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Posts from the ‘Faith’ Category

Nov 29

39 Comments

Something to Say

I preached my thirty-sixth sermon yesterday, which, in and of itself, is not a particularly momentous number or occasion, but which nonetheless, was an experience that provoked a bit of reflection. Preaching is a practice that has taken some time for me to grow into. I still find it incredibly odd that people actually entrust me with twenty minutes of their precious time on Sunday morning. And I often think that God has an incredible (or incredibly weird?) sense of humour in sticking the introverted kid who talks too fast and stutters too much in front of a microphone every Sunday. Read more

Nov 25

11 Comments

Optimism vs. Hope

This week I have the happy task of preparing a sermon on the very seasonally appropriate theme of hope. “Hope” is one of those words that is overused, abused, and reduced to marketing slogans or political campaigning, but which is nonetheless a vitally important word to retain. In my reading, I continue to make my through Miroslav Volf’s Against the Tide and was intrigued to come across his distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism, according to Volf, is based on “extrapolative cause and effect thinking” whereby we “draw conclusions about the future on the basis of experience with the past and the present.” Hope, on the other hand, is based not on situation-dependent possibilities or predictive accuracy, but on the character and trustworthiness of God. Read more

Nov 19

13 Comments

I Can’t Either

Last Sunday, there was a natural gas explosion which killed 7 people at a resort a few kilometres from the one we were staying at in Mexico.  Two of the victims were from Mexico, five were from Canada.  Among the dead was a nine year-old boy and two people who had been married to their spouses for only a matter of days.  In the midst of the manufactured paradises of Mexico, the tragedy, chaos, and pain of life rears its ugly and terribly familiar head.  Once again, the illusion of a morally-ordered universe is laid bare.  While my friends and I were thanking God for the gifts of friendship, leisure, and natural beauty, lives were being ripped apart just down the beach. Read more

Nov 16

12 Comments

Fragile Truth

Well, I just returned from a wonderful week away and am spending a good chunk of today slowly wading through a very clogged in-box! One of the more humourous discoveries I have made thus far in my wading is this cartoon sent by a friend last week.

As is so often the case, it is funny because it is true… Read more

Nov 1

12 Comments

The Gospel According to Who?

As far as ambitiously titled books go, Chris Seay’s The Gospel According to Jesus would surely rank near the top of many lists.  I wasn’t even sure who Seay was when I cracked open the book (turns out he is the pastor of a church called Ecclesia in Houston, TX), but the title grabbed my attention.  I was curious to hear more about the “Faith that Restores All Things,” suggested by the subtitle.  As a Mennonite, I suppose I am drawn to anything that smacks of a Jesus-centred approach to faith.  Consequently, despite my unfamiliarity with the author, I had high hopes for this book. Read more

Oct 26

16 Comments

Commending the Faith

This past Saturday, I attended John Stackhouse’s lectures on faith, reason, and the new atheism down at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. Evidently, there is still some interest in this topic as the event sold out—even in hyper-secular Nanaimo! Around twenty people from our church attended which was fantastic to see! I was in and out of the sessions throughout the day due to carting kids to hockey, friends’ houses, etc, but a couple of things struck me about his presentations: Read more

Oct 22

94 Comments

I’ll Have Some Charity Please

One of the things WordPress’s comprehensive stats page gives navel-gazing blogger-types like myself the opportunity to do is observe as certain “milestones” come and go in the life of their blog. Recently, the 4000th comment came through here, and I am coming up on 400 posts in the nearly four years I have spent in the blogging world. This may be a testimony to my stubbornness and persistence (or egotism!) more than anything else, but it’s still kind of neat to track how this forum has evolved over its lifespan. Read more

Oct 20

12 Comments

The Goodness of Good

It’s a busy week around here, so apologies for the lack of original posts. In the meantime, I continue to come across interesting articles and posts discussing the justification for/origins of our moral intuitions (which has been the subject of conversation around here for the last little while). Here are a few quotes on these matters from the eminently quotable David Bentley Hart who last week wrote this essay for First Things’ On the Square: Read more

Oct 12

27 Comments

Good For Us

Later this month Prof. John Stackhouse from Regent College will be here in Nanaimo to talk about the New Atheists (can we still call them “new?”) and whether or not it is crazy to be a person of faith.  Those who have been long-time readers of this blog will know that this is an event that has special interest for me because a) I wrote about the New Atheists for my masters thesis a few years back; and b) John Stackhouse was my supervisor for this project.  So I’ll be there with bells on.  And if you are on Vancouver Island on Saturday, October 23, I would encourage you to attend this event (you can register here).  I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say. Read more

Oct 6

8 Comments

The Whole Jesus

Next month, the British Columbia Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (of which the church I serve at is a part) will be holding another event to further discuss some of our differences (or perceived differences) regarding how we are to understand the cross of Christ. The atonement debate has been simmering in these parts for a while now (I’ve reflected on it here, here, here, and here if you’re interested in any background). Some see a decreasing emphasis in the penal substitution component of what the cross accomplished, and think that this represents a compromise of the gospel. Others see room for locating penal substitution within a broader understanding of what was achieved at Calvary. This event is an attempt to better understand and talk about these differences. Read more

Sep 29

12 Comments

Religious (Yawn) Knowledge

Well, the blogosphere is abuzz this week with the results of a survey on religious knowledge conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life—particularly the fact that atheists and agnostics scored highest on the quiz.  The sheer volume of words being devoted to these results makes me hesitant contribute still more.  Whether it’s Christians desperately explaining the results away or atheists/agnostics pointing to them as yet one more piece of evidence demonstrating their intellectual superiority over their benighted religious brethren, it all gets very tiresome. Read more

Sep 15

8 Comments

Who Is This God?

Richard Dawkins famously opens chapter two of The God Delusion with the following oft-quoted, adjectivally promiscuous salvo:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Read more

Sep 14

A Thousand Glad Answers

It’s been a while since Walter Brueggemann made an appearance around here, so I thought I would share another one of his prayers as I sit down to begin another work week.  I came across this prayer from Prayers for a Privileged People during last week’s service preparations.  Among other things, it seems to me a good reminder of the continual process of disorientation and reorientation that is inherent in the life of faith: Read more

Sep 11

5 Comments

Listening for Life

Of the many things back to school week represents a return to, more regular breakfasts with the kids is among them.  Yesterday morning, the kids were poring over a calendar that mom had laid out on the table in an attempt to get our fall schedule coordinated as a family.  Aside from the events that happen to pertain to them, the kids have always taken an interest in the various holidays that show up on the calendar. Read more

Sep 6

5 Comments

The Question is Worth Asking

A few more loosely connected thoughts and links for a (holiday) Monday morning…

“The Stone” is a New York Times philosophy forum that I have enjoyed spending time at recently. Yesterday’s post by Tim Crane called “Mystery and Evidence” is one of the best attempts I have seen from an atheist to honestly lay out the difference between religious approach to the world and a scientific one. Crane critiques the view popularized by Richard Dawkins (and others) that religion and science are two competing alternatives for the same explanatory slot—as if religion were a kind of primitive science that offered the same kinds of explanations that science now offers in a much more comprehensive, rational, and intellectually satisfying manner. Read more

Sep 3

23 Comments

Faith, Technology, and The Suburbs

A couple of loosely connected thought, links, and quotes for a Friday morning…

A few weeks ago, I came across an excellent new collaborative blog called Wondering Fair (a number of contributors are alumni from Regent College).  Interesting and engaging topics, good writing, nice accessible look and feel… definitely worth adding to your reader.  Due to my ongoing interest in how technology shapes us as human beings, I was particularly drawn to David Benson’s post on why he doesn’t own a mobile phone.  His summary hits the nail on the head, in my view: Read more

Sep 1

26 Comments

Slip and Slide

Over the last little while, The Biologos Forum has been posting a conversation between Pete Enns and N.T. Wright dealing with various questions about faith, culture, science, politics, etc. Today’s video has to do with the perception, in parts of the evangelical world, that there is a “slippery slope” in evangelical-dom and that it always goes to the left (i.e., to more “liberal” understandings of faith).  The questioner wanted to know if the “slippery slope” argument could also be applied to the right? Read more

Aug 30

Jesus is the Answer

There is a sign at a local church that I pass by regularly that says this: Jesus is right for what is wrong in your life. For whatever reason, I almost always have a negative response to these kinds of church signs. They strike me as theologically naive and simplistic. I instantly think of a number of smart-alecky type responses that I could supply, thus demonstrating my obvious theological acumen and sophistication. Even though if pressed and given the opportunity to explain and qualify sufficiently, I would affirm the message of the sign, my initial reaction to “Jesus is the answer” type signs is almost always negative. Read more

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