Kenton J. Kutney

One theory tossed around about the eyewitnesses claim that Jesus came back to life is that he never actually quite died. Can we know if it was simply resuscitation — or must we consider the  death defying  miracle of resurrection? Check out the modern medical analysis in this 3 minute clip...

What can we actually know about the real Jesus, the guy who walked this earth some 2000 years ago? Have layers of tradition inevitably changed and shaped the picture we now have of him? How reliable are the recorded accounts of the life of Jesus that are presented in the New Testament Gospels of the Bible today? Take a minute to watch this video consider things from the view of a forensic detective... When reading a modern English translation, we might get the nagging thought that we are so far removed from the original — realty, 2000 years is a long time since Jesus walked he earth! The printing press is a relatively modern invention, so it is natural to ask if perhaps errors and omissions and editing crept into the hand-written copying process. This is important to dig into. How can there be any claim of truth to the Bible if it has kept changing over time? Remarkably, we have an astounding amount of carefully preserved ancient manuscript evidence to compare; far more tha...

Conspiracy theories abound online. Although there are some people who have what you might call a 'blind faith', this isn't the kind of believing the Bible calls us to (heart + mind). We tend to compartmentalize life into boxes of mental, emotional, spiritual, physical - realms of science and religion that never intersect - yet the big mysteries of life (like love, for example) engage the whole person. In the course of my life I have come to realize that our modern exaltation of rationalism leaves much to be desired . Some things just cannot be tested in a beaker. As the famous mathematician Pascal observed, "The heart has it's reasons that reason cannot know." Questions are not a bad thing: they can take us deeper. Left unexplored, however, they fester into doubt.This Easter, think like a detective... About the video: Detective J. Wallace decided to examine the evidence for Christianity by applying the same forensic techniques he used to solve his co...

If we move past an egg-laying bunny, our thoughts at Easter suddenly start to get real. Life and death questions: “Where is God in all of this suffering?” “What does the death of one man 2000 years ago have to do with today?” ...This week I’ll be posting some brief reflections on Jesus’ life, death, and most importantly, the question of his supposed resurrection. Is this a source of true Hope or just more naive wishful thinking like that bunny story? (To begin investigating for yourself, the Gospel of Mark is a quick read.) "This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."    — John 3:16 (Bible, The Message version)

From an Paschal homily by John Chrysostom: "Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness. Let no one lament their poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn their transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Saviour's death has set us free. He that was taken by death has annihilated it! He descended into Hades and took Hades captive! He embittered it when it tasted His flesh! And anticipating this, Isaiah exclaimed: "Hades was embittered when it encountered Thee in the lower regions." It was embittered, for it was abolished! It was embittered, for it was mocked! It was embittered, for it was purged! It was embittered, for it was despoiled! It was embittered, for it was bound in chains! It took a body and came upon God! It took earth and encountered heaven! It took what it saw, but crumbled before what can not seen! O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy vi...

I have been pondering how it is even possible for a modern mortal to ‘share in the sufferings of Christ’.  It is one thing to recall the history of early church persecution, 'the blood of the saints that was the seed of the church'.  And it seems that many of the exhortations to endure suffering in Scripture are directly related to the hardship of the church and the cause of the Gospel of Christ.  These are the hero-saints of which the world was unworthy (Heb. 11:38). Especially when I compare that to my sufferings with a chronic illness: years living with a silly vortex of trials which constantly surprises in some fresh way with the same old symptoms (deep pain and sheer fatigue, troubled sleep, stomach troubles, financial strains, concerns about the future, etc.), so that once again one is caught muttering “Why me?” and feeling immature.  How do my aches and anxieties possibly compare to His sacred stripes?  How can they in some way be spiritual? ...

--> "Tapestry Holes" The other day I received I great email fwd (unknown) from my brother, Lorne, who is among the great ‘forwarders’. Along with reading Scripture and some C.S. Lewis, it has triggered some fresh insights or appreciations about Easter and my own chronic illness.  I’ll see if I can synthesize it in few paragraphs. It begins as dreamy face-to face encounter with the Maker at the Judgment. I knelt before the Lord along with all the other souls.  Before each of us laid our lives like the squares of a quilt in many piles; an angel sat before each of us sewing our quilt squares together into a tapestry that is our life. But as my angel took each piece of cloth off my pile, I noticed how ragged and empty the squares were. They were filled with giant holes.  Worse yet, each square was labelled with a part of my life that had been difficult, the challenges and temptations I faced in everyday ...