It’s my third go around on my favorite radio/podcast program.

We talked about Halloween, the Election and House, M.D.

If SBE isn’t on your itunes, you’re missing one of the best treats on the web.

Thanks to Erik, Kathy and Steve for a great time.

There was a moment in last week’s House, M.D. that really reached me. (As this show often does. Its portrayal of the human soul is consistently remarkable.)

House has been forced to deliver a eulogy at the funeral of his father, whom he not only hated, but has concluded is not his biological parent. House begins to rip into his father’s faults in front of the gathered funeral congregation, acidly observing that if the test of a man is “how he treats those he has power over,” his father failed the test. His father, says House, was a tyrant over others, “incapable of admitting any point of view other than his own.”

And then, mid-sentence, House realizes that he’s describing himself. (Or it seems that’s what he realizes. You’ll have to watch the show. You’ll get no spoilers out of me.) He is a tyrant over those under him. He is incapable of admitting any point of view other than his own. [Continue reading]

Reading:

Jesus Wants To Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile by Rob Bell and Don Golden. A survey of the Bible’s message using the theme of the “New Exodus,” with lots of application to the current empire. Packaged in a rather distracting way, but plenty of good material in a relatively few pages. Good, not great.

The Church in the Making: Lumen Gentium, Christus Dominus, Orientalium Ecclesiarum by Richard R. Gaillardetz. Part of the seven volume series “Rediscovering Vatican II.” An extremely well written history and survey of the Vatican II documents on the church. Plenty to learn, and surprisingly inspiring. Many nuggets of exceptional prose and insight. I want to read more in this series. Outstanding. [Continue reading]

One of my biggest surprises this year was looking at the program for the Desiring God Ministries National Conference and seeing Dan Taylor as one of the speakers.

I love Dan Taylor. His book The Myth of Certainty is in my top ten books that have been personally helpful. I’ve reviewed the book here at IM, but here’s the short version: Taylor uses a fictional narrative about a moderate and thoughtful Bible professor who finds himself teaching at a roaring fundamentalist Bible college (not Bethel!) where he’s daily confronted with the pressure to believe far more than he does about far more than he believes anyone should be deadly certain about. In between the fictional narrative, Taylor examines the mythology of certainty in evangelicalism, particularly as it relates to evangelical Christianity. He concludes that a lack of certainty is, in many cases, a needed and Biblical virtue and excessive certainty is often just another name for arrogance excusing sin. [Continue reading]

“My theology is simply what I read in the Bible.”

Sure it is.

“What I believe and practice is simply what the Bible teaches and nothing else.”

Of course. What else could be simpler?

I’m sure several of you won’t be surprised at all to learn that I meet with a pastoral counselor on a regular basis. It’s one of the best things I do. We talk about all sorts of things, and we’ve developed a very beneficial dialog around many of the the issues that are part of a Jesus shaped spirituality. [Continue reading]

A friend of mine recently said, “It sure seems that you’ve gone through a lot of phases during your time as a blogger.”

I’m sure it seems that way, but most of that is an illusion of the blogging life. The people around me wouldn’t have any major change in my beliefs to report since I abandoned Calvinism a few years ago.

I’m not one of those communicators who preaches and teaches my blog. Quite the opposite. I preach assigned texts and topics. I teach Bible survey and stay with the syllabus. If I’m thinking through some major shift in my eschatology or how I plan to live out the Gospel, you’d have to follow me to my blog to notice. You won’t hear about it around here in the real world. [Continue reading]

Mark Galli: Beyond Smells and Bells: The Wonder and Power of Christian Liturgy

Well….just go buy this book. I know you plan on buying some other book about things you already know, but you need this book, because it’s absolutely a 512 foot home run on the subject of liturgy in worship, and you know how we feel about liturgy around here. Liturgy needs some love these days, and Mark Galli’s Beyond Smells and Bells is the most helpful popular treatment of the subject for evangelical you can find on the shelves anywhere. [Continue reading]

Baseball fans: what are some of your thoughts and feelings as the new season begins? Best memories? Ironies? Tragedies?

Tomorrow at 1:05 EST, the Cincinnati Reds will take the field against the Philadelphia Phillies in Clearwater, Florida.

The long, dark winter of the soul will be over here in the Spencer household.

My life runs on three calendars. The first is the calendar of the ministry where I work, a school calendar full of breaks and beginnings, graduations and finals. I enjoy the academic calendar and the rhythm it provides for my life. If I had to give it up, I’d be sorry for all those lost opportunities to enjoy grace and sabbath.

The second calendar is the Christian year. If you read this site you know how I feel about that. My faith journey is formed around the time-keeping of the church’s way of marking time. No single thing has been more helpful to my own growth as a disciple and worship leader. I always know where I am with the people of God, and it’s always relevant, despite the fact that Baptists don’t understand it. (I’m kidding.)

The third calendar is the informal, but thoroughly religious and essential calendar of the baseball universe. [Continue reading]

It’s your Internet Monk and friend Dave, playing Presbyterians two weeks ago at First Presbyterian Church, London, Kentucky. I’ll be there again this Sunday.

UPDATE: I’ve written several things convincing myself to stay. Here’s one of my favorites: Thomas Merton and the Greener Grass That Wasn’t.

UPDATE II: Here’s another one: When Loving You is Killing Me.

I suppose every person in ministry is strongly tempted to quit from time to time. Not quit as in “send out a resume, start looking for a job” quit, but “walk out today” quit.

I’ve got a pastor friend who fought with his church for most of two decades about fundamental decisions about the church’s future. No one paid much attention, and one Sunday he preached what was on his heart (as we say in Southern Baptist land), closed his Bible and walked out the center aisle, out the front door, never to come back to that pulpit. He never regretted it, and he was satisfied he’d done the right thing.

I tend to believe he did, but most of the time I’ve entertained that same fantasy, I can’t say it would have been the right thing to do. I’ve known several ministers who quit on the spot (or close enough to it that it felt the same.) I can’t say they were doing the right thing. [Continue reading]

It is the tradition of this web site to hear my confessions, my struggles and my emotions. “Confessional” blogging on my part has touched hundreds of readers and convinced one or two that I am unfit to be in the ministry or even a professing Christian. So be it. This is what’s set on my table these days. I can’t explain it to you; all I can do is write and pray. Trusting God is hard. His ways are not my ways, and his ways are unthinkably difficult for me right now.

So if you don’t understand these kinds of posts, I’m sorry. My journey. My struggles. My questions. My wrestling with God.

My Bible classes watch a lot of the “Turner” Bible movies. I’ve seen them all so many times that I frequently get them confused with scripture itself. Their storylines and scripts are embedded in my mind and I have to, occasionally, sort things out.

For example, in the movie “David,” the prophet Nathan tells David, “God makes it difficult to be a king.” Scripture never says that (at least not that I know of) but it is appropriate for the story of David and his particular failures. [Continue reading]

UPDATE:: John H at Confessing Evangelical is the first one in the pool. Jeremy Bouma at Novus Lumen joins in as well. Alan Creech comes through with a Catholic Bible.

UPDATE II: Here is the exact Bible I used. (Pictures at the bottom.)

I wonder if any bloggers out there would like to devote a post (and maybe a picture) to a Bible that has a special place in your spiritual journey?

I became a Christian in 1972. The next year, I had the opportunity to take a very unusual class in a public school: Bible as Literature.

Our school was offering options in the English department. You made four choices for the year, from options as varied as creative writing, gothic lit and sci-fi. Seeing an opportunity to bring the Bible into the curriculum, Christians in the English department got two options of Bible as Literature on the menu. [Continue reading]

I don’t take many opportunities to write extended descriptions of the ministry where I serve. There are several reasons for that. I don’t want to involve my ministry in any of the controversies that might be part of this blog. But I hear people talk about their churches all day long, and I have a lot to say about our ministry as well. So in this piece, I talk a lot about where I live, minister and serve. I hope it’s clear that I am grateful most of all to God for all that I have experienced here.

In the Joel Osteen discussion, a couple of people accused me of being jealous- jealous of Joel Osteen’s success. I want to talk about that accusation.

This morning, our school chapel was visited by a Christian ministry that almost every IM reader knows well, at least by reputation. They visit us once a year, and distribute New Testaments to our students. The gentleman who spoke to our students described this ministry’s distinctive mission and vision: evangelism through Bible distribution. One hundred seventy of our students received the Bible as a gift.

This ministry has over 200,000 members, all laity and all volunteers. In fact, these members make the front line financial sacrifices to fund the ministry’s work, and then go into local churches once a year to ask for support. In our community, they literally go to the back door and stand with an offering plate to receive that support personally. As long as I have been involved with them, they have never called me or mailed me asking for money. [Continue reading]

UPDATE II: Ok. Plunge on ahead.

UPDATE: A number of memorable comments have appeared today, but none more entertaining than this one.

Really, it would be best to stop blogging. It’s the end of the road. Decision time. Carl’s devastating “fisk” has caused an eruption of cognitive dissonance. Deep down, you know the truth, but it’s too painful for you to act on, entrenched as you are. From this point on, for you it’s “Become Catholic or dissolve.”

Dissolve? What the…..

Carl Olson’s fisking of me today did something to me. It’s hard to describe exactly what, but I’m going to try. (And let me be sure to say that Olson’s piece was not a personal attack on me or offensive. He’s more than welcome to state his faith and use my post as fodder.) [Continue reading]

UPDATE: Carl Olson fisks this post. Just in case anyone missed it, I’m not trying to talk you people out of your Catholicism or tell you I’m glad I’m not a Catholic. James White’s blog is elsewhere. Comments are closed on this post. Mr. Olson can provide you the space to discuss this one, and I will not publish comments that appear on other IM posts.

I realize I send out some fairly confusing signals on the subject of Roman Catholicism. I hope this post, and one to follow, will provide some clarity and material for further discussion and exchanges.

1. On a scale of 1-10, ten being conversion to the RCC and 1 being fundamentalist opposition to the RCC as the Great Harlot of Babylon, where are you.

Hmmmm. This is interesting. I’ll never convert to the RCC for any reason I can currently anticipate, and I’ll always consider believers in Jesus who are part of the RCC to be my brothers and sisters in Christ. My post-evangelicalism is a recovery of much that I appreciate and affirm in Catholic spirituality and tradition. I read a lot of Catholic Biblical scholars, Thomas Merton is an important life mentor and I go on retreats at Catholic facilities. But……..I have some fairly profound differences on classic Catholic/Protestant issues, especially regarding authority, the sacraments and ecclesiology. Minus infant baptism and episcopacy, I’d probably be a pretty good Anglican. So let’s say “7,” but leaning- permanently- to the Protestant side. (By the way, I’d put my current church at about 8

2. What’s your issue with church authority? [Continue reading]