OK, I’m sticking my head out the window and yelling, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Well, I’m not really that mad, but I am a little irked. In the last week, I have read or heard these statements: “What emergent is discovering is stuff Lutherans have known for 500 years.” “Anabaptists don’t have to become postmodern because we were never modern.” “Emergent is trying to marry liturgical tradition to evangelical impulse, and Episcopalians... Read more

The Crucified God (1974) is the second of Moltmann’s three ‘programmatic’ works. It is mind-bendingly good. Moltmann does his best to dismantle several modern theological missteps, including radical monotheism, christomonism (the over-emphasis on Christ (over against the other two members of the Trinity)), and the radical doctrine of the two natures. For instance, he argues that the Early Church developed the doctrine of the two natures so as to protect their Platonic ideal that God cannot suffer; thus they emphasized... Read more

I spent part of last week at Yale Divinity School where I serve on the National Working Group of the Faith as a Way of Life, a Lilly Endowment-funded initiative of Yale’s Center for Faith and Culture. It’s a group of pastors, youth pastors, theologian, business persons, and artists who are meeting over the course of three years. Our task is to collectively reflect on faith, not as some ad hoc application to life’s issues and problems, but as a... Read more

I am honored to report that Andy Crouch, the author of the CT article, “The Emergent Mystique” has posted a lengthy comment about the blogoshpere conversation taking place regarding the article (I’ve blogged about it here and here.) I may have not said it clearly enough in my first post, but I consider Andy a personal friend and a friend of Emergent — when he first told me that he was assigned the article by the editors at CT, I... Read more

My buddy Jay and I had a round of several emails about his post, which was a response to my post. Our conversation got me thinking… It seems to me that the only ones who brings up Brian McLaren’s Plymouth Brethren background are those who are attempting to marginalize him or explain what he’s up to. For instance, in DA Carson’s lectures at Cedarville College, he refers to the church of Brian’s childhood and Spencer Burke’s time at a mega-conservative... Read more

Below are all the links to blogs, articles, etc. in which Emergent-U.S. types have criticized how emerging church is being done in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Mars: Read more

For the second week now, some college football teams and fans have their panties in a wad over the BCS Standings. The BCS is a complicated, computer-generated system of ranking the top teams. And it’s no wonder why coaches, teams, and university presidents get so worked up over the rankings: if a school finishes in the top six, they’re sure to get a New Year’s Day bowl game and a payout of over $14 million. The problem with the BCS... Read more

In the latest Christianity Today, Andy Crouch wrote an article about the emerging church movement. There’s been lots of email traffic in my inbox over this, as well as some traffic in the blogosphere. Here’s an edited version of an email I sent out to a few friends with my thoughts on Andy’s piece: “In writing, as he does in person, Andy came off as sly, with a twinkle in his eye. However, he did seem to capture, as a... Read more

My brother and sister-in-law run the best blog in the universe on women’s basketball: Women’s Hoops Blog. A couple of (thus far) kidless lawyers who know way too much about this subject, plus occasional other stuff. Here’s a movie quote that applies: “My boy’s wicked smart.” Movie, anyone? Read more

Wow, that was fast. Marko and Phil both got it. OK, here’s another from an older movie: “You can’t dust for vomit.” Read more