I pledge allegiance to no flag

We evangelicals in America have an amazing tradition of missing the point.  We allow all of our attention and energy to be focused on a particular tree, not noticing the forest just behind us.  We love to fight about peripheral issues while completely missing the real problem.

What does it mean to say the Bible is "real" to me?

This is the body of a response I wrote to a post on G+.  Enjoy!

Review #005: "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience"

Ron Sider is a big name in certain circles, due largely to his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, first published in 1978.  I have to admit that I've had that one on my "to-read" shelf for a year or so and haven't gotten around to it yet.  I have read his 2005 work The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, though, and found it both bracing and very frustrating.

God, compressed

God is big. Really, really big. Bigger than space. Bigger than time. Bigger than space-time. Bigger than all those lame alternate space-times on Sliders. Bigger than anything you can imagine. Bigger than anything you can't imagine. Imagine infinity. Real infinity is infinitely bigger than that, and God is infinitely bigger than infinity. Big, big, big.

Away with a manger: My beef with the Baby Jesus

I hate "Away in a Manger".  There.  I said it.

Theocracy? Thearchy!

One accusation made against professing Christians who choose to get involved in politics -- and one that's not entirely without merit -- is that they want to set up a "theocracy".  Presumably this means that the Christians in question want to reshape the government to enforce their own particular brand of morality and religious belief.

Was Jesus Christ an idiot?

I guess that got your attention, huh?  Rest assured, the answer to that question is 'absolutely not', but that leads to another, harder question.  If Jesus Christ wasn't an idiot -- if he knew what he was talking about and was able to correctly convey his thoughts to his followers, and by extension to us -- then why do so many people act as if he were?

Reblogged #002: Interview with Paul Washer

Paul Washer is a preacher and missionary whose books and sermons have greatly impacted me over the last few years.  Recently he was interviewed by Tim Challies and David Murray for their Connected Kingdom podcast, and it can be heard here.

The answer is always simple

On Monday evening I read a G+ post that essentially called me an idiot who didn't care about babies being murdered because I didn't vote against our president in the last election.  (For the record, I abstained from voting, because no candidate was acceptable.  As Charles Spurgeon said, "When faced with a choice of two evils, choose neither.")  Aside from reminding me of the constant bickering that drove me from Facebook, it drove home once again the desperate need for professing Christians to understand the way the world actually works.

Filth pays

The last couple of days there's been a lot of talk about the kid who stars on Two and a Half Men and his statements regarding his new Christian faith and its effect on how he sees the show.  I can't comment on the kids' faith, of which I know nothing, or the content of the show, which I've never watched.  One thing that's jumped out at me, though, is how much he apparently gets paid for the show he now describes as "filth".

The inevitable introductory thing

I've had this address for a couple of years now, and never done much with it.  Until a few months ago I was neck-deep in college and seminary, and on those occasions when I just had to write something non-academic, there was always an argument on Facebook.