When this big fella came by for Trick or Treat,
we gave him our pumpkin!
It has been a grey, cloudy, cold week here at the Jesus Creed blog, the World Series plodded along with yet one more trophy for the bad guys, and here in Chicago the hopes are beginning to heat up for next summer's Cubs season, though some oddsmakers find better chances for John Kerry and Sarah Palin.
Joan Ball, capitalism and the ethics of the gospel. Very important observations.
4.
Bob Greene on time ...: "
One day we were walking down city streets making eye contact with each other, taking in the local scenery, and the next we were staring at the screens of our hypnotic phones, receiving real-time messages and breaking-news updates from people hundreds of miles away. It was a tradeoff we didn't exactly ask for. Yes, the concept of distance was all but erased -- but so, in a way, was the concept of place. We were sold the notion that we could be anywhere, with the tap of a key. What we only gradually began to recognize was that, by being everywhere, sometimes it felt like we were nowhere."
Sports
A good weekend for our NCAA football teams: Iowa wins, Illinois wins (beats UMich), and Northwestern wins (well, they were winning when I wrote this).
(Because he was first a Cub.)
Greg Boyd, in his newest book,
The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution
is about "sword-power vs. cross-power" (22).
What makes Boyd singular is that he thinks cross-power must shape everything, and this lands him in the anabaptist camp. The difference is power over vs. power under. The latter is about humility and self-sacrifice. It may look weak but it is the power of God.
How useful is his "power under" and "power over" theory? Do you think this is practical? Is it utopian? Why do we need this theory? How does it relate to "servant leadership" ideas?
The temptation of sword-power starts with Jesus, and he refuses to go along with Satan (Matt 4:1-11). The Church did fine until Constantine where sword took over the cross. The movement that suffered under nationalism became nationalistic.
Hello, my name is Rachel, and I'm a recovering Bible snob.
I haven't always been this way. As a child, the stories of the Bible enthralled me. I believed in them the way one believes in dinosaurs, Camelot, Abraham Lincoln, and other magical things that happened once upon a time.
As a teenager, the Bible evolved into a collection of affirmations designed to ease my angst-riddled existence (a hermeneutical shortcut Scot refers to as "morsels of blessings and promises" in The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible
), and in college, it served as my favorite answer book (Scot's "big puzzle" shortcut).
How has your approach to the Bible changed over the years? Have you ever found yourself behaving like a Bible snob? How do you engage Scripture analytically without losing your childlike fondness for its stories?
What makes a leader? Ideas. Courage. Contact with great thinkers. What makes a Christian leader? Great ideas, courage, and contact with great thinkers re-shaped and shaped by the gospel.
So, I offer to you a list of my top ten books for leaders, and none of the titles of these books have the word "leader," or its buddy "leadership," in it. Some of these are overtly Christian classics; others are not. These books have the ability to swell the chest, flood the mind, and reshape how we see the world around us - and a gospel-reshaping of these great works can inspire a leader to new levels.
From the classical world, though one could choose all sorts of great works, I recommend a soaking in Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, to see how the great philosopher constructed a set of ethics that shaped the Western world. Homer told the story of Odysseus and Virgil, in The Aeneid, developed what Homer began for the Roman world and handed on to all of us the power of a journey into ideas and ideals, sanctifying place and history. Dante took Homer and Virgil to the next level in his Divine Comedy, and if you follow him all the way down into the inferno, up through purgatory and then climb into the swirling glorious presence of God you will find new dimensions to life's journey.
Our prayers are with the families of the dead, for the wounded and for the families of the wounded; we pray for the attacker and his family as well.
Gracious God, the comfort of all who sorrow, the strength of all who suffer: Let the cry of those in misery and need come to you, that they may find your mercy present with them in all their afflictions; and give us, we pray, the strength to serve them for the sake of him who suffered for us, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I've seen the little fella now a few times ... and now we're beginning to think we've got a problem, like realizing the church pianist might do better at a different church...Anyway, we've got a skunk who has discovered that...
I'd like to sketch a couple of more general points about the first missionary trip of Paul and Barnabas, and hope this can be put into the larger missional theology that the Book of Acts inhabits. I'm concerned about Acts...
Tuesday I began a series of posts looking at Harvey Cox's new book The Future of Faith. Today I would like to look at Chapter 3 - Ships Already Launched. Cox begins this chapter by dismissing the idea that all...
In a post last month I raised the issue of Third Way preaching, and this is what I said:A genuine Third Way will get beyond the Sunday morning sermon as the primary form of spiritual formation and education in a...
Nightline's series on the Ten Commandments continues with a look at the Sabbath command, and it raises a question that often arises: Do Christians celebrate "Sabbath"? Let's begin with the command itself, in both versions in the Old Testament, and...
TSK's post on why he's not a New Calvinist but should be is full of fun.
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