Jul 8
I couldn’t help but cringe along this morning as I read an article by Giles Fraser on the search for a replacement for Justin Welby as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the head of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion. The piece is ominously titled “Anglicanism’s Poisoned Chalice.” According to Fraser, it’s a job that nobody with any sense would want.
Around a month ago, I was in Zürich, Switzerland to participate in events celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement. It’s difficult, of course, to pin a precise date to a movement as amorphous as “Anabaptism” (the word itself was only embraced much later, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm). But something significant began around 1525. For the purposes of this celebration, the beginnings of our movement were tied to the first believers’ baptisms (or “rebaptisms,” according to their opponents) which took place in a little apartment in Zürich. George Blaurock, Felix Manz, and Conrad Grebel had embraced the teachings of reformers like Ulrich Zwingli but increasingly felt they didn’t go far enough, specifically (but not exclusively) when it came to baptism. They found no warrant in Scripture for infant baptism and so in defiance of local regulations, they baptized one another January 17, 1525. Read more
On my walks this week, I’ve been listening to a series on The Medici family on The Rest is History podcast. After I finished walking the Camino last month, my wife and I spent six days or so in Italy with some friends. We toured around places like Florence, Pisa, Livorno, and Siena—the heart of Tuscany, where the Medicis rose to power in the twelfth century. So, my curiosity was piqued if for no other reason than recent proximity to the region. Read more
Many Mondays as I make the short drive to the jail, I listen to a song by Jon Guerra called “The Kingdom of God.” It’s a beautiful song by a gifted songwriter (Guerra’s most recent album, “Jesus,” has been a mainstay in my headphones since it was released during Lent). The song is basically a creative version of the Beatitudes set to music (with a bit of Psalm 23 mixed in). I listen on Mondays primarily because of one line that hit me like a freight train the first time I heard it and almost never fails to leave me with a lump in my throat: “Blessed are the guilty who have nowhere to go.” Read more
When you walk the Camino, you hear the same phrase repeatedly. From locals, from fellow pilgrims, from whoever: Bom Caminho (in Portugal) or Buen Camino (in Spain). Literally, these both translate into English as “Good Way.” More colloquially and contextually it means something like “Have a good journey.” It was nice to hear these words and to speak them to others. Read more
A middle-aged dude recently wrote in to the advice columnist for The Atlantic. The columnist is James Parker who is, I imagine, some kind of therapist? A secular wellness guru? I actually have no idea who James is or the nature of his credentials. Maybe he’s just the staff writer who drew the short straw at the team meeting. Nonetheless, James was asked the following question from the aforementioned middle-aged dude (I guess I don’t know for sure that the writer is male… for the purposes of this post, I’m sticking with “dude” because it seems like a vaguely dude-ish question and because, well, I, too, am middle-aged and would occasionally like to feel more rock and roll than I do!): Read more
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. As you may know, I’m on a three-month sabbatical and I’ve spent roughly the last two weeks walking the Camino de Santiago (Portuguese Way). On May 27, we reached the Cathedral in Santiago! I even received the Latin documents to prove it. I may have a few more reflections on this experience at a later date. It was a rich and rewarding one in many ways and I’m still sifting through a few stories along the way. What follows is a bit unpolished as it is gleaned from some handwritten journal reflections over the last few days.
The last thing I did before heading out on sabbatical was spend a few days at a Roman Catholic retreat centre in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I was there for a retreat with a group of pastors from our denomination. The setting was idyllic, the hospitality warm, and the sessions meaningful. We were led by a Catholic spiritual director who invited us to consider our various journey, vocations, and lives through the lens of “pilgrimage.” My ears obviously perked up at that as I will be heading off on a very non-metaphorical pilgrimage in a few days (walking the Camino de Santiago, Portuguese Way). In one of the sessions, she used a phrase that has stuck with me: “Sometimes our pilgrimages are not chosen; sometimes we are conscripted.” Read more
I felt a touch of weariness as I stared at the request form on my desk at the jail recently. A woman had seemingly requested every item that could conceivably come from the chaplaincy department. A bible, correspondence courses, bookmarks, address book, diary, notebook, colouring sheets, word searches, a rosary, calendar, inspirational verses, pencil crayons, stamped envelopes… She almost ran out of room on the form. Near the end, almost as an afterthought, she wrote, “Oh yeah, and I would also like to talk to a chaplain. I’ve been going through some hard things I want someone to pray for me.” I grabbed as many of the items as we had and trudged off to the women’s unit. Read more
I was asked to give a last-minute presentation at a regional denominational gathering last weekend. The guest speaker was ill, so a bunch of pastors were tapped to plug the gaps. 2025 has been designated as the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement so this was a focus throughout the weekend. How we mark these things is, of course, at least somewhat arbitrary. The people who make such decisions have designated the beginnings of our branch of the Christian tree as the date of the first believer’s baptism in Zurich in 1525. But of course, threads of Anabaptist thought run throughout Christian history. And to whatever extent “Anabaptism” can be spoken of as a monolithic movement, the 2025 version looks very different than whatever was bubbling up in 1525. History is poorly behaved and stubbornly resists our desire for clean lines and unambiguous markers. Thus, has it ever been, I suppose. Read more
Around the circle at the jail recently we were talking about the God who meets us at our lowest point. It’s not particularly difficult for the guys to think about their lowest point. It’s not exactly a remote hypothetical for many for them. They’re living it. They’re at the bottom. They know precisely what most people think of them—they often think it of themselves. They are well aware of their weaknesses and proclivities, their addictions and destructive habits, their character flaws and worst impulses. They know who they are, they know where they are, and they know why. Read more
For at least the last year or two, two Englishmen have been fighting in my head. Well, maybe “fighting” is too strong a word. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that my brain has been hosting a “lively discussion” between two visions of what Christianity might be in and for the world in the twenty-first century. These visions are not entirely incompatible with one another; there is significant overlap, to be sure. But they are different enough to cause some tension. And it’s a tension that I feel as one tasked with leading a church in these strange times. Read more
Around fifteen years ago, the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered her famous TED Talk called “The Danger of a Single Story.” It was hugely popular and influential. It’s among the more popular TED Talks of all time, approaching nearly 40 million views at the time of this writing. In it, she talks about discussed the problem of reducing human beings and cultures to a single narrative. We are all more complicated than the “single story,” whether that story is what it means to be black or African (in her case) or any of the other identities that we associate with or are defined by. Human beings are complex. Human cultures are complex. A single story rarely tells the whole story. Read more
A child is placed here at the midpoint of world history—a child born of human beings, a son given by God. That is the mystery of the redemption of the world; everything past and everything future is encompassed here. The infinite mercy of the almighty God comes to us, descends to us in the form of a child, his Son. That this child is born for us, this son is given to us, that this human child and Son of God belongs to me, that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine—on this alone my life now depends. A child has our life in his hands.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A very Merry Christmas to all who drop by here!
So here we are at the doorstep of another Christmas. This is a time of year that tends to be drenched with an awful lot of hope and nostalgia and longing and kitschy expectation. The family will be together and the snow will be lightly falling and there will be candles and cheer and lights and the perfect present (always gratefully received) and funny movies and good food and hot chocolate and eggnog (or perhaps something stronger) and wistful smiles and everything will be magnificent. Christmas, perhaps like no other holiday, has a lot to live up to each year. Read more
My son is a lover of music. He (annoyingly easily) learned guitar and piano as a teenager, but as a young adult his tastes have migrated more toward the electronic, and towards genres that his dad doesn’t necessarily share his appreciation for (EDM, hip-hop, even, somewhat bewilderingly and incongruously, jazz!). I often scratch my head and protect my ears from what loudly drifts up from the basement. Thus has it ever been with fathers and sons, I suppose. Read more
To say that the library at the jail has an eclectic mix of reading material would be to put it mildly. Relying on donations, as we do, we get everything from Joyce Meyer books on the habits of a godly woman to decades-old biblical commentaries to Nick Vujicic’s biography to Paul Tillich. Throw in a smattering of stray Buddhist and Muslim resources and the inmates have a rather bewildering array of options. Read more
So, another Trump presidency. Today, I have very conservative Christian friends and acquaintances who are exultant and triumphant. I have very progressive Christian friends and acquaintances who are utterly crestfallen and/or enraged. As anyone who has read this blog for more than a minute likely knows, I have a deep and abiding suspicion of politics on both the right and the left, a disdain for the way in which politics has become little more than tawdry entertainment and has hollowed out our social discourse, and a profound concern that for too many Christians, politics has become their religion. But I’ve written about at least some of these matters before, so I won’t go there today. Read more
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Rumblings 