A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid…. When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit.“You deaf and mute spirit,” … Continue reading Unclean Spirits….
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered.“No one is good—except God alone. Mark 10:17-18 These words have always troubled me to one extent or another. Let me explain why. The story which they came … Continue reading Except God Alone….
Our personal experiences invade all our perceptions of life. It is who we are and how others see us to be. I want to spend this post talking about personal experiences and how that relates to Christian outreach. What do our perceptions have to do with religion. Let’s face it we are a product of our experiences. I just finished watching a program in which … Continue reading In Their Shoes…
Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions. You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of … Continue reading Merely Human Rules….
Here are some thoughts from Randy Oftedahl over at QuakerQuaker: Now I believe there are many paths, and God in His love for human variety has given us an infinate number of ways to follow the Spirit, depending on what best speaks to our condition. But sometimes I think Quakers, perhaps because we have a particular history as a “peculiar people” or more distinctive worship … Continue reading Religious Superiority….
All of this makes me wonder if pews are misleading in churches. They trick people into thinking that Christians learn best by sitting quietly in rows, listening to lectures, and memorizing ideas about the faith. But churches should not be lecture halls. The above short quote got my attention. It is from a book by Diane Butler Bass entitled Christianity After Religion: The End of Church … Continue reading Churches Are Misleading….
Source: Deal Or No Deal? Creed Or No Creed? – QuakerQuaker. “Friends have no creeds.” We Quakers often say that. We are committed to no human words but rather to following the Holy Spirit. We believe God speaks to us today – speaks to all who still their hearts and listen. “No official words can substitute for a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.” We … Continue reading About Those Creeds….
I have now spent several posts on the emergent church. It is time to get back to the red letters to see what Jesus wants to teach us. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, … Continue reading Away From Me!!!
I want to close out this series of posts with some unfounded complaints about the emergent movement. This list is mine and therefore might not align with the leaders of this movement. Emergents don’t have a foundation, they allow their members to believe anything — While it is true that emergents don’t, as most common denominations do, try to prove anyone wrong about their current beliefs … Continue reading Common Complaints About Emergents…..
This post will be about the commitments of the emergent church as outlined in the book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier by Tony Jones. Appendix A: in the book carries the title above. This list seems in a nutshell to fairly characterize the emergent movement as it now stands in the U.S. Here is a list of commitments from that text: 1. … Continue reading Emergent Village Values & Practices….
Lets continue on with some more quotes from the book by Tony Jones entitled The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier “I’m humble,” an emergent might tell you, “because I don’t know what I’m wrong about today. I’ll speak with confidence, and I’ll speak with passion, but I won’t speak with certainty.” Being humble/uncertain in any area of theology is very intimidating to some within … Continue reading Humble Emergents vs. Absolutists….
Anyone who has read much of this blog knows how I feel about the slippery slope. I believe that the very concept has damaged us theologically, politically and personally beyond anything good that could come out of it. The very concept that everything we believe about a subject becomes worthless if we come to believe that any small part of it is questionable. Here is … Continue reading Skiing The Slippery Slope
Continuing with my study of theology as discussed in the book by Tony Jones entitled The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, here is the quote for this post: theology is temporary. Since our conceptions of God are shaped locally and in conversation, we must hold them humbly. We must carry our theologies with an open hand, as it were. To assume that our convictions … Continue reading Theology is Temporary…
Today I will continue my discussions of a book by Tony Jones entitled The New Christians; Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. I’m sure if there are any pastors or theologians who accidentally come across the blog post their first reaction is to adamantly disagree with the title that all theology is local. Here is what Tony Jones says about that: theology is not universal, nor … Continue reading All Theology Is Local….
