Seeking God as a Community [And Not the Other Way Around]
We need to create spaces - environments - that help us get our intention right. If our intention is God, then perhaps a circle isn’t a good place to begin. We seek God as a community, we don’t seek community to find God.
How and Why Theology and Journalism are like Oil and Water
When asked about how Emergent thinking differs from the theology purported by people like Mark Driscoll, Doug Pagitt made a simple, yet profound point. He said: “I think we’re describing two different Christianities."
Authority, Community, and Truth [In a Postmodern World]
I've always wondered why Jesus never answered Pilate's question. Was it because He knew that the answer wasn't really wanted? Or because Pilate's question was philosophical, where His answer could only be personal.
Navigating the Great and Porous Divide: A Postmodern Take on Life, Death and Evangelism
Many of us have our own (or inherited, familial) experiences of the supernatural- where even the divide of death and life grows porous. In a postmodern world, such experiences prove extremely meaningful for evangelism.
Of Labels and the Intention of the Heart
While there is some benefit in labeling, I still regret the spirit in which such naming often occurs. The tiring “we’re right, they’re wrong” mentality behind Mark Driscoll’s recent labeling campaign is a prime example.
Ethical Insights: An Interview with Ryan Snuffer
In Love Your Neighbor: Thinking Wisely About Right and Wrong , Ryan Snuffer, along with Norman Geisler, examines the treacherous landscape of Christian ethics.
Dreams of Living Counter-Culturally: An Exodus from the Consumerist Fog
Imagine a community that not only speaks against consumeristic trends, but is actually empowered by, made possible by, the making of counter-cultural choices.
Reflections on Community, Authority and Ethos
Because we lack definition and rigid structures or even a membership list, it's easy to feel that we are stuck in process and not moving toward a goal. But we have learned that definitions exclude as much as they include.
Emerging Black Dog
At the lowest point of my breakdown Jesus was still Jesus, the same Jesus I had given my life to. It was the systems I had built up, been told I need to have to explain him that came apart.
Contextual Theology: A Postmodern Understanding of Truth Dynamic
If we in Emerging/Emergent circles don’t look to Rome, a council of bishops, or to one particular reading of scripture as our point of theological orientation, then where exactly do we look?
Emerging Evangelism: Building Friendships, Not Projects
Entering into "cross-paradigm relationship" with the possibility that our perspective might change is not a sign of lukewarm faith, nor is it an affront to God.
Striking a Balance in Christian Ethics: A Review of Love Your Neighbor
Love Your Neighbor serves as a concise, but deep, introduction to Christian ethics that acknowledges there are many views consistent with the attributes of God.
The Church Has Its Marching Orders: Reviewing Missio Dei
In Missio Dei, Fred Peatross asks the Church to embrace its role as exile, assuming a missional posture to meet the postmodern culture on its own turf.
The Fallen Powers: Worlds in Collision
It is only as the world sees a transformed WAY OF LIFE lived out among us that they will believe that WE believe that our value is anchored outside this world.
Sharing in the Lifestyle of Christ: Re-thinking Theoligical Education
What if we were to re-imagine theological education, not as the accumulation of head knowledge, but as an experience based on the life of Jesus and his early followers?
Charting New and Ancient Horizons: A Conversation about Eastern Orthodoxy and the Emerging Church
Can pre-modern Eastern Orthodoxy serve as a template for the emerging church of the 21st century? I recently spoke with Frederica-Mathewes Green about that very subject.
Brian McLaren: On the Voice of Luke, the Bible, and Emergent
Brian McLaren speaks about the Voice of Luke: Not Even Sandals, his next project, Everything Must Change, biblical idolatry, and the evolution of the Emergent conversation.
Responding to Postmodern Paradox: Embracing Incarnation Over Abstraction
Necessary deconstruction follows in the wake of modernism. But as disciples of Christ, we would do well to remember that it can never be our final destination.
An Interview with Frederica Mathewes-Green on Orthodoxy
A discussion about the Eastern Orthodox Church, covering both common misperceptions as well as the true nature of this “founding faith”, from the perspective of a true insider.
Leader as Listener: Embracing the Unknown
The goal of Christian leadership is a living community. Because the goal is a living community, we should expect no professionals, only amateurs.
Journeying East into the Ancient-Future
Frederica Mathewes-Green’s At the Corner of East and Now is a colorful, personal account of one woman’s journey to Jesus and within the life and mystery of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Mysterious Significance of Revelation
How the tale of the two Hitchens brothers gives insight into the realities of divine revelation, the nature of truth, and the very spinning of the Cosmos.
Finite Eternity: Rethinking Our Theological Contruct of Time
The Church’s recent struggle to keep up with the sciences is ironic, considering that for nearly a thousand years previous, it was the only reliable source for scientific advances.
Where Lies the Magic?: Being Formed in the Image of Christ
Like the Cold War, the Enlightenment experiment is largely over. So let’s let go of false assumptions and return to a truly apostolic understanding of “Christlikening”.
Relevance: In the Name of Jesus
Too often “relevance” pushes us to activism- the kind divorced from kingdom purposes. Perhaps the only “relevance” we need to work at is relevance to Jesus.
Venturing Out in Love
If policy jeopardized my survival, I would risk everything to escape - because I love myself. Yet, if helping my neighbor involved equal risk, would I venture to love?
Toward A Postmodern Youth Ministry
As postmodern youth are searching for a way to organize all of the information they take in, the Kingdom of God can provide the necessary narrative.
Exploring the Myth of Sola Scriptura
When we hold to a radical form of sola scriptura we dishonor the history of the Body of Christ, and make dangerous the way for new believers.
Navigating the Church Emerging: Informing, Inviting, Incarnating
A postmodern sensibility says don’t tell me, show me. In navigating the future of the Emerging Church we need to take this distinction seriously, in more ways than one.
How (Not) to Think About God as a Postmodern Evangelical
Exploring Peter Rollins’ assertion that orthodoxy should be understood not as correct belief, but as belief held in a correct way.
Of Muslim, Christian, and American Response
When dealing with "enemies", how do we (and should we) distinguish between the interests of the nation, and the interests of the Bride of Christ?
The Art of Gospel Storytelling: the Voice Project
In the Voice of Matthew, Lauren Winner and team attempt to restore the artistry of the original text to the Book of Matthew- with compelling results.
Christian Community Remembered and Revitalized
In the Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch asks: How did the early Christian movement go from roughly 25,000 members in AD 100 to roughly 20 million two hundred years later? Part 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5/6 - 7 - 8)
A Rant of the Emerging Variety
Our sameness with this age of ostentation and hubris puts us at risk of dismantling God’s creation and the community of lives that live in it.
The Battle Over Hell
Manipulated by our biases, it is tempting to think that our way is the only appropriate way to understand the afterlife. But God is bigger than our personal or denominational views.
From Passion to Prozac
Disconnected, disinterested, and dedicated to doing nothing. That’s my generation. The answer: self-education. Ask questions, taking nothing for granted.
A Critique of Criticism Against the Emerging Church
A certain form of ungracious, unfair criticism of the Emerging Church circulates within Christian conversation, often parading itself as philosophy.
Reflecting the Real World in Film: Lessons from Syriana
The excellence of Syriana and the implications of the Christian film industry’s tendency to sugar-coat and smooth over the complexities of the real world.
The Paradox of Change: Paradox, Transition, Liminality and Maps
While we lack adequate maps or frameworks to describe the culture we are now living in, we do have maps that help us track transition: personal, systemic, organizational, spiritual.
Desperately Seeking Purple Churches
Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church is a satirical glimpse at Religious America and a call for true Christian hospitality.
Contemplating Faith: Christian Hope & Cosmic Redemption
Our deepest instincts tell us that something is not right in the cosmos. Death, war, famine, oppression, disease. Things aren’t supposed to be this way.
Starbucks and the Kingdom of God
As Christians we need to be open to the fact that individuals and organizations beyond the fold can offer fresh glimpses of the Kingdom of God at work.
10 Things to Hope and Pray for in 2007
Revulsion for New Year’s resolutions aside, one really can’t have too many roadside altars to remind us to pray. It’s with that spirit that I give you this hopeful list.
Wired for a Life of Worship: A Review by Tim Berroth
Having our preconceptions confronted, deconstructed and re-shaped is often times painful- but ultimately necessary. This is certainly true of worship.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE ARTICLES FROM PREVIOUS YEARS >>
