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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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sin

The Sin of Empathy and Sexual Ethics

August 26, 2021 by Randal

I was recently asked to respond to a new teaching popular in some Reformed circles according to which empathy is a sin. The article that provides the basis for my understanding of this teaching is titled “Have you heard the one about empathy being a sin?” The author, Mark Wingfield, is attempting to summarize the […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: empathy, homosexuality, James White, sin

Drunkards, Sin, and God’s Kingdom: A Reappraisal

August 12, 2021 by Randal

I 1 Corinthians 6:10, Paul tells us that drunkards are unrighteous and that they will not inherit the Kingdom of God. In short, Paul seems to view the alcoholic as a wicked sinner in rebellion against God. But what if we think about alcoholism from the perspective of modern psychiatry as primarily a therapeutic rather […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: alcohol, alcoholism, sin

What is sin?

December 5, 2020 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: hamartiology, original sin, sin

Read Chapter 14 of What’s So Confusing About Grace? and find out how to be damned by a cookie

August 11, 2017 by Randal

You can read the chapter at my blog confusedaboutgrace.com.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, hell, sin, What's So Confusing About Grace?

On Praying for Milo

February 21, 2017 by Randal

We live in an age where extreme and hateful voices like that of Milo Yiannopoulos get way more attention than they deserve. I was disgusted when Bill Maher hosted Milo on Real Time last week (and I applaud Jeremy Scahill for withdrawing from the show in protest). By the time the video surfaced of Milo advocating for […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Dead Man Walking, ethics, evil, forgiveness, Milo Yiannopoulos, pedophilia, prayer, sin

Are you (ever) embarrassed to be human?

December 21, 2016 by Randal

I am. Today, at least, I am. Many things have happened this week which would be sufficient to induce that misanthropic state of mind. But this week the straw that broke this camel’s back came with the story of Grayson Smith, a terminally ill three year old who suffers from more life-threatening medical conditions than most people […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Grayson Smith, hamartiology, humanity, internet, sin

The Oft-Overlooked Sins of Omission

November 14, 2016 by Randal

There is an important distinction between sins of commission (the evil action) and sins of omission (the evil failure to act). Note how reference to both is included in this familiar liturgical confession: We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, genocide, guilt, repentance, sin

Sin Junkies: addiction, punishment, and the new problem of hell

January 26, 2016 by Randal

In December, 2015 America’s new drug czar, Michael Botticelli, gave a revealing interview with 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley. The interview included this exchange: Scott Pelley: Are you saying that the way we have waged the war on drugs for more than 40 years has been all wrong? Michael Botticelli: It has been all wrong. Blunt force didn’t […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: addiction, eternal conscious torment, hell, Michael Botticelli, sin

The Making of an Enemy? The Tuggy-Spiegel Interview on Atheism

September 23, 2015 by Randal

This week on the Trinities Podcast Dale Tuggy interviewed James Spiegel on his 2010 book The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief. Since my new book Is the Atheist My Neighbor? is one long rebuttal to folks like Spiegel, I listened to the interview with some interest. (You can read my earlier review […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: atheism, Dale Tuggy, epistemology, interview, James Spiegel, podcast, Rebellion Thesis, sin, The Making of an Atheist

43. Can pedophiles be saved? A conversation with Scott Drennan

April 18, 2014 by Randal

Over the last year we’ve tackled many topics on the Tentative Apologist Podcast from big bang cosmology to biblical interpretation. But no topic is as difficult or immediately gripping as the topic of this podcast. Today we are tackling the topic of pedophiles: their crimes … and their redemption. Redemption? To many, talk of redeeming and restoring these […]

Filed Under: Podcast, Podcast-The Tentative Apologist, The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: ethics, jurisprudence, pedophile, redemption, retributive justice, salvation, sex offender, sin

Why Jesus was NOT “tempted” (and why it matters)

October 15, 2013 by Randal

The following is a repost of an article originally published at The Christian Post in 2009. * * * In their trials and temptations many Christians have drawn strength from Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: christology, hamartiology, impeccability, Jesus Christ, sin

The fall of Tim Lambesis

June 2, 2013 by Randal

If you know your heavy metal you know Tim Lambesis, the lead singer of As I Lay Dying, one of the fiercest, critically acclaimed, and most popular metalcore bands. To be honest, it is something of a misnomer to call Lambesis a lead singer. He really was the lead growler-barker-screamer, a vocal style that doubles as […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: As I Lay Dying, atheism, Christianity, depravity, sin, theism, Tim Lambesis

A hell of one’s own making

March 24, 2013 by Randal

I will never forget the day in kindergarten when we baked gingerbread cookies. Each child got to decorate his or her own cookie with candies and sparkles. Then we placed them in the oven and waited. Soon after the teacher removed them from the oven and left them on the cooling tray. I waited eagerly […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, hell, sin

The most sinful man in the room

January 24, 2013 by Randal

Back in the early 1960s many people considered Harrry Blamires, a budding Anglican theologian and literary critic, to be a younger C.S. Lewis. In his incisive book The Christian Mind (1963) Blamires explores the question of how one’s Christian convictions ought to change the way one thinks. Like all great books, The Christian Mind has aged gracefully and its […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: hamartiology, Harry Blamires, sin, The Christian Mind

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