WWJD - 4

John Caputo asks this question in the fourth chapter of What Would Jesus Deconstruct?:
Suppose we alter the intonation of this question and ask What would Jesus deconstruct? What is the uniquely Jesus-inspired thing to do? I do not mean some universal-rational thing (as if there were one!) that we might get from Socrates or Kant, [...]

WWJD - 3

Chapter three of Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct is devoted to the possibility of the impossible.
This was, for me, the most difficult chapter of the book. After the first reading, I became depressed. Maybe I was tired, hungry or just plain irritable. Or, maybe, Caputo packs so much into little space attempting to explain what [...]

WWJD - 2

Caputo gets much mileage out of “religion as a journey” metaphor in the second chapter of What Would Jesus Deconstruct.
This is an appropriate metaphor, even if it is used too frequently. But journey, here, is not the mythic idea of the protagonist embarking on some quest, slaying monsters, reaching his/her destination or retrieving what [...]

WWJD - 1

John D. Caputo, in his book What Would Jesus Deconstruct, opens his first chapter with a postmodern retelling of Charles Sheldon’s novel, In His Steps. Sheldon’s book is the source of the idea behind the question, “What would Jesus Do?”
The question, says Caputo, is just as relevant today as it was for Sheldon in 1896.
“The [...]

The End of Summer

Busy today trying to keep a deadline. More time next week.
 The weather has turned chilly; football’s in full swing and pretty soon it’ll be time to do this:

Fall usually reminds me about the end of things. Of course, it’s the end of summer. But, Fall is a sweet season, a glorious season.
Keeping with the thinking about the [...]

N. T. Wright on the Church’s Mission

Tim Stafford interviewed N. T. Wright about his book Simply Christian.
Both the book and the interview are worth reading. Here’s an excerpt from the interview:
“For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of [...]

Burgers with the Giant

I was standing in the lunch line at the cafeteria in the building where I work. Behind me stood a giant of a man, three heads taller, who cleared his throat–or maybe he grunted–to get my attention.
“Is this place any good?” he asked. He leaned towards me and almost whispered the question. His beard was [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Borders

The thrust of the chapter on The Borders of the Kingdom in Brian McLaren's The Secret Message of Jesus consists of this balancing act:
"…to be truly inclusive, the kingdom must exclude exclusive people; to be truly reconciling, the kingdom must not reconcile with those who refuse reconciliation; to achieve its purpose of gathering people, it [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Peace

When I first read Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus, I thought his chapter entitled The Peaceable Kingdom stood as the best in the book. And it is; though on a second and third reading, I can’t help but notice that this subject is more involved than the space that McLaren devotes to it. [...]

Wendell Berry and the “Great Economy”

After what I wrote yesterday about Brian McLaren's chapter on Language in The Secret Message of Jesus, I came across a book by Wendell Berry called Home Economics. In an essay entitled Economies,written some 22 years ago, Berry described a conversation he had with Wes Jackson about what kind of economy would be the most comprehensive and what [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Language

In the chapter on the Language of the Kingdom in The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren maintains that the language of the kingdom is currently misunderstood, especially in western society. He also maintains that the ideas contained within Jesus' kingdom manifesto are relevant for today. Jesus' kingdom language confronts head-on the "kingdoms" of our [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Ethics

In the chapter on Kingdom Ethics in The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren compares running a marathon to the spiritual life. You don't get up off the couch without any prior training and run 26 miles the first day. You work up to it, running short distances first, progessively adding time and distance until [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Manifesto

I began this review thinking I'd focus on the three divisions of McLaren's The Secret Message of Jesus. After some opening comments, I looked at the first two parts of McLaren's book: Excavation and Engagement. By the time I got to the third part, my review had gotten too long and too unwieldy for a [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Part Three

Part 2 of Brian McLaren's The Secret Message of Jesus is devoted to Engagement: Grappling With The Meaning Of Jesus' Message.
In Part 1, McLaren limns the contours of the socio-political situation in the first century when Jesus was preaching, teaching, healing and beginning process of teaching his disciples how to "turn the world upside down."  [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Part Two

"Who is Jesus?"
 I remember the question vividly. I concocted my answer from pieces of arguments I had lifted from "smart" people. You know, the arguments about Jesus being a great teacher and an extraordinary prophet, a man who antagonized the professional religionists of his day. The antagonism alone, I thought, was worthy of admiration. I [...]

McLaren and the Secret Message: Part One

I’ve been working my way through Brian McLaren’s new book, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything.
McLaren saw three different audiences for this book:
1) People who’ve never read any of his previous books and were intrigued by the title or the cover art.
2) People who have read his previous books [...]

60 Minutes and the Priory of Sion

This past Sunday evening, the CBS News show 60 Minutes aired a story about the secret keeping "Priory of Sion" in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.
 It's interesting that 60 Minutes interviewed Henry Lincoln, co-author of one the the books Brown lists among his scholarly sources. My favorite part of the 60 Minutes piece comes [...]

A Book I’m Looking Forward to Reading

John Alan Turner has announced that the book he co-wrote with Kenneth Boa about Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code will be released soon. His book is called The Gospel of the DaVinci Code and the introduction can be read online here.
In fact, I'm reading Brown's novel just now. I know that revealing this fact betrays [...]

Old Heart to New

Last month, I posted an entry about my surprise at a review of Anne Rice's new novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. I was intrigued by the review because all I remember about any of Rice's other novels was that they were about vampires or the occult. This new novel was about Jesus as [...]

Emerging out of bounds 3

Missional Interface
[sociologist Zygmunt] "Bauman describes two types of community. The first group are peg communities. These provide a focus, or peg, for the participation of spectators…Participants are offered a sense of being in community among a disconnected group of people…In contrast, ethical communities are built on long-term commitments. They offer a shared communal confidence because [...]