Description:
Confessions of a Recovering Obama-Maniac.. 10 Reasons to Read "Jesus for President".. An Evangelical's Response to Homosexuality.. Finish-The-Sentence-Friday: Finding God..
Contents:
Confessions of a Recovering Obama-Maniac
“Jesus for President” by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw has challenged me on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start. I guess it’s not so much the book itself that has inspired me, but the way the author’s continually refer to Jesus’ teachings on the Sermon on the Mount, teachings which no one in their right mind can truly contemplate without trembling at the sort of life changes it demands.
10 Reasons to Read "Jesus for President"
1. It’s our book club selection for the month of August!
2. The book’s design is unique and aesthetically pleasing - lots of color and art on every page. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
3. It will make you uncomfortable…It may even offend you.*
An Evangelical's Response to Homosexuality
My husband Dan walked into a local car shop the other day, inadvertently interrupting a serious conversation between the store’s manager and another customer. After an awkward pause, the manager looked at Dan, and in his thick East Tennessee accent asked, “Sir, would you be offended if we continued our conversation about homosexuals?”
Finish-The-Sentence-Friday: Finding God
This one is especially reflective. Finish the following sentence: “I feel closest to God when…”
What’s your sola?
My friend Chris has raised some really interesting questions on his blog about the doctrine of sola scriptura. “When we proclaim the notion of sola scriptura,” he writes, “we neglect the original authority of Church leaders that put together that Scripture. In other words, sola scriptura is simply impossible. The very texts of Scripture were canonized by the authority of the Church."
Facebook Quizzes: What Kind of Narcissist Are You?
Perhaps nothing speaks better to the self-absorbed temperament of young Americans than the rise of the introspective quiz. These cotton-candy versions of Myers-Briggs and Taylor-Johnson first appeared in teen magazines, as demand for scientific approaches for determining one’s fashion sense and flirting style surged. As fellow Facebookers may have noticed, this 10-question approach for determining one’s place in the world has reached an all-time high with the advent of social networking sites, where a participant can now confidently proclaim to her 314 closest friends that if she were a fruit, she would be a kiwi.
Are Apologetics Making A Comeback?
In a Christianity Today article entitled “A New Day for Apologetics,” reporter Troy Anderson writes that “people young and old are flocking to hear-and be changed by-winsome arguments for the Christian faith.”
When the Bible Bothers Our Conscience
Our last conversation about William Webb’s “Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals” certainly generated a lot of responses, particularly concerning the role of women in church leadership, which means the post accomplished its purposes of highlighting the challenges of applying the teachings of Scripture in today’s culture. Today I want to focus on Webb’s “redemptive movement hermeneutic,” specifically as it applies to those tricky passages of Scripture that leave us scratching our heads.
Finish-The Sentence Friday: Movies!
Finish the following sentence. "The next movie you should put on your Blockbuster or Netflix queue is…."
Strong Enough to Be My Man…And Run My Web Site
It isn’t easy being married to a strong-willed and outspoken woman. Looking back over nearly five years of marriage, I think my husband and I could have safely included in our wedding vows the promise to remain faithful through richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, through conservativism and liberalism, through orthodoxy and “heresy,” through hard work and harder work, in faith and in doubt.
Playing the God Card
I wrote an article for Burnside Writers Collective about playing the “God card” entitled “God Wants You to Read This Article.” (Clearly, you have no excuse for not visiting the site and checking it out.)
Picking and Choosing, and Letting the Bible Interpret Us
In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.” (I Timothy 2:12) This little verse has made big waves in the evangelical culture, and all my life I’ve heard it used to enforce restrictions on the positions women can hold in church leadership. And yet, just three verses before this one, Paul says, “I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works…” (I Timothy 2:9)
Finish-The-Sentence Friday: July 4
In the spirit of Independence Day, finish the following sentence: “The best/worst thing about the American lifestyle is….”
Survey Says: Don’t Read Into It
As you may have heard, a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life found that the majority of those affiliated with a religion do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. This includes 57 percent of evangelicals who say that many religions can lead to eternal life.
Book Club Discussion: Rapture theology a confusion of metaphors?
Sometimes when I get a bit carried away with a descriptive passage in my writing, I remind myself of a helpful little adage a favorite professor once taught me: “Try to avoid driving while under the influence of metaphors.” As N.T. Wright suggests in his book “Surprised by Hope,” the Apostle Paul certainly liked his metaphors, and might have benefited from such advice. In fact, Wright asserts that it is a confusion of Paul’s many metaphors that has ultimately led to the popular idea of The Rapture.
Why Obama takes the Bible more seriously than Dobson
What really bugged me about James Dobson’s recent attack on Senator Barack Obama was not so much that he completely misrepresented Obama’s views on religion and public life (which he did), nor that he assumed Christians can only apply their values to one or two conservative political positions (which he often does), or even that he used inflammatory language and name-calling to make his point (for which he should know better.) What really got under my skin was...
Taking God’s Name in Vain
I do it every time I tell a friend I will pray for her, and then forget. I do it when I absently mouth the lyrics to a hymn or use the Bible as a weapon in order to win an argument. I do it when I gossip, speaking ill of another human being created in His image. I do it when I drop spiritual buzzwords into my conversations in order to fit in.
Book Club Discussion: Building God's Kingdom
It’s Monday, so today we continue our discussion on NT Wright’s fascinating book “Surprised by Hope,” in which the Bishop of Durham argues that Christian eschatology should focus less on life after death and more on “life after life after death” - the bodily resurrection of the dead and the reign of Jesus in the redeemed creation.
(The First Ever) Finish-The-Sentence Friday
Let's try something new. Finish the following sentence: "If I could travel through time and give my sixteen-year-old self some advice, it would be…"
Are we worthy of God’s love?
The other day I came across a beautiful poem called “God Would Kneel Down” by St. Francis of Assisi. What struck me about this poem was the reverence with which the author speaks of both God and humanity.
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