Category: Church in Mission

  • Immigration and May Day

    The May Marches are just about to take place and I just received an email with an image seeking to raise awareness around the complex social issues and injustices surrounding immigration in this country. There are a number of pictures by Shepard Fairey dealing with this issue of “Immigration Reform Now” here. Certainly there are…

  • 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 key questions and motivations behind…

  • Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls: The Church in 25 years

    Scott McClellan emailed me a couple weeks back and asked me to imagine what The church might be like in 25 years and write it in 150-300 words: It’s for an upcoming article for Collide Magazine (a magazine largely dealing with church and new media, an emphasis you will hear in my thoughts). So in…

  • Fan Culture and “Virtual” Communities

    I’ve written about Henry Jenkins in the past, he’s Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and writes constantly about fan culture or “fandom,” remix, and other contemporary cultural happenings. I didn’t know much about him until last year when my doctoral advisor recommended I read Jenkins book, “Convergence Culture” for a methods class…

  • The Ironic Gesture of the Church

    Ryan Bell, the pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Hollywood, invited philosopher/theologian Peter Rollins to do a two day conference called “Beyond Evandelism” at their church building (You can read Bell’s recent post on Rollins talk last night). In his talk Peter Rollins discussed a number of things important to the church: the…