February 2012
2 posts
“Man’s real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for...”
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Ched Myers links the cryptic note in Mark 1:13 that Jesus was in the wilderness “with the wild beasts” with the apocalyptic “beasts” of Daniel 7 & Revelation. This fits in with Matthew and Luke who make the connection between satanic and political power explicit.
January 2012
5 posts
What am reading today →
“The obstacles to ‘Project Love’ are formidable. Chief among them is...”
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Following Mark to the Son
In his landmark ‘political reading of Mark’s story of Jesus’ Binding the Strong Man, Ched Myers identifies three important plot lines that are found throughout Mark’s Gospel until the very end where they climactically converge in the Passion event. These plots are 1) Jesus’ creation of a new community of disciples, 2) Jesus’ relationship and mission to the...
A Love Supreme →
December 2011
1 post
Learning How to Be Foreign Missionaries at Home
“The Church is not a place to go, but a people who go.” With these words the great missiologist Harvie Conn challenged American Evangelicals to begin to think of mission whenever we think of the Church. The age of the mission field being a far away land, maybe across an ocean, has officially ended. Philip Jenkins surprised many American and European readers when in his book, The Next Christendom,...
November 2011
3 posts
Working and Revealing Clothes
What We Wear Helps Our Work
Most days clothing is more than just a statement about personal preference or style (though it certainly is that too). If you work outside in a cold climate, or you are an athlete or in a construction trade, what you put on can make all the difference. Our clothing choices are usually heavily determined by our occupation and our clothes are often designed to help us...
More on What to Wear: In Praise of Clothes (!)
We all have to make decisions about how we will worship. How we will worship includes what we will wear when we do it. This might be especially true for any of us who have been asked to lead a congregation in worship. What we say, our attitudes, our faith, our biography and the clothes we wear will lend shape to the interaction between the minister and the people and over the long haul will shape...
What to Wear? (first part)
Answering for myself at church. Enjoy:
What should pastors wear during worship? This is a question that comes up every once in awhile, especially when we see a pastor wearing distinctive clothing. Let’s get straight to the best answer right a way. Ministers are free to wear just about anything any other Christian would feel free to wear to church. There is no dress code for Christian pastors...
October 2011
2 posts
“Although Christ assumed human nature, yet he did not on that account assume it...”
– Iconoclasm of the day brought to you by the Second Helvetic Confession of 1562.
“But after all there is a certain thingyness to the presence of Christ in the...”
– Will Cohen, “The Thing of It: An Orthodox Response to George Hunsinger’s Not-So-High Sacramental Theology” Pro Ecclesia, Vol. XIX, No. 3, 249.
August 2011
1 post
“Story writers are always talking about what makes a story ‘work.’ ...”
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July 2011
3 posts
Fang Fang →
Old friends of mine in Philadelphia.
“Seas of ink have been poured out in debating whether there is any efficacy in the sacraments ‘in themselves.’ The whole debate is worthless, because both sides begin from false assumptions that 1) there is such a thing as a ‘sacrament in itself’ and that 2) some things (though not sacraments) do have ‘efficacy in themselves’… Baptismal water is a...
Reading:
February 2011
2 posts
WatchI do whatever it is I wanna do…
January 2011
3 posts
“For the Romans nascent Christianity was not at all a new religion. It was...”
– Jaques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, (Grand Rapids, MI: 1986) 55. Quoted in Frost and Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come, 71.
Reading this today: →
Reading this today: →
December 2010
3 posts
“For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which...”
– Dietrich Bonheoffer, God Is In the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas
HT: Qideas
While by the Sheep
Just realized that the shepherds watching their sheep at night are typological. The Messiah was to be the Good Shepherd who unlike the wicked shepherds of Israel, would care for his flock by the darkest night, even through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. These Shepherds doing their job become prophets of the Baby’s coming work.
Notes for Sunday
Each week this Advent I have been struck by the surprising, scandalous character of the Gospel story. People think Christianity is for closed minds but you have to be willing to believe almost anything, apparently, to believe in the Gospel.
Blessed are those who are not scandalized by me—Jesus in Matthew 11:6
October 2010
1 post
“…please trust a little bit more in the Spirit of God.”
– Jurgen Moltmann answering a question on how leadership and authority is exercised in the a charismatic community at the recent Holy Spirit in the World Today Conference.
August 2010
4 posts
Coming to a Complete Stop →
Catapult posted this article on developing a stop in your rhythm.
The Old Days were Polychromatic
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/10/21/color-photography-from-russian-in-the-early-1900s/544/
http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/06/16/gods-in-color-painted-sculpture-of-classical-antiquity/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsachtml/fsowhome.html
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/highlights/slideShow.jsp?page=1
Some thoughts on Mission, Suffering and the End of...
The Great Commission, or ‘mission’ of the Church, is to embody in and for the world the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus empowered by the fire of Pentecost until the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. Conceived of this way, the mission of the Church calls her to re-enact every aspect of the Gospel in the world in anticipation of the final...
“It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a...”
– Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
July 2010
1 post
To Change the World
Several friends are reading James Davison Hunter’s new book, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World with me. Like a lot of good books, Hunter takes at aim at a few very basic ideas that often go unquestioned. You can download a recent lecture he gave at the University of Montana that goes over a lot of what he argues in the book...
June 2010
3 posts
Make it a Double
Thanks to Matt Lyke I found out that making the americano a double over at Midtown Scholar makes the difference.
Text Note
William C. Propp speculates in his Exodus commentary that the ‘new covenant’ cut in Jeremiah 31 could actually refer to the coming together of the book of Deuteronomy.
April 2010
3 posts
“There are those of us not fit to tie
The laces of your shoes
Must remain...”
– Let the Bells Ring, Abatoir Blues, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Best Food Discoveries in the last Month
The Jackson House on 6th and Herr has the most perfect hamburger I’ve ever eaten.
La Estrella at 1417 Derry has the best Mexican food in town.
We Get the Federal Courthouse
One of the first times I visited Midtown I saw an old faded sign in the window of a house that looked empty. It demanded that the Federal Courthouse be built at 6th and Reily Streets. Good news for us.
February 2010
1 post
Let's Do this Midtown!
Read in the March issue of The Burg this morning that GreenWorks Development is making plans to renovate the Furlow Building on N. 3rd St. I’ve had hopes for this building since I first saw it’s hulking emptiness. I even mentioned it in a sermon once.
The Furlow Building has these incredible copper bays, fascia and ornate soffit on the facade.
You can see how it looks from out...
January 2010
2 posts
Friends record some American Hymns Fresh →
Free Album for the Last 2 Days of Christmas →
December 2009
3 posts
Get Your Memory Blocked →
Harrisburg Brews
We should all be very grateful that living in central PA doesn’t mean we have to import great beer from hipper cities. Troegs won three medals at the Great American Beer Festival this year. Go Harrisburg!
Cheap Xmas Trees!
Thanks to a friend Megan and I found the best looking Christmas tree for our house that $14.00 can buy! If you live in the area you can find these and other very well-priced trees in a little subdivision off of Colonial Rd. just north of Linglestown Rd. Follow the signs.
November 2009
3 posts
“There are, I have found, an astonishing number people who are breezily neutral...”
– http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/complaint-box-picky-eaters/?hp
Currently Reading
The American City and the Evangelical Church: A Historical Overview, Harvey M. Conn
Old Testament Theology, Vol. 1: Israel’s Gospel, John Goldingay
The Church in the Power of the Spirit, Jurgen Moltmann
Loving our neighbour(hood)s: The architecture of... →
Some insightful, provocative thoughts on how architecture, transportation and geography shape our love.
September 2009
1 post
“Eve separate; he wished, but not with hope of what so seldom chanced, when to his wish, beyond his hope, Eve separate he spies…” John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX
August 2009
4 posts
“Conservative Jacksonian Christians have diluted the qualities of their...”