The New Christians

Praying the Bible Intro – lectio divina – reading – meditating – praying – contemplating In the movie The Apostle, Robert Duvall plays Sonny, a preacher-evangelist who has made a few mistakes in his life, one of them a big mistake (murder). About one-third of the way into the movie, he’s trying to figure out…

Praying the BibleIntro – lectio divina – reading – meditating – praying – contemplating Depending on what version of the Bible you use, the word meditate appears about fifteen times in the Old Testament. (It’s not used at all in the New Testament.) Fourteen of the Old Testament uses are in the Psalms, six in…

Praying the Bible Intro – lectio divina – reading – meditating – praying – contemplating One of the best meals I’ve ever had was in an upscale restaurant, Daniel’s Bistro, in New York City. My entrée was called the DB Burger, the signature dish of the menu. The description read, “Sirloin burger filled with braised…

Praying the Bible Intro – lectio divina – reading – meditating – praying – contemplating Though dates differ, Guigo II lived from about 1115 to 1198. His official title was the Ninth Prior of the Grand Chartreuse of Carthusians. That’s a mouthful. Here’s what it means: The Carthusians are an order of monks who are…

Recently, Stanley Fish wrote about the problems with the way the liberal intelligentsia thinks about religion vs. science — or reason vs. faith. He was, of course, slaughtered in the comment section of his NYTimes blog by, um, the liberal intelligentsia of Times readers. So this week, he defends himself against their onslaught, referring to…

Praying the Bible Intro – lectio divina – reading – meditating – praying – contemplating For the last couple weeks, I’ve written some ecclesial and theological provocations. For the next couple weeks I’m going to focus on spirituality — namely, prayer — as well as blogging about other things. I’ve got a couple books out…

Next fall, Doug and I are hosting a learning party in the Twin Cities for people who love Christ, love Christianity, and are interested in the future. The two of us have been given the microphone a lot in the past decade, and we began our event company with the express intent of giving the…

I’m going to close out this week’s topic by looking back to the history of the church — the very early church — to gain a bit more perspective on ordination. I’m currently writing a little book reflecting on the Didache and its use for us today (the image at left is the 10th century…

I’ve faithfully read your comments, and John’s post, and here are my rejoinders-by-bullet-point: Ontological Shibboleth: I’ve been accused of creating a straw man in suggesting that denominational ordination tends to grant ontological superiority to those in the clergy caste. I agree that few, if any, denominations believe this to be true. I’m saying that most…

In light of the recent ordination discussion here, I’m reposting an ordination sermon that I preached for a friend in 2005. Looking forward to your comments. Last weekend, I preached at the ordination service of a friend. I thought it was strange of her to ask me, being that I don’t really find ordination helpful…

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