All posts tagged Longs Peak

  • March 16, 2017

    God Is Love. God Is Love.

    Sunset from the Top

    God is Love. God is Love.
    Brian Zahnd

    The topography of biblical witness is full of peaks and valleys, mountains and plains. The Bible is not flat terrain. The honest reader of the Bible readily admits that the Levitical prohibition against eating shellfish does not reach the same heights as the lofty Christology in Colossians. As we look at the great peaks of inspired biblical witness, none soar higher than the twin peaks of divine revelation given to us by the Apostle John.

    “But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. … We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” (1 John 4:8, 16)

    Soaring above everything else the Bible has to say about God are these twin peaks found in John’s first epistle: God is love. God is love.

    The Arapaho Indians called Longs Peak and Mount Meeker Nesótaieus, meaning “two guides.” The two peaks of this towering massif are useful for orientation when traveling in the front range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, just as the two peaks of 1 John 4:8 and 4:16 are invaluable when navigating our way through the Bible. When the aged apostle put quill to papyrus to tell his readers that God is love (twice), and that to know love is to know God, and that to live in love is to live in God, he was making a daring move…and he dared to do it!
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    No Comments / Bible, Christianity, Jesus, love, Mountains, Water To Wine /

  • October 7, 2015

    Slippery Slopes and Fixed Ropes

    SPL542764_004

    I have a three hour layover in the San Francisco airport. So…

    Slippery Slopes and Fixed Ropes
    Brian Zahnd

    The “slippery slope” trope is a favorite among fundamentalists. Basically the argument goes like this: The moment you move away from fundamentalist Biblicism you’re on the slippery slope of liberalism and will wind up sliding down into a crevasse with the likes of Friedrich Schleiermacher and John Shelby Spong. According to those who believe that serious theology is a slippery slope, you’re either with fundamentalists and young earth creationists like Ken Ham or you’re sliding down the mountain with new atheists like Christopher Hitchens. Of course, this is a ludicrous false dichotomy. But it carries a ton of intimidation. Just about the worst thing you can call an evangelical pastor is a liberal. The only thing worse is to go Def-Con 4 and drop the H-bomb: Heretic!
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    42 Comments / Bible, Christianity, Theology /

  • August 6, 2007

    A Christian in Christendom

    What does it mean to be a Christian in America today?

    What does it mean to be a Christian in a 21st century Christendom?

    How are we to be Christians who are countercultural, transcendent and subversive in a quasi-Christian culture?

    What do you do when Christendom and Babylon are woven together in a single culture?

    How are we to be authentic Christ-followers in a nation where 88% of the people identify themselves as Christian?
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    1 Comment / Christianity, Culture, Mountains /

  • July 30, 2007

    Mountain Misery

    My feet hurt
    My head pounds
    My lungs burn
    My legs buckle
    I’m cold…now hot…now cold

    Why do I do this?
    Man! Can I do this?
    The sky looks wrong
    Was that thunder?
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    2 Comments / Mountains, Travel /