salvation is fundamentally connected to what we do in this life, not just what we believe.

kairos, or an opportunity for grace and conversion,

The foundation laid in Genesis doesn’t crumble at the end of Revelation. It’s restored as the promise of paradise is made real once more.

The church has inflicted far too much pain on people by not making space for their questions and doubt.

when Jesus ascended into heaven, leaving his disciples behind with the great commission to go and make disciples of all the nations on earth, some still doubted. But Jesus didn’t excommunicate them. He gave them the same authority as the rest of the disciples to be his agents of grace in the world (Matthew 28:16-20).

If nothing else, the story of the church is the story of people who struggle to remember the love that gave birth to our faith. And in our forgetfulness we replace that love with dogmatism, legalism, and oppression.

American Christianity has come to be defined by who and what it’s against, by legalism and dogmatism that draws lines in the sand and turns unbelievers into enemies.

the fundamental problem with the rapture and the end-times theology that goes with it: it creates a way of life that stands in stark juxtaposition to the way of Jesus.

the fundamental problem with the rapture: it calls us to escape, while Jesus calls us to incarnation. The rapture calls us to look only at ourselves, while Jesus calls us to die to self and live our lives for others. For all the rapture’s focus on going off to heaven to live with Jesus forever, the life it calls us to lead in the here and now is,