Theological Adventures

Autorentext

Phillip Michael Garner is an avid reader and competent interpreter of a vast array of theological efforts. Mike was raised in a small town, in a citrus valley in California. At thirteen he worked alongside Spanish speaking immigrants. His earliest religious experiences were in a small Pentecostal church. He was educated at Azusa Pacific University. His international experiences among the poorest people in the world provide the backdrop for the pathos in his writing.

Klappentext

Theological Adventures began as a challenge to the teachers of The Institute for Global Outreach Developments International to provide me with those passages of Scripture they found the most difficult to produce an interpretive theology consistent with nonviolence and a nonviolent God. The allegorical method for dealing with OT violence has not led to a constructive theology capable of eradicating violence from the Christian tradition. However, genre identification of particular books enables a reader to discern the prejudicial nature of a book claiming to speak for God, e.g., Joshua as conquest narrative. Judges, as a reflection on violence and male-female relationships, qualifies as a ""social critique"" on Israelite society. This is wonderfully portrayed in the study of Samson as the archetypal strongman who represents Israel as a people. It is healthy to be honest enough about OT Scripture to require basic morality as a guide for reading its claims and stories. The gift of a moral conscience is a powerful voice for God's image in us. I have found the OT to be consistent with the revelation of God in Christ Jesus when a person learns to read it correctly. The guiding interpretive lens is honesty about the intolerable violence sanctioned in the OT.