752 and the messianic longing of Scandal

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

Since my wife is addicted to Scandal, I watched it with her last night while I was reading the last few chapters of my friend Jonathan Martin’s newly released book Prototype, in which he argues that Jesus is the prototype of authentic humanity. The juxtaposition of Jonathan’s beautiful words on the page and the profound human brokenness on the screen was overwhelming. Throughout the Scandal episode, a character named Huck who has been severely traumatized by incredible wickedness is in... Read more

What does the blood of Jesus actually do?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

A basic principle of Christianity is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. What exactly this statement means has increasingly come under debate in our time. For most of the modern period, Protestantism has almost exclusively understood Jesus’ death on the cross as a punishment that pays a debt, or “penal substitution.” Added to this has been the assumption that the primary problem resolved by the cross is God’s anger about our sin. These are two separate issues. I... Read more

Bob Edgar: A Christian for the Common Good (1943-2013)

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

He always had a joke for the pastor in the handshake line, often a slapstick pun characteristic of an older guy who didn’t mind being corny. He carried himself with the confidence of an ordained Methodist minister, former congressman, seminary president, and National Council of Churches secretary-general, but he was thoroughly humble and approachable, caring intimately about the personal lives of his fellow parishioners at Burke United Methodist Church. I was deeply honored to be a pastor in the church... Read more

How does a Wesleyan deal with predestination and election?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

My favorite preacher Jonathan Martin covered Romans 8 a couple of weekends ago in his sermon “Nor Things to Come.” It talks about both predestination and election, which are not popular words in the Wesleyan tradition that I share with Jonathan. I really liked what he did with them so I wanted to share very briefly. I think that our predestination and election are good news when we read them the way they are intended to be shared: as a... Read more

Does Victoria’s Secret have a better anthropology than the church?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

After I got James K.A. Smith’s new book Imagining the Kingdom, several of you suggested reading Desiring the Kingdom first, so I picked it up at the Missio Alliance conference a couple of weeks ago. Smith is writing about the way that we are first and foremost liturgical creatures rather than rational creatures. What shapes our real identity is not so much our stated values and beliefs, but our unstated desires that have been cultivated by our habits. Unfortunately, the... Read more

Why I clash with the gatekeepers

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

I often clash with the gatekeepers of Christian orthodoxy. I’m sure that I get under their skin too. To me, they look like the Pharisees Jesus talks about in Matthew 23:13: “Woe to you [who]… shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying.” I wonder what Bible verse they would apply to the caricature of me that they see on their laptop screen.... Read more

Monday Merton 4.22.2013

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

I overslept this morning and I need to get out to my lake to walk and pray so today I’m just going to share some quotes from Thomas Merton without my own commentary. I am drawing again from his book No Man is An Island. By the way, apologies for the non-gender inclusive language. I guess because Merton was surrounded by men all the time in a monastery, he can’t imagine ever writing the word “she” in a book. It’s... Read more

Don’t stop immigration reform over the Boston bombing!

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

I knew it was coming. The lunatics in the outrage industrial complex are out in full force trying to say that because the Boston bomber brothers are from Chechnya, it goes to show what immigrants will do, and therefore our thoroughly broken immigration system should not be reformed. Actually events like this illustrate exactly why the immigration system needs to be reformed (even though both brothers were naturalized US citizens and their immigration status had nothing to do with what... Read more

So what about other religions?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

We’ve been having a very stimulating conversation at our confirmation retreat that has completely derailed from my plans, but as I learned at the Missio Alliance, the Holy Spirit is a spirit of disruption. I’ve been so grateful that these kids have been bold with their questions because my presentation felt very flat and boring. And then they made me squirm by asking about people from other religions. Do they go to heaven too? Don’t we all just have different... Read more

Defining sin for adolescents

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm By Morgan Guyton

I’m on our church’s confirmation retreat. For the last three years, we’ve framed our retreat around a discussion of the three questions you get asked when you join the United Methodist Church in tandem with three verses Ephesians 4:14-16. The first question asks us whether we “renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sins,” while Ephesians 4:14 in the NIV talks about humanity being “like infants tossed back and forth... Read more