Praise

Welcome to Advent, 2012.

/ Paul Burkhart / 13 Comments

This Sunday marks the first Sunday of Advent. This is the New Year’s Day of the Christian Church Calendar. It’s the season in which we celebrate and meditate upon the “Advent” (latin for “Coming”) of Jesus into the world in the Incarnation. This season begins this Sunday and lasts until Christmas.

In this time, we stare deeply into the reality that the Creator God of the universe came into human form by way of human birth.

The season is marked (as with every Church season) with a profound tension. We meditate on the darkness into which Christ entered the world, as well as the light he brought in his Coming. Advent is a time that we sit in the tension of past, present, and future, and see how this most-differentiating belief of Christianity has profound implications on these places in time, and indeed, the whole of human life and experience.

This is why, for this year’s Advent, I’ll be doing a series meditating on how Advent affects seemingly unrelated parts of human life: art, politics, sexuality, singleness, women’s ordination, social justice, Evolution, suffering, humor, the city, and more.

There are several other ways you can engage in this season:
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A Prayer for Thanksgiving

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Father in Heaven, Creator of all and source of all goodness and love, please look kindly upon us on this Thanksgiving and receive our heartfelt gratitude in this time of giving thanks:

We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

We thank you for all the graces and blessings you have bestowed upon us, both spiritual and temporal: our faith and religious heritage, our food and shelter, our health, the loves we have for one another, our family and friends.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things.

Dear Father, in Your infinite generosity, please grant us continued graces and blessing throughout the coming year.

Amen.

(modified from The Book of Common Prayer)

Christianity: paradox & Paradise, fall & Fall

/ Paul Burkhart / 10 Comments

I had the privilege of spending a long weekend these past few days in western Pennsylvania under the kindness and hospitality of my girlfriend and her family. It’s a place that is hard to describe without falling into cliches of big sky, clear air, and bright stars. It’s near the area that Johann Jacob Burkhardt, my first ancestor in America, settled in 1754 after sailing from Germany and landing in Philadelphia exactly a week ago today. I made almost the exact same trek as Johann and his family, from the rivers of Philly to the rural countryside of unsettled Pennsylvania.

Strangely, in the rest of Pennsylvania that I have seen, the trees are still mostly green and just starting to turn for the Fall. But here, this weekend marked the peak of that beautiful transition. The pictures above and below should testify to this (click them for larger versions). They were taken only a couple of days ago–with my phone (fun fact: the picture directly above this text was taken from Mt. David, the highest point in Pennsylvania).

I can’t express to you the beauty my eyes and soul were able to behold.
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Here I am leading a Port Wine tasting with Fluffer-Nutter Sandwiches [VIDEO]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

Last night, some of my best friends threw a wine-tasting and food pairing party. Some of the people closest to me presented wine and food pairings that blew my mind. I had no idea that wine could do all of that. It was the perfect way to end a very busy summer.

Above, you will find a video of me presenting my wine and pairing. I led a tasting of a Tawny Port wine and paired it with Fluffer-Nutter sandwiches (my new obsession). I hope you enjoy it and learn some things.

You can see the videos of the other wine-presenters, as well as other highlights of our evening here.

Thanks go to Paul and Natanya Ma for hosting us, and specifically to Paul for taking and posting these videos.
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Using the Bible to Meet with God

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Last week, I asked a bunch of you how you go about using the Bible and the study of its contents to actually nourish your soul and meet with God. I got some great responses both here and on Facebook. This week, I wanted to put up how I ended up approaching this during the class I taught at my church. It’s super short, not very deep, and much more can/should/will be said. For what it is, I hope it’s genuinely helpful and speaks to how we might meet God through the Scriptures.

How do we move from the Facts of the Bible to the God of the Bible? From knowing the Bible, to knowing the Person? From Scripture being informational to formational?

The Meeting Place of God

As I said in the first class I taught, the Bible is not the passive “Revelation of God”. It is the place through which the Holy Spirit actively “reveals God” to us. When it comes to the Bible, we should start thinking more in verbs, not nouns. The Bible is “simply” a meeting place for God and his people, where he might meet them as he desires, by His Spirit.

When we meet God in Scripture, its the convergence of four things: Us and our faith, God and His Spirit.
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the order of the cosmos; the chaos of our souls [QUOTE]

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atoms, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.

— Terence McKenna

This is why, I feel, that Order had to take on Disorder, and order it within Himself: so that all things, though still in chaos, might find their rest in Him.

a homosexuality post-script & conclusion

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Most of last week on this blog was spent discussing some recent “conversations” about the Evangelical church’s relationship with the homosexual community. I first addressed conservatives, and then progressives (as well as some thoughts on the “willful persistence in sin” comment I hear from conservatives a lot). This week, we move on. But not yet. In response to some of the ways people have responded to these posts, I felt I needed to write this.

In conclusion to it all…

These posts I’ve written got a lot of circulation around the web (and to those who commented/posted links, I thank you), and so for anyone that runs across them, I want to make something clear:

It might seem odd that I’ve typed far more words and dripped more sarcasm in attacking the more conservative side of this issue, all while ultimately agreeing more with them at the end of the day. In the end, even with all of my many theological and social disagreements, I cast my lot with them, even though I know most of them would not have me.

These posts, hopefully, have been written in the same spirit as Mark Noll’s blistering attack on Evangelical anti-intellectualism, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, which he calls “an epistle from a wounded lover”.
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Philly Beer Lovers: get very, very excited.

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

From the article “Pennsylvania debates new beer flow” in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:

States have adopted various strategies in the 79-year effort to prevent pre-Prohibition alcohol abuses, but Pennsylvania has been particularly idiosyncratic, said Eric Shepard, longtime editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights in Suffern, N.Y.

“Pennsylvania is unique,” he said. “You are by far the weirdest state.”

The bill under consideration, introduced by state House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) with Gov. Corbett’s backing, is just the latest effort to get the state out of the liquor business. But Turzai’s new twist would permit beer distributors and other businesses that could afford a license to sell beer in any quantity, along with wine and liquor.

In short, one-stop shopping for alcohol buyers, a la New Jersey.

Read more…

Also, be sure to contact your local representative to support this bill.

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The New York Times finally calls out Obama.

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The NYTimes, the paper of record in America, finally just called out Obama on his civil liberties abuses! Satan just bought a parka.

A unilateral campaign of death is untenable. To provide real assurance, President Obama should publish clear guidelines for targeting to be carried out by nonpoliticians, making assassination truly a last resort, and allow an outside court to review the evidence before placing Americans on a kill list. And it should release the legal briefs upon which the targeted killing was based.

Read more.

Posted from WordPress for Android on my Droid X

I’m Obsessed with Myself (a blog fast)

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments


I haven’t talked about it much (on this blog or to many people), but for the past 6 or 7 months I’ve been in professional counseling, primarily for anxiety (and it’s various outward expressions). There is a constant tension and busyness inside me that keeps me from living so many aspects of life. The counseling has been challenging, amazing, and painfully slow in the growth it has been producing in me.

But growth it has produced.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a week off from the blog, somewhat as an experiment. That week, I experienced more freedom from the various expressions of anxiety in my life than I had for years. I began to experience once again that communion with Christ I’ve written about wanting before. I was reading his Word, praying, and serving those around me with such calm and freedom.

I then thought to myself, “Wow. That was amazing! Now, I can go back to blogging.” I came back to the blog all last week, and all the anxiety came rushing back with it.

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“Sleeping Alone”: for all those hurting in their singleness…

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

My good (online) friend Lore Ferguson (for whose site I recently guest-posted) just had an old post of her’s published on the site The High Calling. It’s called “Sleeping Alone” and it’s some of her meditations on the sustaining life of God in her singleness.

And wow, is it amazing. It’s raw, honest, unflinching, and gracious. Read it right now and then come back here. Here’s an excerpt:

Singleness is a beautiful thing and when I take account of the past decade I see a faithfulness to its beauty in my life in a way that only comes from grace, but I also see a succession of tiny funerals every step of the way. A cemetery full of them. Adventures I have had alone. Mornings I have woken alone. Moments I have reveled in alone. Each one bringing joy in its experience and mourning in its completion.

Life is meant to be shared and marriage is not the only way to share life, I know this, but the mystery of two flesh becoming one is a mingling that cannot be known by me, with my bed all to myself, 400 thread count sheets, open window, and quiet morning. And I mourn this.

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MUST-READ: “Why I Will Not Divorce the Bible” by Jared Byas

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

My fellow former-Westminsterian (and co-author of a book I plugged a few weeks ago), Jared Byas, just posted an incredible blog post on his blog, Seeking the Good & Claiming it for the Kingdom. The post is called “Why I Will Not Divorce the Bible” and he articulates in such clear prose and winsome graciousness many of the thoughts and perspectives I have when engaging the Bible and then turning to engage the world around me.

Byas writes about how Evangelicals and theological “progressives” both end up devaluing the Bible and not truly respecting it or being “married” to it. He does a great job of exposing the reductionism of both sides as they use various techniques to keep the Bible at arm’s length so they don’t really have to deal with it as it is. (I’ve written similarly before.)
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Pentecost is Coming: on Law & Spirit (p.s. Easter is forever.)

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On the night of Passover, a lamb was killed so that God’s people would live. Fifty days later, God offered his law to his people–a picture of who he was, a mark of who his people would be, and the equipping of his people for the purposes God had for them.

And that’s the New Testament version.

Easter officially comes to an end this Sunday. Then comes Pentecost, the season in which we celebrate the Holy Spirit falling on the apostles, fifty days after Jesus’ death (hence the name Penta-cost). This day is celebrated as the “birthday” of the Church. Jesus had told the disciples to go out into the world ministering this Gospel to the world, but first, to wait. What would be so important as to put the brakes on the mission of God in the world?

The Holy Spirit.
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“But even if not” | one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard, by Sam Wells

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This past weekend, I had the honor of being at Duke Divinity’s baccalaureate for their graduating divinity students. It was a full-scale service (minus communion, and plus the hood ceremony for the graduates), complete with songs, prayers, and a homily.

And oh what a homily it was.

That night, Sam Wells, the (now former) dean of Duke Chapel, delivered his last ever message as dean. Late last year, he accepted the call to vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, and this was the last homily he was to offer to these students he obviously loved so much. These final words to them were purposeful and intense, offering a handhold for each one of us in the muddy waters of life and vocation.

I pray these words impact you as they did me, and that you return to them often. You can view the message below, or check out Duke Chapel’s myriad of other ways to find and keep up with their messages. The message starts at 57:40 (the embedded video won’t jump to that time-mark automatically, but this link will take you right there if you don’t want to click around below).

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