Letters to a Godson

When I began a doctoral degree in New Testament context a couple years ago, I never would have guessed my thesis topic would end up focusing on the role of “Letter Writing” in spiritual formation. Well, here I am reading all kinds of ancient, medieval and contemporary letter correspondences, and really loving it!  Along the way … More Letters to a Godson

A Case for a Cruciform Justice

It seems hardly necessary to make an argument for the universally experienced suffering and injustice prevalent in the world. If pain really is God’s “megaphone to rouse a deaf world”, as C. S. Lewis argued, then the message is deafeningly clear and God might consider turning the volume down a bit. What then is the church’s appropriate response to the world’s injustice and suffering? … More A Case for a Cruciform Justice

QUOTABLES: Adventurous Colony in a Society of Unbelief

“The church exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief. As a society of unbelief, Western culture is devoid of a sense of journey, of adventure, because it lacks belief in much more than the cultivation of an ever-shrinking horizon of self-preservation and self-expression . . . . When we … More QUOTABLES: Adventurous Colony in a Society of Unbelief

Some Key Influences

We’re all like lumps of clay that over time have been shaped and molded by dozens of influential hands — and experiences and words and ideas and moments and conversations and books and dreams and successes and failures — but mostly people. I am a firm believer in learning from people of different persuasions, and … More Some Key Influences

Resident Aliens 2

Chapter 2 of “Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony” by Hauerwas & Willimon engages the issue of the church’s engagement with the powers-that-be.  In typical Hauerwasian fashion, they suggest the church focus it’s energy on being the church — a distinct, alien tribe that remains faithful to it’s own life shaped by in the … More Resident Aliens 2

Resident Aliens 1

Already 21 years old, “Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony” is a little book by the Duke duo Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon that purports to offer “a provocative Christian assessment of culture and ministry for people who know that something is wrong.”  Two decades later, something is still wrong.  This book speaks powerfully … More Resident Aliens 1

Cruciform Justice 9: Living Out of Control

As we mentioned earlier, the humanistic optimism that drives the prominent secular theories of government acts as if human beings control the course of history. This is a responsibility too large for any human being and inevitably stirs up within them an overbearing anxiety, fear and despair. Many have therefore painted themselves into a Darwinian … More Cruciform Justice 9: Living Out of Control

ESSAY: The Church as God’s New Language

Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed is in the middle of a provocative discussion on the fuller message of the “Kingdom Gospel” found by reading the Bible as Story over and against the more popular, privatized gospel boiled down to a few abstract propositional truths pertaining to individual salvation.  McKnight pushes us to a larger, more … More ESSAY: The Church as God’s New Language