...Is this thing still on? Trying to get back into the swing of things - it's been good to take time off. In honesty, I can't say I missed the blogosphere - not sure if the feeling's mutual. ;) I...

The blog isn't dead, just really low on the priority list at the moment. We're in the process of selling our home (again) and a major project just wrapped up at work. I'm going to officially declare theopraxis on hiatus...

I sat down a few weeks ago to start back into blogging, but I found that I just couldn't. I had no interest, and less desire. To be honest, I was really close to throwing in the towel, but I...

It's been crazy for the past few weeks - my wife started teaching massage in November, which meant that I've been with the boys every night until about 10:30 or so. This, obviously, has left no time for blogging. Last...

Michael Kruse tagged me several days ago, along with offering a generous recommendation of this humble little site. I confess that I've sort of been feeling like someone who has unexpected guests and hasn't been keeping up with the chores,...

Comments have suddenly stopped working, and I haven't been able to track down the problem yet. If you've tried to post a comment in the past couple of days, my apologies - I hope to have it fixed soon. UPDATE...

I feel fine - I don't want to go on the cart! Anyway. What a crazy few weeks - and I don't think things are going to settle down until September. Things will be sparse around here until at least...

For some reason, Bloglines has decided to join Technorati in the ranks of Websites That Hate Me™. None of my feeds have been updating on bloglines, even though they appear to be fine everywhere else. The folks at bloglines are...

So technically I suppose I'm back, but I spent half of this evening debugging an issue that was preventing pages from loading on the site. On top of that, I feel like I got punched in the gut - I'm...

Things have slowed to a crawl around here, which is always an indication that I've hit a wall. I'm processing a few things at the moment but none of them are interesting enough (or well-formed enough) to warrant a post....

My hand is healing nicely - many thanks to those of you who dropped by. The burns have healed much more rapidly than I had expected; I'm able to function normally with no pain and only a small amount of...

So I planned on posting something last night, but my plans got rearranged by a bit of a kitchen incident. I pulled a pan from the oven but decided it needed a few more minutes. This wouldn't have been a...

It's sort of amusing to me that January elicits a flurry of activity around reflection, looking both backward and forward in a sense. It's amusing because a lot of us spend so little time doing this sort of thing throughout...

Last week I installed a new anti-spam plugin after noticing that more and more spam comments had been making it through my filters. However, I received an email this weekend from someone who wasn't able to post a comment. If...

Some time ago, I signed up for a cocomment account. The idea is fantastic - it's a service that tracks all of your comments on various folks' blogs and compiles them into a feed that you can track via a...

There are a few reasons that I'm a miserable blogger. For one, I get stuck on a topic and run it into the ground. I'm fine with that, don't get me wrong - when that happens, it's typically something that...

I think a side project I'm working on broke something on the server, because I'm getting error messages when I try to post comments. But the comments are still getting posted - they're just not being published. So if you...

Apologies for the half-finished post that popped up here - I was working on something in ecto last night but I apparently accidentally published it. It may or may not show up later; I haven't decided yet. It was the...

Ok, so I got a bit creative today and decided to change the look of my site around. Granted, the time would have been better spent trying to catch up on my belated course reading, but there's only so much...

One of the blogs that I most look forward to reading is Andrew Jones at tallskinnykiwi. Today, Andrew posted a bit about what to do in the end-of-year down time on your blog. Personally, I've had a bit of down...

I've seen a number of folks putting up links to their favorite posts of the past year. I thought it would be an interesting exercise. I discovered that I like more of what I wrote earlier this year rather than...

via media is a new team blog in which I'll be participating. Bob Hyatt describes it this way:I want to create a team blog where we can discuss theology and church praxis from an emerging church perspective that takes seriously...

Two of my favorite people in the world are now blogging. Josh Nolt and Kevin Goodrich are both part of my cohort at Biblical. You'll find Josh at raggedfaith.com and Kevin at dailyspirituality.com....

I'm going to be doing some work on the site over the next week or so. I'm trying to upgrade to the new version of MovableType, which (in theory) should be fairly straightforward. I did, however, want to put the...

You know that feeling when you step back into your house after being away for an extended period of time? That's sort of how I feel. It was a good week - I'm glad I took it. For a full...

I'm going to take a week off from the blog. Actually, I've basically already started, but I wanted to put a quick note up to let everyone know I'll be back next week. Andrew Jones mentioned a few days ago...

The recent Pat debacle has me a bit burnt out on the subject of politics, so I'm putting on hold my continued explorations of Christian nonviolence. In truth, I think there's been a lot of good reflection on the subject...

I find myself in need of an additional email account, and I'm wondering if anyone out there might have any gmail invites still sitting around. If so, and you're feeling generous, could you drop me an email?...

Just fyi - if you run into a server error when trying to post a comment, it's a known bug coming from a recent upgrade to the cPanel installation on the server. You can read about it here if that...

I noticed that bloglines is picking up duplicate posts for some of my recent entries. I think it's because I rearranged my archives - some of the posts are linking to current files, and some to the previous names of...

I think I've got everything working relatively well again. There are a few small bugs that I'm having trouble with, including a slight glitch in the comment moderation template, but most everything should be functional. If anyone runs across something...

Something screwed up on my site and crashed the server again last night. It could be another spam attack like I had in January, but nothing showed on my log files. I've disabled comments for the moment until I can...

Although it wasn't by design, it's good to take a step away from things that are important to you at times so as to see them more clearly. If you are like me, becoming personally invested in a thing colors...

It appears I still have some tweaking to do with my Movable Type configuration. I can't figure out how to turn off comment moderation. For the moment, if you submit a comment, it won't be displayed until I manually approve...

I think I've gotten everything set up correctly. It took much longer than I thought and not everything in the interface is displaying correctly, but at least I can post! Back to writing, thankfully......

What a week. My dog chewed my laptop power cable, so I've been without a computer for about a week. On top of that, I was hit severely by comment spam this weekend, which ended up crashing the server. I'm...

A few years ago, I met a guy named Ed Cyzewski in an etrek course at Biblical. Ed was just starting work on a book that he hoped would take the emerging / missional church conversation and make it presentable...

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the ChurchThis book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope?...

I want to go back to McLaren's discussion of the major crises that face us globally at the dawn of the twenty first century. I was rather critical of him in my last post, and while I don't necessarily want...

I want to begin discussion of McLaren's Everything Must Change in the same place where he begins and assess the trajectory of the book in that light. I mentioned previously that I found myself underwhelmed with the book; upon further...

I've run into another snag on my series about New Creation. It's conceptual more than anything - I know where I want to go but I want to make sure that I'm getting there in an honest way. I've been...

I had planned to post some thoughts on the Emergent event from last week (and I still intend to do so) - but I just finished the newest addition to the Tolkien canon today and felt compelled to offer some...

April 18, 2007Technorati Tags: Children of Hurin, Tolkien...

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I'm not much of a fan of the term "incarnational" ministry. This is something that I've been pondering for a while - in fact, I used to love the term,...

After a hectic few weeks, things are starting to slow down again. Time to kick the dust off the old blog and get back to more regular posting. Although I still have more thoughts that I want to post on...

How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins Rollins begins the book with a discussion of faith and theology:Christian faith, it could be said, is born in the aftermath of God. Our fragile faith is fanned into life...

How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins I have a few more posts on the subject of community in the image of God - surprisingly, I haven't quite run that one into the ground yet. ;) I...

I finally got around to compiling a recommended reading list. I've been working on this for a while now but couldn't get my booklist plugin to play nicely. At any rate - if you're interested, check out my must-have reading...

My head feels clearer and my thoughts more coherent, so I thought I'd jump back into things with a more positive note. Thus far, I've been rather critical of Spencer's book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. But the book isn't...

I've said a number of times in the comments that I can't go along with Spencer's understanding of the Christian Story as described in his book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. Up to now, though, I've just focused on some...

As I've mentioned previously, Spencer's categories in A Heretic's Guide to Eternity are religion and grace. I've already touched on his treatment of the term religion; now I want to tackle his definition of grace. In his words: Could it...

One of the primary challenges I'm facing in reading A Heretic's Guide to Eternity is the suspicion that I'm being faced with a false dichotomy. Ok, that's an understatement - I don't buy the principle division of the book, namely...

A Heretic's Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor I'm about halfway through Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. I thought I'd go ahead and start my interaction, because I'm finding that I have...

Jumping back to Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to briefly summarize Enns's third point of difficulty in understanding the nature of scripture. Enns contends that the NT authors' use of the OT is itself particularly challenging for evangelical hermeneutics, primarily...

Continuing my discussion of Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to pick up briefly a subject that I think is particularly challenging to the traditional evangelical perspective on scripture. In particular, Enns discusses the difficulty that the theological...

The first "problem" that Enns tackles in Inspiration and Incarnation is that of the Old Testament's relationship to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Enns demonstrates the difficulty in three areas: Creation and the Flood: Is Genesis Myth or History?...

Recently I began an absolutely fascinating book by Peter Enns called Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Pete Enns primarily teaches at Westminster, but he also teaches occasional courses at Biblical. I had the privilege...

Part 2 of my interview with Shane Hipps, author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: SB: Given the cultural shifts accompanying electronic media that you discuss, it seems inevitable that we'll need to recontextualize the gospel in a techno-savvy...

I've had the privilege of discussing a few thoughts from The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture with Shane Hipps. Shane's website, by the way, can be found here. The interview is full of great thoughts, so I'll be posting it...

In my previous post, I discussed the Four Laws of Media that Shane Hipps presents in his book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. The underlying premise, of course, is that the forms of media that we use shape the...

As I mentioned previously, one of the central premises of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture is that media are not value-neutral. Rather, they influence what and how we think about the message. This matter of shaping, however, isn't always...

The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Churchby Shane HippsI mentioned previously in my posts about the Taxonomy of Emergence that I was reading The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps. I...

I've been taking one of Ed Stetzer's articles to task over the last few posts, so I wanted to also highlight some really great thoughts that he presented at the recent Reform and Resurge conference. A great quote: "Preaching against...

Simply Christian : Why Christianity Makes Senseby N.T. WrightI received a wonderful present in the mail today... ;) Review forthcoming. I've finished the first chapter, and I'm hooked already. Here's a teaser: "When the early Christians told the story of...

I'm all over the map lately. I'm working on yet another book that's prompted a few thoughts. This one is Clemens Sedmak's book Doing Local Theology, which is a nice little volume talking about how this contextual theology stuff actually...

One of the challenges of talking about culture is that it's so much a part of who we are that it's functionally invisible to us. We typically only notice a small part of what makes up our culture - much...

I've put off posting this for a bit because I'm sorting through the implications of Bevans's categories as I think about the emerging church. I think I have a framework I'm comfortable with, so I'm going to throw out some...

So it's been over a month now since I decided to work through Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology and, while I've played around with the subject since then, I haven't actually gotten to the meat of the book yet or...

Ok, not exactly - but I finished The Last Word over the weekend (thanks Jared!) and found a number of insights that are cogent for what I'm trying to think through:To affirm "the authority of scripture" is precisely not to...

I'm finally getting to my posts about Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology. I ran into a surprise at the end - my initial thoughts were that the emerging church tends to work out of a model of praxis while the...

...a great interview with Miroslav Volf over at Jared's blog.Technorati Tags: interview, Volf...

One of the books that I've been working my way through is Models of Contextual Theology by Stephen Bevans. It's a fantastic little book that's very easy to read but packs a lot of content into the pages. Bevans's basic...

I thought I'd post a quick look at my current in-process and up-and-coming reading list. Some of these I'd started a while back, but I haven't finished because of course work; others are new acquisitions. A few weeks ago I...

Empires are totalizing by definition...Empires are built on systemic centralizations of power and secured by structures of socioeconomic and military control. They are religiously legitimated by powerful myths that are rooted in foundational assumptions, and they are sustained by a...

As I mentioned previously, I was given the opportunity to preview Doug Pagitt's new book Preaching Re-imagined. First, a few words about what this book is not. It is not a how-to manual. You will not find in this book...

...is a capital fellow. About a month ago, he mentioned that he was looking for some folks to review his new book, Preaching Re-imagined. So I responded with a brief email, truly expecting to never hear another word - not...

...not ready to hit the page yet. I've been spending a lot of time this past week reflecting on what I've been writing for the past six months or so. I've been doing a bit of reading as well -...

To bring this series to a close, I want to reflect briefly on a question posed by Steve McCoy over at Reformissionary. Steve asks:Do you think the suburbs are so difficult because by their nature they are a salvation from...

A few days ago I read this post over at Dan Kimball's blog, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I thought it was profoundly disturbing, particularly when I read the part about "some issues...

One more thought on this before I talk about Galatians - we as followers of Christ must seriously rethink our approaches to authority and power. I touched on this yesterday, but I think it bears more careful consideration than my...

I really wanted to write something on the Emergent response to critics, which I thought was quite well done, but in truth I just spent a bit of time reading through some of the responses to the response and now...

I remember in the mid-nineties the short-lived fad of Magic Eye images - posters that presented a pseudo-3D image if you'd stare at it long enough in the right way. It was fascinating just watching people try to get the...

I had all these nice thoughts collected about McLaren's book that I wanted to talk about, and I even tipped my hand with yesterday's brief thoughts. (And I'm most certainly coming back to it; this is only a brief diversion.)...

I have to be honest - I have a love-hate affair with the Bible. Even the word sounds trite to me, like something that I should have left in my childhood along with action figures and lollipops and little league....

Raining again, he thought absently. He sat by the window and stared out at the monochrome landscape, at the people who drifted idly by on the streets below like absentminded ghosts losing themselves in the mist. Blue smoke from his...

Theology is a strange animal. It appears to have a bit of genus confusion, particularly as popularly practiced and understood in my context, that of the American suburban church with its usual ties to seminary and denomination. I think the...

I somehow thought that I'd have a chance to do some blogging during the Emergent conversation this week - what a mistaken plan! It's been a busy week. My family is visiting my in-laws this week, so I'm on my...

Radio Rebellion is back. Glad to see you blogging again, Chris!...

I looked at my site yesterday and realized that I haven't posted anything this week. That feels odd, because I've written more than I have in a long time. But most of it is hidden in the comments of some...

One of the things I've been missing over this past year is the opportunity to be a part of the Philadelphia Emergent cohort.  I was able to attend several gatherings last summer before my fall semester began, and I was...

Jeff - who blogs over at So I Go - has a book on the way. It's a compilation of his first batch of blog entries, which are a fantastic read. I'm extraordinarily excited for him - Jeff has a...

It's been two months since I've posted anything about Bowling Alone, so let me point you to my previous posts which can all be found here. To get back into the groove, I want to reflect on an underlying dynamic...

Finally (!) delving back into Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to dig into a phenomenon that Putnam argues is the most significant shaping influence in terms of social capital in modern American life - namely, electronic forms of entertainment...

I mentioned in my last post on Putnam's Bowling Alone that I wanted to discuss a phenomenon that I'm calling professionalization. This isn't something that Putnam necessarily addresses directly, but rather I think it's tangentially related to both isolation and...

Continuing our discussion of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to reflect for a bit on the connection between suburban isolation and the loss of social capital that Putnam describes. While Putnam is clear that this phenomenon is by no...

I can't state enough how riveting I've found Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. It's been on my list for a long time, but I decided when I last ordered books to pick up a few things that are outside the vein...

One of the more challenging issues that is raised by viewing scripture through contextual lenses is the realization that we aren't dealing with just one context. Part of what makes scripture amazing and beautiful is that it was written over...

Anyone who's been reading along for any length of time knows that I can't seem to get through a month without posting about contextual theology. I discovered this discipline in seminary, although if you've been exposed to some of the...

I was musing on something and didn't want to lose it, so I'm posting it here without comment. I'm also a bit interested to see what reactions (if any) you have.A contextless gospel does not exist. Any articulation of the...

My head feels clearer and my thoughts more coherent, so I thought I'd jump back into things with a more positive note. Thus far, I've been rather critical of Spencer's book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. But the book isn't...

I've said a number of times in the comments that I can't go along with Spencer's understanding of the Christian Story as described in his book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. Up to now, though, I've just focused on some...

As I've mentioned previously, Spencer's categories in A Heretic's Guide to Eternity are religion and grace. I've already touched on his treatment of the term religion; now I want to tackle his definition of grace. In his words: Could it...

One of the primary challenges I'm facing in reading A Heretic's Guide to Eternity is the suspicion that I'm being faced with a false dichotomy. Ok, that's an understatement - I don't buy the principle division of the book, namely...

A Heretic's Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor I'm about halfway through Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. I thought I'd go ahead and start my interaction, because I'm finding that I have...

Jumping back to Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to briefly summarize Enns's third point of difficulty in understanding the nature of scripture. Enns contends that the NT authors' use of the OT is itself particularly challenging for evangelical hermeneutics, primarily...

Continuing my discussion of Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to pick up briefly a subject that I think is particularly challenging to the traditional evangelical perspective on scripture. In particular, Enns discusses the difficulty that the theological...

The first "problem" that Enns tackles in Inspiration and Incarnation is that of the Old Testament's relationship to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Enns demonstrates the difficulty in three areas: Creation and the Flood: Is Genesis Myth or History?...

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns I mentioned last week that I wanted to spend a bit of time blogging through Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation. This is a fantastic...

Part 2 of my interview with Shane Hipps, author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: SB: Given the cultural shifts accompanying electronic media that you discuss, it seems inevitable that we'll need to recontextualize the gospel in a techno-savvy...

I've had the privilege of discussing a few thoughts from The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture with Shane Hipps. Shane's website, by the way, can be found here. The interview is full of great thoughts, so I'll be posting it...

In my previous post, I discussed the Four Laws of Media that Shane Hipps presents in his book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. The underlying premise, of course, is that the forms of media that we use shape the...

As I mentioned previously, one of the central premises of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture is that media are not value-neutral. Rather, they influence what and how we think about the message. This matter of shaping, however, isn't always...

The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Churchby Shane HippsI mentioned previously in my posts about the Taxonomy of Emergence that I was reading The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps. I...

To bring this series to a close, I want to reflect briefly on a question posed by Steve McCoy over at Reformissionary. Steve asks:Do you think the suburbs are so difficult because by their nature they are a salvation from...

I have one final post on a theological response to the suburban ethos, and then I think there's something of a wrapup post floating around in my head with a few concluding thoughts and some questions for further consideration, if...

We've discussed the question of the primacy of the economic domain in suburban contexts, as well as the emphasis on the pursuit of happiness. I next want to take up the central praxis of suburban life, which I take to...

In my previous post, I discussed the centrality of the economic sphere to the suburban ethos. One question that I raised to which I provided only a partial answer was this: who is telling the stories that shape the imaginations...

I'm going to endeavor to wrap this series up in short order here - I've been mulling on a lot of stuff for a while now, and it's time for me to put my thoughts in order. For a quick...

Last week, I began reflecting on the subject of race and, in particular, how the question of the suburban ethos intersects with questions of race. I want to pick this up with some specific thoughts on the basic framework that...

A few days ago, Landon asked a question related to my thoughts on a theology of the suburbs. He writes:have you thought of how race would intersect with your statement of "the suburban lifestyle is predicated on the pursuit of...

I feel as though I need to pause for breath here, to summarize what I'm proposing as descriptive of the suburban ethos. I want to do this so as to frame my coming thoughts succinctly and to provide some structure...

I believe that, when I think of suburban life, what I think of more than anything else is rootlessness. If control-through-choice is at the core of the ethos of the suburbs, rootlessness is its fruit. Disconnection, isolation, transience, impermanence -...

I've joined a bunch of other folks over at the group blog at MereMission.org. Todd has done a great job of putting everything together, and there's still an opportunity for more contributors to jump in, so if you're interested or...

Chris brought up an excellent thought in the comments on my last post. Chris has this to say:I think that too, like the early Christians, choice is mediated by economy. I know that you alluded to it, but I don't...

I want to think a bit more on the idea of choice as power. I mentioned yesterday that the suburban ethos reflects the centrality of control-through-choice. In the comments, we were discussing the relationship between choice and structure; my thoughts...

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to start delving into a theology of the suburbs. American suburbia is, in my opinion, a sometimes hostile environment for ministry - for Kingdom-centered ministry, at any rate - at least...

We had an interesting discussion in class on Saturday about the primary narrative. Our prof listed two statements, both of which Christian theology would consider to be true, pretty much across the board. The question that was asked, though, was...

Rachelle has a challenging, troubling post here about her experiences as a woman attempting to minister in Seattle in the shadow of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill. I'm not going to attempt to summarize it - go and read it....

I hit a place this week where I needed to let all this stuff sit for a bit - too many thoughts to come together into something coherent. I think this class has had the best texts so far of...

I'm all over the map lately. I'm working on yet another book that's prompted a few thoughts. This one is Clemens Sedmak's book Doing Local Theology, which is a nice little volume talking about how this contextual theology stuff actually...

One of the challenges of talking about culture is that it's so much a part of who we are that it's functionally invisible to us. We typically only notice a small part of what makes up our culture - much...

I've been reading another book with bearings on my recent thoughts on contextual theology. The book is The Silent Language by Edward Hall - it's a fascinating discussion of the nature of culture from the perspective of an anthropologist. This...

I've put off posting this for a bit because I'm sorting through the implications of Bevans's categories as I think about the emerging church. I think I have a framework I'm comfortable with, so I'm going to throw out some...

So it's been over a month now since I decided to work through Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology and, while I've played around with the subject since then, I haven't actually gotten to the meat of the book yet or...

Cup holders do not count as contextual theology. Discussing their addition to a new $24 million building erected by Eagle Brook Church in Minneapolis:"Our little coffee shop is humming on Sunday mornings," Anderson said. "It's a huge hit." But church...

Ok, not exactly - but I finished The Last Word over the weekend (thanks Jared!) and found a number of insights that are cogent for what I'm trying to think through:To affirm "the authority of scripture" is precisely not to...

I'm finally getting to my posts about Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology. I ran into a surprise at the end - my initial thoughts were that the emerging church tends to work out of a model of praxis while the...

One of the books that I've been working my way through is Models of Contextual Theology by Stephen Bevans. It's a fantastic little book that's very easy to read but packs a lot of content into the pages. Bevans's basic...

I don't often write poetry because, frankly, I'm not that good at it, but this one turned out pretty well, so I thought I'd share. I'm not certain it's finished yet - I may still tinker with it some more,...

Raining again, he thought absently. He sat by the window and stared out at the monochrome landscape, at the people who drifted idly by on the streets below like absentminded ghosts losing themselves in the mist. Blue smoke from his...

It's too damn early for this, he thought. He stared across the desk at the man sitting calmly before him, much too calm for someone who most probably would not wake to another dawn. It was unnerving - the man's...

Previous entries in this series can be found here. I've been sitting on this post for nearly a month, debating about how to proceed. It's not that I doubt my beliefs, my theology, or my understanding of Scripture on this...

Just a few quick thoughts for this evening. I wanted to start jotting down some thoughts on what the practices of a community in the image of God might be. The background to this brief series can be found here;...

I've been suggesting that the image of God represents God's delegated authority to humanity to participate in the divine task of creation. I've also been suggesting that at the heart of the metaphor is an understanding of what that authority...

I wish I had written this post sooner, while last week's cohort meeting was fresh in my mind. We had a great conversation led by John Franke of Biblical Seminary on the missional nature of the triune God. The details...

Yesterday I posted my thoughts on the nature of power in Christian community. My difficulty in these posts is that there's too much ground to cover - it feels as though I'm slogging through knee deep snow. Every post reminds...

In my last post I began reflecting on the subject of power in the community of God. I referenced some of Yoder's excellent work on this subject in pointing to the cross as the foundation of NT ethics. I want...

I've been toying around with this post for several days. To be honest, I'm not entirely settled on where to start; it's a huge topic that rightly deserves a book-length treatment. I've written previously on the topic here, here, here,...

One of the significant contextual elements of the language of the image of God in Genesis 1 is the inherent dignity of all humanity. In contrast to other ideologies that used such language only for the powerful, Genesis "democratizes" the...

In my last post, I suggested that the vocation of the people of Israel was to serve as a reflection of the creational intent of the imago dei. The people, however, abandoned their vocation, instead falling into idolatry and injustice...

At the end of Genesis 3, humanity finds itself caught between image and curse. The image defines the task of humanity; the curse hinders and thwarts that task. The image defines the identity of humanity; the curse twists and subverts...

N.T. Wright suggests in his worldview model described in NTPG that part of the function of stories is to describe what is wrong. In other words, we instinctively know that things are not as they should be, and our foundational...

Let's be honest about one thing up front: the idea of the imago dei is not an explicit theme that carries throughout the scriptural narrative. It does, to be sure, pop its head in the door on occasion to remind...

A few folks have been interacting with my thoughts on ecclesiology. It's interesting, I think, and perhaps telling that the idea conjures up quite similar ideas in different folks (along with something of a critique of those implied ideas). Tim,...

I read something interesting while back in, if I recall correctly, Stan Grenz's Renewing the Center. Grenz as I recall contends that evangelicals, by and large, have little to no ecclesiology. I thought this was fascinating. My initial reaction was...

I mentioned in my previous post some of the highlights of the discussion at the recent Emergent event, but I also mentioned that I was left with some concerns and critiques as well. In the end, although I appreciated Caputo's...

I had initially thought to interact with the major themes of the Emergent gathering while the event was underway, but I found two things very quickly: first, there were a lot of ideas running around, and I quickly found my...

Just thought I'd pass on a reminder for anyone in the Philly area that the cohort meeting this month is being moved up a week - the gathering is this Thursday at the Well in Feasterville. Keith Matthews and Todd...

After a hectic few weeks, things are starting to slow down again. Time to kick the dust off the old blog and get back to more regular posting. Although I still have more thoughts that I want to post on...

How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins Rollins begins the book with a discussion of faith and theology:Christian faith, it could be said, is born in the aftermath of God. Our fragile faith is fanned into life...

I looked at my site yesterday and realized that I haven't posted anything this week. That feels odd, because I've written more than I have in a long time. But most of it is hidden in the comments of some...

My head feels clearer and my thoughts more coherent, so I thought I'd jump back into things with a more positive note. Thus far, I've been rather critical of Spencer's book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. But the book isn't...

I've said a number of times in the comments that I can't go along with Spencer's understanding of the Christian Story as described in his book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. Up to now, though, I've just focused on some...

As I've mentioned previously, Spencer's categories in A Heretic's Guide to Eternity are religion and grace. I've already touched on his treatment of the term religion; now I want to tackle his definition of grace. In his words: Could it...

One of the primary challenges I'm facing in reading A Heretic's Guide to Eternity is the suspicion that I'm being faced with a false dichotomy. Ok, that's an understatement - I don't buy the principle division of the book, namely...

A Heretic's Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor I'm about halfway through Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. I thought I'd go ahead and start my interaction, because I'm finding that I have...

An interesting package arrived in the mail yesterday - an advance copy of Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. It's already started to create some buzz; Scot McKnight shared his thoughts on the book, and some of...

One of the things I've been missing over this past year is the opportunity to be a part of the Philadelphia Emergent cohort.  I was able to attend several gatherings last summer before my fall semester began, and I was...

Tonight I'm enjoying something that I've neglected for far too long. I'm sitting on my deck enjoying a little something that I picked up in London to commemorate my graduation - a new pipe, specifically a Butz Choquin Cybele, if...

One of the things that struck me rather forcefully on our trip was the way in which the missionaries who hosted us thought about success. Because of the nature of their work, they have a different perspective than, I think,...

Part 2 of my interview with Shane Hipps, author of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: SB: Given the cultural shifts accompanying electronic media that you discuss, it seems inevitable that we'll need to recontextualize the gospel in a techno-savvy...

I've had the privilege of discussing a few thoughts from The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture with Shane Hipps. Shane's website, by the way, can be found here. The interview is full of great thoughts, so I'll be posting it...

In my previous post, I discussed the Four Laws of Media that Shane Hipps presents in his book The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. The underlying premise, of course, is that the forms of media that we use shape the...

As I mentioned previously, one of the central premises of The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture is that media are not value-neutral. Rather, they influence what and how we think about the message. This matter of shaping, however, isn't always...

The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture: How Media Shapes Faith, the Gospel, and Churchby Shane HippsI mentioned previously in my posts about the Taxonomy of Emergence that I was reading The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps. I...

In my final post on Stetzer's categories for emerging churches, I want to comment on the end result of this framework. Ultimately, what bothers me about the framework is the end to which the categories are applied. In the few...

I've been taking one of Ed Stetzer's articles to task over the last few posts, so I wanted to also highlight some really great thoughts that he presented at the recent Reform and Resurge conference. A great quote: "Preaching against...

The second issue that confronts Stetzer's categories is that the categories themselves are based upon what I believe to be an unsustainable premise. Stetzer states in the article:I believe that some are taking the same Gospel in the historic form...

In my last post I mentioned that I wanted to spend a few posts discussing why I think Stetzer's categories for emerging churches are unhelpful and, in some sense, foundationally flawed. I have three primary criticisms of the framework that...

Ed Stetzer's article on the emerging church caused some ripples a few months ago when it was first released. If you haven't read it, the main thrust of the article is an attempt to categorize emerging churches and practitioners into...

I've joined a bunch of other folks over at the group blog at MereMission.org. Todd has done a great job of putting everything together, and there's still an opportunity for more contributors to jump in, so if you're interested or...

Scott L asked in the comments on my post on The Boy's Club, "Is the Church, and any authority within the Church, about power? Should it be a discussion of power? Should our discussions of male and female roles and...

Rachelle has a challenging, troubling post here about her experiences as a woman attempting to minister in Seattle in the shadow of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill. I'm not going to attempt to summarize it - go and read it....

One of the challenges of talking about culture is that it's so much a part of who we are that it's functionally invisible to us. We typically only notice a small part of what makes up our culture - much...

I've put off posting this for a bit because I'm sorting through the implications of Bevans's categories as I think about the emerging church. I think I have a framework I'm comfortable with, so I'm going to throw out some...

So it's been over a month now since I decided to work through Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology and, while I've played around with the subject since then, I haven't actually gotten to the meat of the book yet or...

Some of you may have heard about Bob Robinson, a fellow blogger who had emergency heart surgery over the weekend. Scot McKnight has reported that Bob has taken a turn for the worse. Please pray for his full recovery, as...

Ok, not exactly - but I finished The Last Word over the weekend (thanks Jared!) and found a number of insights that are cogent for what I'm trying to think through:To affirm "the authority of scripture" is precisely not to...

Brian's response. Fascinating discussion going on in the comments - there are clearly two perspectives represented, one of which is ultimately concerned with doctrine while the other is more concerned with praxis (imho). That's not meant to be pejorative of...

I'm in the habit of taking small breaks from the blogosphere. It helps me to keep perspective on the whole thing. This time was different than most, though - I had a lot to say on a particular topic, none...

I find myself in the awkward position of having nothing constructive to say. It's not that I lack for topics - far from it. I've left several posts over the past few days in various degrees of preparedness. Frankly, I'm...

I'm finally getting to my posts about Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology. I ran into a surprise at the end - my initial thoughts were that the emerging church tends to work out of a model of praxis while the...

One of the books that I've been working my way through is Models of Contextual Theology by Stephen Bevans. It's a fantastic little book that's very easy to read but packs a lot of content into the pages. Bevans's basic...

I've been following the insanity this evening over the emergentno.com aggregator that Justin Baeder pulled together. I'm at this point exhausted, primarily because reading too much fundagelical stuff is bad for my blood pressure. I had this bizarre experience a...

What an incredible weekend! It was how I imagine the experience of being in a context where you're unable to speak in your native tongue and then returning to a place where everyone speaks your language. The team at Off...

I'm having another one of those weeks where disparate experiences are coming together in an interesting set of juxtapositions. I've been thinking a bit more about the whole question of story, about how we interpret our lives and our experiences...

Looks like I'll be attending the Generous Orthodoxy conference in DC. It would be fun to connect with anyone from the blogosphere who's planning on attending - drop me an email or leave a comment if you're going to be...

Thursday I had the privilege of attending the monthly meeting of the Philly Emergent cohort. Dr. Joseph Mangina from Wycliffe College in Toronto presented some thoughts on the book of Revelation as ecclesiology, as well as an approach to apocalyptic...

Anyone with info on the upcoming Philly Emergent cohort gathering, would you be so kind as to leave a comment with the info or email me? I know some of you are out there... I was in the middle of...

As has been widely reported already, Stan Grenz has passed away. This is a tremendous loss, first and foremost for his family and friends, but also for the body of Christ. I know that I am not alone when I...

About a week ago I said I was going to start to unpack what life in the Spirit might look like for us in twenty-first century contexts, so I suppose I should at some point get to that. I've actually...

I think in some sense this has come full circle now for me, because I'm back to the place where I started - what is the gospel? How do I sort my way through what I've written about these past...

Scot McKnight asked some excellent questions on my last post that I had been tempted to touch on but initially skipped. Scot asks, "What is that the Judaizing wing was requiring to enter the people of God -- specifically --...

I think this is the longest I've ever stuck with a particular subject. But this has been quite an interesting journey for me - I feel like I'm really engaging with something personally that is, in some sense, reorienting. Hopefully...

I have several remaining things to tackle in respect to Galatians, and to be honest I'm not all that sure how to go about it, because it's not really all that sequential. I want to throw some thoughts around about...

It's too late to write what I wanted to tackle, but I think I need to take another quick diversion. I had a thought tonight that I want to throw out, to see if this makes sense or if I'm...

Let me take a step back and give my perspective on why thinking this way about the book has been somewhat revolutionary. Like a good Protestant, I grew up with the typical Luther-esque reading of Galatians, meaning Law = Works....

First off - wonderful night. Sitting outside, Rattray's Hal O' the Wynd in my Karl Erik semi-rusticated Dublin. Sublime. Praise God for wifi. I want to continue to think through the topic of the political gospel by taking a short...

On a (thankfully) lighter note, I mentioned a while back that I'd scored a copy of Risk: Black Ops, a game that just oozes cool out of every one of its tiny cardboard pores. I had a chance to play...

Well, ok, not entirely a surprise - I did some digging and turned up a fantastic little gimme. The surprise was that it actually showed up today - I didn't really think this was going to work. Let me take...

The holidays weren't exactly conducive to gaming - several attempts to get together with my gaming buddies fell through and we were traveling several times in December, which means that I have several recent acquisitions (most notably Starcraft) that have...

I mentioned last week that I had an eagerly awaited package on the way. Well, yesterday I received it and proceeded to dig into my new acquisitions - a set of titles from the Wings of War series. Wings of...

I've debated about whether or not to post this. It's way premature. Anything could happen. The whole thing could fall through. I might discover that it's not for me. Others might decide I'm not for them. Maybe nobody else will...

I started class again tonight; it's a promising course called Spirit and Church. We're hitting a number of topics based on the epistles. Tonight, we started off with the topic of suffering. It is, of course, a weighty subject; I...

I had thought to write a bit more on my definition of hope, but upon further reflection I think I'll let the discussion continue in the comments. (If you're interested in weighing in, head to this post.) Instead, I want...

It feels sort of odd, all clinical and detached, to try to talk about how I now think about hope. For the longest time, I resisted trying to define it, until I conceded that hope is only sometimes described and...

I'm heading out of town for a retreat this weekend with the LEAD program at Biblical. I can't think of a better way to wrap up my sabbath week. I won't have any internet access until Sunday, so I'll respond...

One thing that strikes me about the thought given to hope (or lack thereof) in contemporary western Christianity is that we are so rarely faced with a situation in which we are actually required to hope. We're incredibly self-sufficient, self-reliant,...

It's interesting, I think, the way that God works. One thing I must say at the outset so that you will understand why ordinary things have significance in my life in ways that might not to others: I have never...

A brief note at the outset - as a writer, sometimes it seems that there are those stories that take on a life of their own, that write themselves without asking your permission or guidance. This was one of those...

Jordon Cooper posted this recently highlighting the struggles of pastors and the negative impact that ministry has had on their personal lives. To be honest, I have several reactions to the statistics he's citing, all of which fit the context...

Is something going on in the blogosphere and I missed the memo? Lots of talk about story out there - Jimmy over at liquidthinking posted some good thoughts here and here on the topic of myth. Jimmy writes,We all live...

I've walked the labyrinth three times now. Last week, as a part of our closing Etrek session, we walked a labyrinth at a local church. It was outside, and the weather was freezing. It didn't help that I've been having...

Hope is a funny thing. It's a misunderstood thing, I think, a neglected virtue that Paul set alongside faith and love as one of three that most typified Christian spirituality. It doesn't get much press these days; I can count...

I have never understood Abraham. I think that, if God showed up and asked me to kill my son, I would give Him the finger and walk away. I do not say that proudly - I simply have no frame...

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, here, and here. God calls Abram in Genesis 12 and inaugurates a new era in history. Much ink has been spilled on this particular topic, but permit me to add...

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, and here. When I last picked up this topic, I described my understanding of the image of God in humanity as a vocation to which we are called, specifically that...

When I last poked my head above the waters, I mentioned that I was working my way through a collection of essays by Stanley Hauerwas called A Better Hope. Hauerwas is nothing if not challenging and thought-provoking, and he's sort...

Previous entries in this series can be found here. I've been sitting on this post for nearly a month, debating about how to proceed. It's not that I doubt my beliefs, my theology, or my understanding of Scripture on this...

Just a few quick thoughts for this evening. I wanted to start jotting down some thoughts on what the practices of a community in the image of God might be. The background to this brief series can be found here;...

I've been suggesting that the image of God represents God's delegated authority to humanity to participate in the divine task of creation. I've also been suggesting that at the heart of the metaphor is an understanding of what that authority...

I wish I had written this post sooner, while last week's cohort meeting was fresh in my mind. We had a great conversation led by John Franke of Biblical Seminary on the missional nature of the triune God. The details...

Yesterday I posted my thoughts on the nature of power in Christian community. My difficulty in these posts is that there's too much ground to cover - it feels as though I'm slogging through knee deep snow. Every post reminds...

In my last post I began reflecting on the subject of power in the community of God. I referenced some of Yoder's excellent work on this subject in pointing to the cross as the foundation of NT ethics. I want...

I've been toying around with this post for several days. To be honest, I'm not entirely settled on where to start; it's a huge topic that rightly deserves a book-length treatment. I've written previously on the topic here, here, here,...

One of the significant contextual elements of the language of the image of God in Genesis 1 is the inherent dignity of all humanity. In contrast to other ideologies that used such language only for the powerful, Genesis "democratizes" the...

In my last post, I suggested that the vocation of the people of Israel was to serve as a reflection of the creational intent of the imago dei. The people, however, abandoned their vocation, instead falling into idolatry and injustice...

At the end of Genesis 3, humanity finds itself caught between image and curse. The image defines the task of humanity; the curse hinders and thwarts that task. The image defines the identity of humanity; the curse twists and subverts...

N.T. Wright suggests in his worldview model described in NTPG that part of the function of stories is to describe what is wrong. In other words, we instinctively know that things are not as they should be, and our foundational...

Let's be honest about one thing up front: the idea of the imago dei is not an explicit theme that carries throughout the scriptural narrative. It does, to be sure, pop its head in the door on occasion to remind...

After several days of pondering, I've decided to attempt to answer, in part, my earlier questions. I have come to the conclusion that the process of building community is creative - not creative in the sense of unique and original,...

I wanted to post this for Valentine's Day but didn't get an opportunity. Fortune recently ran a fantastic article on the economics of chocolate - fantastic, not in the sense of a good-news story, but rather as a multifaceted look...

If you want to read something truly, deeply, and profoundly disturbing, take a look at these excerpts from the recent debate at the University of South Carolina among the Republican presidential candidates for 2008, courtesy Keith DeRose at Generous Orthodoxy...

In exploring the biblical themes of social responsibility, I had next thought to look at the Wisdom literature and prophets, but I want to take a brief pause to consider something that I think is rather significant in the Creation...

It seems to me that the most logical place to begin to think through a biblical approach to justice and mercy would be at the beginning, so that is where we shall take our first step - specifically by looking...

Before I begin my thoughts on the topic of biblical justice, I wanted to put a few things on the table. First, let me be quite clear about one thing - I am not a student of biblical languages. I...

We've been having some interesting conversations about biblical authority over at Bill's site. Bill is reflecting on an article by N.T. Wright that Mike recommended here sometime last week. An excellent read, I must say - thanks to Mike for...

Read It By the time I realized I hadn't posted a reflection on Mark last week, it was Thursday. Oops - so much for Mondays. At any rate, I'm actually glad it worked out this way - I was struggling...

Read It I try to pay attention when Jesus is surprised. Things that amaze the Son of God seem to me to be things of substance. This passage relates something of a tragic amazement - Jesus is surprised by the...

Read It I'm not intentionally slacking off this week - I'm truly pondering this passage, wondering what it means and if, as I currently think, the two scenes are related. I'm resisting the impulse to post for the sake of...

Read It There are a lot of things that I could discuss in this particular narrative. However, one thing in particular leaps out at me. The theme of touch runs through this narrative like an electric current. The touch of...

Read It This is another odd passage that grates against our sensibilities. I'm not going to list all of the things I find odd about it; no doubt you have your own. It stands in contrast to so much of...

Read It This passage is one of the more familiar passages from the gospel accounts. It is also one of the places where sermons and books have been least kind to the disciples, in my opinion. It's easy to dismiss...

Read It Ok, I'm going to come clean. This passage bugs me. I've been thinking about it for a while now, and I can't resolve it. Here's the problem - the parable of the sower works just fine on its...

Read It This passage has generated more than its share of controversy because of Jesus' reference to sin that cannot be forgiven. In reality, though, it doesn't seem that the point of Mark's inclusion of this story was to give...

Read It There are a number of ways that I could talk about this passage. But I like one verse here in particular from the Message: "He climbed a mountain and invited those he wanted with him. They climbed together."...

Read It As usual, Mark doesn't mince words here. He tells of four specific instances that set up Jesus' ongoing conflict with the religious authorities of his day. By the beginning of the third chapter of Mark's gospel, Jesus has...

Read It John has prepared the way, and now Jesus comes on the scene, surprising everyone. If I had to pick a word to describe what's going on in the beginning of Mark's story, that's the word I'd choose -...

First, a few words on logistics. My plan is to blog my way through the book of Mark, probably at the rate of one chapter a week or so. Why Mark? For me, Mark is the gospel that I come...

I'm back - what an insane couple of weeks. Thanks to everyone who shared thoughts and prayers - it was appreciated, even if I haven't been in the frame of mind to say so. We're starting to get back to...

It's been a long week. We learned Tuesday that we lost the baby. We're in complete shock - there was no indication that anything was wrong. I'll be away from the blog for a bit - please pray for us...

What a crazy couple of weeks! As you can no doubt guess from my news last week, we're scrambling to get things in order. We've put our house on the market, so most of my spare time has been spent...

I'm just coming off a fantastic weekend. My wife and kids are off to NY to visit family for a few days, so I took the opportunity to get together with my gaming buddies. As it so happened, we had...

August has turned out to be even more insane than I thought. We've made it through my son's eighth birthday, our twelfth anniversary, and a family wedding. Last week, though, we decided to bite the bullet and put in an...

I've been traveling for work over the past few days - I had training in Washington DC on Thursday and Friday, which meant a three hour drive after work on Wednesday and then another after my training on Friday. What...

I think that at least a part of my recent funk, and part of what I referred to as the attempt to hold together things that I can no longer hold together, comes from what I perceive to be an...

I think there are three kinds of bloggers: first, there are those who post like mad, chronicling each and every moment and instance of their lives. Or linking to every bit of whatever that someone else has so chronicled. These...

My hand is healing nicely - many thanks to those of you who dropped by. The burns have healed much more rapidly than I had expected; I'm able to function normally with no pain and only a small amount of...

I've been lax in responding to comments this week - we've taken some time to visit my wife's family and internet access is a bit dicey here. It's been an interesting week - we took some time today to tour...

This was one of those weeks that sneaks up from behind and clobbers you repeatedly with a blunt object. I've felt more drained this week than I have for a long time; on all fronts, it seems, I've felt stretched...

About a month ago, I mentioned that I had had a very encouraging conversation that had awakened a long-dormant dream that I've held for a number of years now. At the time, I was hesitant to say much - it...

I've debated about whether or not to post this. It's way premature. Anything could happen. The whole thing could fall through. I might discover that it's not for me. Others might decide I'm not for them. Maybe nobody else will...

There are a few reasons that I'm a miserable blogger. For one, I get stuck on a topic and run it into the ground. I'm fine with that, don't get me wrong - when that happens, it's typically something that...

For those of you who were interested, I've posted a few pics of my new pipe...Technorati Tags: Butz Choquin, Cybele, pipes...

Tonight I'm enjoying something that I've neglected for far too long. I'm sitting on my deck enjoying a little something that I picked up in London to commemorate my graduation - a new pipe, specifically a Butz Choquin Cybele, if...

Saturday, my MDiv cohort had our last class together. I thought I was prepared for it - in fact, I was frustrated that I had to be present at all, given that the coursework related to the trip has been...

If you're interested, you can find my journal from the London trip here. More thoughts to come but this will provide a sense of what we encountered and experienced....

We arrived home from London Tuesday afternoon. I spent Tuesday evening and most of yesterday home with my family, and headed back to the mines today. The trip was incredible on many, many levels - incredibly challenging, encouraging, and overwhelming....

Well, I'd hoped to get a bit more content up this week, but I couldn't pull it together. I'm off tonight for a twelve day trip to London. I'm going with my cohort from Biblical; we'll be working with a...

I spent the weekend on retreat with my cohort from Biblical. This was our last retreat together - we've been on the same journey for nearly three years, and soon it will be time to part ways. We graduated a...

Once again, life catches up with me, and I'm behind in posting. Ah, well - nothing to be done about it now. I'm away on retreat for the next few days. I'll respond to emails and comments when I return....

I took something of a blog fast this weekend. I didn't realize how badly I needed a weekend of just vegetating - it was wonderful. I have a few things on my plate for this week. I want to finish...

I just submitted my last assignment for my next-to-last course at Biblical. Well, technically, I also have a missions trip in June that has some course work attached to it, but I'm not counting that. ;) I've loved this program...

Great weekend - I've basically done nothing since Friday. And I needed it. Between my family, a full-time job, and a full-time course load, I'm actually just glad to be functional - I've been pushing myself pretty close to the...

I've hit the wall this week. I'm exhausted - physically and mentally. Plus, I've been nursing just enough of a cold to make me really miserable, while not being enough to warrant taking time off. Anyway - point is that...

...like you've been punched in the gut? The one after a conversation you never thought you'd have, for example? Today I had a chance to meet with some folks from Westminster Theological Seminary (yes,that Westminster) to talk about their PhD...

Apologies for the lack of attention to the blog this week. My wife's uncle passed away on Monday; we spent our week with her family in New York. It was actually a really nice time, all things considered. Shared loss...

I'm unexpectedly out of town for a few days with limited net access - things will be somewhat spotty around here for the next few days. Be back Friday....

I find myself in the awkward position of having nothing constructive to say. It's not that I lack for topics - far from it. I've left several posts over the past few days in various degrees of preparedness. Frankly, I'm...

My boys are running around our house like drunken dwarves, laughing hysterically. The source of their amusement? They're taking animal crackers, biting off the latter half, and proclaiming loudly, "I ate his butt!!!" Oh, my....

I started class again tonight; it's a promising course called Spirit and Church. We're hitting a number of topics based on the epistles. Tonight, we started off with the topic of suffering. It is, of course, a weighty subject; I...

HUZZAH! I finished my final exam about three minutes ago, so I'm officially done with church history for this semester. What a brutal course! Good instructor, don't get me wrong - but the coursework was insane. On the upside, now...

Blessings on the New Year to you and yours! ...Now back to my homework. Honestly. ;) (I'll be back on Monday!)...

Right now I'm frantically trying to dig out from under the mound of reading I have to complete for my current course before my extension expires - currently Friday, but I've asked for more grace. So far, my favorite...

Joy and Ryan came home from the hospital on Sunday. Things are starting to come back down to earth - now we're getting into the more mundane parts of existence, like feeding and changing and trying to sleep. But everyone...

Mom did great, Dad did not do so well, and the camera did craptacular. I nearly passed out twice (!!!) in the delivery room. I'm blaming it on low blood sugar (at that point, I'd eaten a bowl of...

In the words of Red Leader, "Almost there...almost there..." (I can't believe I just wrote that. Bonus points if you know what I'm talking about.) Tomorrow morning at 7:30 am EST, we'll be on our way to surgery. If you...

Next week at this time, if all goes well, I will be a father for the third time. This time around life has been moving forward at full speed, so I somewhat feel as though we only just found out....

I hoped to get another post up today, but time flew. I'm on my way to a retreat with my seminary cohort and won't be back until Sunday afternoon. I'll respond to any additional comments when I return. I'm thinking...

This has been an absolutely brutal week. The whole ordeal started last Saturday with our dog. We have a two and a half year old Cairn Terrier named Noodle (or, alternately, the Cairn Terror). Noodle has had off-and-on health issues...

I'm finally starting to feel like a real person again. After my intense push to finish my course work for last Thursday, I got home at around 11:00, only to jump into getting ready for the Generous Orthodoxy conference on...

Todd tagged me with this meme: The explosion of the blog world in the last year has led to countless quality blogs being started, but sometimes it is hard to find them amongst all the other blog muck. Because there...

Joy and I had our 20-week ultrasound today, and the verdict is... Boy! Three boys...We're currently accepting donations of caffeinated beverages or other stimulants, as well as good condition protective gear such as helmets and elbow pads. For us, that...

Back from my weekend away - our family spent a few days in Washington D.C., seeing the sites and catching up with some old friends. We had dinner with my college roommate and his family; it was great to catch...

I'm going to be out of town for a few days; I'm hoping my hotel room will have broadband, but I don't remember if I requested it or not... At any rate, if I'm without internet, I'll be unable to...

I've been somewhat absent the past few days. I've wanted to write, but I can't find any words - I'm exhausted by the seemingly endless barrage of mundane stresses that have been coming my way. Honestly, I'm tired of writing...

I've spent most of the week trying to recover files from my old laptop. It's down to about five minutes now before there's an audible zzzzzt from the board and the thing shuts down. It feels like a bad game...

I've never done one of these before, but it sounded like fun. Here's the format: 1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” 2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. 3. You...

Well, ok, slacker is a strong word - I've been extraordinarily busy this week. In fact, I'm sabotaging a paper that's due tomorrow in order to post a few thoughts at the moment, but I just can't work anymore tonight....

I had one of those weekends that comes along every so often by the grace of God, the ones that make you feel like you've actually had a weekend and that you might have regained a bit of ground in...

I'm back - fantastic weekend at the shore, with good friends, spiritual refreshment, and poker for Mentos and Fig Newtons. (I'd have won it all too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids and that dog!) Lots of stuff to...

What a brutal week. This was one of those weeks at work when you think things can't get any worse, but yet they continue to do so. Yesterday, though, a few things happened and a couple of deteriorating situations related...

Last week was huge in many respects. I wrapped up my last class of the spring semester, with the requisite procrastination and last-minute scramble, not to mention a misread of the syllabus on my part that left me scrambling to...

For those of you who were interested, I've posted a few pics of my new pipe...Technorati Tags: Butz Choquin, Cybele, pipes...

Tonight I'm enjoying something that I've neglected for far too long. I'm sitting on my deck enjoying a little something that I picked up in London to commemorate my graduation - a new pipe, specifically a Butz Choquin Cybele, if...

I really wanted to write something on the Emergent response to critics, which I thought was quite well done, but in truth I just spent a bit of time reading through some of the responses to the response and now...

I have sort of an ambivalent relationship with Memorial Day. Memorial Day here in the States is one of the holidays that we observe every year that is focused primarily on the military. It is intended to honor those of...

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I had an interesting experience this weekend as well. I attended my parents' church, which is a large Pentecostal church in rural Pennsylvania. For the record, I don't have anything...

One of my more interesting experiences at the retreat I attended last weekend was unexpected. It was actually a small thing, in a sense, but I haven't stopped thinking about it. The format of the retreat centered on several group...

To bring this series to a close, I want to reflect briefly on a question posed by Steve McCoy over at Reformissionary. Steve asks:Do you think the suburbs are so difficult because by their nature they are a salvation from...

I have one final post on a theological response to the suburban ethos, and then I think there's something of a wrapup post floating around in my head with a few concluding thoughts and some questions for further consideration, if...

We've discussed the question of the primacy of the economic domain in suburban contexts, as well as the emphasis on the pursuit of happiness. I next want to take up the central praxis of suburban life, which I take to...

In my previous post, I discussed the centrality of the economic sphere to the suburban ethos. One question that I raised to which I provided only a partial answer was this: who is telling the stories that shape the imaginations...

I'm going to endeavor to wrap this series up in short order here - I've been mulling on a lot of stuff for a while now, and it's time for me to put my thoughts in order. For a quick...

I feel as though I need to pause for breath here, to summarize what I'm proposing as descriptive of the suburban ethos. I want to do this so as to frame my coming thoughts succinctly and to provide some structure...

I believe that, when I think of suburban life, what I think of more than anything else is rootlessness. If control-through-choice is at the core of the ethos of the suburbs, rootlessness is its fruit. Disconnection, isolation, transience, impermanence -...

Scott L asked in the comments on my post on The Boy's Club, "Is the Church, and any authority within the Church, about power? Should it be a discussion of power? Should our discussions of male and female roles and...

Rachelle has a challenging, troubling post here about her experiences as a woman attempting to minister in Seattle in the shadow of Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill. I'm not going to attempt to summarize it - go and read it....

I'm all over the map lately. I'm working on yet another book that's prompted a few thoughts. This one is Clemens Sedmak's book Doing Local Theology, which is a nice little volume talking about how this contextual theology stuff actually...

One of the challenges of talking about culture is that it's so much a part of who we are that it's functionally invisible to us. We typically only notice a small part of what makes up our culture - much...

I've put off posting this for a bit because I'm sorting through the implications of Bevans's categories as I think about the emerging church. I think I have a framework I'm comfortable with, so I'm going to throw out some...

In other words, Who Would Jesus Torture? I largely avoid political discussions here. But this is a deeply disturbing issue, no matter one's political affiliations - or at least it should be for those of us who claim to follow...

Scot and Brad have another excellent post related to Preaching Re-imagined, and I want to play off some of their ideas with a few thoughts of my own about preaching, worship, and community. Brad says this: "What is perhaps missing...

The big question, I suppose, that I quickly encounter in reading Preaching Re-imagined is something that I think too often goes unasked: why do we preach? What is "preaching" anyway? Doug approaches this from the angle of spiritual formation and...

Fair warning - rant coming. I'm trying to say this as politely as possible. Can't someone keep Pat Robertson from talking? I'm stunned that a person who claims to represent Christ in front of a watching public would openly advocate...

Jim Wallis's op-ed in the NY Times today caught my attention and banged up against all of this church-as-body-politic bit that I'm trying to think my way through. (Hauerwas and Willimon are springing immediately to the fore...) This goes back...

This morning I found this article on Fast Company, and I'm wondering now how prevalent this sort of thing is in churches. I'm thinking probably more than we'd like to admit, at least in part because of our heavy borrowing...

I was a charismatic for part of my life. At least, I tried to be - I was on staff at a charismatic church and, as such, I sort of felt obligated to be part of the proceedings. I never...

I like to be thinking several topics ahead of what I'm writing; or, more accurately I suppose, I like to let what I'm thinking come together in a sort of cohesive way before I throw it out for public consumption....

I picked up the new Jimmy Eat World single Big Casino last week and it is fraught with awesome. There's something about it that reminds me of Clarity, which is (imho) their best album. Can't wait for the full album...

I'm actually working on a real, live post - oh frabjous day, callou, callay! Or something like that. Anyway - I think perhaps something has shaken loose and the brain juices are flowing. More on that later. In the meantime,...

I've been thinking about a more or less random topic of late, and I'm hoping you'll indulge me with some musings about it. The topic? Cussing. It started with this bit about John Piper talking about how God "kicks our...

Cup holders do not count as contextual theology. Discussing their addition to a new $24 million building erected by Eagle Brook Church in Minneapolis:"Our little coffee shop is humming on Sunday mornings," Anderson said. "It's a huge hit." But church...

...is here....

For any readers of ICTHUS out there, the url has changed, and Vaughn has asked for some help to let folks know. The new url is http://www.vaughnthompson.com/icthus....

A bit of lighthearted musing designed to keep me sane on the job, in no particular order. Negotiation - The art of distributing dissatisfaction equitably among interested parties Win-Win Outcome - A successful negotiation in which each party believes itself...

I got my tix for the midnight showing of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! WOO-HOO! Unfortunately, I'll only get to see it twice on opening day - can't make myself skip the quiz in class that night. I must...

I feel like I got hit with a truck. I think it's because I have to go back to work tomorrow. Nothing like looming deadlines and competing priorities to make a man want to get up in the morning. Although...

For you fellow Biblical Seminary folks (I know there are a few of you out there), I saw this job description over at less travelled. Sounds like Nick Perrin's position. Too bad that he's moving on; I was really impressed...

Move over, Ken - Talking Jesus dolls are scheduled to hit the shelves in May. Moses and Mary are also on their way. Apparently, they're about a foot tall and programmed with a number of scripture verses. My big question...

Any other amateur chefs out there? Cooking is one of my passions, when I get a chance to do so. Tonight I had a bit of time so I threw together some pork loin with savory rosemary apples (or something...

Normally I don't do this, but I've read some excellent bits this week: A fellow student at Biblical writing on the Kingdom Chris - Struggling and Surrendering Stephanie - Make Me A Prayer - Invite Me to Dance Jeff -...

My wife and I have been experimenting with alternative forms of discipline, hoping to find something that works with our kids. We've found one in particular that seems to work, and I thought I'd share. It's better shown than described...

As bizarre as this sounds, I'd imagine Darth Tater will be taking a prominent place on my desk this spring....

I have set the LORD always before me.Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;my body also will rest secure,because you will not abandon me to the grave,nor...

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" These things I...

I'll confess that I had high hopes for Christmas this year. I intended to blog through Advent; I had wanted to set aside more time for deliberate reflection and prayer. I had even explored the possibility of working with some...

Tonight I'm enjoying something that I've neglected for far too long. I'm sitting on my deck enjoying a little something that I picked up in London to commemorate my graduation - a new pipe, specifically a Butz Choquin Cybele, if...

I spent the weekend on retreat with my cohort from Biblical. This was our last retreat together - we've been on the same journey for nearly three years, and soon it will be time to part ways. We graduated a...

I'm in the habit of taking small breaks from the blogosphere. It helps me to keep perspective on the whole thing. This time was different than most, though - I had a lot to say on a particular topic, none...

A few days ago I read this post over at Dan Kimball's blog, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I thought it was profoundly disturbing, particularly when I read the part about "some issues...

I have a confession to make - I love Christmas. More appropriately, I guess, I suppose I should say that I love the holiday season. By this I mean that I love that time from the middle of November to...

Thursday was Thanksgiving for us in the States, ostensibly a time when we sit down to remember the year with gratitude and thankfulness with food and family. At our home, this year things were fairly modest. We celebrated with my...

I've now reached the point in my degree program where a mere five courses stand between me and graduation. I have mixed feelings about this; on one hand, it's becoming more and more clear to me that I'm running about...

I've had a weekend that's in some sense revolved around food. On Friday, we took advantage of a free evening and went out as a family to a little Italian restaurant in the area that offers some exceptional food at...

A little over a year ago, I wrote this piece, which, although short, still is one of my favorite bits of creative writing. I've been thinking about it a lot this weekend, because early August is sort of a mile...

This was one of those perfect summer nights, when the stars have all come out to play and the air is just cool enough to make you think twice about a jacket. Knowing that it would almost be a sin...

One thing that I always try to do at work is take a lunch break. No doubt some of you are now waiting for me to finish the sentence, but in fact, in my organization's culture, taking a lunch is...

I really wanted to write something on the Emergent response to critics, which I thought was quite well done, but in truth I just spent a bit of time reading through some of the responses to the response and now...

My main problem as a writer is that I write like a kid with ADD. (You may by all means disagree - I am certain that I have more problems as a writer than just that.) From my perspective, I...

I've been somewhat absent lately. It's been one of those weeks where all of the things in my life came together to attempt to drown me, or at the least make me very frustrated. After I got the mess cleaned...

I wasn't certain that I wanted to tackle this one next, but I've been reading something that's prodding my thoughts in a particular direction, and having begun to ponder it I think it works out to be a nice logical...

I've been reading through The Silmarillion again of late; actually, I try to read each of Tolkien's major works at least once a year, and of them, I think this one is my favorite. It's certainly the most challenging -...

I think there is a fine argument to be made that the problem of the human condition is the problem that occupies the central place in the narrative of scripture. N.T. Wright has this to say in his book Evil...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that theological diversity plays a key role in how scripture functions; in other words, there are many themes about which different authors say different things. I've spent the better part of two weeks defending...

One of the more challenging issues that is raised by viewing scripture through contextual lenses is the realization that we aren't dealing with just one context. Part of what makes scripture amazing and beautiful is that it was written over...

Anyone who's been reading along for any length of time knows that I can't seem to get through a month without posting about contextual theology. I discovered this discipline in seminary, although if you've been exposed to some of the...

Jumping back to Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to briefly summarize Enns's third point of difficulty in understanding the nature of scripture. Enns contends that the NT authors' use of the OT is itself particularly challenging for evangelical hermeneutics, primarily...

Continuing my discussion of Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to pick up briefly a subject that I think is particularly challenging to the traditional evangelical perspective on scripture. In particular, Enns discusses the difficulty that the theological...

The first "problem" that Enns tackles in Inspiration and Incarnation is that of the Old Testament's relationship to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Enns demonstrates the difficulty in three areas: Creation and the Flood: Is Genesis Myth or History?...

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns I mentioned last week that I wanted to spend a bit of time blogging through Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation. This is a fantastic...

Recently I began an absolutely fascinating book by Peter Enns called Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Pete Enns primarily teaches at Westminster, but he also teaches occasional courses at Biblical. I had the privilege...

I am going to get to Bevans's book. Honest. Jared asked a question that I want to play around with (and not just in the hopes of getting a copy of Wright's The Last Word ;). Jared asks:Do we treat...

I started class again tonight; it's a promising course called Spirit and Church. We're hitting a number of topics based on the epistles. Tonight, we started off with the topic of suffering. It is, of course, a weighty subject; I...

A few days ago I read this post over at Dan Kimball's blog, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I thought it was profoundly disturbing, particularly when I read the part about "some issues...

are up at via media....

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, here, and here. God calls Abram in Genesis 12 and inaugurates a new era in history. Much ink has been spilled on this particular topic, but permit me to add...

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, and here. When I last picked up this topic, I described my understanding of the image of God in humanity as a vocation to which we are called, specifically that...

If it is fair to connect vocation with creational intent, as I discussed in my previous post, then I think it also makes sense to look at Genesis 3 from the same vantage point. Genesis 3 is a fascinating chapter...

Vocation might seem like an odd connection to make when talking about (towards?) New Creation. It might seem even more so in relation to Genesis 1 - but that's where I want to begin. I'm going to sketch out a...

I'm struck by several things that I think are related in American Christianity: first, we have no real theology of hope, and in fact we barely can speak in the language of hope; second, we have no real theology of...

I wasn't certain that I wanted to tackle this one next, but I've been reading something that's prodding my thoughts in a particular direction, and having begun to ponder it I think it works out to be a nice logical...

I've been reading through The Silmarillion again of late; actually, I try to read each of Tolkien's major works at least once a year, and of them, I think this one is my favorite. It's certainly the most challenging -...

I think there is a fine argument to be made that the problem of the human condition is the problem that occupies the central place in the narrative of scripture. N.T. Wright has this to say in his book Evil...

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I had an interesting experience this weekend as well. I attended my parents' church, which is a large Pentecostal church in rural Pennsylvania. For the record, I don't have anything...

One of my more interesting experiences at the retreat I attended last weekend was unexpected. It was actually a small thing, in a sense, but I haven't stopped thinking about it. The format of the retreat centered on several group...

We had an interesting discussion in class on Saturday about the primary narrative. Our prof listed two statements, both of which Christian theology would consider to be true, pretty much across the board. The question that was asked, though, was...

This is a challenging reflection to write. I've come to that part of the story where the tale comes crashing in on itself, where redemption seems farthest off, when the days of Abraham and Moses seem like ancient history that...

I have to be honest - I thought I had written myself into a corner here. I wasn't sure I could carry through this reflection building on the theme of negating the curse. I wanted to head towards Moses next,...

I thought perhaps to continue my earlier series on the biblical narrative as a meditation during Advent. I am not, by tradition, one who practices much in the way of observance of the Christian year, but I'd like to at...

Scott asked a few questions on my last post that I thought perhaps would be best addressed through a post of its own. Scott asked, "Does conflict create story? I think you're probably right, but If so, what happens in...

Story doesn't happen without conflict. As I briefly mentioned in my last post, imagine a story like this: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And He created humans in His own image. And they all lived...

A few weeks ago I posted a few thoughts about competing stories and the struggle for control over the meaning of our beginnings. I want to revisit that part of the story and perhaps approach it from a different angle....

Ross's great thoughts on the role that story should play in our communities. Ross, as much as if not more than anyone else I read, is one person who consistently makes me think, "I wish I'd written that."...

I thought perhaps it would be helpful to take a step back before we get too far into this project and throw out a few thoughts about how I'm currently approaching scripture. This thought of approaching the text as a...

I like to read the end of books first. Part of the reason for this is that I, on some level, truly hate suspense. For some folks, that whole element of hanging in the balance and hold your breath sort...

It's not news that the emerging church conversation/movement/community has recently become the focus of some more critical attacks by more of the heavy hitters, so to speak, particularly of the evangelical wing of the church. This is particularly on my...

Will recently posted something here and Chris posted here and here that tie into my recent thoughts about theology, story, imagination, and why we are the way we are. If I had to point to what I thought was the...

It's been two months since I've posted anything about Bowling Alone, so let me point you to my previous posts which can all be found here. To get back into the groove, I want to reflect on an underlying dynamic...

Time to get off my duff and post something. My friend Todd is hosting a seminar with Al Hsu, author of The Suburban Christian as well as a thoughtful and interesting blog. The Suburban Christian is an excellent book that...

Finally (!) delving back into Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to dig into a phenomenon that Putnam argues is the most significant shaping influence in terms of social capital in modern American life - namely, electronic forms of entertainment...

I mentioned in my last post on Putnam's Bowling Alone that I wanted to discuss a phenomenon that I'm calling professionalization. This isn't something that Putnam necessarily addresses directly, but rather I think it's tangentially related to both isolation and...

Continuing our discussion of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to reflect for a bit on the connection between suburban isolation and the loss of social capital that Putnam describes. While Putnam is clear that this phenomenon is by no...

I can't state enough how riveting I've found Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone. It's been on my list for a long time, but I decided when I last ordered books to pick up a few things that are outside the vein...

When I last poked my head above the waters, I mentioned that I was working my way through a collection of essays by Stanley Hauerwas called A Better Hope. Hauerwas is nothing if not challenging and thought-provoking, and he's sort...

To bring this series to a close, I want to reflect briefly on a question posed by Steve McCoy over at Reformissionary. Steve asks:Do you think the suburbs are so difficult because by their nature they are a salvation from...

I have one final post on a theological response to the suburban ethos, and then I think there's something of a wrapup post floating around in my head with a few concluding thoughts and some questions for further consideration, if...

We've discussed the question of the primacy of the economic domain in suburban contexts, as well as the emphasis on the pursuit of happiness. I next want to take up the central praxis of suburban life, which I take to...

In my previous post, I discussed the centrality of the economic sphere to the suburban ethos. One question that I raised to which I provided only a partial answer was this: who is telling the stories that shape the imaginations...

I'm going to endeavor to wrap this series up in short order here - I've been mulling on a lot of stuff for a while now, and it's time for me to put my thoughts in order. For a quick...

Last week, I began reflecting on the subject of race and, in particular, how the question of the suburban ethos intersects with questions of race. I want to pick this up with some specific thoughts on the basic framework that...

A few days ago, Landon asked a question related to my thoughts on a theology of the suburbs. He writes:have you thought of how race would intersect with your statement of "the suburban lifestyle is predicated on the pursuit of...

I feel as though I need to pause for breath here, to summarize what I'm proposing as descriptive of the suburban ethos. I want to do this so as to frame my coming thoughts succinctly and to provide some structure...

I believe that, when I think of suburban life, what I think of more than anything else is rootlessness. If control-through-choice is at the core of the ethos of the suburbs, rootlessness is its fruit. Disconnection, isolation, transience, impermanence -...

Chris brought up an excellent thought in the comments on my last post. Chris has this to say:I think that too, like the early Christians, choice is mediated by economy. I know that you alluded to it, but I don't...

I want to think a bit more on the idea of choice as power. I mentioned yesterday that the suburban ethos reflects the centrality of control-through-choice. In the comments, we were discussing the relationship between choice and structure; my thoughts...

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to start delving into a theology of the suburbs. American suburbia is, in my opinion, a sometimes hostile environment for ministry - for Kingdom-centered ministry, at any rate - at least...

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, here, and here. God calls Abram in Genesis 12 and inaugurates a new era in history. Much ink has been spilled on this particular topic, but permit me to add...

Previous posts in this series can be found here, here, and here. When I last picked up this topic, I described my understanding of the image of God in humanity as a vocation to which we are called, specifically that...

If it is fair to connect vocation with creational intent, as I discussed in my previous post, then I think it also makes sense to look at Genesis 3 from the same vantage point. Genesis 3 is a fascinating chapter...

Vocation might seem like an odd connection to make when talking about (towards?) New Creation. It might seem even more so in relation to Genesis 1 - but that's where I want to begin. I'm going to sketch out a...

I'm struck by several things that I think are related in American Christianity: first, we have no real theology of hope, and in fact we barely can speak in the language of hope; second, we have no real theology of...

I mentioned earlier that I've been working a bit on a side project involving narrative theology. On a mostly unrelated note, I've also been listening to a few of NT Wright's recent lectures, which have been absolutely fantastic (not that...

I'm working on a little side project at the moment that deals with narrative theology. Narrative theology is an approach that has received increasing attention in recent years; you'll likely see the term floating around in emerging church or postevangelical...

I've been giving a fair amount of thought to atonement theology of late, and it occurred to me that it would be helpful to have some sort of framework to determine whether a particular theology of the atonement is a...

I've spent the last several evenings with my computer dismantled as I attempt to bring the internal temperature down to an acceptable level. For some reason, the cpu temp keeps spiking, causing it to shut down - which, of course,...

I want to offer just a few thoughts for the moment on how the metaphor of debt functions in what I'm calling an economic model of atonement. In my earlier post, I referred to debt as the controlling metaphor; by...

One of the challenges that I think faces any model of atonement is finding a way to connect with the systems of meaning in a given culture. Substitution certainly runs into this difficulty, as does in my view Christus Victor....

I think this is going to be my last post on this - I actually hadn't intended to carry on this long, but I keep running into new problems as I think through these things. If you're just joining or...

I should post my standard I-don't-hate-substitution boilerplate here, but I've said it enough already. If you need it, or if you're just joining, feel free to check out parts one and two. Continuing our discussion of the issues with substitutionary...

Continuing our discussion of the model of substitutionary atonement, I want to pick up on how the way this particular model is articulated frames the way that we think about God's character. Again, I want to affirm at the outset...

This is the post that I've been dreading. Part of me thinks I'm nuts for wading into this particular arena; I'll confess to a bit of trepidation that I'm going to somehow get dogpiled by a bunch of crazed Calvinists....

One of the first classes that I had at Biblical was a theology course with John Franke. I have a lot of respect for John; Beyond Foundationalism is the book that brought me to Biblical in the first place, and...

Ever had that feeling that you want to dive into a conversation, but you think you're going to end up making a mess of things? That's sort of where I am at the moment. I've been pondering the subject of...

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I'm not much of a fan of the term "incarnational" ministry. This is something that I've been pondering for a while - in fact, I used to love the term,...

...include this fantastic gem by N.T. Wright: Ever since the eighteenth century, western protestantism has been pulled more and more towards a denial, explicit or implicit, of the great central truths of Christian faith - sometimes, indeed, towards watering them...

After a hectic few weeks, things are starting to slow down again. Time to kick the dust off the old blog and get back to more regular posting. Although I still have more thoughts that I want to post on...

How (Not) to Speak of God by Peter Rollins Rollins begins the book with a discussion of faith and theology:Christian faith, it could be said, is born in the aftermath of God. Our fragile faith is fanned into life...

I can't believe I'm going to wade into this one. Probably many, if not most, of the folks who drop by here regularly have already seen the brouhaha that Mark Driscoll precipitated by his comments following the Haggard fiasco. If...

I've said a number of times in the comments that I can't go along with Spencer's understanding of the Christian Story as described in his book A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. Up to now, though, I've just focused on some...

One of the primary challenges I'm facing in reading A Heretic's Guide to Eternity is the suspicion that I'm being faced with a false dichotomy. Ok, that's an understatement - I don't buy the principle division of the book, namely...

A Heretic's Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor I'm about halfway through Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. I thought I'd go ahead and start my interaction, because I'm finding that I have...

Jumping back to Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to briefly summarize Enns's third point of difficulty in understanding the nature of scripture. Enns contends that the NT authors' use of the OT is itself particularly challenging for evangelical hermeneutics, primarily...

An interesting package arrived in the mail yesterday - an advance copy of Spencer Burke's new book, A Heretic's Guide to Eternity. It's already started to create some buzz; Scot McKnight shared his thoughts on the book, and some of...

Continuing my discussion of Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation, I want to pick up briefly a subject that I think is particularly challenging to the traditional evangelical perspective on scripture. In particular, Enns discusses the difficulty that the theological...

The first "problem" that Enns tackles in Inspiration and Incarnation is that of the Old Testament's relationship to other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature. Enns demonstrates the difficulty in three areas: Creation and the Flood: Is Genesis Myth or History?...

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns I mentioned last week that I wanted to spend a bit of time blogging through Pete Enns's book Inspiration and Incarnation. This is a fantastic...

Recently I began an absolutely fascinating book by Peter Enns called Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Pete Enns primarily teaches at Westminster, but he also teaches occasional courses at Biblical. I had the privilege...

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I had an interesting experience this weekend as well. I attended my parents' church, which is a large Pentecostal church in rural Pennsylvania. For the record, I don't have anything...

One of my more interesting experiences at the retreat I attended last weekend was unexpected. It was actually a small thing, in a sense, but I haven't stopped thinking about it. The format of the retreat centered on several group...

Scott L asked in the comments on my post on The Boy's Club, "Is the Church, and any authority within the Church, about power? Should it be a discussion of power? Should our discussions of male and female roles and...

We had an interesting discussion in class on Saturday about the primary narrative. Our prof listed two statements, both of which Christian theology would consider to be true, pretty much across the board. The question that was asked, though, was...

I hit a place this week where I needed to let all this stuff sit for a bit - too many thoughts to come together into something coherent. I think this class has had the best texts so far of...

I'm all over the map lately. I'm working on yet another book that's prompted a few thoughts. This one is Clemens Sedmak's book Doing Local Theology, which is a nice little volume talking about how this contextual theology stuff actually...

One of the challenges of talking about culture is that it's so much a part of who we are that it's functionally invisible to us. We typically only notice a small part of what makes up our culture - much...

I've been reading another book with bearings on my recent thoughts on contextual theology. The book is The Silent Language by Edward Hall - it's a fascinating discussion of the nature of culture from the perspective of an anthropologist. This...

I've put off posting this for a bit because I'm sorting through the implications of Bevans's categories as I think about the emerging church. I think I have a framework I'm comfortable with, so I'm going to throw out some...

One of the things that I've been working through in my recent coursework is something of a theology of suffering. In truth, I'm not really satisfied with that description - it conveys the impression that we can think abstractly about...

So it's been over a month now since I decided to work through Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology and, while I've played around with the subject since then, I haven't actually gotten to the meat of the book yet or...

Ok, not exactly - but I finished The Last Word over the weekend (thanks Jared!) and found a number of insights that are cogent for what I'm trying to think through:To affirm "the authority of scripture" is precisely not to...

I'm in the habit of taking small breaks from the blogosphere. It helps me to keep perspective on the whole thing. This time was different than most, though - I had a lot to say on a particular topic, none...

I'm finally getting to my posts about Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology. I ran into a surprise at the end - my initial thoughts were that the emerging church tends to work out of a model of praxis while the...

...a great interview with Miroslav Volf over at Jared's blog.Technorati Tags: interview, Volf...

I am going to get to Bevans's book. Honest. Jared asked a question that I want to play around with (and not just in the hopes of getting a copy of Wright's The Last Word ;). Jared asks:Do we treat...

I started class again tonight; it's a promising course called Spirit and Church. We're hitting a number of topics based on the epistles. Tonight, we started off with the topic of suffering. It is, of course, a weighty subject; I...

A few days ago I read this post over at Dan Kimball's blog, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I thought it was profoundly disturbing, particularly when I read the part about "some issues...

One of the books that I've been working my way through is Models of Contextual Theology by Stephen Bevans. It's a fantastic little book that's very easy to read but packs a lot of content into the pages. Bevans's basic...

are up at via media....

I've been back in class for little more than a week, and I've already submitted close to twenty pages of written work - hence my quietness here. Things won't slow down much until probably next week, when I'm past the...

In my last post I threw out a few thoughts on what troubles me about much of our approach to war and violence in Christian thought (specifically American, but I suspect that many followers of Christ in other contexts have,...

A few days ago I posted a bit of something about the church and politics (of the more mundane kind) that I want to revisit and perhaps expand a bit. The basic premise from which I'm approaching the topic is...

One more thought on this before I talk about Galatians - we as followers of Christ must seriously rethink our approaches to authority and power. I touched on this yesterday, but I think it bears more careful consideration than my...

I'm going to play around with this thought of politics for a bit. My current course deals with the book of Galatians, and we've been having a fun row discussion about what exactly the thrust of the book is and...

I read an interesting article in USA Today this week about the changing face of evangelical politics (thanks to Stephen for the link). It's a fascinating read, especially in the insanity that passes for American politics these days. On the...

Jared's recent thoughts on preterism have gotten my own wheels turning a bit on the topic of eschatology. I like Jared's well-stated summary, and I'll admit to having leanings in that direction. But in truth I'm not really settled on...

I've been reading David Dark's The Gospel According to America. It's a pretty good read, if somewhat dense at times if you're not familiar with the stuff he's interacting with (everything from Melville to Elvis). One of the images that...

I try to avoid abstract philosophical or theological reasoning on this site. This is not because I don't think it's important or because I can't do it, but rather because I try to ground what I write and think about...

I was mentioning in my earlier post touching on McLaren's book about a surreal conversation that I had some time ago with a good friend about whether God loves everyone, or whether he just loves the elect. (To be clear,...

What does "sovereign" mean to you? Perhaps more importantly, what does "sovereign" mean as it relates to God? I'm trying to work my way through this question this week after reading what I found to be a rather disturbing chapter...

Ok, I've decided the question I posed (previous entry) is less obvious than I thought it was, but that's because I framed it wrong. (That's why I don't typically post half-baked ideas - they only make sense in my head.)...

I had a thought that struck me as odd, and I need to ponder some more. But I wanted to throw this out and see if anyone has any thoughts on it as well. I'm thinking on the tension between...