“The church in its profoundest expression is the gathering of a people who are able to sustain one another through the inevitable tragedies of our lives. They are able to do so beause they have been formed by a narrative, constantly reenacted through the sharing of a meal, that claims nothing less than that God […]
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” (Rom 13:8). You don’t choose to pay a debt; you are compelled. But we will return to this in a moment. — Last week it was suggested that Dave Fitch and I, when we said that “we couldn’t” live by the answers that Emergent was offering […]
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Now, Grading; Soon, Posting
(Luigi Anzivino via Compfight) So right now I’m in the middle of a grading wave for Northern Seminary (Missional Leadership), but soon I’ll be posting again regularly on various and sundry topics. I.e.: The Problem of Evil Where is Jesus? And What about the Spirit? The Word of God **What topics would you like addressed?***
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The Cross: More than a Trinket?
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All You Missed: Our Vids
It seems there was a bit of confusion and concern about proposing communal discernment. And that’s OK, it is a difficult thing to understand and from what I can tell it is even less often practiced. On top of all of this are the countless instances of spiritual abuse, if not outright physical and sexual […]
Declarations vs. Discussions? Most people either want declarations from on high, or endless discussions from within. Few desire to make real discernments leading forward. Tony Jones totally misses the issue of discernment when he criticized Fitch about Rob Bell’s lack of accountability (see Fitch’s prompt). Jones immediately takes this to mean “moral accountability” regarding marital fidelity, as if Fitch were talking about emotional […]
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An Immoderate Proposal
As Christians in N. America, we face stark new challenges related to our inherited ways of being church. I’m talking about the cultural challenges to truth, poor perception of Christians in the public, pluralism, a loss of sanctification/discipleship practice in the face of consumerism, alternative sexualities, and our participation in bringing justice to the world […]
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Why Did We Write This Book?
We must not forget the great cloud of witnesses! “In church history, there has often been a strong correspondence between the absence of truly Christian heroes and martyrs and the presence of religious-like commitment to the nation state and its heroes and martyrs (civil religion). This is not only because the absence of martyrdom means […]