Just Like Me? (RJS)

Last updated on: April 30, 2013 at 12:12 pm By RJS

We all prefer friends who are just like us … personality, age, education, social class, marital status. This is simply human nature it appears – with both good and bad consequences. We tend to self-segregate. Should the church be any different? I read an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (aka PNAS) recently where the investigators looked at self-segregation as a function of institution size. Both simulation and survey methods were used in the study.... Read more

Empire in Rome

Last updated on: April 29, 2013 at 6:37 pm By Scot McKnight

Before one can ask if Christians are opposing empire as a movement and in their preaching and in their writings, it is good to grasp how the Roman empire understood itself. In our co-edited book, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, Joe Modica and I solicited the classics scholar David Nystrom to sketch Roman imperial ideology and the imperial cult. The features of Roman ideology about the Roman achievement were propped up by the... Read more

Restrictions at Eucharist?

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 8:56 am By Scot McKnight

Joel J. Miller takes exception to Gene Robinson’s claim the Catholic church is doing politics at the Eucharist when it says some are not to be communicating at the Table if they don’t get their faith right. What do you think? Here are Joel’s opening lines… Gene Robinson, retired Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, says the Catholic church is playing politics with the Eucharist. The comments stem from recentpronouncements that Catholics who oppose the church’s moral teaching should refrain from taking... Read more

A Survey: 40+ and the Church

Last updated on: April 29, 2013 at 5:46 am By Scot McKnight

Michelle van Loon did a 10-question survey; she’s not a social scientist. Here’s her survey. Here are two summaries: one and two. These are her conclusions, and I ask: What do you think? I’ve already noted that I’m not a social scientist or a statistician. But the number of the responses, and the fact that so many people took the time to add thoughtful comments (127 so far) has led me to a few conclusions: The volume of response I’m... Read more

So What’s an Anabaptist?

Last updated on: April 29, 2013 at 5:30 am By Scot McKnight

I am often asked “What is an Anabaptist?” and “Who are the Anabaptists?” If one listened to everyone who claimed an anabaptist connection, it would be easy to be confused. For many today a progressive politics is Anabaptist; for others it means being either Yoderian (John Howard Yoder) or Hauerwasian (Stanley Hauerwas). Fair enough, but neither of them is the full representation of Anabaptism. So today I want to sketch the view of the one description of Anabaptism that shaped... Read more

Rick Warren: Demographics

Last updated on: April 28, 2013 at 2:57 pm By Scot McKnight

Rick Warren from his interview at CT: More resources are expended on evangelism in America than in almost any other nation. Yet surveys say the country is becoming less Christian. What’s your take? Cultural Christianity is dying. Genuine Christianity is not. The number of cultural Christians is going down because they never really were Christian in the first place. They don’t have to pretend by going to church anymore. I don’t trust all the surveys out there. Newsweek did a... Read more

Fifth Sunday after Easter

Last updated on: April 27, 2013 at 1:43 pm By Scot McKnight

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more

Mom Said the Policeman Will Help

Last updated on: April 21, 2013 at 7:33 pm By Scot McKnight

While taking a vandalism report at an elementary school, an officer was interrupted by a little boy about six years old. Looking up and down at his uniform, he asked, “Are you a cop?” “Yes,” he replied and continued writing the report. … “My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?” “Yes, that’s right,” he told him. “Well, then,” he said as he extended his foot towards the officer, “would you please... Read more

Weekly Meanderings, April 27, 2013

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 7:07 am By Scot McKnight

Chicago’s flooding… this might be the original MacDonad’s, no? Speaking of Chicago, this from my student and friend, Phil Jackson, at Lawndale Community Church: “If you have never held a mother, father, or crying child who has had to bury a family member because of gun violence, you might not understand the need to make the tough changes. If you have never seen the eyes of a student looking to you for hope as life seeps from their body or sat... Read more

A Good Tax

Last updated on: April 26, 2013 at 10:45 am By Scot McKnight

Yes, I think this tax will help States and the nation: As a rule of thumb, it’s best to be skeptical of politicians and journalists who describe their pet policy preferences as “common sense.” Unless it involves renaming a post office, pretty much any piece of legislation that gets brewed up in Washington will, by necessity, involve tough trade-offs between values and interest groups. But there are exceptions, and today, I’d like to cautiously suggest Congress has hit on one.... Read more