Dec 3
Advent is about waiting for the God who comes. There is no more central conviction to the Christian faith that we worship and follow a God who has come, who continues to come, and who will come. At the same time, there is probably also no more central experience to a life of following Christ in the in-between time—the time between his first and second Advents—than waiting. Christ has come. Christ is coming. But still, we wait. Read more
On to part three of my discussion of Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology (parts one and two here and here). Read more
Nov 27
It’s been a while since Frederick Buechner made an appearance around here, so I thought today would be as good a day as any to correct this. I can think of few whose words I would rather have rattling around my brain going into a weekend—especially a weekend where we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent and begin preparing for the arrival of the baby who would shape the course of history. This is from Wishful Thinking: Read more
On to part two of my discussion of Philip Clayton’s Transforming Christian Theology (part one here). Read more
Around here, Thursdays are the day where a good deal of the work of preparing the Sunday morning service begins. I am always amazed to see the sheer diversity of the people who come through our doors on any given Sunday. I am equally amazed to discover the potpourri of needs, hopes, joys, fears, longings, frustrations, and anxieties that accompany them. Of course it is impossible to craft a service with the specific intention of meeting every perceived or real individual need that might show up on a Sunday morning. Yet one of the mysteries of the church is that when we gather together somehow our individual stories can find their place within the broader story of God and the story of his church—that by simply being together to pray, to sing, to hear from Scripture, and to share our lives, our needs just might end up getting met (however oddly or unexpectedly) along the way. Read more
From a recent journal entry.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
John 1:3-5
The call comes—someone’s looking for a priest. Of course, you’re not a priest but you’re close enough. There’s been some trouble and someone wants to talk to a “holy man.” They want a man of God to come. 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
Over the last week or so I have been making my way through an article from last month’s issue of The Walrus which discusses the imminent demise of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. The article talks about the rising acidity levels of oceans around the world by virtue of increased CO2 emissions and the warmer water temperatures this produces. It predicts that some of our most magnificent ecosystems (like the Great Barrier Reef) are living on borrowed time because of human-induced climate change. In some ways, the article reads like many others: it is a tale of human beings wantonly wreaking havoc with nature and a plea to do something about it. Read more
Nov 6
I realize two cartoons in one week is a bit unusual around here, but this one was just too funny not to share. I promise to return to more substantial themes shortly 🙂
On Sunday I preached from Revelation 21:1-6—a passage that I would guess is among the more well-known and well-loved in all of Scripture. It speaks of a new heaven and a new earth where the old order of things has passed away. No more tears, no more death, no more pain… It is a world that seems too good to be true. It is a world that scarcely resembles the reality that Revelation’s first hearers/readers were familiar with. Or that we are familiar with. For as long as it has been around, there has been a disjunction between this text and the lived reality of those who read it, hear it, and hope for what it promises. Read more
Oct 29
Oct 27
When I first came across this quote I thought it was overstated and simplistic, but the longer I think about it the more I think Ron Rolheiser is gesturing toward an important truth here. From “The Power of Praying a Doxology” in Northern Lights: Read more
Oct 26
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
I’m currently going through the book of Job with a young adults group and tonight we’re going to be looking at the dialogue between Job and his “friends” in Job 4-7. The book of Job is, of course, famous for being “about” the problem of evil and God’s justice (or lack thereof) in the face of unmerited human suffering. We are drawn to the book of Job for a variety of reasons. It is a masterpiece of literature, certainly, but I think the story also probes some of our deepest hopes and fears as limited human beings who rarely see or know as much—about suffering or anything else—as we might like. Read more
I spent the latter half of last week at a Canadian Mennonite Brethren study conference in Saskatoon, SK where the topic under discussion was what it means to “confess Jesus” in a pluralistic world. It was a good conference on many levels. If provided a chance to see my brother and many other friends (old and new) from around Canada, to listen to intellectually stimulating lectures, and participate in many interesting conversations. All in all, it was four days very well spent. Read more
Once upon a time, my wife and I decided that our kids would not play hockey and, more importantly, that we would never be “hockey parents” (apologies to non-Canadian readers who may not appreciate all the unwelcome moral freight conveyed by this loathsome term). Hockey was expensive, it brought out the worst in both kids and their parents, it was expensive, it was unnecessarily violent, it was expensive, it involved unnecessary amounts of travel and early mornings at frigid rinks… and it was expensive. Read more
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Rumblings 