One night before bedtime, my three year old Gemma and I were talking and the subject of worrying came up. It was a teachable moment, so I put on my best dad-to-kid pontificating voice and explained the concept ever so wisely. I carefully conveyed that we all worry sometimes, and that’s OK. It was all going so well until Gemma interrupted: Gemma: Do you worry sometimes? Me: Yeah. Gemma: Well, you just have to be patient, Daddy. You just have... Read more
My friend Eric Olsen posted this video, and I could not help but think about the ongoing Sovereign Grace Ministries scandal and the weak, hedging responses by leaders of Together for the Gospel and The Gospel Coalition. Lately, I’ve been tweeting Tim Keller, the Vice President of TGC whose name was absent from their terrible statement, to speak out with clarity and common sense on this matter. How great would it be for a leader like TK to offer a... Read more
Let’s be honest: blogging about hell just isn’t that hot anymore. Love Wins is now well over two years old. The battle lines over North American (mainly, neo-reformed) evangelical orthodoxy have been drawn in bold print and ALL CAPS. Universalism, however “hopeful” it may be, has been roundly condemned, if not dismissed, as a heterodox innovation for wussy coward Christians who just don’t have the spine for preaching a Jesus who doubles as a concentration camp warden in the world... Read more
I have this tendency, and maybe you do too. It’s the tendency to speak out strongly against something that seems to be an injustice or an area of dishonesty or hypocrisy that is causing others real harm or pain. It’s the tendency to act on a conviction – not out of unrighteous anger, but out of urgent passion – and write that post or respond to that tweet or preach that message or interrupt that conversation where almost everyone seems... Read more
Boz Tchividjian is a law professor and founder of GRACE, an initiative that responds to abuse in the Christian environment. Last night, Together for the Gospel broke their long silence with this statement about the SGM lawsuit. They initially posted it on their Facebook Page as well, but critical comments abounded (including my own) and the post was soon removed. However, Bill Kinnon saved the thread, so all the original comments will remain viewable. (TGC added their own statement this... Read more
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore... Read more
Last week I was on the Drew Marshall Show, a Toronto-based radio show on faith and culture. I was a tad nervous, and I talk too slow for radio sometimes. But it was fun to chat about the book and the blog. Enjoy! [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91784941″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] Read more
On Thursday, I will turn 34. And while that just sounds like the biggest pitch ever for Facebook birthday messages, I mention it because this one is kind of significant. 33 was a death year for me, a year of loss, of endings. I’m hoping 34 will signal some resurrection. An interesting byproduct of death and failure and endings (we closed our church plant last August after a grueling season of transition in the community, which resulted in me losing two... Read more
This week was Smokin’ Hot. Since there has been so much wonderful back and forth and even a little bit of brouhaha about Monday’s piece, I figured I would post a few clarifiers before bed here on Friday night. Fact is, the vast majority of responses have come in the form of an “amen” of one kind or another, and some of those have been heart-wrenching stories from women readers about the demeaning culture in some evangelical churches. There have... Read more
A couple days ago, Her.meneutics ran a great piece by Mary DeMuth on the current obsession among evangelical pastors/leaders with talking/tweeting endlessly about their “smokin’ hot wives” – an obsession that has spread throughout American Christian culture. The post resonated with me. It resonated because, as I’ve mentioned before, I was once a part of the segment of evangelicalism that fosters this kind of attitude – the kind that makes leaders go on and on about their wives’ hotness as... Read more
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