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Why Church Matters: Worship, Ministry, and Mission in Practice by Jonathan R. Wilson bridges the gap between theologians of the church and practitioners of the church.  Though the book is short (158 pp.), Wilson’s ambition is large:

In this book I intend to give a relatively comprehensive account of the practices of the church: the role of the pastor, the proclamation of the gospel, the celebration of the sacraments, worship, evangelism, discipline, and many more activities are developed as practices.

“Practice” is an important word to Wilson.  By “practice,” he means regularly developed, intentional acts that create and shape a culture or community.  He includes worship, communion, baptism, discipleship, preaching, and other acts of the church. Read the rest of this entry »

[I've been away from the computer for about a week because of the birth of our third child.  Hurrah!  I put those hours of waiting in the hospital to good use by reading a book that had been on my shelf for a couple of months.]

I’m a bit late to the table with The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman.  It was published in 2005, to many rave reviews (here’s one from the New York Times Book Review by Fareed Zakaria) and brisk sales (it was a #1 bestseller, and is still #160 at Amazon.com 3 years after its publication).  Friedman uses the term “flat world” to describe the new era of globalization, in which I can visit a California-based website, order a computer assembled in Taiwan, call customer support when it breaks in India, and then return it to a store half-a-mile from my house.  Friedman credits a number of “flatteners” for creating this new world, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the growth of the Internet, new software that lets people work from home, and the “just in time” global supply chain.  The book not only looks at the causes of this newly flat world, but also takes time to consider both the positive (cheaper goods, rising standards of living in China and India) and the negative (loss of jobs in the U.S.) - including the most negative development of all, the creation of Al-Qaeda, the “global supply chain” of terrorism. 

This flat world also explains my job.  I work from home via computer and phone lines with a small team of people from around the country, ministering to an international network of students and faculty.  (We recently gained our first international ESN mentor, a philosophy and religion scholar from New Zealand.) My job would probably have been possible in the 19th century, more likely in the form of something like the original National Geographic Society, but in this flat world, my work is much more effective. 

How should American Christians regard this newly flat world? To many of us, “globalization” means losing our jobs to India and China, losing America’s importance in the world, and watching out-of-control capitalism trump issues of justice and community.  Friedman, however, makes a compelling case that globalization can be a powerful force for justice, if it harnessed correctly.  For Christians - especially American Christians - I think that the flat world can heighten our sense of the communion of the saints.  For example, a family from my church recently moved to Kosovo, to assist with the creation of an American-style high school.  We’ve been able to follow their story and pray for them through their blog. Many more examples could be outlined. 

Friedman doesn’t sugarcoat the flat world: he is the first to point out that we now must compete for our jobs with people around the world, and threats to our national security are created in caves halfway around the world.  At the same time, we (as a global community) have an unprecedented opportunity to increase standards of living, international peace, and individual opportunity in places where peace and prosperity have rarely been see before.  Friendman has also led me to consider the current presidential race in a new light.  Which president is best suited to lead America in the flat world? I worry that the all three leading contenders may take the easy, short-sighted path, and fail to challenge Americans to accept the hard work ahead.  

I recently finished reading for the first time Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  I purposely say “for the first time” because I suspect that this is only the first of many readings.  When reading, I like to flag passages that speak to me, that I would like to come back to and record for later study.  As you can see, Life Together wound up with many, many such flags. 

Here’s one passage that struck as being particularly appropriate to the university. Bonhoeffer is contrasting a community built on the Word of God in Jesus Christ with a community built on human desires. 

The basis of all spiritual reality is the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ.  The basis of all human reality is the dark, turbid urges and desires of the human mind.  The basis of the community of the Spirit is truth; the basis of human community of spirit is desire…In the community of the Spirit the Word of God alone rules; in human community of spirit there rules, along with the Word, the man who is furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities. There God’s Word alone is bring; here, besides the Word, men bind others to themselves.  There all power, honor, and dominion are surrendered to the Holy Spirit; here spheres of power and influence of a personal nature are sought and cultivated.  It is true, in so far as these are devout men, that they do this with the intention of serving the highest and the best, but in actuality the result is to dethrone the Holy Spirit, to relegate Him to  unreality. (Life Together, 31-32, emphasis added)

Doesn’t this reflect the university in many ways?  It is absolutely true that there are many, many “devout men (and women)” within the academy who have “the intention of serving the highest and the best.” And they often succeed.  Consider, as just one example, the incredible life-saving medical advances that university researchers devote their entire careers to.  Yet they neglect the One who truly is the highest and the best.  

The Book of Common Prayer offers the following prayer for universities, colleges, and schools, which points to God as the source and end of all knowledge:

Almighty God, of whose only gift cometh wisdom and understanding: We beseech thee with thy gracious favor to behold our universities, colleges, and schools, that knowledge may be increased among us, and all good learning flourish and abound.  Bless all who teach and all who learn; and grant that in humility of heart they may ever look unto thee, who art the fountain of all wisdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

A while back, I wrote about free books online.  Another great resource available for free is iTunesU.  Universities from around the country, including MIT, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, Yale, Reformed Theological Seminary, and about 30 more schools, offer free lectures - even entire free courses - for download oniTunes.  I’ve recently listened to Thomas Friedman talk about the ideas behind his book The World Is Flat (liked it so much I went out and bought the book) and Merlin Mann of 43 Folders speak about managing your time and attention.  Great stuff.  And now you can download free content from PBS through ITunesU.  These are incredible materials for you autodidacts (like me) who couldn’t fit all the classes you wanted to take into your college schedule.  And, if you’re still like me, now you can add unlistened-to lectures and unwatched documentaries to your guilt list of unread books. 

Nonprofit websites like Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and the Christian Classics Ethereal Library have long offered free books for download, including many classics of theology.  Now for-profit publishers are starting to get into the mix.  HarperCollins is offering complete books on their website, free for the browsing.  (It doesn’t look like you can download them - instead, you browse through the book on HarperCollins’ own website.)  Several works of C. S. Lewis are available, like The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, which includes Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, and more in one volume.

(HT: Freakonomics Blog)

I have a new review of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union online at InterVarsity’s StudentSoul.org website.  Here’s the link:

http://www.intervarsity.org/studentsoul/item/yiddish-policemen

I have been a fan of comic strips and comic books since I was a kid, and I’ve been known to pick up a graphic novel here and there. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is a nonfiction graphic “novel” about how and why comics “work.” Why does it look like Superman is flying? How do we know what Charlie Brown is thinking? Why do we even care?

McCloud clearly and helpfully explains the fundamental visual and narrative techniques of comics, often with very clever “meta” illustrations. I would attempt to describe some of them, but that would be as interesting as, well, explaining a comic strip. I’m not LaGuardia, here. McCloud also examines the nature of comics, the combination of words and pictures in a narrative art form.

If you are like me, a thoughtful, mature, and good-looking adult who still sneaks over the graphic novel aisle at Borders, read this book. It will arm you with plenty of explanations when your significant other asks why you spent the grocery money on six different X-Men titles and a reprint of The Dark Knight Returns.

Scott McCloud’s official website

Recently, many mainstream secular writers have made the simple mistake of assuming that all religions - and all religious believers - are essentially the same.

Listen to Michael Kinsey summarize Christopher Hitchens’ arguments from “God is Not Great”:

How could Christ have died for our sins, when supposedly he also did not die at all? Did the Jews not know that murder and adultery were wrong before they received the Ten Commandments, and if they did know, why was this such a wonderful gift? On a more somber note, how can the “argument from design” (that only some kind of “intelligence” could have designed anything as perfect as a human being) be reconciled with the religious practice of female genital mutilation, which posits that women, at least, as nature creates them, are not so perfect after all? Whether sallies like these give pause to the believer is a question I can’t answer.

Robert T. Miller of First Things does a great job of analyzing this book review. Miller doesn’t waste time breaking down Kinsey’s and Hitchens’ mistakes about religion, but I will. Let’s take two. There is one religion that argues that Christ died for our sins - Christianity. There is another that claims that Christ did not die - Islam. Have neither Kinsey nor Hitchens ever noticed that Christians and Muslims disagree with one another? Let’s take another - that the “argument from design” (which Kinsey conflates with Intelligent Design) is apparently inconsistent because of religious leaders’ support of female genital mutilation. Huh? Have Philip Johnson or William Dembski become African animists without anyone noticing?

On a less serious note, the same kind of ignorance is found in Max Brook’s World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Way, a bestselling science fiction novel by the son of Mel Brooks. The novel is set ten years after “the zombie war” in which, yes, the living dead nearly took over the world, and it’s structured as a series of interviews with survivors, war vets, political leaders, etc. Overall, it tries to give a “realistic” version of what might happen. Brooks takes into account regional and cultural differences as he imagines how different countries - the US, South Africa, China, North Korea, Israel - would react to the catastrophe. As sucker for post-apocalyptic science fiction, I was massively entertained.

But Brooks stumbles big time when he tries to write about conservative Christians. They are referenced a couple of times - dismissively called “Fundies” by a few characters - and they are mocked for their belief that zombies signal the end of the world, their panicked reactions, and, most curiously, an apparent wave of suicide cults formed by Christians.

First, if the dead begin to walk as reanimated zombies, “The End Is Near!” becomes a reasonable belief for everyone, not just Christians. Second, I know a lot about religious history, and I cannot think of a single suicide cult formed by theologically conservative Christians - or Christians of any kind, for that matter. Even Christian groups that sincerely believed that the world is going to end on a specific date. When that date comes, those Christians - well, they usually realize their mistake and move on. Mass suicides like Heaven’s Gate or Jonestown were conducted by fringe, cult groups whose beliefs had almost nothing in common with traditional Christianity. Brooks seems to have made the same leap as Hitchens and Kinsey above - he knows that some religions have sanctioned mass suicide, so therefore it must be a common feature of any religion.

Gerald R. McDermott. God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? 2007, IVP.

McDermott raises an interesting question with his subtitle, and he turns to the Bible and to early Christian writers for some answers. A great idea: in North America, where Christianity is by far the most dominant religion, it’s easy to forget that the Bible and the church were birthed in societies obsessed with a multitude of gods and religious systems. McDermott notes, as well, that Greco-Roman philosophy was itself a religious system, based on the idea that God could be discovered through reason. McDermott devotes one chapter each to surveys of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the writings of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.

The insights that McDermott are surprising, at least to me. Using passages such as Daniel 10:13 (referencing the “prince of Persia,” a spiritual being with authority over Persia) and Deut. 32:8-9 (where God allots nations “according to the number of the gods” - McDermott favors “sons of elohim” instead of “sons of Israel” based on manuscript evidence), McDermott argues that the OT hints at the following:

• YHWH created “the hosts” as spiritual beings with varying degrees of authority.
• Some of the spiritual beings were given authority over nations or ethnic groups, such as the archangel Michael over Israel.
• These spiritual beings have largely rebelled against YHWH. This is connected to the fall of Lucifer.
• Because of their rebellion, these spiritual beings have led men and women to worship them instead of worshiping the true God.

It’s important to note that McDermott only suggests this as a possible reading. The early Christian writers he covers, however, take it as a given that the gods of other nations are fallen angels. In subsequent chapters, McDermott reviews Paul’s famous words regarding principalities and powers, and the varying views of the four early Christian writers he chose. The Christian writers wrestled with the major question of how much truth other religions contain. Their answer, to differing degrees, is “some.” Clement goes so far as to suggest that other religions may be God’s covenants with other nations, analogous to God’s covenant with Israel, covenants which point to and are to be replaced by the new covenant of Jesus Christ.

Two concluding thoughts: First, McDermott wants to recapture the Bible’s and the early church’s view of other religions as having spiritual components. There are real spiritual beings behind these other religions; they are much more than simply “mistakes” or human searches for God. Because they originate with spiritual beings originally created by God, other religions contain some kernel of truth. McDermott writes,

This also means that other religionists are not our enemy…Our real battle, as Paul advises us, is not against human beings - flesh and blood - but against “the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12). (165)

Thus, our attitude toward other religions should be respectful and characterized by “patient persuasion, not hostile argument.”

Second, McDermott does an excellent job of bringing early Christian writers to life. Using Eusebius‘ history of the early church, McDermott interweaves the theologies of these writers with their personal testimonies and contexts. He leads me to desire to read them for myself.

Near the end of Courage and Calling, Smith raises a very challenging question: When is the right time to leave an organization? He offers one answer - that if your only reason for staying is to get a paycheck, then you should leave. He tempers his argument to say that there are materials needs that sometimes require us to have a non-vocationally-related job. This is something I am going to be praying about.