Featured Archives
A personal God is an offense to most people. Why? A personal God possesses a will and desires us to align our wills with God's will. A personal God makes claims on our lives and invites our response of respect, surrender, faith, and love. Most people prefer an impersonal energy that makes no demands.
»MORE
God works through an organized community led by gifted (and sometimes, significantly flawed) leaders who equip and empower the community to use their gifts and abilities for the common good of the community and as redemptive agents for the sake of the world. This pattern is universal, but its expression is always local, particular, unique.
»MORE
It is from the cross – after six hours of public humiliation, mental anguish, emotional turmoil, and excruciating physical pain – that Jesus declares his victory: "It is finished!" This is certainly a strange victory revealed in a strange place and at a strange time. How could it possibly be that the Crucified One is triumphant – even victorious?
»MORE
We can see, hear, and smell from afar, but with taste, we must completely give ourselves over to the object we consume. When food enters our mouth, dissolves in our saliva, and goes into our stomach, it becomes part of us. It affects us – empowering, enabling, delighting or disgusting us. But there can be no impact apart from direct experience.
»MORE
We cling to a vision of ourselves at the center of the universe and God at the periphery. Corporate worship shatters this illusion, and in the process, spiritually transforms us. Worship invites us to give God the highest place in our hearts – the first place – so everything else can be put in its proper place, in relation to God.
»MORE
Divinization is an admittedly “troublesome term intended to articulate the capacity of every person to become holy, godlike, attuned to God, and united to the divine in every aspect of being.” By refracting the ancient tradition through the prism of our postmodern context, the wisdom of the past is made available in a new idiom for a new time.
»MORE
Two recent books offer the ultimate “outsiders” perspective of the Christian Church - that of atheists. But how will atheists – who dogmatically reject the existence of any transcendent, supernatural reality – accurately evaluate services intended to celebrate and respond to a transcendent and supernatural reality?
»MORE
To know God is know beauty; to know beauty is to know God. Just as God is the source of all truth and goodness, God is also the source of all beauty. God is the Supreme Artist – the Creator of all. Thus, everything that is beautiful reflects God’s artistry. Indeed, God is Beauty itself. If this is true, why does beauty play such a limited role in our spiritual experience?
»MORE
In the midst of the horror and madness of Jesus’ crucifixion, one lone voice of sanity arises from a completely unexpected source: a convicted death-row criminal. Somehow, in a startling turn of events, the last person anyone would expect to speak truth and sanity – a violent criminal, an evil terrorist – witnessed of the truth concerning Jesus.
»MORE
Too often, our attempts to make the faith "cool" are a "sellout to show-business" or a "caricature of culture" - a mere accommodation to a rapidly changing youth culture. Baptizing culture is dangerous because "culture is not the same as Spirit." There’s a difference between "trends" and "transcendence."
»MORE
It is not Eckhart Tolle's desire for an authentic spirituality that I find troubling. Rather, it is the way his system inhibits true human flourishing. The human person cannot flourish when humanity, personality, and all that this encompasses - thinking, acting, feeling, etc. - are brushed aside as irrelevant, and even worse, a deceptive pathological delusion!
»MORE
Contrary to my initial wishes, the goal of Christian spirituality is not to be a brain percolating in a boiling vat of nutrients. The goal is to be a human being fully alive – all thoughts, affections, and senses experienced as channels of the divine. Our senses can be gateways instead of obstacles to God’s Spirit.
»MORE
Life is good and is meant to be enjoyed. But joy must not be taken lightly: Joy is the serious business of heaven. The Teacher calls us to rejoice while remembering our mortality, life's brevity, and God's judgment. The dark backdrop of our inevitable death underscores the positive opportunities for joy in the present moment.
»MORE
When the wife says, “Honey, we need to talk,” the husband hears “that he is not meeting her expectations—
he’s failing her—which sends him into the pain of his own inadequacy.” His lackluster response causes his wife to feel that he doesn’t care for her needs which plays on her fears of isolation and abandonment.
»MORE
Leaders are rarely what we perceive them to be. The more we get to know them, the more we are disillusioned. Rarely, however, does one both experience disillusion and yet increase in one’s respect for an individual. This occurred to me as I read Frank Schaeffer’s memoir of growing up in the household of Francis and Edith Schaeffer.
»MORE
The new wired world we live in is not all sunshine and roses. The vast majority of the internet is little more than “ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.” The radical democratization of all voices does not lend itself to greater truth. Though all people are entitled to their own opinion, not every opinion is of equal weight or value.
»MORE
Humility is not so much a virtue as it is an attitude of heart that underlies all Christian virtues. It is humility that keeps us from distorting Christianity into dry intellectualism or mere moralism. The goal of Christian spirituality is love, not self-actualization. Humility allows us to see people as God sees them - and love them as God loves them!
»MORE
The study of the origin or
evolution of religion usually attracts those who are antagonistic to religion. For such individuals, no matter what the evidence reveals, the
existence of God is rejected. If the religions studied are in conflict, then
they must
all be wrong. If they are similar, then they must merely be human
inventions.
»MORE
Had Jesus desired to do so, he could have satisfied his physical thirst. However, Jesus’ desire for water, for relief from his pain, was not as great as his desire to redeem humankind. In other words, Jesus’ thirst for us trumped his thirst for water. “I thirst” is not simply identification with human pain, but an expression of God's passion for humanity's redemption.
»MORE
McLaren believes that the “real” Jesus has been domesticated, watered-down, and ignored by Western Christians. He invites us to embrace a new ideology rooted in Jesus’ kingdom vision. He believes that Jesus’ framing story will guide us to respect environmental limits, work for the common good, and seek peaceful reconciliation among competing factions.
»MORE
Emotions are not irrational. They are inseparably linked with our intellect, or more accurately, our beliefs, values, and assessments. Because of this they are not unimportant, uncontrollable, or undesirable. They are not shallow, unstable, or untruthful. On the contrary, emotions tell us the truth about what we believe and what we value.
»MORE
We live in a nation obsessed with celebrities. When the activities of Brad and Angelina, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton receive more attention than serious news items, we can rest assured that we have swallowed the pill of our new addiction. We are, in the words of Jake Halpern, "fame junkies." What's behind our fascination with fame?
»MORE
Jesus’ final words reflected the course of his entire life. These eight words were directed to God as a final witness of Jesus’ life and ministry: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” What will your last words be? What will they reveal about your life – your values, your beliefs? How would you summarize your life in the space afforded by dying gasps?
»MORE
In the sacred scriptures, we are constantly admonished to “fear not” because fear is a spiritual and moral issue. Fear keeps us from becoming the kind of people God wants us to be. When fear rules our lives, there is no place for faith, courage, hope, risk, or love. Following Jesus requires that we fight fear and step out “into faith’s daring.”
»MORE
Western Christians, following Augustine's lead, assume that death is God's doing - God's punishment for sin - and therefore, God's will. In Eastern perspective, death is God's enemy, a great evil, a perversion, a corrupting parasite on God's good creation. The fear of death is used by evil powers to deceptively destroy the works of God. Only resurrection is the remedy!
»MORE
For the sake of public perception, Christians are good at recounting stories about answered prayer. But we are not so good at sharing our disappointments. Yet, we must make some sense of unanswered prayer. Why? “It’s precisely because we believe so passionately in the power of prayer that we must also make sense of unanswered prayer.”
»MORE
Harvard professor Owen Gingerich believes “that the universe has been created with intention and purpose, and that this belief does not interfere with the scientific enterprise." His book provides a helpful and much-needed reflection on the limitations, interaction, and integration of both science and faith – physics and metaphysics.
»MORE
Faith does not come without a fight. Hope is empty apart from hardships. Love without lament is superficial. We should never imagine that we can have a deep intimate relationship with God without all the doubts, frustrations, and complaints that accompany an authentic relationship – substituting "pious froth" for "fighting the good fight of faith."
»MORE
Adolescence is not easy for any family – including the holy family. Jesus must have been an ideal son. Mary and Joseph were surely godly parents. And yet, even for the holy family it was not easy. Growth comes at a price. It is impossible to escape growing pains. If the holy family could not do it, then neither can we.
»MORE
God desires that we live
coram deo - in the presence of God. Though we hide from God's presence, God continues to pursue us. If this is true, what do we make of passages like Isaiah 45:15 - "Truly, you are a God who hides himself." What exactly is the "hiddenness" of God? What reasons could God have in hiding? My new book wrestles with these questions.
»MORE
When we think of a "perfect" or "sinless" person, we usually think of someone who is “holier-than-thou” and snobbish. But in Jesus we discover that the only one who is truly “holier-than-thou” is wholly for us. His holiness is that of otherly love – love of another kind! His perfection does not make him less-than-human, but rather, truly human.
»MORE
We "live" in Holy Saturday - between Cross and final Resurrection. We experience times when we feel forsaken, when we cry out “Why?” We know the heartbreak of hopelessness, the empty void that seems to stretch forever. And yet, we look forward with hope to the “impossible possibility” – the absolute surprise of grace that is resurrection.
»MORE
Authentic Christian spirituality is fully human, fully embodied. In our culture, human limitations are often perceived as obstacles to unhindered union with God. On the contrary, it is precisely in and through our humanity that we experience God. Christian spirituality is not an attempt to escape our humanity but to embrace God in and through it.
»MORE
"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Why is hearing celebrated in scripture while sight is held in suspicion? What advantages does the word have over the image to the life of faith? These are vital questions in an image-saturated culture that has great difficulty listening to liturgy and preaching, must less reflect on their significance.
»MORE
Professor Richard Dawkins teaches that religion is “the root of all evil.” Christopher Hitchens believes religion is deadly, poisoning everything it touches. Sam Harris argues that commitment to religion at any level – from fundamentalist to liberal expressions – is
dangerous to society. Are these men right? Or is there more to the story?
»MORE
“God is light” (1 John 1:5). This powerful metaphor is used throughout the Bible to portray God’s truth, character, and work. Even though all images and metaphors have inherent limitations they are helpful in pointing us to and connecting us with God. The metaphor of light provides a helpful way to understand how Christ’s light shines but remains hidden to some.
»MORE
The Eastern tradition has much to commend it. Because it begins with different questions, it has much to offer those willing to wrestle with its answers. In my opinion, we need both lungs of the church – the Western and the Eastern – in order to possess the fullness of the Christian tradition. The treasures of Orthodoxy are for all Christians.
»MORE
This is a compilation of summaries from the National Pastor's Convention 2007. It includes notes from sessions on innovation, prayer, spiritual transformation, solitude, the church in the 21st century, the emerging church, worship, pastoral ministry, spiritual disciplines, wisdom from the sages, and the sacramental end of sex, and more!
»MORE
Every group has a message – a gospel, or good news – that they hope to transmit. This is certainly true for the “most popular, repeatedly covered, influential, and enduring rock group of all time:” the Beatles. The goal of this essay is to piece together from the music, lyrics, and lives of the Fab Four the Gospel according to the Beatles.
»MORE
God ordained worship to be full of sweet fragrances and pleasing aromas. True worship was meant to smell good. Those immersed in worship would go away bearing this smell into the world. The scriptures call us to make our lives a fragrant aroma to God. The very name “Christ” carries with it the memory of sacred smell. “Christ” is Greek for “the Anointed One.”
»MORE
Through touch we receive sacraments and by touching others we become sacraments of God to others. The limitation of touch is its greatest strength. In order to physically touch others we must be in their immediate presence. Touch connects us with others - not as abstractions - but as "neighbors" God has placed in our lives.
»MORE
What question should ultimately guide ethical theory? "What ought I to do?" "What kinds of outcome will this decision
produce?" or "What kind of moral character will be shaped by my actions?" Should ethical theory be other-oriented, future-oriented, or self-oriented? Could all three questions be integrated together to provide a more robust foundation for ethics?
»MORE
We parents should not fear that if we are no longer needed, we are no longer loved. Family love
(storge) must change and develop over time in order to faithfully steward the gift of children from infant to adult. Parents must learn the art of welcoming and letting go. Ideally, family love gives us roots for our soul and wings for our spirit.
»MORE
Hall calls us to a thinking faith that voraciously desires to understand, yet embraces the importance of doubt and uncertainty in the life of faith. We can understand the longing for certitude, but biblical religion does not offer certitude. Any kind of finality is nothing but a lie. "God offers us an alternative to certitude. It is called trust."
»MORE
A superhero’s humility is set in stark contrast to a villain’s hubris. Villains rarely have secret identities. They do not wish to identity with a common humanity. They envision themselves as above the fray of mortal humans. They deserve to rule the world, to be worshipped by the masses. This is the chief reason they always fail: their ego gets in the way.
»MORE
At the end of the day, everyone is trying to sell something. Every person with a product or message hopes to communicate in a way that is compelling, persuasive, and convincing. In other words, they hope to influence another person. They package their message or product in such a way that it is most effective.
»MORE
Sight practically monopolizes our senses. However, sight is not always reliable. Appearances can be deceiving. Our eyes are tricked by optical illusions. Because of its limitations, “we walk by faith and not by sight.” In spite of its incessant desire to rule our lives, we must put sight into its proper place.
»MORE
In the face of the depths of human depravity, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them.” Why should God forgive? What is the reason Jesus offers? The reason he gives is that we need forgiveness
because we are ignorant: “for they do not know what they are doing.” This is amazing grace, amazing love – radical forgiveness in the face of radical sin.
»MORE
Be skeptical of the ordinary, embrace the improbable, and realize that there is likely no overall meaning or significance to anything. This may be all the human intellect can provide, but it does not satisfy the human heart. We are left feeling a little bit like the turkey fattened for slaughter, wondering if anything we experience matters beyond the moment.
»MORE
In the past few years there has been a rising tide of books advocating the demise of religion and the triumph of secularism. Apparently, this evaluation strikes a chord with a large portion of the American public. However, religion cannot be explained away as a primitive illusion, a social construct, or psychological wish-fulfillment.
»MORE
Our culture of narcissism feeds a spirituality of self-realization in the context of moral relativism. A spirituality with no beliefs to which one must adhere, no particular community to which one need belong, and no demands on one's moral behavior is appealing to narcissistic individuals. Tragically, this is what many people mean when they say, “I am spiritual.”
»MORE
We must not forget the problems of language in regard to speaking of God. The shift away from “analogical” language to “univocal” language – “the growing confidence that our language about God makes roughly the same sort of sense as our language about creatures” – is the first stage of “the domestication of transcendence.”
»MORE
Sadly, repentance is often viewed in a negative light. Its positive qualities are rarely affirmed and celebrated. Why? We recoil against those who call us to spiritual self-examination. We don’t like to be reminded that are sinners and we don’t like to be told what to do. How many of us really want to know what God wants us to do – especially if it involves change?
»MORE
The problem with agnosticism is that it is empty of any real significance to human life. It is incapable of realization and can neither be embodied nor practiced. It offers an intangible solution to a very substantive problem. It attempts to avoid the unavoidable by abstention. But only a firm “yes” or “no” to the question of God has any real practical significance.
»MORE
Whether you like it or not, the fingerprint of God is imprinted on your soul. Like countless other human beings who have come before you, you yearn for intimacy, for meaning, and for a sense of destiny. These longings cannot be fully and adequately explained by
naturalistic philosophy. They send us in the direction of the Divine.
»MORE
Sacred words are a means of grace, a sacrament of Christ, a tool of the Spirit. Attentive listening with “ears that hear” is our way to appropriate these words, receive the sacrament, and be shaped by the Spirit. Listening is not passive or non-participatory. It is a spiritual discipline. We do not simply listen; we listen worshipfully!
»MORE
By the age of 22, George Harrison had everything the world could offer. And yet, it left him empty. Thus began his search for something more. It is possible to gain the world and lose our soul. Unlike most of us, George truly possessed all the world had to offer – but it was not enough. He recognized that life is ultimately empty apart from God.
»MORE
What are the current weaknesses in contemporary worship music? The absence of Trinitarian language and recounting God's story, a low regard for the church, an over-reliance on romantic ideals, the lack of a social justice vision and expressions of human pain and suffering - these are all problematic in the large scope of Christian faith and practice.
»MORE
In conservative circles, the story of Jesus turning the water into wine never fails to raise eyebrows. They cannot quite grasp why Jesus would actually keep the party going – especially by bringing more wine… lots of it! You can almost hear their conscience pleading, “Jesus, please turn it back to water before someone gets hurt. Or, even worse… drunk!”
»MORE
Mary is “an ordinary woman… with an extraordinary vocation (being mother to the Messiah) who learned to follow this Messiah Jesus through the ordinary struggles that humans face.” Scot McKnight argues that Protestants should not fear that focusing on Mary will lead to error, for “the real Mary always leads us to Jesus.”
»MORE
The God of
The Shack is not a generic God, but soundly Trinitarian. This allows the theology presented to be deeply relational, rooted in intratrinitarian love. As such, it provides some of the most profound reflections on God that I’ve come across in Christian fiction. Because the essence of God
is love, God
cannot act apart from love!
»MORE
Truth is knowable. Truth is do-able. Truth is proclaim-able. Thus, the Christian finds herself at odds with radical pluralists who claim that all truth-claims are equal, with postmodernists who question whether truth is knowable, and fundamentalists who reduce truth to propositional truth-claims.
»MORE
When we approach the will of God as a way of life, we live for God right where we are. We recognize that a concern for God’s will is not primarily about big events or future decisions. We discover that God’s will is about life in the present – in the big and the little events. This prevents us from using God’s will as an excuse for self-absorption.
»MORE
Compassion is at the heart of God’s character, and this compassion is expressed is divine tenderness. We must not only believe this, but also enter into the experience of God’s compassion in our lives. Armed with a heart of tenderness, our every encounter with others becomes a visible sacrament of Jesus’ love for human beings.
»MORE
Agnostic A. J. Jacobs writes of his attempt to live the ultimate biblical life - to follow the Bible as literally as possible for one year. He quickly recognizes that it is impossible to follow the Bible with consistent literalism. He discovers that “when it comes to the Bible, there is always—but always—some level of interpretation, even on the most seemingly basic rules.”
»MORE
Sheol - the netherworld - holds no comforts or prospects of future life. This effectively cuts short any possibility of a hopeful end to one's life. Does the Old Testament offer any hope beyond the grave? Does the Hebrew Bible have a theology of resurrection? Or, is resurrection in conflict with the dominant message of the Old Testament?
»MORE
Over the course of a year, certain books leave an indelible mark on me. After mulling through over 100 books I read in 2006, I've highlighted the top ten most influential books. I've also included some "honorable mentions." May something on this list encourage you to satisfy your curiosity by cracking some pages!
»MORE
The church is a forgiven and forgiving community. We must never separate these two. Our experience of the first (divine forgiveness) should quite naturally lead to the second (forgiving others). Having been graced by God, we must be gracious to one another. For this reason, we daily pray as our Lord Jesus taught: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
»MORE
A sacred worldview assumes that the limits of human perception do not exhaust the infinite possibilities of our shared reality. It embraces the fact that reality is not what it seems to the senses – it is always more. We do not find out what is real just by seeing, touching, smelling, hearing, or tasting things.
»MORE
Union speaks of a deep, intimate bond - the highest level of relatedness that two distinct entities can possess. It is exemplified in the relationship between a husband and wife, or even more poignantly, between mother and child. It is not an absorption into the other. It is shared life that affirms and celebrates the other.
»MORE
The metaphor of family is applied to the entire life and mission of the faith community. It speaks of a shared commitment, mutual responsibility, and common identity. In our self-absorbed, fragmented culture, we need this metaphor to expand the horizon of our care and compassion. After all, most of us would do anything for our families.
»MORE
Though we are slowly being transformed into Christ's image in the present, we await complete transformation into Christ's likeness in the future. This final transformation occurs "in a moment."The great "mystery" is that God will, in an instant, completely restore and renew our humanity to be suited to dwell in God's immediate presence in new creation.
»MORE
One cannot imagine a greater nightmare than to be doomed to eternal existence as a reanimated corpse - a zombie. For many modern people, this is exactly what comes to mind when they initially consider the idea of bodily resurrection. They are, quite understandly, revolted at the prospect. But this is not resurrection from a biblical perspective...
»MORE
Though the internet gives the sense of connecting us to others, this is nothing but an illusion. We remain alone before a screen with our own desires at center stage. The vast majority of self-expression is little more than self-indulgence and self-promotion. Imagination and creativity are rare. The self-expression may be amusing, but rarely moving.
»MORE
According to Baggini, the meaning of life is not "discovered" but "created." Since "God is dead," we are responsible to create meaning for ourselves. However, after an entire book committed to the methodologies of rationalism to speak of life’s meaning, he must abandon his rationalism in order to provide a satisfying answer to the meaning of life.
»MORE
Where is Jesus? The short answer: Heaven.
Unfortunately, our preconceptions of heaven get in the way of understanding what the early church meant in its confession of Jesus' ascension to heaven. Too often, we focus on the question: Where is heaven? A better question is: What is heaven? Jesus is not "somewhere in a galaxy, far, far away."
»MORE
All without distinction are loved by God - a love that is wider, broader, deeper, and higher than we can possibly fathom. Our temptation will always be to sell it short, to whittle it down, to shrink it down to a size we can manage and control. On the contrary, we must humbly recognize that we cannot possibly comprehend the greatness of God's love.
»MORE
The church is "a people whose life together witnesses to God’s redemption of creation.” This is accomplished through the witness of worship and the work of God's kingdom in the world. No matter how much people deny it, no matter how difficult the task to create and sustain it, the church truly matters – to God and to the world.
»MORE
God’s will challenges our natural tendency to egocentrism and calls us to a theocentric perspective of life. We tend to harbor the illusion that the world revolves around us and our desires. After all, our experience is more real to us than anything else. This causes us to be skeptical and dismissive of what we do not experience. Tragically, this is our sin.
»MORE
Because of Christ's resurrection, we do not share in Sisyphus' horrific and maddening fate. Our actions are not pointless, meaningless, and empty of significance. With faith in God's promise of future resurrection, we passionately give ourselves to the Lord's work, for we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
»MORE
