December 2011
6 posts
WatchThis is what Christmas is about!
6 tags
The (Anti)Gospel of Tim Tebow
Are you a follower? If you are, you are certainly not alone. After winning 7 of his last 8 games (most of those in spectacular fashion) and resurrecting (pun intended) a struggling franchise to the heights of the AFC West, the world has officially taken notice. It seems like every weekend #TebowTime emerges as a trending topic on Twitter and becomes the center of conversation for ESPN...
4 tags
The Gospel in Seven Words
In Christ, God’s “yes” defeats our “no.”
—————————
Our “no” is a human rejection of God’s claim on us as our creator, sustainer and lord, a rejection that produces alienation and isolation, even from ourselves. In Jesus Christ, God unmasks and defeats that “no” and signals that we...
“The colors of the flag are not liturgically appropriate.”
– Stanley Hauerwas
3 tags
Watch
November 2011
3 posts
Non-Violent Christology
The default position for followers of Christ, with regard to war, should be one of non-violence. This is where, in my opinion, the Christian Right goes awry. For high Christology (the idea that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity - 100% God and 100% man) must necessarily commit you to an account of discipleship that places Christians in great tension with worldly presumptions about violence...
Christology and Superheroes
I’m often asked (actually I’m never asked) what comic book superheroes can tell us about ebionitism, docetism, and atonement theology.
October 2011
3 posts
“All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought...”
– As the Ruin Falls - C.S. Lewis
3 tags
Bridges and Barriers
In early September Alabama Governor, Robert Bentley, signed into law what proponents and detractors alike are calling the harshest state-level, anti-immigration act to date. Fuel was then added to the already sizzling subject when prominent writer, theologian and current Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, Will Willimon, publicly called the bill...
“The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus and what you do for them...”
– Dorothy Day
September 2011
3 posts
“These places of worship are not built that you may sit here comfortably, and...”
– Charles Spurgeon
A Moment of Grace
Last week in a televised GOP debate, the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, celebrated that his state has executed 234 death row inmates under his governorship (more than any other governor in the modern era). His defense was met with a roar of applause from the audience.
The statistic alone is shocking. But the fact that it was not only defended but celebrated (in the name of some kind of...
on loving your enemies...
Christians know we will have enemies because we are told we must love our enemies. That we are commanded to love our enemies is not a strategy to guarantee that all enmity can be overcome, but a reminder that for Christians our lives must be determined by our loves, not our hates. That is why Christians cannot afford to let ourselves be defined by what we are against. Whatever and whomever we are...
August 2011
1 post
July 2011
5 posts
The Harry Potter Prayer
As I was browsing through one of my favorite blogs, I came across this prayer. The author, having watched the final installment of the Harry Potter series wondered what it would be like to pray in the language of Harry Potter, since it is clear that people all over the world speak this language (or rather the story of Harry Potter speaks to them).
Cheesy? Probably. Profane? Perhaps. But I have...
“The sacrifice to end sacrifices was made by God through the sacrifice of his...”
– Stanley Hauerwas
I Am Second. No You're Not.
Have you seen it? The bumper stickers? The bracelets? The celebrities? The promotional videos? Chances are you probably have. I Am Second is a multimedia movement that chronicles the personal stories of struggle and transformation of celebrities, athletes, and everyday people, and is run by parent company ALRC that exists to restore faith and give Christian messages relevance and meaning in...
The problem with American Christianity...it's...
This weekend, all across the country, hundreds of churches will adorn their santuaries with red, white, and blue apparrel and choirs will trade in All Creatures of my God and King and How Great Thou Art for My Country Tis of Thee and God Bless America. The problem with Christianity in America can be found, precisely, in these churches that choose to celebrate patriotism in their house of worship....
June 2011
1 post
Israel. A reflection.
As I embark upon the last of my five weeks in Israel, I thought it would be wise to reflect; reflect not only on the friends I have made - Jewish, Arab Muslim, and Christian alike - and the remarkable sites that stand in honor and commemoration of those three great Abrahamic faiths, but also to reflect upon the perspectives I have gained and the lessons I have learned. As one journeys from site to...
May 2011
8 posts
Author's Note to the Second Edition
Wise Blood has reached the age of ten and is still alive. My critical powers are just sufficient to determine this, and I am gratified to be able to say it. The book was written with zest and, if possible, it should be read that way. It is a comic novel about about a Christian malgre lui, and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death....
Hallowed be thy Name
God alone has the power to name himself. His name is unpronounceable to human lips. His name is his word. It is the Word of God. Yet we gain access to the Father through his name. His name is the mediator. He has granted us access to his transcendent name. His name shines in the beauty and order of the world and it shines in the interior light of the human soul. This name is holy. Hallowed. There...
Our Father which Art in Heaven
He is our Father. There is nothing real in us which does not come from him. We belong to him. He loves us, since he loves himself and we are his. Nevertheless he is our Father who is in heaven—not elsewhere. If we think to have a Father here below, it is not he, it is a false God. But we know where He is. We do not have to search for him, we only have to change the direction in which we are...
“We told the kids in the ghetto that violence wouldn’t solve their problems. But...”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (via paulatreides)
Bin Laden. A Response.
Friends, In recent days I have received a lot of comments, mostly opposing several of my tweets and facebook posts which were a response to the death of Osama Bin Laden. Rather than continue in a struggle to communicate in short statuses and 160 character blurbs, I thought it best to post my thoughts, thoroughly articulated, here.
It may be helpful to begin by clarifying my original facebook...
April 2011
10 posts
God Didn't Throw a Life Preserver.
I heard a gospel message this morning which included an illustration of God throwing a life preserver to a drowning person. It was a powerful sermon and lives were changed; however, something about this illustration doesn’t sit so well with me. The illustration isn’t wrong, but rather it seems to me like the illustration is incomplete.
In this illustration, the...
Kingdom Culture
As the ancient story goes…
The most powerful government the world had ever known, Rome, had done the worst thing it could imagine to this man Jesus. They beat him and killed him by the most brutal means at their disposal. Yet and still, the last words on his lips are reported to be his asking God to forgive his killers. On that Friday, the powers of the world said “No” to Jesus and the...
“Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal...”
– Oswald Chambers
Politics Explained
“The tragic character of American history is unavoidable, since rights cannot help but conflict with rights; yet the moral commitments that shape such a conflict produce a people incapable of recognizing, much less responding, to such conflicts. America is at once the name of an aspiration to liberty and equality of rights and the name of the power that stands in the way of that aspiration....
Quick Thought:
Questions of sexuality are no doubt political, but can they not also be a form a forgetfulness regarding questions about why some people do not get enough to eat? Perhaps one of the reasons that sexuality and ethnicity are such popular issues is that they are not necessarily anti-capitalist and thus fit so well in a post-radical, American culture.
“People who use violence in the name of fostering justice are not as strong as...”
“I don’t preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel period. The gospel of...”
– Desmond Tutu
March 2011
9 posts
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Everyone seems to be so interested in the second coning of Christ. I think we should focus our attention, instead, on grasping the significance of the first. If we spent less time worrying about the thief in the night and more time concentrating on things like turning the other cheek, the world would be much more return worthy. Unless of course you believe that we need to trash the world and wage...
“I used to think that those of us who hope for things we cannot see and who...”
– Shane Claiborne
Judas Christianity
A dominant teaching in the Eastern Orthodox Church is that Judas wasn’t primarily interested in 30 pieces of silver. Rather, Judas was a hyper-patriotic, misguided disciple. In betraying Jesus, Judas was trying to force Jesus’ hand.
He believed that Jesus was the Messiah but did not believe in the way in which Jesus was the Messiah. He believed with all his being that when push came...
On being right
If you get life from being right about everything, then the minute anyone questions your belief you will get angry. If you get life from being right about everything, it will be impossible for you to ever learn anything. If you get life from being right about everything, your faith isn’t founded in believing but rather its founded in believing that you already know! As an honest person it is...
“If we’re going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor...”
– Stephen Colbert
“I’m not too concerned with what I’m going to do. I’m more...”
– Shane Claiborne
February 2011
4 posts
“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those...”
– Romans 12:14-21