Theology of Fun: Fun is Good
“Theology of fun” is a phrase you might hear from a youth pastor, but what does it mean? The importance of the subject is clear, because fun and play are naturally an important part of our lives. If the Bible does not approve of fun, then everything from watching football to playing with our kids…
Theology of Fun: The Play of Creation
O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.Psalm 104:24-26, ESV Creation as Play…
Theology of Fun: Fun and Romance
Romance is more than fun, but fun is part of romance. Abimelech knows that Rebekah is Isaac’s wife when he sees them laughing together (Genesis 26:8). They let the cat out of the bag by having more fun than siblings should have together. A husband and wife can laugh, play, and enjoy each other with…
Play in Les Miserables and Isaiah
Some of the themes about fun I have been drawing out of the Bible are illustrated in a great work of literature. If you have seen the movie, you will remember that the orphan Cosette lives with the swindling Thenardier family, and is mistreated by them until she is adopted by the repentant criminal Jean…
Theology of Fun: The Logos at Play
For the Logos on high plays, stirring the whole cosmos back and forth, as he wills, into shapes of every kind. Gregory Nazianzen, quoted in Man at Play by Hugo Rahner In chapter 1 of Man at Play, Hugo Rahner expertly traces the concept of “Logos at play” from Proverbs 8, to Greek philosophy and…
Theology of Fun: Aquinas on Fun as Rest
Christianity has a history of being anti-fun. After all, what role could fun have in a sober life of self-denial and service? The medieval scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas saw that it would be irrational and sinful to exclude fun from the Christian life, because fun is a necessary form of spiritual and mental rest. Augustine…
Natural Theology of Fun in Anne of Green Gables
Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.James 1:17, NASB When I started studying “theology of fun,” I was skeptical of anything that did not argue straight from the Bible. However, there is a place for…
Theology of Fun: Excited Enjoyment
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 1 TImothy 6:17, ESV I have managed to write a lot about fun without defining it, but my new working…
Hapax Blogomena 