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Posts from the ‘Jesus’ Category

Feb 15

3 Comments

The Crucial Question

Over at the Mennonite Weekly Review’s “The World Together” blog, writer and activist Bert Newton has written a really thought-provoking piece on “the crucial question” when it comes to religion. So many debates and conversations on the nature of religion and irreligion focus on “belief in God” or its absence. Newton helpfully probes the common assumption that this is the central question, and asks us to ask harder and more honest questions about how and why we invest in the formation and maintenance of the views we hold about the world.

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Feb 3

58 Comments

“Masculine” Christianity?

Apparently John Piper has, in a recent address delivered at a pastors conference, added his voice to Mark Driscoll’s in advocating a more “masculine Christianity.” Driscoll, of course, created his latest storm of controversy in an interview with British radio host Justin Brierley a few weeks back, when he said, among other things, that there were no good Bible teachers in the UK, and that the reason that churches were struggling was because they were led by women. The implication was that if churches across the pond would just “man up” and start letting men lead, and stop wallowing in effeminate religion, the “results” (i.e., more churches that look like Driscoll’s ) would come. An interesting theory, to be sure—a little light on context and cultural awareness, and, well, reason, but there you go. Muscular, manly Christianity is, apparently, the cure for what ails the church. Read more

Feb 2

2 Comments

Who Am I?

Once a month or so, a delightful young woman from our church hosts a seniors coffee hour on Thursday mornings in our church basement. She is here from Germany on a one year volunteer assignment, and these times that she organizes for some of our older and wiser saints have become a real highlight for me. We play games, sing songs, enjoy conversation, and, of course, we eat. What would a gathering at a Mennonite church be without food, after all?! Read more

Jan 27

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Doodles

I always enjoy Kim Fabricius’s theological “doodlings” over at Faith and Theology. He’s got a real talent for coming up with short, punchy, provocative statements that are invariably theologically insightful and interesting, and amusing to boot!

Today’s post is well worth a quick visit.  Here are a few of my favourites: Read more

Jan 24

11 Comments

Why Can’t I Find You?

Where are you Jesus?
Why can’t I find you?
have you disapeard?
have you left me hear alone?
 
God wear you?
I cannot see you
are you gone forever?
Why can’t I see you?
Are you still listening to me?

——

The preceding found its way to my inbox courtesy of a young child this week.   Read more

Jan 20

14 Comments

The Gospel of Sin Management (Gil Dueck)

Our community is in the middle of a four-week sermon series on the nature of the gospel. We are discovering that “the gospel” is an expansive and inclusive thing—perhaps much bigger and deeper than many of us have considered it to be at various points along our journeys of faith. The gospel is good news that goes far beyond individual souls and their eternal destinies, and has implications for all of life and all of  the world.   Read more

Dec 28

6 Comments

Control Yourself!

A new year looms on the horizon and with it, thoughts of new beginnings, life changes, the sloughing off of old, destructive habits, etc, etc. If there is a practice that is more widely and enthusiastically embraced with less empirical evidence to ground its optimism than the New Year’s Resolution, I am not aware of it. Rare is the occasion when our resolve makes it past, say January 15. It’s just too difficult to control ourselves. Read more

Dec 23

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Gratitude

Gratitude was the topic du jour on my morning commute today. CBC Radio’s The Current had a psychologist from Northeastern University on the program to talk about the “upward spiral” of gratitude and generosity that can result if we cultivate these attitudes and behaviours, and how this upward spiral can be passed down our social networks leading to strengthened relationships and healthier mental well-being. Sounds pretty good! Read more

Dec 13

11 Comments

Children as Gospel

This past Sunday evening was our children’s Christmas program. It was a wonderful and wonderfully diverse production. From pre-schoolers playing “Silent Night” on hand bells to high schoolers’ strumming “Jesus Messiah” on electric guitars, to little Marys and Josephs in housecoats and shepherds and angels and botched candle-lightings and memorized poems and rousing renditions of familiar carols, it was a delightful collection of parts that contributed to a marvellous whole.   Read more

Dec 5

Welcomed From a Distance

One of my morning Scripture readings today was the famous “by faith” passage in Hebrews 11 that talks about how the heroes of faith did not receive “the things promised” and lived as “foreigners and strangers” on earth.  It’s a beautiful text, a powerful portrayal of longing, faith, and hope. Read more

Nov 30

10 Comments

The Path to Peace

Steven Pinker has a new book out called The Better Angels of Our Nature and is currently doing the rounds to promote it.  I heard part of an interview with Mr. Pinker on CBC’s The Current yesterday, and today read an article on the book from The New York Times.  I’ve not yet read Pinker’s (apparently massive!) book, but as I understand it the basic thesis is that, contrary to what one might expect to hear from an evolutionary psychologist committed to the a view of the world that sees natural selection as the driving force behind human history, we are becoming more peaceful as a species. Read more

Nov 25

“Love Cannot From its Post Withdraw”

As another week nears its scrambly conclusion, and as the pace of life begins to pick up as it inevitably (and unfortunately) does each year around this time, and as I begin to turn my heart and mind towards themes of Advent—themes of waiting, expectation, longing, hope—and as I begin again to ponder once again what it means to affirm and follow a God who I believe has come, continues to come, and will come, it was wonderful to hear Derek Webb’s version of  William Gadsby’s classic hymn “The Love of Christ is Rich and Free” come through the random iTunes shuffler this morning.   Read more

Nov 22

26 Comments

Misadventures in Bible Land

A number of conversations and experiences over the last few days have me thinking about the Bible and how we use it. Maybe “lamenting” would be a more appropriate word. The Bible is, regrettably, a book that has throughout history proved eminently usable and abusable. Read more

Nov 7

10 Comments

On Evangelism

A few years ago, I remember taking one of those online “spiritual gifts” tests with several co-workers. Needless to say, I am fairly suspicious of these sorts of things in general and particularly when they claim to be discovering something as open to abuse, misunderstanding, and misappropriation as spiritual gifts. I have always been of the opinion that spiritual gifts are the kinds of things that are discovered in community via the wisdom of mature Christians, not as a printout generated by responses to a handful of formulaic online questions. Read more

Oct 29

17 Comments

The Strange Math of the Cross

During my time in the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, one of the issues that generated a fair amount of interest and controversy was that of the nature of the atonement. I have devoted a number of posts to this topic over the last few years (see the”Atonement” category at the bottom of this page), and have found the atonement debates simultaneously stimulating (it’s just a flat-out interesting theological issue) and frustrating (we have not always been able to talk about this matter as civilly as we ought to). It is an issue that continues to generate considerable conversation, whether within Mennonite circles or in the larger church body. Read more

Oct 26

6 Comments

Meet in the Middle

In light of my comments in a previous post about the subtle differences in emphasis between the two streams of the Mennonite world I am becoming increasingly familiar with, I was intrigued to come across a passage by Ron Rolheiser in my reading this week that addresses the importance of both the private (i.e., individual piety) and the public (i.e., concern for justice) dimensions of Christian spirituality. Read more

Oct 21

9 Comments

Peace, Pietism, and Personal Branding

Part of this week was spent at a gathering of Alberta Mennonite pastors just north of Calgary. The drive alone would have made the trip worth it. I had forgotten how spectacularly colourful autumn in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains can be! More importantly, though, it was a good opportunity to connect with new colleagues, as well as to get a sense of some of the strengths, challenges and theological perspectives of a conference that is still fairly new to me. Read more

Oct 10

13 Comments

In Defence of the Church

One of the questions I have come to dread over the years is the “so what do you do for a living?” question.  It’s not that I am ashamed to be a pastor, it’s simply that very often the discovery that I am “religious” can be something of a conversation-stopper.  Pastors are strange creatures, to be sure, and many people seem unclear about what to do when encountering one outside of their natural habitats (i.e., a church).  At the very least, disclosing that I am a pastor often makes the conversation instantly stranger, as people either a) hastily and awkwardly change the topic; b) begin to laboriously and not altogether coherently demonstrate how they are religious too; c) explain why they don’t go to church anymore; or d) stop talking altogether. Read more

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