Recent content by breepf

I enjoyed James Acaster's three-part Repertoire specials on Netflix, which are quite involved set pieces. At the other end of the spectrum, I've never seen an Anthony Jeselnick special that I didn't love, and he's 100% a setup-punchline comedian.

When it's all said and done, I do not disagree with the upshot of what you're arguing. But as long as the conversation is academic, I think the details are important. To wit, I edited the previous post to make a point about the "cult" charge vis-a-vis Christianity. And, I'd add, I think John...

I agree with this skepticism, but I also think it misunderstands details about Christianity and, judging from another one of your posts, ancient religion. Three things come to mind. First, I don't think it's the consensus that the gospels exclusively come from oral tradition. That conclusion...

Yes, Jews killed Jesus and, more subtly, the various moves in various gospels to suggest that God had already turned his back on the obstinate Jews. In short, the gospels scapegoat to the extent that they are theodicies and, as such, the task is to explain why the promised new creation has yet...

I can't speak with as much experience on Orthodox or Conservative Jewish communities. But, yes, the 19th c. Reform movement did broadly "protestantize" Judaism to create a three-pronged "faith": land, people, book. That being said, most Reform Judaism synagogues would more closely resemble those...

I do not agree on this point or, perhaps put another way, I do not agree that the gospels are above their own form of scapegoating. After all, the gospels are already working out why non-Christian Jews (a combination of terms that makes perfect sense in the first century) are a problem.

Thanks for this. I've got two thoughts, neither of which is particularly insightful. First, this talk of scapegoating obviously makes me think of Rene Girard, and so it's interesting to see these ideas take a, let us say, leftward religious turn. For another such turn, I went to my bookshelves...

Thanks for sharing these. Just glancing at his wikipedia page, am I crazy or does his theory of atonement seems to edge towards Christus Victor? Rohr instead states that "I believe that Jesus' death on the cross is a revelation of the infinite and participatory love of God, not some bloody...

Atonement as moral influence!

I'm unfamiliar with Rohr. Do you have a recommended book or anything?

FWIW, and as far as I can tell, this is a (pleasantly liberal) take on penal substitionary atonement, the prevailing (modern and Protestant) theory of atonement. While I think it's come under some criticism lately, you might check of Gustaf Aulen's book Christus Victor, which is the (short and)...

Except that the idea of "faith alone" misrepresents Paul too. Anyways, my real point of inquiry was that faith as a starting premise is a problem mostly for Christians and much less so for Jews, and much much less so for anybody following any other religion.

What's crazy--but perfectly sensible from a Calvinist perspective--is that the answer is 'no.' Election is unconditional and atonement is limited--Christ only died for the people whom God had already chosen to save.

Just curious about the metaphor that you're employing here. Can you elaborate on the mechanism(s) whereby you owe a debt (which the word "price" suggests to me) and/or whereby Jesus's death repays that debt?

Honestly, I think this is a train of thought that owes much to liberal postmillenialism in the early 20th century, which is to say, to the continued ability to discern the workings of "sin" or the presence of "hell" in the world and to then subsequently argue that there's a Christian moral...