Category Archives: Theology

Roundup: The Bible, Secular Beatitudes, Short-Term Missions, OT vs. NT law, Les Mis

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

Here are a few posts by others that went up this week that I enjoyed reading. “God Did Not Write the Bible…” by Kathy Vestal:  I’ll have to wrestle with this one some more.  It raises some provocative questions, like … Continue reading →

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Questions about the Atonement

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

I’m an inquisitive person.  I like to understand things.  Never content with answering just the what’s of any given topic, I like to get to the root of all the how’s and why’s as well.  Recently I realized that despite … Continue reading →

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I pledge allegiance . . . to the slaughtered Lamb

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

This litany of resistance was compiled by Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw, Jim Loney, and Brian Walsh, and is published in the book Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals (Zondervan, 2008). One:  Today we pledge our ultimate allegiance to the … Continue reading →

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Jesus as Egg Cracker

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

In the Greek Orthodox Church, it is a Maundy Thursday tradition to hard-boil some eggs and dye them red.  The red symbolizes the blood of Christ, shed on the cross on our behalf.  Families arrange the eggs in a basket … Continue reading →

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Jesus the Dancer, Part 6: The Round Dance of the Cross

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

Note to Reader: The Acts of John is not part of the Christian canon, mainly because of its docetic teachings, which read more like myth than history and depart widely from orthodox Christianity. This text, like others in the Gnostic … Continue reading →

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Jesus the Dancer, Part 5: The Art of Mark Dukes

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco is home to a 3,000-square-foot icon of ninety dancing saints (and four animals), who wrap themselves in two large rings around the rotunda as they follow the lead of Jesus, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Theology, Western Art | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Jesus the Dancer, Part 4: Snakes and Maize

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Victoria Emily Jones

This is a guest post by an American artist who has an interest in nonwestern art but prefers to remain anonymous. I asked him to share some of his work with us. ‘He will crush [the serpent’s] head’ This painting … Continue reading →

Posted in Non-Western Art, Theology | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

‘Lord Jesus, give me a deeper…’

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Victoria Emily Jones

At my church, as part of the Sunday morning liturgy, we spend time in both private and corporate confession. The corporate prayer, which we read aloud together as a body, is usually taken from Arthur Bennett’s The Valley of Vision … Continue reading →

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Jesus as Fast-Acting Cleansing Agent

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Victoria Emily Jones

Here’s an interactive gospel tract that brands Jesus as a “quick-acting formula” that “gets tough sins out”—a play on the product claims of Tide laundry detergent.  (Click here, or on the image below, to scroll through the various pages of … Continue reading →

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The Jesus Sutras (Part 10): ‘He is the scaling ladder’

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Victoria Emily Jones

This is my final post for the Jesus Sutras series (read Part 1 here). I highly recommend you check out Martin Palmer’s book The Jesus Sutras, as there is much more to glean from these historical and poetic texts, beyond … Continue reading →

Posted in Non-Western Art, Theology | 5 Comments