AT&T’s most recent ad campaign is all about getting there first, “staying a step ahead,” being the closest possible to the newest source of the newest News–and chiding the stragglers, those who got there too late, those for whom the News is Old News. Shame! They miss the “flash” mob, they miss the party, they miss the boat, they miss their future spouse, they miss the free office masseuse–because they were not a step ahead, like everyone else, they were a step back, and they miss The Next Thing. Their technology restrained them. Because they did not have the Samsung…
Book Review: "Good News for Anxious Christians" by Phillip Cary
In the ever-shifting landscape of American Evangelicalism, it seems that many people are attempting to correct what they perceive to be failures in the system. Everyone thinks something is wrong and whatever it is, it needs to be fixed now.
Within this debate, Phillip Cary’s book “Good News for Anxious Christians“, provides an unique diagnostic of both ourselves and the state of modern evangelicalism. As a professor of philosophy at a leading evangelical university, Cary hears from his students how the “new Evangelical theology” has translated into the core beliefs and practices of our youth. What…
Self-Knowledge and the Steelers
I’m a huge Steelers fan. I come by it honestly, having lived in Pittsburgh for three years while I was in seminary. Yet I’ve recently noticed that rooting for the Steelers really throws my lack of sanctification into sharp relief.
Before last week’s AFC Championship game against the hometown Jets (my parish, though in New Jersey, is closer to New York than New Meadowlands Stadium, where both the “New York” Jets and Giants play), people started asking me if we were going to throw a Super Bowl party at our church. We did last year, watching the Colts fall short…
Another Week Ends: Self-Evangelism, Jay-Z, Paradoxes, Susan Boyle, NASA, Friday Night Lights
1. Another scorcher from our 2011 NYC conference speaker Mark Galli entitled “Evangelizing Ourselves”, in which he unwittingly sums up much of our operating philosophy:
How do we talk about our faith without making others feel denigrated or angry? For one, we can talk about our faith so that everyone feels equally denigrated and equally inflamed!… So that everyone—even the Christian—recognizes his or her sinfulness…[and his or her] desperate need of a savior. If we can do that, a couple of remarkable things will happen. First, we will recognize afresh that we’re not talking about our religion versus…
Mere Anglicanism 2011
The 2011 Mere Anglicanism conference this year is held in thanksgiving for the faithful witness of Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison to the Word of God’s Grace. It will be held at St. Phillips Church in Charleston S.C. January 20-23. Some of Mockingbird’s favorite theologians will be speaking at the conference.
This is one of my favorite quotes from Bishop Allison:
“A sergeant told a grim joke to his trainees during the Second World War, which shows the real flaw in the Pharisaic understanding of Christianity. A man stopped on a dirt road to help get another man’s car our…
THE MOCKINGBIRD SINGS: Pensacola & Good News for People with Big Problems, Plus
1. The Pensacola Mini-Conference is a mere 11 days away! November 19th and 20th are your long-awaited chances to experience Mockingbird in all its physical, um, glory. The theme is “God’s Grace When We Need It Most: The Gospel For Hard Times,” and we promise it will be more fun than it sounds (you can read the previews of the content here), especially with the Mockingfather himself, Dr. Paul Zahl, speaking! Believe it or not, what we’re most looking forward to is PZ’s pre-conference seminar on preaching/ministry/life – not that any of us need help with our sermons, of course…!
Register…
Brennan Manning on the Central Affirmation of the Reformation
For some reason (i.e. the Holy Spirit) I felt like re-reading Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel this weekend. I guess I’ve been a little desperate and needy, and as is always said on this blog, “We need to hear the gospel again every day.” Few people have been able to write about the gospel like Manning, and I figured I’d share a paragraph that stood out. Enjoy!
“Justification by grace through faith” is the theologian’s learned phrase for what Chesterton once called “the furious longing of God.” He is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change. He has…
Funny Because It’s True
From the 9/13/10 issue of the New Yorker:
St. Paul: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment…” (Romans 12:3)
Jesus: “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23, italics added)
St. John: “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people…
Thursday Afternoon Blues: Blind Willie McTell and Mark Miller
Mockingbird friend Mark Miller has just released an amazing record called “Ain’t It Grand: The Gospel Songs of Blind Willie McTell.” It’s really quite astonishing – gospel blues of the highest order with some jaw-dropping slide guitar. Get your copy today, and then tell everyone you know! We need to support this very worthy project. The music speaks for itself, as do Mark’s powerful liner notes:
My fascination with the music and life of Blind Willie McTell began on a seemingly mundane Tuesday morning in September 2009. I was searching through my iTunes for songs when a title that both intrigued…
Do You Feel Lucky? Imputation and "The Cooler"
The word “imputation” is the best attempt to translate into English a Greek word that means things like “regard,” or “attribute,” or “accredit,” or “credit.” In a nutshell, it boils down to something like “the treatment of something as having attributes that it does not intrinsically have.” Simple, right? At the recent Mockingbird conference, C. FitzSimons Allison (retired Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina) asserted that all of Christian theology, and the very Good News itself, hangs on this word.
But let’s talk about The Cooler. William H. Macy plays the unluckiest guy in the world, who works…
C. FitzSimons Allison’s Kitten Story
From 1962′s Fear Love and Worship:
“One reason for the joy in heaven over a sinner’s repentance is the unique power which comes with forgiveness. The repentant sinner, having been forgiven and having been taken back like the Prodigal Son, learns a lesson of love that the righteous do not know. On his return the Prodigal knows the power of the father’s love much better than he did before he left. This curious and alarming spiritual fact, that a forgiven sinner has experienced a measure of God’s love he did not know…
Michael Spencer – The Internet Monk, 1956-2010
We just received the very sad news that our friend and inspiration Michael Spencer, also known as The Internet Monk, died yesterday at his home in Oneida, KY. Please say a prayer for his family.
As a writer and thinker, Michael pioneered the Gospel-centered ecumenism that we shamelessly try to imitate/emulate here. His site remains the model for anyone interested in an ‘online witness’ – perhaps the first (and certainly the greatest) example of a religious forum that managed to express a genuine point of view without succumbing to the stone-throwing and endless insider/outsider parsing of terminology that characterizes so much…
The Distinctives, Part II
From our Anglican 39 Articles of Religion…
XI. Of the Justification of Man.
We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings. Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only, is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is expressed in the Homily of Justification.
1) Beggars Banquet – Rolling Stones2) The Piper at the Gates of Dawn – Pink Floyd3) Space Oddity – David Bowie4) The Man Comes Around – Johnny Cash5) Gimme Fiction – Spoon6) Whatever People Say…
All My Sons: The Law in Three Acts
This weekend, at the recommendation of fellow Mockingbirder David Gaston, I went to see a community theater production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Afterward, the reaction of a woman sitting behind me said it all:
“I think I’ll go stub my toe now, so I’ll feel better”
Arthur Miller’s play is all about sin, judgment, denial, guilt and hopelessness as played out in the lives of two families in post WWII anytown USA. In short, All My Sons is a classic exposition of the problem of being human. Be forewarned, there is no Good News here folks. The law comes at…
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