We live in an accomplishment-driven culture. If you were asked to describe your friends, you might say something like “Josh is a lawyer” or “Megan teaches yoga.” We often define each other by what we do – what we produce.
But what would it look like if we began to see and define each other for who they are instead of what they do?
Snow and ice have crippled the United Kingdom this week- the coldest recorded winter in thirty years. With temperatures rarely rising above freezing, I thought it would be appropriate to remember another snowy winter.
On January 6, 1850, a young man stumbled through a blizzard in Colcester, England. His name was Charles Spurgeon. Originally bound for a baptist church, Charles was forced to seek shelter in a Primitive Methodist church. It would turn out to be a life changing event. Continue reading …
For the past month I’ve been traveling on pilgrimage to Italy – from Naples to Rome and Umbria, following in the footsteps of Paul and St. Francis.
Of all the pilgrimages I’ve ever taken, Assisi is one of my favorites. I find myself returning there, magnetized to it somehow. Assisi is situated in Umbria, a land of rolling hills laced with castles and orchids. The sunsets would make van Gogh drool. They call it the “green heart” of Italy for a reason. It’s grassy arteries take pilgrims through towns like Gubio, where Francis tamed a wolf, and Spoleto where he preached to birds. For a middle-class, suburban-oriented guy like me, these small medieval villages provokes a sense of conviction within me. Continue reading …
There’s a new phobia sweeping the world – evangephobia: the fear of the evangelical.
I was in a taxi in Chicago a few months ago and the driver asked me if I was one of those “gun-carrying, gloom and doom evangelicals.” It caught me off guard, to be honest. But I wanted to see what would happen, so I said that I was (minus the gun carrying bit).
As we drove on, there was a lot of silence and I could see that this guy was really getting freaked out – physically affected by my response. When we arrived at our destination, I remember standing on the side of the road with a haphazardly-written receipt in my hand thinking that I had just witnessed my first experience with evangephobia. Continue reading …
Some movies will think for you. Others will cause you to think. Into Great Silence belongs to the latter.
In 1984, German filmmaker Philip Gröning sought to make a documentary about the life of the Carthusian monks in the French Alps. Sixteen years later, the monks said they were ready to film. The film took two years to make, following the daily routines of monastic life.
At first, I didn’t know what to expect. There were no violent explosions, sneaking velociraptors, CGI effects or thrilling action sequences to speak of. There were no suspenseful plot twists or clever dialogues. Just the simple life of the monks as they gave themselves to reflection, meditation, and worship. Continue reading …
In this podcast, I interview Tony Jones – author, commentator, freelance theologian, and many other things.
Tony is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and is theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. He is a doctoral fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, the author of many books on Christian ministry and spirituality, and is a sought after speaker and consultant in the areas of emerging church, postmodernism, and Christian spirituality.
In this podcast we discuss the emerging/emergent church, evangelicalism, preaching, worship, theology, and homosexuality. About half way into the interview, the audio gives out a bit, but Tony relocates to a quieter venue. Tony blogs here.
There are some who say that evangelicals and emergents can’t have a cordial chat, Tony certainly proves them wrong.
Set against the backdrop of World War II, “Boy In The Striped Pajamas” (2008), directed by Mark Herman, balances the curiosity of boyhood with the horrors of Jewish holocaust.
Having travelled to Buchenwald, Germany, and other concentration camps, I assumed this movie would rekindle memories of gas chambers, chimneys, and trenches. My assumption was justified. For those who have yet to study the tragedy of Nazi Holocaust, this film serves as a good introduction, and moreover, the Christological message in this film is worth all the Kleenexes you’ll need to get you through the end.
Maintaining a delicate tension between freedom and bondage, hope and despair, life and death, this movie raises questions of good and evil, light and dark.
Continue reading …
Written by Alex and Brett Harris, Do Hard Things (Multnomah, 2008) is intended to confront a comfortable Christianity. The 240 pages of this book are packed with all the adrenaline that two twentysomething guys can muster.
Each chapter offers a no-holds barred approach to the Christian life and even includes a foreword by none other than Chuck Norris.
Against the backdrop of countless reads that exchange biblical truths for contemporary trends, this book caught me off guard by standing unapologetically in the tradition of Christian missions, evangelism, and spiritual discipline.
Most books that enjoy such success compromise on traditionally evangelical doctrines such as sin, heaven, hell, afterlife, and so forth. Not this book. Do Hard Things rides the building wave of revived puritanism that’s currently sweeping the Unites States. Standing on the shoulders of those like John Piper, C. J. Mahaney, Mark Dever, and others, this book fits naturally into the younger evangelical genre of Christian literature that’s gaining momentum.
Continue reading …
In part I of “Is Rob Bell An Evangelical” we examined the upward component of evangelicalism along with some key doctrines evangelicals have traditionally embraced.
We now examine the inward and outward components.
The Inward
Historically, evangelicals have been a strictly disciplined people. To master oneself was the greatest battle. Inward disciplines like solitude, prayer, fasting, meditation, spiritual reflection and silence became trademarks of early evangelicals – a buffet for the soul.
The momentum generated by the awakenings on both sides of the Atlantic continued through the 18th century, lost some steam at the end of the 18th century, and then was rekindled in the early 19th century by a generation of Christians that reacted against the spiritual complacency of their parents (forgive my over-simplification).
If you want a more detailed synopsis, I invite you to wade through Owen Chadwick’s two volumes on the Victorian Church. Chadwick is a marvelous historian and captures the mood of the Victorian age.
If you want a cliff notes version of evangelicalism, Ian Bradley’s The Call To Seriousness does well to describe the spiritual disciplines and the attitudes of the evangelicals in Victorian England (at least within the Church of England).
Continue reading …
On September 27th, Rob Bell, best-selling Christian writer and pastor, told the Boston Globe that he embraces “the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook.”
Is Rob Bell an evangelical?
What is an Evangelical?
In the Rabbinic tradition the term evangelical (besora in the Hebrew), occured six times in the Old Testament. It meant “glad tidings.”
In the Greek world the news of the birth of a Caesar or emperor is described as euangelion. The messenger of that good news was greatly celebrated (or in the case of the Magi, apprehended).
Mark used the word euangelion eight times in his narrative. The Apostle Paul used it sixty times.
Historically, evangelicals have been “good news people.”
As I have come to understand it, the term “evangelical” has three main components: the upward, the inward, and the outward. I have collected a list of other beliefs that younger evangelicals are also deeming important.
Continue reading …
On June 24th, after touring 100 cities in 40 states, the Bible Across America bus has collected handwriting samples from 31,173 Americans. Every verse of the Bible has been copied by hand, each sentence written by a different person.
During the Dark Ages, if you wanted a copy of the Gospel narratives, you would have needed to translate the Bible by hand, letter by letter, word by word. It often took Celtic scribes years to accomplish this, and their work is not only laboriously decorated, but also highly artistic (See Book of Kells, housed at Trinity College in Dublin).
Guternberg’s Press comes along in 1440 and revolutionizes the copying of the Scriptures. No longer did the Bible require a mixture of powdered ink and calf skin, now it could be replicated on cheap paper in mass production. The Protestant Reformation benefited greatly from this invention, and some argue it would not have happened without it.
Yet did Guttenberg’s invention come with a cost?
The creators of the St. John’s Bible think so. The Saint John’s Bible Project, scheduled to be completed this year, will be the first Bible to be copied by hand in the tradition of the illuminated manuscripts since the medieval era. It took four million dollars to complete, hundreds of 2X3 foot pieces of vellum and 160 illuminations. See a sample from the Gospel of Matthew.
Godology is for those who crave to know more about God and why it matters. It’s theology. For twenty–somethings.
We live in an accomplishment-driven culture. If you were asked to describe your friends, you might say something like “Josh is a lawyer” or “Megan teaches yoga.” We often define each other by what we do – what we produce.
For the past month I’ve been traveling on pilgrimage to Italy – from Naples to Rome and Umbria, following in the footsteps of Paul and St. Francis.
Some movies will think for you. Others will cause you to think. 
In this podcast, I interview Tony Jones – author, commentator, freelance theologian, and many other things.
Set against the backdrop of World War II, “Boy In The Striped Pajamas” (2008), directed by Mark Herman, balances the curiosity of boyhood with the horrors of Jewish holocaust.
Written by Alex and Brett Harris, Do Hard Things (Multnomah, 2008) is intended to confront a comfortable Christianity. The 240 pages of this book are packed with all the adrenaline that two twentysomething guys can muster.
In part I of “Is Rob Bell An Evangelical” we examined the upward component of evangelicalism along with some key doctrines evangelicals have traditionally embraced.
On September 27th, Rob Bell, best-selling Christian writer and 
In a recent turn towards the medieval, a 
