Brian McLaren in Time Magazine

in Time Magazine's The 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.

Good grief, how did I miss this?

Thanks to DJ for bringing this to our attention.

Emergent Resources

One of the benefits of working on someone's website is that you get a good grasp of all that's there! Accordingly, Will Sampson points us to some good downloads that we might have previously missed on Emergent's site, including

Audio files of the 2004 Theological Conversation with Walter Brueggeman,
The Future of the People of God by NT Wright,
and a number of other PDFs by Brian McLaren, John Franke and others.

Building Better Blogs

Brian Bailey has a blog on

"weblogs, the web, life and the local church."

He recently posted

Building a Better Blog.

courtesy of rob williams

Meic Pearse: Why the Rest Hates the West?

This book hit my radar screen today when perusing the Washington Post's Book World
as Beth and I were working thru the Post in front of our fireplace on a delightfully snowy Sunday.

My interest was piqued in the book because it's an IVP tome but, at least in the Post, it wasn't being marketed as a Christian book. There's a good interview with the author on InterVarsity's site. The themes of the book reminded me of something I posted just after 9/11.

Meic Pearse received his doctorate from Oxford in history and currently teaches at Houghton College.

Rich Man, Poor Man: The Sad Tale of the Biggest Lottery Winner in History

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;
give me neither poverty nor riches;
feed me with the food that is needful for me,

Proverbs 30:8 (ESV)

The Puritans used to say that both riches and poverty were a fire to be endured.

Today's Washington Post Magazine featured a wonderful story by April Witt on Jack Whittaker.

Google Hacking



fellow 'mapper and white hat hacker johnny long continues to make his mark on the world with his important new book, Google Hacking, about the power of google for hackers!

johnny is now the recognized authority on this subject. his site, http://johnny.ihackstuff.com has over 30,000 registered users.

what is also cool is that long is dead serious about integrating his hacking exploits with his spiritual pilgrimage.

kudos!

Death Toll for Asian Tsunami: Over 221,000

UNICEF estimates that a third of the dead are kids.

See the Washington Post's Full Coverage and CNN has a nice special section on this disaster and have a special section on the Impact on Children.

Network for Good lists charitable organizations.

Beth and I plan to give through my company, USA TODAY, who is matching every employee dollar given.

Discerning Reader: Best Books of 2004

DR announces its pick for the best books of 2004.

GodBlogCon

We invite all Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Christian bloggers. GodBlogCon is a Christian Convention which is rooted in the historic biblical faith and creeds.

Read about the Christian Blogosphere Convention sponsored by Smart Christian and Evangelical Outpost.

Critiquing the Emerging Church

Rob McAlpine pens a fine Next-Wave article on what comprises a good critique.

1st Annual Evangelical Blog Awards

Evangelical Underground announces the 1st Annual Evangelical Blog Awards. Thanks to Brad Hightower for the heads up.

Alan Creech and the Emerging Church

Charlie Wear helpfully points us to a recent Next-Wave article penned by Alan Creech in which he explores the nexus of emerging church and other movements.

Doug Pagitt on the future of Emergent

Will Sampson points us to Doug Pagitt's comments on the future of Emergent in light of the amicable split with Youth Specialties.

Remembering Auschwitz

This week many are remembering the 60 anniversary of the freeing of those trapped by Nazi German at Auschwitz.

Recently I finished Martin Gilbert's fine one-volume history of World War II - The Second World War: A Complete History. One thing that's unique about that volume is the degree to which Gilbert chronicles Nazi atrocities behind the front lines, with a particular focus on the Reich's treatment of the Jews.

We should remember.

Youth Specialities Pulls Out of Emergent Convention in 2006

See the Emergent Convention Planning Blog for the press release. No philosophical differences have been implied; YS wants to "stick to the knitting."

Thanks to Steve Knight for the heads up.

The Rolling Stone and the TNIV

On 17 January USA TODAY ran a story that Rolling Stone Magazine was refusing to run an ad for the new TNIV for Zondervan, a version of the Bible that has been the subject of much controversy. Yesterday USA TODAY reported that Rolling Stone had reversed its decision.

My Pilgrimage in Theology

Jared of The Thinkings alerts us to this essay by NT Wright that dives a bit into his own theological development.

Internet Evangelism for the 21st Century

Steve Knight has invited DJ Chuang, Will Sampson, Nick Ciske, and myself to do a workshop at this conference called Reaching the Connected with Blogging on April 1st and 2nd.

Carla Rolfe and the Emerging Church Movement

Justin Baeder points us to some of the conversation currently occuring between EC Critic Carla Rolfe and others and empathizes with some of the unfortunate emails Rolfe has received.

One of the main EC Conversationalists so far as been Bill Arnold here and then here.

To her credit, Rolfe has been responsive in posting some of the additional material that Arnold provided.

Brian McLaren Response to "The Emergent Mystique"

Brian's posted a very expansive and detailed response to CT's Emergent Mystique article by Andy Crouch.

Emergent Criticism

The Emerging Church Movement is beginning to get more attention and criticism from various corners. The Emerging Blogosphere has lately noticed one site, called Emergent Movement
which was done by Carla Rolfe. Carla has gotten a good bit of attention, some of it unfortunate.

Bill Arnold has commented on the site on his blog as have others.

I wrote recently about the coming criticism of the emerging church for Next-Wave.

The History of Emergent in the UK

by Jason Clark

Emergent is not the Emerging Church

according to Jason Clark

More on Reading What's God-Breathed

It's been great to read all the emerging church comments here in the month of January on reading the Bible through the year. Because evangelicalism has been accused of collapsing Christianity down to nothing more than reading the Bible and praying, it's been encouraging to see that folks understand that the answer is not to read the Bible less, but rather more closely.

I came across Robert Murray M'Cheyne's plan for reading thru the Bible in a year.
M'Cheyne has us read the OT once in the year and the NT twice and helpfully divides the Scriptures into family and private reading.

courtesy of Rich Johnson.

Planet Emergent

An Emerging Church Blog Aggregator for emerging church bloggers.

Cool.

An Amazing Photograph

However, yesterday morning my friend Carl took this photo in his back garden... He swears blind that no gimickery or digital enhancement has taken place (save for adjusting the contrast to make the image clearer) and I have no reason to doubt his word.

Anthony of Headspace courtesy of SI Johnson

The Emergent Rule

The Emerging church is so broad, diverse, and undefinable. Ask someone what they think emerging church is and it might tell you more about them than emerging church. Emergent isn't the emerging church, but is involved in the discussions and activities of it. But for those of us who identify with Emergent, who want to say it embodies what we are about and what we are aspiring to, what makes Emergent Emergent?
The Emergent leadership team met in Chicago in the summer and we asked that question of each other. Out of that came the idea of an Order and Rule to give some answer to that question, and help people see if they indentify with what we are about.

Jason Clark reveal's Emergent's Order and Rule.

Should Emerging Be "Emergent" only in the USA?

Jonny Baker thinks so.

I personally believe we should do whatever we have to do to avoid an "I am of Paul; I am of Apollos" mentality.

Thanks to Charlie for the heads up.

John Wimber

Charlie Wear reminisces about John Wimber and links to some interesting articles by and about him.

Tony Sheng and Orbit

I love this. The very picture of transpropositionality incarnate. Tony reports on the results here.

I Don't Think I'd Mind Going This Way!

Associate Pastor Michael Beates said Arnold then told the congregation, "When my work is done, I go to be with Jesus. And that will be gain! And when I go to heaven..."

In Beates' words, "At this point, Jack paused briefly, looked up, swayed slightly and grabbed the podium before falling back to the floor. And he was gone."

thanks to Matt Oskvarek of the 'mapper group for bringing this to our attention!

Yahoo Goes Head-to-Head with Google Desktop

I'll probably try it. I'm currently an enthusiastic user of Google Desktop both at work and home. It's really made finding info on my PC far easier.

New Emergent Village Site

Doug Pagitt lets us know about the new Will Sampson-designed Emergent Village site and about its new Leadership Structure. He also lets us know that Emergent now has its own blog.

Dan Brennan

A good friend of mine and longtime 'mapper Dan Brennan has just started his own blog. Check out one of his first posts on James KA Smith's book Intoducing Radical Orthodoxy.

Read the Bible Thru this Year

Andrew Jones blogs on various blogged-based efforts to read through the Bible in 2005.

I did some googling and found this Read the Bible in a Year Page (sponsored by Intervarsity North Central Region) where you can download various ways to do this.

Next-Wave

Charlie Wear announces that the January 2005 issue of Next-Wave is posted.

Steve Camp, Brian McLaren, & Bob Robinson

Bob Robinson has engaged Steve Camp concerning his critique of Brian McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy.

Marvin Olasky and Helping Those in Financial Need in America

Rudy Carrasco alerts us to a recent interview with the author of The Tragedy of American Compassion.

God and Tsunamies

LeaderU.com has put together a fantastic group of articles that address: "Tsunamis, Suffering & Evil: How Can an All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Good God Allow It?"

from Rudy Carrasco

Andy Crouch

has a new website.

thanks to jordon for letting us know.

Christianity Today's Tsumani Blog

Being done by none other than our own Rudy Carrasco.

Thanks to Charlie for the heads up.

Can the Emerging Conversation Become a Movement?

After blogging off and on for a few years, I’ve just about come to the conclusion that blogging is little more than another form of individualism. Think about it. One person post thoughts and links that is important to them. At best a conversation begins among the readers in the form of “comments.” (Admittedly, there is the occasional team blog—but they are far fewer in number than the solo blog). Now, I’m all for conversation, but will the conversation every trickle down to the majority? Let me restate that—will the conversation every trickle down to those who can turn the online emergent conversation into a movement? If so how will that happen? I don’t want to be overly negative but from my experience it appears the ones who need to (and would) sign on to the conversation must first be online reading the conversation. Is that the possible link that is missing in transforming our conversation into a swelling and unstoppable movement?

Fred Peatross asks an important question.

Among the Ruins calls it quits

Their last post in cache.

Struggling with Stage One Emerging Churches

Have been doing some research on this very aspect of the "Emerging Church." Its been driving me crazy as I've looked at 150-300 churches in the U.S. who self-proclaim to be an EC, and manifests that claim purely through a change of style. In fact, a very low percentage of churches reviewed have a value to rediscover a renewed theology... don't know if, at this point in my research, this is because they just don't see the need or they just aren't expressing their value for a new theology. I am happy though that many are missionally-centric. Hopefully, our theology is still emerging.

I am even beginning to wonder how missionally-centric a church can be without a renewed sense of missiology / theology? Theology and mission go hand-in-hand. In fact, some missiologists would even argue that all theology is about mission (that is, all theology is a missiology). Perhaps, and maybe it warrants further study - the missional "Emerging Church" is a trend without anything theologically definitive to grab onto. If EC is not acting from a missiological / theological perspective, and rather merely because its the "in" thing to do... what will be the lasting effects? What will be the future of mission and the Emerging Church?

Aaron Flores expresses frustration with churches at Emergent Stage One.

George Bush, Sr and Bill Clinton to Lead Tsunami Fund Raising Push

from the NY Times (Registration Required)

NT Wright on the Tsunami

The general view is that the Bible offers an escape from the world into a personal religion. But that view is itself the result of the Enlightenment's reductionism.

The Bible itself resists such treatment. It constantly acknowledges evil - "human" and "natural" alike - as a terrible reality. It doesn't try to minimise it, to explain that good will come of it, or to blame someone (reactions which correspond uncomfortably closely to the excuses offered by immoral or warmongering politicians). It tells a story about the Creator's plan to put the world to rights, a plan which involves a people who are themselves part of the problem as well as the bearers of the solution.

Tom Wright offers his thoughts on the Asian disaster.

Thanks to subvergence for the heads up.

More Videos of the Tsunami

Link

Next-Wave: The Most Read Articles of 2004

Charlie Wear lists the most frequently accessed Next-Wave articles in 2004.

Tsunami Disaster: A Sobering Video of the Wave & An Easy Way to Help

View this to see the Tsunami devastate a restaurant (11mb download, Windows Media Player file).

You can donate to the Red Cross at this Amazon.com page and also you can see how many people have donoted so far and how much money has been raised through this one channel.

Thanks to Rudy for the heads up and the video reference.

The Da Vinci Code

As I had earlier indicated, I finished this entertaining book a couple of days ago and I'm going to enjoy researching it. I decided I needed to read this after 1) I started getting questions on the book at both church and work and 2) when I learned that Tom Hanks is going to star in the movie coming out based on the book and realized the questions are just going to continue. Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) will be directing and the screenplay will be written by Akiva Goldsmith who penned I, Robot, A Beautiful Mind, A Time to Kill, among others.

Tonight I purchased

Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code: A Historian Reveals What We Really Know about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Constantine

which was written by Dr Bart D Ehrman who is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

and

Dr. Ben Witherington III's book The Gospel Code: Novel Claims About Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Da Vinci.

Dr. Witherington is Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary

and look forward to diving into all this a bit more deeply.

Leadership University has also accumulated a number of articles on the DaVinci Code here for those of you who don't run to amazon.com at the first hint of controversy.

;)