DET

I’m wearing red suspenders and a red tie, and many of you are wearing red as well. And some of you may be wondering, Why? Because today is the day that we as a Church remember and celebrate Pentecost, the day in history when the Holy Spirit descended as if flames of fire on the heads of the disciples in Jerusalem, after Jesus had ascended to heaven. The full story of all what happened on that day can be found in Acts 2:1-13. We wear red to symbolize the fire of the Holy Spirit. Fire burns. Fire purifies. Fire transforms. Fire ignites. No, I’m not a pyromaniac. I’ve just been set on fire by the power of the Holy Spirit. I want you to imagine that you are one of those disciples of Jesus long, long ago who had walked on this earth alongside our Lord. We are living between Ascension and Pentecost. Imagine all that you had gone through up to this point, all that you had experienced, seen, heard, and lived. Glance at the dusty and sweaty hungry crowds he spoke too on the mountains and the ...

…or, Something to keep you busy over the weekend… …or, The Past Fortnight in the Theoblogosphere. Well, it’s been a little over a month since the last link post . As you can imagine, I’ve got lots of goodies to share with you, both from DET and from elsewhere. However, the most important things that I have to share is a bit of news: DET will go on its summer hiatus effective immediately and lasting through Labor Day. Your friendly, neighborhood DET authors will be busy over the summer generating the gripping posts on theological, biblical, historical, ethical, and political topics that you’ve come to expect from us. So stay tuned for more come September. In the meantime, I would encourage you to explore the DET archives. We’ve got over 10 years’ worth of posts in there for your enjoyment, so use the archive navigation tabs on the left side bar to poke around. Or make use of the tabs at the top of the home page: About DET ; About the Authors ; Book Reviews ; Serials Index (my...

The Deserter by Boardman Robinson (1916). (PD-1923, via Wikimedia Commons) Reading some of the sermons Barth delivered in Safenwil, Switzerland, in 1914 yields a few tantalizing surprises. I found some of these in his homily from October 18, an almost uncanny meditation on the principalities and powers. A Unique Time of God: Karl Barth’s WWI Sermons , Trans. & Ed. B y William Klempa (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2016). Barth's sermon text was Romans 8:38-39, the culmination of one of the most profound and perhaps one of the most perplexing passages in the New Testament. Having pondered the groans of a creation eagerly awaiting liberation from the bondage of death, Paul writes: I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. In wrestling with this pass...