Turning 50 is a divider that cuts through life with the sharpest edge. It calls for contemplation and reflection more than it conjures up visions and dreams of the future. When my father turned 50 he lightheartedly announced that he was now in the “death half” (döhalvan) of life. It is the time when (hopefully)…
The catalyst that changes the direction of a persons life can be very differnt depending on who you are, for me it often starts with a thought and from having the thought I would seek out books to learn more and the books would help me to shape or resahpe my reality. This series is…
We love, because we are loved. Eros calls to us from the deepest depths of our worldly existance. Built into the very core of reality is the desire for union, the desire to fall back into oneness. To enter into union is to step, naked and vulnerable into the holy of holies, the inner sanctum…
People ask me why I bother with the church. Why I bother coming back to christianity at all after all that has happened. I think the truth is, first of all, that I never left. My faith has (although shaken at times) always been an integral part of who I am and why I have…
Sodomy and sodomite are two sad words in the english language. The words have been used in the past to describe Homosexual men and their actions. Of course the word actually means “a person from Sodom” and the verb should mean “doing what the people in Sodom did.” So what did the people of Sodom…
It’s that time again, or perhaps still, to have a meta conversation about the conversation. Today I am having the conversation about god, religion and sex on the Swedish podcast Dirtytalkpodden. And so the questions come, the question that always comes up: Why do you always talk about sex? Barbara Carellas once wrote: “I give…
You may have noticed that the blog changed title. This to reflect the changing tone and content of the blog over the past three years. As I started studying theology in earnest I started at a very broad spectrum deconstructing and reconstructing everything from creationism to eschatology. Slowly though I realised that the spirituality that…
I am angry at the person who picked up a gun and murdered all those people in Orlando, I am angry at all the people who thinks that any kind of violence is justified in any situation. I am angry at the Christians who think that anything could justify these horrific actions. It doesn’t matter…
“For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matt 7.14 NRSV) There is this idea, because of this verse, that being a Christian should be difficult and hard and to that effect the church has through the centuries created different sets of…
Today I was challenged, why do I celebrate this commercial holiday and pass it on to my children. What could possibly merit the perpetuation of this madness? I do, in fact have an issue with the entire Christmas hype. The manic shopping the gruelling pressure to get presents right and to pretend that everything is…
This weeks teaching on earth, birth, blood and sexuality we talked a lot about the blood mysteries within the Christian tradition. It interesting to note that while the early tradition has no such qualms the priestly tradition has a real issue with bodily fluids in general and bleeding women in particular. A bleeding woman was…
This is the teaching shared at the first MCC heart gathering in Malmö on the 6th of December 2015. The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), also known as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC), is an international Protestant Christian denomination. There are 222 member congregations in 37 countries, and the Fellowship has a specific…
In the wake of my most recent post on how love is not static I would like to add some thoughts on what has been called relationship anarchy, a term coined by Dr Andy in 2004. Dr. Andy writes: “Relationship anarchy questions the idea that love is a limited resource that can only be real…
It has become very popular in the west to state that one is “spiritual and not religious”. For years I have felt that Religion was a bad thing and that religious was a derogatory term. For me religion was all the man made traditions and customs that many times where contradictory to scripture and inhibiting…
It is interesting when we read the Christian scriptures we are told in the gospel of John that Jesus tells the disciples that they will do greater things than him. Our reaction is immediate, how could anyone ever do greater things than Jesus, the son of god? Instantly forgetting that we to are the sons…
So in light of my most recent post on the Ashley Madison reveal and the churches inability to provide a positive alternative to the schools sex education (or lack of sex ed). I have been pondering what could we do … when I read this article voicing some of the same concerns and citing a…
Sin and repentence are two Christian concepts that I used to have an issue with. I was taught that sin was both like a cancer in my soul and that sinner was my identity. I used to actually believe that when I sinned god would leave me and stay away from me and my life…
In the tantric tradition everything hinges on the polarity between the divine masculine, awareness and consciousness and the divine feminine, energy and life force. Everywhere we look we see this polarity between the outward and inward movement, the tension between the two. This is reflected in the Taoist tradition and we see it in pagan…
This post was originally posted in september 2012 and taken of the blog that same month as requested by the Salvation Army national leadership. I am now reposting it as it was an important step on the journey. This post in itself was an experiment in being open, authentic and vulnerable. The post pushed a…
It has been a long Journey for me to come from childhood to manhood. And then I am not talking about just getting old enough to call myself a man but to actually come to a place in life where I can truly say that I have come of age, and stepped into my power…
This is my new refrain, Slow down! We are rushing through life (some more than others) at such a breakneck speed that we are missing it completely. Being and Enneagram seven, I can be so preoccupied with whatever is just over the horizon that I completely miss the now. With so many things going on…
It’s funny what people will read out of my posts. I am getting the question if I am not a Christian anyomore. So I thought I would take a minute to adress this question. What is a Christian? To answer the question we must agree on what it is to be a Christian. There are…
As we are walking away from organised religion there are a lot of interesting conversations going on around the dinner table in our house. Yesterday Hanna said something about the death of her ministry and how maybe she never felt quite comfortable with the title minister of religion. I think I can echo that thought.…
As I was browsing the interwebs I came upon this cartoon depicting how the secular society looks at christianity. It is true to a large degree. In todays society it is ok to quote Buddha, the Dalai Lama or Ghandi but to quote Jesus or the bible is somehow offensive. Of course the reverse is…
We live in a society that has for centuries prioritised the mind. We have listened to Descartes who said Cogito Ergo Sum, I think therefore I am and so we believe that we are the sum of our thoughts rather than the sum of our being. God gave us the mind to protect the heart,…
In the Christian world we continuously repeat the mantra: Jesus is the answer, Jesus is the truth! Vi repate it over and over again and it most often seems to mean that outside the person of Jesus there is no truth. We seem to believe that Jesus statement means that everything else is untrue, lies.…
If you have been raised in church or spent a longer time as a member of some sort of church, then I am sure you have been told not to trust your feelings. I was certainly told time and time again that feelings are a roller coaster, they come and go and cannot be trusted.…
A while ago I wrote about the importance of self love and how self love is the first step to loving others since you can only love others as much as you love yourself. Now we know we should love ourselves, and we hopefully feel that it is ok to love oneself. The question then…
“For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self … Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering…
Look around you, what do you see? Are you not surrounded by grace? By walking talking miracles gifted with the gift of life and love? How is it that within the Christian church, it has become heretical to see and to point out the divine outside of the confines of our little community, outside of…
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,…
In the beginning when god began creating the heavens and the earths manifestations of god’s self of gods love, and god saw that it was good. And god created humans as embodied manifestations of gods consciousness, god’s glory and god’s love. God charged humanity to be stewards of the earth, to love it and care…
It is funny how a single verse in the bible can become so important to some people, important enough not to read or understand the context. You shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practice augury or witchcraft. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of…
Someone once told me that all dichotomies are false dichotomies. And maybe this is the most sinister but also the most widespread of them all. The very idea that there is us and them, the idea that we are somehow different *better” that them, whomever they are. In what may have been one of the…
I don’t know about you but I hear a lot of hopelessness out there when I put my ear on the wire. The internet is buzzing with naysayers and doomsday prophets telling us that it is too late, that there is no hope left. We might as well just hold on and enjoy the ride…
The whole idea of heaven, while hope inspiring, often corrodes and hollows out our everyday life. It is interesting to note that Jesus rarely spoke about heaven. To him, it seemed much more important and urgent to deal with life here and now. Heaven in the here and now. “Repent, for the kingdom of god…
IT’S TRUE!! Not even when it’s really good! Not even when it’s long or loud, wet and rowdy. Sex is not even filthy when it is public or outside or taped. Sex is not filthy when it is between two men or two women. It is not filthy no matter what clothes we dress up…
So this week we are talking about sin. It doesn’t happen a lot around here. I abhor the notion of sin, not because of what it means but because of the cultural baggage that we have attached to the idea. Let me just say outright that the whole concept of a catalogue of sin, certain…
We live in a secular society, which for most people means separation of church and state. We have this idea that church simply should not be political or involve itself in matters of state. In the same way we have this notion that church has nothing to do with science and that science have nothing…
So let’s talk about love. What could be easier, love is after all the foundation of the Christian faith right! Love is the cornerstone, Love is the air that we breathe, all you need is love! Then again for as long as humans have walked the earth we have tried to define love and make sense of…
I have been a Christian on and off since I was 14 years old. I have prayed thousands upon thousands of prayers. Some deep and heartfelt, some pleading, some angry and demanding answers and some, I must confess, simply by routine. I think that is why I stopped saying grace (praying, giving thanks for my…
Those of you who have heard me teach have probably heard me say that joy is the Christian trademark, well that and or grace. While there are a lot of really awesome teaching in most of the world religions, the idea of grace, the completely undeserved, unconditional gift that inspires a no holds barred kind…
Most people have had this thought, I know I have, If I could just find some peace and quiet, then I could sort out my issues and get on with it. Most people wait for the circumstances to be right, or work frantically to make the circumstances right to achieve peace. This need for quiet…
We talk about love a lot, we say that: God is love! The scriptures say it over and over again, they even say that unless you are in love, saturated with love, bubbling over with love, you are not with god. And so we realise that love is necessary, it’s a fundamental part of our…
So I was looking at one of my favourite geeky webpages when I found this T-Shirt that said: “Kiss me I’m elvish”. Which of course is a rip-off of the old “Kiss me I’m Irish” slogan. And it got me thinking…Today Christians are so afraid of any physical contact, because we have fallen into the…
I have heard it often spoken in churches, you are a sinner! We most often base this on a handful of verses out of scripture like the famous “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of god”. And so we fall into the trap where we think that we are what we…
It’s been around for a long time, the notion that the problem we have as humans is that we are in fact human. We call it the human condition. And so we aspire to be more than human, to be ‘spiritual’, to somehow leave our human existence and become something else. The problem is that…
The title should be enough, that should be the end of discussion. However, since we are prone to get stuck in patterns based on fragmented readings of scripture we have to go deeper than just this statement. We have gotten stuck on a handful of bible verses about submission and male dominance instead of letting…
I posted a short update to Facebook a few days ago that was accused of being to new agey. Why? Because instead of thanking god for what is happening in my life right now I said: isn’t it great when the universe conspires to give you your deepest desire. Have I started worshipping the universe?…
This is a blog post that should not need to be written. Art and artistic expression has been part of the church since it’s inception. And while art often is a physical expression (but not always, for example poetry) it is not carnal as defined by the false dichotomy of carnal/spiritual or materialistic as in…
Ministry is an interesting word for many reasons, the most important reason is that it does not mean what most people assume it means. For me as a Swede it has double significance as it is one of the Christian buzzwords that do not exist in the Swedish language. The closest we get to the…
Grace, it’s such a beautiful concept. Grace an (undeserved) gift freely given. We read in the scriptures that god loved us before we knew about god, before we saw god, before we had our first god experience. God’s grace is scandalous, outrageous and completely free, for EVERYONE. There are NO exceptions! There are no…
The holy grail of church planting in my opinion is the building of a community. The way we traditionally do this is by planning activities in our church buildings and we put on meetings. That is we create structured environments in which people can meet and greet. I am not saying there is anything wrong…
In evangelical circles we keep saying this, Church is the people not the building, but do we really understand it? The word church comes from the german kirche which in turn comes from the greek word kurios meaning lord. So the word church means “those who belong to the lord”, well you could of course…
It’s not! Ask yourself this, are you a Christian? If so, why are you a christian? Is it because you believe certain things? The right things? Is it because you do certain things? Or are you a Christian because there is a divine reality of love and you live or at least wish to live…
While one can assume that Jesus may have been a religious man, Jesus himself is not a religion. He did not come to start a religion, he did not found a church and he did not write a sacred text nor did he ask anyone else to do so. I think if Jesus had intended…
I have been returning to thoughts about this the last couple of days in several conversations with friends. As an officer of the Salvation Army I think it is an important question that needs to be contemplated often. For many people Salvation is a word that is not used much, it is an antiquated religious…
The last couple of days there has been a post circulating on the internet with a bunch of statements allegedly made by the current Pope. People are upset that a pope would say such things (although he didn´t) and what it would mean for Christianity at large. Other people are praising the Pope for these…
It may seem an obvious statement for anyone who, like me, have studied the scriptures at any depth. Jesus was a Jew and most Christians would readily admit this fact. But as obvious as it may be we still tend to think of Jesus as a Christian, because, lets face it what else would he…
So this last week I have been reading the long anticipated book: Notes from (over) the edge by Jim Palmer. This is a very different book than Jim’s other work. It feels like Jim lifted the curtain and let us peak behind into his mind and his thinking that has fuelled the rest of his…
We all know we need closeness, connection and human touch, here are ten reasons why we should intentionally introduce embracing, hugging and cuddling as a practice in our lives. After you read this post of why, think about how you will implement the art of long embraces and cuddles in your daily life and community.…
In recent conversations the topic of pleasure has come up time and time again. It seems that from a Christian point of view we are as a community ambivalent about god’s view on pleasure. It seems that somewhere deep down we do believe that although god is good and want good things for us, we…
A depressing title I know, but please bear with me and hear me out. After four years in a church plant where we desperately are trying to model and live out an authentic Christianity at the same time as we are trying to build a church community, I have come to realise that authentic christianity…
The last week I have been contemplating this question: What does it mean to be a Salvationist? A Salvationist (for those of you who are not in the Salvation Army), is a soldier in the Salvation Army, but what does that mean? Is being a Salvationist believing certain things or doing certain things? Let me…
I am watching a fellow Salvationist lament on the LGBTQ oppressive teaching they are getting at a Salvation Army event. I grieve with here and cringe inwardly at the damage being done in yet another Bible study where no consideration is being given to the possibility of HBTQ people in the room. At the same…
In John 3.16 we read that god so loved the world (kosmos) that he gave his only begotten son…. And it seems to me that all through scripture we are reminded again and again that kosmos, that is all of creation, is longing for redemption. When god creates the world, as we read in Gen…
The Church is in trouble every time it instructs us to disregards our hearts or tell us that our hearts are evil/wicked. If Life is to be our religion and being alive is our spiritual practice; If the church is build by authentic relationships and if becoming and being all that I am is my…
If my calling is becoming and being all that I am then it falls naturally that my ministry, my service to god is to, within the scope of an authentic relationship, help you to become and be all that you are. This is not first and foremost a call to spiritual leadership, with one spiritual…
Holiness and calling are two central points of a Salvationist theology. Many books have been written on holiness, most of them describing holiness as a tool to get rid of/become sin free and while many of these books describe holiness as an internal process the result becomes an external system of sin management. As if…
I was approached last week by a Soldier that was concerned about my reading and quoting philosophical works in my blogs and my sermons. He quoted the oft quoted: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what…
Jesus main message, according to most bible scholars, was that of the kingdom of god, or life eternal (aionos zoe). In most churches this has degenerated into an oversimplified message of “pie in the sky when you die”. When Jesus very clearly describes the kingdom as an event, as something that is about to happen and…
If life is the religion what are we then to make of church? The English word for church comes from the greek kurios which is best translated as the Lord’s or those that belong to the Lord. In the context of this then maybe the simplest way to express this is that the cosmos, all of…
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus asks in Mark 3.33. It is a poignant question, one worthy to ponder as we face this turbulent life. It seems to me that while the biblical narrative in some cases puts an emphasis on family, it also deconstructs the very idea of family. Archbishop Desmond Tutu…
It may seem to some the most logical place to start: God is love! This it is what I was taught as I took my first stumbling steps as a Christian. I was also taught that the bible is a love letter from god. This, however, struck me as a bit odd given the strangeness…
I am sittning at the Salvation Army leadership conference in Örebro, listening to Tommy Hellsten talking about finding your true self and how the ego must be crucified, taken apart, gotten rid of. I think of Eddie Izzard that stated last night during his “Force Majeure” show that he had an overgrown ego, he tells…
What is a spiritual practice, or a spiritual discipline? Most people I know would place a spiritual practice within the confines of what you do on a Sunday in church or possibly in your daily prayer session at home. A subset of my friends would also extend it to their activities in feeding the hungry…
It is a grand statement: Life is my religion! But what does it mean? Let’s start with the end, religion, what is religion? The word religion comes from latin and means to re/connect (ligare is the same root word that gives us the english word ligament). What is it we need to re/connect? Naturally this…
After a long hiatus in blogging I have decided to warm up the keyboard and start blogging again. Any long term reader will immediately notice that the name of the blog has changed and with that maybe the direction of the blog as well. Personally I think the new name “Theopoetics” better reflect the direction…
This week has been full of questions and reflection. And as I was reading “The idolatry of God” I was reflecting on Jesus asking us to pray in his name. I think in our traditional thinking we connect this with John 4.6 (No one comes to the father but through me) or we possibly se…
It’s a whole new year, we need to learn how to write 2013 instead of 2012, Oh and the world ended so here we are in the aftermath of the end of the world or at least the end of the year. New years eve is a traditional time of repentance, maybe not in the…
The conversation goes on and on, and we toss around words that are loaded with presuppositions, the verb “to believe” is not the least of them. I have written extensively about this, but it seems it’s a topic worth another go. What does it mean to believe, to have faith and to be faithful? I…
It seems that most people are upset by uncertainty, and more specifically Christians get really upset if one where to say that we cannot know. I was taught when I first came into the church about this “blessed assurance”, to know that you know that you know that god is real/good/loving etc. At the same…
Sitting here and mulling over my many impressions and conversations at this weeks conference (Piratkyrkan bibel – 2012). One conversation keep coming back. Saturday night we had a small conversation about Glossolalia, speaking in tongues. It is my belief that everyone can speak in tongues, as I find it hard to believe Paul would express…
There where two trees in the garden. There was the tree that the first eikons (reflections of god) was told not to touch, you know the one with the “apple”. But there was also another tree the tree of life, it is interesting to note that god never told the adama (earthling) and his ezer kenegdo (lifesaver)…
An unnamed ancient eastern mystic have penned that you “…should always stay at the beginning”. The beginning of a new relationship is sweet and filled with endorphin induced bliss. Equally when we first meet/fall in love with Jesus we are equally blissed out. All our attention is on this new found love, we breathe it,…
If you have heard me teach, chances are you have heard me teach on Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.” (2 Chronicles 16:9 NIV)…
A dear friend and mentor wrote: You ask whether your post will make you an outcast from the Christian community. I hope it does not because we could do with a dose of clear thinking, careful theological reflection, and honesty on this subject, and others. Of course, the Christian community cannot bear such questions because,…
The biggest problem with wearing a mask is that as long as we wear it only the mask receives love. The psychology is as simple as it is diabolical, I know that what I am presenting is not real me, therefore I also know that the person you are loving is not really the real…
As soon as you say the words: god is love, some people make a face and sigh. The notion is that when you speak about god as love and when you talk about grace, it is a sign that you have gone soft. Implying that you have compromised the “high standards” of Christian living and…
After years of deconstructing both my worldview, my faith, my theology, my sexuality and every other aspect of my faith I have come to this conclusion (among many others to be sure), marriage is meaningless. Marriage has meant many different things in many different times and many different cultures. Most of the time marriage has…
Anyone that knows me knows that the last year has been a theological and emotional roller coaster of self discovery. I have been to the depths of me and re-examined my core beliefs and my standard scripts, realising that I live like most people behind the mask that I think will be accepted by the…
I love my blog readers, they are not many but they are faithful. Recently a new but dear friend has been reading my blog from the beginning, charting the twists and turns of both my life and my faith. This has provoked more than a few very interesting questions. One of the more poignant questions…
Tolerance has long been a hobby horse of many within the evangelical movement (to make fun of and hate it) and the liberal movement (to advocate it). Recently my friend and former pastor Peter Baranowsky have been blogging about the book the new tolerance and it seems to me that Peter and possibly the authors…
Often in these theological conversations we are presented with a set of polar opposites. Monica Coleman states in a recent Homebrew podcast that when presented with polarities in conversation all you need is a bigger container. Think of the earth (or the Earth as Jeanine Slettom and John Cobb would have it), a globe with two…
I have been putting of writing this post for nearly a week now, I get both uneasy and angry just by thinking about it. Stephen Court wrote the following in his blog the other day: Evangelicals Encouraging Contraception for Singles? It turns out that 80% of American Evangelicals are going to hell. That is, they admit…
Why are you doing this? Why do you take such an interest in the LGBTQ and sexuality? The question has been asked of me many times. By my leaders, by the people in my congregation and by my family. In fact I think it was my brother who asked the million dollar question one day…
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