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Pre-retirement suburbanites tend to get the city newspaper. It has better news and sports. Retired suburbanites tend to get the local, suburban or city paper. It has obituaries of people they know.
Whatever your preference of newspaper, missional suburbanites should always get the local paper. It has local events, when and where bands play, news on book clubs, and any number of things that provide opportunities to jump into the culture and enjoy and love and serve.
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Alright, that was a really racy title. Two plugs. Hat Tip: Justin Taylor
Interesting four page interview with Bruce Ware, theologian at SBTS, on the issue of free will. It's PDF, and it starts on page 4.
You can get a free copy of the forthcoming Sex and the Supremacy of Christ book if you will read the advanced copy in PDF, review it on your blog, and send Justin Taylor the link. My wife and I attended the conference in Minneapolis that is being transformed into this book. It was excellent. Go to JT's blog for more info.
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Baptist Press is releasing four articles on emerging young leaders. The first article, "Young Leaders: Back to the Future" is by Bob Reccord, the leader of the North American Mission Board of the SBC. It doesn't say much, but just by saying anything it says something. In other words, by Reccord putting his name on the first article gives weight to whatever comes next. Probably a good move in an all too political convention.
The second article, released today, is by Ed Stetzer: "Are 'Baptist' and 'Biblical' Synonyms?" Ed created NewChurches.com and works at NAMB.
A few quotes from Stetzer concerning young SBC leaders. My emphasis is in bold.
Theologically, they want “Baptist” and “biblical” to be synonyms. Missionally, they want Baptists to find new ways to reach our communities and the world.
[...]
The issues that are driving younger leaders away are not theological; they are cultural and missional. They are tired of being told that dress, worship style and traditional practices are biblical mandates when they are found neither in the Bible nor in the denomination’s faith statement.
[...]
In essence, we’re talking about their desire to be Christians who are living in a mission setting. As a result, their expressions of biblical worship use diverse music, preaching styles, dress, etc. It’s not about hipper clothes and cooler music. It’s about being God’s missionary where He has placed us now, not 50 or 500 years ago.
[...]
The conservative resurgence accomplished its purpose, and we have a group of young leaders committed to biblical theology and missional ministry. We must not now fight for our traditions as if they were our doctrine. They aren’t the same thing.
Younger leaders want to lead churches that are theologically sound and missionally committed. If they don’t find the SBC to be biblical and missional, they will find their own fellowships, and we will be the weaker for it. We had a theological resurgence, but young leaders want a missional resurgence, too. They want “Baptist” and “biblical” to be synonyms, and they want to get busy reaching the world!
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UPDATE: Dr. Draper has now changed to a blog hosted at Lifeway. Hopefully this will make comments possible, but not so much yet.
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Jimmy Draper, the head honcho over at SBC's Lifeway, is now blogging at Crosswalk.com (Lifeway). Here's a link to his blog. His first post is about blogging and about what he's learned in the Younger Leaders Dialogues (for emerging leaders in the SBC). In
the last paragraph he is very generous to my other site, Emerging SBC Leaders. UPDATE: Baptist Press has an article on it as well.
Dr. Draper knows that he doesn't fully understand us, but also says that we don't fully understand his generation either. Fair, and as he says, it's a good reason for us to talk. It's obvious he could care less about blogging, but realizes that blogging is a means to connect with us better. Good move. Unfortunately he's using a blogging system that doesn't allow comments (which he admits), but it's a start anyway.
A part of my concern with the current leadership of the SBC and older generations (if you will allow me to broadbrush), is that they usually think that for us this conversation is about our way of doing things vs. their way of doing things. I don't think this site or the concerns we raise are only about (or even primarily about) doing things differently. I think it's also about doing them better. But maybe that's our problem too, in that we find things older generations do as always inferior to our brilliance. We need to be very careful and willing to listen to see if we are overstating our case.
Is a desire to move from institutional to incarnational, or from monuments to a movement, about doing it different? Or doing it better? Are we only about being different to reach younger generations, or more missional to reach all generations better? I think these are some of the most important questions as we seek to see walls come down and find real understanding between us.
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iMonk has a good post on Steve Brown's response to John Piper and Christian Hedonism. Pretty good critique that Piperites need to hear.
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James 5:7-11, my passage for tomorrow morning's sermon, mentions Job in verse 11.
Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (ESV)
Now, I haven't studied the commentaries on Job recently, and I don't mean to speak authoritatively on the issues I raise, but I just want to make an interesting observation and ask of possibilities.
As an historical figure Job is curious. His life circumstances seem odd, not just because of The Satan and God and their strange and revealed cooperation, but also because of how the things that happen seem so artificial. For instance Job loses so much, but after it all he ends up exactly twice as much as before.
Because of this perceived artificiality (does God ever really double the pleasure like this in real life?), some have determined Job wasn't a real guy after all. His life is fiction in order to make a point, or something like that. Others put on their armor and defend Job as no less historical than their grand-mother. To say otherwise makes you a liberal.
The question that popped into my head tonight is, Why can't we see Job as a God-intended living metaphor? In other words, maybe we aren't supposed to see Job as "this life" literal (It could happen to you!), but metaphorical literal, like how God used Ezekiel. God cast Ezekiel in many different "living metaphor" roles in his ministry where he acted out in his life the realities of God's people and exile. He would rip a hole in his wall, or lay on his side for so many days, or eat a scrumptious feces loaf. In Ezekiel the living metaphor is obvious. In Job, could it be the same thing, but not so explicit?
As far as I know, I may be the only person to think this, or the last person to think of this. Whatever. But I think makes sense of Job because we don't have to wonder why God only did these things to one guy. Also, we can still believe that Job is a real guy which is important, I think. And in Job's life we see on display what God wants us to know about suffering and the riches of God, which we know are ultimately found in Christ.
A little thinking outloud, pre-sermon. Thanks for listening. I need sleep.
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Christianity Today has their 2005 Book Awards posted. Congrats to Scot McKnight for The Jesus Creed which won for "Christian Living" (I'm on chapter 3 right now). I'm also reading Gilead, which won for fiction. I started reading it after McKnight recommended it over at Jesus Creed blog.
(HT: Justin Taylor)
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Susan Srigley, author of Flannery O'Connor's Sacramental Art, in Mars Hill Audio Journal 73 quotes Flannery O'Connor in Mystery and Manners. This is from audio, so punctuation may not be exact.
If the writer believes that our life is and will remain essentially mysterious, if he looks upon us as beings existing in a created order to whose laws we freely respond, then what he sees on the surface will be of interest to him only as he can go through it into an experience of mystery itself. His kind of fiction will always be pushing its own limits outward towards the limits of mystery, because for this kind of writer the meaning of a story does not begin except at a depth where adequate motivation and adequate psychology and the various determinations have been exhausted. Such a writer will be interested in what we don't understand rather than what we do.
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The Touchstone Magazine weblog, Mere Comments, first linked to my blog back in early March. That's when I really started keeping up with their blog as well. Then they linked to my post responding to an article by Russ Moore later in March. Russ is a theologian at SBTS.
Now Russ Moore is one of the bloggers at Mere Comments. I think that significantly raises the stock of the blog. One of his first posts discusses a book on "manly dominion." Don't miss the last line.
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There's nothing like a poorly written, poorly researched article on the Emerging Church to wake me up in the morning. (Yeah it's almost noon, but I was watching Episode III at midnight).
I'm all for good critique of the EC, but this isn't it. "McLaren" only has one "c," by the way. And if one more person says "trying to define the Emerging Church is like trying to nail jello to a wall," I'm gonna scream. Find a new word picture, please! If there is anything that everyone should learn from the EC it's that creativity (instead of imitation) is a good thing.
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Danny Akin, President of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina (who once had an extended conversation with me while we peed in neighboring urinals in an SBTS bathroom, the topic was his seminary ethics class with Paige Patterson), is rightfully bemoaning the news that the stats show the conservative resurgence of the SBC has not made us more evangelistic.
Unfortunately, his answer to the problem will never fix anything. According to the ABP article on a talk from Akin, "In light of the downward evangelism trends, Akin urged North Carolina Baptists to become 'rabid dogs for evangelism' and defend 'the exclusivity of the gospel,' which contends that salvation comes only through Jesus."
While on the surface these things seem fine and all, I'm afraid it's just more of the same. Don't you think the SBC President's bus ride for the cause of gaining like a zillion new baptisms should do the trick? Maybe we need more SBC leaders to take more tours of the country in more unique vehicles. Like Mohler in a new H3 looking for "Deeper Theology by 2133" and Akin on a train with his campaign "Riding Along Till Marriages are Strong."
Sorry, I'm just a little frustrated. Akin's a great bathroom conversationalist, a passionate guy, and a man of God. But once the "rabid dogs" line doesn't really make a difference (like all the other lines before it) someone will just think of another, like "Let's crap the truth like a diarrhetic goose!" You get the picture.
Hey SBC'rs! How about this. Maybe we need to be more missional. Maybe our problem isn't that we should say the gospel more (and more like sick dogs), but that we should say it better. Not with better words, but in better ways, like people and families and churches that are incarnated in the culture. Healing and suffering and loving speaks! We have too long divorced the spoken gospel from the lived gospel in the SBC. That's the real key to fixing our statistical nightmare. And that means we should just admit our cute sayings and bolder thrusts and clever tricks and canned evangelism just isn't good enough and actually encourage our people to live out the gospel. We need to live redemptively, missionally, incarnationally.
Maybe we need more thoroughly missional people who live and breathe and eat the gospel. Maybe we need more people joining book clubs or bowling leagues or knitting classes and building relationships there that will lead to helping and serving and loving and redeeming.
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Another messy post full of new thoughts...
The theme of Story and storytelling colors so much of the emerging church. I think the missional church will focus on Story. The Bible isn't a random set of stand alone texts, but is essentially the Story of redemption, the Story of God, the Story of the Son of God, the Story of sin and salvation. However we say it, it is Story. And much of what God communicates to us is in the form of Story. Whether it's the parables of Jesus, or much of Old Testament narrative, or the early church in Acts, we get a lot of what God wants us to know from the Story, not just the "bullet points of faith."
So the missional church should be a storytelling community, where we take God's Story and retell it.
But one of the things I've noticed in the books by some in the EC is that when Story or storytelling is explained, it's often in the context of finding creative ways to tell the Story through experience. But this isn't typically explained as the personal experience of living it. It is the experience of imitating it. So we may create the retelling of a healing story of Jesus by having some people be the blind and others the crippled, and one is Jesus. Or we may use some sort of art to experience the Story.
I love art, and I do think it's an important part of life and God's community. I'm not saying it doesn't have an important place. But I wonder if there is an overemphasis on the creativity that aids the experience of the Story. I wonder if the missional church wouldn't be better served through the plain telling of the Story with exhortations to live it, and let the Holy Spirit drive it home as we do it. In other words, we could blindfold ourselves to see how it feels to be healed of blindness. Or we could serve a blind person an evening a week. It's the difference between faking experience of a story and storyliving.
We already have a canvas for experiencing Story, our own bodies and families and churches and community. We can act out a play about something Jesus did, but isn't it better to act it out in our community by living as Jesus lived? Won't that make the spoken story far more real for us and those around us?
I think the EC is spending a lot of time trying to think of creative ways to tell and experience spoken messages (or experience them without speaking). There's a lot of good in that. But the natural, normal way to experience the message is to live it and have it lived on you by others. That's missional, that's the truest art...to become the canvas of suffering and love and forgiveness for a world that needs to hear/see the gospel.
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Audioslave's new album, Out of Exile, is online for anyone to hear. I'm listening right now, and it's pretty good.
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Adam is discussing a very good book that I'm reading right now. Thanks to on mo blog for the head's up.
John Armstrong isn't just doing some good blogging, he's also writing good stuff elsewhere. Hat tip to the Boar's Head folks.
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Russ Moore's new article: Jesus and the Hooters Girl
...our churches must be the kind of places where desperate women—in whom the rest of the world sees no value beyond body parts—can find a Messiah who can liberate them from tyranny.
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I think apologetics is a very interesting issue for emerging generations. I am a regular visitor to and reader of a few apologetics websites and have read much on the topic in the last 10 years. And lately I've been starting to wonder if what many call "a defense" of the faith has really become about being "defensive" about the faith.
In other words, has apologetics turned from being the work of defending the faith against error to being about feeling defensive about our position in the culture?
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In the active downtown of Woodstock, Illinois (where I pastor) they hold Fair Diddley every year. It's basically a craft fair where people set up similar sized booths and sell things they make with TLC that are remarkably better than something at WalMart or World Market. It's really a small collection of amazing and beautiful things alongside some of the typical craft fair cheese like wooden wall hangings that say "Kiss the Cook."
A staple of this craft fair (and most others around the country) is the kettle corn booth. It boasted a line of no less than 10-12 people for hours. You could watch them pour in the popcorn and sugar and salt and stir it with an imitation boat paddle. We finally made our way into the line and shelled out six bucks for a bag of just made, still warm kettle corn.
I tried to pinpoint the reason that kettle corn is so beloved. Why not buttered or something else? My conclusion? Kettle corn is the less predictable popcorn. One bite is sweet, the next is salty, and the next is almost completely without added flavor. Every bite is a surprise, and that makes it fun to eat. I think I'll go grab some now.
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My next door neighbor in our apartment complex in seminary (Louisville, KY - SBTS) was a laid-back, no sugar eating guy who played a guitar and a ukulele, and had a bunch of daughters with hurt-your-eyes blond hair. Matthew, near the end of seminary, really got passionate about theology, finally started buying some books, and started to feel the pull to plant a church in old Louisville.
At first I was skeptical, but he kept talking about it. That was a few years back. Today, Matthew is pastoring a missional church called Ekklesia and running an independent coffeehouse called Sunergos Coffee.
The longer I pastor, the more I think the way forward in the missional church is by getting into and investing in the community through "great good places" or "third places."
I have a feeling the topic of "third places" will come up again soon.
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Please read Jordon Cooper's recent post to find out just what sort of threat the emerging church really is.
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An incarnational mode creates a church that is a dynamic set of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances. It enhances and "flavors" the host community's living social fabric rather than disaffirming it. It thus creates a medium of living relationships through which the gospel can travel. It emphasizes the importance of a group of Christians infiltrating a community, like salt and light, to make those creative connections with people where God-talk and shared experience allow for real cross-cultural Christian mission to take place.
Frost and Hirsch in The Shaping of Things to Come, p. 42
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Dave Chappelle is in a mental health facility in South Africa. Man, that guy is funny. Have you seen the skit with John Mayer? Hilarious.
Hope he's okay.
UPDATE: Where in the world is Dave Chappelle? Maybe not where we thought. Time article.
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Good review of Bruce Springsteen's Devils and Dust at Relevant. I'm really enjoying the DualDisc CD/DVD. Great music, powerful themes. This is the Springsteen I enjoy.
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Donald Whitney is heading The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to be a new professor of biblical spirituality according to an article in Baptist Press. Don is the author of several good books, including Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Spiritual Disciplines Within the Church, and Simplify Your Spiritual Life.
You can find a number of resources from Don online at The Center for Biblical Spirituality.
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A curious thing to post, but since I think it helps us come to a definition of the conversation/movement, I'll dive in.
I have thought for some time that some people are self-titled "emerging," others call themselves "emerging," and some are "emerging" though they don't care, or don't know it, or don't want to admit it. Guys like Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller I put somewhere in that last category.
But Driscoll has been quoted as saying,
Let me agree that much of the church today is incredibly frustrating. Personally, when I hear so many young guys denying substitutionary atonement and the like after drinking from the emerging church toilet I turn green and my clothes don't fit. However, let me say though that we need to stay on mission.
Does this mean he is trying to distance himself from the emerging church and say he isn't a part of it, or that he is trying to pull the emerging church in his direction by distancing himself from parts of it (like notable authors), or something else?
Driscoll continues,
Sure, some pastors and churches are angry that I'm not putting my weight behind their mission but in the end...I won't stand before them for judgment and they won't stand before me, so I just let it go and keep pushing ahead until I see Jesus and he can separate sheep and goats and hand out rewards to the faithful. In the meantime, I refuse to get off my ladder but keep my sword close by and if a wolf shows up in my flock then I draw my sword but not until then.
While Driscoll seems to be doing much to not even use the word "emerging," it doesn't appear to me that he is abandoning the emerging church as worthless. He is trying to be faithful in his context to lead his church and influence The Church in whatever way God gives him opportunity. As he says...
What I'm finding is that if I stay on my mission eventually a platform gets big enough that you kind of just have permission to do your thing and others respect you even if they don't like you.
So it seems to me that Driscoll is "emerging" in the generic sense that he is missional to the postmodern (so to speak) culture, and in the sense that he still desires to influence (in some way) the conversation. Whether he means to or not, there is no doubt he has influence in the emerging church conversation. But he obviously isn't "emerging" in the sense that he doesn't care to push or carry the papers of a movement.
Mark, if someone points this out to you, I'd love you to set the record straight.
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Read Missional Church Part 1
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Cawleyblog is a great place. I'm posting this to thank Kevin for his excellent posts, because he has become a personal friend, and because he is moving away and I want to keep the pressure on him to keep up the excellent blogging. Plus, as of last check, he doesn't have nearly enough Bloglines subscribers per the quality of his work. The inhumanity of it all.
I want to get the word out. Here are some examples of Kevin's above average service...
Biblical Principles for Engaging Culture.
The Missional Church: A Beginning Reader's Guide
The Missional Church
Sam Storms' Appeal to Pastors
I hope that by visiting one or more of these posts you will see the good in making Cawleyblog a regular part of your diet.
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This is exciting stuff. The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University now has their Jonathan Edwards site online. By 2007 they plan to have all 60,000 pages of Jonathan Edwards' writing online.
(HT: Justin Taylor)
UPDATE (5.12.05)
Justin Taylor has information from someone at the JE Center about things like cost and access to the online works of Edwards.
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The Conservative Voice is speaking: Postmodern Antiquity: “Emerging Church” Claims Pre-Modern Roots
The final paragraph...
Fortunately, the movement has not yet taken definite shape. We can make it what we want it to be. True believers, I challenge you not to abandon the emerging church, but to seize the reigns of power and guide it toward God; and if we would do so, we must act now, while the anti-Christian liberals are still tolerant of our presence.
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"The challenging context in which we live in the West requires that we adopt a fully missional stance. While some established churches can be revitalized, success seems to be rare from our experience and perspective. We believe that the strategic focus must now shift from revitalization to mission, i.e. from a focus on the "insiders" to the "outsiders"; and in so doing we believe the church will rediscover its true nature and fulfill its purpose. Perhaps an established church can plant a missional congregation within its broader church structures. Others might sponsor and support the planting of new congregations on their doorstep to reach those not interested in the conventional church. But it does seem to us that the real hope lies with those courageous leaders who will foster the development of alternative, experimental, new communities of faith."
"In our travels around the world we have encountered a new breed of Christian leadership, young and feisty, willing to experiment with audacious new versions of Christians communities within unchurched subcultures.... Some will fail; others will have great success. But it seems to us they are more likely to succeed when legitimized, affirmed, and supported by the more conventional, established churches and denominational structures in their midst."
(p. x)
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This is bound to be a very messy and incomplete post. My thoughts are starting to gel, but I still have a long way to go. I expect this to turn into a string of posts on this topic.
I've been meditating on the difference between "missional" and "emerging." I'm particularly interested because I live in a place where I don’t believe an “emerging church” can thrive. I live and pastor in the suburbs (or exurbs) of Chicago. My town is less than 25,000 with no university or significant population from emerging generations.
The "emerging church" conversation (that I'm involved in) seems to be about reaching those who have grown up in or been significantly impacted by the culture of postmodernity (however you explain that). Though we have some people where I live who might fit in an emerging church, it’s nothing like more urban populations or university settings.
In my understanding, being "missional" is the conviction and action of being sent by God into culture (incarnation) with the message of redemption (as told and lived). It is not something we "do" along with other things we do, but it is who we are as the church. So by definition every church around the world should be missional. Someone might say that a missional church is simply a biblical church. (I like what Tim Keller says in "The Missional Church.")
If I have it gauged right, then, the emerging church is essentially about being missional in a postmodern context. You could have a missional church in a modern context, or whatever kind of context you can describe…you could be missional in that context. That makes sense out of those terms in my thinking.
So should we strive to be emerging, or strive to be missional which may or may not be emerging? Or is the idea of "emerging" taking missional and expanding upon the idea? Or should every church be at least emerging in part because every church should be missional and therefore reaching the emerging generations around them?
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Go to Part 2 > Missional Church: Driscoll & Emerging
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Um...kicked out for politics? Ousted for political views? Seriously?
I just knew this would come as a result.
UPDATE (5.10.05): I really hoped there wouldn't be a single person who would dare try to explain away or defend such ecclesi-elastical sillyness. My hopes were unrealized.
UPDATE (5.11.05): Okay, something I'm not surprised to see. The pastor resigns.
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Andrew Jones, the TallSkinnyKiwi, has offered a great post about Michael Horton's recent critique of the emerging church. TSK gives links to the Issues, Etc radio broadcasts featuring Horton (listen here), lists five good critiques from Horton, and sprinkles in a few personal responses to it all. I think Horton is right about a lot, and the emerging church should listen to him.
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After spending about 6 years in Kentucky (3 of those in Louisville), I'm used to getting excited for the Kentucky Derby. Today is Kentucky Derby 131 at Churchill Downs in Louisville.
I know very little about the horses, jockeys, trainers, or favorites this year. But we gained great respect for the history and pagentry of the race. We even lived on a street named "Mint Julep" while in the bluegrass state.
If you have a chance today, turn on the tube and enjoy something different. Post time is 6:04pm eastern. Don't be late! These guys are fast.
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I'm finishing up the fourth chapter of James in my sermon this Sunday. I've really enjoyed preaching through James, and have seen many important issues work through the life of my church.
The main commentary I've been using is the Pillar New Testament Commentary on James by Douglas Moo (who is obviously the long, lost twin brother of Stephen King with different writing goals).
I've also been using other commentaries. Kent Hughes, Thomas Manton, Peter Davids, and the New Bible Commentary among others. But none of them are as good as Moo. I'm very happy with it and encourage you to pick it up if you need a fairly critical commentary on James.
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This is really cool. Andy deals honestly with the point that would have won him the match, and ends up losing.
Sportsline.com front-page story title as of midnight says "Roddick's good-guy move backfires." What a dumb thing to say. It's just good, honest sport. I guess for Sportsline winning and losing is the bottom-line. (See also Sports Illustrated article)
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I just finished Mark Miller's book, Experiential Storytelling. I already gave one post on this book when I was part way through. Now, let me give a few quotes from the rest of the book, and then at the end I will comment briefly on my take.
On reimagining the sermon...
Why not take a breather for a time and let the story speak for itself in a language those gathered can understand? When presented without all of the trappings of exegetical interpretation, the biblical text is freed from the limits of our minds and is open to the organic beauty of the infinite word. (p. 87)
Benjamin Franklin quote...
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn. (p. 94)
On the elements of experiential storytelling...
Remember to let your audience think for themselves. Do not make everything obvious by spelling out every detail for them. This is where you are going to have to trust that your audience members have imaginative abilities and a built-in mechanism that allows them to think for themselves. (p. 112)
My take...
I expected more. It was a fast read, with not a great deal of content. The book did spark some interesting questions in my head and I learned a few things along the way, but by the end I felt like it never took me where I needed to go. It never got me into "aha!" stuff. It never solidified anything I was already thinking.
It's possible the issue is partially with me, but the book is explained as a book about "rediscovering narrative," and I didn't read it that way. I felt the point the book ultimately made was to emphasize "sensory" stories over "verbal" stories. Verbal has a role for Miller, but for this book at least it's a diminished one.
I think a couple of quotes show that emphasis.
Studies have shown that only about 10 to 15 percent of what we "hear" comes in the form of spoken words. God has designed us to experience the world around us in all of its fullness, so most of our learning is nonverbal. (p. 103)
It is crucial that you do not interpret the experience for them. The whole point is the experience does the talking. (p. 113)
I think the book serves better as a tool for helping a handful of youth leaders supplement their normal communication of the truth with creative experiences. Because of the work it would entail, these youth leaders would probably need to be in large churches with lots of youth and a sizable budget. So there is a place for this book, but I'm not just so sure that place is on the bookshelf of the typical missional pastor.
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The new BP article by Mark Kelly, on Hollywood and the new movie Kingdom of Heaven, isn't very interesting, but the opening paragraph is funny to me...
Evangelicals have tried for years to convince Hollywood it is more profitable to make decent movies for normal people than to grind out the gratuitous sex and violence that only sucks society deeper into the sewer. Mel Gibson finally got their attention when his “Passion of the Christ” grossed almost $612 million worldwide -- more than 20 times his original investment.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees the irony here. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of "Passion"...
The movie is 126 minutes long, and I would guess that at least 100 of those minutes, maybe more, are concerned specifically and graphically with the details of the torture and death of Jesus. This is the most violent film I have ever seen.
I think this is really, truly funny. But I also think it's sad and revealing.
We say things about movies like "Violence just leads to violence, so let's keep it clean." But how can we say that real violence doesn't tell a story far better? If it did for Passion then why not for Kingdom of Heaven or Gladiator or Braveheart?
The Bible tells bloody stories. It is not a PG-13 book. And if we are going to get our children and teenagers and everyone else to understand the Story of redemption, they are going to have to understand violence because the death of Jesus was incredibly violent.
Is it reasonable for Christians to encourage violence in movies since it reminds us of redemption?
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Many of us have discovered Scot McKnight's blog, Jesus Creed, as he went through the process of reviewing Don Carson's Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church a few weeks ago. Having completed that task with thoughtfulness, he is now plugging along with some great insights on the emerging church and ecclesiology through a look at Doug Pagitt's book Reimagining Spiritual Formation. Really good stuff.
Even when I disagree, I'm better for having read McKnight. I highly recommend keeping up with his thinking.
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It appears Chrisitan Counterculture, an online newsletter of sorts, is back online. Rob Schlapfer, who also runs The Discerning Reader online bookstore, has emailed out the Christian Counterculture May 2005 issue. With his Calvinistic background and new thoughts on the NPP and the emerging church (that have encouraged the war cries of critcs), this could get interesting. I'm going to be reading each issue.
Note the "editor's desk" section where Rob jabs at bloggers (some of them, at least). Also note a personal apology from Rob.
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STEVE McCOY
