Man as King, Woman as Prophet
A few days ago a friend posted this on his Google+ and Facebook pages. I'll reserve my comments for after the break:
Tony Jones on A Better Atonement
With Holy Week right around the corner, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about atonement theologies. Tony Jones has recently released a new book called A Better Atonement: Beyond the Depraved Doctrine of Original Sin. I haven't read the book, but I instantly like the title, so I'll try to get a hold of it whenever I have time for this strange concept of casual reading. In the meantime, he recently preached about the topic at Baylor University, so I've embedded the video below for your interest.
Joyful Exiles from Mars Hill
This may already be old news for many as it has been circulating for a few days, but Mark Driscoll is again at the centre of controversy. Amidst and in response to many other critiques of Mars Hill popping up recently, a former Elder of Mars Hill Paul and his wife Jonna have shared their story. Here's how they introduce their website Joyful Exiles:
Those who do not remember the past will have it rewritten for them. Well, not in this case. Not anymore. Four and half years ago, I was fired from Mars Hill Church because I refused to resign under pressure. I was a pastor on staff, an elder, and an officer of the corporation along with a group of other men. I spent months seeking formal reconciliation and years hoping for a better course. I have not spoken about these matters publicly until now. With the mounting stories and “histories” coming out regarding Mars Hill Church, it no longer seems right or beneficial to remain silent.
Brene Brown on Shame
Regular readers would know that I put the idea of shame as fairly important in my theological understanding. I believe that what separates us from God is not some abstract rule that God is bound to, so that he is unable to relate to us if we have sinned. I believe it is because of how we respond to sin, usually in one of two ways: pride, which says it was no big deal and we don't need God, and shame, which says we are terrible and God must not be able to love a sinner like us. Any ministry I'm working in, I try to also heavily emphasize that the church is a group of broken people who are open with each other about that brokenness, without beating each other up about it.
So with that really brief introduction, here's a great TED talk video about shame. It tackles a lot of great points, and I would especially encourage you to take note of the discussion of how shame plays itself out differently for men and women.
Why The Church Needs Lent
We're almost two weeks into Lent this year. I've never been much of one to care a whole lot about the church calendar. I don't even get particularly excited about Christmas, although that's largely because the way we celebrate it has nothing to do with its supposed meaning. But the past couple of years I've really been considering the value of the Lenten season. Up until fairly recent history, Easter was the most important holiday. Christmas was not that important. The real peak of the year was the resurrection. That's one emphasis we've lost. And Lent, including Holy Week, was the lead-up to this climax of the entire year.
First things first: Lent is not simply about giving up some shallow pleasure that you really shouldn't be partaking in anyway. When I say we need to reclaim Lent, I don't mean that everybody should give up chocolate or pop or video games or Starbucks. Those are probably good things to give up, but I mean something bigger than that. What are the real themes behind the Lenten season? One I already mentioned: anticipation of Easter, the centre of the church calendar. Some others are repentance, discipline, and suffering.
Greg Boyd on “God and Country”
Particularly for any American readers, this is a great reminder with an election coming up, but it is great for everybody else, too:
Enough said. I don't need to further comment.
American Experience Documentary: The Amish
Last night aired a documentary on PBS on the Amish. I haven't watched the whole video yet, but here's one really interesting section of the video (I didn't see a way to embed the whole thing):
Watch The Amish on PBS. See more from American Experience.
In general, there are so many things I admire about the Amish: the strong value of church not as something you do but as something you are a part of, the seriousness given to the teachings of Jesus, the emphasis on forgiveness, and of course some of the other Anabaptist values that I also line up with like non-violence and rejection of consumerism. There are also things I don't like, of course: the mentality of either being a part of the community or not with no in-between, all-male leadership, and some very detailed religious rules (that probably had a well-intended starting point but I'm guessing is largely lost now). Check out the documentary and leave comments on your thoughts.
Kierkegaard on Christians Ignoring the Bible
I'm currently having my mind blown reading through Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. So many great things throughout this book that really can mess with your comfortable Christianity that refuses to actually do anything. I could very easily go through this book again when I'm done and blog chapter-by-chapter with the challenges he presents. For now, I thought this was a brilliant quote that he provides from Soren Kierkegaard:
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
Present Perfect
Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now book cover
This is a tough book to review. I generally am a fairly heady blogger. I tackle deep thoughts intellectually, argue for different theological interpretations and what that means for our lives. I call for justice grounded in the love of Christ. Rarely do I attempt to talk about spiritual disciplines, especially those that are to some extent about what we're feeling rather than thinking. Both are equally important, but I just don't know how to talk about the former. In fact, I just added that category for the sake of this post. But I recently finished a very good book on arguably the most important of the spiritual disciplines: awareness of the presence of God.
If your Christian communities are similar to mine, you've most likely heard of a classic on this topic called Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. In Boyd's tackling of the subject he leans heavily on Brother Lawrence as well as two others that I was unfamiliar with before reading: Frank Laubach and J.P. de Caussade. Boyd says up front that he hasn't really arrived with this discipline (and can anybody really fully arrive at this?) and that is why he draws on the classic teachings on it from others.
John Piper and “Masculine Christianity”
Image from http://wjameskellymdiv.blogspot.com/2011/02/free-john-piper-books.html
Once again a complementarian pastor has gone out and said some stupidly sexist things. Recently we've heard similar from the always angry Mark Driscoll who tends to think because he is a tough manly man who likes violence and sexual dominance that the Bible unequivocally agrees with his destructive and anti-Christ-like teachings. Sometimes I think I need to be more blunt about characters like Driscoll, other times I think I need to take the high ground and trust that most people hearing him realize he's full of himself and not much ethical insight, and yet other times I feel sorry for him because he really is just an immature little man trying desperately to hold onto his power by projecting his views and insecurities onto everyone else.
But not long later, this time it wasn't Driscoll saying something stupid. It was John Piper. For those unfamiliar with him, Piper is virtually the "prophet" of the neo-Reformed complementarian movement. Generally speaking I'm less familiar with Piper because I don't agree with a lot, but I've never gotten the sense of his being as aggressively damaging as Driscoll. So I'm a little more sympathetic this time, but when it comes down to it, he is still severely harming half of humanity (half of the image of God) and creating a theology with potential to hurt a lot more, including men, if people take his comments at face value.