Jun 8
A few months ago I was snooping around in a bookstore somewhere and I noticed a book called The Hole in Our Gospel. It had an interesting picture on the cover and a provocative title, so I looked on the back cover. The author was a man named Richard Stearns who, I learned, was the president of World Vision, USA. Read more
This past weekend we made the trip down the island to visit Sidney Booktown. We had heard from a number of people over the last two years that this was a necessary outing for newcomers to Vancouver Island, so we finally decided to check it out. Despite the cloudy, cool conditions, it was a great way to spend the afternoon. Sidney is a delightful little seaside town with a whole bunch of really cool bookstores and coffee shops. If it wasn’t for a couple of eight year-olds whose tolerance for leisurely bookstore browsing has limits, I could have spent all day there! Read more
So, why church? The short answer is because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death… an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines: death of nations, death of civilization, death of marriage, death of careers, obituaries without end. Death by war, death by murder, death by accident, death by starvation. Death by electric chair, lethal injection, and hanging. The practice of resurrection is an intentional, deliberate decision to believe and participate in resurrection life, life out of death, life that trumps death, life that is the last word, Jesus life.
Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection
Someday I will probably tire of quoting the poetic and profound words of Frederick Buechner (indeed, it may even be that you have already tired of reading them!). But for me, that day hasn’t come yet. This morning I read this passage on prayer, taken from a sermon called “The Breaking of Silence” in The Magnificent Defeat, this morning: Read more
A few weeks back, while browsing the Regent College Bookstore, I was surprised to see a new book by Marilynne Robinson called Absence of Mind that deals with issues around the philosophy of mind. I was familiar with, and deeply appreciative of, Robinson’s novels (e.g., Gilead and Home), but this topic seemed like a rather radical departure for her—at least based on my limited exposure to her work. I did a quick scan and of the contents, mentally put the book on my “to read someday” list, and pretty much forgot about it. Read more
I’m still mulling over some of the excellent lectures I heard last week at Regent College’s Pastors Conference on Science and Faith. One lecture, in particular, focused on the “new atheists” (who are increasingly becoming, well, not new) and their often simplistic misunderstandings of the scope of science, the relationship between science and faith and the roles both play in our consideration and adoption of world-views (incidentally, I noticed today that David Bentley Hart has another wonderfully entertaining and insightful critique of the new atheism up over at First Things). The basic idea in the lecture (delivered by Denis Alexander) was familiar enough: just because science can explain one level of reality very well, it is not thereby equipped to explain or even suited to address every level of reality. All that was very good, if relatively standard stuff. Read more
Because of a couple of conferences and a retreat over the last few weeks, I have spent a lot more time on ferries, sky-trains, buses, etc, than usual. Happily, this gave me the opportunity to dive into a few new books. If you’re like me, you often don’t feel very “saintly”—which is why we all need periodic reminders like this one from Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection: Read more
One of the things I liked to do when we lived in Vancouver was snoop around in used bookstores. The options aren’t as plentiful over here on the island, but there are always treasures to find if I’m willing to put in a little effort. I like used books. I like their well-worn appearance, I like seeing others’ notes and underlinings. I like old editions of books that have strange covers and use weird fonts and smell funny. And I like it that they’re cheap! It’s pretty easy to take a chance on a book when you’re only paying a couple of dollars. Read more
I’m a little all over the map this morning, but here’s a few loosely connected thoughts/reflections about unbelief on a Monday morning…
This month’s issue of our denominational magazine, the MB Herald, is about atheism/unbelief and contains an article by yours truly. It is a bit of a hybrid piece—a discussion of the new atheists (Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins, Harris), a reflection upon conversations with a friend (no stranger to regular readers of this blog), among other things. Based on what I’ve read of the issue thus far, there are a number of articles and features definitely worth checking out. Read more
For the last few weeks, Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology has been sitting annoyingly on my desktop, mocking my lack of time and ambition to get to it (as promised here). Well, despite the fact that the AAR Meeting has come and gone (the event these reviews were supposed to lead up to), I’ve finally started reading the book and over the course of the next few weeks will be doing a four-post series of reviews. Better late than never, I say! Read more
Philip Clayton and Harvey Cox both have new books out and they are taking them out on tour. One of the blog tour stops will be here, but as you can see below they will be making their rounds over the next month until they wrap things up in Montreal at the American Academy of Religion‘s annual meeting. There they will be joined by an illustrious panel including Eric Gregory, Bruce Sanguin, Serene Jones, Frank Tupper, and Andrew Sung Park to share a ‘Big Idea’ for the future of the Church. These ‘Big Ideas’ will be video taped and shared, so be on the look out for live footage from the last night of the tour. Read more
Yesterday as I was driving around town, I listened to parts of a CBC Radio interview with outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins who was in Canada promoting his new book. Based on what I heard, it was fairly predictable fare—Dawkins delighting in cataloging and heaping scorn upon the exploits of fundamentalist young earth creationists, the program host knowingly mm-hmming and piling on the ridicule. Nothing demonstrates one’s intellectual and moral superiority more ably than making fun of the ignorance and dogmatism of fundamentalists, after all. Read more
Apologies for the lack of posting over the last little while—I find myself going through one of those stretches where I have very little that seems worth saying. Of course one of the benefits of times when words and ideas seem to desert us is that we can lean on and be nourished by the words of others. The writings of Frederick Buechner have often been a source of such words for me. Sometimes I feel that posting long quotes from the work of others is just a way of avoiding the sometimes painful process of writing myself; other times, I just feel grateful to have stumbled across something wise and glad to be able to share it. Read more
Yesterday I was reading Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes while my son sat across the table munching away on a late breakfast. It’s a magnificent book that tracks the journey of an African girl who gets taken from her home, sold into slavery, and spends the bulk of her lifetime in conditions of appalling cruelty and inhumanity a world away from her home. It is a beautifully told tale of an incredibly strong, courageous, and good woman, but it is also a story of unspeakable suffering, depravity, and loss. It is a story that does not shrink from laying bare the evil of which human beings are capable. Read more
I’ve been looking forward to Dallas Willard’s latest book for a while now, and was happy to see it arrive on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. Willard is tackling the question of whether/how the claims of faith constitute genuine knowledge (as opposed to private beliefs, opinions, emotions, blind commitments, etc). I’ve only had time to read the introduction thus far, but it looks like a very intriguing, not to mention timely, project. Here’s a few quotes from Knowing Christ Today: Read more
I’ve been reading Frederick Buechner again lately and, as always, am finding his way of putting things to be quite memorable. Here’s a quote from Whistling in the Dark that serves as a good reminder about what the church is about as we head into another weekend. This comes after a brief discussion of the structure and purpose of the Alcoholics Anonymous program: Read more
I preached this morning—something that is still taking some getting used to. Over the last decade or so, I’ve grown accustomed to preaching once or twice a year, at special events, or as a guest in another church. The idea of preaching regularly (in my case, once a month or so) still feels like strange, uncharted, fearful, and exciting territory to me. Read more
I remember a friend from graduate school remarking last year about the experience of reading David Bentley Hart and the challenge to one’s vocabulary this presented. While I have not read Hart’s magum opus (The Beauty of the Infinite), I did enjoy The Doors of the Sea and am currently making my way (slowly) through his recent collection of essays entitled In the Aftermath: Provocations and Laments. Let’s just say that the online dictionary is getting a workout… Read more
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Rumblings 