I concluded my last post by asking some questions that I’d like to unpack here: So given this overarching rubric of Exile and Empire, what familiar terms belong where? Where does church belong? What about kingdom? Into which category should we place ideas like dogma, heresy, canon, and essentials/non-essentials? And what about grace, weakness, and the folly of the cross? Where do they fit? And […]
Tag: Gen-XYL
Gen-XYL: Exile vs. Empire
Now that I have whetted your appetite by hinting at various applications of the theme of exile, I’d like to take a step back and consider the idea more broadly. What do I mean by exile? As I pointed out in my first post in this series, “exile” is used in the Hebrew scriptures literally […]
Gen-XYL: The Rending of the Veil
I’d be willing to wager that most Millennials and Gen-Xers have seen the film Raiders of the Lost Ark (well the guys anyway). Perhaps the most memorable scene in the movie is when the Nazis, who had discovered and taken possession of the Ark of the Covenant, decided to open it. But first, some background…. […]
Gen-XYL: Navigating the Tension
In western culture we have not only grown accustomed to dualisms of various kinds, but we seem to assume they are unavoidable. Whether we’re talking about the sacred and the secular, divinity and humanity, or the natural and the spiritual, we live in a society more characterized by either/ors than by both/ands. A Theology of […]
Gen-XYL: Introduction
Most readers will recognize the name Billy Idol, the ’80s-era singer of such tunes as “Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding,” and “Eyes Without a Face.” But what many don’t remember is that before he was a pop star he was a punker who fronted the band Generation X. Generation X (betcha didn’t know it was also […]