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Posts from the ‘Church’ Category

Feb 12

Religion as “Playing Kingdom”

A large part of my thesis work involves exploring the historical impact of religion. Does it really “poison everything” or might its influence upon history be a little more nuanced than that? Religion has, obviously, had a massive impact on the development of western culture, some of it—imagine!—even positive in nature, but it’s also proven to be a gift that is easily abused and distorted. For a whole host of reasons, “religion” is a world that seems more likely to invoke negative reactions than positive ones today. Read more

Jan 27

15 Comments

(Grateful?) Cognitive Minorities

I count it a good Sunday morning at church when I leave the building empowered with good ideas for living well. Among other things, I think, the Sunday morning service ought to provide people with tools for interpreting their experience (at an individual or collective level) through the lens of the biblical narrative. Church ought to be a place where people can go to have both the world, and their beliefs about it (religious or otherwise) rendered in intelligible terms, and in a manner that both challenges and encourages the way in which they participate in it. No small task, to be sure, but this morning’s service managed to accomplish all of these things, benefiting greatly from a little “outside help.” Read more

Nov 13

2 Comments

Telling our Story Well

My parents came down for a visit last weekend and left me with some listening material for the frequent drives out to Abbotsford that I am making these days. The Massey Lectures are an annual Canadian event in which a noted scholar gives a series of addresses on some topic of current interest. Among the many notable past Massey lecturers are Noam Chomsky, Jean Vanier, Margaret Visser, John Ralston Saul, and Stephen Lewis. Read more

Oct 29

15 Comments

Who’s Afraid to Face Reality?

Over the course of the last half a year or so I’ve slogged through pretty much the entire catalogue of atheist writings that have come out in the last four years. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t been the most edifying experience I’ve ever gone through, but at the very least it does force one to think carefully about the claims these authors make about religious folks. One of the consistent refrains found in Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, Onfray, Stenger and, before them, Freud, Feuerbach, and Marx is that religion is for people who are afraid to face reality as it is. The inability of religious people to deal with the harsh realities of life is claimed to lead them to wild flights of fantasy and delusion in order to provide comfort and security in a universe that, at rock bottom, is characterized by nothing but “blind pitiless indifference.” Read more

Oct 15

2 Comments

Gospel, Culture, and Church (and Gnosticism)

This past weekend was spent at a study conference entitled “Culture, Gospel, and Church” held in Abbotsford which was put on by the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren churches. Among the highlights of the conference, from my perspective, was Bruce Guenther’s lecture on how Anabaptists in general, and Mennonite Brethren (MB) in particular have historically engaged or, more often, failed to engage the broader culture. Read more

Oct 7

22 Comments

What’s Going on Here?

Well, here’s one that falls into the “what not to be thankful for” category on this Thanksgiving weekend. I stumbled across this depressing article this morning. Apparently, some evangelical churches in America are using the video game Halo to attract young people to their churches. I don’t know much about this game except that it is popular, it is violent and you have to be 17 years old to purchase it. Read more

Sep 16

4 Comments

Love Songs for a Saviour?

For any and all who have sat (suffered) through a church service saturated with theologically impoverished songs encouraging us to declare that we are “in love” with Jesus, John Stackhouse’s thoughts on the matter might be of interest.

I don’t have anything particularly insightful to add to this excellent post other than, to quote a pastor from my childhood, “a hearty ‘Amen.'”

Sep 3

13 Comments

The Challenge of Secularism

Yesterday’s New York Times had an interesting follow-up of sorts (Times Select link here) to Mark Lilla’s more extensive analysis of the relationship between religion and politics from a few weeks ago. Stanley Fish reiterates the deep divide that exists between secular liberalism and those who subscribe to some more “ultimate” explanation of what is (or will be) really true about the world. Read more

Sep 2

1 Comment

On “Churchification”

Reading Jürgen Moltmann is once again proving to be a rewarding experience. The following comes from a chapter entitled “Progress and Abyss: Remembrances of the Future of the Modern World,” found in The Future of Hope: Christian Tradition amid Modernity and Postmodernity. I found this especially interesting—and heartening!—to consider in light of the recent actions taken by religious authorities here in Vancouver to protect the right of a local church to serve the poor in their community: Read more

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