Category: Church
Next Week: The Future of the Church
One of my favorite things about the Mere Fidelity podcast is that it gets three or four (at least) different people together directly discussing a given topic. With writing this sort of direct interaction happens only rarely and usually in...
Reviewing The New Parish and New Evangelical Language
You might say that The New Parish is the best possible book that typical young evangelicals could write about church life and spiritual formation. You might also say that The New Parish is an occasionally good book that takes some unfortunate...
The Mark Driscoll School of Leadership
For months now, I’ve been wanting to write something about the Mark Driscoll saga, but I’ve never quite found the words. I wanted to argue that some of the charges of plagiarism were overblown, but I didn’t want to come...
Respectability and the Plausibility of Orthodoxy
One point that deserves special mention with the ongoing conversation about “respectable” Christianity concerns the plausibility of “orthodoxy” in the minds of many of our non-Christian neighbors. One of the unique challenges facing Christianity in the coming years is that the...
Should Sermons Be Published?
Today we live in a world where pastors of churches large and small post their sermons online almost immediately. Many live-stream and some churches even offer sophisticated viewing experiences allowing viewers to provide feedback. What’s more, the advent of smart...
When Churches and Parachurches Drift Apart
Peter Greer (@peterkgreer) is president and CEO of HOPE International. Chris Horst (@chrishorst) is the vice president of development at HOPE International. Together with the support of Anna Haggard, they coauthored Mission Drift and Entrepreneurship for Human Flourishing. They wrote this...
The Ethics of Jayber Crow
In The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry Anthony Esolen notes that Berry’s longest Port William novel, Jayber Crow, is in many ways a modern day retelling of Dante. Berry’s own language throughout the book suggests the comparison, as his narrator, the novel’s...
The Future of Protestantism Full Roundup
Normally this would go up over at Notes, but we wanted to be sure that everyone sees the full roundup of responses (so far) to last week’s Future of Protestantism event at Biola. There figure to be more responses in...
On Church Membership and Theological Disagreement
“Port William repaid watching. I was always on the lookout for what would be revealed. Sometimes nothing would be, but sometimes I beheld astonishing sights.” The lesson from that quote (from Wendell Berry) is that fidelity to a place, a people,...
The Future of Protestantism Video
I am very pleased to pass this along to you for your careful consideration and attention. There have been a few followup pieces as well to the discussion, which I encourage you to look at as well. I’m sure there...