October 15, 2015

At the Washington Post, Jonathan Zimmerman is pushing for the latter – and it makes sense. And from my perspective, the church should be setting a very high bar here (we are not) in modeling the centrality of intimacy, and covenant commitment, in Christian coupling. And this, not as a way of shaming sex or bodies or even those who engage or have engaged in casual sex, but rather as the high call to which we are graciously invited, that completely affirms the goodness of... Read more

October 14, 2015

Ok, maybe you don’t HAVE to be an Independent Fundamental Baptist King James Onlyist to be excited about this discovery: But now, in an unassuming notebook held in an archive at the University of Cambridge, an American scholar has found what he says is an important new clue to the earthly processes behind that masterpiece: the earliest known draft, and the only one definitively written in the hand of one of the roughly four dozen translators who worked on it.... Read more

October 14, 2015

Alternet is asking the question in light of the mainstream media’s near-certainty that Hillary won, while the polls and focus groups show something else: Bernie Sanders by all objective measures “won” the debate. Hands down. I don’t say this as a personal analysis of the debate; the very idea of “winning” a debate is silly to me. I say this because based on the only relatively objective metric we have, online polls and focus groups, he did win. And it’s... Read more

October 12, 2015

Saturday Night Live was just so good the other night, mainly because Amy Schumer is just so good. The sketches were well written, and they were acted and executed even better, again, because Schumer. And, to top it all off there were even some great “commercials.” Especially that one about guns. There must have been at least some debate in the writers’ room about whether or not to run this spot this week, especially in lieu of the two college campus shootings... Read more

October 11, 2015

Both Justin Bieber and Creflo Dollar were in the news this week. And I admit, the circumstances were quite different. So different, in fact, that I won’t be linking to the news stories about the Biebs but will happily display Dollar’s contribution above! (I will add that one could certainly argue over which headline was actually more offensive.) However, a Complex interview with Justin made the rounds a week or so ago, which does add some linkable context to this post. Because... Read more

October 5, 2015

While it’s not surprising that a who’s who of prosperity gospel televangelists held a prayer meeting with Donald Trump at the Trump Tower, it is at least striking that a group of Christian leaders would so readily discredit both themselves and the gospel they claim to believe. Truly, the prosperity gospel itself discredits everyone and everything associated with it, but this was just like, “Hey, gross abuse of the gospel for personal gain, I’m gonna see your 60 million dollar Gulfstream... Read more

September 29, 2015

Numbers tell us very little about rootedness. This sentence captures the strong start of Dan White Jr.’s new book Subterranean. And it captures my attention too. See, I used to be a church planter. It’s not that I am against church planting now – it’s just that I’m not a church planter anymore. I have a clarity about that, a clarity that’s been hard to come by, that has taken some time to embrace, but a clarity nonetheless. Yet, my clarity... Read more

September 24, 2015

As I watched the coverage of the Pope’s first speeches and appearances yesterday, I was struck by the fact that his core message of economic justice – a message that urges society to strive for greater economic equality and empower the poor – and his secondary message of environmental justice are messages that likely fly right over the head of mainstream evangelicalism. In fact, it’s a direct confrontation to the corporate-capitalist economy that evangelicals have by and large embraced as somehow... Read more

September 22, 2015

He was a man of no reputation By the wise considered a fool For he spoke about faith and forgiveness In a time when the strongest arms ruled And this man of no reputation Loved the weak with relentless affection And he loved all those poor in spirit Just as they were He was a man of no reputation This past Saturday was the anniversary of Rich Mullins’ death. And seeing all the reflections on social media triggered a memory of... Read more

September 22, 2015

As we’ve seen before, when John Piper tweets, it can get ugly. Like it did here: The heart of the gospel is that God took the initiative in Christ to satisfy his holy anger, and make himself our Treasure not our Terror. — John Piper (@JohnPiper) September 8, 2015 Granting, of course, that 140 characters does not a systematic theology make, this particular tweet says a lot about where Piper and his followers are coming from. Let’s take it apart... Read more


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