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A collection of 523 posts

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On Disciples: Forgiving George Bush And/Or the Church

I ran across a website yesterday via Good Magazine called “Forgive George.” It’s not really surprising to see something like this, with the inauguration only a few weeks away, the end of Bush’s presidency is on every one’s mind (there are a number of “tribute” sites to

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Guest Post: Matthew Hoopes’ Top 5 Albums of the Year

Since he spends so much time immersed in music, I asked my good friend, and fellow Canton, Ohio native Matthew Hoopes of Relient K to share his top 5 Albums of 2008 with the gathering in light community. This is his first guest post here, and it’s a a

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Dress-Down Friday | Happy First Birthday L Edition

This is a “Dress-Down Friday” in honor of our daughter L, who’s celebrating her first birthday today. I can’t believe it has been a year since the arrival of this wonderful gift from God. This past year has been incredible! Over the past year we’ve experienced the

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Reclaiming the Power of Primitive Quakerism for the 21st Century

Robin, Martin and I are leading a weekend retreat at the Ben Lomond Quaker Retreat Center this coming February on convergent Friends, we’ve humbly titled, Reclaiming the Power of Primitive Quakerism for the 21st Century. I’m looking forward to taking an entire weekend to focus on building community,

Church in Mission

Finishing Two Quarters with Everett Cattell

Image by Midnight-digital via Flickr This past Friday I dropped my paper in an envelope, paid the $2.63 postage and sent it off to Elkhart, IN at 4 pm, an hour before the deadline. Leaving the post-office, I felt much lighter. Not only was a six-month weight off my

Church in Mission

“Dear Woman, why do you involve me?” Mission Without Guarantees

In the fourth of his missiology lectures (see more on his third here) Steuernagel reflected on a few passages where we see Mary interacting with her son, Jesus. In John 2:3-5 it says: “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.

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How Quakers Voted in the 2008 Election

I’ve finally finished compiling the statistics from the poll we conducted here last week. When I initially posted the survey it hadn’t dawned on me that it would be me who had to compile all of the data as well! That took quite awhile, especially since Math and

Church in Mission

There’s Something About Mary(‘s Theology)

This past week Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies hosted its annual Missiology Lectures. This year they invited Missiologist Valdir Steuernagel, of World Vision to discuss, “Missiology and Mary in Latin America: The Southern Church and a Fresh Mission Movement.”  This is an overview and reflection on his third lecture.

Church in Mission

The McCain-Palin Taste for The Secret

We live in a culture of increasing secrecy. Despite claims of being the ‘age of information,’ one might goes so far as to say we live in a culture of ‘the secret.’ Not only has there been a flood of recent secular books all pointing to new secrets being discovered

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Younger Evangelicals Weigh in on Abortion and Other Issues

Once thought to be in the pocket of the Religious Right, many American evangelicals today are discovering a deeper understanding of what it means to be pro-life. Kenny Hiser, communications director from Sojourners sent this article to me that will be their cover article in November, it’s called “The

Church in Mission

Barclay Press: Technology as a Powerful-Practice (Part 1)

I’ve put together a two-part essay on Technology as Power (or what I’m calling, using James McClendon, a powerful-practice) and the second part which I will publish in two weeks on the Quaker notion of “Gospel order” as a counterpoint to what Henry Jenkins calls participatory culture (think

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Before A Great Cloud of Witnesses: A New Year At Seminary

I was asked to share a passage of Scripture and a brief reflection for a community event this evening and I thought I’d offer it here for all of you as well. I shared this among Fuller students as we prepare for the fall quarter which begins tomorrow. Here

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McCain: “I know how to heal the wounds of war”

I just finished watching the debate and it left me feeling like our country and economy will be safer and better off with Obama at the helm. What caught me off guard about the debate came at the very end in a line McCain gave. While I’ve noted that

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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

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

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

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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

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Remixing Faith in the 21st Century (Barclay Press)

I’ve posted my June essay on Barclay press if you care to have a read (it’s nice and long!). Here’s and excerpt: This past April Radiohead did another thing that sparked imaginations and challenged the preexisting structures of the music industry, yet again. They setup a website

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Rufus Jones’ Future Hope

Here’s a nice long quote from Rufus M. Jones about what he hopes to see in the future of Friends. The quote comes from a lecture he gave at the Baltimore Young Friends Yearly Meeting in 1944: I am looking for a time, and counting on it, when we

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Douglas Gwyn and the Convergent-Covenant

Just came across these two quotes from Quaker historical-theologian Douglas Gwyn’s book “The Covenant Crucified,” and it got me thinking about some of the work I did in a previous project I’d never written about: Given its biblical frame of reference, the religious Right retains a more explicit

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Boycotting Amazon (And Borders and B&N)

[[Warning Containing Rant]] I’m joining Dan in his Amazon crusade (see here and here), which basically means, I’m not selling books on there (I pulled all my for sale books down today from their site), and I’m not buy books from there (unless maybe there’s the

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Peace Church Colleges Debate Having Armed Guards

The other day in a Washington Times article there is a discussion about peace church colleges working through questions about whether to employ armed guards for student protection. Two Church of the Brethren schools have recently decided to authorize their guards to carry firearms. Given the catastrophic campus shootings of

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Quaker Youth Book Call for Submissions

I’ve written about the upcoming Quaker Youth Book project I’m working with and said we would soon be giving our call for submissions. Well, the time has come! If you consider yourself a Quaker or a part of the Friends Church and are between the ages of 15

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Yet Another Manifesto?! Evangelical Leaders Draw the Line

If you haven’t heard by now (I heard from Halden), a group of (select) world renowned Evangelicals got together and compiled their own manifesto (or see the summary). I say ‘select’ because there are certain voices (namely any strongly conservative or liberal ones absent from the group). It’s