The Gift of Thomas Sermon preached at Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL April 8, 2018 Second Sunday of Easter Lectionary texts: Acts 4:32-35, John 20:19-31 It is real joy for me to be back here among you all. It fills me with great emotion to see all these familiar faces. I bring Easter greetings from Amy, Aidyn, and Elliya. Wherever we go, we sing the praises of Holy Nativity, and we are constantly filled with a longing to be with you all again. This is a special place, and we were blessed to find a home here for the five years we lived in Chicagoland. Some of you know th ..read more

This past summer the well-known New Testament scholar, N. T. Wright, made headlines for his letter to the London Times in which he claimed that “the confusion about gender identity is a modern and now internet-fuelled, form of the ancient philosophy of Gnosticism. The Gnostic, one who ‘knows’, has discovered the secret of ‘who I really am’, behind the deceptive outward appearance. . . . This involves denying the goodness, or even the ultimate reality, of the natural world.” The claim that trans* identity is a form of gnosticism has a long legacy. Oliver O’Donovan may have been the first to co ..read more

After years of private reflection and discussion, my wife Amy has decided to come out as bisexual, and I couldn’t be prouder of her. She is the model of persistence and courage. If growing up as a woman of color within conservative evangelicalism wasn’t enough, becoming aware of her sexual identity has been a slow and anxiety-filled journey of discovery. I encourage you to read her post. And that’s about all I am going to say, because this isn’t my story to tell. It is so tempting for straight allies to loudly announce their allyship, especially when you have a public platform as a writer an ..read more

I don’t usually use this space to write about personal matters, but it’s time I changed that. I want to tell you about someone. Her name is Amy. David and Amy at a march in Kansas City Amy has endured a lot, more than I can adequately convey in this space. Her life before me had many challenges that I am going to pass over, but they are part of the background to the story I’m telling here. That story begins with me. But that doesn’t mean it’s a happy story. Far from it. We both grew up in suburban Portland within conservative Christian families. We’re both the oldest of three chi ..read more

Love this. Tho I feel if @dwcongdon's grounding was in France rather than German it would read: "W(holy) (in)secure in w(holy) (O)therness" pic.twitter.com/fQ9NJ3V58X — Liam Miller (@liammiller87) December 27, 2016 This is easily in the top five books I've notated/underlined/highlighted the most - highly recommended. pic.twitter.com/LJdQ0BbXuE — Richard Allen (@rmasvg) December 28, 2016 @dwcongdon TGWS Seriously one of the best paragraphs on theology I've read in a while! Wow! pic.twitter.com/OUtbJe5gxa — neal foster (@nealifoster) December 30, 2016 BEST #THEOLOGY BOOK of 2016 goes to D ..read more

Journeying into Utter Darkness Sermon preached at Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL June 11, 2017 Trinity Sunday Lectionary texts: Genesis 1:1–2:4a, 2 Corinthians 13:11–13, Matthew 28:16–20 A friend of mine who is a professor of theology in Australia, Benjamin Myers, recently posted on social media that the church should “abolish Trinity Sunday, that fateful day on which preachers think they have to explain it.” Now since I am not in a position to abolish the day in our church calendar, my only hope is to redeem the day by refusing to explain the trinity. So there will be no ..read more

Saffron Blaze, via http://www.mackenzie.co Yesterday Sojourners published my article on why Christians should stop talking about the church being in exile. My argument can be summarized and expanded as follows: 1. Unlike Israel, which is a distinct cultural community, the New Testament claims that Christians are exiled from the world as such, not from a particular culture. Christians are eschatologically distanced from the world, and this distance from every culture coincides simultaneously with Pentecost's affirmation of every culture within the scope of God's reign. The gospe ..read more

The following piece was written last summer and submitted for publication to a popular Christian periodical. It was a time-sensitive piece, since I wrote it to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Bultmann’s death. I still think it’s a valuable and worthwhile piece, so I am publishing it here, though it is not as timely as it could have been. The twentieth century’s most influential New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, died forty years ago on July 30, 1976. The occasion offers an opportunity to reflect on his enduring legacy. A TIME magazine article in 1964 made the statement that “Dr. Rudo ..read more

I See That I Am Blind Sermon preached at Church of the Holy Nativity, Clarendon Hills, IL March 26, 2017 I. Here’s a fun fact: technically speaking, the Gospel of John contains no parables. Those famous stories of Jesus are all found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But John does something even more remarkable: he makes the entirety of Jesus’ life into a kind of parable. And the story of the healing of the blind man in John 9 is a great example of this. Like any good parable, there is the initial, surface-level story. But there is also something much deeper going on, and even a surprise twist ..read more

Started @dwcongdon's The God Who Saves. I Just finished the prologue, and he finna make me rework my whole damn approach! Amazeballz! pic.twitter.com/42ehFtFqJg — KOA the boy Shima (@koashima) November 6, 2016 This arrived today - excited to dig in! pic.twitter.com/up1ghOhY4y — Richard M. Allen (@rma_mt) November 10, 2016 @dwcongdon The section on protological/eschatological actualization in the introduction is blowing my mind — Richard M. Allen (@rma_mt) November 11, 2016 @dwcongdon omg. like...holy wow. pic.twitter.com/m658og3EhN — NC Clair (@nc_clair) November 16, 2016 @dwcongdon I ..read more