Dallas Willard taught us that our relationship with God is interactive and that prayer was a genuine conversation with God. This can be seen in most of his books but Hearing God is perhaps the best example. (By the way, Willard also defined the kingdom of God as this “interactive relationship” and this is a good illustration of what I call the pleated pants theory of the kingdom in Kingdom Conspiracy. And I have a piece in Relevant magazine on this... Read more
Amazing story by David Friedlander: Relatively speaking we have a small home (less than 1200 sq ft) and we often say much of the house sits empty most of the time. Smaller is good at a number of levels. It’s probably no secret that the American home is a bit of a porker. In 2013, the median and average new, single family house was 2,478 and 2,662 square feet respectively–higher than previous, 2007 pre- bubble figures. Compare this to 1950, when the... Read more
Two features of prayer rise to the surface in any discussion about prayer: that people of all parts of the world and of all times pray, and that prayer practices shift from one group to another. Those practices reveal, often enough, what each thinks prayer is. But notice how people pray in different ways, from Tim Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (p. 37): Prayer presents a dizzying variety to the eye of the observer. Just look at the religious... Read more
Every generation has its theological disputes. Some are much more significant than others, though some suggest that each of the debates concerns the most essential elements of the faith. Which translation to use is not as important as the Trinity but some of the voices in the former debate suggest apocalyptic doom if we get it wrong. Rudolf Bultmann (see my post here) famously advanced his theories about de-mythologizing the New Testament because of the advances in science and technology,... Read more
Glossy, Air-brushed Christians “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.’ My first thought whenever I read this list of ingredients for a genuine Holy Spirit-made Christian: ‘Cra@. I’m doomed.’ It’s true. Thank God ‘truthfulness’ isn’t on the list because then I’d have to be honest with you. I’d have to own up to the fact that not even my own mother would use 8 of those 9 attributes to describe... Read more
Lord, We pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, That we may continually be given to good works; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. From BCP Read more
Nina Strochlic: Rwanda has the highest percentage of women appointed to government in the world. Women account for 64 percent of its parliament. (In comparison, America ranks 83rd with 18 percent.) This is the same country that 20 years ago was in the throes of a genocide that consumed its population at a speed unparalleled in modern history. In 1994, Rwanda experienced 100 days of bloodshed that left some 800,000 people dead. In the aftermath, the country was shattered. As the liberating... Read more
Atul Gawande’s beautiful story about a teacher. (HT: JS) Vicar of Baghdad’s sad story: The Vicar of Baghdad, Andrew White, has fled Iraq on the orders of his superior, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who felt it was too dangerous to stay in the city with the Islamic State (ISIS) closing in. “ISIS has plants in Baghdad. That’s why the archbishop wanted us gone. The other day, they discovered 150 bodies of people who had been shot. Nobody knows who did it,... Read more
We don’t think enough about the relationship of the church to the state; we assume what exists in our world is what is supposed to be. Any experience in other countries, however, reveals considerable and substantive differences, and those differences lead to different strategies for churches and Christians on how to relate to the state and to government and to the public square. Bonhoeffer, dependent in this essay on an essay by Karl Barth and pressing into a German Lutheran... Read more
Daily Mail by Ben Spencer: A definitive 20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe. Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found. The paper by Professor Wayne Hall, a drugs advisor to the World Health Organisation, builds a compelling case against those who deny the devastation cannabis wreaks on the brain. Professor Hall found: One in six teenagers who... Read more
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