A Father and Son Discuss Faith and Science (and Nirvana…the band) 
This episode of Lumberjack Theology has a conversation between Christian Lief and his Dad on faith, evolution, and rock music.
Jason LiefApril 22, 2019
Maybe God Doesn’t Take Sides: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector 
Reading the parables of Jesus with Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine (Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi) has been unsettling. During lent I've preached some of Jesus' parables, and listening to Levine unpack them causes me to cringe. I'm…
Jason LiefApril 18, 2019
Palm Sunday and the Immigration Crisis 
Satan presents Jesus with three temptations: bread, kingdoms, and miracles. Each of them corresponds to very real temptations facing the Christian community today: economics, politics, and religion. For Jacques Ellul, they all represent a manifestation of coercive power that divides and names. These expressions of…
Jason LiefApril 12, 2019
Jesus Loves You and Evolution is True: A Conversation 
One of the reasons young people are checking out of institutionalized forms of Christianity is the perception that faith and science are in conflict. Some in the Christian community wonder if a person can hold to the theory of evolution and still be a bible…
Jason LiefApril 8, 2019
Loving Money and Serving Mammon 
"No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.” Luke 16:13 In my part of the world there are self…
Jason LiefMarch 27, 2019
Ornamental Cross: Racism and Cheap Grace 
Those who think the gospel is being co-opted by a leftist ideology like to throw around the term "social gospel". Bringing the gospel into conversation with social problems like racism or poverty, in their mind, misrepresents the gospel. Jesus came to die for our personal…
Jason LiefMarch 15, 2019
Believing the Bible: Kuyper and Bavinck 
A Reformed approach to the bible has never focused on a hyper-literal reading of the text. For John Calvin, the truth of scripture comes through God's accommodation to our human condition. This is the beauty of a Reformed hermeneutic that takes the human aspects of…
Jason LiefMarch 9, 2019
Believing the Bible: Augustine 
Not many figures in the history of Christianity cast a shadow like Augustine, for good or bad. Some love him for his view of love, desire, and sin, and others dislike him for the same thing. He's one of the few theologians both Catholics and…
Jason LiefMarch 4, 2019
Believing the Bible: John Calvin
Some in the hyper-literalist camp may not care what Luther says about the bible; they're more interested in having John Calvin on their side. But Calvin's view of scripture is fascinating, in part because he follows Luther rather closely. Like Luther, Calvin's approach to scripture…
Jason LiefMarch 1, 2019
Believing the Bible: Martin Luther 
Those who hold to a hyper-literal interpretation of the bible often want to use Luther and Calvin to support a modern view of biblical inerrancy. The problem, however, is that neither Luther nor Calvin fit with this approach to reading the bible. Luther inherited a…
Jason LiefFebruary 28, 2019