Category: Church

The Emerging Church is Dead(?)

Or at least on life support. Andrew Jones suggested that 2009 represented a decisive year for the movement, and he’s been as careful observer of it as any.  Of course, people disagree with him–but then, when it comes to that...

/ February 8, 2010

Jesus is a Warrior, but not a Cagefighter

Son of God. Prince of Peace. Son of Man. Cagefighter? While the first three masculine titles given to our Lord Jesus are biblical and sufficient enough to express the wonder of Jesus, the last title seems to be ever-more increasingly...

/ February 3, 2010

Final Thoughts on Desiring the Kingdom

I am grateful that Professor (or is it Agent?) Smith took a little time to address some of the concerns I raised regarding his excellent book. He would have been justified to take the route of Stanhope from Charles Williams’...

/ January 18, 2010

The Ultimate Nature of the Messianic Age

For as much as I’ve written about the possibility of a distinct Christian political witness, I fear I have failed to underscore the profound and ultimate sense of competition between the contemporary polis and the witness of the Church. Allow...

/ January 10, 2010

They Say Only the Good Die Young.

They say only the good die young. I don’t know if it’s true.  But it sounds good.  And it’s a gentle way of talking about those whom we should not have lost. “Should.” There’s a world of meaning in that...

/ December 14, 2009

On Christendom and Calvin

I have often been perplexed by how Reformed thinkers like Francis Schaeffer, Herman Dooyeweerd, Abraham Kuyper, and others have such robust engagement with culture while still staying consistent with Calvinism.  Or at least with Calvin.  While I am still learning...

/ December 7, 2009

What Kind of Culture is the Church

In my response to Frank Beckwith and John Mark Reynolds in The City, I pointed out that any that Christendom is impossible until evangelicals recover a robust notion of the Church’s existence as a culture–and maybe not even then. The...

/ November 3, 2009

Mark Galli on the Underlying Unity of a Balkanized Evangelicalism

As observers of evangelicalism, few are better positioned than Mark Galli, a senior editor at Christianity Today. And what he sees is a movement divided into factions, but united by the nature of our solutions to the malaise we have...

/ October 16, 2009

Blest Be the iTies that Bind: Thoughts From CWC on Online Church

Last Saturday, I spoke at the Christian Web Conference on the question of church online.  My prepared remarks, which I have slightly modified, are below.  Over the past few weeks, this conversation has burgeoned, and I hope to interact with...

/ September 17, 2009

Returning to the Young Evangelicals

Earlier this spring, I had the opportunity to write up my thoughts on the generational shifts in evangelicalism (see also the related conversation here and here).  The most recent issue of The City resurrected that conversation in the form of...

/ August 2, 2009