Marginal Christianity

http://www.abpnews.com/opinion/item/7648-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it#.UBYXVqNdATA While the institutional church is in decline, possibilities abound for new ways of producing faithful followers of Jesus Christ. By Amy Butler Has anybody out there noticed that church attendance has been lower lately? The church budget is stretched thin because fewer people are giving? You can’t get a commitment out of people who are so busy they are already making summer plans -- for next summer? Welcome to the reality of church decline. There has been quite a bit in the media lately about the trending decline of the institutional church and ongoing conversation about what strategy might ensure its sustainability. Countless observers of American religious life have noted that the church, all versions, is struggling. What they mean by decline is that fewer people are attending church, churches and denominational entities are getting organizationally smaller and there’s less money to go aro...

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=19814 July 10, 2012, 12:15 pm Posted by Luke Hill In the 40 years since Ray Charles first recorded “America the Beautiful” (on his album, Message from the People), it has become perhaps the best-loved and most widely known version of Katherine Lee Bates’ great patriotic hymn. That’s not surprising. In addition to his talents as a composer and bandleader, Ray Charles is arguably the most influential interpreter of American popular song over the last 60 years. watch?v=TRUjr8EVgBg In fact, Charles’ interpretation is so popular that it’s easy to overlook how radically he revamped Bates’ song—both lyrically and theologically. In Charles’ version, the third verse come first, and the second and fourth verses are dropped completely. No “pilgrim feet” with “stern impassioned stress” beating “a thoroughfare for freedom…across the wilderness”—and over the dead bodies of anyone who got in their way. No “alabaster cities” gleaming “undimmed b...

June 21, 2012 Scott Benhase (http://www.faithandleadership.com/blog/06-21-2012/scott-benhase-the-me-epidemic) In last spring’s issue of “The Hedgehog Review,” Thomas de Zengotita writes about what he calls “the flattery of representation.” He writes: “We have been consigned by it to a new plane of being, a new kind of life-world, an environment of representations of fabulous quality and inescapable ubiquity, a place where everything is addressed to us, everything is for us, and nothing is beyond us anymore” (emphasis added). Zengotita contends that ubiquitous media flatter us with attention. We get our own personal mobile ring tones and our choice of individualized media when we go online. In this age, life is designed to focus on us and for us. As social media leads to social movements like MoveOn or the Tea Party, it thrives because it creates the illusion that each participant is indispensably at the center of the movement. The reality, of course, is different. Each participa...

By Paul Froese | June 13, 2012 (http://religionandpolitics.org/2012/06/13/how-your-view-of-god-shapes-your-view-of-the-economy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-your-view-of-god-shapes-your-view-of-the-economy) I n recent decades, “big tent” conservatism has seemed on the brink of collapse, its poles buckling under competing constituencies with “values” voters in one corner pitted against fiscal conservatives in the other. Discussions among academics and media pundits suggest these are two distinct categories of Republicans—the former made up of mainly working-class white evangelicals and the latter historically comprised of higher-income whites. Republican politicians must seek the favor of both special interests, appealing not only to traditional social issues—gay marriage and abortion—but also to economic fare such as reducing government and lowering taxes. This distinction is central to Thomas Frank’s engaging analy...

By Tom Ehrich| Religion News Service , Published: June 5 SOUTH PASADENA, Calif. — Like many air travelers, I have learned to expect the worst and be surprised by anything positive. I can’t imagine that gloom is the customer experience that airlines are going for. Yet they can’t control their hunger for adding fees, overbooking flights, disrupting seat assignments or treating passengers like petulant sheep. After posting its first-ever net loss, Nintendo is hoping to lure gamers who increasingly play free titles on their iPads and iPhones. Technology to the rescue! Facing a six-hour encampment in Row 22 of a United 757, I stifled a cry of outrage and ponied up $17.95 for Internet access. It was a great decision. Six hours in a window seat became six productive hours of managing subscriptions, answering emails, editing a presentation, and reading The New Yo...