The Good Motivations of the Heart: God-merica, pt.IIIb [REPOST]


[This is a repost of the last in a 4-part series of articles I wrote about a year-and-a-half ago (here’s Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) exploring my struggles with the idea of America as a “Christian Nation” and how my Christian faith should influence my politics. Where I ended up is a very helpful place, I believe, for us Christians struggling with these things.  

In the first post, I show how America has many similarities with Ancient Rome that lend itself to helping us in this discussion.  In the second, I discuss the motivations and limits of imposing a Christian worldview on a post-Christian society.  In the third, I laid out the wrong motives that seem to drive most of Evangelicalism’s attempts to take over the country, and their historical and philosophical roots.  In the post below, I pick up right where the third one ends and give a biblical foundation for a possible framework we can use to discern our political action as Christians.

___________________________________

My exploration of motives for Christian involvement in politics began to shift when I realized that the same Paul and Peter that preached a political worldview of simply obeying the laws were the same Paul and Peter that when told by authorities not to preach, they refused to obey.  What’s going on?  Apparently there’s some other principle at work that creates a depth, complexity, and dynamism within this issue: God and His Nature, Christ and His Glory.  More on this in the next post.

Continue reading

REVIEW: “Simply Christian” by N.T. Wright


Simply Christian
Bishop N.T. Wright
Zondervan, 2006
Buy Now Here
Pre-Order New Ed. Here

__________

As I revealed in a recent tweet, I believe I’m walking into a new obsession with the author/scholar/pastor N.T. Wright. Surprising to many, I’m sure, with me being a seminarian and all, is the fact that I had never read any Wright before this book. Sure, I’ve known of his existence for years, had seen a few of his YouTube clips, and skimmed a few of his articles, but I had never read his books. My housemate during the two months or so before seminary began reading through Wright’s entire Christian Origins and the Question of God series (books 1, 2, 3) constituting over 2,100 pages of reading. He couldn’t stop reading, nor stop telling me about how amazing this man was. I nodded and agreed, sure that I would read something at some point. I had no idea what I was missing.

Continue reading

Holy Day Meditations: Jesus Presented at the Temple


The backbone of my morning and evening meditations and prayer has become the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It has taken me a while to figure out how to use it (with a lot of help from a friend), and I’m still clumsily trying to make my way along, but it is an amazing book. It gives just the right amount of both freedom and structure to give me both guidance and excitement. I’m really enjoying it. Secondly, I am a relatively new member of a church that belongs to the Reformed Church in America. Both of these things has led me to encounter ancient church documents, creeds, and traditions I was never exposed to as a Bible Belt Southern Baptist.

One of those newfound traditions that is really becoming a major part of my life is the Church Calendar. According to the calendar, we are currently in the season of Epiphany, where the church celebrates the travel of the Wise Men to see Jesus, therefore declaring him King and Lord among all the nations, and today is the Church Holy Day on which we celebrate Jesus’ presentation by His parents in the temple (forty days after Christmas) (Luke 2:22-40). As I went through the Daily Lectionary this morning, I found that focusing on this event and meditating on it bore some very real personal fruit that I wished to share.

Continue reading

Dostoevsky on the Tensions of the Christian Life


I’m currently reading through The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Early in the book, there is a scene where the entire Karamzov clan goes to meet with this elder priest to solve some disputes amongst themselves. Of course, being a Russian novel, before they can get to the actual disputes they engage in various forms of political and theological philosophizing for a few chapters. One of the brothers, Ivan, has one of his ideas brought up concerning moral differences between Christians and Non-christians. The elder hears this and immediately identifies it for what it is: an over-intellectualization to help explain away tensions and mysteries existing in Ivan’s heart that he can’t stop wrestling.

As any reader of my writings knows, in the past year or so I have been absolutely taken captive by the truth that Christianity, and therefore the Christian life itself, is fundamentally an exercise in holding tensions and living within mysteries that have no real answer in this life. As Peter Rollins says in the amazing book The Fidelity of Betrayal: “doubt is intimately tied up with faith, because the deep truth of faith gives birth to doubt.” In other words, only the true believer has experienced something in their heart that they can doubt in the first place. Unbelievers don’t doubt, they just don’t believe. But we Christians follow our forefather Jacob whose blessing was to wrestle with God and receive the very name Israel, which means “He wrestles with God”.

Continue reading

Consider Sponsoring a Child with Compassion


[This is also posted at the Come and See blog]

This is what a friend at another Liberti campus recently sent this out.  She’s been asked by a ministry called Compassion to look for a sponsor for a 9-year old Ethiopian named Dinku Dejene.  His birthday is August 21; he lives with his stepfather, mother, and sibling; and his favorite activities are soccer, running, and hide-and-seek.  (Click here for his full-size Compassion card.)

Meredith writes:

“The goal is to find a person to sponsor him on a committed, monthly basis for $38 per month by December 31. The children Compassion serves receive (among other things): the opportunity to hear the gospel and learn about Jesus; regular Christian training; educational opportunities and help; health care, hygiene training and supplementary food if necessary; a caring and safe Christian environment to grow in self-confidence and social skills; and personal attention, guidance and love.

Continue reading

“O Sovereign, Come” (an original Advent hymn)


On this beautiful White Christmas (at least where I’m at), for those precious few of you that will make it online today, I wanted to put up a hymn I wrote a about a year ago.  I pray this encourages you and creates anticipation for the Advent that is to come. Merry Christmas.

O Sovereign, Come

Our chains behind us, our sin before us
showing all our crippling need.
Your Grace within us, Your Spirit upon us
transforming our every deed.

After our freedom and we pass through the Red Sea,
let us not forget the desert comes.

Refrain:
Rip through the clouds, tear through the skies;
Let us see that you’re God on High.
O Sovereign, Come.  Seize our hearts.
Show yourself as Beautiful.

Your triumph of Glory, You crimson Cross
heralding Your Sovereign Way
of life through our death, enduring our thorns,
completing Your sufferings in ourselves.

Let us embrace your cross that’s set there before us
and know that it precedes the crown.

Refrain

On that day, when freed from sinning,
how I’ll see Thy lovely Face.
Clothed then in blood-washed linen,
how I’ll sing Thy Sovereign Grace.

Refrain

The Bible, Slavery, & Atheists{2b}: Theology & Ethics | Reform & Revive


By the time I finished the next article in the series, it was substantive enough and socially-oriented enough to warrant being posted on my webzine Reform & Revive.  The previous post was on on how secular Philosophy can inform our view of ethics and contribute to the discussion of Slavery, Atheism, and the Bible.  This one is about how Christian theological ethics can uniquely inform our ethics in modern times.  The article covers a LOT of ground and is the longest one I’ve written yet in this series.  Hopefully that’s not a turn off.  This article has more of my thought concerning truth and Biblical interpretation than perhaps any one article I’ve ever written contains.  Here’s the link:

http://reformandrevive.com/2009/12/22/a-theology-of-ethics-contemporary-applications/

It seems in light of my earlier post I’ve decided to pour more of myself into this series, rather than just quickly finishing it off.  Hopefully it’s helpful.

Lastly, I keep getting private emails, texts, and messages from Christians talking about how much they’re enjoying this series, and how helpful it is to them, but hardly any Christians are publicly commenting.  I’m getting tons of comments from my atheist friends, though.  Discrepancy?  I think so.  If you have a thought, please leave it.  It could be really helpful to get more input on this and diversity of thought on this.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement.  It means a lot.

The Bible, Slavery, & Atheism: Part 1b


this is real (I did it myself)

The next post is pretty much done, but I wanted to send out this quick note before moving on. The previous post revealed a lot of things that I neglected to make clear. My fault. Sorry.

First and foremost, the last post was not meant to settle the question on slavery and the Bible. I just wanted to get out what the Bible actually says about it. The most I wanted to accomplish toward addressing the issue was to let people see a clear trajectory within Scripture wherein no part is inherently contradictory to the parts before or after it, no more than a seed is contradictory in nature or form to a fully blossomed flower. I also wanted to give a sense of the complexity of the issue. In every passage that lies out even the most comprehensive sets of morality and ethics for the Israelite people, you never see slavery there. It was never an action that was consistently seen as something moral. It’s not a freedom that the Israelites are free to use whenever they desire; it’s used sporadically, meaning that there must be something else going on beyond some explicit commentary by God on the moral nature of slavery. The New Testament is clear that the crucifixion of Christ was something that was foreordained and ultimately brought about by God, but this neither expunges the moral responsibility of the people that actually did it, nor says that God is all about crucifixion and thinks it is “morally neutral” or “ethically okay”. He clearly thinks it is wrong and evil, and yet He clearly ordained it, allowed it, and used it to bring about his promised redemption to the world.

Continue reading

“The Beauty of Theology (an Advent Call)”-GoingToSeminary.com


I just wanted to let all of you know about a new article I recently put up on GoingToSeminary.com.  In light of this advent season, I retooled some of the things I wrote in my Beauty series to encourage those of us getting bogged down in holiday busyness and school finals. I hope the article is used to stir many of you towards the great God that dwelt among us. Read the full thing:

The Beauty of Theology (an Advent Call)

Also, for those interested, my church, Liberti (I go to the South Philly campus) has put together a prayer guide for Advent.  I hope this further helps you in the weeks to come.

Check out the rest of my Going To Seminary posts.

An Open Response to Some Atheist Friends Regarding Slavery & Biblical Ethics (pt. 1)


[First off, this is a long one, and only part 1 of 6, so beware before you start reading.]

On Facebook, there appeared a status by an old atheist friend of mine from undergrad named Larry (supported by another friend Christopher). Here was the thesis of the post:

Regarding moral relativism the christians are hypocritical. They say they believe in a moral objectivity given by god…but how is it then, that they believed slavery was a product of the old days, as it was applicable to the time it was practiced (and sanctioned by the bible) but now condemn it? The bible, last I checked did not change. I think this is a PRIMARY example of moral relativism exhibited by the church and christians. So how can they sit here and tell us that a proof for god is moral objectivity?

In other words, how could the ethics of Christians change over time if the book they supposedly base their ethics upon has not changed? Either the God that inspired the Bible was completely incompetent in his revelation or there was no God revealing anything at all. The note caused a discussion that resulted in almost 90 comments, and I quickly realized that if I were going to respond, it would need to be in a more lengthy manner than a Facebook comment (which is not the most helpful of mediums of debate). So here it is. I’d like to respond to the ideas that came out in the discussions. I want to disagree with them on the basis of five ideas:

Continue reading

Some Help for the Journey & the Fall (Matt Chandler, Patrol Mag, & the iMonk)


Melograna - fallingArt by Julia Meolgrana

If you have about an hour or so, I wanted to plug several articles and a sermon.  The sermon is from Matt Chandler.  It is a message he gave during a chapel service at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  There is both audio and video available.  The message is walking through Hebrews Chapter 11 and into 12 to show what the Christian life is meant to consist of.  This message blew me away.  It’s about 40 minutes long, and I was almost crying at work by the end.  It is a call to see the Fallenness of this world, the Beauty of its Savior, and our need to repent.

The main article I want to push now is an editorial from Patrol Magazine, a frequent subject and inspiration for posts on this blog.  These weekly editorials are becoming a highlight of my week.  They are always scathing critiques on Christian culture, but are written so intelligently, thoughtfully, and comprehensively, one cannot help but notice the dearth of such quality writing elsewhere in the Christian world.  This particular editorial is about how Evangelicalism is dead — not only as a term, but as a movement altogether.  Here’s a taste:

Continue reading

A New Church Home . . .


liberti south philly coverepiphany fellowshipAs of a couple of weeks ago, I am an in-covenant member at Liberti Church: South Philly. One of the reasons I am writing this is to inform those at Epiphany that don’t know this yet. I thought a good number of people knew, but I’m getting more and more texts and messages from people that obviously don’t know this. Sorry for not communicating this to more people.

As many people know, ever since I first got to Philadelphia, I was an avid member of Epiphany Fellowship. In fact, it was a message by Eric Mason delivered at the Village Church in Dallas, Texas that sealed my decision to come to Philly in the first place. When every other seminarian was spending their first few months at school in that awkward period of looking for a church home, I already had mine. The apartment-hunting visits I had made prior to moving let me visit Epiphany months before I actually moved here and I was made to feel the warmth and hospitality of a community that lived in line with the amazing teaching they receive in and out of Sunday mornings.

Continue reading

My Favorite Song: “Wedding Dress” by Derek Webb


b00008ngas01_ss500_sclzzzzzzz_For those that have read this blog for a while, seeing the name “Derek Webb” AGAIN in the title of one of my posts probably caused you to at least roll your eyes, if not actually letting out a heavy sigh accompanied with an “oh Paul…”.  This is because in about a three month span, I wrote 8 posts all having to do with Derek Webb’s newest album Stockholm Syndrome (here they are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).  Admittedly, I kept writing all those mainly because I was boasting record visits to my site because of those articles and I wanted to maintain that.  But eventually it got old, and I went back to my smaller numbers, though those article still rank as my highest visited even still.

Continue reading

Creation/Evolution articles at R&R


Hey, at the behest of a good friend (you know who you are), I am putting up the links to the two articles I recently wrote on my magazine site, Reform & Revive.  I am currently reading a book called Perspective on an Evolving Creation, edited by Keith Miller.  It’s pretty phenomenal, and I’ve started blogging through the book.  I’m putting up articles concerning the better essays that could be the most helpful to everyone out there.  So, without further ado, here are those links:

Article #1: I’m Coming Out (Intro to an Evolving Creation)

Article #2: “An Evolving Creation: Oxymoron or Fruitful Insight?” by Keith Miller

Enjoy, and debate away!

Some writing news . . .


I just wanted to plug a new website that I am now contributing to.  It’s a site from the newest fellow Westminster dropout I’ve met, Allison Quient.  It’s a site called “By Whose Authority?” and it’s an ecumenical blog where people from varying theological perspectives write and discuss their respective views.  From the site:

This blog is devoted to addressing questions of Church authority and other doctrinal issues surrounding the Protestant, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Our hope is to foster a charitable and winsome dialog in the pursuit of God’s truth.

I haven’t written anything yet, but I’ll try to put up a post on the site in the next couple of days.  You can be sure I’ll let it be known here on this blog when that happens.  But in the meantime, please go and read some of the posts that have been put up so far.  They are pretty phenomenal.