Everyday Liturgy: When I started this blog a year and a half ago I did it in part to begin to explore ways to expand my relationship with God.  I had recently graduated from a Bible college and wanted to build on the foundation in Scriptures I had been given.  The evangelical answers, quiet time and prayer cards, no longer seemed capable of leading me further in my spiritual journey.  Bible-software, inductive study, and individual petitions no longer seemed adequate.  What role do you see "Ancient Practices" having in our technological, individualistic world?

Brian McLaren: Thom, I think you've really diagnosed a key dimension of the problem: individualism. I think our spiritual lives languish in a "Jesus and me" isolation chamber, but they become robust and deep when we realize that God calls me into an "us for all of us" way of life. To echo Paul's amazing words in Ephesians 3, I come to know the love of God "with all the saints." Knowledge in this sense is a knowing with - knowing God with people of different periods of history, different cultures, different denominations, and so on. So the ancient practices draw us into a wider, deeper way of knowing God that includes but also transcends my individual experience.

EL: One of the biggest challengers and provokers in my life has been an Eastern Orthodox friend.  Through his entrance into the Eastern Orthodox church a whole new world of spiritual practice has been opened up to him, and I have been able to see glimpses of how he is being shaped in community with God and others.  What role does community play in spiritual practice?

BM: Like your friend, I have been enriched by Eastern Orthodox practices and values. In the book I use an example - limited and flawed, admittedly - to schools of cooking. There are certain flavors that Italian cooking specializes in - and very different ones in Thai or Mexican or Indian cooking. So various spiritual traditions maintain various rich flavors of the spiritual life ... we might even say that different traditions nourish in different ways. When we enter a community, we can learn their way, discover the "ingredients" they specialize in, and be nourished by what they uniquely offer.  This becomes quite dynamic in our time, I think, because we're realizing that if you want to be nourished in evangelism, Evangelicals have a lot to offer, and if you want to be nourished in sacramentalism, you need to go to the Orthodox or Catholics or Anglicans. If you want to be nourished in peacemaking, the Mennonites carry on that tradition in a special way, and if you want to be nourished in deep Biblical study, the Presbyterians excel. I believe the time has come for us to share our treasures and specialties with one another and not try to keep our "flavor" as proprietary. We can have a big banquet and each bring our specialties to share.

More after the break...!

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When the above painting was first exhibited, there was a gigantic uproar. To a twenty-first century audience, John Everett Millais' painting ‘Christ in the House of His Parents' would rarely raise an eyebrow in response. More likely it would be glanced over simply as a realistic, but uninteresting biblical scene. If one reads criticism from the time period, however, one realizes two points. First, viewers were genuinely angry and disgusted with Millais' depiction of the holy family. Secondly, there really was a reason for the dismay-at least to those writing the critiques. "We are presented with that which is merely disgusting," wrote the author of A Glance at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1850, "forced and painful attitudes; elaboration of ugliness; expatiation on sordid or unimportant details; and all this to the contemptuous banishment of the mysteries and beauties of nature."[1] Another critic, Wornum, is quoted: "The dirty corrugated skin of an emaciated frame" should never, ...[be selected as ] model for sacred or historic character"; "The physical ideal alone", he went on, "can harmonise with the spiritual ideal: in Art, whatever it may be in Nature in its present condition, the most beautiful soul must have the most beautiful body; lofty sentiment and physical baseness are essentially antagonistic; even in the lowest sinks of poverty in the world, the purest mind will shine transcendent."[2] ... more

In the thirty years since its inception, the so-called New Perspective on Paul (NPP) has attracted both eager followers as well as vehement critics for its treatment of the gospel. Some of the most trenchant criticisms have come from scholars, often of the Reformed tradition, who allege that the New Perspective undermines the traditional doctrine of "justification by faith." My aim, then, is to assess the proposals of leading New Perspective scholars N.T. Wright and James D.G. Dunn in order to better understand just what they have done with justification. (And this is only meant to be a kind of ‘readers' introduction; for me, it was important to come to an understanding of the essential argument so that I could engage faithfully with recent New Testament theology, I hope it might serve the same purpose for you). In my read of things, it becomes quickly apparent that the new understanding of Paul around the issue of justification, far from undermining the gospel, actually encourages a richer and fuller understanding of the gospel and its implications for people of faith.

In his letter to Boniface, history's most quoted bishop, Augustine has a lot to say. Throughout the letter, the reader is struck by many attributes, among them are his compassion, strength, logic, and his reliance on the Scriptures. The letter opens by complimenting Boniface for his fervent desire to know the truth of Christ. Wasting little time, Augustine dives right in by mentioning the Arians and the Donatists. Avoiding the temptation of taking the side of either, Augustine points out the flaws in both, however, this letter is certainly more concerned with the Donatists.

I finishing up my last paper of the semester, writing about the Italian movie L'Eclisse (The Eclipse) and how the paranoia of the closing montage is fed by the present (for the 1960s) fear that people could destroy the whole world.

Since the world began it was God's to destroy, apocalypse meant that God would be bringing the world to an end for a purpose: judgment, the kingdom, joy, a feast, no more crying, eternity, etc. There are lots of perspectives on the end of the world, but the big picture is that it means God is doing something new or in full---bringing the world to rights as N.T. Wright describes it. ... more

In my grad class tonight I commented that I thought General Gordon, the hero of Stachey's "The End of General Gordon" in Eminent Victorians, was a gnostic.

I was greeted with blank faces. Graciously, a girl in the class asked me to "explain gnosticism to me in 30 seconds," which I did the best I could off the cuff: Gnostics hate matter, they don't believe Jesus was incarnate because flesh is bad, and they idealize the immaterial in a fanatical way.

The chapter in the book was written about a British general in the 1890s, and it got me thinking: there were gnostics so recent? What other heresies persist in pseudo- or quasi- form today?

I was talking to my brother on the phone on my way back from class and I told him I see a lot of gnostic ideas in the American church today. There is a lot of denial of the greatness of the "flesh" not in Paul's sense of the word but in a more participatory tone. God has given us so much abundance, so many great foods to try (in moderate), so many good beers to drink (in moderation), so many peaks to climb and so many teas and coffees to brew and taste with amazement and awe. God has given all of this, and we should rejoice in his almighty abundance! Yet so many (obese) pastors tell us to stay away from the joyful things of life and focus on this nebulous heaven, which is really just a Christianization of Plato's realm of ideals---it is not a true view of heaven. [1]

Heresies persist and persist. They won't go away. I think the lies of empire and power are still persisting from Constantine's meddling in religion, and I think others are reaching their tentacles toward us from the sands of time. If we read the Nicene Creed, the Church Fathers and Mothers, and really think about what they were reacting against in both Christian and secular circles we find deja vu all over again. ... more

Philosophy is making a big comeback in universities, even though some parents and educators lement that philosophy will not get students anywhere in life. 

The article makes some crucial points about the necessity of thought, morality, and ethics as a foundation for a healthy and rewarding career.  The higher education system in the US has increasingly become infatuated with specialization and technique instead of grounding students in critical thinking, research, and scholarship.  

What disappoints me about the article though is that in our secularized age philosophy has usurped theology's rightful role as "the queen of the sciences." ... more

On World Magazine's daily webzine World on the Web you can find a brief review/interview of Thomas Oden's new book How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind.

The Western church needs to begin a discussion of our perceived dominance of Christianity as a foundational myth, something that Oden argues in this book, as well as can be seen in the purposeful denial of Eastern Christianity in discussions until recently.  The vast majority of "Christian" textbooks published in America deny that the Eastern church or the more recent Global South churches exist on a intellectual, philosophical, and theological level.  The Western church perceives itself as the light on the hill bathing all other christianities with its orthodox radiance, yet some scholars are beginning to admit that this simply isn't true. ... more

In this month's Everyday Journal, Dan Porter shared his view on the "Trinity as Doctrine and Confession", which I think is important to consider along with John Mark's notion that American Protestantism clings to one person of the Trinity more than the other, depending on whether you are a fundamentalist, evangelical, or pentacostal.

Dan writes on the basic premise of Trinitarian theology: