For about a month now, I’ve been getting emails from lots of the bigwigs in American youth ministry. We’re all concerned about a new statement of “non-negotiables” that the unnamed power elite at Young Life have released and are forcing all staff to sign. The Christian Century has picked up the story HERE, and Christianity Today has an even better article HERE. (What they don’t report is that the most current statement by YL is toned down from the earlier... Read more
I’ve guest blogged over at Adam’s Pomomusings in his “Kingdom of God” series. Believe it or not, I used a book excerpt. You can see it HERE. Read more
I think I can assume that any reader of my blog is also a reader of Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed. Well, if you’re not, please take note of the fact that today Scot is starting a series on the Kingdom of God. The first post is HERE. Scot’s going to be hard on those (including some emergents) who sever the relationship between church and kingdom. I think he’s right to add this corrective, but here’s the reason I think so... Read more
…about the new book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. You can find part one HERE. Read more
“Ministry is the joining of spirit and practice for liberative transformation.” Prof. Bill Pannell, Fuller Seminary (He said this at some point when I was a student at Fuller, and I’ve never forgotten it.) Read more
HERE’S an address I gave at Whitworth University last November — it’s “10 Dispatches” from the Emergent Church, and it’ll give you a little taste of the stuff that’s in the BOOK. Read more
The Publishers Weekly Review is an important moment in the life of a book. Just yesterday, PW released their review of The New Christians. The New Christians: Dispatches From the Emergent Frontier Tony Jones. Jossey-Bass, $22.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-7879-9471-6 Jones (The Sacred Way) provides the single best introduction to the Emergent Church movement, of which he is a prominent leader. The mainline denominations are dying and the hyper-individualism of evangelicalism is unsatisfying, so many young evangelicals, Jones explains, have decided... Read more
Many of my blog readers will be familiar with Christian Smith’s excellent book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual and Lives of American Teenagers. It is, quite simply, the best quantitative study on teenage religiosity ever published, and it was based on the most comprehensive sociological survey of teenage religion ever undertaken. In fact, Smith’s research actually undermined my own assumption in Postmodern Youth Ministry that many American teens are “spiritual but not religious.” They’re not, Smith found. Instead, they’re... Read more
A couple of years ago, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart went on to CNN’s vitriolic Crossfire program, looked hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala in the eye, and said, ‘‘You’re hurting America…. Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.’’ Stewart was tired of the sophomoric shouting matches that epitomized ‘‘debate’’ on Crossfire, and his plea became an overnight sensation. CNN canceled Crossfire just a couple of months later, the president of the network explaining, ‘‘I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart’s overall... Read more
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