The Threshing Floor

The Threshing Floor: A New Name. A Tighter Focus

The kerygma of Jesus often uses parables about ancient agriculture: the sower, the mustard seed,and separating the wheat from the chaff. The threshing floor is where ancient farmers used sticks to beat the stalks of grain to separate the wheat, the good stuff, from the chaff, which they threw into the fire because it was useless.

In reviewing my posts it dawned on me last night that what I have been doing all these months is beating Christian orthodoxy with a the stick of critical analysis to try and separate the wheat, the true kerygma of Jesus, from the chaff of the historical accretions and distortions we know as Christian orthodoxy. In other words, this blog has served at times as a theological threshing floor.

Given that I am returning, after nearly twenty-five-year hiatus, to my doctoral studies in theology, the logical thing for me to do with my blogs is to focus on beating the wheat from the chaff here, and using my other blog for less esoteric topics, like my ramblings on politics. Read more…

Due to some technical issues related to the switch to a laptop, my research and writing is proceeding at a much slower pace than I would like. These technical issues should be resolved when I get  my new no-line bifocals in about two weeks and as I get more comfortable with the keyboard layout on this laptop, which is different from what I am used to.

Another reason for the delay is that we are still in recovery mode from tbe jce storm tbat roared through here last week. I have had insura ce adjusters, tree cutters, roofers and tutility repair people bere almost every day this week. The most pressing repairs, like my roof, are done now, so things should quiet down.

Again, my apologies for the de,ays jn gettim\ng back into the groove. Hopefully, thkngs will improve over the next couple of weeks. Peace!

We live in north central Arkansas and so we got hit by “an ice storn of historic proportions,” as a local official called it. I call it The Great Ice Storm of 2009.

We were without power for two days, without phone service or Internet for five days. We had a tree fall on our house, another one on our deck, a couple fall leaning against the house,and many others all over our yard. A real mess.

We are in the process of recovering. In many ways, as bad as our situation was, we are better off than many others in the area, some of whom may be without power for weeks. None of us were injured. There are many who cannot say that.

I will be returning to my research and writing tomorrow or Monday, so there should be a new post in a few days. Until then, peace and the blessings of the light on you all.

Today begin our discussion of Paul’s theology of Christian liberty or freedom as initially presented in the second chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Today’s discussion will also provide some insights into Paul’s relationship with the other Apostles and especially with Peter. This will shed some powerful light on the social dynamics of the early church.

In the first ten verses of Chapter 2, Paul offers a summary of the First Council of Jerusalem, which, according to Paul, occurred fourteen years after his conversion. The generally accepted date for the council is circa 50 CE. That would date Paul’s conversion to about 36 CE, no more than a few years following the Crucifixion. One of the problems with reading the Acts of the Apostles is that the timeframe for the events in Acts often comes across as much more compressed than it really was. It would appear from what Paul says in Chapter 2 of Galatians that he was actively preaching his gospel for quite some time before he felt the need to “submit” to the “pillars” of the church in Jerusalem.

Another thing to note both here in Chapter 2 as well as in other letters of Paul is his repeated use of personal revelation as support for his claims of authority for himself and for his version of the gospel. Divine revelation is a form of private, “secret” discourse with God and/or Jesus Christ. Is Paul claiming to having received knowledge from Jesus that Jesus did not share with the Apostles in Jerusalem? It certainly appears so. Was Paul then the first Christian Gnostic? We shall see,

Read more…

It has been awhile since my last post here. Between the holidays and some health concerns (a bout of bronchitis and a colonoscopy), I’e not really had the time or energy to do much research or writing. Hopefully all that is water under the bridge and I can get back to doing this blog once again.

My first priority here will be to return to the discussion of the earliest doctrinal issues faced by the first and second century Christian communities. These issues center around the concept of Christian freedom as defined by Paul in his Letter to the Galatians. inextricably intertwined with this issue are the issues of law and grace as well as the battle for authority in the Christian communities. The strong claims by Paul, and the so-called Gnostics who came after him in the Gentile Christian communities, for the charismatic mantle of Jesus versus the developing church bureaucracy supported beginning in the fourth century by the power of Roman law and military might.

Also, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the First War with Rome, which resulted in the deaths or dispersion of many of the Jewish Christian leaders, including most of the original disciples of Jesus. had an incredibly profound effect on the development of Christian doctrine and the development of Christian authority structures. With the dispersion of what scholars refer to as Jewish Christians to places like Ethiopia, the Greek and Latin Christian communities more and more became the dominant forces in the doctrinal and power struggles. Read more…

I hope you all had a good Christmas. Mine was totally awesome. Although there weren’t as many presents for the kids as we would have liked, my wife and I, with help from our daughter, were able to put together something very close to an old-fashioned traditional Central European Christmas celelbraion, much like the ones I remember my parents putting together for my siblibgs and me when we were little.

Christmas is over now and we are heading for the new year almost precipitously. It’s like we cannot wait for it to get here. The old year has been one of the roughest one I can remember going back a long time. There were a few years back when I was growing up when things for my familywere as rough as they are for us now, but I cannot recall the global ecobony bing this bad at any point in my lifetime.

The beginning of a new year is always a time of hope and this new year seems more full of hope and expectation than any in a long time. I suspect the election of Barack Obama has a lot to do with the aura of hope and expectation, probably much like the election of FDR did in 1933. There are a lot of parallels between 1933 and 2009, the most obvious being the ecnomic crises that domniated both years and the hope that people felt about the new national leadeship. FDR did much to fulfill the hopes and expectations of the American people in 1933. Let’s hope that Obama can do as well. Read more…