[This post is part of an inter-faith response to Brian McLaren’s new book Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road?, hosted at the Patheos Book Club.] In a world awash in data, but often suffering from a lack of wisdom, Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road, offers both. Brian McLaren’s new book is not only smart, it is also genuinely loving. That combination is not only rare, but crucial, in today’s world, especially in matters... Read more
By Scott Mitchell [This post is part of an inter-faith response to Brian McLaren’s new book Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road? now hosted at the Patheos Book Club.] Reading Brian McLaren’s book, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being invited to dinner, to break bread with someone who is passionate and sincere and deeply committed to inter-religious conversation. I want to join him at this dinner party because I believe, as he does,... Read more
In our contemporary context, it is hard to imagine a word more frequently tossed around to arouse our passions than the word “freedom.” I have to admit that my suspicions are raised immediately when I see some new congressional legislation with the word “freedom” in it or when I hear a public official affirm that some action is being undertaken to honor or expand our freedoms. Too often, the term is coopted and deployed in a very Orwellian way so... Read more
I pull for old guys, partially because I’m becoming one. But also because I know a secret about old guys; they know stuff. While I don’t know if Charles Gutenson would admit to becoming an old guy, he knows some old guys who know stuff. He introduces them in The Right Church: Live Like the First Christians. The title misleads a little. He’s not trying to help the average church hunter find their next church – you know, the right... Read more
[This month at the Patheos Book Club, we’re featuring the new book The Right Church: Live Like the First Christians, by Charles E. Gutenson. Below is the first in a series of posts by Gutenson related to the book.] From the Introduction At one level, then, this book is about church renewal. In a sense, it is about going forward by looking back, a desire to awaken the church of today by appealing to the church of yesterday, and not... Read more
By Laura Paskell-Brown T.C. Ryan’s Ashamed No More is an incredible tale of recovery from sex addiction written by a Protestant pastor. But the book is not really about sex at all; it is a love story. Ryan’s journey reminds us that addiction is simply a call for love, and that recovery – or the move into spiritual community and personal wholeness – is Spirit’s answer to that call. Though Ryan’s story can tell us a lot about the church and... Read more
As I was reading Karl Giberson’s Seven Glorious Days, my two year old grandson began singing the spiritual “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” as he played one of his imaginative guitars. This bit of synchronicity pointed to the creative interplay of theology and science as adventures of imagination and creativity. Could it be that, despite the attempt of creationists to make science conform to a one-dimensional, unimaginative, and literalist understanding of scripture, scientists and people of faith... Read more
James McDonald’s Vertical Church asserts that the church is vital only when it proclaims the utter transcendence of God. When we are small, God is large. When we get out of the way, God’s will is done. When we let go of our plans, even plans for church growth and vitality and focus only on giving glory to God, God’s “kingdom” will grow and our churches will be blessed. God is involved in everything, but God doesn’t need us or... Read more
In Ashamed No More, former pastor T.C. Ryan shares his personal story of struggling with sex addiction for more than forty years, illustrating not only the facts about sex addiction but also what is necessary for recovery. Pastors and church leaders are not immune to sexual addiction, and those in ministry who want to know how the church can offer help and healing— instead of silence and shame—will find answers in Ryan’s compelling story. [Visit the Patheos Book Club for more conversation... Read more
At first blush, Frank A. Thomas’s new book, American Dream 2.0: A Christian Way Out of the Great Recession, is reminiscent of an article I wrote nearly two decades ago. Writing for Religion News Service (RNS) in 1996, I was reflecting on the recession of the early 1990s and its effect on my family. In the wake of the then-recent demise of the Soviet Union, I thought of the ironic similarities between communism and capitalism: Nearly 50 years ago, a... Read more
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