William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008 William Cavanaugh is, quite simply, brilliant. He’s a prolific writer. He’s one of the very best I’ve ever read in Political Theology and Social Ethics. Torture and Eucharist is one of the greatest works of Ecclesiology I’ve ever read. But for [...]

Over the years I’ve struggled to maintain my status as music appreciator. It’s weird because I’ve played music as long as I can remember. I’ve written hundreds of songs, played in bands and even made my living as a musician for the better part of a decade. I usually like what I’m playing, but even [...]

N.T. Wright. Evil and the Justice of God. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006. . N.T. Wright tackles the problem of evil with his usual brilliance. He argues that evil is real and powerful. Evil is more than the sum of individual sin and cannot be understood in dualistic categories. By misunderstanding evil we have [...]

Robert E. Webber. Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-Forming Community. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2003. In Ancient-Future Evangelism, Robert Webber explores the nature of evangelism in the ancient church hoping to discover patterns and analogs to our current social and cultural situation which might help to inform an evangelism strategy for the 21st [...]

Walter Brueggemann. Biblical Perspectives on Evangelism: Living in a Three-Storied Universe. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1993. Brueggemann’s vision for evangelism consists of helping people to switch narratives from the world of consumerism, individualism and violence to the narrative of the people of God. He proposes a simple schema and method for evangelism as this imaginative [...]

John A. Berntsen. Cross-Shaped Leadership in the Rough and Tumble of Parish Practice. Herndon, VA: The Alban Institute, 2008. John Berntsen is a new author to me, but this book is a real find for those who are tired of hearing about “church” leadership from Collins, Dupree & Maxwell. With an MDiv. from Yale and [...]

A woman who was disabled, I think she has Cerebral Palsy, struggled to ask a question from the mic. She said she read “a crucified God” in 1975 and for the first time in her life, she actually owned her identity as the image of God and not something less than a full human being. [...]

These are just a few notes from yesterday: THE NATURE OF ATONEMENTChristology of solidarity: he suffers with us.He suffers for us – for us the guiltyThose two sides go together. That he suffers for us is the reconciling part. He was given up for our sins and raised up for our justification. One the one [...]

I’m in Chicago listening to Jurgen Moltmann speak as I write this. It’s an incredible thing to sit and listen live to a person who has had such an incredible impact on my thinking and my faith. He talked just a little bit about his time as a visiting lecturer at Duke. He was on [...]

Everybody needs a little bit of Spoon in their life…don’t forget about the underdog.