Is the US like Babylon and Rome?

The New England Puritans were not in doubt that the US was the new Israel and Shane Claiborne is not in doubt that the US is a new Babylon. I think Claiborne is closer to the truth, but I wish he had taken a more nuanced approach when comparing the US to Babylon or Rome. [...]

Evangelicals Lose Bush?

After Bush’s recent interview on Nightline, media networks have creating hype around the fact that Bush made several comments relating to the Bible that wouldn’t jive with most evangelicals.  (I’m sorry friends–it was on Fox News, so it must be true! ;o)  In fact, according to some definitions of an evangelical, Bush is officially outside [...]

Alternative

Writing three years after the end of World War II, Reinhold Niebuhr, having been thoroughly disillusioned with Utopian vision of modernism preceding and leading up to the war, wrote an article entitled, “Why the Church is Not Pacifist”, in which he expounded his theory of “Christian realism”. In it, he leverages the “law of love”, [...]

Boots Without Bootstraps

I took a Pastoral Theology class last year in which we were tasked to learn and utilize an assessment process called Appreciative Inquiry (AI).  I hated the exercise.  In contrast to simple problem solving, where deficiencies are identified and actions taken to correct problems, Appreciative Inquiry starts with what’s going right, in an effort to [...]

Culture Calling

“… mass culture was ‘imposed from above’ on audiences who were ‘passive consumers’”
“… of ‘homogenized culture’”
“As the mass production techniques of industrial capitalism could reproduce endless copies of the same, standardized objects, for example sit-coms, records, or paperbacks, fears grew that a similar process would occur in all cultural practices …” (page 292)
“America, … became [...]

Adding to the confusion

One of my non-Christian friends emailed me a couple weeks ago, asking me what the Bible said about killing and murder. He was alluding to the Ten Commandments, and so I told him that the Bible said, no murder (short version), and more generally spoke of a consistent ethic of life and of the value [...]

For what are we Fighting?

What exactly are we fighting for? The Seattle Times reports this year, once again, on a statewide controversy over displays of holiday symbols in public places and state institutions. This year’s controversy centers around a sign displayed in the state capitol presented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In part the sign reads: “Religion is [...]

No Wonder People Get Mad At Christians!

Did you ever have one of those epiphanies where once the light went on, you had a little more understanding and maybe compassion for someone you disagree with?  I had one of those while reading Robert Jewett’s book, Mission and Menace.  It is a fascinating journey through the history of the US and highlighting how religion, [...]

James Dobson’s in my Family

I don’t like much of what James Dobson has to say. I often dislike very much the way that he says it. When I hear him on the radio I cringe because I can imagine how many of my non-Christian friends would respond to what often seems like a self-righteous and overly assuming perspective. And [...]

The Cost of Leaving Home

I think the chapter entitled “The Justice of Privilege” out of Robert Wuthnow’s book American Mythos is a very thought provoking look at the way us Americas think that we are a land of men and women that are more noble than the rest of the world because we invite immigrants to our country and [...]