Featured 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 Everett Cattell: Communication As Witness (pt. 4) Series contents | Intro | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five Image via Wikipedia A good theological understanding of communication begins with the incarnation and John 1; Quaker Missionary Everett Cattell covers this thoroughly before moving onto a more in depth discussion of what it means for the Christian missionary
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 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
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
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
Featured 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
The Theological McClendon on Convictions and Pluralism Last week, I read James Wm. McClendon and James M. Smith’s book “Convictions: Defusing Religious Relativism,” it’s a highly recommended book for anyone interested in religious language and rationality, ethics and theology. It is difficult to get through due to his heavey useage of philosophy, espeically JL Austin’
The Theological Goldingay on The “Wrathful” OT God Scot McKnight is slowly blogging through “Old Testament Theology Volume 2,” by one of my absolute favorite professors from Fuller John Goldingay. You can follow his posts on the book through this search link. Anyways, here’s a noteworthy quote I came across that I love: Everyone knows that the
The Theological More Yoder on Faithfulness and Tradition I’ve been working through a number of John Howard Yoder’s texts in the last week, reading what he had to say about ecumenicism and tradition within the “Radical Free-Church.” Here are a few quotes that really stood out to me from his essay in The Priestly Kingdom called,
Featured 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
The Theological David Fitch and Tony Jones On Hauerwas and the Emerging Church I enjoy reading David Fitch’s blog regularly, and today he’s posted a great response to Tony Jones’ thoughts from last week on the Hauerwas Mafia. The post is an unpublished chapter from his recent book, The New Christians. His post is worth the read, it’s entertaining and
Featured Listening As Exchange: The Trouble with God Discerning Our Will If you ever get the chance to sit in on a silent Quaker meeting, take the opportunity. It’s not the kind of experience you’ll get just anywhere. Yes, it’s intense. Yes, it’s likely to be extremely difficult to “center down” and focus for an hour, but
Featured Remixing In Rainbows (and the church) In the spirit of creativity and utilizing the web to foster fan-based participation, Radiohead has launched the website Radioheadremix.com and are inviting everyone to remix their latest single “Nude.” They’ve split the song up into five separate tracks and have made each available for sale so that you
The Theological Between the Saying and the Said: Speaking Like Children I’ve been really enjoying Peter Rollins blog lately and was struck by his recent post Did Jesus Speak Hoplandic? In the post he discusses Levinas’ theory about the act of saying something vs. the content of what was said. In it the question, “did Jesus speak Hoplandic” gets at
Featured James K. Smith on Caputo’s Deconstruction Since I recently posted on Caputo’s “What Would Jesus Deconstruct?” I thought it would be helpful to point out this article a friend emailed me by one of my favorite contemporary theologians, James K. Smith. Smith, sounding a lot like iek (especially in chapter 2 ofThe Puppet and
Featured The Newsies and the Kingdom of God? Ok, so I’m late to the game, yes, I just watched Newsies for the first time. Emily still can’t believe I just now saw it. All I can say is that in my home growing up, with four other brothers, musicals weren’t really something we willfully chose
Church in Mission Step/Not, Hospitality and ‘Realism’ (What Would Jesus Deconstruct?) Carrying on from my last post I thought I’d point out a few more aspects to John (Jack) Caputo’s book I do like and then say something about what I don’t like. If you’re interest in getting into the discussion on deconstruction, and what it has
Featured Expecting the Unexpected (What Would Jesus Deconstruct?) Last week I did a lecture in class on John Caputo’s most recent book,What Would Jesus Deconstruct? I have mixed feelings about the book (more on this later) but I think in either case he makes some very helpful comments. The class I am currently a TA for
Featured 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
Featured Jarrod McKenna and the Peace Tree Receive Quaker Peace Award Just today I got an email from Jarrod McKenna, a Christian activist who lives Down Under. He says of himself, “Im a lapsed vegetarian wholl now eat happily my daily bread from dumpsters (but secretly longs for the flesh pots of evil big corporation burgers.) I spend my
Featured An Ordinary Revolution You Probably Shouldn’t Miss I just finished Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution,” which is the first assignment for the class I am teacher’s aid for and I thought it was a fantastic read. In fact, if you’ve got nothing better to do in the next thirty minuets go out and pick up