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...

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...

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...