Theoblogy
Wondering what to get with that Amazon gift card you received yesterday? For a limited time, you can purchase my book, The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement, for $.99! Read more
Wondering what to get with that Amazon gift card you received yesterday? For a limited time, you can purchase my book, The Church Is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement, for $.99! Read more
Shane has a nice, brief reflection on this season and the birth of a Savior: Among other things, Jesus liberates by mediating God’s Presence to us. In the midst of our pains and prisons, Jesus liberates us through Presence. God’s Presence is a subtle, unique, and powerful kind of liberation. It does not promise to change our circumstance, instead it transforms the way we relate to our circumstance. It gives clarity, acceptance, and hope in the midst of the storm.... Read more
Doug Pagitt and I have joined up with many of our publishers to reduce the price on the ebooks below. Most of them are just $.99, so now you know what to do with that Amazon gift card! Read more
In 386, John “the Golden Tongue” Chrysostom preached the very first Christmas sermon. It’s beautiful. And in spite of the fact that my forbears, the Puritans, refused to celebrate Christmas and punished anyone who did, I read Chrysostom’s sermon every year and revel in the beauty of it. I encourage you to do the same. You can find it here. And Merry Christmas to you. Read more
LZ Granderson, senior writer for ESPN, takes a break from sports to chastise the evangelical church’s head-in-the-sand approach to sex and marriage: This is one of the areas where the evangelical church needs to grow most — learning how to minister to a society that can no longer be scared straight. The fearmongering has been undermined by hypocrisy, and the younger generations now find themselves in the enviable position of marrying and staying married because they want to, not because... Read more
Richard Flory, one of my favorite observers of Christianity in America, weighs in on the bankruptcy of the “first” mega-church: Megachurches like the Crystal Cathedral have become successful by doing two things really well. First, they use professional-quality entertainment and familiar (and often secular) cultural themes in their services to make their members more comfortable. Second, through these programs, megachurches have turned themselves into a destination for their members on days besides Sunday, and this creates a distinct sense of community.... Read more
Don’t know what to get your pastor’s wife for Christmas? Well, I’m here to help! At pastor-gifts.com, they’ve got a whole section dedicated to the faithful wife: When trying to decide what to buy, have you wondered what the top Christmas gift for our first lady is? It depends on pastor’s wife you are buying for because each one has her own unique taste and interests. But you should know that our pastor’s wife is woman just like all women have... Read more
Jeremy Fackenthal details three ways in which process theology is compatible with feminism. Here’s one: Process theology views God’s power as collaborative, not coercive. Discarding the dominant view of power as power over some other subject, process thought adopts instead an understanding of power as power with another subject. God does not coerce the world, but rather attempts at persuading the world through God’s patient and loving call. Humans then have the freedom in each moment of their lives to respond... Read more
Last week, there was a nice write up on Alvin Plantinga in the New York Times. Plantinga, whom I’ve long admired, has a new book out, Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. The Times throws some well-deserved bouquets his way: Theism, with its vision of an orderly universe superintended by a God who created rational-minded creatures in his own image, “is vastly more hospitable to science than naturalism,” with its random process of natural selection, he writes. “Indeed, it... Read more
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