ESN frequently commissions new material designed for Christian academics to use in the seasons of the church calendar. In the past few years, our talented authors have created an impressive archive of ESN material for the Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter seasons. We’re so grateful to have so many authors sharing their perspectives and experiences of the season. This year, with some big transitions and new projects in the works, we’ve decided instead to create a list of Advent resources you may find helpful this year, including some from our archives. We hope they’re helpful in your Advent reflections. [Read more…] about Resources for Advent
christianity today
Missionaries Changed the World Once – Can they do it again?
The topic of a recent cover story in Christianity Today is shaking up not only the world of missions, but also academia. The World the Missionaries Made is a report on the work of Robert Woodberry, a sociologist currently researching at the Political Science Department of the National University of Singapore. CT’s Executive Editor Andy Crouch calls it the CT cover story of which he is most proud. Its thesis and Woodberry’s work support a remarkable conclusion – that a generation of “conversionary protestant missionariesâ€[1] laid a foundation for democracy around the world. In effect, missions in the 19th and 20th centuries may be one of the most significant factors, and certainly one of the most overlooked, in what CT calls “the health of nations†today: [Read more…] about Missionaries Changed the World Once – Can they do it again?
On Christian Radicalism
For its cover story last month, Christianity Today published an article on contemporary Radicalism. The article struck me as controversial and provocative because it held out criticism of controversial and provocative people: David Platt, Francis Chan, and Shane Claiborne among others. The overall tone is quite critical of the icons and the culture of emerging Christian radicalism:
These teachers want us to see that following Christ genuinely, truly, really, radically, sacrificially, inconveniently, and uncomfortably will cost us…
The reliance on intensifiers demonstrates the emptiness of American Christianity’s language. Previous generations were content singing “trust and obey, for there’s no other way.” Today we have to really trust and truly obey. The inflated rhetoric is a sign of how divorced our churches’ vocabulary is from the simple language of Scripture.
And the intensifiers don’t solve the problem. Replacing belief with commitment still places the burden of our formation on the sheer force of our will. As much as some of these radical pastors would say otherwise, their rhetoric still relies on listeners “making a decision.” There is almost no explicit consideration of how beliefs actually take root, or whether that process is as conscious as we presume.
Or as dramatic. The heroes of the radical movement are martyrs and missionaries whose stories truly inspire, along with families who make sacrifices to adopt children. Yet the radicals’ repeated portrait of faith underemphasizes the less spectacular, frequently boring, and overwhelmingly anonymous elements that make up much of the Christian life.
I felt angry when reading it the first few times, mainly because it struck me as unfair. Unfair for levying a harsh criticism on people who both called for and demonstrated significant sacrifice. Â Unfair because it seemed like a defense of the status quo. Unfair because it did not offer anything in the author’s life as a vicarious and effusive counterpoint to the radical examples offered. Unfair because it did not celebrate the successful transformation and gospel-centered changes taking place in people’s lives. Unfair because I had chosen to live what many would call a “radical life” and felt similarly stereotyped and criticized.
However, in a more careful analysis, I see some points that are valid and some that need clarification. The best way to tease out these conflicting emotions and points are to lay them out this way: [Read more…] about On Christian Radicalism
InterVarsity’s Alec Hill on CLS v. Martinez
InterVarsity president Alec Hill – who formerly taught law at Seattle Pacific University – has written an opinion column on Christianity Today’s website that offers some wisdom and insight on the CLS v. Martinez case (and I’m not just saying that because he’s my boss).
Like many other commentators, Alec wonders about the viability of an “all comers” policy:
It is difficult to imagine a large university like Ohio State adopting an “all-comers” policy. Student groups representing affinity groups such as sororities, Latinos, atheists, or the LGBT community would be required to admit anyone and everyone into their inner circles. Sororities, for example, would have to admit male students. The result would be chaotic.
Alec notes that, to his knowledge, only one university in the country has a policy like Hastings.
I strongly recommend reading the whole article – I was tempted to quote almost all of it! However, I’ll close with just one anecdote that Alec shares, illustrating why it’s important for colleges and universities to make room for minority viewpoints, even when the university administration doesn’t understand that viewpoint.
Recently, the president of a private liberal arts college became concerned about our chapter’s insistence that student leaders be committed to biblical standards of sexual holiness. When the chapter leaders came to his office—a student body officer, a star athlete, and the editor of the campus newspaper—he grasped the importance of keeping the chapter on campus.
Like I said, read the whole thing. Afterwards, check out my InterVarsity and CLS colleague Michael Schutt’s blog post on the ruling, too.