restless reformer

My favorite hymn is “The Church’s One Foundation.” If it came up for a vote, I’d vote to add it to biblical canon. I’m almost serious.
There’s one verse in that hymn that came to memory tonight as I sat with fellow believers and talked about the church, her flaws, her failures, and her […]

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I wrote some time ago about the unpredictable God, wrestling with the concept of a God who doesn’t work according to transactions, who decides not to answer prayer, who allows and creates disaster, entirely messing up my own comfort.  Some better reflections on the theme come from two places:
First, iMonk writes about hitting a wall, […]

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After a pretty lengthy discussion at the BHT on race and several posts here, I decided to try to root myself in some Christian thinking on race, and it’s been helpful. This discussion is so multi-faceted and complex that it’s difficult enough to get all the assumptions on the table in the first place, […]

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Bill Kristol, neocon par excellence (if you can even use the word “excellence” when talking about a neocon, which you can’t…I’m still irritated that the NYT picked that guy as the “conservative,” though I’m not surprised. It is the NYT, after all.) has written an abysmal response to Obama’s speech. In the first […]

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This is a very controversial piece, and I freely admit I may have to rethink some of this as discussion moves forward. Additional Point: One of the things I’m trying to do with this series is to demonstrate that one can agree with “liberals” or “progressives” (for lack of better words) on the causes and […]

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Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Some observations:

Jesus states that the time is fulfilled, not that it will be.
Jesus preached the gospel itself; this runs […]

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“Perhaps evangelism would be more effective and more biblical in some settings if Christians would have a beer, smoke a cigarette and use coarse language once in a while.” ~ Ra McLaughlin

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If you’re still bungling through the Christian year like I am and just remembered tonight that Lent starts tomorrow, never fear. Michael Spencer has collected a great list of resources for Lent.

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There’s a been a lot of reporting on Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, who espouses a black liberation theology. I have my issues with his theology, but when it comes to race, I find it absolutely baffling that he’s being called a “racist” by white males. Well, ok, not that baffling, because the […]

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I’ll be starting a series on racism tomorrow.  Entries will come sporadically and will be found in the “Kingdom Living” and “Politics” categories.  Just a quick note to build the need for the series, and to illustrate once again why it’s too difficult for me to flat-out say, “Dr. Paul stopped paying attention to his […]

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Update II:  This is why I read iMonk.
Update: On a related note, friend, co-worker, fellow blogger and published author Wyman Richardson is starting a series on Patristic Summaries. You’ll want to pay attention to this.
I get really weary of every new round of this: “By the second century, paganism had infiltrated the church and […]

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Huckabee’s late-90’s rhetoric about “taking the nation back for Christ” is standard fare in American evangelical circles. Prediction: that statement will get the evangelical base more fired up for Huckabee than they ever were for Bush. I think the evangelicals have found their candidate.
So, in the spirit up the season of Festivus, to […]

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Update:  Matthew Johnson has written a post on Christ the King at the Advent blog.
Today, the end of “Ordinary Time” and the last Sunday before Advent, is Christ the King Sunday, instituted by Pope Pius XI, and intended to celebrate the rule of Christ over the earth.
For more on Christ the King Sunday, read Jonathan […]

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The Christian year is about to begin. Advent approaches, and many churches are preparing to observe this traditional season leading up to Christmas. Many others are not - either because they don’t know the first thing about Advent, because they think that’s a “Catholic” thing, or because they’re deliberately against something so “planned,” […]

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Speaking of the liturgical year, Michael Spencer is once again hosting “Go to Bethlehem and See…” - an advent blog from the friends and fellows of the Boar’s Head Tavern.
I’ve blogged there during advent for the past two years, and it’s an excellent way to keep focused on the advent season, to keep one’s soul […]

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