NOTE: A question appeared this evening about two Ky preachers. I made two factual errors in my answer. I have never met or heard the one I said I’d met and heard- completely thinking of someone else- and I said the other was dead, which was incorrect. Very bad error on my part, and my apologies to both and to the questioner. Easy to get mixed up when you’ve been out of circulation for 17+ years.

I’m done. Wow. Over 130 questions. Thanks to all who participated. This was great fun.

NOTE: Remember that you will see the “older comments” link at the bottom of the comments now.

I have been wanting to do an interview with an articulate and perceptive non-theist, and I have found one in Dr. Valerie Tarico, author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth.

What’s the point?

1. Evangelicals are constantly mischaracterizing non-theists. We need to listen and not preach.
2. There is some common ground of concern here for many of us, especially in the area of the ethical practices of religions that seek to convert.
3. We need to measure our responses against reality. Some of our typical talking points aren’t very impressive, so we might consider retiring or reworking them.
4. I want to build a bridge. Dr. Tarico is very open to that kind of dialog.

Dr. Valerie Tarico is a former evangelical who now describes herself as a spiritual nontheist. Her book The Dark Side distills her moral and rational critique of Evangelical teachings. Tarico is a graduate of Wheaton College. She obtained a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Iowa before completing postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington. She writes regularly for the Huffington Post and hosts a monthly series on SCAN TV Seattle: Moral Politics – Christianity in the Public Square. Last year Tarico founded www.WisdomCommons.org, an interactive website with quotes, stories and poems from around the world all promoting shared ethical values. Her essays about society, faith, and family life can be found at www.spaces.msn.com/awaypoint.

Dr. Tarico, welcome to the Internet Monk.com interview. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: A great intro to Luther is “Luther for Armchair Theologians” written by Steven Paulson, a speaker at the recent Mockingbird Conference. Also, New Reformation Press has lots of Lutheran theology resources at 10% off right now.

Apparently, by the email count, I’ve said something right.

Earlier in the day, Blue Raja and I had a discussion at the Boar’s Head Tavern about an earlier post where I quoted a Semi-Pelagian IM commenter. It’s discouraging to read that the atonement “opened the door” for us to now live a life worthy of the Kingdom of God. As I usually do, I expressed my despair at these kinds of “living to please God” systems of salvation and the blatant dishonesty they encourage and despair they induce.

So here was one of my replies.

The Gospel was never good news for me until Luther helped me see that life could continue to be tragic. I never worry about abundant life doing more than the occasional appearance in the present. I’m content with Christ in the shadowlands if he guarantees to raise me from the dead and bring me home.

This keeps coming back to me from readers who say it’s hit home with them, and where can they find more.

Before I talk about finding more of that, let me assure you that I responded to the Lutheran altar call a very long time ago. [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Baptists might want to read this post on semi-Pelagianism, and enjoy the Tom Petty video

If you’ve been paying attention, you should have noticed that the most interesting blog out in the Christian/Reformation blogosphere is Mockingbird, the front page to the world of Mockingbird Ministries. Dead on, provocative stuff with the strong scent of Luther’s Law/Gospel cookbook in every post.

In addition to being Lutheranized Anglicans, Mockingbird has a major connection to my current theological hero, Paul Zahl. I’ve been enjoying the blog and all the resources available at Mockingbird, and I believe we’re looking at the ground floor of something very important and significant: the beginnings of a significant voice that balances engagement of the culture at many levels- not just as fans, but as thoughtful communicators and observers- with Lutheran flavored Reformation Christianity.

I asked Mockingbird posse member David Zahl- yeah, that Zahl- to answer five questions and get all of the IM audience up to speed. (David will point out some resources at the web site. You MUST download and enjoy the 2009 Conference audio. Priceless talks and not the same old same old.)

I’m very honored to have David Zahl from Mockingbird Ministries here at the IM Interview today. [Continue reading]

Tim Challies recently reprinted an extended quote from Kevin DeYoung’s writing on the emerging/emergent church. I won’t reprint it here, but if the rest of the post is going to make any sense to you, go read it all.

When I first read this, it tipped my already leaning inclination to be highly annoyed at needless stereotyping and dividing of the Christian family by things that are neither significant nor truly divisive, but simply are the perceptions and caricatures of one team over another. We’ve come to the point where portraying emergent Christians as “useless idiots” is an approved form of bigotry, and it does positive harm. I posted at the BHT while I was steamed up, then decided to give DeYoung the benefit of the doubt, at least on this quote, and say he was simply having a little fun.

I’ll admit that DeYoung comes off like the witty kid who can make fun of the other kids without seeming to be all that mean, but the mean kids will find it hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

So turnabout is fair play, and perhaps a look in the mirror makes the point whatever way you want to take it: caricature, satire or humor. So courtesy of Adam Omelianchuk, author of one of the better explanations of why you don’t have to be a Calvinist to be a Christian, here’s the same passage, but with the gun sights aimed the other way. [Continue reading]

This week: Answers to suffering. Do pastors get a break? Discipleship and the Gospel

Support the IM sponsors: New Reformation Press. New teaching available. Emmaus Retreat Center. A great place for your next group or individual retreat. E3 Sudan is church planting and training pastors in the Sudan.

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Today’s iMonk Cafe open mic question may pertain more to preachers, but also to those who read sermons, hear them, read blogs, books, etc. Anyone who hears the Word handled.

Have you ever heard a text that was meant to proclaim the Gospel- the good news of what GOD has done- turned into LAW? What you had to do?

So here’s today’s question: “What are some examples you’ve heard or read of Good News Gospel texts in scripture being turned into lessons, examples, moralism, advice, demands, guilt trips, shouldas and ought tos, in other words, LAW?

Also, my occasional post at the Steve Brown, Etc guest room is up. It’s called “Sometimes I don’t like any of the answers.”

1) Many of you have, like me, found Andrew Marin’s ministry to be extremely helpful on the issue of building bridges between evangelicals and the GLBT community. Having met Andrew personally and watched him communicate with seminar audiences, I can only say that we should all do whatever we can to extend the ministry of Andrew and the Marin Foundation as far as possible. [Continue reading]

NOTE: Despite the fact that this post is law, you should still read it

I want to talk about a specific problem in preaching and teaching: the problem of preferring law over Gospel.

I consider the primary problem with preaching and teaching in my Southern Baptist tradition these days to be an obsession with (or addiction to?) preaching the “law.” To put it mildly, it’s brutal out there. In many churches and ministries, you’re getting clubbed into putty with the law and hearing slightly less Gospel than what you’d get in fifteen minutes of country music, all courtesy of a preacher who has no excuse not to know better.

I’m using the simple Lutheran “law/Gospel” division here: all of scripture is either what God commands/demands under penalty or what he promises/provides freely by grace. This is law and Gospel. “Do” or “Done.” Moses or Jesus. God the accountant older brother or God the Father of the Prodigal. Advice or announcement. Sinai or the cross. Threat or comfort. Blessing or curse. You do it or else. God did and praise.

If you get this, Luther said, you are a theologian even without the degree. So if you don’t know this, learn it, and if ou learn it, use it. Go to New Reformation Press and get you some Rod Rosenbladt or, if you’re up for it, the book by Walther. (Lutherans can make suggestions for the rest of us on this.) [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Pr. Cwirla has a follow-up post on worship at Higher Things.

I recently became aware of a youth ministry movement in the Lutheran Church: Missouri Synod called “Higher Things.” I was intrigued on several counts.

HT takes the best of the Lutheran tradition and makes it the substance of student conferences. Rather than hear what they would never hear at church, HT gives students the best of what they do hear at church, done with excellence.

No “big names” do the conferences. Gifted communicators who are all in local church ministry as pastors, etc.

There’s a distinctive denominational focus. Like that or not, the goal is the make better Lutheran Christians, not students who will abandon ship to find what they heard at the conference.

One of the most exciting concepts for me was the idea of a “spirituality toolbox,” made up of scripture, the Small Catechism (and the Confessions) and the Lutheran Hymnal. What would be involved in a “spirituality toolbox” in your tradition or mine? Is such a thing even possible?

Is HT an example of what could happen if generic evangelicalism had a more confessional identity and a sense of its own tradition? Is this one of the directions in youth ministry that we should consider if we want to actually prepare young leaders for our churches, rather than provide more reasons for students to abandon evangelicalism? [Continue reading]

6: 9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -Paul the Apostle, First Letter to the Corinthians

I’ve always been encouraged that there is so much discussion of the Gospel in the Christian blogosphere, but I’ve been disappointed where most of that discussion has focused. I’m sure there’s a great need to clarify the differences between Piper and Wright on the nature of justification, but I doubt that the church on the corner has many people walking in the doors who particularly care. (Oh, I know that the theologians among us can tell us why they should care, but the theological class has never suffered from a lack of confidence in the significance of their particular areas of interest, yours truly included.) [Continue reading]

I’m going to comment on three documents, and I don’t want to reproduce them here. All are available online. One is “A Post-Evangelical Manifesto” and can be found at Next Wave Magazine’s web site. It is written by Raffi Shahinian.

Another is “The Jesus Manifesto” written by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola. It can be found at its own web site, though the font is ridiculously tiny, and you may want to download the pdf at the bottom of the page.

Finally, the “Call To An Ancient Future Evangelicalism,” which was one of the last things to come from the ministry of Robert Webber.

I answered the question “What is a post evangelical?” here and here. [Continue reading]

I put forward the following DESCRIPTIVE and DIAGNOSTIC proposition, not to get up in someone’s face or assert superiority, but to understand things that are:

“It appears that the HIGHER the view of the church, the clergy and the administration of the sacraments (not the sacraments themselves, but the ADMINISTRATION of them), the LOWER the view and practice of church planting. Why is this? The great challenge to the mainline and Reformation churches is finding ways to understand and overcome this situation.”

I will administer assertively. I am NOT inviting a comparative sacramentalism debate. I am challenging churches whose ecclesiology is not “entrepreneurial” to assess and suggest how they can aggressively start new work that will become new church plants in the future. I will NOT post comments questioning the value of church plants. That is assumed.

I am particularly interested in how this situation is overcome in other contexts, such as in India or Africa.

I wrote this piece in December of last year, and it remains one of my favorite statements of why so many leave and what they are looking for on their journey. I know that for some of you right now, affirming the church is important, but you need to grow to see that every church isn’t your church and every experience isn’t like yours. Before you universalize in that typical pontifical evangelical way , just listen. Listen.

Dedicated to all of you on the same journey. Keep faith and keep going. You’re not alone.

It’s time for one of your favorite programs here at Internet Monk.com: “Secret, Terrible, Unspoken Thoughts…REVEALED!”

Today’s secret thought was uttered by a commenter in a recent discussion thread, but it’s the kind of terrible thought that lurks in the minds of many of you reading this post. What terrible, shameful, embarrassing secret thought am I referring to?

Frankly, I’m to the point where there isn’t that much a pastor/teacher is going to be able to say that I haven’t heard 100 times already.

I know, I know. Shameful. Can you believe there are people like that out there? Someone call the watchbloggers.

Well…..I’ve thought about his kind of statement a lot. I preach about 10-12 times a month, and have preached as often as 20 times a month at my current ministry. I’ve listened to thousands of hours of sermons on tape, mp3, cd. I’ve read sermons- thousands of them. I’m on both sides of the comment, both criminal and consumer. [Continue reading]