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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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sanctification

How I’ll Know When I’m Ready For Heaven (Hint: it has to do with dog turds)

April 7, 2017 by Randal

Over the last month the snows have gradually receded from Edmonton as spring has tepidly taken hold on the northern prairies. It’s an exciting time of year, except for one thing: dog turds. Yes, dog turds. I try to get out for runs on a regular basis and as the snows melt away on the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, heaven, holiness, sanctification, self-sacrifice

80. The Problem with Porn: A conversation with Matt Fradd

December 29, 2015 by Randal

We live in a world where Abercrombie and Fitch sell padded bras for eight year olds, where b-movie stars build their careers by tweeting demeaning selfies to their legions of voyeuristic knuckle dragging fans, and where an adjective like “sexy” is now used to describe everything from sports cars to sermon titles. In short, ours is […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, holiness, interview, Matt Fradd, podcast, pornography, sanctification

Hell and Holiness

November 17, 2015 by Randal

Last year I wrote an article titled “Hell, right doctrine, and right character” in which I explored the link between the formulation of right doctrine and the process of sanctification. The idea, in short, is this: correct doctrine ought to encourage the process of sanctification (aka becoming Christlike). Thus, if acceptance of a particular doctrine tends to undermine the process […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: doctrine, eternal conscious torment, hell, sanctification, Unfundamentalist Christians

Patience: A Sermon

July 27, 2015 by Randal

In this sermon (preached at Greenfield Community Church on July 26th), I explore the spiritual fruit of patience. It is a virtue with which I have little first hand acquaintance, so I had to do some research first. As with all my sermons, there are several additional points that I would like to have discussed, […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, patience, sanctification, sermon, spiritual fruit, virtue

How we try to avoid coming to terms with hell (Part 1): Make it small

April 3, 2014 by Randal

In my article “Hell, right doctrine, and right character” I proposed my thesis in the form of a rhetorical question: Shouldn’t right doctrine seamlessly interweave with right character formation? In other words, the more that the consistent and clear acceptance of a doctrine frustrates the formation of one’s Christian character the less likely the doctrine is […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: C.S. Lewis, character formation, doctrine, hell, sanctification, spiritual formation

How societies improve: the simple example of Morocco

January 23, 2013 by Randal

In “Why do conservative Christians think everything is getting worse?” I argued that the widespread conservative belief that society is, on the whole, becoming less just and compassionate is not borne out by the facts. This doesn’t entail that things are getting better overall, though in many cases they are. Nor does it entail that […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: fatalism, moral progress, Morocco, rape, sanctification

Are Christian serial killers saved?

May 16, 2012 by Randal

Some years ago I was at a coffee shop with a friend when we got into a heated discussion over the question of whether a Christian could be a serial killer. (He said yes, I said no. ) The dispute was not whether there might be self-identified Christians who moonlight as serial killers. That there […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: BTK, Christianity, Dallas Willard, Dennis Rader, grace, salvation, sanctification, serial killer, soteriology

Imprecations for Arminians

January 5, 2012 by Randal

I have been arguing that there is something morally problematic about the imprecation which expresses hatred of one’s enemy and relishes the coming destruction of one’s enemy. But this doesn’t mean I don’t want God’s kingdom to come in its fullness. And yet, Jerry inexplicably seems to have thought that in some sense this was the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Calvinism, imprecation, Reformed, sanctification

On not being a jerk about it

February 1, 2011 by Randal

This happens to be one of my favorite Bizarro cartoons. It handily raises the question each one of us needs to be asking: would I rather be good or right? Of course all things considered it is better to be both/and, but if you had to choose, which would you opt for? Would you rather […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: doctrine, orthodoxy, sanctification

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