The Weekend Wanderer: 4 March 2023

March 4, 2023March 2, 2023 Matt EricksonLeave a comment

“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.

India930-399 (1) “2,000 Christians in India protest against ongoing persecution” – Timothy at Open Doors: “More than 2,000 Christians from around 70 denominations in India came together in the capital New Delhi last month to protest against ongoing persecution. The peaceful protests on Sunday 19 February called on the government, the court and civil society to intervene on behalf of persecuted Christians, particularly in states that in recent years have passed so-called ‘anti-conversion laws’. In theory, these laws prohibit forced conversion from Hinduism to another religion, but in practice they are often used as an excuse to harass and intimidate Christians who are simply doing things like distributing aid or having a private church meeting. India is number 11 on the World Watch List, making it a place of extreme persecution for many of the country’s 69.5 million Christians (five per cent of the total population). According to research by the United Christian Forum, a New Delhi-based human rights group, there were 598 reported cases of violence against Christians in 2022. Just before Christmas, hundreds of tribal Christians were forced to flee their homes in Chhattisgarh state after they were attacked, allegedly for converting to Christianity. Last month, a church in Madhya Pradesh was burned down and a slogan praising Jesus erased and replaced with the name of a Hindu deity. Three men have been arrested in connection with the incident.”

civil-rights-movement “Why Isn’t the Civil Rights Movement Considered a Revival Movement?” – Derwin Gray at Church Leaders: “A revival broke out at Asbury. Lord knows the Church in America needs to be awakened from our slumber to see our need for Jesus and his transformative gospel of grace. When we respond in faith to the Holy Spirit, he opens our eyes to the beauty of God’s holiness, the radiance of his glory in Jesus, and his mission to reconcile the world unto himself. Evangelical scholar Richard F. Lovelace summarizes Jonathan Edwards’ (1703-1758) definition of revival. Revival is ‘not a special season of extraordinary religious excitement, as in many forms of latter American revivalism. Rather it is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which restores the people of God to normal spiritual life after a period of corporate declension. Periods of spiritual decline occur in history because the gravity of indwelling sin keeps pulling believers first into formal religion and then into open apostasy. Periods of awakening alternate with these as God graciously breathes new life into his people.’¹America has had her share of revivals over years, from Jesus People Movement of the late 1960s and the 1906 Azuza Street Revival to the two Great Awakenings (1730-1770 and 1795-1835). It is hard to reconcile how the demonic institution of enslaving Black people survived, and even flourished, during the first two Great Awakenings. In 1845, this blatant hypocrisy moved the great Frederick Douglass to write, ‘We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babies sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! All for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slaves auctioneer bell and the church bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand.’²“

Beth Moore - All My Knooted-up Life “Beth Moore tries to untangle her ‘all knotted-up life’ in new memoir” – Bob Smietana in Religion News Service: “There’s a downside to going someplace where everyone knows your name. Author and Bible teacher Beth Moore discovered that reality in the months after making a public break with the Southern Baptist Convention, which had been her spiritual home since childhood. Whenever she and her husband, Keith, would visit a new church, the results were the same. People were welcoming. But they knew who she was — and would probably prefer if she went elsewhere. Once the very model of the modern evangelical woman, she was now a reminder of the denomination’s controversies surrounding Donald Trump, sexism, racism and the mistreatment of sexual abuse survivors. When Moore would no longer remain silent about such things, she became too much trouble to have around. Even in church. ‘I was a loaded presence,’ she told RNS in a recent interview. In her memoir, All My Knotted-Up Life, out this week from Tyndale, Moore recounts how the couple ended up at an Anglican church in Houston, largely at the suggestion of Keith Moore, who’d grown up Catholic and felt more at home in a liturgical tradition. When they walked in, the rector greeted them and asked their names. When she told him who she was, the rector brightened up. ‘Oh,’ he said, with a smile, ‘Like Beth Moore.’ Then, having no idea who he was talking to, he added, ‘Come right in. We’re glad to have you.'”

Graphics_web_2020-06-29_politically-homeless “Applying Discipleship to our Political Lives” – Vince Bacote in The Banner: “To be Christian is to live in the middle of tension. We have been given life because of Christ’s saving and reconciling work on the cross, and we await the day he will return to bring final justice and shalom to the creation. While we wait, we have moments when we experience the foretastes of life in God’s kingdom; at others (or simultaneously) we feel the discomfort and distress of a broken world that opposes the ways of God. What is a disciple of Jesus to do when the tensions rise, particularly in political context that leaves one with a sense of homelessness? When I wrote The Political Disciple I attempted to connect four Christian beliefs (creation, Christology, sanctification and eschatology) to our public commitments. My emphasis was Christian fidelity to God with an emphasis on engagement in society. My aim was to present ways that Christian beliefs orient us toward participation in the public realm; in a way, I was responding to the modes of discipleship more hesitant or resistant to a politically engaged faith. As then, I maintain it is important for us to recognize for the first time or recall that we have been given a first great commission that God has never rescinded; our stewardly dominion over the creation is complicated by the Fall, but the task remains, and it includes our political life. What does this stewardship entail in moments like the present?”

133570 “‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ Continues Its Steady Beat” – Emmett G. Price III in Christianity Today: “I was in elementary school when I learned the words to all three verses of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” As a Black adolescent in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles—made famous by movies such as Boyz n the Hood, Training Day, and Straight Outta Compton—this song had particular meaning to me. It was sung with pride at church and social events during Black History Month, an annual commemoration that Black lives, Black accomplishments, and Black achievements matter. Now known as the ‘Black national anthem,’ ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ was penned in 1900 as a hymn of hope—grounded in the belief that resilient faith would sustain us against oppression. James Weldon Johnson, the songwriter, was born in Jacksonville in 1871 to a Haitian mother from the Bahamas and a father from Richmond. The Johnsons had moved to the coastal Florida city, which stood out as a place in the South where Black people had access to education (though segregated) and economic opportunity.”

“Discovering Lilias Trotter” – Miriam Dixon, Miriam Rockness, and Nathan Foster on the Renovaré Podcast: “In 1879, England’s top art critic, John Ruskin, made a staggering offer to his most gifted student, a 26-year-old named Lilias Trotter. He would help her become the greatest living painter who would ‘do things that will be immortal.’ There was just one condition: she must give herself up to art. After much prayer, Lilias turned down Ruskin’s offer and chose to pursue a different kind of immortal glory as a missionary to North Africa. This week on the podcast, Nathan Foster is joined by two Miriams—Miriam Rockness and Miriam ‘Mimi’ Dixon—who open a window into the remarkable life of Lilias Trotter. Lilias’s story raises questions: Couldn’t she have served God as a renowned artist? Wouldn’t that have glorified God more than decades of hidden work in North Africa that ended with little visible results?”

Music: “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” performed by Sheryl Lee Ralph at Super Bowl LVII

The Weekend Wanderer: 10 December 2022

December 10, 2022December 8, 2022 Matt EricksonLeave a comment

advent-1 “Advent: Waiting for the Light” – Ruth Haley Barton at Beyond Words: “My favorite time of any day is the pre-dawn moments before the light comes. The world is dark and quiet, stretching out before me in a hopeful sort of way. Having just awakened from sleep, I am alert enough to savor everything—the dance of light and shadow in the yard, the breeze that plays through the wind chime on the porch, the warmth of a favorite coffee mug, the comfort of a blanket against the cold. The nearness of God seems especially real in these early hours. As I wait for the light, time feels rich and abundant—full of possibility!—rather than scarce and limited and impossible. In the absence of stimulation—before any words have been spoken—my soul is calm and clear like the stillness of a quiet pond. There is never any doubt that the light will come; just a sense of quiet anticipation for something I know will happen because it happens every day. Without fail. As wonderful as it is to wake up to the light of a new day, morning solitude has taught me that it is even better to be there when the light comes. Being there helps me “make contact” with this God who comes and is always coming… like the sun… when it is time. It helps me find my true-self-in-God again. Advent is a season for waking up to all the ways Christ comes to us. Yes, the themes of Advent help us celebrate and commemorate his first coming in the Incarnation. They encourage us to anticipate his second coming in glory—of course! But there is also such a thing as the third coming of Christ: that is, all the ways in which Jesus comes to us now, bringing light for our darkness, peace for our turmoil, hope for our despair.”

Raphael Warnock.jpg “A Pastor and Politician Who Sees Voting as a Form of Prayer” – Katie Glueck in The New York Times: “He likened voting to a ‘prayer for the world we desire,’ and called democracy the ‘political enactment of a spiritual idea,’ that everyone has a divine spark. He invoked the legacies of civil rights heroes and ‘martyrs’ who fought and sometimes died for the right to vote, even as he promised to pursue bipartisanship in pressing his policy ambitions. Exulting in his victory Tuesday night, Senator Raphael Warnock showcased the dualities that have defined his career in public life. He is a man of deep faith, the senior pastor at the Atlanta church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached. And he is also a political tactician who has long believed that ‘the church’s work doesn’t end at the church door. That’s where it starts.’ ‘I am Georgia,’ Mr. Warnock said after winning Tuesday’s runoff election, nodding to both the hopeful and the dark aspects of the state’s past. ‘I am an example and an iteration of its history. Of its pain and its promise. Of the brutality and the possibility.’ He is also now poised, some Democrats say, to be a more prominent national figure, as an ardent supporter of voting rights, a next-generation voice in the party — or, as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey put it, a leader who can speak to ‘a lot of the hurt in our country.'”

Russell Moore Best Books of 2022 “My Favorite Books of 2022” – Russell Moore at his blog: “It’s December, so that means it’s time for the annotated list of my favorite books of the past year. All my usual caveats apply. These 12 books are in no particular order—just the order in which I pulled them off the shelf.
1. Malcolm Guite, The Word within the Words (Fortress) – Last year I sat around a fire at a friend’s house with his guest, the poet Malcolm Guite. Guite recited entire poems—his and others’—from memory and blew smoke rings from his pipe. I came home and told my wife, ‘I’ve never felt more like a hobbit.’ (That’s saying something, since I feel like a hobbit much of the time and, occasionally, on a really bad day, an orc.) This little book, less than 90 pages, is an articulation of Guite’s theology. Many such books become position papers of sterile syllogisms and axioms. Not this one. Guite writes, ‘My vocation as a poet attunes me particularly to the mysteries and beauties of language: the magic of words, the cadences and music of speech, but most of all, kindling and glimmering through all the words we use, the mystery of meaning itself and the wonderful vehicle of metaphor whereby one thing can be transfigured by the meaning of another.’ Guite asserts that his entire theology can be summed up in the prologue to the Gospel of John—showing how the “Word made flesh” informs how he reads the Bible, how he worships and prays. He discloses how reading the Psalms for a study on the “backgrounds” of medieval poetry changed him.”

J I Packer “J. I. Packer and the Next Wave of Evangelicalism: Foundations for Renewal” – Paul R. House in Themelios: “This article surveys the life and ministry of James Innell Packer (1926–2020), evangelical Anglican, theologian, author, Bible translator, and church renewal advocate. It suggests that Packer’s ministry is especially informative because it had roots in pre-war evangelical circles and extended through the growth of the evangelical movement from the 1950s to the 1990s and the movement’s ebbing afterwards. It asserts that Packer’s efforts to aid theological and church restoration provide principles for much-needed biblical renewal in current evangelicalism.”

deanevangelicalurkaine “Evangelical preacher and son murdered in Ukraine” – Evangelical Focus – Europe: “A leader of a Pentecostal church near the city of Kherson (in Ukraine) and his 19-year-old son have been found dead. This has been reported by the Christian organisation Release International, based on informations of two agencies In Ukraine: the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group and the Centre for Journalistic Investigations. Anatoliy Prokopchuk and his son Oleksandr were abducted on the evening of 22 November. They happened to be working in their garage in the city where they live, Nova Kakhovka, when Russian forces forcibly took the two in direction to a neighbouring village. The wife of Anatoliy and other relatives alarmed about their disappearance on social media, but no sign of life appeared until 4 days later, when their bodies were found in a nearby forest. Their murder leaves a widow and five other children. A source on the ground quoted by Release International, said Anatoliy was a deacon and preacher in the Pentecostal church in the city where they lived. According to the same source, their bodies had signs of torture. ‘Ukrainian investigators continue to discover the bodies of civilian victims in all areas liberated after months of Russian occupation,’ writes the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. ‘Sometimes the victims were bound or had in some other way clearly been subjected to torture before being murdered. In other cases, the Russians appear to have simply shot and killed people who were unfortunately enough to be on the road when they passed.'”

Brian Houston trial “Police knew of allegations against Hillsong founder Brian Houston’s father, court told” – Jenny Noyes in The Sydney Morning Herald: “The number of people with knowledge of child sexual abuse committed in the 1970s by Pentecostal pastor Frank Houston, the father of Hillsong founder Brian Houston, was in the “tens of thousands” before Frank’s death in 2004, a Sydney court has been told. And, according to Houston’s lawyer, those people would have included members of the NSW Police. Brian Houston, 68, was charged last year with concealing a serious indictable offence over his decision not to inform police about the allegation made against his father – and his father’s subsequent admission – in the late 1990s. In a hearing that commenced at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Monday, Houston’s barrister Phillip Boulten, SC, said the actions of Frank Houston, and his client’s knowledge of it, were not in question. Rather, the case would turn on whether the younger Houston had a ‘reasonable excuse’ not to bring the matter to the attention of police. In opening statements to the court on Monday, prosecutor Gareth Harrison said the Crown would make the case that Houston’s reason for failing to report it ‘was to protect his father, and primarily to protect the church.'”

Music: “Of The Father’s Heart Begotten,” traditional hymn arranged by Sir David Willcocks and performed by the Ely Cathedral Choir

The Weekend Wanderer: 26 November 2022

November 26, 2022November 21, 2022 Matt EricksonLeave a comment

featured-deeper-journey “The Deeper Journey for Leaders: From the False Self to the True Self” – M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., in Beyond Words – The Transforming Center blog: “Once I asked the pastor of a large, vigorous, dynamic, growing church with a strong emphasis on the deeper life in Christ—a church that confirmed fifty to seventy-five new members each week—where these people were coming from. His response surprised me. He told me almost all of these people had begun their journey in Christ in an even larger, more vigorous, more dynamic church whose worship was leading-edge contemporary, whose focus was strongly charismatic and whose corporate life centered in highly emotional expressions of faith in God. These people would stay in that church for about two to three years and then the novelty and excitement would become ritualized and dry for them. They began to hunger, in his words, ‘for something deeper.’ They began to sense there was more to the Christian life. You may have felt the same thing and asked yourself, Isn’t there more to the Christian life than being active in a Christian community, affirming a certain set of beliefs, adopting a particular behavior pattern? The answer is Yes. The ‘more’ is the journey from living out one’s false self to living as our true self in Christ—a self that is deeply centered in and utterly abandoned to God.”

5acd2ae5-9c6f-4a8c-ad81-89f8608d9ce9 “The State of the Multiethnic Church Movement: Glimpses of the future from Dallas and Indianapolis” – David Swanson in his Occasional Newsletter: “Last week was full of travel. It started with a flight to Dallas for the Mosaix Conference, an every-three-year gathering focused on the multiethnic church. I’ve attended many of these conferences over the years and am always impressed how the organizers, led by Pastor Mark DeYmaz, manage to include so many different practitioners, academics, and other advocates for multiethnic ministry. If there was one theme which raised to the surface for me at this year’s event, it was the role of BIPOC leaders in the multiethnic movement. While not a new theme, it was emphasized by many of the speakers from the main stage. The one workshop I was able to attend was led by Dr. Oneya Okuwobi, professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Okuwobi’s research focuses on the impact of multiethnic churches (often white-led) on leaders and staff of color. It’s not a pretty picture! Dr. Okuwobi detailed the cost extracted from most of the leaders of color whom she interviewed. Having to navigate church cultures which value them mostly for their representation rather than for the experiences and expertise they bring is exhausting. It is demoralizing coming to realize that what these churches said about their goals for justice and reconciliation are nowhere near their intentions.”

“Opinion Michael Gerson followed his faith — and America was better for it” – Karen Tumulty in The Washington Post: “One of the biblical injunctions sometimes cited by Michael Gerson, who died Thursday at the age of 58 after a long battle with cancer, comes from the New Testament book of Colossians: ‘Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.’ That advice works not only for Christian believers such as he was, but also in the sometimes brutal political world in which he made his mark. He was a presidential speechwriter whose own words were, indeed, singularly seasoned and notably full of grace. For the past 15 years, he enriched the pages of this newspaper as a columnist for the Opinions section. But civility, as Mike also noted, does not preclude tough-mindedness. Nor should it be mistaken for a lack of principles or perspective. His own were rooted in the faith that fueled and defined his involvement with politics, and he was scorching in his assessment of his fellow evangelicals when theirs took what he saw as a more cynical turn. In a September essay, he wrote these supposedly conservative Christians ‘have broadly chosen the company of Trump supporters who deny any role for character in politics and define any useful villainy as virtue. In the place of integrity, the Trump movement has elevated a warped kind of authenticity — the authenticity of unfiltered abuse, imperious ignorance, untamed egotism and reflexive bigotry. This,’ Mike wrote, ‘is inconsistent with Christianity by any orthodox measure.'”

“Is Therapy the Cure?: The therapist’s chair could be replacing our community and the pulpit.” – Cali Yee at Mockingbird: “Christmas in 2018 was one of the worst Christmases to date. My older sister and I were in a heated (but frosty) old western standoff. It wasn’t quite unlike that one scene in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly — where the camera zooms in on Clint Eastwood’s face as he stares down his opponents. As all fights are, it was a competition of who was in the right and who was in the wrong. The real kicker didn’t come until she calmly (bitingly) suggested, ‘I really think you should be going to therapy.’ To which I hurled (screamed) back, ‘You think I should be going to therapy?!? YOU should be going to therapy, you, you, you — ‘ I can’t quite remember how it ended, or what unfortunate nickname I gave her, but I do know that it made for one awkward Christmas dinner. In my family, talk of mental illness and therapy wasn’t common. Therapy wasn’t frowned upon, but it certainly wasn’t praised either. And as you can see in the interaction between my sister and me, the need for therapy was like a silly insult, a weapon of sorts, something you said when you wanted to hurt someone.As the dy-stigmatization of mental illness continues to move at a rapid pace, it appears that going to therapy has taken on a different meaning. It is no longer a weapon, brandished to insult or shame. It has become a crown, adorned by those who pursue their ‘best self,’ or a moral obligation, required on a twenty-something’s dating profile. Of course, this is not the case with all generations and cultures. But the dialogue about how everyone should be going to therapy has certainly increased.”

Wingfeather_BoxSet_View_3_01 “The Gospel in Wingfeather” – Thomas M. Ward in Plough: “Originally published between 2009 and 2014, Andrew Peterson’s four-book Wingfeather Saga was already popular within the evangelical world when it was re-released in 2020 by Penguin Random House. Since then, its popularity has surged, and it is now poised to break into the mainstream – thanks in part to a successful Angel Studios crowdfunding campaign which will put the books on screen as an animated TV series. Somehow, I hadn’t heard of the series until last year, when it started circulating among my kids’ circles of friends. Then a strangely enthusiastic recommendation from a friend and fellow dad (and professor of literature) finally prompted me to read the books. I didn’t know what I was in for. I was prepared to enjoy a good yarn and have something to talk to the kids about; I was not prepared to find such a believable depiction of love for one’s enemies and such heartbreaking reflection on the cost of redemption. I don’t say this lightly: I don’t think children’s literature has achieved the theological depth of Wingfeather since the Chronicles of Narnia.”

Waverly Abbey yew “Ancient yew in ruined Surrey abbey crowned UK tree of the year” – Patrick Barkham in The Guardian: “A gnarled yew whose twisted trunk has been growing for more than half a millennium has been crowned tree of the year. The roots of the yew snake around the ruins of Waverley Abbey in Surrey, which was the first monastery founded in Britain by the Cistercian religious order in 1128. The ancient tree, which won 16% of the total votes in the popular Woodland Trust competition, beat the spectacular ‘portal tree’ in Midlothian (11%), a rowan shaped like an archway. The Waverley Abbey yew will go on to represent the UK in the European tree of the year contest, with its success highlighting the unique wealth of ancient yews in the country. The Ancient Yew Group has identified 978 ancient or veteran yews (more than 500 years old) in England and 407 in Wales; France has 77, while Germany and Spain have only four each. Scotland is home to the Fortingall yew, estimated to be about 3,000 years old and the oldest yew in Britain.”

Music:The Porter’s Gate, “Isaiah (O Come),”Advent Songs

The Weekend Wanderer: 5 November 2022

November 5, 2022November 3, 2022 Matt Erickson2 Comments

“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.

Bono on Morning Edition “Bono discusses his new memoir, ‘Surrender,’ and the faith at U2’s core” – Rachel Martin interviews Bono on NPR’s Morning Edition: “It was 1976. An Irish kid named Paul Hewson was trying to figure a lot of things out; his mom had died a couple years earlier, when he was just 14. Bono, as he was known, spent a lot of time at home, in Dublin, arguing with his dad and his older brother. But two goals kept him focused — to win over the heart of a girl named Alison Stewart and to become a rock star. And in the same week, he asked Alison out — (she said yes) — and he ended up in Larry Mullen JR’s kitchen for an audition. Two other guys were there — Adam Clayton and David Evans, also known as The Edge. The four of them would go on to become one of the biggest bands of their time: U2. And he is still married to Alison Stewart 40 years later. Bono writes about these foundational relationships in his new memoir, called Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, releasing Tuesday Nov. 1. In it, he also delves into another core relationship: his spirituality. Though never a Mass-on-Sundays kind of Catholic, from a young age he was fascinated with mysticism and ritual – and Jesus.”

webRNS-Calvin-Butts3 Calvin Butts, leader of Harlem’s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, dies at 73″ – Adelle M. Banks at Religion News Service: “The Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the senior pastor of New York’s historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, who followed in the footsteps of prominent Black ministers and paved his own path of leadership in education, health and political circles, died Friday (Oct. 28), his church announced. ‘It is with profound sadness, we announce the passing of our beloved pastor, Reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts, lll, who peacefully transitioned in the early morning of October 28, 2022,’ the church stated on its website and on Twitter. ‘The Butts Family & entire Abyssinian Baptist Church membership solicit your prayers.’ Butts, 73, succeeded the Rev. Samuel DeWitt Proctor as pastor in 1989 after starting as a minister of the congregation in 1972. He became the church’s 20th pastor, according to the church’s website. ‘When we think about Dr. Butts we know that he served the community of Harlem but he served the wider community as well,’ said the Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister emeritus of Riverside Church, whose church was about two miles away from Butts’. ‘We have lost a great leader, one who really was a champion of justice and freedom for all.'”

D400-1839-085_Low_res_comp “6 ways to pray for our country during the election” – Katie Taylor at the World Vision blog: “How can we be more Christlike — in word and deed — during the 2022 U.S. election? We know a few things for sure: We’re called to love others (John 15:12). We’re called to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:1-2). And we’re called to live in unity (Ephesians 4:3). In an election year, choosing love feels extra challenging when your environment often pushes you to pick one side and shun the other. How can we keep choosing to love rather than burying our heads under our pillows until Nov. 8? God sees our frustration and confusion. And He promises that when we pray, He’ll give us guidance and peace. ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4:6-7). It seems too simple. And sometimes our voices feel too small. But when we pray, we allow God to start growing our capacity to love each other as Jesus does — even people who are the most different from us. As we approach the 2022 midterm election, we’re humbled that God saw our anger, confusion, and prejudice and still loved us enough to send His Son to be our Savior. That perspective calms our frustration and calls us to prayer.”

re-wilding faith “Exodus 3-4: Call and Response” – James Amadon at The Ecological Disciple: “The power and potential of places that are not dominated by humans is especially important in our age. Modern, industrial humanity has been exceptionally good at domesticating almost anything it touches. To ‘civilize’ something, or someone, has been an unquestioned good, and so ‘wild’ places, people, and other creatures have been tamed or destroyed. This civilizing impulse has included religion and religious spaces – we have domesticated God by reducing theology to what serves modern humanity (when was the last time you heard a sermon on the purpose/future of creation?), by confining the divine presence to the built environment (such as churches and other ‘sacred spaces’), and by controlling access to divine presence or approval (think about how religious communities define who is in/out, saved/unsaved, etc.). Moses lived in one of the most civilized societies of his time, yet it was also one of the most brutal – a paradox that, sadly, repeats itself through history. Leaving the civilized world opened Moses to new possibilities for himself and his place in the world, and to an encounter with the wild God of creation, who can never be civilized (just read the bewildering story of Exodus 4:24-26). When I ask people where they feel closest to God, almost everyone says “Nature.” This makes sense because we are fundamentally part of nature, creatures among creatures. It is often the false ideologies of ‘civilization’ that makes us less at home in the world. We need to re-wild our faith, remembering that our relationship to God is connected to our relationship with our local land and waterways, and with the creatures that share our home. This is true whether we live in a condo in the city or a cabin in the mountains. Finding ways to connect with the wildness around us can also connect us to the wildness of God, who tends to show up in surprising ways in these places.”

131335 “What Ancient Italian Churches Tell Us About Women in Ministry” – Photo Essay by Radha Vyas in Christianity Today: “The Bible tells us of the important place of women in the early church. Women were the first to reach the empty tomb and to proclaim the Resurrection (Matt. 28:1–10; Mark 16:1–8; Luke 23:55–24:10; John 20:1–2, 11–18). They contended for the gospel alongside Paul (Phil. 4:2–3), taught new converts (Acts 18:24–28), prophesied (Acts 21:9), had churches in their homes (Acts 16:14–15, 40; 1 Cor. 16:19), served the church (Rom. 16:1), delivered Paul’s epistles (v. 2), and were considered ‘outstanding among the apostles’ (v. 7). There is also a lesser-known visual record of women in ministry in Italy’s oldest churches. From around the time of the First Council of Nicaea down to the 12th century, Christians created depictions of women preaching, women marked as clergy, and even one carrying a Communion chalice, with which believers have always recalled Christ’s words ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matt. 26:28). Radha Vyas, a photographer and a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, takes us on a tour of this artistic record of women in ministry.”

“Thomas Merton, the Monk Who Became a Prophet” – Alan Jacobs in The New Yorker back in 2018: “On December 10, 1941, a young man named Thomas Merton was received as a novice by a monastery in Kentucky, the Abbey of Gethsemani. Precisely twenty-seven years later, he died by accidental electrocution in his room at a retreat center in Bangkok, Thailand. He entered the monastery three days after Pearl Harbor; he died a month after Richard Nixon was elected to his first term as President. It had been an eventful time. Merton was a remarkable man by any measure, but perhaps the most remarkable of his traits was his hypersensitivity to social movements from which, by virtue of his monastic calling, he was supposed to be removed. Intrinsic to Merton’s nature was a propensity for being in the midst of things. If he had continued to live in the world, he might have died not by electrocution but by overstimulation….Merton lived the public world, the world of words and politics, but knew that living in it had killed him. (‘Thomas Merton is dead.’) He sought the peace of pure and silent contemplation, but came to believe that the value of that experience is to send us back into the world that killed us. He is perhaps the proper patron saint of our information-saturated age, of we who live and move and have our being in social media, and then, desperate for peace and rest, withdraw into privacy and silence, only to return. As we always will.”

Music: The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, performing Ralph Vaughan Williams, “For All The Saints” (Sine Nomine), from A Vaughan Williams Hymnal

The Weekend Wanderer: 25 September 2021

September 25, 2021September 25, 2021 Matt EricksonLeave a comment

125581 “The Afghan Immigration Crisis Is Bigger, Faster, More Traumatic. Are Ministries Ready?” – Stefani McDade at Christianity Today: “Eileen Wilson pulled up to work at the Hope Center for refugees and immigrants in Cleveland, only to find Afghan families from the surrounding area and beyond standing in line at its entrance and waiting in cars in the parking lot. Some had driven hours, even from out of state. The crowds were a spillover from an emergency legal clinic held earlier that week in partnership with Catholic Charities. They were there to get help for their family members trapped in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. Every day for weeks, Afghans have showed up at the Hope Center. They’re placed on a waiting list to be assigned a pro bono lawyer to help them file immigration paperwork for up to three family members back home.”

shang-chi-reclaim “Communal Heroism in Shang-Chi & The Legend of the 10 Rings” – Michelle Ami Reyes at The Asian American Christian Collaborative: “Family is often an afterthought in the MCU. In the movies, we are rarely introduced to a superheroes’ parents. From Captain America and Captain Marvel to Ant Man, a vast number of these individuals are disconnected from their parents, siblings, and grandparents. In the case of Tony Stark, Spiderman, Bruce Banner, and Monica Rambeau, their parents are deceased. We discover Hawkeye’s family in Avengers 2, but it is immediate (wife and kids), not generational (parents, grandparents). The list goes on. Throughout the Marvel franchise, we’ve become accustomed to the phenomena of discovered families—lone superheroes who find their people through a shared mission. The Marvel superhero paradigm has only been challenged twice: first in 2018 with the release of Black Panther and now with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). Both films challenge the glorification of an all-powerful individual swooping in to save the day; the former through the power of an uncolonized African country, the latter through the strength of the Asian family.”

092221st-thomas-varanasi “The roots of India’s united churches” – Philip Jenkins in The Christian Century: “In the mid-20th century, ecumenism was a lively topic of debate within Protestant churches. As so often in Christian history, some of the boldest and most innovative experiments occurred on the mission frontier, in what we today call the Global South. We are approaching the 75th anniversary of a critical development in that story. When the British ruled India, they established their familiar denominations, which built churches along familiar lines. Those structures symbolized the imperial associations of the faith, in an overwhelmingly non-Christian society that was anxious to end British domination. As national independence approached in 1947, Christians faced challenging questions about their place in the emerging order.”

“How the ‘Culture War’ Could Break Democracy” – An interview with James Davison Hunter in Politico: “In 1991, with America gripped by a struggle between an increasingly liberal secular society that pushed for change and a conservative opposition that rooted its worldview in divine scripture, James Davison Hunter wrote a book and titled it with a phrase for what he saw playing out in America’s fights over abortion, gay rights, religion in public schools and the like: ‘Culture Wars.’ Hunter, a 30-something sociologist at the University of Virginia, didn’t invent the term, but his book vaulted it into the public conversation, and within a few years it was being used as shorthand for cultural flashpoints with political ramifications. He hoped that by calling attention to the dynamic, he’d help America ‘come to terms with the unfolding conflict’ and, perhaps, defuse some of the tensions he saw bubbling. Instead, 30 years later, Hunter sees America as having doubled down on the ‘war’ part—with the culture wars expanding from issues of religion and family culture to take over politics almost totally, creating a dangerous sense of winner-take-all conflict over the future of the country.”

IC18-David-Fitch-400x400 “A Different Kind of Leadership for the Church’s Future” – David Fitch at The Intersection Journal: “As evangelicalism and other movements proximate to it continue to fray and the dark underbelly is revealed, what comes next? Many are (justifiably) walking away from churches, deconstructing the christianity they received, on account of the oppressive and anti-Christic forces like racism, christian nationalism, patriarchy, and abuse being unveiled, not as side-issues, but as central to the animating life of what they knew as ‘church.’ For those who serve and lead in the wake of this mess, what could moving forward possibly mean or require? Should we walk away and let it burn? I believe that a faithful Christian witness is possible in the midst of (and perhaps because of) what is coming unraveled, but faithful witness requires a different kind of leadership.”

Myanmar Pastor “Baptist pastor shot dead amid continued attacks by the military” – From Christian Solidarity Worldwide: “A Baptist pastor was shot dead in Chin state in Myanmar/Burma on 18 September amid continued attacks by the Myanmar military on civilians in the state. Pastor Cung Biak Hum, 31, was shot by soldiers as he tried to help extinguish a blaze caused by artillery fire, which destroyed 19 homes in the Thantlang township. The Chin Human Rights Organization reported that soldiers proceeded to remove the pastor’s finger and steal his wedding ring. In response to the killing, Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar tweeted: ‘The murder of a Baptist minister and bombing of homes in Thantlang, Chin State are the latest examples of the living hell being delivered daily by junta forces against the people of Myanmar. The world needs to pay closer attention. More importantly, the world needs to act.'”

early Christian hermit grave “Possible Grave of Medieval Christian Hermit Excavated in Spain” – News release in Archaeology: “According to a statement released by the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH), a team of researchers has excavated a rock-lined burial placed near the entrance to the San Tirso and San Bernabé Hermitage, a medieval Christian site in Ojo Guareña, a series of caves in northern Spain’s Cantabrian Mountains. Archaeologist Ana Isabel Ortega said the site has been dated to the early eighth century A.D., pushing back the founding of the hermitage by several centuries to about the time of the arrival of Islamic Moors in Spain. The burial is thought to hold the remains of one of the first Christian hermits to live an isolated life in the caves.”

Music: Michael Grigoni, “Call,” from Mount Carmel.

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