My ministry update and prayer letter from September. A few key highlights:
We’re now up to 3,807 ESN members. Praise God!
10 Ways to Become a Plastic Church
6. Care more about your agenda than about honoring and loving people. Push, push, push your church-centric agenda. Don’t respect and honor the role your people have in the community, in their neighborhoods, in their workplace, and in their families. Make it all about the four church walls. This has Plastic Church written all over it!
Not to mention their roles within the church. Ouch.
Singing the praises of science fiction
My new post at ThinkChristian.
Earlier this summer, NPR asked listeners to select the top 100science fiction and fantasy novels of all time. By some chance, the final list began and ended with the two most acclaimed Christian novelists of the twentieth century. J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy came in at No. 1, while C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy rounded out the list at No. 100.
Read the whole thing and join the conversation.
Strong words from Andrew Root, author of The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry:
Almost since its inception youth ministry has been trying to make a case for why fickle people should come to church.
What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life: Teaching the Curriculum, Etc.
I remember when I was in graduate school, the best advice I was given was from a friend who had recently secured a tenure-track position. He said, “Kevin, it’s a big world out there, and most departments do not teach the sort of anthropology you’ve learned, and many places have people who are critical of it. You’ll need to learn more faster after becoming a professor than you ever have had to do in graduate school.”
The cover of the Recent College Et Cetera from Sept. 18, 2001
Ten years ago today, I began my year-long run as editor of the Et Cetera, the official student “newspaper” of Regent College. I put “newspaper” in quotes because it’s not like most student newspapers around the country. Regent College is a fairly small, fairly tight-knit community of theology students, and our newspaper (when I was there) consisted mostly of run-of-the-mill announcements and anything-but-run-of-the-mill theological essays.
The first issue under my tenure was dated September 11, 2001. Obviously, I had no idea what would happen on that day, as you can see for yourself:
Regent College Et Cetera – Sept 11 2001 (PDF, 1.2 MB)
As I wrote a few years ago, I learned about the terrorist attacks just as I arrived on campus. A week of reflection, prayer, and mourning led to our second issue, which included liturgical readings, poetry of mourning, a cover essay by Mark Filiatreau, and a column by my assistant editor Leland Ferguson, but also a surprising number of “ordinary” items: an invitation to discuss the movie Contact, a warning about theft on campus, logistical announcements for the annual retreat:
Regent College Et Cetera – Sept 18 2001 (PDF, 888 KB)
Over the rest of that semester, our community debated the meaning of 9/11, the appropriate responses to violence, anger, and mourning, and any number of political and theological issues related to the attacks. In these first two issues of that year, you can get a sense for how the Regent community operates.
P.S. I’m fairly certain that I don’t have permission to post the contents of these two issues online, but I hope no one minds. If you’re one of the writers and you’d like me to take your article offline, just let me know.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Feisal Abdul Rauf (of Cordoba Initiative fame) begins his column “A Call to All Religion Moderates” by writing:
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was right when he insisted that Abders Behring Breivik [sic], who committed mass murders in Norway in July, is not a Christian. Even though Breivik referred to himself often as a Christian, Mr. O’Reilly noted, no one who slaughters innocents can be a follower of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. (emphasis added)
First of all, you should never get theological opinions from Bill O’Reilly.
Second, I agree that Breivik was not a Christian, but it has nothing to do with the murders he committed. It has everything to do with how he defined his own identity. Here’s how Breivik himself described his “Christianity”:
A majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it. So what is the difference between cultural Christians and religious Christians? If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian. (emphases added; via GetReligion)
Christianity as a “cultural, social, identity and moral platform” is meaningless without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In fact, I would argue that “Christianity” as a ”cultural, social, identity and moral platform” – without the accompanying relationship with Jesus – is responsible for many of the greatest crimes against humanity of the past two thousand years. Christianity is, first and foremost, about the person of Jesus Christ. If you exclude him, then all you have left is one more godless ideology.
Rauf goes on to say that no murderer can be a “true Christian” (or a “true Muslim,” for that matter). I disagree strongly with this idea. As I wrote above, Christianity is, first and foremost, about the person of Jesus Christ. It’s not about how righteous, holy, or moral we can be, or whether we can simply avoid (through care or luck) making terrible decisions.
Could someone have a personal relationship with Jesus and still commit horrific crimes? Tragically, I believe the answer is yes.
I see two important implications of this sobering idea:
1) We should not be quick to reject someone as a brother or sister in Christ. Whether a historical figure or one of our contemporaries, we shouldn’t base our opinion of them or their faith on their misdeeds.
2) We should never assume that our own actions are right, simply because we’re Christians. Perhaps our descendants will judge us as harshly as we judge our misguided ancestors, for some blind spot or crime that never even occurred to us to be wrong.
Q&A with Acton Institute’s Jordan Ballor and a Free Subscription
At the ESN Blog, I conduct a short interview with Jordan Ballor of the Acton Institute, and student members of ESN can receive a free, 2-year digital subscription to the Journal of Markets & Morality.
Why You and I Could Not Write the Book of Revelation
The book of revelation has about 400 verses, and scholars say those verses contain around 550 allusions to Old Testament passages. But here’s the thing, John doesn’t include a single quotation of the Old Testament. He only uses allusions. This means that his writing, his thoughts, his spirituality literally bleeds with an deep, abiding knowledge of the Scriptures.
via John Dyer
What I Wish I’d Known About Faculty Life: Departmental Politics, Etc.
Our new series on the ESN Blog by Kevin Birth. Kevin’s a storyteller, and this story has a great beginning:
Simon was fuming. The day before, a senior faculty member had turned to him in a meeting and said, “Shut up if you want tenure.”