I had the pleasure of discussing the way internet technologies are shaping Christendom with the prolific John Mark Reynolds yesterday. Marcus Goodyear and Katherine Britton were also on the call. The podcast is up at ScriptoriumDaily. Once again, it was in the middle of my day and I had to cut out at the end, [...]
Archive for August, 2008
August 26, 2008
3
Evangelical Americans and Israel’s Future
By Tex in America, East and West, TravelMention Israel to any evangelical American Christian age 50 or older and his or her face will most likely light up at the mention of the Promised Land, the place where Jesus walked and where all the events of the apocalyptic age will play themselves us (and rather conveniently, too; all that fire and brimstone and plagues of blood would make a mess of the retirement home golf course communities).
Mention Israel to any evangelical American Christian age 30 or younger and your are much more likely to get a furrowed brow and a look of unease, if not out right disdain, for the country that has displaced millions of Arabs and refuses to make a just peace.
August 26, 2008
0
Why Didn’t Jesus Start a Megachurch?
By Keith E. D. Buhler in Uncategorized(No small bit of reading, but) check out Scott Thumma’s dissertation research on Megachurches. A nice factoid: “Megachurches are a new phenomenon. This is not to say that very large congregations were absent from the history of the Christian Church (See Vaughan 1993:17-28). Yet at any historical period there were no more than a dozen [...]
August 16, 2008
6
McCain and Obama on Saddleback’s Stage (updated)
By Matthew Lee Anderson in NewsI’ll be watching the Saddleback Civil Forum closely tonight along with many other folks. It is the first time since the primaries ended that Barack Obama and John McCain will be talking in the same room about the same issues. The event is being hosted by Rick Warren, who has caused no little amount of [...]
August 13, 2008
0
Q&A with Andrew Jones
By Matthew Lee Anderson in NewsI was honored to be a part of a Q&A session with the pre-eminent emerging church blogger Andrew Jones. Jones is extremely thoughtful, especially on issues pertaining to the future of Christianity and culture. The conversation is here. I only asked one question and held off on the follow-up because I was still thinking about [...]
August 12, 2008
5
Against Values Voters: Reservations about Social Conservatives’ New Name
By Matthew Lee Anderson in PoliticsIn September of 2006, Family Research Council Action hosted the first “Values Voter Summit.” In 2007, it had 2500 attendees and launched Mike Huckabee’s campaign into the national spotlight. It was influential enough to momentarily quell talk of the declining influence of social conservatives. Since then, “values voters” has become the designator of choice for [...]
August 7, 2008
6
The Evangelical Epidemic
By Keith E. D. Buhler in Outside Articles of InterestC Michael Patton carefully observes the (increasingly common) trend of people becoming doubtful, disillusioned, and eventually departing from Christ. David Sanford observes, “Any business that is losing 31 million of its customers is going out of business.” Check out his book “If God Disappears: 9 Faith Wreckers and What to Do About Them” *Update: Link [...]
August 5, 2008
16
Four Theoretical Problems with Writing
By Keith E. D. Buhler in Meaning and HermeneuticsI spent the last two months reading and thinking about the Phaedrus. What a fascinating little book of Plato’s. I’d like to present four theoretical problems with writing itself. I do this for a) for people who (like me) never before considered that there were any theoretical problems with writing, b) for people who would like to [...]
August 4, 2008
0
The Improbability of Online Profits
By Matthew Lee Anderson in TechnologyFor non-tech content providers, at least. Ezra Klein: The success of Politico actually seems like an incredibly discouraging sign for the media. Here you have this forward-thinking, primarily virtual venture to create a political news organization that marries old-school reporting values to the speed and the immediacy of the web and it actually works. A [...]
August 4, 2008
21
NT Wright on the American Elections
By Matthew Lee Anderson in PoliticsBuried in NT Wright’s interesting address on the role of Scripture in the Church to the Lambeth Conference is this curiosity: All this brings us to three particular features of tomorrow’s world which stand out particularly and call for a biblical engagement that as we take forward our God-given mission. I am here summarizing the [...]
August 3, 2008
2
Carl Schmitt and the Question of Competence
By Matthew Lee Anderson in Politics“Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” So opens Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology, a densely illuminating treatise on the nature of political authority. And for Schmitt, that authority is revealed when an extreme emergency arises that is not anticipated by the laws of a nation. In such an instance, “The most guidance the constitution [...]
August 1, 2008
13
The Lost Virtue of Restraint
By Keith E. D. Buhler in Christianity and CultureTechnology makes anything possible; it doesn’t make everything good. One of the many reasons I like Wall-E, more and more each time I see it (three so far), is that it doesn’t picture technology as good or technology as bad; it pictures technology as a means to an end, made good or bad by the [...]