Brian McLaren, whom I tongue-in-cheekedly referred to as the White Crayon in Chief last week, has stepped into the fray over all of the Sojo posts (and my own) regarding Sojourners Magazine’s latest cover article: In my view, reports of the conversation’s demise are greatly exaggerated. In some cases, they represent wishful thinking; in other cases, a limited frame of reference. From my perspective, Chapter 1 of the conversation may be ending, but there are many new and even better... Read more
Like it or not, baseball is the most religious of games, and, in spite of my friend Chris Scharen’s threat to set up an alternative Church of Joe Mauer across the street, the new Target Field really is a marvel. My son, Tanner, and I had the pleasure of taking in a game there on Sunday. The Twins lost, but it mattered little, as it was a perfectly beautiful day. Built on a postage-stamp-sized lot, it has about the same... Read more
Our Gospel is Bigger than Yours Cost $599.99 Location: Nashville with telecasts in Louisville, Dallas, Seattle, LA and Orlando Speakers are 10 White Men, 5 of which wear suits and 5 of which cuss and wear Ed Hardy shirts. Music will be led by a good natured bearded folk singer with “edgy” lyrics about sovereignty and reworkings of really old hymns of proper theological content all with never ending crescendos … and his pregnant wife. Each sermon will be 45-50... Read more
That money quote was dropped by Clay Shirky last month at South by Southwest, and it’s an idea that he’ll spin out in his forthcoming book. He’s also blogged about it. And Kevin Kelly has weighed in at The Technium. I’m on the record about my belief that Protestant denominations were solutions to a problem that we no longer face and, as such, they will cease to exist — at least as we know them — in short order. Of... Read more
Almost exactly two years ago, as I felt my personal world falling apart around me, I was having some trouble getting through the day. I met with my physician and told him that I felt like my head was in a fog, and it felt heavy. I couldn’t think straight, and I was having a hard time concentrating. I asked if he thought that I would benefit from an anti-depressant, and he said yes. So he started me on Buproprion... Read more
Today and tomorrow in Durham, NC, there’ll be a gathering to celebrate Tim Conder and Daniel Rhodes’s book, Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community. The speakers include the authors, as well as assorted biblical scholars, sociologists, Dukies, and members of the Hauerwasian Mafia. You can follow the tweets emanating from the event on the Twub below: #free4all Read more
Readers of my blog will remember that George O. Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God pressured the Society for Pentecostal Studies to disinvite me from their March, 2010 meeting in Minneapolis. They didn’t cow. Well, it seems that Wood recently signed the Covenant for Civility: Come Let Us Reason Together, a statement initiated by Sojourners in the wake of Glen Beck’s ranting about “hammering” Jim Wallis. But now Wood has recanted, and is asking that his name be... Read more
Years ago — it must have been around 1999 or 2000 — when I was the youth pastor at Colonial Church, I brought Jennifer Knapp in to play a concert. She was just being discovered as a potent Christian singer/songwriter, and we had her perform just before her career blew up (in the good way). Suddenly she wasn’t playing solo acoustic shows in church sanctuaries, but instead playing the Lillith Fair and the National Youth Workers Convention with a full... Read more
The best presentation at Theology after Google, in my estimation, was Jana Riess’s on how she’s tweeting through the Bible. She boils one chapter a day into a tweet. They are often hilarious and/or poignant, and sometimes shocking. It’s a brilliant idea that Jana pulls off brilliantly. Here’s a sample: #twible Deborah Arca Mooney interviewed Jana for Patheos this week, to get a bit more behind-the-scenes view of what makes Jana tick, and what she’s learned so far (Jana has... Read more
Andy Root had me on his BlogTalkRadio show today to talk about chapter two of his book, The Promise of Despair: The Way of the Cross as the Way of the Church. We talked about the death of the past and the future orientation in postmodern culture. Listen to it! (It’s only 15 minutes long.) Read more
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