This week the Jewish community celebrates the holiday of Shavuot (commemorating God’s gift of the Torah to the people of Israel) and the Christian community celebrates Pentecost (remembering the gift of the Spirit to the apostles gathered in Jerusalem in Acts 2). As I argue in Healing the Schism, “if the enduring and thoroughgoing connection between Jews and Christians is real, it must work its way through every doctrine of Christian theology…no doctrine of Christian theology can be understood without reference to Judaism and the Jewish people.” Pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit) is one of the areas where we have the farthest to go (and the least already developed) in terms of rethinking Christian theology in light of God’s covenant with Israel. Josh Lessard and I wade into these waters in this book, and my hope is that theologians and scholars will continue the important work of rethinking Pentecost and the Spirit from a post-supersessionist lens.

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that I’ve started posted Monday Musings related to my next book. I’m hoping these short videos can be a way to both generate discussion and hear input from others who also wrestle with key questions related to the Jewish gospel and Christian identity. If you’re interested, here are the four videos that I’ve posted thus far:

https://youtu.be/uiejyq9ylUs

https://youtu.be/msTLpLdzg74

https://youtu.be/gCyQ03wR_w0

https://youtu.be/o-Is2rlF9hM

May we embrace the Spirit’s work in our lives and may everything we do reflect the core values that define us.

Trying not to miss the little moments,
Jen