“Who are the mourners?
The mourners are those who have heard the good news of God’s good future and weep because it is not yet, still sadly not yet. Their eyes have caught a glimpse of God’s future, and their eyes fill with tears because they see it challenged and contradicted in the present. Their spirits ache for the coming of the kingdom Jesus announced, the future he made present in his words of blessing and his works of healing. It is because they hope that they mourn. (more…)
Thank you to all my friends and supporters who have helped to make Minding the Web the top selling book in Canada on Amazon in the category of Christian Ethics. For those who have not yet acquired a copy, the special sale price on the Kindle version of the book is available for one more day. Be sure to tell your friends!
Minding the Web: Making Theological Connections is being featured by Wipf and Stock this week as part of an October ebook flash sale. Readers in the United States can get a hold of the Kindle version for under $3 here. Canadian readers can purchase the Kindle version for under $4 here. The offer expires on Friday, so you’ll need to move quickly!
Fleming Rutledge recently delivered the Parchman Lectures at Truett Divinity School located at Baylor University on the theme “By the Word Worked: The Unique Power of Biblical Preaching.” I recently had the opportunity to watch the first two lectures which are available for public viewing through the Parchman Lectures Media Library.
In the second half of the first lecture, Rutledge incisively identified four trends that weaken the power of contemporary preaching, before positing five counter-affirmations about the power of the preached word. In what follows, I’ll attempt to summarize her important observations, in the hope of encouraging interested readers to watch the lecture itself. (more…)
Alan Jacobs, an influential Christian public intellectual who teaches at Baylor University, has published an important piece that traces the morphing of the word “evangelical” in public discourse. He describes how the term that once referred to a vital, denomination-crossing, renewing impulse within Protestant Christianity has now in the public imagination come to refer to a political and social movement characterized by nationalistic sentiments and a vague religiosity. (more…)
One of the more prominent homiletical metaphors that is operative in the imaginations of preachers of many different stripes and backgrounds is that of the preacher as a bridge-builder between the ancient world of Scripture and our current cultural moment. Through careful rhetorical engineering, the preacher is able to construct a bridge that is capable of carrying the biblical freight across the chasm of the ages, in the process demonstrating its relevance for today. (more…)
Over the summer, my Good Friday sermon “The Death of an Extremist” appeared as the Feature Sermon in an issue of Theodidaktos on the theme of “Atonement: What is the Message of the Cross?” Theodidaktos is published by the Evangelical Mennonite Conference. The sermon goes back to my time serving as a congregational pastor in Toronto, but it is one of my favourites, narrowly missing the cut for inclusion in Leaps of Faith. (more…)
My Anglican friends at The Living Church have published the theological meditation I shared with the faculty of Providence University College at the opening faculty meeting of the year on their Covenant blog. You can read the full meditation here.
