Ken Silva at Apprising Ministries has written up a paper critical of the book Quantum Theology: A Postmodern Apologetic by Leonard Sweet. I have to say, after reading this article, which attempts to disparage Mr. Sweet and his book, I’m rather tempted to read it. It sounds like a good book. In particular, Rev. Silva talks about the idea of the interconnectedness of all creation as if this were an inherently bad thing.
Oh, and Rev. Silva should work on his logic skills. At one point, he writes:
In fact, if we have one verse alone from the Bible that destroys this whole panentheistic New Light argument it would be Romans 8:9 — You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. We see here that this is a conditional statement, if the Spirit of God lives in you. Simple logic tells you that the possibilty then exists for the truth of the b part of this verse — if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Therefore one is not in Christ, and if one is not in Christ then God is not in him.
(emphasis his.) Sorry, Rev. Silva. “Simple logic” tells you no such thing. An assertion of the positive does not a priori mandate the existence of the negative. Take a quick course in logic and set theory before you again attempt to use something you don’t understand. Not that I think logic and mathematics are appropriate domains to use for biblical discussions, but shoddy, invalid uses of logic is a pet peeve of mine.
An edit: I had assumed, from the orginal post, that this was a new book. I see now that it was published in 1991! Don’t these people have anything more current to work against?
Mike at OneYearBibleBlog asks, among other questions:
do you believe that Jesus still heals people today?
and
Do you believe he can?
for the Jan 10th readings. My own personal feeling is that these two questions are intricately related. It’s been my experience that people find what they expect to find. If they expect healing, then healing is available to them. But if they bring cynicism and suspicion, then that’s exactly what they’ll get back. Healing of the physical is insignificant compared to healing of the spirit. Of course, I should add as a caveat that I’ve never suffered from a debilitating illness, so this may be a case of me speaking of things I know nothing about. I do know that I’ve experienced some spiritual healing in my life, but I’ve a long way to go.
Andrew Jones had some thoughts prompted by this passage as well, related to healing, or lack thereof. Worth a look.
Other thoughts on these verses:
Matthew 8:5-13 – Jesus heals the Centurion’s servant
I’ve seen discussion focused on verse 11, which reads (NRSV)
I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven,
Now, that’s a wonderful passage, but you need to continue to verse 12 to get the real “punch”:
while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus didn’t have very nice things to say about the established religious order of his day. I think he’d have even harsher words for the established religious order of our day. Being a well-respected church leader does not guarantee that you’ve “got it right.” We all need to be listening for corrections (healing?) in our lives.
Oh, and, on a lighter note: even though the burial of Sarah is a somber moment in Abraham’s life, I laugh every time I read the account of the “negotiations” for the burial plot. Abraham may have been faithful, but simple and direct he was not. 
As far as I know, the bugs in BlogWatcher have been resolved. So there should no longer be any issues with editing your subscriptions (that one was a really dumb mistake on my part) or with logging in from the “View” page.
Next will be work on the new features I want to implement. Thanks for your continued support.
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