Our Father and gracious God, we look to You now in the great name of Jesus Christ our Lord. We know that apart from Him, we could not even approach You, still less celebrate in Your presence. We are grateful for forgiveness of sins, and we are grateful for the resultant fellowship around this table. …
No Brakes On Hip
“Aside from the settings and multiple victims, another common feature of these killings has been the influence on the perpetrators of films such as Natural Born Killers and Basketball Diaries, of fantasy video games, and of the nihilistic lyrics of Marilyn Manson . . . The pursuit of evil, then, can have a certain grandeur …
God Rest Ye Merry
Advent marks the beginning of the ecclesiastical year. As we approach yet another celebration of Christmas as a people, we need to recall how to celebrate such days as the people of God. If we are not careful, we will stumble—perhaps to the right and perhaps to the left. For the weapons of our warfare …
The Republic of Doug
In his next chapter of A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren addresses the question of why he is a “post/protestant.” He hangs the discussion on two ways the word protestant can be taken. The first is the common one. “The dominant meaning of protestant relates to the verb it contains: protest” (p. 123). This is great …
Where The Action Is
“It is a truism of the business world that Coke and Pepsi don’t make soda pop, they make advertising. Nike may pay Indonesian laborers absurdly low wages, but their most important concern is convincing us that it is meaningful, daring, and fulfilling to spend over one hundred dollars for a pair of sneakers. If you …
Alternating Alternative
“Thus with the ‘alternative’ face lift, ‘rebellion’ continues to perform its traditional function of justifying the economy’s ever-accelerating cycles of obsolescence with admirable efficiency . . . Ever since the 1960s hip has been the native tongue of advertising, ‘antiestablishment’ the vocabulary by which we are taught to cast off our old possessions and buy …
Being Evangelical For the Time Being
Time for our daily dose of squirting water down the hole into the postmodern rabbit warren, as part of my on-going project of trying to prevent these guys from emerging into the garden of orthodoxy in order to nibble on the carrots of truth. In his next chapter, Brian McLaren discusses why he is still …
Social Totemization
“Brands are also a handy device for papering over nasty ambiguities like how things are made and what product is ‘right’ for a person’s socioeconomic standing and lifestyle. This strategy has been taken to ridiculous extremes, as in the case of sunglasses, hiking shoes, water, beer, and countless other cases where the most everyday products …
The Central Culprit Here
When the enemy is at the gates besieging your city, swinging the battering ram, there are many things to dislike about what they are doing. But we would not usually think to describe the problem of the repeated thuds as “boring” and “repetitive.” It is the same way with this postmodern foolishness, but in some …
Postmod or Postmill?
In this chapter of the McLaren saga, I intend to simply address one thing, and so it may not take as long as the reviews of the other chapters. Or maybe it will. If somebody puts the nickel in, maybe I will just go off. This chapter is on why McLaren is “missional.” And of …