The Little Friar

Brian Kaylor's Sacramental Politics:  Religious Worship as Political Action is a genuine treat for those who think theologically about American politics.  In the tradition of Niebuhr, Kaylor looks at the intersection of politics and religion -- particularly at how religion impacts American politics.  He opens with an exploration of the nature of prayer.  Kaylor compares and contrasts how both political parties use religious terms in political speeches, and highlights the way in which American political conventions become demonstrations of theological commitments.  But it's his conclusion that jolts those of us who think theologically about politics (or, at least, it jolted me):  "Like prayers at Republican conventions, those at Democratic ones highlighted key political issues for the Party" (page 46).  Kaylor then proceeds to depict presidential nominations as sacramental acts.  In short, American politics use praying to promote a particular v...

Scot McKnight's Fellowship of Differents:  Showing the World God's Design for Life Together is a book that addresses questions everyone is asking these days:  Can a person be a Christian and not be part of the church?  Or, is involvement in the church an essential, even constitutive part of what it means to be a Christian? In light of the recent Pew Center study results that nearly 8 full percentage points fewer folks self-identify as Christian, an n alarming number of religious folks are tending toward affirming the first question, that following Jesus is something one can do apart from any involvement in a local church.  I wish I could get McKnight's newest book into the hands of everyone who has bought that line. Because, here's the truth: Everything I learned about the Christian life I learned from my church ... a local church determines what the Christian life looks like for the people in that church ... we all learn the Christian life from how ou...

Yesterday was Memorial Day in America, the day we remember those who have died in our wars.  And as you expect on days like Memorial Day there's lots on social media expressing gratitude for those who gave their lives in service to America, making the "ultimate sacrifice" as we say.  Many of these expressions of gratitude are very personal, people sharing pictures of parents or grandparents.  On days like Memorial Day I think of all my ancestors who fought in various and sundry wars -- from Korea all the way back to the English Civil War. One of the things I wonder about every year is why the Church doesn't make more of its "memorial day" -- also known as "All Saints' Day". Thing is, I'd love something more interdenominational.  Because, let's be honest, Protestants are lack here.  (Catholic friend will be quick to jump in and shout, "Of course you're lacking.  You've cut off yourself and schismed the Church.)  ...

This is El Greco's Pentecost .  In the Church's calendar, today -- Pentecost Sunday -- marks the miraculous inauguration of the Church, the moment when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles, transforming them from the humble followers of Jesus into dynamic, preaching missionaries, the spiritual leaders of a new and still embryonic Christian community.   What always amazes me about this depiction of the scene from Acts 2 is the presence -- even primary presence -- given to Mary, Jesus' mother, and Mary Magdalene.  It's rare in Pentecost paintings.  Sure, Peter (and later, Paul) led the way in preaching, but women have held a place of primary importance in passing along the faith at least since the Resurrection itself.  (NT Wright rightly insists that the place afforded women in the resurrection stories is the best evidence for its historicity.)  Acts 1.13-14 even goes so far as to insist that the apostles " were constantly at prayer togethe...

In light of some conversations this week about preaching, I'm thinking this morning about my preaching. In light of the recent Pew Survey results -- that nearly a full 8 percentage points fewer of the survey respondents identify as "Christian" -- the primary thing I think we pastoral types should worry about is the quality and nature of our preaching.  Preaching, after all, the most public act of the Church that proclaims the Gospel. That, of course, isn't all that strange an idea to those in the Church Growth Movement.  Nearly every advertisement I read for churches in search of a senior pastor speak of the ability to preach sermons that "connect" with people "where they are".  I've seen and heard lots of folks -- especially former preaching students -- talk about their preaching.  "I want help in making connection with my listeners, relating the gospel to their everyday lives."  "I want to preach sermons which really...

For those friends who've asked that I share last Sunday's sermon. The videos should be viewed in succession. The text is from John 15.9-17 .   I've also placed a copy of the bulletin online here.

It's so very difficult for Christians to build communities of trust and truth when those communities are largely, in our culture, reactionary. If you're looking to establish a new faith community, don't do it simply because you've been hurt by sisters and brothers.  I realize this move is meant to be one for those who are seeking healing.  But it's hard to build genuine friendships with God and with others, when you're rationale amounts to:  "We're not like those others churches". It's often been claimed that, given our cultural climate in which you're either "progressive" or "conservative", this makes Christians inherently reactionary.  And that may well be the intellectual side of things.  (Though I still think both of those are flip sides of one another.) But the emotive side is just as important:  If anger is all you have to bind you together, you don't have much. This is why churches -- whether they be r...

Tricia Williford's Let's Pretend We're Normal: Adventures in Rediscovering How to be a Family is a heart-warming and powerful spiritual memoir of living faithfully in the face of death.  In the first two pages, we encounter the tale of a couple who love one another deeply -- and with all the ordinariness that names quirky loving marriages these days.  Their love produces a family, and they're off running.  But only for a brief while.  Because her husband, the more grounded of the two, is soon stricken with a quick and deadly disorder. Following his death, Williford gives us a story of what it's like to pick up the pieces as a widowed woman, who, with her children, is forced to face what "happily ever after" can probably never be.  This is a story that's not for the faint-of-heart, because it's a story of what Christian hope looks like in the midst of the precariousness of life. Let's Pretend We're Normal is a beautiful and well-writte...

The Ascension , by Salvador Dali Most of us do really well functioning as the examiner of Scripture.  We love to pose questions to the text, expecting the text to respond with our questions in just the right way. But have you ever noticed how often Scripture asks those questions of us ? I say this because last Sunday was Ascension Sunday.  And as we move toward Pentecost, I'm left pondering a question that's asked of the disciples -- that's us, by the way -- by two men in white robes: Why do you stand here looking into the sky? (Acts 1.11). The disciples have just spent what amounts to the last few minutes they have with Jesus on earth asking questions of him:  " Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"  But Jesus, in typical Jesus style, glosses right over their question and proceeds to announce: It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Hol...

You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4.22-24). The Christian emotional life is a complicated thing.  There's a time to get angry, Paul affirms, but the time to stay angry is short (vv. 25-27): So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.  Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Or, more specific for what I'm thinking today:  There are good grounds for anger, but there are no good grounds for grudges. (1) There are good grounds for anger. Biblically, good anger is characterized by two things:  (a) it's based on God , and (b) it's mingled with grief .  I constantly tell folks that sadn...

Larry Michael's A Necessary Grief:  Essential Tools for Leadership in Bereavement brings together a pastor's heart with resources for those who offer care to the grieving.  It's an excellent book filled with wisdom for those in the Church who walk with others "in the valley of the shadow of death". Michael offers accessible information about the nature of grief (part 1) as well as wisdom about what to say and do for those involved in bereavement ministries in the Church (part 2).  Part 3 -- "Coaching Others in Grief" -- is useful for those congregations who want to establish bereavement ministries and offers very practical advice for congregations and their pastors. The appendices continue in offering unique wisdom for ministers in the face of death.  I found the first appendix ("Different ages grieve in different ways") especially useful.  While I've seen the information before in grief ministry classes, the chart he offers here packs...

In the social circles in which I run these days, there's been a good bit of bemoaning and lamenting and hand-wringing around the recent Pew Study that found fewer folks self-identify as Christians these days in the US.  The number is staggering lower than even I would have anticipated.  (So much for calling America a "Christian country".)  And to hear folks who care about these things talking, these numbers are bad. I'm not as sure that they're horrible.  (I think they bespeak the death of "nominal Christianity" in America more than the death of the Church.)  But I do admit there are things that need to be done by church leaders to address these numbers in our churches.  To that end, my most recent book is an attempt to think theologically about the Church -- about who we are and what we do -- as a pastor.  And to share the wisdom I've gleaned from that thinking for the 18 years of my ordained life.  (Commercial:  Feel free to buy the b...

David Bez's Salad Love:  260 Crunchy, Savory, and Filling Meals You Can Make Every Day is a gorgeous book that brings together recipes for salads for every season with beautiful photos of those recipes.  I've a verbal learner, but the photos in this cookbook enrich the recipes. What's more, Salad Love has all sorts of useful information and options.  There are vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian, and omnivore salads, as well as alternatives (turning an omnivore salad to a vegetarian one) with each salad.  Those alternatives provide immediate access to these salad recipes, without flipping from section to section.  Additionally, the substitutes provide information of a variety of dressings -- including all different sauces, pesto, creamy, and olive based dressings.  The 260 diverse recipes here are for people who don't generally enjoy the usual salads or don't cook much.  This book is not, as it touts from the beginning, "a cook book".  Any seas...

Max Lucado's Let the Journey Begin:  Finding God's Best for Your Life has recently been re-released -- just in time for graduations.  This great inspirational -- and gift -- book is for anyone who is preparing to "embrace new opportunities and take steps toward reaching your dreams".  I foresee lots of folks giving this book for graduation gifts, but there's no reason to place this classic devotional into such a small category.  It just as easily applies to someone preparing to enter a new job, welcoming a new baby, among dozens upon dozens of other adventures.  That's because Lucado here offers biblical wisdom for "restoring hope" as we begin those journeys, or "knowing God's will", or how God's love enables and ennobles all our journeys begun and ended in him. This book is like so many other devotionals -- it's sturdy and user-friendly.  But, like I said, it's filled with so much biblical wisdom.  The one line that co...

Happy mothering day to all those women who celebrate our bearing, raising, teaching, nurturing, caring for children -- whether they are your biological children or children of the Spirit.  Every woman is some child's mother, sister, friend.  All of you have done so much for us.  One day is hardly enough.  So on this day, I say thank you. My biological mother died some years ago.  The woman who cared for me and made me who I am today died so many years earlier.  But the kindness of women who have been my friends and my sisters hasn't gone unnoticed.  Those two taught me to be thankful for all of you -- for who you are and for what you do. Today, I celebrated an even longer list because of those women who have shown my beloved bride such kindness all her life.  So, again, thank you to all my mothering friends.  I am so humbled at who all of you are and all that you contribute to our lives and to the wider world. 

Tomorrow is Mother's Day in the US.  That means I'll see all sorts of quotations from Proverbs 31, and hear the extolls of countless women who have made the lives of others as mothers. My own relationship with my mother was rocky, at best.  It was a complex yarn that will probably, this side of the Kingdom, never get unraveled.  Instead, the woman I most remember as mothering is a woman who was well beyond her childbearing years when she took me in.  And she died when I was just so young.  Pictured here, Sarah was my great-grandmother.  She took a precocious little boy and helped to make me the man I am today. That taught me a lesson. Women have come and gone through the centuries.  Some mothers, grandmothers; others aunts, cousins, sisters; and still others friends.  These women come from all walks of life.  Yet no matter where they come from or what status they hold, these are women who toil the soil of lives all their living years....

It's graduation time again.  Seminarians will have written their exams, passed their psychologicals, and be preparing to enter churches in coming months as freshly-minted ministers.  Every now and then I'm asked what books pastors (both those who are entering ministry and those who are seasoned veterans) should read every year.  This is the list of those books I've found to sustain my own identity and work. Gregory the Great's Pastoral Rule Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline Jurgen Moltmann's Crucified God Catherine LaCugna's God for Us Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love Helmut Thielicke's A Little Exercise for Young Theologians Alexander Schmemann's For the Life of the World Walter Bruegemann's The Prophetic Imagination Walter Wink's The Powers that Be Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline I've left off Bonhoeffer -- but that's only because I don't aim to replicate my own view of ministry. 

Ryan and Amanda Leak's The One:  An Amazing Love Story Starts with You is a memoir that's filled with wisdom for Christians.  The book chronicles Ryan and Amanda's engagement and marriage, on the same day!  Their story went viral online, because, in a world so fraught with skepticism about love and marriage, it seemed like sheer foolishness. But the one thing you can take away from this book?  Ryan and Amanda are real people whose real story highlights the truth that it's marriage that sustains love, not the other way around.  Here, you're read their trials and missteps, as well as their victories.  In those personal stories, you'll also find a deep spiritual wisdom for what a Christian love story might look like in our world. That's not to say this book is without its faults.  Ryan and Amanda both adopt and adapt a worldview much like what we read in modern romances about the nature of love.  And in that emotionalism, there are possibiliti...

There's no doubt:  To most Christians, evangelism is difficult.  That's true for Amy Lively.  In her new book, How to Love Your Neighbor without Being Weird , Lively writes, " I wanted to love my neighbor, but I didn't know how".  The message of Jesus is Good News.  As News, it needs sharing.  So it falls to those who follow Jesus to share that Good News.  Particularly to those who are near to us.  So Lively writes in order to explore how to share that Good News in a way that isn't weird or suspicious.  Because, to be honest, most of us don't even know our neighbors. And Lively knows how frightening sharing that Good News might be.  Making spiritual connections in our world is a dangerous thing -- and certainly fraught with all sorts of things of which we should be aware.  In the process of reaching out, though, Lively found her life enriched by her encounters. Make no doubt about it, How to Love Your Neighbor without Being W...

Yesterday, I wrote about how certain background assumptions rule the way in which we interpret the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. And I made a claim then that's gotten a bit of conversation going among certain of my friends: What that means, of course, is that the Empire is controlling how we read these texts, not our discipleship to Jesus.  Our readings of the biblical text are determined more by self-interest -- whether that be personal or national -- than by self-denial.  Jesus becomes aligned with Us vs. Them. I was asked to explain how this is true. So let me make this point clear. Imagine I go to a Christian blog or forum and there I see Christians debating whether or not killing is ever justified.  We've all seen or participated in these debates, say, between pacifists and just war apologists.  And while many of us have strong opinions about this topic, most simply feel torn.  We see the good points being made by both sides.  ...

In the debates about pacifism within the Christian tradition, many Christians have justified the use of violence and killing by making an appeal to Jesus' temple action, the time when Jesus flipped the tables of the moneychangers and dove sellers and drove people from the temple courts with a whip. I agree with the many other Christians who think that this is a horrible argument.  It's quite a stretch to go from Jesus' temple action to killing people.  Of course if Jesus, say, stabbed somebody to death in the temple then we might have something to talk about.  But that's not what happened.  To be sure, the word "violence" could be used to describe Jesus' actions, but that's a far cry from giving us a warrant to kill. And yet, there is something much less talked about and debated regarding Jesus' temple action. One of those activist communities must be left to ask, after the recent riots in Baltimore, is if it's ever okay to bre...

Some years ago, out of curiosity, I went to a service at megachurch in the area.  It was quite an experience.  They had it all:  The hustle and bustle of important people; the man with a walkie-talkie who met me at the door and briskly ushered me to "my" seat; the dimly lit auditorium with its brightly colored stage; the use of words like "vision" and "awesome"; the advertising segments (last week's sermon was available on DVD for only $14.95); the slick businessmen with their Rolexes and their glamorous wives; the exuberant music; the give-your-life-to-Jesus altar call; and throughout all this, the ubiquity of what Peter Berger has called "the Protestant smile". There were no limits to the professionalism of this worship service.  The preaching was motivating and highly inspirational:  The sermon's title (sorry, I'm not kidding) was "Ten Kinds of People That God Can't Help".  The main idea was that you should "in...

O God of all wisdom:  Sometimes we desire to know all the answers,      even when there are none to be known. Fill those for whom our prayers are sought      with the comfort of your love. When we are faced with uncertain times,      help us rest in your comforting love. We trust in your help, even as we look to your Spirit      to give us the words to say and the actions to do. You have bless us with the support of others;      in our anxiety, may your patience help us           bear with one another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Billy Graham's The Reason for My Hope:  Salvation is a wonderful little book that brings together a master preacher talking about the Good News of Jesus Christ.   Graham, of course, is the one preacher I most remember from my childhood.  And his message here -- of salvation, of sin, of "trendy religion" -- is a message that I've heard from him so often.  Told here, though, in fresh ways for a new audience. Make no doubt about it, though, Graham, as a master preacher, knows first hand the reason for hope.  So this book is filled with insights of a preacher who has lived in this Good News and the new world it creates for most of his life.  That makes this book a tour through the Scripture in a way that might go unappreciated.  But this is a book to read and to share.   Every bookshelf needs a copy! ___________________ Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers < http://...

Josh Ross and Jonathan Storment's Bringing Heaven to Earth:  You Don't Have to Wait for Eternity to Live the Good News is a book for which I've long for some time.  NT Wright's Surprised by Hope was a confirmation that the revolution happening in my faith about heaven had depth.  Ross' Bringing Heaven to Earth is confirmation that that seismic shift reaches out of the realm of the theologians and touches the daily spiritual life of Christians.  Jesus spends all of his time preaching and bringing the Kingdom of God.  He isn't referring to something in the distant future.  Instead, he's talking about the here and now, and the there and then.  This Kingdom is both present and not-yet.  It's an anemic Christian faith that longs for something distant.  It's a vibrant Christian faith that sees the Kingdom in our lives, here, now -- and knows that its fulness is yet to be. Ross and Storment's Bringing Heaven to Earth is therefore a real trea...

Grant me life, compassionate Lord. Hear me, merciful Lord. Be charitable to me, forgiving Lord. Save me, long-suffering Lord. Protect me, defender Lord. Be generous, all-giving Lord. Free me, all-powerful Lord. Revive me, restoring Lord. Raise me again, awe-inspiring Lord. Enlighten me, heavenly Lord. Cure me, omnipotent Lord. Grant pardon, inscrutable Lord. Bestow gifts, bountiful Lord. Adorn me with grace, generous Lord. Let us be reconciled, healing Lord. Be accepting, unvengeful Lord. Wipe away my transgressions, blessed Lord, so that on that Day of Misery, when I stare at the abyss on either side, I may also catch sight of your salvation, my hope and guardian, and on that terrifying journey your angel of peace may sweetly guide me. Endow me, Lord, on the day my breath is finished with a clean spirit raised in light among the joyful heavenly host, with gifts of your love overtaking me. May I arrive with the workers for justice. Grant to my wayward sou...