March 28, 2008 by iMonk
Before getting into the substance of this essay, I want to mention how little I care for much of the terminology I’m going to use.
As a Christian humanist, there are two sources for my view of human beings: The image of God in creation, and the image of humanity in the incarnation/resurrection of Jesus. I am resistant and reluctant to speak of human beings through other identifiers, such as race or sexual preference. For example, I don’t believe terms such as “black” or “gay” accurately communicate what is most important about a human being.
A person who is sexually attracted to the same gender or has participated in sexual activities with the same gender is exactly what such sentences imply. It is wrong to use terms that imply those labeled are defined by their actions or feelings. It is a particularly postmodern twist to assert that someone’s identity should come from a label assigned by a group. [Continue reading]
March 27, 2008 by iMonk
One of the communicators and writers that has really fed my mind and soul this year is Ian Cron, founding pastor of Trinity Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. Ian is a unique and gifted person who incorporates so much of what I am attracted to when I talk about a “Happy Enough Protestant” and a “Post-Evangelical” journey. His podcasted sermons are just tremendous, but are only available on site for a couple of weeks. I’ve reviewed his book Chasing Francis and recommend it as well.
Ian comes at you from a lot of places. He’s not going to be forced into the box of anyone’s convenient theological labels very easily. Some of our TR friends will find his list of influences too far beyond the predictable for them, but many of you will be inspired to look into how Ian brings it all together in his preaching and church. I believe Ian is showing many of us the way to bring a lot of things together that have many of us have been told should be kept apart.
I’m extremely honored to have someone I have come to respect as a mentor and guide on board for the IM Interview: Ian Morgan Cron. I hope he quickly becomes part of the journey of many IM readers. [Continue reading]
March 26, 2008 by iMonk
Hmmmm….I don’t remember what I was talking about.
You all need to buy “The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church” and more Reformation theology gifts from New Reformation Press.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
March 25, 2008 by iMonk
I would like to invite Internet Monk readers to write a brief response to this post. I am particularly interested in what makes you a “happy enough” Protestant. (Please read the post and get the idea first.) Your response should be expressed in the spirit of this post. If they are short, put them in the comment thread. If they are longer, well written and well edited, email them to me and I may post some of them as IM posts in this series.
Because I’ve been wrestling with Protestant/Catholic issues throughout this past year, I receive a lot of email from those who have moved outside of their lifelong evangelicalism and somewhere within sight of the catholic tradition, if not the Roman Catholic church.
Some of that mail takes me to blogs and the writing of people who are in a tortured state of mind and heart. Some are ministers strongly drawn to Roman Catholicism. They have read Hahn and Howard. They are listening to The Coming Home Network on EWTN. They are tired of evangelicalism’s circus atmosphere, its deficits and its many problems.
The unity, antiquity and beauty of Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy stand in stark contrast to the divisions, innovations and shallowness of evangelicalism. I have no problem understanding this attraction. It seems that Luther made a terrible mistake, and every person who “goes home” can take satisfaction in healing that historically disastrous and unnecessary rift. [Continue reading]
March 25, 2008 by iMonk
Podcast 39 Movies about Jesus: Are they useful in apologetics and evangelism?
The podcast website is Coffee Cup Apologetics.
All the episodes of Coffee Cup Apologetics are now on iTunes. Go to iTunes and search for “Apologetics.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
March 24, 2008 by iMonk
Despite the fact the the pedigree committee has recently met and found me a Barthian mutt, I am a Southern Baptist. Classic Southern Baptist fundamentalism has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember.
I want to open up a discussion on one theological and experiential aspect of that heritage that I no longer embrace: the belief that conversion includes a definite and discernible subjective experience.
In the typical Southern Baptist sermon, a lost person is invited to come forward and “get saved.” “Getting saved” means, of course, to become a Christian, but it’s expressed in various terms, such as to “accept Christ,” or to “pray to receive Christ” or to “ask Jesus into your heart.” In many sermons, this is coupled with other statements that promise definite, discernible subjective experience. [Continue reading]
March 24, 2008 by iMonk
In my preaching to students from all over the world and many different backgrounds, I am always looking for shorthand ways to communicate the Bible’s message.
For example, I’ve taught my students over the years to say “He (Jesus) lived a perfect life for us, and died a perfect death in our place.” I use this sentence over and over, hoping the Holy Spirit will use it to implant the essence of the Gospel into their memories and hearts.
I routinely talk about the Christian story as “Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost,” using these four holidays as a way to talk about the major points of the New Testament message. We are invited into each one of these stories, often on several levels.
Recently, I’ve been using another shorthand reference that seems to be effective. In characterizing spiritual beliefs, I talk about “three stories.” [Continue reading]
March 23, 2008 by iMonk
“I am on a post-evangelical journey, discovering what it means to be vitally connected to Jesus.”
A truly prominent, not-post anything blogger has put forward the following theory:
Those who use the prefix “post” to describe themselves are claiming to be smarter than those who don’t.
Example: A “post-modernist” is saying “I used to be mired in the darkness of modernism, but now, through my superior intellect, I have arisen from the tomb of modernism and ascended to the higher plane of post-modernism.”
Or: A post-conservative is saying “Once I lived in the dark swamps of conservatism, but now I’ve finally used my brains and looked at what Neanderthals inhabit conservatism. I’ve packed my bags and left for the sunshine and springtime of post-conservatism.” [Continue reading]
March 21, 2008 by iMonk
Walking through the faculty dining hall where I work, I heard someone use the phrase “freedom in worship.”
It occurred to me that I’ve heard that phrase in just about every evangelical setting I’ve ever been part of, and I’ve used it a lot myself.
As a teenage Christian, I joined with thousands of others insisting that “freedom in worship” was the right of the “Jesus Revolution” generation.
As a youth minister, I was convinced that “freedom in worship” was necessary to keep young people interested in the church.
As a charismatic, I believed that “freedom in worship” was the best evidence of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. [Continue reading]
March 20, 2008 by iMonk
The word “commandment” is one every first century Jew understood. God had made Adam in such a way that he was responsible to obey God’s commandments. The Ten Commandments were the law of God for his covenant people, expounded and expanded in the books of the law from Exodus through Deuteronomy.
It was the law of God that measured Israel’s covenant obedience. In the Psalms, the righteous man lives by, meditates on and obeys the commandments of God. The prophets convicted Israel and Judah of their failure to obey the law of God.
The Pharisees sought to center the life of an oppressed nation around the commandments of God, fencing the commandments with traditions of exacting, comprehensive obedience.
Jesus had taught that he did not come to do away with the commandments of God, but to fulfill them in himself. His teaching took the externals of covenant obedience and revealed their internal reality and authority. [Continue reading]
March 18, 2008 by iMonk
John 13:12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
The popular book UnChristian tells a story that most of us who work with young people already know: most young people in late high school and beyond have several highly negative views of Christianity. Growing up in a Christian home, attending church youth groups or campus ministries does a bit to temper this, but significant numbers of young people with these experiences in two have also concluded that Christians are shallow, narrow, over politicized, pushy, judgmental, specifically anti-homosexual and zealous for conversion.
These characteristics seem exaggerated, but unfortunately, they are often accurate. Many of those young people have experienced, painfully and personally, the truth that Christians take nothing quite so lightly as they do Jesus’ simple words “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” [Continue reading]
March 17, 2008 by iMonk
The Gospel According to John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”
John’s account of the washing of the disciples’ feet is an important part of the Christian celebration of Holy Week. No more beautiful picture of the Gospel can be found anywhere in the Bible. Jesus acts out the profound truths of Philippians 2, where God becomes a servant, even to death on a cross.
No one disputes that the washing of the disciples’ feet is a picture of the work of God in Christ. Here is the forgiveness of God, the justification of sinful human beings, regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit and sanctification by grace. [Continue reading]
March 15, 2008 by iMonk
Podcast 38 Movie recommendation, Keller on Hell and Keep It Simple.
The podcast website is Coffee Cup Apologetics.
All the episodes of Coffee Cup Apologetics are now on iTunes. Go to iTunes and search for “Apologetics.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
March 14, 2008 by iMonk
Book recommendations. Evangelicals don’t know where to stop. Reflections on pastoring 20 years ago.
Robert Alter: The Book of Psalms
Fleming Rutledge: Romans
You all need to buy “The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church” and more Reformation theology gifts from New Reformation Press.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
March 14, 2008 by iMonk
I’ve written on this subject in another essay: When Loving You Is Killing Me: Thoughts on the Small Church Pastorate. After almost three years, I’m in a slightly different place with this story. Less bitter. More aware of my own failures.
Twenty years ago, I became a pastor. I’d wanted to be a pastor since I was a teenager. By God’s providence and my own choice, I spent my career up to that point as a youth minister and associate minister. Throughout those years, I wanted to be a pastor, and it often caused me a great deal of frustration that I wasn’t a pastor.
Then, in 1988, I received a call from a church in the Louisville area to be their pastor. The interview and prospect process went wonderfully, and I was affirmed with an almost unanimous vote. There was never a point in my life when I was happier, when my hopes were higher or I was more certain that I was on the right track.
Four years later, I sat in the sanctuary of that church and prayed to God one of those prayers you always remember: “Lord, I’ll go anywhere and do anything, if you’ll just get me out of here.” I was miserable and couldn’t see how I could continue another year. [Continue reading]
