:: By Pete Zimmerman: I am hoping that in about a year I will help be a part of a new spiritual collective. One of the core values of this group will be a conscious counter-affirmation against what I believe to be the functional atheism of some churches and ecclesiologies. Let me elaborate. It is written in John 14:26 that Jesus said, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all... Read more
Many have seen the movie ” The Kingdom of Heaven ” the fictional drama of the interfaith tension in Jerusalem during the crusades. But, the reality was, there was some real interfaith conversation and radical fellowship happening in the midst of the violence of the crusades. Read the following true story with the reality of war torn places in the world like Iraq, Afghanistan,Gaza and Congo in the back of your mind. One can not wonder what possibilities of... Read more
:: By Holly Roach, re-posted by permission from Emerging Santa Fe: If Wild Goose West is any indication, the Emergent movement is looking more and more like a gathering of the proverbial tribes right now. For more than ten years this movement has been emerging, but now it looks more like a converging of cultures. While we acknowledge and understand the history that (post) Evangelicals founded this movement, we are now in a time where new people and cultures are... Read more
“We have longed to taste the resurrection… the insurrection of life… We have longed to welcome its thunders and quakes, and to echo its great gifts. We want to test the resurrection in our bones. We want to see if we might live in hope instead of in the … twilight thicket of cultural despair in which … many are lost.” – Daniel Berrigan, priest and radical peace activist. Faith should be filled with the redemptive imagination we need to... Read more
On my show today I talked with Tony Jones about the work he is doing on a new book, Why Pray? Our fun and flowing conversation takes on many topics and some disagreements. Catch the show live Wednesday’s from 10-11:30am (except this coming week when I will be live with Phyllis Tickle on Tuesday, Sept 11 from 11:30-1pm from Memphis). Read more
One wonders if there isn’t one of these parked at the entrance of ” heaven’s gate “, or on the front porch of that mansion with many rooms. We are led…maybe not led, coerced into believing that an absolute positive outcome on the belief meter is what gets you ” in.” What’s the pass mark going to be? I don’t know. I would assume 50% would just being lowering the bar to much. Heaven forbid, that low, someone could... Read more
Wade Tickle is almost eleven years old, and he is terrified of wasps. When he was younger, he was only afraid of them. Now he is paralyzed by the mere possibility of them. Normally, this would not be a problem….a quirk maybe, a source of some parental concern and, unfortunately, of some unkind teasing, but little more than that. The difficulty lies in the fact that our times [or his, perhaps] are not exactly normal right now. Wade’s dad, who... Read more
I am told, that Jesus only directly answers 3 of the 183 questions that he himself is asked in the four Gospels! This is totally surprising to me who has grown up assuming that the very job description of religion is to give people answers and to resolve people’s dilemmas. Apparently this is not Jesus’ understanding of the function of religion because he operates very differently. Jesus’ questions are to re-position you, make you own your unconscious biases, break you out of your... Read more
Identity. Fundamental to us all. Yet so seldom explored. What does it mean to be a Christian in the 21st century? The past few months I’ve been in a sort of identity crisis. My Christian upbringing has been so fundamental to my worldview that I’ve rarely taken the time to look at my life from an outside perspective. Being somewhat at a cross roads I decided to ask a new friend for advice. I’ve emailed Brian McLaren in the past, and, to... Read more
Over the last decade I have been so encouraged to see the same impulses that have made many of us desire “culturally indigenous” versions of our faith are happening in every stream of Christianity and in even in Judaism. A few years ago I met the good people from JumpStart and was thrilled to see many of the similarities amongst these Rabbis with what we are doing in Emergent – seeking expressions of our faith that are as fitting for... Read more
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