Issues in the Church - Gathering In Light

Turning Messages Of Hate Into Poetry of Love

Came across this yesterday. It’s a really cool blog called God Loves Poetry. It’s a group of people subverting the hateful message of Westboro Baptist Church. Turning their anger into messages of hope with a black marker and some creativity. It’s a simple act, but it reminds

Church in Mission

Denominations and Traditions: Thoughts on Differences

“To stand within a tradition does not limit the freedom of knowledge, but makes it possible.” Hans Georg Gadamer Today I spent a few hours working on my Mid-Program defense for my PhD program, I will be presenting it to my committee on May 14th. This entails laying out the

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Homo Sacer and Civilized Racism?

In Slavoj Zizek’s book on September 11, “Welcome to the Desert of The Real,” he discusses the idea behind Homo sacer, in order to describe the kind of racism we often find within our society today. The Homo sacer: is an obscure figure of Roman law: a person who

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London, the Olympics and Getting Rid of the Poor

I read this article today in the Guardian and thought it was worth pointing out. The article, “London is getting into the Olympic spirit – by kicking out the Gypsies” by George Monbiot argues that the Olympics, often thought of being a way to boost the economy for the poor, is

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Some Problems with Online Christian Communities | And Why You Should Stay Away

Online communities continue to grow Myspace, Virb, Facebook, delicious, flickr, twitter, digg, 30boxes, box.net, etc, etc, all offer a way for people to share and stay in touch. I personally like the attention web 2.0 companies have paid to making the web more interactive in this way. I

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Life At Woodbrooke | 5 weeks Deep Part 1

I’ve been in the UK for almost 5 weeks now and it feels like the time is flying (I arrived on May 2nd). My Wife, Emily, will be here in approximately 22 days, 11 hours 53 min and 39 seconds. Of course, that was when I wrote that sentence,

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Marquee: Emerging Approaches to Church Leadership (And The Fading Ones Too)

In our class on The Emerging Church, we spend a good amount of time talking about what leadership looks like, and what it doesn’t because these questions tend to be pretty pressing for seminary students planning on going into the ministry upon graduation. The missional and emerging churches, along

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Resources and Tips for Becoming Green and Protecting OUR Environment

I am continually challenged to be more frugal with the way I live my life, expend resources, and how my choices affect others (often people I don’t know and will never meet). When we talk about “saving the planet,” being “environmentally friendly,” or “creation care,” it’s easy to

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Online Communities and Radical Reformation Perspectives

Today the Urban Connection of the Mennonite Mission Network has published an article on web communities. I am really excited about the article, Online Finds: Web Leads to Real Communiy by Ryan Miller, for a couple reasons. First it shows that the Anabaptists are also asking questions about the global

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Winds of the Spirit: Convergent Friends Workshop (Providence 2007)

As most of you know by now I spent the end of last week in Providence Rhode Island helping with a workshop about convergent Friends. I wanted to give an overview of what we did there so that those of you who are curious can be in the know. There

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Learning a New Language While Building a House: Reflections on Quaker Heritage Day

Psa. 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. This past weekend my wife and I visited Berkeley California for a gathering called “Quaker Heritage Day.” It’s not unlike any

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FAQs: What is Worship? (Pastoral Quaker Perspective)

In reading Thomas Hamm’s absolutely wonderfulQuakers in America I came across a good quote about how virtually all pastoral Friends today would agree on what the Richmond Declaration says about worship, the statement comes from the Declaration which is actually highly disputed but Hamm believes most would get behind

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FAQs: What is the value of confession?

Frequently Asked Questions (of a theologian) is a weekly segment where a guest or myself answers a question that gets commonly posed to theologians. The basic idea is to take a theological question and offer an answer that is concise and useful for ‘everyone else.’ If you’d like to

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Culture Jam and the Radical Reformation

I just finished reading “Culture Jam: How to Reverse America’s Suicidal Consumer Binge–And Why We Must” (Kalle Lasn) for the first time over the weekend. This was another book assigned for Ryan’s class, which I will be leading a discussion on this coming thursday. Sometimes I wonder

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Ted Haggard and Jim Wallis: A Couple Brief Thoughts

I found this post over at God’s Politics – Jim Wallis’ blog it was a statement about Ted Haggard and the issues that were raised in the last couple weeks, and I think it’s really good to read. My impression of this whole thing is that like everything else,

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America’s Overbearing Appetite

Emily pointed this political cartoon out to me the other day. It’s more true than we’d like to admit.

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Alasdair Macintyre On Rights and Protest: Are We Just Talking To Ourselves?

In keeping with the conversation at bay, MacIntyre’s words on protest are fitting. In his seminal work “After Virtue” he focuses on arguing how and why the “Enlightenment project” failed. Essentially it is because the modern period has stripped away from humanity any social context in which to couch

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What Do I Mean by Small Churches?

There was a question about what I meant in terms of a small church from a commenter the other day, I thought I’d address here. In response, when I think of a “small church” I think of a place that you are able to know and be known by

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Hauerwas and a Faith and Practice for Emerging Churches

Today I spent time reading a dissertation by a now-graduated Fuller student named Brad Kallenberg. And I found something interesting that points toward a strength within Quaker theory and how it might help other young churches.??? In his (dishearteningly thick) dissertation Changing the subject in postmodernity : Narrative ethics and philosophical

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Do Not Be Afraid…

I spent this past weekend at the Politics and Spirituality conference with the Beatitudes Society both of which I have much to write about and will do so over the next week or two. But in this moment I continue to think of this day as the anniversary of September

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Things I Value in A Church: A Confession of Faith?

After writing three posts about things to look for when church shopping, I got to thinking about what things people would be looking for when they asked those questions. I am of the opinion that we all have certain things we look for when trying to find a church. So

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How Do We Look For The Theology of A Church? Part III

Many of us have visited multiple churches in our lives, some stand out more and other’s we probably don’t remember much about. For many people what stands out most is what happens during the service, the kind of preaching, what was preached, the music, how the sacraments were

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How Do We Look For the Theology of A Church? Part I

Emily and I are back from our 2 week vacation in the Midwest. We had a lovely time seeing family in Friends in Ohio, and Nashville. And we thoroughly enjoyed our anniversary which we spent in Ludington Michigan at a great Bed and Breakfast called Cartier Mansion. I will post

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The Rise of Christian Terrorism: Fear Based Religion

I admit that can be hard on the church from time to time, but this is in part because I believe that we have such a grave responsibility to bear peace and reconciliation to the world. In this way I tend to enjoy people like Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder,