Right Reason

The blog of Dr Glenn Andrew Peoples on Theology, Philosophy, and Social Issues

Category: theology and biblical studies Page 1 of 13

An LGBT activist tried to cancel me for preaching about inclusion

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On May 18, 2025

In ecclesiology, sexuality, theology and biblical studies, video

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A little while ago I preached a sermon about the story of the prodigal son. I said that like the father in Jesus’ story, God forgives and welcomes people into his family. I said that we, the church, must welcome people into the church regardless of their past, because we are all saved by God’s grace. We have no right to take an elitist attitude because we’ve been “good Christians” our whole lives and other people might have more colourful pasts.

Because I shared this message of love and welcome, an LGBT activist* tried to have me cancelled by making the blatantly false accusation that I was using “transphobic rhetoric.” You can hear the sermon for yourself to see that there isn’t a shred of truth to this claim. Although people are responsible for their own dishonest behaviour, I also think the Anglican Church bears some of the responsibility for incidents like this. People try to manipulate the church because they know they can, since the progressive church is a soft target, fearing the opinion of the world rather than God.

 

* I take it that a person who makes attacks like this and tries to have people cancelled is an activist.

The Church Fathers on the Eucharist (Video)

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On January 25, 2025

In ecclesiology, theology and biblical studies, video, videos

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One thing I’ll be doing sometimes over at the YouTube channel is taking blog posts and turning them into video presentations. Some recent comments by Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity prompted me to do this with my article on the Church Fathers on the Eucharist. A lot of anti-apologist apologists quote the Church Fathers when they said that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are the body and blood of Christ, as though it proves that they believed in transubstantiation. It doesn’t!

Pentecost and the “Promise of the Father”

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On May 29, 2023

In theology and biblical studies

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The day of Pentecost has just passed. Do you know what it is? Other than the “birthday of the church” or the time when the disciples of Jesus spoke in other languages, what is the significance of the day of Pentecost?

Do you have eight minutes to spare and find out?

Divine Holiness and Hell

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On May 23, 2023

In heaven and hell, theology and biblical studies, video

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Earlier this month I spoke at the annual conference of the Conditional Immortality Association of New Zealand, on divine holiness and hell. Defenders of the doctrine of eternal torment sometimes assure us that eternal torment in hell is necessary because God is very, very holy. But a biblical theology of God’s holiness actually offers no support at all to this view on hell. In fact, God’s holiness as depicted in the Bible offers more support for the doctrine of annihilationism – the view that God will finally remove all evil and those who commit it from creation. If you have 25 minutes to spare, take a listen!

Christianity is conservative

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On April 28, 2022

In Christianity, theology and biblical studies

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Don’t think that you, a Christian, can avoid the teaching of the historic Christian faith by saying “but that’s just what conservative Christians think.” Christianity is conservative.

It was a year or two ago, and I was having a conversation with a young Christian with an impressive degree of unearned confidence (and let’s be honest, many of us have been that guy at some stage). We had talked briefly about universalism, a view he holds and I do not. Due to the generally unproductive nature of the exchange, I didn’t commit many of the details to memory. I had little hope of a fruitful conversation, I’ll admit, due to his (somewhat justified) reputation among his social media peers for disagreeableness and dismissiveness, along with extraordinary disdain for those he dubs “conservatives.” A couple of comments did, however, stand out to me. They raise an issue that I have often thought about in other contexts.

Apparently people like personal stories, so here goes.

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Where did all the souls go?

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On January 12, 2022

In theological anthropology, theology and biblical studies

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Souls are on the way out. Not just in our culture or in science, where some Christians may suspect “naturalism” as the culprit, but souls are on the way out of our Bibles. This is because of the ways in which our translations are getting better at conveying what was originally intended. In the King James Version of the Bible, translated in 1611 and the mainstay for Protestants until the 20th century, the English word “soul” appears 537 times. The New American Bible (1986) features the word 171 times, the NIV (1984) features it just 139 times, the NRSV (1989) features it 252 times, but that includes the Deuterocanonical books, and even the ESV (2001), which hearkens back to older more literal translations, features the word just 281 times. The difference is not because of any difference in the manuscripts that these versions are using but because of a better understanding of what the Hebrew and Greek words actually mean.

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Kephalē in the Septuagint

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On November 16, 2021

In ecclesiology, feminism, theology and biblical studies

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Some time ago I began a series on the notorious biblical passages that form part of the historical discussion about women in positions of leadership in the church. I expressed some reservations there about wading into the subject, because I don’t think many people are interested in what people who disagree with them have to say about this. So I included there some cautions about how I’m going to approach the subject, and specifically about the sorts of objections I’m not interested in. If you plan to read on, and especially if you plan to comment, it might be best to read that post first.

Then I began the series, starting with a look at a word St Paul uses to describe the relationship between men and women, while he is discussing men’s and women’s roles in the churches in Corinth and Ephesus. That word, which he applies to men, is kephalē (κεφαλή), and literally means “head.” In that blog post, I observed that kephalē in the New Testament does not mean “source,” which some say was Paul’s intended meaning, but rather it is used to mean a literal head, or else, when it is used metaphorically, it refers to “preeminence, priority, authority or superiority in some broad sense encompassing shades of these meanings.” That is what the raw data in the New Testament shows us.

This time I will turn to the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament widely used in early Christianity. You can check the observations I make by seeing for yourself how the word is used there. In the resource I have used for this analysis, kephalē occurs a few hundred times. I have read each of these instances (in English, confirming that kephalē is the word I am observing where this is not clear). I know, doing the groundwork is dry and boring. But you have to do it in order to have any right to tell people what the evidence shows. The approach I am taking here is observing how kephalē is used and describing these “groups” of meaning.

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Episode 057: Death, Fear, Hell, and Doubt

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On May 31, 2021

In heaven and hell, podcast, theological anthropology, theology and biblical studies

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Conditional immortality as a view of human persons, although biblical, comes with an emotional price. I wanted to share some thoughts about fear and doubt, and the roles they play in how we respond to what Scripture teaches about human nature, death, and destiny.

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A bad argument for purgatory

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On January 16, 2021

In ecclesiology, heaven and hell, theology and biblical studies

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I’ve started listing to Pints with Aquinas very recently. So recently that I only just listened to episode four today. But you’ve had a few too many pints with Aquinas if you think the host’s argument for purgatory is a good one.

The podcast is well made and easy to listen to, and Matt Fradd presents it well. His dedication not only to his audience but to Christ is evident, and his passion is contagious. But I don’t know how long I’ll be listening. Time will tell. In today’s episode (ie the one I listened to today), I rolled my eyes as Matt repeated as fact the chestnut that all of the books used in the Catholic Bible were accepted by Christians until the Reformation, when Protestants started throwing out books that contradicted their theology. Nobody faithfully representing history in an informed manner would say this, as I’ve shown in the past. Is the podcast going to turn out to just be another bad Catholic apologetics ministry? I hope not. As I said, time will tell. The podcast might turn out to be my all-time favourite!

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How to escape the Bible with your theology intact

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On July 22, 2019

In heaven and hell, theology and biblical studies

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There is a way of using the Bible to support your theology that really just amounts to doing everything in your power to avoid what the Bible has to say so that you can escape from the ravages of Scripture with your precious doctrine still intact.

Without naming names, over the last year I have had several conversations about the doctrine of hell with people who advocate the doctrine of eternal torment, where they argued in a manner very much like John in the following conversations (right down to the same phraseology, eg “equally likely as an interpretation” and “use Scripture to interpret Scripture”):

Karen: Hi John. Have you read passage A? It seems to pretty clearly deny the doctrine of eternal torment. It says that one day the lost will be destroyed. They will die and be gone. Don’t you agree?

John: No, I don’t think so. I think eternal torment is equally likely as an interpretation.

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