When Augustine said his heart was not at rest until it came to rest in God, was he simply saying that we are selfish and coming to God makes us happy? That we use God for our own ends? Is the reward system of the Bible — “do this and you will live” — a mercenary system of doing things so we will get a prize at the end? Julie Clawson, over at Emerging Women, weighed in recently on how... Read more
At one point in the history of writing this blog, I thought I’d do a series on my favorite essayists. I think the series got off the ground with my favorite essayist and then fizzled: Joseph Epstein. I suppose it is a mistake to begin with the best. For years I devoured The American Scholar journal because Epstein was its editor and a regular contributor. Then he moved aside and Anne Fadiman assumed his fountain pen elegance. Then they sacked... Read more
Missional Jesus attracts crowds, summons people to follow him, extends mercy and healing to anyone with faith — sometimes when that faith is second-hand — and now manifests that his missional is loaded with power. |inline Read more
Here’s a new letter that crossed our desk. The young person has a beef with the Church, or should I say he fears what God thinks of the American Church. I’ll open this up for discussion, and give my thoughts later today. |inline Read more
I’m reading on table fellowship of late and today I wish to call to your attention three books on hospitality. The first is more for the general reader, the second and third for the more academic setting. Still, each is important if you are interested in exploring the explosion of thought on the gospel as hospitality. |inline Read more
Missional Jesus attracted crowds and from that crowd summoned people to follow him by becoming doers of God’s will. What is God’s will? You can say it a number of ways, but the two most succinct summaries of Jesus are the Golden Rule (Matt 7:12) and the Jesus Creed (Mark 12:29-31). Now the cutting edge of “missional” for Jesus: |inline Read more
Anyone who has the cleverness to write a book on hospitality called Making Room gets my vote for a good title, and also gets my attention. And, because I’m working a bit right now on table fellowship, I read through Christine Pohl’s book. It’s a good one. |inline Read more
If you don’t know Jarrod McKenna, of whom I had not heard until recently, his blog and his efforts to extend peace in all directions — including this 22 minute interview — through the way of Jesus are each worth your attention. I resonated deeply this comment of his in an e-mail: “starting evangelism programs that invite people to experiment with the way of Christ as a way of coming to Christ.” Read more
Missional Jesus not only drew a crowd, he summoned people to get with the kingdom mission and vision. In other words, he called people to “make a decision” or, what is better, to come to him and with him work for the kingdom of God. |inline Read more
The problem with this as a moral strategy, which is a routine refrain for the traditionalist view of homosexuality, is that it is nearly indistinguishable from hate the sin and the sinner. If we have to reduce moral views into sound-bytes then we ought to prefer “welcoming but not affirming” or, as I will suggest below, something far more potent. |inline Read more
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