I’m preparing my philosophy of ministry, so I’ve been reading through some old papers and my archives here.  Do you know what I’ve discovered about myself? I’m a whiny coward - a chicken, clucking loudly. I spent months posting pseudonymously to complain about what was going on at a church where I was on staff, all the while not actually doing anything.  How’s that for courage?

I don’t know what I was really afraid of.  Would I have been fired? Reprimanded? Complained about? And would I have been hurt or embarrassed to receive those consequences as a result of doing what’s right?  I don’t know.  I was young and passive-agressive. I said my piece out loud once in a while, but I guess I didn’t trust God enough to lay it all out there.

So instead I came hear and let Elmo vent - you could probably even call it gossip - about everything that was going on.  Well, at least I dropped the alias after quitting.

This will go in the “Mistakes: Do Not Repeat” file.

Wade’s back from his hiatus, and has some book recommendations:

Here are several books I’ve just read or am about to finish.

1. What Would Jesus Deconstruct? I loved this book. Caputo is sharp, funny, and able to explain deconstruction in a constructive way.

2. The Reason for God. This is a great book for me to read. I’m a doubter and every so often I need to read a book like this to help me doubt my doubts.

3. The Fidelity of Betrayal. I think Peter Rollins is a brilliant writer, thinker, and storyteller. If you loved How (Not) to Speak of God, you will love this as well. If you hated it, then you’ll hate this one even more. His discussion of Judas as one who faithfully betrays Jesus will either set your wheels to spinning or cause you to skid off the road.

(continue reading…)

I loathe the 700 Club.  I’ve watched a few times and…well, you can probably guess a few reasons I don’t like it.  But tonight they had Steve McGranahan, the “World’s Strongest Redneck,” on.  He’s basically a big guy who bends stuff.  But instead of bending to be bending or to show off, he does object lessons.  It was actually a pretty good bit.  He makes some clever connections, and cracks some groaner redneck jokes (”Why don’t rednecks make good terrorists? We hate to waste a good roll of duct tape.”), and it works.

At first I thought it was embarrassing to evangelicals, playing into stereotypes - and it may be.  But he said something during his performance that made me stop thinking about it:

One day we’re gonna be standing before the Lord, and he’s gonna ask you, “What’d you do with your gifts?”

He may not be a genius, and he may not have any sleeves, but he’s using what he has to glorify Jesus.  What more can we ask? This is sort of an interesting contrast with yesterday’s post about Conteporary Christian Music.  Is this the second side of the coin?

I was just bumming around online today and I came across this article , “Is Christian Music Dying?”, in Collide magazine.  I looked at the first couple of paragraphs in print last month, but never got around to reading the whole thing.

The article is a discussion of CCM - Contemporary Christian Music - and whether or not it has a viable future. There are some great lines, a couple of which I’ll look at here, but you should take some time and read it through. McClellan does a good and fair job, in my opinion, of looking critically at Christian music and the Christian music industry.

I’ve never really been a fan of CCM.  I’ve tried it a few times, but I always felt like I was expected to like it just because it was Christian…without worrying about whether or not it was good.  I think there are a couple of fundamental things wrong with the industry that are, in the very near future, going to drain what life is left. (continue reading…)

The advance copy of John Kerry’s speech at Yale Divinity School contains this line:

Somehow, we have to find a way to agree that faith may be worth dying for, but it cannot be worth killing for.

I think it’s absolutely right.  We’re supposed to imitate Jesus; and though he had the power and the authority to do otherwise, died for us, so that we could be forgiven, freed, and redeemed.  The Apostles died similar deaths. To kill in the name of Christ is something that - to be quite honest - doesn’t make enough sense for me to attempt an explanation.  All I can say is that if you claim to be killing in the name of Jesus, you’re really doing it in the name of self.

H/T Michael Paulson.