Marginal Christianity

What really inspires positive change is hope, not fear, according to a leading writer on change and innovation. He uses compelling case studies to show how heart patients, criminals, drug addicts and multibillion-dollar corporations can improve their future prospects by embracing change that at first may seem impossible. “My research shows that what really stimulates and sustains a change effort is getting positive results, really being able to feel tangible benefits from the change fairly early on,” said Deutschman, former executive director of Unboundary, a strategy consulting firm for top executives. Deutschman also spent 19 years as a business journalist in Silicon Valley. He has profiled innovators around the world and discovered some of what makes up effective leadership, especially during times of change. His book outlines the “three F’s” -- facts, fear and force -- which he said are often employed but ultimately doomed to failure as change agents. Instead, he said, they...

The problem is not just that some Christian institutions are failing but that we are not experimenting, failing and then learning from our missteps to create more sustainable, innovative institutions. March 27, 2012 | Many U.S. coffee drinkers prefer lighter roasts, so Starbucks set out to meet the demand. It took, according to Fast Company, “a multitude of beans” and 80 experiments with roasting time and temperature before executives were satisfied. Starbucks failed 79 times. The stories of companies, and individuals, failing before wildly succeeding are legion. Consider Coca-Cola’s “New Coke” experiment, and the Wright brothers’ attempts at flying. IDEO, the design consultancy, coined a now-famous phrase that guides its work: “Fail often to succeed sooner.” Encouraging Christian institutions to “fail often” sounds like Albert Einstein’s famous definition of insanity. One bishop, being urged to innovate, fail and adapt, said the clergy in his area are far too comfortable with ...

Many in recent years have debated the ancient axiom that God, if he is truly God, must be impassible. That is, serene, calm, unperturbed by anything outside himself – including the suffering of his creatures and creation. After all, that’s what it means to be God, at least in the West. Perfection requires changelessness for change implies imperfection or lack of fulfillment. And God has no imperfections or lacks. Therefore he cannot change or be moved by anything. God is therefore impassible, or changeless. If he is, he is not God. This view of God as changeless has, perhaps more than any other belief except maybe a deterministic view of election (and the two are related), gutted Christian faith of its vitality. A God who not only does not respond to his creatures need and distress, indeed, who cannot so respond, is not a God who can be loved. Or love. Prayer becomes simply another therapeutic technique for the one who prays. It does nothing to or for God. It is no accid...

Mark 11:1-11: The Liturgy of the Palms 1 When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus gave two disciples a task, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.’” 4 They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. 5 Some people standing around said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone. 7 They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it. 8 Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields. 9 Those in front of him and those following were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name...

From prison in Germany during World War II Dietrich Bonhoeffer mused on the fall of “Christian civilization” in his home country and with it the power and credibility of its religious language. He spoke of the need for a non-religious language and way of life if Christianity were ever to recover its role of speaking faithfully for God to its world. The church in America is, IMHO, in a similar place. Christian platitudes no longer engage our culture. Truth be told, they don’t even engage much of the church any more either. The church has been marginalized and with it its language and credibility. We too need to find a way to speak the truth of our faith in language that no longer trades on outworn and unintelligible platitudes. The musical group Gungor has a beautiful song about Christian hope. The language is simple, direct, and powerful. There is nothing overtly Christian here. The language “We will shine like stars bright, brighter” does allude to biblical passages like...

Slate: The Economics of The Hunger Games Could any real country have an economy like Panem’s? Actually, yes. At first glance, the economic landscape depicted in Suzanne Collins’ best-selling Hunger Games trilogy doesn’t make much sense. Despite its post-apocalyptic condition, the fictional nation of Panem is quite technologically advanced. It has high-speed trains, hovercrafts, extraordinary genetic engineering capabilities, and the ability to create extremely advanced weapons. And yet Panem is also a society of tremendous economic inequality, with clear examples of absolute economic deprivation and even famine. Economic theory teaches us that over the long term, prosperity is driven by two factors—capital accumulation and the “Solow residual” of technology—and that of the two elements the technology is more important. Perhaps the best example comes to us from the experience of Germany and Japan around World War II. These were, before the war began, prosperous, technologically adv...

In the last post we looked at Scott Mutter’s “Church Aisle” photo as an example of the attractional, “build it and they will come,” ministry philosophy. Today we’ll look at it from a missional philosophy. From a missional viewpoint the empty sanctuary is a sign that the church is not holed up in the church but out in the world, meeting people where they are and serving them in Jesus’ name. The banner proclaiming the “Great Commission” is thus being honored by the people’s absence and their presence among the people on the street which runs through the center of the sanctuary. Here the church’s identity is one of a people serving God’s mission. And they understand God as a missional God who sends his Son into the world to save it, who with the ascended Christ sends the Spirit to God’s people, and who through that same Spirit sends the people into the world to love and serve his creatures. From a missional perspective, that is what Mutter’s photo suggests. We’ve tried the “...