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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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hermeneutics

Pete Buttigieg and the Christian Defense of Same-Sex Marriage through Experience

April 12, 2019 by Randal

In his book The Bible Made Impossible, Christian Smith identifies a problem with the use of the Bible as a source of doctrine. He calls that problem pervasive interpretive pluralism, and as you can guess, the term refers to the fact that Christians hold many contradictory positions which they believe are consistent with Scripture. As […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, hermeneutics, Pete Buttigieg, same-sex marriage

Does inerrancy apply to the human authors of the Bible?

November 21, 2018 by Randal

This morning I posted a tweet on inerrancy which prompted a reply from the philosopher Paul Franks. I thought it was an interesting Twitter exchange and worth repeating here. After compiling our tweets, I’m a bit surprised at how long it is too. I have not bothered to flag or correct the typos that appear in […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, hermeneutics, inerrancy, inspiration, Paul Franks, revelation, theology

If you reject evolution, should you accept a flat earth?

August 12, 2018 by Randal

Yesterday, I posted the following tweet: “I’ll agree that ‘evolution is only a theory’ if you’ll agree that it is the only theory which offers a viable account of biological diversity.” The tweet received the following response from (what I assume was) a young earth creationist: “Whether the earth is flat or not makes no […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: earth science, flat-earth, hermeneutics, science, theology, young earth creationism

Would Jesus want you to stay married to a psychopath?

July 27, 2018 by Randal

This morning, I tweeted the following survey: Clinical psychopaths are manipulative anti-social narcissists who are incapable of experiencing love or empathy. The condition is untreatable. If you came to believe your friend was married to a non-violent psychopath, would you support your friend divorcing that individual? — Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) July 27, 2018 As of […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical ethics, hermeneutics, Jesus, marriage, psychopathy, sexual ethics

If the Bible is a map for how to get to heaven, it isn’t a very good one

July 3, 2018 by Randal

We’re all familiar with the fire evacuation maps on the inside of a hotel room door. In a brief, succinct, and luminously clear manner, the map provides directions for evacuating the building in case of fire. Growing up, I was taught to think of the Bible as like God’s hotel fire evacuation map for the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, bibliology, hermeneutics, special revelation

Jesus, the God of Genocide, and William Barclay

April 30, 2018 by Randal

William Barclay (d. 1978) is a lot like C.S. Lewis in one key respect: he was a British scholar widely read and trusted by North American evangelicals who nonetheless frequently expressed some relatively radical opinions that sailed under the radar of those same evangelicals. I was reminded of this again the other day when in […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, biblical violence, hermeneutics, revelation, William Barclay

The Complementarian Dilemma

April 14, 2018 by Randal

Egalitarianism is the view that all offices of church ministry and leadership should be open to both genders. By contrast, complementarianism insists that some offices of ministry and leadership should be restricted to males. I am an egalitarian and yesterday I posted this tweet expressing my concern that complementarianism is not just wrong, but potentially […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical ethics, complementarianism, egalitarianism, ethics, hermeneutics, sexism

Who is the Fool? How Christians misread the Bible to attack atheists

February 14, 2018 by Randal

This article is an excerpt from my 2015 book Is the Atheist My Neighbor? Rethinking Christian Attitudes Toward Atheism. It’s a book that J.L. Schellenberg, one of the leading atheist philosophers of religion, recommended as “brief and lively but remarkably full and acute” and “impressively fair”. You can decide whether this brief excerpt lives up to […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Bible, hermeneutics, Is the Atheist My Neighbor?

1 Samuel 15 and Paul Copan’s Middling Compromise

January 30, 2018 by Randal

This week  “Unbelievable” featured Part 2 of an exchange between Paul Copan and Greg Boyd on Boyd’s new book The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. In Part 2, Justin Brierley and his two guests focus in on particular biblical texts to see how each position deals with the text in question. The first major text under discussion is 1 […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical violence, ethics, Greg Boyd, hermeneutics, Justin Brierley, Paul Copan

God and the Weather Revisited

September 8, 2017 by Randal

Ten days ago I posted an article titled “‘I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth…’ Could God be punishing Texas?” Since then I rewrote and expanded the article and this morning it was posted at Strange Notions as “Does God Punish People Through Natural Weather Events?“

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: God, hermeneutics, natural evil, providence, weather

Because Jesus would build a wall, that’s why!

September 5, 2017 by Randal

The base of the Statue of Liberty includes this famous poem by Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Well-intentioned, perhaps. But is it really […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, ethics, hermeneutics, immigration

“I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth…” Could God be punishing Texas?

August 29, 2017 by Randal

13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. […] 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, hermeneutics, natural evil, problem of evil

If this is God’s Word, why isn’t it easier to understand?

August 5, 2017 by Randal

That’s the question. You can read my latest article at confusedaboutgrace.com here.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, hermeneutics, inspiration

The Birth of a Nation: A Powerful but Flawed Film

June 11, 2017 by Randal

Things started out promising for Nate Parker’s 2016 film The Birth of a Nation. The film tells the story of Nat Turner, a slave preacher who led a fated slave rebellion in 1831. The movie took the 2016 Sundance Film Festival by storm, winning critical and popular praise along with a stunning $17.5 million payout from […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, exegesis, film, hermeneutics, Nat Turner, Nate Parker, review, The Birth of a Nation

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