Disclaimer: If you’re looking for a video game you’re @ the wrong place. If you’re here for a theology book – you’ve searched correctly.
This book was on a req’d reading list for a class I’m taking on Biblical perspectives on evil. I’d heard Boyd’s argument before and found it deeply compelling – some of the best answers to the problem of evil – that I’ve ever heard. But at the same time it left me with questions – something wasn’t normal - in the sense that we are used to orthodoxy. After deeply studying the book, arguing it, debating it, discussing it – I think I get what’s not sitting well with me now, along with several classmates. The prof seems convinced; we remain unconvinced – although deeply compelled. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it heterodox - but it definitely is UN-orthodox. Here’s my review: Read more…
My last year @ Regent College is ahead of me. I’ve been workign at somewhat a frenetic pace, produce, produce, write, write, and every so often you’ll stumble upon somethign that’s significant and maybe a contribution. Maybe that happened recently. I was listening to yet another lecture by two older Caucasian gentlemen in the academia talking about how we ought to go down to them, downward mobility, kenotic spirituality. Over and over again. One fine young gentleman asked why immigrants (refered to as “they”) cluster together in cliques and do not open to the broader society. As if “they” would be easier to reach in our downwardly-mobile efforts if they would just come out of “their” shells. I started to get uneasy because even in this great seminary – I was noticing a glaring blind spot. Read more…
Starting a new series titled “1st World Re-Evangelization” where I’d like to muse on some thoughts about ministering in a 1st world context as a 3rd world immigrant (what some might call “third culture”). Especially what it’s like as a minority (Korean-American) ministering in a predominantly Caucasian context. I find it intriguing – and different in many ways. Hence, the title, 1st World Re-Evangelization. Also because it is the title of a class I’m taking now, “Empowering the Church for First World Re-Evangelization: Theological And Missional Themes” – so don’t deconstruct the title too much, I didn’t come up with it. It is however a chance to hash out both in-class and out, in theory as well as in praxis, what this idea of “re-evangelizing the first world” really means – as a Christian in a postmodern world and as a minority in a dominant culture context. Either way, a minority. So I turn my first thoughts towards the theme of chaplaincy. Specifically police chaplaincy, and our own local support officer program here in Bellingham / Whatcom County. Read more…
Soong-Chan Rah: Another Angry Asian Man?
Reading “Prof Rah’s” The Next Evangelicalism is like gargling with salt. It stings in the throat but at the same time clears the sinuses of the stuffiness and congestion of poorly thought-out racial dialogue. Sure, we like to talk about color-blindness, and melting pots, and model minorities, but do we know what we’re really saying when we talk about these things? Surely the Church – that glorious multicultural reality – is exempt from these faux-pas assumptions… Or is she? Perhaps a little deconstruction is in order – and maybe that aint such a bad thing.
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Tech writer Clive Thompson calls Twitter "ambient awareness"
I’m re-publishing this as a convo about Twitter is jump-started by Time mag’s recent cover story on the 140 character cultural phenom. A friend dialogues about it (Twitter) here too. But specifically I am interested in Twitter’s implications for how we do church. I don’t mean so much using Twitter IN church, but the implications for end-user innovation in how we do church. Or be church. What if the church became “open-sourced” and congregant or laity-driven innovation? Original post here: Read more…
We had a discussion among our staff about the art of Makoto Fujimura this morning. He’s a New Yorker. He’s a Greenwich Village artist (my old haunting grounds back in the day @ Parsons School of Design). He’s asian (yay!) And he’s a Christian. So it intrigued me to watch an emerging figure who represents two worlds I inhabit, as an Asian-American as well as a Christian within the arts. So I did some homework only to find this little endorsement here to the left that he receives from CT mag, and to find out that he’s received some accolade from some great sources. See his blog here and professional page here. So I’m thrilled for this guy who is making a statement in numerous ways – as an urbanite, a religious person, an ethnic person – just thrilled. But the one question that seemed to echo in our group was: Read more…
Call me old-fashioned but I am just not sold on the idea of internet church.
Now, it’s not my intention to rant and get polemical on folks, but I am just wondering if this is any way to do church. I’m mildly irked by invitations to attend Easter services online or on TV and it causes me to reflect on the nature of communion – can it indeed happen in such a venue? Yes, Word is communicated, but sacrament? Is not worship about coming out of place into another Place? Conversely, I’m not anti-social media / tech as the recent article in Regent World suggests: Babel and Pentecost, but I do agree with one thing – over reliance on social media and technology as a means to market yourself is a way to sell your soul. Don’t get me wrong; there is a place for it, and to shy away from technology is like saying the Gutenberg press should’ve never happened. (Dare we ignore the fact that it was technology that launched Luther’s Theses all over Europe?) I think the internet is having a similar impact. But still. Somebody tell me why I get itchy and scratchy all over when I get twitter invitations to attend online church?
There are two major, formative events happening in my life right now. I became a father 16 mos ago (and going for a repeat this upcoming May) and my parents are getting old (dad turns 70 this yr). And so understandably so, family has been forefront in my mind as of late, particularly, what is the so-called Christian vision of family? A few tantalizing thoughts from Read more…
What does worship look like in the emerging church?
In deconstructing everything ecclesiological, does the emerging church discard, re-embrace, or presume to re-define our historical heritage in Christian worship? I personally tire of the repetitive choruses not because the words are bad, but because good words have been drained of meaning through over-usage. Thus is the worship music of the past few decades. So I wonder what the response of the ever-emerging church is today? Do we amp up the volume even more in an effort to compensate for our mediocrity as John Stackhouse asserts, (in a great article btw), or have we not found that “new song” just yet?
How is your (emerging) church re-inventing, re-defining, or returning to our historical heritage of worship in the church?
Continuing previous thoughts about pastors and depression. I’d like to introduce another important and related dimension; Sabbath. What do u guys think? Is Sabbath related to keeping depression @ bay? My talk last Sunday on the subject resonated w/folks but I find myself still wrestling: Is Sabbath really about a 24-hr period per se? What day should it be then? And is not Sabbath (in a sense) re-defined, maybe even re-voked in the NT??? At any rate, Read more…
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