Essays and some other bits and pieces...
These are some essays that I’ve written over the years doing theological training. They’re mainly quite good. I didn’t post the ones that scored less than an A- because I didn’t think they’d be helpful to anyone. Some of them are early on in my career and I’ve moved on since, but I feel that for posterity’s sake I should retain these as part of my history. Take for example my essay on homosexuality. It comes up ‘compassionately conservative’, but my views on this are shifting. I don’t know why, it’s just internally I see the debate becoming muddier, and when theology becomes muddy, I want to err on the side of mercy every time.
So feel free to read, digest and even e-mail me if you found it useful. These are all licensed under the “Creative Commons License” with “Some Rights Reserved”. It basically says do what you want with whatever you want but don’t profit from it without my permission and do the decent thing and don’t plagiarise it either. Just give credit where credit is due—I like to know when I’m contributing to discussions.
Enjoy.
Baptism in the Spirit
A look at the doctrine and how the heck it interfaces with Trinitarian theology
A look at the doctrine and how the heck it interfaces with Trinitarian theology
A good hard look at what Baptism in the Spirit might be, but more importantly, how does the Trinity factor into much of contemporary pew theology around this?
Theology of Work
Book Review on Miroslav Volf's Theology of Work"
Book Review on Miroslav Volf's Theology of Work"
Pretty self-explanatory. Not my greatest work, but will certainly help people who want to know what the book says without reading it—it's a good book, but boy is it like wading through mud!
Bubbling Edges
Reflections on the Emerging Church in NZ
Reflections on the Emerging Church in NZ
A semi-biographical essay that sums up where I'm at with things emergent. A bit of a confession in parts and ending with some hope for the future.
Theology of Hope: The Exodus of Jürgen Moltmann
A mediocre essay looking at the interface of Moltmann's biography and his Theology of Hope. This essay journey has reinstated hope for me.
Small Churches are Beautiful
A defense of the small churches who are battling agains the heavy handedness of the Church Growth Movement
The Great Mudwrestle : Homosexuality and Christianity
One of the most popular downloads that takes us through a survey of the Biblical, biological, psychological and philosophical debates. It’s conclusion may be controversial, but I think it was hard earned. It’s around 10,000 words.
John 1:1-18 Exegesis
An exegetical essay on the 1st verses of the Gospel of John. A wonderful piece of scripture not to be read too quickly.
A book review of Brian Houston's “You need more Money”
Easily the most popular of the essays with around 50&endash;60 views a month. A highly critical review of a book written by one of the most influencial Christians leaders in Australasia. It’s astounding what this man can do.
Heterocontextuality
What does the context of both the reader and the writers of the Bible have to do with us?
Working out the idea of Biblical inerrancy and infallibility among other thins. Trying to provide a framework for scriptural analysis.
Why is there so much pain and suffering in this world if God is really all-powerful and all-good? The classic question of theodicy investigated and concluded a little differently to the ‘standard’ answers.
This follows on from the Theodicy Essay. It’s the only reasonable conclusion based on the theodical model I outlined. I woudn’t die for either of these two essays though.
Also known as “How I lost faith in American Evangelical debating etiquette.” I wrote this as part of my Masters of Theological Studies paper on Open Theism where we had Clark Pinnock actually come out to lecture us for two weeks. It was one of the highlights of my study.
John McArthur, with the backing of many others of is ilk, wrote an essay claiming that Open Theism has no theory of the Atonement. Actually what he ends up arguing is that Anselm’s view of the Atonement is the only correct model for understanding the mechanics of the Cross. It’s a good essay on the atonement theories in general. Again a part of my Masters study.
The seminar notes on developing an understanding of Workplace Theology
The essay that tries to draw on some conclusions from the seminar and is probably a bit more readable.
This work is licensed to Stu McGregor under a
Creative Commons License.