“Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of “separation from the world” that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion….I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

-Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
[Continue reading]

I have been in a lot of debates about the current worship and church revolution known as the seeker-sensitive, Purpose-Driven church. I’ve stated my case, taken on the other side, and come back to argue the same issues again and again. Today, I felt as exhausted with this discussion as a person could feel.

So I wrote. I wrote my mind, and my emotions and my heart. I may be totally wrong. I may be more wrong than right. I may be somewhere on the path to truth. Only God knows. But here is my manifesto. My personal statement of where I stand, and will keep standing.

I don’t mean to offend, but this has become a highly personal issue; a matter of WHO I AM, and who I will be remembered for being. Read with the understanding that this is the hill I’ve decided to live on, preach on and fight on if need be.
[Continue reading]

My uncles are almost gone.

Uncle Charlie’s cancer has returned. My Uncle Joe is nearly blind. My dad’s last brother no longer knows anyone, and you’d never know he was once the seemingly indestructible pastor of my youth. Slowly, they are growing older. Too rapidly, they are going away.
[Continue reading]

One of the axioms of my critique of evangelicalism is this: methodology creates theology. By this I mean that when evangelicals have adopted particular methods, such as the evangelistic sales pitch or the powerpoint designed sermon, they will soon develop an accompanying theology, generally morphed in the direction of justifying and spiritualizing what they are doing. Therefore, the most pragmatic of churches are usually the most defensive and the least self-critical about their innovative methods. Churches who do this for decades have all the characteristics of the vault at Fort Knox.
[Continue reading]

One day last week, the government helicopters flew so low over our little village in eastern Kentucky, they shook the house. For most of half an hour, they buzzed around the three creeks that come together into a river right below us. They are looking for drugs, as they do every summer. This is part of life where I live. The drug war goes on all year long, because drugs- from marijuana patches to meth labs- are everywhere.
[Continue reading]