Kevin's Theogrimage

An Introduction I had began a series on the question "is there one way to God?" and this post has been long overdue. It is a second part following up on  Part 1 .   In the first part, I had given the cultural context that the dilemma in asking this question finds itself in. In summary, our postmodern context seems to reduce the fundamentals of a given worldview and strongly appeals to emotion. That is why it is commonplace in our culture to say things like "you only live once" or in dissecting moral issues, "what's right for you may be wrong for me." It is such responses that form the basis of a relativistic view on reality and life. In this post we shall analyze such a worldview and see how it is at odds with understanding the biblical message. Aren't you being too exclusive? We are living in a world and continent that is globalizing. Despite the fact that there are some nuances towards the perspectives and applications of...

Painting a Picture of Society The story of Bruce Jenner has got a lot of us talking. In my opinion, it paints a picture of a popular culture that is self-absorbed and flirting with a promise of freedom that cannot deliver. In fact it has never delivered. Popular culture's narcissism to try and fix herself has brought other complications that her proponents had never thought about. The sexual revolution of past decades brought in other issues with which some remain oblivious of while others try to cure (STI's, teen pregnancy, emotional consequences etc). In an  article   in Psychology Today  " The architects of the Sexual Revolution intended to unleash the evolutionary energies of sex and love in service of human liberation. Instead, attempts at sexual revolution have been repeatedly sidetracked, hijacked, and eventually derailed by a combination of greed, lust, and immaturity. " When we speak of these issues of sex, freedom, conservatism and liberty, many tim...

Friend or Foe? It is often said that the experiences we go through give us a lens with which to view and interpret our reality in the world. In my case, especially after the death of my brother, I have been thinking more frequently about death and life and their mystery. In line with this, I was led to an essay by Esther Acolatse, professor of pastoral theology at Duke Divinity School. Her central idea is that  death strikes both as a familiar friend and a dreaded foe, hence creating ambivalent feelings in us . [1]   In her thinking through this ambivalence, she provides a framework for understanding this mystery of death and to anchor it on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I have always thought of death, for a long time, to be both a natural process as well as a negative result of man's participation in his choice of separation from His creator God at the genesis of creation. The verse that Acolatse alludes in this thinking is Genesis 2:17 " but you mus...

My day-to-day in the past weeks has been  a series of emotional highs and lows. In this reflection I will focus on the lows : darkness, despair and despond. While reading a blog post from John Piper's Desiring God's website, the post  Worship in the Dark  drew me to the words in Psalm 88. In many ways, this psalm has brought to my heart and mind some of the emotional agony that the loss of my brother has resulted in. The lows of this emotional roller-coaster are different many times but based on the reaffirmed reality of life on earth: That our experiences here on earth will be colored by troubles. This is the same reminder that Jesus gives his disciples in John 16:33 prior to his taking up his greatest obstacle but our greatest pathway to a ransomed life, that is the Cross. The Agony of Loss based on Embodied Reality In such moments as have been the past weeks, these trials have been real. The agony of never seeing one whom you have more than been acquainted with...

Life as a Christian sometimes feels as an eclectic warring between good and evil; between "I have it figured out" and sometimes "I do not know what on earth I'm doing." It plays itself out in the individual's life as sometimes a vocal assault on the imperfections of human beings and sometimes a quiet acceptance of dealing with the same. It imprints itself to the beauty of a life that is counter-cultural and some other times a participation of the cultural delights and pleasures. It is easy in light of this for the Christian to feel as if he is on the straight ticket to hell, while at other times, that Heaven is a reality on earth. And both point towards very crucial existential realities. These contradictions of the Christian life indicate the reality of the phrases "the kingdom has come" and "the Kingdom will come" It is really a reality that is real. On one hand a life that is consumed by the life that Jesus Christ gives allud...

1. Introduction What is the kind of   anthropology that is beneficial for the global man today? The 21 st Century African man is faced with a variety of influences that inform his humanity and his interpretation of the world and God. The 21 st Century African man finds himself in a metropolis, where no singular and objective foundation of meaning is accorded to him. The African Scholar J. N. K. Mugambi observes “the greatest evidences of anarchical tendencies is in the urban centres – which, sociologically and universally, are associated with individual freedom from, anonymity, mobility, opportunity, flexibility and plurality.” [1] Mugambi observes that other scholars see this plurality of phenomenon as a success. Yet, a quick observation of the daily news articles paints a different picture: Religious wars, political and social anarchy, economic and health deprivation, capitalism, broken relationships and death. How then is man to find meaning in this cacophony of human e...