Marginal Christianity

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/septemberweb-only/46-41.0.html?paging=off 70-year old Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains his new memoir, addresses his critics, and explains why he says, 'We're all congregationalists now.' Interview by Andy Rowell / September 9, 2010 'The Gospel Makes the Everyday Possible' 70-year old Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains his new memoir, addresses his critics, and explains why he says, 'We're all congregationalists now.' Interview by Andy Rowell / September 9, 2010   F or 40 years, Stanley Hauerwas has challenged Christians to live like Christians. He does not fit neatly into the conservative vs. liberal categories that have dominated discussions of American Christianity since the early fundamentalist vs. modernist controversies. Some call him a "post-liberal" because he urges all Christians to return to historical Christianity and to sharpen their thinking.   In 19...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/07/jesus-wants-you-to-be-doctrinally-inconsistent-more-from-oswald-chambers/ July 22, 2014 By Peter Enns 0 Comments It’s been a while since I passed on an  Oswald Chambers  quote from my rector, Father Dave Robinson of   St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church . He’s been slacking but I forgive him (because Jesus says I have to). The title of this reflection is “ The Conditions of Discipleship, ” the July 2nd reading at My Utmost for His Highest . It is based on Luke 14:26-27, 33. I reproduced the second part of that entry below (paragraph divisions are mine.) The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the lif...

  Original article at http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/fight-system-change/   Banksy says: every day is PARK(ing) Day. (Beautiful Trouble) It is an old question in social movements: Should we fight the system or “be the change we wish to see”? Should we push for transformation within existing institutions, or should we model in our own lives a different set of political relationships that might someday form the basis of a new society? Over the past 50 years — and arguably going back much further — social movements in the United States have incorporated elements of each approach, sometimes in harmonious ways and other times with significant tension between different groups of activists. In the recent past, a clash between “strategic” and “prefigurative” politics could be seen in the Occupy movement. While some participants pushed for concrete political reforms — greater regulation of Wall Street, bans on corporate money in politics, a t...

N. T. Wright calls for us to practice an “exuberant exegesis” of scripture.   For me, this has come to mean three things. 1. an exacting mind I want to find out as much about the text’s ancient context and background as I need to “get it” in its original context and larger canonical setting. 2. an expansive heart I want to hear a word that grows my heart, which seems perpetually “two sizes too small” like the Grinch who stole Christmas, to love, lament, mourn, pray more faithfully. 3. an excited imagination I want God’s story in scripture to more and more become my “default” way of seeing my life in the world and to imagine and improvise more faithful performances of the gospel in it.

http://www.religionnews.com/2014/07/15/commentary-8-things-church-needs-say/?utm_content=buffere6ee4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer Tom Ehrich | July 15, 2014 | 19 Comments        (RNS) If Christians stopped bickering about church, presenting sex as a first-order concern, telling other people how to lead their lives and lending our name to minor-league politicians, what would we have to say? We need to figure that out, because we are wearing out our welcome as tax-avoiding, sex-obsessed moral scolds and amateur politicians. In fact, I think we are getting tired of ourselves. Who wants to devote life and loyalty to a religion that debates trifles and bullies the outsider? So what would we say and do? No one thing, of course, because we are an extraordinarily diverse assembly of believers. But I think there are a few common words we would say. We would say the name “Jesus.” We might m...

  by David · July 19, 2014   “The Church Narcissistic” (cartoon by nakedpastor David Hayward) Browsing the internet convinces me now more than ever that the church is narcissistic . Not all churches, but the church in general. So I imagined this cartoon. Let’s compare the church with a person. What symptoms does a narcissist display? They have a grandiose sense of self-importance. They are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success. They believe that they are special or unique. They require constant admiration. They have a very strong sense of entitlement. They exploit others and don’t respect boundaries. They lack empathy. They are envious of others or think others are envious of them. They regularly display arrogant attitudes and behaviors. They react to criticism or contrary viewpoints with condescension and anger. (Read more on PsychCentral ) The treatment for narcissism is always described as long term because often the ro...

Thus the knowledge of God, of Christ, and of the Jews are  all bound up inseparably together,  so that when at last God came into the world he came as a Jew. And to this very day Jesus remains a Jew while still the eternal Son of God. It is still through the story of Israel, through the Jewish soul shaped by the hand of God, through the Jewish scriptures of the Old Testament and the Jewish scriptures of the New Testament church, the gospel comes to us, and that Jesus Christ is set before us face to face as Lord and saviour. Apart from this Old Testament prehistory and all the biblical revelation through Israel, we would not have the tools to grasp the knowledge of God; apart from the long history of the Jews we would not be able to recognise Jesus as the Son of God; apart from the suffering and agony of Israel we would not understand the cross of Calvary as God's instrument to atone for sin and to enact once and for all his word of love and pardon and grace. Apart from the cov...