Acts29 Coming to Morgantown

I'm not sure I can properly convey my excitement to see a missional, Gospel-centered, Christ-honoring Acts29 church plant coming to Morgantown. It's a city I love and care deeply for, and that's why I'm so excited to see this happening.

So... welcome Frontier Morgantown, and keep the church-planting team in your prayers.  

Naivete at The Mission

When I went to work at Union Mission back in January, everyone sort of chuckled at my inexperience in Mission work (some might call it naivete...and they would be right.)


Their source of merriment was my contention that I was excited for the fall, when pretty much every day is critical to the success of our food giveaways, coat giveaways, benefit concerts, holiday mailings, etc. A lot of that stuff is generated from the development and marketing department where I work. My attitude was "bring it on."


"Be careful what you pray for," the saying goes. No kidding. The pace is picking up here at The Mission, and that means a lot of work ahead.


But you know what? It also means a lot of opportunity. And for that, I'm excited.


Here's a rundown of things coming up this weekend:


Saturday: Coat Giveaway
This has become our first big event at The Mission each year. We collect coats starting in August, then sort them, hang them and give them away to our guests. Our guys at Union Mission Crossroads and the Union Mission Foundations program, along with the women and children at Brookside Family Life Center get first crack, then we invite our guests from Union Mission Family Services to get what they and their children need to stay warm this winter.


Saturday: Blessed Sacrament's annual Cardboard City
A special shout-out to Michelle Patterson, who works with the youth at Blessed Sacrament in South Charleston. She invited us back in the summer to participate in their event, which helps educate their young people about extreme poverty and homelessness. I'll be speaking at the event and participating in a Q&A afterward.


Sunday: Brown paper bag inserts
Do you get the Sunday Gazette-Mail? If so, keep an eye out for brown paper bags with our signature wefeedpeople.com logo; inside, you'll find some information about our Thanksgiving dinner and how you can help.


Sunday: Jeremy Camp's "Speaking Louder Than Before"
Christian recording artist Jeremy Camp is in town, along with Natalie Grant and Bebo Norman, to put on a concert at the Municipal Auditorium. Tickets are going fast, so get 'em now! Oh, and make sure you bring a canned good with you...we'll have a collection site just outside the entrance as well as a booth set up inside to share The Mission with you. We've also been invited to come onstage and tell the audience a little about what we do here at Union Mission.


Sunday: Bethany Baptist Church's Missions Conference
Bethany Baptist has been a wonderful partner to Union Mission over the years, and we're excited to participate in their upcoming Missions Conference. Union Mission President and CEO, Rex Whiteman, is the keynote speaker for their Sunday festitivies.


(I'll say this much: I'm no longer naive at how busy Mission work can be.)

Some favorites from The NINES

If you didn't catch some of the Leadership Network and Catalyst's theNines event, there were some really, really great messages from pastors and church leaders around the country. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you.

Well, two of them, anyway. After all, some of the more popular pastors' videos are listed as "private," and you can't embed them from YouTube. That's pretty disappointing. I hope I'm just doing something wrong rather than some of them not being as forthright in sharing their material on a common site. Oh, I'm sure you could go to their specific websites and watch the videos, but how about sharing some page views, fellas? I dare say you could spare a few!

So here you go with two videos from theNines.

J.D. Greear of The Summit Church in Raleigh/Durham, N.C.




Rich Nathan of The Vineyard Church, Columbus, Ohio

We Feed People: On the Road

I had the great fortune to speak at the church where I grew up this past Sunday morning. It was great to see old friends and family and share Union Mission with them. I hope God directs me to take more speaking engagements, not only because it gets me out of my introverted shell, but it also affords me the opportunity about the good work we God is doing at Union Mission.


I thought I would post the text of my "talk" here. This is the printed text I used; it's certainly not verbatim to what I said Sunday morning, but it's close enough. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll feel let to participate with Union Mission in Helping Hurting People in Jesus Name.

So, the question is: what am I doing here this morning instead of the pastor? I'm here because I want to take a little time to tell you about where I work, but I want to frame it scriptureally and view it in light of where we are as a culture. Then, hopefully, we'll bring it all around to Jesus. Because if we're not talking about Jesus, then was the heck are we doing here?

I now work at Union Mission. I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the Mission. You've probably seen our bright green and black trucks with the We Feed People logo on the side. And that's exactly what we do, most visibly through our holiday food drives many of you have volunteered for in the past. What you may not be aware of is the full scope of our ministry. When we say we feed people, we're not just talking about physical feeding. At Union Mission, everyone--every single person--that comes through our door for help hears the Gospel. It's a pre-condition of receiving our help. Want a package of diapers for your kids? We'll give it to you...but you're gonna hear about Jesus. Need a refrigerator? You got it...now here's some Jesus.

All of that brings me to the point of what I want to talk about today, and I want to use some scripture to bring the message home. If you will, please turn with me to Luke 4:18. Also, find 1 Peter 1:3-5.

(You can read those passages here.)

Let's look at Jesus' words in Luke 4:18. If you'll recall, here we see Jesus, fresh out of the desert from his 40-day fast. He's new on the scene; he hasn't even gathered any disciples yet. There's this buzz in the air about this new teacher in Galilee, and Jesus comes to the local synagogue and opens the scrolls there to a passage from what we now call the book of Isaiah, chapter 61. And he reads the words recorded both in Isaiah and in Luke chapter 4.

Here's the Messiah, the Christ, and what does he use as the text of his first sermon? To proclaim the good news to who? The poor. To proclaim liberty to who? Captives. Recovering of sight to who? The blind. Certainly some of what Jesus is saying here is metaphorical and speaks to spiritual poverty, spiritual blindness, spiritual oppression. But that's the beauty of Christ's mission here on earth. He knew, just as we should know and practice, that to be effective communicators of the Gospel we need to combine a message of both spiritual and physical, both earthly and eternal. He preached both.

We know this because we know that salvation is a spiritual transaction. His death, burial and resurrection was a spirtual act, done to result in our spiritual renewal. But we also know that Jesus didn't simply preach a spiritual message for spiritual renewal. He preached to those who were physically downtrodden too?

How do we know this? Just look at those with whom Jesus related.

One of his closest friends was Peter. He was known as Simon the Zealot. And what was a Zealots? They were a Jewish sect that advocated violent overthrow of the Roman goverment. Sound familiar? Peter was, in essence, a terrorist! He was a hot-head, quick to speak, quick to anger. Yet it was this man, a simple fisherman, that Jesus built his church upon.

Who else? Of all of the people, to whom did Jesus first reveal his divinity? It was a multiple divorcee who was in an intimate relationship with a man she wasn't married to and who had come out to that well in the middle of the day probably because she was so ostrasized in her own community that it wasn't worth the headache of hearing the gossip of the other women come to draw water in the morning. Oh, and she was a Samartian, which was the lowest social class in Palestine, at least according to the majority Jewish population. Never mind the fact that she was a woman, and I don't have to tell you what the status of women in 1st century Palestine was like. Yet it was this immoral, Samartian woman to whom Jesus first said, in essence, "I am the messiah."

There's more. Zaccheus was a tax collector who cheated his own people out of their scarce money simply to get rich and curry favor with an occupying empire. Being a tax collector was the epitome of a traitor. Yet it was this man, of all of the throngs of people who had gathered to hear Jesus that day, who our Lord chose to dine with.

Just look at those three people. A terrorist. An adultress. A traitor. These were the people Jesus associated with. It's obvious, from scripture, that Jesus had an affinity for the downtrodden. Sure, we know that. We're taught it from the time we are children. But we often take it for granted and miss the point of just how committed to social justice Jesus was both on earth and in heaven. Let's look at Jesus' associations with fresh eyes this morning to get at the truth he would teach us.

Look, Jesus could have come as a conquering king. He was fully in his rights and powers to do so. But he didn't. He chose to enter human history as an orphan born to a poor family in an occupied country, the son of a woman suspected of adultery, pregnant before marriage. He was never rich, probably never owned a home, never physically wrote a book and chose a career as a carpenter in a land without a lot of wood. That's who Jesus came as, so it's no surprise that he "came to preach the gospel to the poor." As a man, that's what he knew.

An interesting thing is happening in our culture today, and to a large extent the Church as well. The world is shrinking because of new modes of communication like the Internet, and we're more aware now than ever before of the plight of poor people. War is rampant, AIDS is epidemic. TB and malaria kill thousands of Third World children every year.

That's why social justice has become this buzz word in our culture. Everyone is into it. Buy a certain color of clothes from the Gap, and they'll donate money to AIDS relief in Africa. American Idol, that most popular of television programs, has for the past two years raised $130 million for global charities. Many churches are pushing this too, preaching a message of social justice from the pulpit. And that's great, but it raises key question: is social justice without Jesus really worth anything?

Look, social justice without Jesus works. It does. If American Idol raised $130 million, someone's life was better after that money was raised than before it. Locally, I can take you to any number of homeless shelters in downtown Charleston where the Gospel is not being preached, and yet people's lives are being changed because of the dedication of people who are not motivated to practice acts of social justice because of their relationship with God, but because they choose to give of themselves for the benefit of others.

So what's the problem? The problem is this: no matter how successful a person's recovery is, without an experience with Jesus Christ, that recovery and success is ultimately fleeting. Scripture points this out: "For what would it profit a man to gain the whole world and, in the end, lose his own soul." That's God's word. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal." That's God's word.

What about social justice with Jesus? First of all, being committed to acts of social justice is not a recommendation. It's a commandment. Jesus told us to do it, and because He is a good God, gave us the Holy Spirit by which to compel us to do so. It's why you pay your tithe on Sunday, why you come to a place like Union Mission to sort canned goods during holiday food giveaways. It's why you spend a weekend in a prison, ministering to men regardless of who they are or what they've done.

Of course, there's a caveat here. Does placing Jesus as the focus of our acts of social justice mean everything's gonna be OK? Surely not! One of the biggest failings of the modern church is this absurd notion that believing in Jesus is like waving a magic wand and that all of your problems will go away once you believe in him. It's absurd and borderline blasphemous. God doesn't promise a bed of roses. But he does give us a savior who will stand with us when the going gets rough. And it will get rough. Guaranteed.

There's so much more to life than what we can see with our two eyes. The difference between doing acts of social justice with Jesus and doing acts of social justice without Jesus is the difference eternity makes. See, changing lives through the power of Christ multiplies its effect exponentially. The payoff is literally eternal!

Remember that passage in Peter? Peter is speaking of an inheritance, not an immediate reward. Through Christ, we are the receivers, always the recipent. We are receivers at each and every point of our relationship to him. We are receivers of his mercy despite our sinfulness. We are receivers of his salvation in our new birth. We are receivers in our resurrection at the end of the age. And, finally, we are receivers in our inheritance of eternal life through Him in heaven.

Of course, this raises a problem on the opposite end of the spectrum. Do we, then, neglect this world, knowing our reward won't be fully realized until we arrive at eternity? Absolutely not! It's a shame that too many Christians have come to believe that church exists for them instead of existing to be the structure through which Christ's work is accomplished in the community. Woe be to the church congregation that treats Sunday worship like a country club gathering with no application outside its doors. But if eternity is the ultimate reward, what is the payoff of doing acts of social justice without guarantee of success?

Jesus is our model here. Remember, he merged the earthly with the eternal, the physical with the spiritual. We are to do the same. Every so often--and not all of the time or even most of the time--men and women escape the bonds of addicition and poverty to live a prosperous life...and they find a relationship with Jesus in the process. That's dual salvation, earthly and eternal. And it does happen. We should all commit ourselves to allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us in responsibly confronting social injustice while keeping the focus on the spiritual transformation in the lives of those who desperately need to know Jesus.

My Meeting with McLaren

OK, so it's not really a meeting. I did get to shake the guy's hand and say a cursory hello.

(By the way...that's me on the fourth row aisle seat, looking stoned. I wasn't. I promise. My brother and sister-in-law are to my left.)

Brian McLaren, known in many ways as the father of the emergent church movement, visited my brother's church (Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky) this past weekend, delivering a Sunday morning sermon, holding an informal Q&A during Sunday School and then lecturing on the thesis of his new book, "Everything Must Change." I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in all three activities and certainly enjoyed the experience. Not that I agree 100 percent with his theology, but I think he is raising some important issues for the Church to consider.

(Others didn't agree either, especially during the evening Q&A. This is McLaren's take on the event. I looked across the blogosphere for the guy who challenged McLaren about redemption, eternity and the emergent theology during the Q&A but couldn't find him. I also looked on Twitter to no avail.)

Of course, I could spend hours talking about where McLaren and I agree and disagree. Feel free to peruse posts tagged "emergent" or "brian mclaren" for times we've discussed it before.

Darwin's Birthday...and I'm Late to the Party

I read a fascinating piece the other day while researching ahead of a trip to see Brian McLaren speak out in Louisville on Sunday.


Sure, this is a late response to that particular blog post, but I'm sharing nonetheless.

I'm certainly in agreement that religion has treated science with disdain when the two are not inherently competitive. I'm also in agreement that society has, in large part, sacrificed objective truth on the altar of subjective morality (although I don't think Charles Darwin is solely to blame for this shift in cultural attitudes...post-modern thought didn't arise from one man's scientific theory).

I disagree with Ken that "do unto others as you would have them do until you" is the core of Christ's message. It is undoubtedly an essential part of the Christian theology that Jesus established. It is not The Gospel. To think otherwise is to place man's actions ahead of God's salvation. Indeed, that line of reasoning has it backwards; the reverse, in fact, is true: salvation first, works that result from that salvation is second.

The Gospel is this: in an outpouring of love, God created the universe, and with it, mankind. The first man chose sin instead of a personal relationship with God, and, thus, sin entered the world, separating imperfect humans from a perfect and divine God. Yet God, in his great mercy and love, ever-seeking to restore man's relationship to Him, provided Himself as a sacrifice by coming to earth as a man, Jesus, who lived a perfect and sinless life prior to giving Himself to death.

In that act of sacrifice--and in His glorious, bodily resurrection from the dead three days later--Jesus now stands at man's side as an advoate, saying to God on behalf of those Christ has saved: "This is my child. He/she has asked forgiveness for the sinful acts of their lives that have separated them from you. Yes, this one is imperfect. But I was willing to live the life he/she could not have lived by dying the death he/she should have died. I took this one's place, Father. My perfection provides Grace to them in your eyes, regardless of their worthiness."

That's The Gospel. Sure, gratitude from Christ's sacrifice pours itself out from Believers in acts of sacrificial love; these are reflections of Christ's love for man, stirred in us by Christ living within us through the Holy Spirit. This manifests itself as Christ commanded, through "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you." But that oft-quoted verse is not The Gospel. A component, yes.

I'm not as intelligent as Charles Darwin. I think he came up with a fascinating theory. The minutae of how God, in His omniscence and omnipotence, established Creation, is beyond the limits of my human intelligence. Don't misunderstand. I'm not suggesting that it is somehow wrong to attempt, with vigorous scientific observation and inquiry, to discern these and other matters. What I am suggesting is that mankind is guilty of a collective arrogance in regards to its attempts at comprehending God. That, among other reasons, is why I can't understand the reasons behind some evangelicals' celebration of an agnostic scientist, despite his obvious genius.

So, what do you think? Agree with me? Disagree with me? That's cool...but share your thoughts. Back 'em up.

Take care...

Multi-Media Monday

What? Huh? A new post? Must be joking, right?

Nope...here's hoping I can get back to a regular posting schedule.

Enjoy the video!

Multi-Media Monday

Melissa Etheridge: Rick Warren doesn't "sound like a gay-hater, much less a preacher." (The Huffington Post)

That's because Rick Warren is not a gay-hater. Nor are most Christians, if you want to know the truth. Most people, however, don't want to know the truth about Christians. It's too easy to simply buy into every stereotype about us that you can find. And, trust me, you can find plenty.


See, mass media will tell you we hate gays, African-Americans, unwed mothers, illegal aliens, etc. And you thought Christians are hypocrites (we are, of course...just no more than anyone else.) The irony would be hilarious if it weren't so pathetically sad. Christians are accused of using stereotypes to push an agenda of hatred and fear. Yet, many times, the opposite is true. Our society has become so blatant in its perpetuation of stereotypes against Evangelicals that we don't even realize it's happening. We are the only socio-cultural group of whom it is socially acceptable to hate. Christians are seen as bigoted, intolerant and quick to judge. Sadly, many high-profile Evangelical leaders have said hurtful things (I'm looking at you, Pat Robertson), and those incidents have painted all of us with a very broad brush. The irony is that it's the same brush used to portray all homosexuals as pedophiles, predators and perverts. Are some homosexuals pedophiles, predators and perverts? You bet they are...just as you can bet there are Christians who are bigoted, intolerant and quick to judge. 


Christianity vs. Universalism (YouTube)

I get so stinkin' tired of universalist philosophy. It's so disingenuous...at best. At worst, it's a coward's way out. It's essentially saying "I don't have the stones to stand behind my own convictions, so I'll just hold hands with everyone, tap my red shoes together three times while singing 'Kumbaya, My Lord' and hope for the best. That's not hope.


"For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."




Dante's Inferno (YouTube)

Disclaimer: I don't believe in purgatory, nor do I think Mr. Alighieri had the whole "hell thing" figured out. His Divine Comedy was just that: a work of poetic fiction. It's just that this animated movie version of "Inferno" looks really, really cool.


(It's sad, isn't it, that I have to put a disclaimer before posting this. Trust me. If I don't, some uber-legalist Christian will get all pissy with me for promoting something that's not in the King James Version of the Bible. So, just chill...)




Calvinism vs. Arminianism (YouTube)


And, finally, here's one for all of you armchair theologians out there.

Jesus is Peace. Joy. Love. Jesus is Christmas

Before Christmas 2008 gets too far in the rearview, here's a quick reminder, in this most tumultuous year, of what really matters. Now I know I can't expect everyone who watches this to agree with the "true meaning of Christmas." But this is not a politically correct blog. Sorry. It's just not. 


We're about Truth around here, not what society tells us is culturally relevant. 




Merry Christmas!

Friday Link Day

No Communion for Obama Supporters?
Wait, let me see if I understand this. If you support abortion rights, Jesus did not die for you? I'm confused. (That's not the Gospel as I understand it. Whatever happened to Romans 8:1?)

How Do Different Religions Define Death?
I'm not sure this is a point of contention in the Evangelical community. Or am I wrong? Anyone wanna weigh in?

Group Sues Over 'Day of Prayer'
Oh, come on. Get over yourselves. So don't pray. Or, better yet, celebrate the 364 days of the year when most people ignore God.

Text Messaging for Jesus
Give them credit. Christians will make a ministry out of just about anything.

What's Social Justice Without Jesus?

I had the opportunity to visit a college-town mega-church this past Sunday. It had a huge campus, a coffee bar, great decor, a ton of young people and a rockin' praise and worship service. It's truly remarkable what God is doing there, and I was certainly happy to be a part of the service.

The sermon was good, too. Its title was "Kingdom Living," and the pastor asked, somewhat rhetorically, if we truly understood what it means to live the way Jesus told us to live. He explained, quite rightly, that Christ's way of living is radically different from the way our culture tells us to live. Naturally, he incorporated some manifestations of "Kingdom Living." Cleaning up at a homeless shelter. Buying food for an orphan in Honduras. And so it went.

It's amazing to witness what God's Church is doing in what we're told is a post-modern world. Oh, His people have always been generous to a fault. Studies show Christians are much more philanthropic than the public at large. Even Christians in lower tax brackets are prone to giving what they have much more readily than those who make more money but don't identify with a specific belief system.

But what's changed in the last generation or so is an awareness of social issues that may have escaped Christians in another time. Evangelicals today focus their energies on environmental issues, believing it to be a moral cause and worthy of their God-given mandate to change the world for the better. We care about fair trade; sure, Christians have always been aware of global poverty--one of my Sunday School classes when I was a child sponsored a child in El Salvador--but today we think twice about buying a cup of coffee. Was the man who grew these beans paid a fair price, and can he feed his family in the name of my desire for a latte? That silk shirt I'm wearing--was it stitched by an eight year-old boy in a Indonesian sweatshop?

These are all critically important issues, and I'm so very thankful that today's Church cares about--and works toward a solution for--these and other problems of social injustice.

But there's an inherent problem that comes with this new worldview. It walks a dangerous tightrope between faith- and Grace-based salvation and a works-based system of belief. Scripture tells us Christ's sacrifice on Calvary was an act of supreme Grace, one that we could never merit, deserve or accomplish on our own. In short, there's nothing we can ever do to bridge the gap between our humanity and God's divinity. 

We must be very careful, then, that we keep spreading the Gospel forefront when confronting social justice. The old saying goes "No Jesus? No Peace. Know Jesus. Know Peace." That's doggone right, trite though it may be.

Fighting social injustice without incorporating Jesus into the mix doesn't mean anything to the one ministering or to the one being ministered to. That's because the minister isn't able to reconcile himself to God through works, and the one being ministered to cannot hope to find reconciliation to God through someone other than Jesus.

What's your take? Is tackling social injustice without the Gospel message worth anything? Why or why not? Share your thoughts...

Emergent Village Looks Ahead

Emergent Village is in the midst of a transformation in its operations, a move its board announced Thursday after a year of what it terms a "discernment process."

Its announcement lays out a framework for the future of the Emergent "conversation." I've certainly been critical of aspects of the movement; I've always felt those involved in shaping its message are too willing to capitulate on areas of core Christian doctrine. I know, I know. Emergent is about being a safe place where hard questions can be debated without fear of repurcussion. I get it, and I think that's an admirable goal. I love Emergent's commitment to social justice, too. Its stance on global poverty is wonderful. I've met some truly great, loving Christians that are a part of the Emergent conversation.

Here's what scares me. "Many religious communities fear, shame, restrict and exclude people who ask questions, propose creative innovations, or open up new ways of thinking (emphasis mine.)" That's from Emergent Village's recent announcement. What exactly does this mean? Is such a statement purposely vague? I wholeheartedly agree that it's an unfortunate fact that many fundamental Evangelical communities fear, shame and even exclude those from their congregations who ask hard questions and propose creative innovations. But does "open up new ways of thinking" really mean "open up new ways of believing?"

It's a fine line between Emergent theology and Universalism, which to me is worse than atheism. At least atheists have the courage of conviction. Universalism--there's a great piece about it in the current issue of Relevant magazine, by the way--is, at best, flaky and, at worst, cowardly.

Now, I don't think there's anything cowardly about "friends of Emergent." But it's a slippery slope.

What are your thoughts? Are you a "Friend of Emergent?" Do you agree with its goals and mission? What are your thoughts on its recent announcement? Is Emergent too close to Universalist theology? Join the conversation here.

Twitter Elite

As my good friend Reid Strader would say, Whoo-Hoo!

The Pope...On Your Phone

You can, in this day and age, now receive daily text messages from the Pope. That's right, Benedict himself will text you every day with "words of encouragement."

Enjoy....

Bill Hybels and Bono (Part One)

Multi-Media Monday: Bill Hybels and Bono

I haven't watched this yet, so there's my disclaimer. Just haven't had the time during a busy work day. But I've been hearing good things about it. This is part one of three.

Ivy Jungle Campus Ministry Survey Results

I've worked on and off in college ministry. That's how I heard about Ivy Jungle, and over the years I've participated in a couple of these surveys. They are vital pieces of research (really, akin to what Barna does for the overall population, albeit on a much smaller scale, of course) that provide clear direction for ministers and laity in campus ministry today.

So, read the survey and share your thoughts. I'll take a look tonight and perhaps record some comments of my own.

(So much to write about, so little time...)

How Would Jesus Vote? Don Miller at DNC 08

Author and Emerging Church leader Don Miller gives the benediction during the first day of the Democratic National Convention. Added some Democratic Party platforms into his prayer, which I think he shouldn't have done. Now, he's entitled to his political leanings, but I don't think they have a place in a prayer, even if you do think universal health care and minimum wage are moral issues.

I'm disappointed he didn't get any television time...I suppose if he'd not used the name Jesus and instead prayed to some relativistic, wimpy god who answers to any name you want to call him then maybe television wouldn't have cut him out. But you start praying to "Your son Jesus, who gave His own life," then we suddenly get nervous. Pray to god, it's fine. Pray to God, well, that's just not PC, is it?  

Of course, here's one criticism I had of the prayer, and I hope I'm not being too nit-picky. When Miller says "who gave His own life against the forces of injustice," I wonder at Miller's meaning here. What he prayed was technically true, but is Miller saying that Christ's death was merely to expose injustice? If so, that makes Jesus no better than Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi. Yes, Jesus died because of man's injustice. But let's not forget that He was not murdered. No one took Jesus' life. He gave it willingly to redeem man's sin.

His death was to redeem injustice, not expose it.




What are your thoughts on Miller's prayer? Do you mind that he read it from a Teleprompter? Should he have bowed his head? Do you think television should have showed the prayer? Why or why not?

How Would Jesus Vote? Joe Biden

So, just who is Joe Biden, and what are his Evangelical credentials?

Senator Joe Biden-Senator for Delaware

(Official site)

"What has happened in the Democratic Party, there's been this reluctance, in the face of the evangelical, judgmental movement on the far right in the past, of even invoking religion, for fear of being put in the same category. But we're a spiritual nation. We're a nation of faith."

Biden's Faith Shaped by Catholic Upbringing
(News feature)

Biden on the Separation of Church and State
(Video)

Biden's Positions on Abortion, the Environment, Families/Children, Principles/Values and Welfare/Poverty
(OnTheIssues.org)

Note: Biden lost a daughter and his first wife in a tragic car accident back in 1972. In an interview with CNN's Paula Zahn, Biden spoke about the tragedy and how it shaped his relationship with God. Read the transcript here (you'll have to scroll down about 1/2 of the way through to get to Biden's Q&A.)

Belief-O-Matic, an Emergent for Obama and Mormon Mitt

Ah, if only spirituality was as simple as answering a bunch of questions on a quiz to find out who you should worship.

Apparently, it is that easy. At least if you use Beliefnet's Belief-O-Matic. I'm not a big fan of Beliefnet; it's a little too Deepak Chopra-esque to me. But the Belief-O-Matic is mindless fun. Some of the questions need more varied answers--I found that for many of them I had to pick answers that were as close to my Evangelical Christian convictions as I could get; the "right" answer wasn't there--but if you want to spend five minutes taking an online quiz (and who doesn't?), try the amazing, 100% guaranteed Belief-O-Matic today for only three easy payments of $19.99!

But wait! That's not all! If you act right now, you'll get 10 free bonus questions, such as "Do you believe in Oprah?" "How much money did you make after reading Joel Osteen's book 'Your Best Life Now?'" and "How many aliens did it take to make Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes look so much alike?"

Don't delay! Buy Belief-O-Matic today!


In one of the least surprising evangelical news items of the 2008 election cycle, outspoken Emergent guru Brian McLaren has thrown his support for presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama.



In other Emergent news, there are rumors that Rob Bell is leaving Mars Hill Bible Church (Michigan). Has anyone else heard this rumor? Is there anything to it?


It seems Evangelicals are starting to embrace presumptive Republican nominee John McCain following Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum last weekend.

The honeymoon, however, might be short-lived. There's talk that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is on McCain's vice presidential shortlist. Romney, however, is a Mormon. That fact, some theorize, could jeopardize McCain's new-found stature among Evangelicals.

Questions for discussion:

* What were your Belief-O-Matic results? (I was quite relieved to discover I am, in fact, a born-again Christian. Glad the Belief-O-Matic cleared that up.)

* Should pastors and other Evangelical leaders publically support a presidential candidate? Why or why not? What role should Christian leaders take in presidential politics?

* What do you like about Rob Bell's theology? What don't you like?

* Would having a Mormon on a presidential ticket influence your vote? What about a Muslim? A Hindu? An atheist?