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Forgiving the Reformation
A lot of people seem to think that seminary is where you get all the answers. They’re wrong. Well, either that or I just don’t go to one of “those” seminaries. My experience has been that instead of receiving answers to my questions, I’ve been stripped of many of the answers I thought I had and been given more questions in return. Now I don’t say this to complain; I happen to think that’s the way it should be. But that doesn’t mean every day is a party either. One of the ways I’ve been challenged in seminary was the place of tradition in my theology. Specifically it was the…
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Preface: An Invitation
Note: this is from a series where I attempted to blog through systematic theology. Spoiler alert: I didn’t make it far. I’m a theologian. (You are too, believe it or not.) This blog is my sandbox; a place for me to come and play… to dig, build, and get dirty. There’s plenty of room for a friend or two. But instead of sand, I want to sift ideas with you. I want to discover, assess, and construct theology that will change both our lives. We’ll need to involve history and philosophy if we want to do this right—and my parents taught me that any job worth doing is worth doing…
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Critiquing Critiques of Criticism
[Note: This post was inspired by my friend Lisa’s blog about worship music criticism.] I remember the first time I criticized worship music. It was in kindergarten. We would sing this song where half the class would jump up and sing “praise ye the Lord,” then as they sat back down the other half would jump up and sing “hallelujah!” I decided it was shallow and repetitive, and as I recall we sang it all the time. Fast-forward to the new millennium. I was a late-bloomer in terms of modern music, but I had embraced CCM (or “Contemporary Christian Music,” for the uninitiated) when I first heard Jesus Freak as…
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Reasons Young Christians Leave Church
Barna posted the results of a new study on why Christians leave the church. (Check out the whole article here: http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church.) Short version: Churches seem overprotective. Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow. Churches come across as antagonistic to science. Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental. They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity. The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt. These are no doubt the reasons people think they are leaving the church, but I’d like to propose a few reasons I think are the real problem. 1. People don’t trust the church. God commissioned the church and takes care of it,…
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Discipline
I have a dirty secret to share: I hate discipline. No, I’m not talking about getting paddled or disciplining someone else. (I don’t particularly like those either, but that’s beside the point.) In fact, I’m not talking punitive discipline at all. I’m talking about structure, routine, focus. And I hate it. Well, okay, that’s not true. I admire it. For some people like my wife, self-discipline seems to come naturally. She sets reasonable goals and meets them in reasonable time. She rather quickly gives in to this internal need to be productive. She has to be convinced to waste time and money. She follows through on anything she sets her…