is coming soon. This one's topic is "Evangelism."
Peace,
Chris
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Universal Bones is all updated and such
Now there are links to all 5 chapters of Days in the Cold. Now you can read the entire story up til now linearly. Also Chapter 5 is done now.
Peace,
Chris
Peace,
Chris
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
A review of "a Generous Orthodoxy"
Once a great leader came to the Rabbis Hillel and Shammai. When he asked the strict Shammai, "tell me what your God commands, while standing on one foot." Shammai tried, but fell to two feet, without explaining the whole of the Torah. Then the great leader came to Hillel and said the same. Hillel hopped up on one foot and said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor, all the rest is commentary."
If I were to sum up McLaren’s "a Generous Orthodoxy" on one foot I would say, "Ditch mutual exclusivity. Be a blessing to the whole world. Follow Jesus, not Christianity. All the rest is commentary."
"a Generous Orthodoxy" is a very auto-biographical book and conversational in tone.
The generous orthodoxy that McLaren proposes is a curious thing, to him the Emergent Church seems to be a Frankenstein monster of his own creation. He wants to borrow the best bits of various Christian traditions to form a Christianity for the post-modern age. McLaren’s Emergent Church would be an orthopraxic, non-eschatological faith, infused with the spiritual fire of Pentecostalism, the anything to spread the gospel attitude of Evangelicals, the urge to reform of Calvinists, the spirituality of Catholicism, the methodology of Methodism, the way of relating to culture of Celtic Christianity, and the ability to get along with one another of the Anglican church.
The book starts off with McLaren trying to convince us not to read the book, always a good tactic; it wets the appetite of the reader and makes them curious. In chapter one he writes about the ways in which various groups (Conservative Protestants, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Liberal Protestants, Anabaptists, and Liberation Theologians) view Jesus as savior and decides they are all true.
McLaren tries to put the Emergent Church forward as a middle ground, or maybe a synthesis, between Liberal Christianity and Conservative Christianity. To do this he defines Conservatives as narcissists and Liberals as atheists. Actually that was one of my biggest beefs with McLaren, in his Post-modern way he re-defines everything. He is a Fundamentalist, because he believes loving God and neighbor as yourself to be fundamental to his faith. He’s Calvinist because he likes reform and believes in TULIP, but TULIP in his case is "Triune Love, Unselfish Election, Limitless Reconciliation, Inspiring Grace, and Passionate Persistant Saints."
It may sound like I didn’t like this book. Not true, it did what McLaren wanted, to make me think. There is a lot of good here. He points out a lot of skeletons in Christianity’s closet and elephants in the room that no one admits are there. He does a good job at giving a general overview of reasons for historical developments in Christianity.
In some ways I think this book was written more for Baptists considering leaving the faith because of the Religious Right, as he hits out at that portion of Christianity very hard. As for liberal Christianity he simply leaves it at that we’ve lost something important in our struggle with modernity. Really he doesn’t struggle with the questions of the Christian Left beyond saying we don’t have soul and sometimes can lead to Athiesm.
One other thing, LZ points out that McLaren may be a closet Lutheran. I am not so sure, but what is interesting is he never talks directly about Lutheranism. The closest he comes is to quote Luther’s saying "Here I Stand." That said he indirectly talks about Lutheranism a LOT. Not only does the whole post-modern thing fit in well with my faith’s paradoxical nature, but quite often when he talks about other denominations he mentions off hand Lutherans are similar to this or that. He mentions us when he talks about Roman Catholics, Anabaptists and Anglicans. I think he doesn’t know what to make of us. Or, maybe he does but he realizes we are sitting on the ground he’d like to claim for the Emergent Church. Perhaps the Emergent Church, in McLare’s eyes is simply a more rowdy, less centralized version of the ELCA?
Peace,
Chris
If I were to sum up McLaren’s "a Generous Orthodoxy" on one foot I would say, "Ditch mutual exclusivity. Be a blessing to the whole world. Follow Jesus, not Christianity. All the rest is commentary."
"a Generous Orthodoxy" is a very auto-biographical book and conversational in tone.
The generous orthodoxy that McLaren proposes is a curious thing, to him the Emergent Church seems to be a Frankenstein monster of his own creation. He wants to borrow the best bits of various Christian traditions to form a Christianity for the post-modern age. McLaren’s Emergent Church would be an orthopraxic, non-eschatological faith, infused with the spiritual fire of Pentecostalism, the anything to spread the gospel attitude of Evangelicals, the urge to reform of Calvinists, the spirituality of Catholicism, the methodology of Methodism, the way of relating to culture of Celtic Christianity, and the ability to get along with one another of the Anglican church.
The book starts off with McLaren trying to convince us not to read the book, always a good tactic; it wets the appetite of the reader and makes them curious. In chapter one he writes about the ways in which various groups (Conservative Protestants, Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Liberal Protestants, Anabaptists, and Liberation Theologians) view Jesus as savior and decides they are all true.
McLaren tries to put the Emergent Church forward as a middle ground, or maybe a synthesis, between Liberal Christianity and Conservative Christianity. To do this he defines Conservatives as narcissists and Liberals as atheists. Actually that was one of my biggest beefs with McLaren, in his Post-modern way he re-defines everything. He is a Fundamentalist, because he believes loving God and neighbor as yourself to be fundamental to his faith. He’s Calvinist because he likes reform and believes in TULIP, but TULIP in his case is "Triune Love, Unselfish Election, Limitless Reconciliation, Inspiring Grace, and Passionate Persistant Saints."
It may sound like I didn’t like this book. Not true, it did what McLaren wanted, to make me think. There is a lot of good here. He points out a lot of skeletons in Christianity’s closet and elephants in the room that no one admits are there. He does a good job at giving a general overview of reasons for historical developments in Christianity.
In some ways I think this book was written more for Baptists considering leaving the faith because of the Religious Right, as he hits out at that portion of Christianity very hard. As for liberal Christianity he simply leaves it at that we’ve lost something important in our struggle with modernity. Really he doesn’t struggle with the questions of the Christian Left beyond saying we don’t have soul and sometimes can lead to Athiesm.
One other thing, LZ points out that McLaren may be a closet Lutheran. I am not so sure, but what is interesting is he never talks directly about Lutheranism. The closest he comes is to quote Luther’s saying "Here I Stand." That said he indirectly talks about Lutheranism a LOT. Not only does the whole post-modern thing fit in well with my faith’s paradoxical nature, but quite often when he talks about other denominations he mentions off hand Lutherans are similar to this or that. He mentions us when he talks about Roman Catholics, Anabaptists and Anglicans. I think he doesn’t know what to make of us. Or, maybe he does but he realizes we are sitting on the ground he’d like to claim for the Emergent Church. Perhaps the Emergent Church, in McLare’s eyes is simply a more rowdy, less centralized version of the ELCA?
Peace,
Chris
China's holocaust?
I don't know if this is all Falun Gong propaganda, but if there is some truth to it... God help us.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Just Finished A Generous Orthodoxy
As some of you know I'm in search of what the "Emergent" church is. After volunteering at a Christian book shop I now have 40 quid worth of research materials. I started with "a Generous Orthodoxy" by Brian D. McLaren. Its a very autobiographical book. On one hand I appriciated it as it seemed to name a lot of elephants in the room, on the other hand it also felt like debates I had back in High School, only with some sorces to back up the claims.
I'll have a more full review up hopefully sometime this week.
Peace,
Chris
I'll have a more full review up hopefully sometime this week.
Peace,
Chris
The May edition of the Foundation is up
Check it out. This month we will be discussing Nukes.
Peace,
Chris
Peace,
Chris
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Another chapter started in "Days in the Cold"
I have now started chapter 5 of Days in the cold over at UniversalBones.
Other than that. Not much going on here. I didn't get the scholarship for Clare College, which means if I get into Cambridge I'll have to take out loans for grad school. On the plus side I ate some wonderful Korean food at TFG volunteer Melody's house last night along with Vik and Sarah. Afterwards Melody locked herself out of the house so I ended up being more dashing than Indiana Jones, braver than anyone Ian Flemming could have thought up, and more rogue-ish than Hans Solo and Wolverine combined, by crawling through her host parent's garage packed with stuff to get to a door that seemed to lead to the house. Turned out it ended up on the patio. James Bond I am not.
Peace,
Chris
Other than that. Not much going on here. I didn't get the scholarship for Clare College, which means if I get into Cambridge I'll have to take out loans for grad school. On the plus side I ate some wonderful Korean food at TFG volunteer Melody's house last night along with Vik and Sarah. Afterwards Melody locked herself out of the house so I ended up being more dashing than Indiana Jones, braver than anyone Ian Flemming could have thought up, and more rogue-ish than Hans Solo and Wolverine combined, by crawling through her host parent's garage packed with stuff to get to a door that seemed to lead to the house. Turned out it ended up on the patio. James Bond I am not.
Peace,
Chris
Another chapter started in "Days in the Cold"
I have now started chapter 5 of Days in the cold over at UniversalBones.
Other than that. Not much going on here. I didn't get the scholarship for Clare College, which means if I get into Cambridge I'll have to take out loans for grad school. On the plus side I ate some wonderful Korean food at TFG volunteer Melody's house last night along with Vik and Sarah. Afterwards Melody locked herself out of the house so I ended up being more dashing than Indiana Jones, braver than anyone Ian Flemming could have thought up, and more rogue-ish than Hans Solo and Wolverine combined, by crawling through her host parent's garage packed with stuff to get to a door that seemed to lead to the house. Turned out it ended up on the patio. James Bond I am not.
Peace,
Chris
Other than that. Not much going on here. I didn't get the scholarship for Clare College, which means if I get into Cambridge I'll have to take out loans for grad school. On the plus side I ate some wonderful Korean food at TFG volunteer Melody's house last night along with Vik and Sarah. Afterwards Melody locked herself out of the house so I ended up being more dashing than Indiana Jones, braver than anyone Ian Flemming could have thought up, and more rogue-ish than Hans Solo and Wolverine combined, by crawling through her host parent's garage packed with stuff to get to a door that seemed to lead to the house. Turned out it ended up on the patio. James Bond I am not.
Peace,
Chris
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