07 Oct 2024

Life After Life After Death

In what at least one person has referred to as, quote, “the best movie scene I’ve ever watched,” in this part of Avengers: Endgame, we see the Avengers assembling for their final battle. On its own, that would be cool enough. But this scene is especially poignant because many of those gathering having just been resurrected from the dead.  Five years before this moment in the MCU, half of the universe was snapped from existence.

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30 Sep 2024

The (Actual) Good Place

In this scene from The Good Place, the gang arrives at the Good Place and finds that it’s even better than they imagined it would be. Flying puppies, the energy you had when you were twelve, and the joy of meeting people you’ve always wanted to meet—I mean, who doesn’t want to end up in a place like that? But what’s the Good Place actually like?  Is it like this? Or is it different somehow?

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19 Jan 2022

The Return of the King (Part 6)

This post is the conclusion to a series exploring God’s Story: God’s Story (Part 1) | Another One Bites the Dust (Part 2) | The Long Pause (Part 3) | It Is Time (Part 4) | The Already and Not Yet (Part 5) The image above is a fresco from Etrurio, Italy. Painted during the Renaissance and later covered up, this tremendous piece of art was discovered at a winery and restored only a few

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15 Dec 2021

The Already and the Not Yet (Part 5)

This post is part of a series exploring God’s Story: God’s Story (Part 1) | Another One Bites the Dust (Part 2) | The Long Pause (Part 3) | It Is Time (Part 4) In 1883, architect Antoni Gaudi began work on a building project in Barcelona, Spain. His task: to build a cathedral called the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi dedicated his life to the project, but by the time he died in 1926, the church

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10 Mar 2021

A Place of Hope and Healing (Part 2)

Additional Reflections on the Church as Hospital In Part One, I introduced the concept of the Church as a hospital and argued that the church should be a place of healing and hope. In this article, I want to further explore the metaphor of the Church as hospital by looking at what hospitals and churches are. Places of Care First, hospitals are places of care. Hospitals are places where you get taken care of, where

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07 Jan 2019

Exile and Restoration

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined.” Isa 9:2 NRSV The prophet Isaiah lived at an unusual point in the history of the Israelite people. His prophetic ministry overlapped the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 722 BCE and their subsequent siege of Jerusalem in the days of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 19). The beginning chapters of the book

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31 Jan 2017

The Bible in Thirty Chapters

What If… The Bible is a pretty large book. Although we might not immediately think of it as such, how many other 2,128-page1 books do you have laying around your home? Or which reader has four different versions of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare on their bookshelf? The Bible is unique, not only for its contents, but also for its construction and history. Though rightly regarded as the most important book you could ever

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