Queen of the Sciences

SO MANY PROBLEMS when you try to think about the resurrection of the dead... one of the reasons it is abandoned as much by naive faith and scientific sophistication. Should we take such a challenge lying down? No, we shall not! In this episode, Dad and I rise to the occasion (see what I did there?) to think through, with the guidance of the gospel, what it even means to say that Jesus rose from the dead or that we too shall rise, what it doesn't mean, and why it would even be good news.

We're in our EIGHTH year!
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The Sermon on the Mount will make its once-every-three-years appearance in the lectionary starting in late January, so here is a re-release of Sarah's poetic paraphrase thereof. For downloads and print purchases of Sermon on the Mount: A Poetic Paraphrase visit Thornbush Press.

After a three-year interim, Dad and I finally return to Reinhold Niebuhr's magisterial work, The Nature and Destiny of Man, first delivered as the Gifford Lectures in 1939, then revised and published in 1943. In this episode on vol. 2, we discuss what Dad cribbed from Niebuhr upon his first reading this book 55 years ago (!), the question of metanarratives and what we can (and can't) know about history, why the atonement is necessary, and of course, Sarah's favorite topic, the Parousia of Christ. This year of podcasting ends not with a whimper, but a bang!

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Notes:

1. Related episodes: Niebuhr on the Nature of Man, Resurrection according to Macrina and Nyssa, Before Auschwitz, Doctrine to Bible (and Back Again), Cybertech and Personhood, Propaganda, The Image of God

2. Antti Raunio, "Martin Luther and Love"

3. Need more on communism? Try this very digestible approach in Sarah's memoir, I Am a Brave Bridge, about the Hinlicky family's year in Slovakia just after the fall of the iron curtain

4. Need more on the Parousia? Sarah's Forty Facets of the Ascension is now out on all platforms! And, guess what, lots on the Parousia in her Seven Ways of Looking at the Transfiguration, too!

This oft-overlooked little epistle of the New Testament is very likely the first extant work of Christian literature—characterized by the apostle Paul's intense pastoral love for his congregation in Thessalonica and comforting hope in the return on the clouds of the Lord Jesus. In this episode Dad and I dig into both these themes, the abundance of family language (some of it startling, to say the least!), explore non-creepy ways to affirm the Parousia, and note early themes of Paul that will stay the course as well as undergo development on the way to his late Epistles.

We're in our SEVENTH year!
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Notes:

1. Sarah's book Forty Facets of the Ascension is available now!

2. Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians

3. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care

4. Related episodes: Apostleship Envy, Triple Predestination, Galatians 1, Galatians 2, Philemon, Romans

There is plenty puzzling about the doctrine of the resurrection, no matter which way you slice it. But it's extra puzzling if you prioritize the immortality of the soul over the resurrection of the body, and if you prioritize the resurrection of the body over the resurrection of the dead. In this episode Dad and I warmly invite Cappadocian father Gregory of Nyssa and his accomplished sister Macrina the Teacher to show us all the good impulses toward a doctrine of the resurrection, along with all the bad ways to defend it. Sometimes theology is best helped by bold mistakes!

We're in our SEVENTH year!
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1. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection

2. You can pre-order my book, Forty Facets of the Ascension!

3. Related episodes: Gregory of Nazianzus, Perpetua and Felicitas, Heaven Hell and the Life to Come, The Resurrection