Category: Culture
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Emergent Allergies: Boundaries
The problem with boundaries is that they serve too often to keep people out, rather than to keep people in. Insider/outsider, or ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ language too often threatens to undermine a gospel which is about an ever-expanding ‘us’ group. Furthermore, it tends to seduce us into thinking that ‘they’ are the problem, at which…
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Emergent Allergies: Systems
As part of an ongoing series of posts on emerging churches, I’m going to look at a few emergent allergies — things that get emerging churches itching and scratching and threaten to leave an embarrassing rash. As I noted in a previous post, the early days of deconstruction are receding from view as these churches…
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The Who? What? Where? When? and Why? of the Emerging Church
I’ve just finished up co-teaching a class on ‘Readings in Emerging Church Theology’ with Ron Benefiel at Nazarene Theological Seminary. What a joy to be talking church, theology and ministry with pastors-in-training! Too many conversations on this subject begin, ‘What exactly is the emerging church?’ The response is some variation on, ‘Um…well…it’s sort of…well, it’s…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part III)
Read Part I here, and Part II here. One final method for practicing silence and solitude is what I call a ‘solitude retreat’. (3) Once or twice a year, go alone on a solitude retreat from 9 am one day until 5 pm the next day. Go to a retreat center that has as one…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part II)
Read Part I here, and Part III here. Two regular practices of solitude and silence: First, you must remember that when you go into solitude and silence, your basic goal is to do nothing. Yes, nothing! You are to center yourself in quiet and rest. As you do that, you also focus on centering your…
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Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines (Part I)
Read Part II here, and Part III here. Throughout his writings and lectures, Dallas Willard has warned that the hardest thing to get North American people to do is nothing. The regular practice of doing nothing is crucial for spiritual growth. It keeps us from having an inflated view of our importance, it surfaces anxiety,…
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$138,095 Is Not Enough
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the average stay at home mother if she were paid for her work would earn $138,095 a year. This seems like too low of a number. Women who stay at home are in total charge of the household which in itself is like a small corporation (albeit a small corporation…
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On Picking a College: A Parental Perspective
Yesterday, Dr. John Mark Reynolds posted a letter that he had written to a student who was attempting to make a choice between Biola University and UC Berkeley. Parents should think through the implications of a university choice, and should consider what is the proper criterion by which a student chooses the institute of higher…
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New Book: Kingdom Triangle
J.P. Moreland, 2007. I am excited to announce the publication of my new book, Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power. This is the book I’ve been waiting all my life to write. For thirty-six years I have tried to be a radical for Jesus and to make a…
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Anxiety, Depression and Meditation II
In Part I, we saw that there is a biblically and scientifically important distinction between discursive thought (associated with the brain) and emotional intuitive awareness (associated with the heart). We also saw that a major cause of anxiety and depression is obsessive thinking about an anxiety-producing thought. Such obsessive thinking digs a deeper and deeper…
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Anxiety, Depression and Meditation I
Read Part II here. I once heard a Christian psychologist say that we were made to live in a camel culture—slow-paced, relational and no electric lights to keep people up beyond sundown and deprive them of the eight and one half hours of sleep they need each night. But ours is no camel culture. We…
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T. S. Eliot: Things That Can Just Barely Be Said
T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) is so hard to read that every class session on his poetry might just as well start with the question, “Why bother reading something so difficult?” I think you have to start by admitting that poetry this difficult actually might not be worth reading. Writing incomprehensible poetry is actually pretty easy.…