Slow Church - Latest Comments

Re: A Politics of Hope in the Trump Age

Bob Shiloh — Sat, 29 Feb 2020 17:21:07 -0000

Every normal person wants to help those in need as we can.
Church groups have the advantage of pooled resources to tackle bigger projects and they do.
The poor and those in need require some help to step up toward self sufficiency.
Tying politics to the help needlessly complicates the problem. For example, forcing sources like restaurants to toss food instead of giving it to shelters because it may be less than perfect or tying the hands of charities with regulations because they accept government dollars.

Re: JPUSA: A Tragic History of Sexual Abuse

Steev Garrett — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 20:03:47 -0000

Hi Abe; Are your mom and dad, Kath' & Tony? If so, then you have long been owed an apology from none other than myself. Blessings 2u!

Re: Reflecting On The Worst Christian Book Covers of 2013!

Nimblewill — Tue, 29 May 2018 12:15:40 -0000

https://www.christianbook.c...

One of the best books I've ever read!

Re: Remembering Mr. Rogers.

The Mouse Avenger — Sun, 06 May 2018 10:52:50 -0000

Yes...but I think you commented in the wrong post. ^^;;

Re: The Spoken Word vs. The Written Word

IllBeYour Huckleberry — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 22:17:57 -0000

Spoken is to sway, its magic they say, yet perhaps only God should sway men, if not their own thoughts, hence written gives them time to think while spoken is more about an emotional response, written might be seen as more honest while spoken less honest, written more for others, spoken more for oneself, Actions speak louder than words, the action of writing for others versus speaking for oneself, your words and action might also expose you, even should your intent be good, you may not even know what your doing, The pen is mightier than the sword, its used to write words, words that can be seen as a two edge sword or mightier still, Outside of just perception of normal speech you also have unconscious speech that simply may expose you in yet another way. How weak are our senses and understanding? Does speaking hold power over you? How long can you live without saying a word? That Power can condemn you and others! Tread Carefully Your words can build and destroy, sometime it does both at once, other times it does one or the other, how well do you know your words? Written have a longer life which is why spoken often finds itself on paper as well. Often what is written can be spoken out loud or by at least one voice in your head. A writer has far more long term value than a speaker, those who have thought and agree to a writers point will usually deviate less than those who make a spontaneous decision based on an emotional response to spoken words. Long Term Happiness or Short Term Emotional High, If your high you usually rebound, a little poison over a long time you build an immunity, oh so much could be said still, hopefully this get folks thinking, hopefully people will see the truth in my words, You might note that any given word or string of words can mean many things, most people fail to perceive what all they are saying as a whole, often I say things that express more than one simple truth, that being said, be careful to find understanding of the Bible from any other man, as one man may sway and may have only perceived a portion of what might otherwise be a greater truth of all things.

Re: JPUSA: A Tragic History of Sexual Abuse

Steev Garrett — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 19:37:22 -0000

RIP Curt and Dawn. You will be lovingly missed, even as it comes with a bitter taste.

Re: JPUSA: A Tragic History of Sexual Abuse

Steev Garrett — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 19:06:44 -0000

Not to advocate horrible feelings, but this is real, Brandon. Never mind my Jp credentials, but both the Prater men who have responded in this thread I count as friends. Oddly enough I was a member of their extended fam', beginning w/ my own return to the commune in or about the spring of '95 (I was 36 years of age, & a 10+ year believer in Christ).

An attitude is evident among a couple of respondents that this' all laughable - try to imagine this for just a moment - allegations of child-sexual-abuse are, what, funny!? 😕 That, friends and correspondents, is just f'n pathetic! 😨

Re: JPUSA: A Tragic History of Sexual Abuse

Brandon Roberts — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 03:03:01 -0000

if this is real i feel horrible for them

Re: The Hopeful Politics of “Everyday Attentive Reciprocity”

Ivan T. Errible — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 23:50:39 -0000

Church is boring.

Re: Celebrate Interdependence Day 2014!

Ivan T. Errible — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 14:52:55 -0000

Church is boring.

Re: Ken Wytsma – The Grand Paradox [Patheos Book Club]

Brandon Roberts — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 03:03:46 -0000

sounds like a cool book

Re: Tina Fey… and Improv as a metaphor for the biblical drama.

Christian Winther — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 04:56:32 -0000

Hi Hannah
Thank you for your reply. I'm working with some friends to establishment a group and developing exercises inspired from Del Close and Peter Pitzele. It's hard to explain what it's about and invite others to try. The challenge to establish a flow in a Bible Impro workshop Session is important to get everyone to be bold, and dare to engage. In basics I'm looking for information, and dialogue with others working with the combination Bible and Improv (Longform).

Re: Tina Fey… and Improv as a metaphor for the biblical drama.

Hannah Kallio — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 18:56:18 -0000

We are, and we're continually amazed at how relevant it is! In terms of the Biblical narrative, but even more in terms of the dynamic, living, cooperative practice of being the church together.

Re: Tina Fey… and Improv as a metaphor for the biblical drama.

Christian Winther — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 16:54:14 -0000

Hi Hannah
I'v started on Improv last year and am looking at how to use the methods and techniques to improvise the Biblical narratives. Not the written scenes but scenes laying between the story told in the bible. Are you still working with the combination Bible and Improv ?

Re: Conversational Bodies.

jekylldoc — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 03:54:10 -0000

Sounds like a great initiative. There is a lot of wisdom out there about conversation, how it goes wrong and how it breaks through barriers, how to manage it and how to let it go where it is leading, etc. But I haven't seen much reflection on how to put this wisdom to work in a less intimate, more communal context.

Two topics for background reflection. First, how do we deal with "hard" differences in world view? When we attended church in SE Asia, one of the Sunday School teachers wanted very much to convince our children that evolution was a pernicious fiction. What is a good mode of dialogue for such matters?

Second, how do we manage a fluid process shifting between personal and impersonal? I believe we are sometimes called to be confessional with one another, for example, but we cannot give the ongoing support which an intimate relationship would allow. What are some modalities for moving into such personal sharing and then recognizing a readiness for moving out of it? Mainly pastors are called on to deal with such personal sharing, in the current practice of the church, but can there be elders or spiritual guides who are also trained, to some extent, to manage such fluid on-going conversations?

Re: Conversational Bodies.

Andrew Camp — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 14:46:49 -0000

Love the post, Chris. I am currently reading The Christian Imagination, and just finished chapter 1. How does conversation with place fit into your broad ideas? Dr. Jennings highlights some ideas that I would never have thought of, especially as it relates to non-Caucasian people. Looking forward to this conversation.

Re: Ferguson and Our Broken Justice System

jekylldoc — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 13:51:08 -0000

Mark - Voddie Baucham's response has a number of good things to say. I recommend that others read it. In particular, I think he makes sense when he says he is not going to spend his time fighting Gramscian ghosts, nebulous concepts like White privilege.

That is the job of us White people.

I get his concern about fatherlessness, but "sin" doesn't explain the high rates in the African-American community any more than race does. Abundant evidence shows that when African-American men have a fair shot at jobs, their rates of children out of wedlock go way down. Generations of young men who have grown up in poverty, with high rates of incarceration for the only kinds of work they can get, have built up a culture that is truly poisonous. If the European-American community does not do a better job of including young men in education and quality work, then "sin" will go right on destroying lives.

Re: Ferguson and Our Broken Justice System

jekylldoc — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 13:38:34 -0000

David L -
I am not sure Michael Brown received justice, but the evidence is consistent with the officer's claim that Brown attacked him. It is not clearly consistent with the claim that the officer was defending himself, as opposed to taking revenge. If that was the case, it doesn't matter what everyone knows about police behavior, it was wrong. Okay, sometimes we have to leave those calls to the officer and the system, but the riots in Ferguson were not caused by liberal assumptions, they were caused by the anger that builds up within a broken system.

I agree that we should not base a conclusion about the system on Michael Brown's case. But we have quite enough evidence to know the system is broken, and so it feels kind of petty to argue the facts in a case in which an unarmed man is killed and we have very little beyond the officer's word to show it as self-defense. Individual cases are entitled to presumption of innocence. But the pattern indicts the system.

Re: A Politics of Hope in the Trump Age

jekylldoc — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 12:28:17 -0000

I am half-way through Nugent's "Endangered Gospel," and I have to tell you, I don't see it. I don't see the danger, I don't see the approach, I don't see the importance. Sure, it's not the Kingdom per se to help society lift itself up. But if you are at all acquainted with the progress which has been made already, I don't see how you can counsel Christians not to embrace, and emphasize, more progress.

I started out somewhat sympathetic. I have seen church in which every one of the traditional values is reinterpreted in terms of changing "structures" of society. But I think that is a cop-out on its own terms, not because it fails to care for people or to be realistic about sin.

So far his argument has been to put a particular slant on interpreting Biblical relation to the powers. I buy his argument in terms of Biblical understanding, but I think it is woefully lacking when it comes to making sense of democratic power structures.

Maybe I will check in to the Englewood discussion, but not if I don't find more meat to discuss.

In the meantime, let me complement your emphasis on bottom-up approaches. I presume Nugent will get around to explaining why that is more what the Kingdom is about, rather than politics. But my model is more integrated - political leavening is as vital to the coming of the Kingdom as personal, relational leavening. And neither is truly sustainable without the other.

Re: Imagining Flourishing Communities.

jekylldoc — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 17:22:54 -0000

Astonishing that there were no comments on this excellent plan. It should be mentioned that this sort of thing can make good use of the savings of ordinary folk, by selling them bonds. It might be a little more risky than the typical corporation, but not much, really. And think of the community buy-in.

Re: Christian Witness: Reconciling contemplation and action.

jekylldoc — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 03:14:44 -0000

Nice that Josh Luton's comment came up on the feed, and I had a chance to find this. A good part of a deep reflection process to help us re-integrate community life. Prayer vs. Mission, Economics vs. Kingdom are false dichotomies, and if we face our fears we can learn to live in the spaces where they reinforce rather than pulling us apart.

Re: Phil Kenneson: A Philosophical Argument for Slow Church

Crossing Swords — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 21:21:35 -0000

I find Kenneson's argument rather silly and self-defeating. It is self-defeating in that he insists that it is objectively true that there is no object truth. He tries to take away the foundation of all truth claims by laying a foundational truth claim ("there is no objective truth). His self-defeating statement, therefore, cannot be true. But, like most postmodernists, Kenneson is comfortable with his contradictions.

Not only is his argument self-defeating, but Kenneson doesn't even believe it himself. He insists on trying to convince you of the truth that there is no objective truth. He doesn't want you to believe in objective truth. He says objective truth is corrupting the Church. He proclaims "...it is a good thing too" that there is no objective truth. How can he claim a propositional truth of the supposed corrupting influence of objective on the Church, or the propositional truth that the non-existence of objective truth is "a good thing" without objective truth? He can't.

Speaking like the postmodernist that he is, he said that by eliminating objective truth, "what comes to the foreground is the community or communities whose convictions and practices are themselves an embodiment of what they take to be good and true." He rejects the coherent metanarrative of Scripture and nature for the postmodernist collection of mininarratives. Without objective truth, how can these communities arrive at "what they take to be good and true?" By what standard do they measure one thing as good and true and another as bad and false? Sounds like personal preferences to me, or in other words, relativism.

Far from being a wonderful passage and a superb essay, Kenneson's piece is postmodernist poison.

Re: An Open Apology to Chris Rock.

M Suleman Jee — Thu, 19 May 2016 04:18:07 -0000

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Re: Sunday Afternoon Book Review: SCRIPTURE, CULTURE, AND AGRICULTURE by Ellen Davis.

Dan Grubbs — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 11:42:19 -0000

Although I am late to both Prof. Davis' book and this review, I wanted to provide a slight rebuttal to the notion that God's justice exercised on the people of Canaan through the instrument of the Hebrews taking possession of the Promised Land is anything but embarrassing. If we carefully study the first 11 chapters of Genesis, we see a people in that land who fully knew who God was. There were even priests of the Most High (Melchizedek) when Abraham was living in the land promised to him. These people, from post-diluvian time onward were given nearly a millennium to turn from their sinful ways to return to living for God. Imagine, if you will, what they were doing while the Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt for more than 400 years. When they continued on their sinful path, God's judged them and for their sins, He used the Hebrews and their mission to take possession of the Promised Land to execute His judgement on them. We should celebrate God's consistency in His righteousness. The punishment of the people occupying the land of Canaan as described in the accounts of Joshua should never be a source of embarrassment, but evidence that our God is who He says He is and that He does not lie. I'm thankful that I have a Rescuer in Jesus Christ who took the punishment of my sins, but it is also a reminder that God shows no partiality and will judge sin righteously -- as he did with the people generally known as the Canaanites.

Re: Ferguson and Our Broken Justice System

Agoldstar68 — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 01:20:37 -0000

Brown tried to arm himself with Ofc Wilson's duty pistol and was shot and killed by Ofc Wilson in self defense. This fact completely invalidates your he "was UNARMED" comment above.