Linkathon!
Screens are changing the way we read Scripture…
Village Church sued for 1,000,000 over abuse…
Baptist church calls transgender pastor…
A simple way to distinguish between fundamentalism and liberalism in theology…
Why the church needs more practitioners and fewer preachers…
Holding faith and doubt in community…
Will I recognize my loved ones in heaven?
Gospel for Those Broken by the Church from 1517 on Vimeo.
SBC college wants to silence all critics…
Four unexpected truths about uncool churches…
Prayer doesn’t work, but I’ll keep praying…
Most believers say they don’t need others for discipleship…
Those leaving Christianity need our kindness, not condemnation…
Free speech and religious freedom…
Praying beyond the prayer card…
70% of dog owners prefer spending time with their pets above people…
The characteristics of a mystic…
The power of a prayer of “lovingkindness’…
Huge thanks as always to EricL…support him at top right…
The link about the SBC “church” wanting to silence critics, should read SBC “college” wants so silence critics.
Fixed it…
Somehow, I have a ‘hunch’, that there’s a different standard used to rationalize the unrestricted use of digitized words projected onto huge screens in the same sanctuary that extols the uniquely sacred virtue of tree-based scripture.
One would think with the incredible-shrinking church attendance stats and inversely prodigious expansion of the “nones”, articles identifying and advocating for the pastor to ride a new ‘hobby horse’, certain to divide opinion and threaten to bind conscience, would be a counter-intuitive shepherding tactic.
I guess hymnals are the exception to said rule. When one’s own conviction must be publicly trumpeted from the pulpit in a ‘nudging fashion’, and reinforced by small group facilitators to set the erring brethren on the correct path of mass compliance, freedom of conscience and liberty in the Spirit is stifled. Shadows versus substance, anyone?
Who are the weirdos who’d rather spend time with people than their pets?
Then again, I’d rather spend time with a tree than spend it with most people. 😉
The link on “prayer doesn’t work” really hits home tonight.
My own family is in a an ongoing (for years) crisis…exhausted and discouraged by the situation, but more so because there seem to rarely if ever an answer to prayer.
I think when one stops praying, it’s the start of losing the faith entirely…
JoelG,
I think part of this is my age, part is world weariness…but if I could just stay home with my cats, I wouldn’t complain…
I’m sorry you are weary and discouraged, Michael. I appreciate your openness and honesty in the midst of crisis. I am reminded of the answers that came for Miss Kitty. You’ve had a rough season and I hope and pray you all hear from Him soon in this crisis.
Thanks JoelG.
I seem to endure no matter what…others I worry about more.
The only way my faith has survived the lack of answered prayer is to become agnostic about prayer and simply deal with what I know the attributes of Jesus to be.
I share this for one reason only…I know I’m not alone in this.
I’ve seen prayer work, right here on this blog. It doesn’t always (or even usually) work the way we want it to, and that is hard to deal with. But the article is good in many ways.
Here’s a good link I read this morning:
https://jdgreear.com/blog/three-ways-go-wrong-talking-homosexuality/
Today is the feast of St. Augustine – let’s all sing along
Can’t wait to dig into these.
In the meantime, I just walked out of a talk with a young man who thinks all Christians are against immigration, specifically Mexicans.
I countered there with my experience locally and elsewhere.
What would YOU away, Michael?
JTK,
This countries current actions on the border are the most evil acts of the U.S. in my lifetime.
Most Christians are supporting those actions.
I would speak clearly to someone about that evil…and then speak as clearly about the Jesus that I believe will judge it.
I have ceased trying to get anyone to listen as children are deported from hospital beds and clergy in Mexico are murdered trying to protect those seeking asylum here.
Somehow, all this is justified…and it’s too late to try to change anyones mind.
It’s become something I literally can’t believe is acceptable…but to many it is.
It’s probably a matter of perception and opinion, but I would say the Jim Crowe laws and the Viet Nam War were the greatest evils in the US in my lifetime – dwarfing the human toll on our border.
MLD,
They may dwarf the human toll today, but the cost of policy based on simply cruelty will reverberate for generations to come.
Jim Crowe laws showed us that there was something broken in our national morality…what we’re doing now should show us the same.
The next generation of terrorists will be from south of the border…
We are all full fledged evangelicals as long as we talk about “going to heaven.” When we gain a common language about heaven that is reflective of the new testament on the subject we will know that the body of Christ has found a way to talk about our faith more faithfully.
BD,
Interesting take…another way I know I’m not an evangelical…
“Most Christians are supporting those actions.”
Completely disagree.
Josh,
I can only base my opinion on local and national Christian media, what I see locally, and what I know is happening on the border itself.
If there has been an evangelical outcry about it, I sure haven’t heard it…and God knows I’m listening…
News media do such a poor job of exegeting the actual situation on the ground, the history and the consequences with regard to immigration. Virtually all of it is based on shaping a narrative based on bias.
Evangelical people support personal responsibility, appropriate mercy intervention, secure borders and humane treatment of people. They largely fall on the side of law and order and for them the border situation looks like a power grab and lawlessness.
They need sane voices that they can respect.
The left is just as duped based on other things and just as ill-informed.
Educate us– or point us in avenues of good information — sorry Bowden is not a voice that will be easily heard except by a few.
Most people want to do good things. They do not want to be inhumane or insensitive to pain. Stridency seldom gets through as a mind changer.
I know of many ministries doing hat they can to help at the border as we speak. I know of many more Southern Baptists who are speaking about these things regularly.
MLD @12:57pm … Absolutely. CORRECT –
Growing up in a busy adult household, i can say that not nearly all citizens supported Jim Crow by a long shot, but like many of the loud mouthed activists today, the ones that did dominated the landscape
BD,
I used to believe your portraits of the American people.
I no longer do.
As I result, I’ve stopped trying to provide any kind of information because it has consistently been rejected out of hand.
The right is playing on tribal hatred and prejudice, the left is guilty of greater…pretending to care.
The daily reports over the last month have grown so wicked and so many in number that even I can’t keep up.
We are acting like monsters…because we can.
The bill will become due one day…
The thing that needs to be remembered is that no one in power wants to solve this issue.
It’s too valuable in dividing votes.
This president has surrounded himself with the most radical voices on the issue and they have no problem with cruelty and inhumane policies.
Not a single Democratic candidate has expressed even a minimally coherent policy yet.
People like me are choosing to draw back into private conversations and prayer…there’s not really much else we can do.
My rage is spent…there will have to be an eschatological reckoning.
There WILL be an eschatological reckoning … I think we pray for more reasons than getting God to move on our behalf … Eternity is a looong time … 👼