Tag Archives: Emergent
The Gluten-Free Church: A Eucharistic Manifesto
It has become almost liturgical in most American churches that see themselves as middling to highly sacramental in their worship practice. Yet after a few years of hearing the following line uttered by the celebrant presiding at the communion table I still get a bit annoyed:
“For those of you in need of a Gluten-Free option – just raise your hand and we will come to you.”
There are variations … There’s more to read here.
The future of the Church is the future of the seminary: looking through the correct end of the telescope
There have been a recent spate of posts in the media and blogosphere trying to get at the so-called “Future of Seminary Education”. The web portal Patheos.com has sponsored a large online symposium addressing the question that continues to grow.
As a seminary graduate, faculty member at a few seminaries mentioned in the discussions as well as the Associate Dean of a seminary that is trying to see what the … There’s more to read here.
iPod after 10 years: on the 10th anniversary of the decade’s most seismic technological shift and what it says about the state of theology today
The next few weeks will be focused in the news cycles and blogosphere on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Already the questions about where we have come from since this event and where we are going is filling the web and the airwaves.
Yet in the midst of this important season of reflection, another 10 year anniversary is upon us that also deserves some critical reflection.
This October … There’s more to read here.
Third Verse Generation: the turning of the tide is pulling the old personalities away
I just returned from a wonderful intergenerational gathering of creatives: film makers, poets, studio artists, dancers and choreographers, novelists, essayists, apologists, working stage actors and directors, pastors and even some theologians in the mix. People were at turns extroverted to nominally passionate, distantly to distinctly vintage and pseudo to suburbanly Christian trending from high to low to no church. During the week together new friendships were forged, people who ‘liked’ status updates … There’s more to read here.
Pastor/Professor seeking Church – applications are now being accepted
Lately I am in a slump regarding the local church. I have been a pastor in a few different congregations and attended a number of churches in the US, UK and Europe. I have had peek experiences and cringe worthy ones. True, the call of the church is bigger than my experience and needs. True, the marks of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church permeate the momentary concerns of … There’s more to read here.
Emergent vs. Progressive: Phyllis Tickle, WB Yeats, Toad the Wet Sprocket and learning to let go
Last year I published a book entitled Freedom of the Self which was essentially an extended meditation on missional and emergent theology in light of kenosis. The book gets into areas of Continental philosophy as well and is one of those arguments in theology that often casts you as a radical, heretic, apostate or worse. One of the points I tried to make in the book is that the … There’s more to read here.
“Love Wins” the blogosphere – thoughts on Rob Bell, universalism, and Christian cyber-fights
Either you only follow tweets for TMZ.com or ESPN Sportscenter or live under a rock away from the din and clang of the blogosphere if you haven’t heard the rumblings about Rob Bell’s upcoming book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (HarperOne, 2011) which will hit bookstores on March 29th. For those following the flurry of activity, the basic issue … There’s more to read here.
MTV’s Skins: where teens are both consumers and products in America’s increased tolerance for child porn
As a theologian who works in areas of media culture and youth ministry education, it should come as no surprise that I have had a number of people encouraging me to comment on the latest MTV program Skins. For those not familiar with this latest attempt by MTV at capturing the coveted teen viewing market, Skins is a scripted TV show that first aired in the UK and … There’s more to read here.
top ten albums of the decade – a long ode to 9/11
Where were you on September 11th, 2001?
As for me, I was nine hours ahead of my family and friends in Seattle as I was finishing a day of work. Sitting in my office in the Divinity faculty at the University of Glasgow, I received a phone call from Diana saying that “something was happening in New York” and that I should log onto the computer. An hour later I … There’s more to read here.
Top Ten Albums of 2010 – a season of light and a season of darkness
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” So wrote Charles Dickens in the opening line to The Tale of Two Cities. And yet this is only the beginning. As the rest of the sentence continues:
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of
