This is really quite something. One of the reasons why, although I don’t always agree with him, Pete Rollins just blows my mind:
‘I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.
‘However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.’
HT: Rich
Love what Tom Wright has to say at the end of this video about resurrection and worldview.
Christian Community in a Consumerist Culture
My dissertation for those who were interested in reading it.
Christian Community in a Consumerist Culture - James Henley
There’s no such thing as ‘sustainable’
Had a couple of interesting conversations over the last week or so about the idea of sustainability - about what it means to be self-sustaining, particularly in terms of financial stability.
I don’t like it.
I don’t like the idea of being self-sufficient, self-sustaining or independent - either as a person, a project or a community.
Why?
1. Because I don’t believe it’s the best God has for us.
I don’t believe the Kingdom of God is a group of people who are all self-sustaining and independent. I believe the Kingdom is a radical picture of interdependence - demonstrating a radical dependency on God and on each other.
2. Because I don’t even believe it is possible, on a philosophical level, to ever be self-sustaining.
If there’s anything that can be said to be true about this life, it is that it is transitory. Stuff comes and goes. Sh*t happens. As the writer tells us in Ecclesiastes, everything under the sun will fade and die - even the sun itself only has another 5 billion years.
We are so reliant on God for everything, and our lives are only held together by his continuing grace. The only thing that is sustainable is God himself.
So I’d like to see us dare to be un-sustainable, in-sufficient, and interdependent, trusting God and each other to provide for us and to keep us going. Let’s grow projects which are designed to be unsustainable, and build interdependence and un-sustainability into our business plans. Let’s nurture community which demonstrates a radical dependancy on each other and on other communities outside of ourselves.
What do you think?
What is the Gospel?
How would you describe the Gospel?
Every so often I go through a period of noticing people using the term, ‘the Gospel’. Recently I read an article online which used the phrase ‘Gospel fluency’, and asked ‘how fluent are you in the Gospel?’ More often than not, the G in Gospel is capitalised to indicate something important. Sometimes it is used to refer to something general to do with Jesus’ teachings, sometimes to a specific summing up of Jesus’ death and what it achieved.
What is the Gospel? How should it be defined or described?
Here’s some definitions which Google found me:
- the four books in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that tell the story of Christ’s life and teachings
- an unquestionable truth; “his word was gospel”
- folk music consisting of a genre of a cappella music originating with Black slaves in the United States and featuring call and response; influential on the development of other genres of popular music (especially soul)
- religious doctrine: the written body of teachings of a religious group that are generally accepted by that group
- a doctrine that is believed to be of great importance; “Newton’s writings were gospel for those who followed”
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
- A gospel (from Old English, gōd spell “good news”) is a writing that describes the life of Jesus. The word is primarily used to refer to the four canonical gospels: the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke and Gospel of John, probably written between AD 65 and 110. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel
How would you define the Gospel?
Theology is the study of God. Unfortunately all to often we stop studying and begin to define him in our own limited way.
