Postmodern Renaissance Culture Revolutionary

I have a confession. I was not a fan of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. As a kid, I enjoyed the land of Make-Believe. I especially liked the puppets. There were times when Mister Rogers would do teaching or build something, and that would fascinate me. I always preferred Sesame Street and Captain Kangaroo. When my kids began to watch television, they didn’t seem to be drawn to the Neighborhood, so I didn’t have to change my opinion. When Fred Rogers died, there began a process that many are calling secular canonization. Mister Rogers became larger than his television persona and viewership. People began to extol the wonders of what he meant to them. The last decade has seen the popular attraction to Mister Rogers grow to a level greater than public television gave him access to. Two movies have been released in just over a year’s time span that highlight the quality and character of Fred Rogers. The first was the biographical film Won’t You Be My Neighbor. This year sees the release of a ...

I am currently working through a philosophical exercise with theological implications. I was reading the book Boundaries by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. If you are not familiar, the book is about relational boundaries between people to create healthy relationships. Chapter 13 of that book is called Boundaries and God . A few pages into that chapter, I read this idea: ...God does not want us to be passive in our relationship with him {sic} either. Sometimes, through dialogue, he changes his mind. We can influence him because ours is a real relationship of the kind Abraham had with God (Gen. 18:16-33). God said that he would destroy Sodom, yet Abraham talked him out of it if he could find ten righteous people. Foregoing the example of  Abraham, I was intrigued by the idea that in the relationship God offers, we can influence God's decision-making process. Changing the mind of God sounds like it may be too good to be true. But could it be possible, I wondered. I decid...

How Free Are We Galatians 5:1,13-15 Chomping mad Something really stuck with me in this verse as I was beginning to prepare for this week’s sermon There is a lot to chew on in this section I had to really choke down some tough ideas I really got my teeth into something that seems important, though Verse 15 says, “If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another” This phrase has seemed challenging to me in the past, but it never really caught my attention In the 61 “one another” passages of the NT, it is the most graphically negative It also seems very difficult to grasp the imagery in the surrounding context Paul is talking about freedom through Christ Specifically, he addresses freedom from being slaves to the tradition of circumcision In a broader sense, he is talking about the liberty we have to live within the relationship with have with Christ But Paul points out that we should not use our liberty fro...

Pigs, Demons, and Tombs, Oh My Luke 8:26-39 The out of context kingdom Jesus felt compelled to leave his comfort zone to bring the kingdom to people who didn’t receive it Jesus began his mission with “the kingdom of God is near” He then began to take this message from one end of the Jewish countryside to the other One day, he decides to go across the Lake of Gennesaret and lands in the region of the Gadarenes For us, this story doesn’t really spark much interest in quickly reading through - Jesus does his thing by casting out some demons On a closer examination, there are some clear signs that Jesus left his comfort zone here First - the Gedarenes were Gentiles - they raised pigs Second - the first place Jesus enters is a cemetery of Gentiles Third - in the cemetery, there is a person who is running around threatening people while naked Jesus casts a multitude of demons out of the man We know that the demons flock into the pigs and the pigs jump off into the water and die The man is re...

Sermon notes for Father's Day, June 16, 2019 Path to Christian Fatherhood 1 John 2:12-14 Father of a different sort Being a Christian father is not so much about raising children in your household Being a Christian father is about training the children in Christ to mature That includes our household children, but also the members of the body of Christ who come into the faith The writer of 1 John addresses three age groups: children, young men, and fathers There are two words for children that both imply immature people The word for young men is pointing to people in the prime of their lives The word for fathers addresses those who have matured Since there can be inferred that there were women involved in this community of faith, we can deduce that children, prime of lifers, and fathers addresses males and females But it doesn’t address these groups in terms of age - it is faith development For the community that the writer is addressing, the body of believers is broken into 3 ...

I am sitting here, pondering if I should even bother writing this. There really isn't much use in this space anymore. You who have decided to stick it out with me, I truly appreciate it. I write for myself most of the time. I recognize now that my opinion and voice really don't have any impact on my family, the churches I serve, the denomination, or the world. It sounds pompous to think that I feel like I could make an impact beyond the sphere of my little world that exists in my head. It is my ambition, though, to make a difference. I write this, knowing that it won't produce anything other than the combining of atoms in what we have come to know as cyberspace. Next week, the Oklahoma Annual Conference will convene to prepare itself for the ministry of the coming year. For the first time in a while, I will not be going for the entirety of the event. I will only attend one day. There are a number of reasons why I won't attend. One of those is the degree of stress that...

Review: Sex, Purity, and The Longings of a Girl’s Heart Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal (Baker Books) As a pastor who has worked with youth in middle school and high school for over 20 years, dealing with the subject of sex has been integral to a balanced approach of helping young people mature. And as a human being, I haven’t always been the greatest at communicating on the subject. I am always on the lookout for new material about youth and sexuality to expand my ability to guide young people. Baker Books provided this review copy in exchange for a fair review. The focus of the book is fairly apparent. This book deals with sexuality and young females. I appreciate the forwardness of the authors in dealing with this area of sexuality. Many people find it difficult to be upfront about their sexuality, but it seems that the cultural history of “only naughty girls talk about sex” has limited the frank conversations that young women need. The authors approach this sub...

A Fractured Quadrilateral In the previous piece, I wrote about the four identified sources of authority within the history of the Church of Christian faith. Experience, Tradition, Scripture, and Reason have all risen to be the primary source of authority for a faith community. In some cases, the rise of a new form of primary authority has created a conflict between faith communities. There have been obvious splits within the history of the Church over these points of difference. I also alluded to John Wesley and the integration of all four sources into his work in the area of theology. The United Methodist Church took what John Wesley did and have found a unique identifying theological framework. In the Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church, our polity and doctrinal guide, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is described. It has become a reference point over the last 40 years that United Methodists could point to as something that we shared in common. Recent events lead me to believ...

Forest of Authority This is quite long. It is a piece I have written to explain a new metaphor I am using to teach the different faith traditions. It is also the first part of an examination on where I believe we stand as Methodists in conflict with one another. In the years that I have been teaching church history, I have commonly used the analogy of a tree. It helped to point out the development of the different “branches” of the Christian faith. It was easy to show how one denomination is related to or different from, other denominations. In the last few months, I have begun to shift the analogy. Now I use the image of forest instead of a single tree. The move to a new picture has come as a result of preparation for Bible study in 1 John as well as the ongoing institutional and philosophical crisis of the United Methodist Church. I began to see that one source was not sufficient to understand the current reality of the Church universal. I felt that a different picture has become nec...