Archive for the ‘Blog’ category
by Christian on October 04, 2009
This week I interviewed Don Piper, author of New York Times Bestseller, 90 Minutes in Heaven.
Don told me how he was traveling to Trinity, Texas, and an eighteen-wheeler crossed the centerline and slammed into his Red Ford Escort. By the time the EMTs arrived on the scene, he was dead. They covered his body with a tarp and left him for 90 minutes.
That’s when his journey began. Don said that the last thing he remembered was driving across the narrow bridge and then he was immediately standing at the gates of heaven. In the upcoming podcast, you’ll hear about his experiences. “It was the most real thing that’s ever happened to me,” Piper reflected.
Continue reading …
by Christian on September 28, 2009
The Cost of Christianity – With Tim Miller
For the launch of my podcast, I interviewed Tim Miller, a man who witnessed the martyrdom of his friend in the Philippines earlier this year. Tim managed to fend off ten assailants who were trained in Philippino stick fighting. Before being knocked unconscious with a blow to the face, Tim saved the life of his friend’s wife and two daughters.
Continue reading …
by Christian on September 22, 2009
This is the launch of my new website, Journeys of a Restless Pilgrim. Click here to find out what we believe.
This site will feature blog posts, podcasts, book reviews, and interviews with theologians, writers, speakers, professors, scientists, artists, musicians and athletes. Subjects include: theology, spirituality, art, jazz, preaching, monasticism, technology, and more.
Once a month, I invite you to join me on a virtual pilgrimage on Second Life to Catholic, Protestant, and interfaith churches, to shrines and retreat centers. See the place where theology and technology collide.
J. I. Packer said that Christianity in America is three thousands miles wide and one inch deep. But a new day has arrived. Christians are exchanging rakes for shovels to dig into the deep things of God. This is a blog for those who want to get their dig on.
Feel free to post comments or email me directly from the contact page.
–Christian
by Christian on July 01, 2009
Bryan Gill is a great writer and a good friend. We studied together at Beeson Divinity School. Here is the interview he conducted earlier this week. You can also find it at Bryan’s blog.
Named after the main character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian George lives out his own perpetual pilgrimage with his Crocs and his Mac. Having not reached age thirty, Christian is as well traveled as a seasoned flight attendant. He usually treks to historic sites where monks, reformers, and martyrs trod. His Crocs have been filled with the same dirt that dusted the thonged sandals of Church icons such as the Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, Jonathan Edwards, and Dietrict Bonhoeffer—to name a few.
Continue reading …
by Christian on June 08, 2009
Since I can’t afford my own Brookstone vibrating massage chair, I often go to the mall to use theirs. It’s a shameless way to spend a Saturday, but the payoff is huge. One day as waves of glory saturated my shoulders, a young girl approached the chair. She waited for her turn and gave me some serious eye attitude. I pretended not to see her as mechanical fingers kneaded my grateful gluts.
“Ahem!” she muttered.
Normally I would be a gentleman and surrender such a seat, but suddenly the chair switched gears and started working my calves. I was like, “Thank you, Jesus!” It was a heavenly moment and I wasn’t about to come down to earth. Two minutes later, the whiny girl was dragged away by her mom, but not without leaving me with a preadolescent glare of death.
Continue reading …
by Christian on May 31, 2009
“There’s nothing worse than catatonic Christians standing still in a world of falling people.”
I pull this quote from Godology because it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.
I think Christianity has three major components. There’s the upward component–a personal relationship with God. In many ways, postmodernity has primed our generation for this aspect of Christianity in that it places so much emphasis on experience and relationships. Protestantism, particularly the evangelical tradition that was birthed in the John Wesley and George Whitefield revivals in the eighteenth century, has emphasized knowing God up close and personally. This is the heart of faith–the emotionality of Christianity. Sometimes it can turn into a kind of fanaticism, but it doesn’t have to. When we really understand Jesus’ reconciliatory mission, it does foster emotion. That God would die so we can live. It’s impossible to really understand this without feeling it’s truth. The Christian faith cannot be sequestered as only an academic exercise. It must breath; it must live. Evangelicalism values this aspect of Christianity. They value what the puritans used to call “vital religion.” Soul religion. Life faith, so to speak.
Continue reading …
by Christian on May 19, 2009
Here is a recent interview from Ed Stetzer’s blog.
Godology is the idea of theology up close and personal. I wrote Godology because I sense within my generation a real hunger for authentic Christianity. This is a book for those who want to dig deeper in their faith–to trade rakes for shovels. In each chapter I explore an attribute of God, a spiritual discipline that helps us know him better, and a practical way to express that truth in the world. It’s my hope that this upward, inward, and outward approach will foster intimacy with Christ and community with others.
How is this book different from other books about God and spiritual disciplines?
Continue reading …
by Christian on May 15, 2009
I received a Facebook message the other day and thought it might be interesting to share it with you: “I have a thought provoking question in search of your opinion. You said in Godology that people are beginning to search for the “grainy” life. I agree with this statement. In this vein, education gurus tell us that people learn best with hands-on experiential learning (e.g. Montessori, Foxfire, etc). Granted, in church, we sing and read scripture, but do you have any thoughts on how to make congregational worship more hands-on and experiential?”
–Jeremy
In response to your question, Jeremy, let me back up a bit and explain what I mean about the “grainy life.” Technology, in many ways, has both positively and negatively benefit our society. It has given us news ways to stay in connection to one another. It has brought us deeper into a global community and allows for the kind of ecumenism that I think the church can benefit from. But it also has its negative repercussions. One thing I am finding (at least, in myself) is that because we are always a computer click away from updating our Facebook status, or calling a friend, or Skyping, or whatever, there is an incarnational loss inherent to technological advance. There is a lack of flesh, so to speak. I was presenting a paper last weekend in Stirling on virtual reality and pilgrimage and someone asked me in the Q and A afterward about this idea of incarnation. She was responding to a comment I made about Jesus coming to earth as a person, not a pixel. And I told her that while virtual reality can connect us from one another, it can also disconnect us in ways that we don’t even realize. It tricks us into thinking that online community is equivalent or even better than face-to-face community. Flesh community. And I am finding people are hungry again for this fleshly kind of community–a grainy, nitty gritty kind of community
Continue reading …
by Christian on February 27, 2009
Here is a radio interview I did early this week on Moody Bible Radio. I have never met the host, Greg Wheatley, but I’ve talked to many students here in St. Andrews who have either had him in a class at the Moody Bible Institute or know him from church. Though this interview was only ten minutes long, he seemed to probe at the heart of Godology–knowing God up close and personally.
On a separate note, I had the most interesting conversation with a group of students I’m teaching. We were discussing the Celtic notion of “white martyrdom” and if there is a biblically sound basis for this radical way of living. White martyrdom is the dying daily to self for the purpose of growing closer to God. I’ve also seen it called “green martyrdom” because of the Irish monks who practiced it. At its core, I believe it represents a total abandonment to God. Not just a kind of casual Christianity that is so rampant in today’s evangelicalism. Green martyrdom speaks to Christ’s words in Matthew 6:24, “If anyone should come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
I think it speaks to the seriousness of the gospel–a gospel that pushes us outward–to the fringe of things–to the edge of things. It was a gospel that pushed the Celts to the very edge of a flat world. To places like Skellig Michael and Iona. It is a faith that risks, trusting in the God who removes us from our comfort zones. I think that’s what the Celtic monks embraced–a life of separation from the world and engagement with the world. Unlike the Egyptian monks like Anthony and others who retreated into the desert to escape the growing secularization of Roman Christianity, the Celts harbored missionary posts and often permeated the British Isles with the Gospel of Christ. I’m currently working on this idea of evangelism, how it can fit into a postmodern paradigm, and I think the Celts have something valuable to say to us about it.
Who knows? Perhaps those ancient guys can teach us something significant about our own struggle to live in a counter-cultural and Christo-centric way. What do you think?
by Christian on February 02, 2009
The strangest thing about writing a book about God is that there is so much I should have said about Him that I didn’t. I suppose no one can truly condense the entirety of God into 180 pages. And if we could, perhaps we ourselves would be God. But looking at Godology (when it is too late to make any editorial revisions), I am truly aware that at best Christian writers must simply abandon their work in hopes that someone else will pick up where we left off. There is always one more word, one more sentence, one more page.
Nevertheless, thanks to all of you who have spread the word about this book. Here is a review that was recently posted about the book.
Taken from http://epangelia.blogspot.com.
“Christian George has written Doctrine of God in a language which is fresh, contemporary and very accessible to this generation of younger evangelicals and non-christians alike. It is a mini Doctrine of God primarily centering around the attributes of God. He covers a wide range of attributes from the Unity of God to the Eternality of God.He is an excellent writer.
I sat down and read 5 chapters of his book the other day at Barnes and Noble before I got distracted by a phone call. In his chapter “Chocolate for the Soul”, George deals with the Holiness of God. He says, “I wrote this chapter barefoot. Not because my Chacos were dirty, but because I am dirty. To stand before God’s holiness and try to condense it into twelve pages- well, that’s an impossible and rather dangerous thing to do.”
The thing I like about this book is that Christian George moves the reader from theology to doxology and practical application of the truths being considered. The later portion of each chapter deals with how to appropriate the truth he has just described. The book is not just a doctrine of God it has to do with the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. It’s fesh, engaging and helpful all at the same time. Thanks Christian.”
