A few Catholic oriented items here at IM, freely borrowing from other blogs.

I’m going to surprise a lot of you with an interview post with Catholic blogger Bryan Cross, writer at Principium Unitatis. I’ve often been a bit snarky to Bryan, but when it comes to the subject of Christian unity, he’s really an eloquent and optimistic Catholic voice. Read his blog bio and you’ll see he’s had a fascinating journey. I’ll be asking him questions about the recent Anglican arrangement and the overall issue of Christian unity.

Bryan’s blog was the original source for some excellent lectures by Ave Maria University professor Dr. Lawrence Feingold. His current collection are portraits of the Early Church Fathers. Dr. Feingold is an outstanding teacher, whether you agree with him or not. The entire series on The Church and Israel is outstanding Catholic teaching.

Fr. Walter Barron has a review of Alastair McGrath’s Christianity’s Dangerous Idea and a discussion of the issue of Church authority. [Continue reading]

Sojourners is running a two-part interview with Soong-Chan Rah, author of The Next Evangelicalism.

If you missed it, some Covenant Presbyterian Church members have joined the conversation at the link about church architecture. Remember that you can subscribe to comments as a separate feed here at IM.

I made 900 Facebook friends today. If you want to be FB friends or follow me on Twitter, there are icons for those links at the bottom of the page. You can also subscribe to the podcast via iTunes as well. (A note to people who invite me to things like “Mafia wars.” No offense, but get a copy of “Don’t Waste Your Life” and read it.)

I have returned to school after more than a month off. This will really mess with my daily work schedule for a while. The daily priorities are 1) prayer 2) sermon prep 3) class prep 4) work on the book 5) blogging and 6) podcasting. So you will probably see a bit less content than I’ve cranked out since July. I haven’t touched the book in a week, so I really need to get back in the groove.

A lot happening spiritually with my ministry and co-workers. Pray for us. “Be not afraid,” Jesus said. “Cast your cares” on the Lord is a special word for those who are supposed to “care.” You can’t “care” for what is in God’s hands! Know your place and know His Fatherly strength.

And here’s Hayley Westenra, the most beautiful voice in New Zealand, singing “May It Be” from Lord of the Rings. Enjoy the beauty.

No. I’m not looking to change jobs. I have a friend I want to recommend.

If you are interested in more information about my friend, write me at michael@internetmonk.com and I will mail current resumes, links to recent sermons and his blog posts.

Please pray for my friend and his family. I’d love to say a lot more, but I hope this will be helpful.

UPDATE: Wafergate seems to have been resolved.

If you are the PM of Canada, don’t appear to pocket the host.

More on this story at the Holy Post.

My last post has stirred up some, uh….”interesting” commentary and email. To the point: in the view of some people, evangelism of teenagers is abusive and unethical. Since I’m a preacher who preaches the Gospel to teenagers with an appeal for their conversion, I’m engaged in abusive behavior.

This especially seems to to apply, to some, to the cases of those who are stated unbelievers or atheists. If I know that is their position, then to evangelize at all is to be disrespectful and manipulative. These young people should not have to hear Christian appeals for conversion and it is entirely appropriate to see this kind of activity as unethical pressure tactics on those least able to resist.

These claims hit close to home. I’ve devoted most of my life to evangelizing students, and I am not bashful about it. That said, I am just as passionate to reject all unethical methods, pressure tactics and manipulation. Scripture, in fact, commands me to abandon and oppose any underhanded or unethical use of the Gospel. I am told to serve and love others in Jesus’ name, and to proclaim/teach the Gospel with faith and submission to Christ at the center. I am given specific instructions to honor God in evangelism by leaving matters of the heart and conscience to him. My calling is to love, communicate and relate. I am an incarnational proclaimer of the Good News. I can’t manipulate and represent Jesus. I also can’t equivocate and represent Jesus. [Continue reading]

St. Basil the Great had the right idea.

At such a time, then, there is need of great effort and diligence that the Churches may in some way be benefited. It is an advantage that parts hitherto severed should be united. Union would be effected if we were willing to accommodate ourselves to the weaker, where we can do so without injury to souls; since, then, many mouths are open against the Holy Spirit, and many tongues whetted to blasphemy against Him, we implore you, as far as in you lies, to reduce the blasphemers to a small number, and to receive into communion all who do not assert the Holy Spirit to be a creature, that the blasphemers may be left alone, and may either be ashamed and return to the truth, or, if they abide in their error, may cease to have any importance from the smallness of their numbers.

Let us then seek no more than this, but propose to all the brethren, who are willing to join us, the Nicene Creed. If they assent to that, let us further require that the Holy Spirit ought not to be called a creature, nor any of those who say so be received into communion. I do not think that we ought to insist upon anything beyond this. For I am convinced that by longer communication and mutual experience without strife, if anything more requires to be added by way of explanation, the Lord Who works all things together for good for them that love Him, will grant it.

-St. Basil the Great, Letter 113: To the Presbyters of Tarsus

UPDATE: Trevin Wax posts this Phillip Yancey/Karl Barth quote.

“I have learned one absolute principle in calculating God’s presence or absence, and that is that I cannot. God, invisible, sovereign, who according to the psalmist “does whatever pleases him,” sets the terms of the relationship. As the theologian Karl Barth insisted so fiercely, God is free: free to reveal himself or conceal himself, to intervene or not intervene, to work within nature or outside it, to rule over the world or even to be despised and rejected by the world, to display himself or limit himself. Our own human freedom derives from a God who cherishes freedom.

“I cannot control such a God. At best I can put myself in the proper frame to meet him. I can confess sin, remove hindrances, purify my life, wait expectantly, and – perhaps hardest of all – seek solitude and silence. I offer no guaranteed method to obtain God’s presence, for God alone governs that.”

- Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God, pg. 121

HT to Bill Kinnon for this fine quote from John Armstrong.

The mystic Catholic, Thomas Merton, once noted that: “If you find God with great ease, perhaps it is not God that you have found.”

This statement underscores one of the deepest problems I have encountered over the course of my own life. I settled for thinking that I knew God, or God’s will or purpose, when I am quite sure that I was overconfident many times. The ease with which I spoke, and the ease with which I processed this knowledge, should have warned me but I was too dull oft times.

Theologians rightly speak of the deus absconditus, or of the God who is absconds, or is absent. The Psalmist knew this reality and do did Mother Teresa. Great mystics have known it and so have ordinary saints. Luther and Calvin knew it too. Just when we think we have God, or we have figured him out, he is absent from us again. He will be sought but finding is on his terms. He will be known, but not because we are so wise. His grace is for all, but not all find it unless they seek it. Ours is an age for “easy” this and that. Knowing God will never fit into the category of something called “easy.”

I’ll dedicate this to all those folks who don’t get it when I say I’m rediscovering what I believe about the God I know in Jesus.

UPDATE: A lurker suggests that Driscoll or his researcher were reading Challies’ post on The Shack. Decide for yourself.

Just one note: Driscoll seems unaware of the book’s opening chapters and the dilemma that lies at the center of the plot. It is not a book about a conversation with the Trinity. It is a book about reconciliation to something horrible that has happened in the life of a man who believes in the Trinitarian God.

Here’s the blurb from the publisher’s website:

Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever.

Odd omission.

John Armstrong questions the concept of Christian hedonism, and interestingly, is immediately told that conversation shouldn’t happen. Sound familiar to anyone?

BTW- I heard the confrontation of Colson’s talk on “Duty” by Piper that Armstrong refers to. It was at a Ligonier Conference years ago. The room went into shock at Piper calling out Colson, and at a Q & A session later, R.C. had to sooth a booing section of the crowd. I mention that to say that John Piper isn’t adverse to confrontation. Odd that those who identify strongly as his theological team regularly call out anyone critical of Piper as being needlessly divisive in the reformed faith. I’m sure that will all be clear if I just think about it enough. [Continue reading]