The Little Friar

Yohan Hwang's Reclaiming Our Political Roots:  Rethinking Church in Nationalist Times is one of the clearest calls for the Church in America to wake up -- wake up from the nightmare of trying to provide therapy or social belonging in a culture all too enthralled with both.  Reclaiming Our Political Roots is nothing less than a clarion call for the Church in America to be the Church -- "a true community ... where its members have political and economic commitments to each other". I have little doubt that this book will infuriate all sorts of folks.  But as a church leader himself, Hwang has a handle on what this change might mean.  Hwang details how the Church has fulfilled this role at various points in history and how we can learn from the past.  In a culture where Christians have become so engrossed in maintaining the status quo for American culture through political power, Hwang envisions what the Kingdom of God envisions:  An alternative to worl...

Rob Ryerse's Running for Our Lives: A Story of Faith, Politics, and the Common Good was a book I had to read.  An evangelical pastor and progressive Republican, Robb Ryerse has ran for Congress, worked with the Vote Common Good campaign, and helped foster some of the most important relationships across the current American ideological divide in politics.  So this is a book I simply had to read.  I expected to be challenged -- and I was, and I found myself changing my mind on some political issues of our day. What I didn't expect was to become hopeful. I'm a firm believer in the wall of separation between American politics and Christian faith.  The state shouldn't be telling the Church how to live and worship and the Church shouldn't be telling the body politic how it should live and what it should do.  I believe these things precisely because I follow Jesus Christ, not in spite of him.  What I didn't expect was to find myself challenged -- and chan...

God came to me, rebuked me for my life of sin and showed to me a way in which we both could win; I heard his offer out, but in the summit of my pride I chose to win alone.  God I crucified. I hanged him on the tree, and on the tree he died. But God does not just die; he must rise to live again, and soon returns, rebuking me for my life of sin. Frustrated with his returning, that he does not simply die, I choose myself again, and him I crucify. I hang him on the tree again; on the tree he dies. He returns and comes again, each time so vital, bold, that I can only crucify by growing yet more cold. Where our ending finds us is where we did begin; we either taste of glory's grace or we crucify with sin. Each time we hang him on the tree; again on the tree he dies. Finally, though, my will submits because his grace is so true. That will now crucified with him; on the tree we die. My life now found in God with Christ alone, crucified and dead, I'm raised to li...

                   Kill me not ev'ry day, Thou Lord of life, since thy one death for me         Is more than all my deaths can be,                     Though I in broken pay Die over each hour of Methusalem's stay.                     If all men's tears were let Into one common sewer, sea, and brine;          What were they all, compar'd to thine?                    Wherein if they were set, They would discolour thy most bloody sweat.                      Thou art my grief alone, Thou Lord conceal it not: and as thou art          All my delight, so all my smart:                     Thy cross took up in one, By way of...

John Goodrich and Mark Strauss have edited one of the most important collections of essays about discipleship in the New Testament:  Following Jesus Christ: The New Testament Message of Discipleship for Today .  Bringing together 21 contributors, this volume of around 350 pages and 20 essays provides a clear, thorough biblical picture of the nature of discipleship to Jesus Christ in the world.  17 of the chapters explore the message of discipleship in each of the major New Testament writers/books, and it is written for pastors, seminary students and advanced college classes in mind. The material here is comprehensive, but in an accessible way.  Not one of the chapters is overwhelming, but each is as complete as one might expect from a scholarly work such as this.  For example, readers will encounter some occasional discussions about the Greek text, but not in a way that makes the work inaccessible to lay readers.  I only wish Part 2 -- "Discipleship T...