#christianity

The Upside Down World ~ The Blog

May 10, 2008
4 min

The Context of Jeremiah Wright

Black Power from the Pulpit” about Jeremiah Wright which places him and black liberation theology in the context of the black church and the message of Christianity. It is actually an interview with Thabiti Anyabwile who wrote the book: The Decline of African American Theology. Mr. Anyabwile is a critic of both black liberation theology and the state of many black churches, without being one of the many jingoists we’ve heard from lately who think saying, “they’re racist” co

May 8, 2008
6 min

A Christian Feminism

When I first started looking at the issue of women in the bible, I wasn’t attached to any particular set of ideas about women and men. As a child of our times a more egalitarian ideal made a lot of sense to me. But I also knew that we get a lot further by conforming ourselves to God’s ways than to our own ideas. I wasn’t closed off to the idea that a subordinate role for women was something I would need to make peace with. In fact, it was trying to make peace with a subordina

May 7, 2008
5 min

Chapter 1: Job gets screwed

We start with what I think is one of the most confounding parts of this book. In Chapter 1 we have Job who is an upstanding man, successful, and God fearing. And God hands him over to Satan for no discernible reason. I believe that we have so sanitized our reading of scriptures that we frequently pass over the most awful, problematic things with nary a glance. It’s like acknowledging how bad and just WRONG some parts of the stories in scriptures are poses a threat to our

May 2, 2008
4 min

Is it time to reclaim liturgy?

Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of the Christian Liturgy about the appeal of liturgy to evangelical Christians. The article is called “A Deeper Relevance”. I found his words on the church’s attempts to be “relevant” to be particularly interesting: something more profound and paradoxical is going on in liturgy than the search for contemporary relevance. “The liturgy begins … as a real separation from the world,” writes Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann. .

May 1, 2008
3 min

Is Reading Scriptures Literally, Literally Wrong?

blog post today by Father Stephen, an Orthodox priest about the problems with taking scriptures literally. On this blog, I have tended to focus on how insisting on taking scriptures literally leaves us vulnerable to being unable or unwilling to deal with reality or to losing our faith altogether when our literal understanding comes into conflict with reality. Father Stephen points out another, probably more important problem with a literal approach to scriptures: it engende

Apr 18, 2008
2 min

Two Lists

I think that a lot has changed since the 1970s and churches are starting to do a better job of creating overlap between McLaren’s two lists. In fact, much ink has been spilled observing the rise of a new generation of evangelical leaders who are as interested in social justice and global warming as they are in gay marriage. However, I wonder how much overlap is going on at ground level in churches across the nation between church concerns and world concerns. If you walked

Apr 13, 2008
4 min

The Mind, New Ideas and the Living Word

I have been noticing a phenomenon lately which has probably always been present in humanity: a seeming inability to hear new ideas. I’m not speaking even of being unable to understand new ideas, which is pretty understandable. What I am observing is an inability to even recognize when a new idea is being put forth. There seems to be an unconscious assumption that there are a set group of possible ideas about a variety of issues and therefore everything you will read, see o

Apr 10, 2008
5 min

The Proverbs 31 Woman

However, the fact of the matter is that this is in the bible, so it must be there for a reason, so simply writing it off as unrealistic and ignoring it isn’t really a good option for us. Yet it’s a totally impossible vision of womanhood. So what are we to make of it? As I mentioned yesterday, one of my rules for studying scripture is that when the bible appears to be contradicting itself or real life, that is usually a “red marker” which indicates a place where we need to dig

Apr 9, 2008
6 min

Women’s Roles in the Bible

1. If the bible is unchanging, then it can not have been intended to communicate one thing to the people to whom it was originally given and something entirely different today. If our modern common sense reading of scripture is in conflict with how the ancients would have understood the same verses, then our modern understanding is wrong, no matter how obvious, universally held or apparent it is. 2. Where the bible appears to be in conflict with its self or with the real wor

Mar 9, 2008
7 min

The sins of the fathers

Crunchy Cons, Rod has a post up linking to a rather unfunny piece by Diogenes on Catholic World Daily which is meant to mock those who have or would like others to, ask for forgiveness for the sins of our ancestors. A clip from the piece: It’s back in style: the political fashion of issuing official “apologies” for wrongs committed by others — especially long-dead others — in order to cash-in on the compassion sweepstakes and dutch rub the opposition in the process. Australi

Mar 6, 2008
3 min

Beliefism’s Co-joined Twin, Biblism

“Beliefism” which for some people, is living as a parasite off its co-joined twin, “Bibleism”. Now, let me be clear, I believe in the authority of scripture, I believe that it is the inspired word of God, I have and continue to study it. However, the truth of the matter is that there is a lot of abuse which goes on around the bible. So many people become “Beliefists” because they cannot see the difference between their interpretation of scriptures and scripture itself. Th

Mar 5, 2008
5 min

Beliefism is poison

Christianity has literally tens of thousands of denominations. Which can’t be honoring to God; the unity of the body of Christ seems to be very important to God. Jesus talked about the desire for us to be one. Paul speaks repeatedly of the need for Christian believers to be unified. And yet, we keep splitting up, often acrimoniously. Of course this isn’t particularly new; the early Christian church was much more diverse than we often realize. What drives these divisions,

Feb 25, 2008
7 min

Teaching Creation Science or ID? A formula for putting your child’s Christian faith at risk.

In my last post I kind of poked at those who use ridiculous notions of socialization to criticize homeschooling. Today, I’m going to sharpen my stick and point it in the direction of some of my fellow homeschoolers. It is my firm belief that an unfortunate number of Christian homeschoolers are putting their child’s future spiritual walk at risk in service to an idea which is not even necessary to the faith. I am talking, of course, about those who are teaching their childr

Feb 12, 2008
3 min

Jesus, Virtuous Vanilla Lip Balm, and a Prostitute

I wrote an article recently for a magazine about “The Jesus Brand”. It basically revolved around our relationship as Christians with Christian retailing, but if I had seen this doozy of a product line before writing it, I may well have gone in a different direction with it: The tagline on the webpage says “Look your Sunday best! Guaranteed to help you be worthy and get noticed by the King of Kings”. You can also get a “Looking good for Jesus” shopping bag, bubble bath, han

Feb 8, 2008
5 min

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light . . .”

Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30 This is one of these verses which sounds nice and for a while you can take comfort in it. Until things really just get pushed too far and you realize that you have no idea what the blazes it’s supposed to mean and it doesn’

Feb 8, 2008
1 min

NT Wright

N.T. Wright is a wonderful Episcopalian bishop (yes there is such a thing). I don’t have time to comment on it now, but he’s just written a book called Surprised by Hope which Scot McKnight over at Jesus Creed has been discussing. Someone there linked to this wonderful interview with Rev. Wright in Time magazine. In his book Wright is looking at how over time, we’ve moved away from the ancient understanding of resurrection, heaven and the after life and substituted our own

Jan 26, 2008
8 min

The Emerging Church Promise and Failure Part 2

In my last post, I looked at how the emerging church movement is trying to re-construct Christianity in regards to praxis, or the living of a Christian life. Today I’m going to look at the emerging church’s approach to doxology. Part 2: Doxology or “Doing” Church” To start, I want to acknowledge that I’m using the word “Doxology” in an unorthodox way. Technically doxology refers to a statement of praise and glory to God. The two we are most familiar with are “Glory to the

Jan 12, 2008
5 min

Emerging Church – Promise and Failure Part 1

Over the last couple of months, I have been looking into something called the “Emerging Church” movement. This movement seems to be seeking to reform the evangelical church in light of the failures of the evangelical movement to bear transformational fruit in the lives of individuals and the larger community. There are things that are happening, being talked about and experimented with in the Emerging Church movement which I think are very, very good for the church body as a