NT Wright speaks on the future of the Western Christian Church and discusses his thoughts on what might happen to the church in transition. I always find him very insightful. Enjoy!
Thanks to the Blind Beggar for pointing out this video.
Tom Sine does a great job identifying and giving brief descriptions of these four different kinds of activists and innovators within the church in his article Joining the Anabaptist conspirators. It is a good read especially if you have been hearing some of these terms thrown around and wondering what people are talking about.
Thanks to TSK for posting on this.
I have been reading AW Tozer's The Pursuit of God this week. I have been on more than one occasion impressed by the depth with which he writes and even though this book was first published in 1949 I am totally amazed at it's relevance for today. I want to share a quote:
"The idea of cultivation and excercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast-flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.
The tragic results of this spirit are all about us: shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit. These and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul." (p. 65)
Since Chris first posted about this article called Five Streams of the Emerging Church by Scot McKnight , I wanted to read it. Today I finally got a chance to read it and I think it is well done. If you think the emerging movement is simply "a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes" then you should check this out. As I look at the Emerging movement I find myself pulling them in and pushing them away at the same time. That is, I find parts of what they are saying very insightful and other things just seem off base (often depending on who is saying what). Scot does a great job of giving an overview of the movement as well as identifying it's strengths and weaknesses and I really appreciate his insight.
I have been following a conversation on truth claims (here and here) and Christianity surrounding John MacArthur's new book The Truth War. As I read these comments I felt like both sides were acurately portraying their own belief systems, but wondered if they were capable of truly hearing the other side.
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