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Jesus was crucified

It’s obvious, I hope, that I’m writing here for people who say to themselves, “There is something irresistible about Jesus.” For some of you, that’s a point which you make into an ideological cathedral — a point of doctrine which lines up in an acronym that summarizes the faith, your faith. For others, it’s a nagging thought — as you work out your faith on your own, you keep coming back to this Jesus, and you can’t make sense of him all the way, but you also can’t accept everything he says because it seems somehow too hard to live that way, or too complex, or too simple, or merely out of your grid of experience. Continue Reading »

We’re just like Oprah

Some people have been hurt in the local church. For some people it’s just a rote activity, as Oprah admits, which she learned as a child. Some of us are much smarter than our local church can bear, and some cannot stand how smart the church thinks it is. Worse still for others: it will simply be completely useless. Continue Reading »

The Concession Speech

Those who want to use this creed as the basis for their concession speech have to grasp first that the creed was not the means by which the universal and apostolic church all held hands and sang the Greek version of “Kumbaya”. It was the means by which the church was separating itself from egregious error. Continue Reading »

Is it the 19th Century All Over Again?

As usual I’m late to the party.  Joe and I have been friends for several years now and in honor of our friendship I changed e-mail addresses and didn’t let him know.  So, we’ve finally caught up and today I join this august body of bloggers, feeling way in over my head, . . . . Continue Reading »

Evangelicals and the Local Church

Several of my fellow bloggers have alluded to the role of the local church / local ministries in defining evangelicals, which got me to thinking about an experience that I had a few years ago.I heard a leader from a Mainline U.S. denomination speaking his thoughts on the denominational hierarchy. . . . . Continue Reading »

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