Gathering In Light (Page 36)

Five Years Ago and Convergent October 2008

Martin Kelley has written a post giving a little back history to what happened five years ago. Five years ago he started reading Rober Weber’s book The Younger Evangelicals, a book that confirmed much of his thinking about liberal Quakerism and helped him verbalize what needs to happen in

The Political

Dress Down Friday | Political Irony and the Messianic

With Sarah Palin being picked the VP last week things in the political news world have gone to another level of seriousness, but fortunately there are plenty of people also having a little fun with the whole thing as well: * The Fake Sarah Palin Twitter * Sarah Palin’s Video Blog

Blog Entries

Manufacturing Dissent: An Interview with Stephen Duncombe

I came across an interview with Stephen Duncome, the author of “Dream:Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in the Age of Fantasy,” a book I really enjoyed and have been trying to utilize some of the ideas (you can see a first attempt in my essay called, “Desire and the Imgination of

The Theological

Faith and The Difficult Process of Discernment

Image via Wikipedia And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NRSV) Over the last month Emily and I have been working through a major life change question.

Church in Mission

Dreams and the Kingdom of God

My August Barclay Press essay is now online. It’s a little late for August, but time has been pretty tight lately. The essay looks at Stephen Duncombe’s recent book on progressive politics, “Dream Re-Imagining” and applies some of the findings to a theological perspective on living out the

Blog Entries

Theologians….

Theologians…. on Flickr – Photo Sharing!. Theologians By Wilco: Jeff Tweedy, Mikael Jorgensen, Girard “Theologians don’t know nothing About my soul About my soul I’m an ocean And this emotion Slow motion Slow motion” This is for the Wilco Summer Photo Contest, see music video here.

The Political

Anthony Smith on Not Voting as Violence?

Anthony Smith also known as for his blog “Musings of a Postmodern Negro” has written a great and thought-provoking post on voting from the perspective of black history and theology. He says: Voting, as it is oftentimes seen by historically marginalized groups, is a precious gift. It is not seen,

Blog Entries

Dress Down Friday – Rushmore’s Tenth Anniversary

Here’s a list of interesting things to entertain you for a few moments. * This fall is the tenth anniversary of Wes Anderson’s film “Rushmore.” To celebrate, the Fan site Rushmore Academy is putting together their first issue of Yankee Journal an online art and literary journal for anything

Church in Mission

Cattell – On the Desire to Remain Uncontaminated

I came across this quote from Missionary and Quaker Everett Cattell today, here he questions the faithfulness of those communities that withdraw from “the world.” It is a strong statement, but one that resonates with my own position on the question of the church’s presence in the world and

The Cultural

Barth: The Original (Theology) Hipster?

Ben Myers posted a quote from Karl Barth on Fashion the other day, where Barth considers fashion one of the lordless powers of our times: Who or what really determines fashion the fashion to which man thinks he must obediently subject clothes, headgear, and hairstyle, the alternation of assurance and

Church in Mission

Everett Cattell’s Principle of Authority (pt. 3)

Series contents | Intro | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five Cattell’s understanding of authority is derived from Christ, who is the head of the church. He argues that there is a tendency in the church to choose some one authority over another. Christ as head relativizes arguments over

Church in Mission

A Quakerism Worth Believing In

The convictions of the First Friends were what ordered their theo-political imagination (as Cavanugh calls it). This ‘imagination’ guided their practice, their missionary-inspired anti-Constantinian message that Christ had retunred and is the head of the church. The head of the church is not the state, it’s not learned clergy,

Blog Entries

Dress Down Friday | Tickles, Non-AntiChrists and a British Gorilla

Here’s this week’s Dress Down Friday, sure to keep you from doing something more productive. * Lifehacker has posted their top-ten list of how-to videos; everything you ever wanted to know how to do, I’m sure. Oh, and speaking of how-tos, here’s help on how to tell

Church in Mission

Wilbert Shenk on Ecclesiology and Mission

In discussing how particular, newly planted and non-Western, churches could potentially develop “in loco an ecclesiology at once biblically and theologically responsive,” mission historian and theologian, Wilbert Shenk argues that ecclesiology has in the past often been ignored or fallen secondary to the primacy of evangelism and conversion of individuals.

Blog Entries

A Quick Parental Solicitation

If you’re a parent and you have a moment and would like to join the discussion Emily and I are looking for some advice.

Church in Mission

Everett Cattel on the Great Commission (pt. 2)

Series contents | Intro | Part Two | Cattell believes that mission must start from the Great Commission, not only a central theme in the New Testament, but a central theme throughout all of Scripture. He remarks that if the Gospels authors would not have penned the Great Commission, it would not matter

Church in Mission

Everett Cattell: Quaker and Mission Theologian

Series contents | Intro | Part Two | This is a part of a series I will be doing on Cattell and his contributions to the Friends Church and missiology. Everett Cattell is an important figure when it comes to missiology within the Friends Church. He and his wife Catherine De Vol were

Church in Mission

A Video Conversation with Martin Kelley

Yesterday, The Quaker Ranter, Martin Kelley, and I sat down over video (he’s in NJ) and had a conversation about some of the difficulties with insider Quaker lingo and the problems that presents for “outsiders.” We also discussed this in relation to using YouTube as a way to get

Featured

Thinking About A Vision for Theological Eduction

In class last week we discussed James Wm. McClendon‘s baptist theological vision. His small ‘b’ baptist vision has five characteristics of the church that standout as a good framework from which any theology should be done. These five points are: 1. Biblicism – Acceptance of the Bible as authoritative in

Blog Entries

Dress Down Friday: Ray Anderson, New Delicious and Hipsters

Check out this image used to discuss what some are doing about the high gas prices: Delicious.com launched the new version of their website. It looks pretty good, has a few nice new features (and here) but overall lacks some of the innovations other social websites have. Ray Anderson,

Church in Mission

Mission and the Future of The Friends Church (Barclay Press)

My Barclay Press essay for July is now online. It’s about the Anabaptist Vision, Mission and the what that has to do with where we are going as Friends. Here’s a short quote: Ironically enough, that which most often gets overlooked, mission/missions, is the very thing necessary

Blog Entries

Seven Things About CWD

A meme from Dry Bones Dance, sent to me by Robin. I debated whether to do it or not, but since I’ve been doing so much academic stuff recently it seemed like fun. 1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog. 2. Share 7 facts

Blog Entries

Dress Down Friday Student Tools Edition, Nas and Feist on the Street

Today’s Dress-Down Friday has an assortment of links for you to enjoy throughout the day. A reader named Mark sent in a list of his favorite student web-tools and I thought I’d go ahead and share them here for the rest of you because they are pretty cool.

Blog Entries

Back In The Swing of Things: Family and School

We made it back into town a little more than a week ago and it’s nice to be back home and getting back into routine. Growing up I never thought of myself as someone who really liked routine, but the times have undoubtedly changed. I like having a normal

Blog Entries

Dress Down Friday is Back

It’s been a little while since I’ve done a dress down friday post (a casual listing of interesting web links) and so today seemed like a good day to start back up again, at least on an on-again-off-again basis. Better World Books is an online bookstore that uses