I’m about to leave on a youth retreat so I don’t have time for a full post on this, but Brian Zahnd’s Friday night and Sunday sermons from last weekend blew my mind. He is the pastor of non-denominational Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, MO and a leader in the exciting movement among evangelical churches to embrace the sacramental and spiritual practices of the ancient church. In his Friday sermon “Ring them bells,” he talks about the way... Read more
The UN General Assembly today passed a resolution to grant Palestine “observer-state status,” which Palestinian Authority premier Mahmoud Abbas declared the “last chance to save the two-state solution.” I’m actually opposed to a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. I don’t think it can be supported Biblically, because the Biblical prophecy about Zion in Isaiah 2:2-4 says that it’s the mountain of the Lord’s temple to which “all the nations will stream” in order to receive God’s judgment and teaching... Read more
I knew something was missing from my spiritual rhythm the last two weeks and this morning I realized what it was: Wednesday morning prayer, which a very small group of dedicated prayer warriors celebrates together each Wednesday at 8:30 am. In addition to liturgical and extemporaneous prayer, we always read a psalm responsively as part of our routine. Two months ago, this small prayer meeting got flat-out Pentecostal. For a month after that, the Spirit was breathing all over the... Read more
Getting saved. These two words describe the best-selling product of one of the most successful industries of the last half-century: the American evangelical church. If it were a publicly traded company, investors who bought shares in the early 1970’s would be looking at capital gains of some thousand-fold at this point. Mainline Christians and Catholics get confirmed; Orthodox do whatever they do; but evangelicals, we get saved. And some of us, at least according to twitter, get #oversaved (look it... Read more
The Awakening of Hope, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s new book, is a breath of fresh air in a time when American Christians are in need of hope. We’ve been through a bitter election season. War continues to rage in the Middle East. The problems of our government seem intractable. Wilson-Hartgrove’s book offers what I would call an incarnational catechesis to tell us how to live as people of hope. Rather than talking about Christian doctrine in the abstract, he organizes his catechesis... Read more
I have reduced my book to seven chapters and have given it a new title: Mercy Not Sacrifice: Salvation for Recovering Evangelicals. It may be too bold; I almost feel like checking the sky above me for lightning. My brother John Meunier had challenged me to come up with a unifying theme, and last night in Bible study we read about Zacchaeus where Jesus says, “Salvation has come to this house.” So it hit me this morning that there’s one... Read more
I just got back from a meeting to discuss my older son’s progress in school. He qualifies for special education because of several developmental issues that he has. There’s a part of me that grumbles about the way that kids growing up today cannot possibly do anything wrong, because their behavior is analyzed through a therapeutic moral lens rather than a forensic one. If they jump out of their seats in the middle of class, it’s ADD. If they have... Read more
I desperately need your help and feedback in pulling this book together. I have shared below summaries for the introduction and the 16 chapters of Mercy Not Sacrifice. I know this is a really long blog post, but it would mean so much to me if you would look at it and help me make some decisions that I haven’t yet been able to make. Paste it into MS Word and print it out if it’s easier. I’m going to... Read more
Every week at the Monday mass in the basilica during the Eucharist liturgy, the priest says, “It is indeed right and just, our duty and our salvation always and everywhere to give you thanks, God, our Father Almighty.” To the “I love Jesus but hate religion” crowd, this phrase is doubly scandalous. So you’re trying to save yourself with something that you do as a duty? Isn’t that the definition of works-righteousness? I’m sure the Roman Catholic Church has an... Read more
I realize I’ve had blogorrhea lately about the Gaza crisis. This is probably my last piece on it, taking a more theological angle considering Jesus’ command to love your enemies as a pragmatic foreign policy strategy and also proposing that we understand Satan to be the Great Terrorist who makes us all terrorists to varying degrees according to our influences, privilege, desperation, and access to tools of violence. I’m cautiously hopeful because the Israel/Gaza ceasefire scheduled for 2 pm EST... Read more
Mercy Not Sacrifice
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