresponding truth in the real world. For example, I always get a nerdy kick out of reading Augustine’s analysis of The Good Samaritan. Throughout the ages theologians have hypothesized about the best way to interpret parables. For a while we thought that parables had to have one central idea that was the main theme of the parable. But what we have come to realize is that parables have multiple layers of meaning and can be viewed from many different perspectives.
Naaman and Presumptive Judgment spectrummagazine.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from spectrummagazine.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Take a Break
May 27, 2021
Almost two decades ago I was a young lawyer who traveled the country giving seminars on religious liberty in Adventist churches. Often in those seminars we talked about the major LGBTQ+ issue of that day, same-sex marriage. Supporting the secular legal right for people of the same sex to marry usually shocked the audience and led to a flood of questions and commentary. During one such question and answer session, a lady flippantly said, “Well we don’t want to support them too much. It’s not like we want to march in a Pride parade.” Quickly I shot back “Why not?” Stunned, she didn’t have a ready answer. More interestingly, no one else seemed to have one either.
Tyler Burns, president of the Witness, speaks at the Q 2021 Culture Summit on April 22, 2021. | Q Conference
Tyler Burns, president of the Witness, identified lessons the Church can learn from the African American legacy and experience and shared how there is âpowerâ to be found in the seeming paradox of being âfully black and fully Christian.âÂ
During a message titled âThe Gift of the Black Christian Experience,â Burns told those gathered at the Q 2021 Culture Summit on April 22 that at the age of 19, he was forced to confront the seemingly contradictory condition of being black and Christian.Â
âI was born black, grew up black in a black family, and was introduced to Jesus at an early age, but sometimes in the life of black Christians, we must confront this reality that . a black Christian and a black non-Christian will live in the same world and face the same exploitation. Being fully black and being fully Christian sometimes feels like