(Ir)religiosity

I finished reading Tom Sine’s The New Conspirators a few weeks ago and I’ve meant to throw up a review for a while now.  Because this is such a great and important book I’ve decided to devote a post for each section and hopefully open up some conversation.   If you haven’t read this book yet, I highly recommend it, especially if you’re one of those emergent-y types.  It’s a shame this book hasn’t received more publicity in emergent circles.

Sine begins the book acknowledging that we are indeed living in turbulent times as far as the church as a worldwide institution is concerned.  But instead of focusing solely on the negative he writes, “For followers of Jesus, times of challenge are always times of opportunity to give new expression to God’s love for a people and a world.”¹ Read the rest of this entry »

1. Cf. Tom Sine, The New Conspirators (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 18. [↩]

I didn’t predict this one right the first time.  Or the second.  But I will take credit for placing Joe Biden on my list before a lot of people.  I’m not sure what to make of this.  Biden has more foreign policy and national security experience than McCain, but other than that I’m not sure how this helps Obama.

Ok — first of all, until now I knew nothing about bloggingheads.tv.  This is an awesome site.  Sort of the YouTube for what they are calling diavlogs.  What is amounts to is two people getting together via the site and participating a dialogue (or conversation, or debate, or whatever you want to call it).  Like I said, an awesome site.  Like many other web2.0 outlets, the realm of public discourse and conversation is no longer restricted to the circle of elitist experts, academicians, or TV talking heads.  It’s fair game for anyone.

Anyway, I first found this diavlog between Brian McLaren and Richard Land via the Progressive Revival blog over at Beliefnet (ht. to Todd).  It’s a really interesting conversation, especially for those of us that tire of the old left/right polarity of modernity.  McLaren and Land provide a great example of conversation, proving that civil conversation between differing parties, regardless of media portrayal, is possible — and very much needed.

So, here’s the diavlog.

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I ran across this quote last night while reading Bill Bryson‘s hefty A Short History of Nearly Everything and found it really thought provoking.

“Wherever you go in the world, whatever animal, plant, bug, or blob you look at, if it is alive, will use the same dictionary and know the same code.  All life is one,” says Matt Ridely.  We are all the result of a single genetic trick handed down generation to generation nearly 4 billion years, to such an extent that you can take a fragment of human genetic instruction, patch it into a faulty yeast cell, and the yeast cell will put it to work as if it were its own.  In a very real sense, it is its own.” (294)

To me, this is intriguing not only scientifically, but also theologically.  I’ve brought up the notion interdependence and mutuality before, but only in terms of humanity.  Yet I wonder, what does that mean in broader, more cosmic terms?  Knowing that all of life — to the most intelligent of sentient beings, to the smallest of cells — is one?

I guess there’s really not a logical conclusion to this short post.  I just thought it a good exercise to think about how this interdependence might force us to rethink and expand our theology.

Question: Is our theology big enough to include all life?  In that sense, is it cosmic?

Blogging pioneer and missional leader Andrew Jones (The Tall Skinny Kiwi) is interviewed by five other bloggers from the GodBlogCon conference on the “emergent” (for lack of a better, less elusive term) blogosphere, live streaming, and other forms of new media.  It’s available for download and streaming here. [Ht. Steve Knight]

The tagline of my blog says, “theology, politics, and other musings.”  The ordering was intentional.  My own interests — to grossly understate — have to do with theology first and politics second, more specifically with the intersection of politics and theology/religion and how one effects (or dictates, however you choose to view it) the other.  When you get down to I believe that everything is inherently theological including our politics.

So I try to blog about one or the other — or both when I find a similarity or correlation.

The other day I was going through some old posts and I realized that back in the spring during primary season I blogged almost exclusively on politics and the primaries, which in itself isn’t too much of a bad thing, they were (and are) a big deal.  Most of my posts revealed my biases which aren’t necessarily bad either, we all have them.  But — and here’s the big thing — almost all of the posts revealed my political biases to the point of making me look very partisan. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave has a really great — and poignant — post on the Olympics and the politics surrounding the Olympics that I think really gets at the heart of the issue: yes, China has a not-so great record when it comes to human rights and environmental issues (OK, a horrible record actually), but so does the United States. Both deserve attention.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Check it out here.

And it was awesome.  Just wish I had some money.

I know, I know.  This book is so last year.

I picked up Scot McKnight‘s A Community Called Atonement last month with a Barnes & Noble giftcard.  I started it a few days ago and finished it last night.

It’s a really great book.  Not just on atonement theology, but also on what it means to be missional.  While I don’t always completely agree with his conclusions (mainly I think he gives penal substitution too much credit) McKnight does a wonderful job of covering all the bases while offering up the ideas of atonement as the restorative practice of justice and reconciliation within the local community and the poignant need to use and give proper recognition to, every metaphor and image we have available to describe the atonement.  Which is awesome.  Read it if you haven’t already.

There are too many good quotes but here are a few (or four) that I think grasp the overall thrust of the book.¹ Read the rest of this entry »

1. All emphases are original [↩]

For easy access, here are all the links for this series.

Part I: Only Americans Matter
Part II: We Draw Our Circle Too Small
Part III: Patriotic Fixations
Part IV: Media Violence and the Ease of Abstraction
Part V: Final Thoughts