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I’ve got two books to recommend this morning. Both would be helpful to small groups looking for topical resources for discussion and study.

The first book is Tom Davis’s Confessions of a Good Christian Guy, a book that rings the bell for one of my favorite topics: transparency and vulnerability in Christian community.

I have a lot of books for Christian men and one of my all time favorites is When Men Think Private Thoughts by Gordon Macdonald. Written in the aftermath of his own episode of brokenness and public humiliation as a minister, husband and Christian leader, Macdonald wrote one of his best books, full of honest insight from someone who had come to know his own soul and the mercy of God through pain, loss and repentance. Continue Reading »

If you are in the post-evangelical wilderness, this is a must read. No review can tell you how encouraged you’ll be by this story.

I’ve got a lot of brief book reviews to write in the next few weeks to catch up after sabbatical, but I don’t want to pass up recommending an exceptional wonder of a book written by Barbara Brown Taylor called Leaving Church.

Taylor is one of the finest preachers/writers I’ve ever heard/read. Her prose is beautiful. It flows with verbal energy and magical descriptions. You will rarely read a more skillful artist with language than Taylor. Her collections of sermons show us an elegant prose writer-preacher with few peers. If you are a writer prone to the sin of envy, you’ll sin boldly with this book around.

So what’s with Leaving Church? That’s what I said when I first heard of the book. The story is simple. After years of conversion and gradually being drawn into the Episcopal ministry, Taylor was ordained and eventually become priest at a historic parish outside of Atlanta.

After 5 and a half years of fruitful, effective ministry, Taylor left the pastorate to teach religion at a small college, and has never returned to the church except as an occasional guest preacher. Continue Reading »

“It [the Church] firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart ‘into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.” Pope Eugene IV, Cantate Domino

Catechism of the Catholic Church 847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.” Continue Reading »

UPDATE: A Catholic Response.

C. Michael Patton from The Theology Program and Reclaiming the Mind Ministries has a wonderful series going at Parchment and Pen defending the Protestant stand on Sola Scriptura.

Today’s episode deals with the basis for claiming the canon of scripture- your Bible’s table of contents- is inspired, even though that list is not part of scripture itself.

He does a wonderful job. Read and add this to your resources for understanding this basic issue of separation between Protestants and Roman Catholics/Orthodox.

Sola Scriptura Part One
Sola Scriptura Part Two
Sola Scriptura Part Three
Sola Scriptura Part Four
Sola Scriptura Part Five
Sola Scriptura Part Six

Michael is a gifted teacher who makes theology understandable and has a real gift with graphical presentation.

Read all these posts and add the future posts in the series. (And here’s N.T. Wright on sola scriptura.)

For starters, let’s have a full accounting of my participation in the Great Translation Circus.

Right behind me is the Thompson Chain Reference KJV that I used in preaching from high school up into college.

Not too far from it is a shelf where I have many of the Bibles I’ve used in my adult life. There’s a Thompson New King James, a nice red leather NASB original, a well worn NIV single column that I used for many years, two ESVs (one of which I am giving away), an NRSV Access Study Bible that I really like and several gift Bibles, including the RSV I received at my ordination.

In my classroom I have my old high school Living Bible, a worn out NASB paperback and a completely disassembled first edition NIV Study Bible. Love those notes. Continue Reading »

Cornerstone 08 reflections; What God’s shown me on my sabbatical; Dispatches from the Evangelical Wilderness Seminar Part 1

Intro music by Rhodes.
Closing music by Randy Stonehill.

You all need to buy “The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church” and more Reformation theology gifts from New Reformation Press.

 

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Technically my sabbatical isn’t over for another week, and I won’t be working for several more weeks, but I am eager to start writing some of my reflections on this time in my life.

On the last day of Cornerstone, as I finished my last seminar on “Transparency and Vulnerability In Community,” a woman was waiting to talk to me with several other questioners. I spoke with each one, and then came to her.

She began talking about her husband and, to be brief and to the point, she was basically talking about me.

His church and ministry experiences, his feelings and responses, what he was doing to cope….it was all very familiar.

She was deeply concerned for him, and wanted to know what to do. Continue Reading »

UPDATE: Sunday, July 6. I’m home. Made it back to Louisville Saturday night and then on to southeastern Kentucky Sunday a.m. I have a week of official sabbatical left, but I’m actually off work until the middle of August. So I’ll be blogging quite a bit both here and at JSS. Expect a podcast soon and some of my reflections on sabbatical experiences.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed for me during this time of my life. God has been gracious to me, and I’m appreciating his love for me in new and deeply relevant ways. Continue Reading »

Patrick Kyle is a good friend of this website and I’ve asked him to share the exciting news of the Lutheran return to the airwaves with Issues, Etc. and much more. Here’s Partrick:

Among Lutherans there is a long running half joke about how we are always twenty five years behind the times . If you are familiar with the Lutheran church, especially the more conservative Synods, you understand why I say this statement is only half joking. We are pretty insular. This is both good and bad. It is good in that we have, for the most part, avoided some of the excesses and fads that have raged across evangelicalism. The down side is that the Lutherans have not participated much in the Churches’ conversation at large. The Lutheran church is heir to many great treasures of the Reformation that we have been content to keep amongst ourselves. No longer. Continue Reading »

Evangelicalism’s “Only Child” Syndrome and more thoughts on the George Carlin post.

Intro music by Rhodes.

You all need to buy “The Gospel for Those Broken by the Church” and more Reformation theology gifts from New Reformation Press.

 

 Internet Monk Radio 101 [28:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1757)

I have a new post at Jesus Shaped Spirituality called “Jesus Says Cross the Line.”

I have all the stuff with me for a podcast, but it’s hard to do podcast production when you are on the road. I’m sorry to not get something out this week, and I’ll do my best, but this is one of the few weeks I’m not going home for a day. (Anyone want to do my laundry?)

The George Carlin post has generated more comments that I’ve chosen not to post than any post in IM history. It’s amazing. And I want to say a few things about it. Continue Reading »

It’s Thursday of “Baseball Week,” and I’m in a library getting some of my Cornerstone talks polished off before heading for central Ohio to meet my daughter and son-in-law. Sabbatical is certainly rushing by.

Yesterday’s day game gave me a really nice case of sunburned knees. Knees. It’s so much like my life to get sunburn in a weird place where all compassion will be swallowed up in laughter.

Every day should be dollar dog day. That’s hot dogs at the ball park for the uninitiated. The only thing better would be dime dog night, but I doubt if the hot dogs would be as good. Continue Reading »

Done. Thanks.

Comedians and those who knew the man discuss Carlin’s life and contribution.

When I heard that George Carlin had died, one of the first thoughts I had was how he had, in his own way, lived a life devoted to the “word,” i.e. the comedic word, and the truth, at least as Carlin saw it.

Carlin changed comedy and brought a massive amount of laughter into this world. Time magazine has a good recollection of Carlin’s contribution. I admired Carlin and relished his incredible insights into the nature of human existence. He made me laugh and he taught me a lot about how to think differently from the status quo. He was the embodiment of Dickinson’s advice to “tell it slant.” He’d recently been nominated- and will receive posthumously- the Mark Twain Award, and that’s an appropriate recognition. In every respect, Carlin was a worthy imitator and successor to Twain. In these safe and politically correct times, that’s worth an award. Continue Reading »

Here’s the current post at my new blog, and an example of what you will be reading there in the future.

Several days ago, I posted an invitation to discuss Jesus and Gas Prices on this blog. It’s a topic that, to a large extent, will reveal how much we really can engage our imagination with the concept of Jesus shaped discipleship.

For example, one evangelical has taken his particular view of rising gas prices and started a movement called “Pray at the Pump.” Somehow, the rise of gas prices is a sign of the end times and praying at the pump for God to lower prices will apparently prove that he’s in charge.

Of course, one wonders if it ever occurred to anyone that the inconvenience to the American lifestyle of mobility and affluence isn’t really something that God would respond to as an act of mercy. Most Americans are inconvenienced by gas prices because of the value they place on mobility and the decisions they’ve made about the kind of life they want to live, decisions made with the assumption of cheap gas in the background. Continue Reading »

One of the most popular methods used in Christian preaching and teaching today is taking a topic or text and presenting it as a list of principles.

I would like to briefly examine some of the “good” and “not so good” aspects of the practice of turning texts or topics into principles as the primary methodology for preaching.

What’s “Good” about the preaching of principles? Continue Reading »