Internet Evangelism for the 21st Century Conference
April 1 & 2

A Schedule has been posted.

Here's the blurb on the workshop in which I'm participating:


Reaching the Connected Generation with Blogging. What is a "blog"? What does it mean "to blog"? And how can blogs be used to evangelize on the World Wide Web? Find out answers to these questions—and more—as this panel of bloggers discusses the emerging medium and what it means for the future of ministry on the Internet. You'll hear from Steve Knight (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association), DJ Chuang (ForMinistry.com), Nick Ciske (nickciske.com/blog/), Will Samson (willzhead.typepad.com), and Stephen Shields (Faithmaps.org).

Videos Online from the 2005 San Diego Emergent Convention

Chris Monroe provides us with wmv files of

• the bloggers lunch
• alan roxburgh and doug pagitt
  

The Finalists for the 1st Annual Evangelical Blog Awards

have been announced.

Echos in the Ghettos

Will Sampson posts some wise words about humility.

I agree.

In a somewhat similar vein, Steve Knight wonders if Christian Blogging, in its various subcultures and as a whole, tends to be insular.

I do think that we must take care that we aren't exclusive in our hearts and in our communication. But with Google I'm not so sure our fences are that terribly high. How many surf in with a bit of hunger and then find that their appetites are whetted.

If you missed Brian McLaren on Larry King...

...you can view video clips of Brian's answers on Aaron Flores site.

Thanks to Steve Knight for the heads up.

Emerging Bloggers at the Emergent Confab in San Diego

Emergent provides those of us not there with a list.

Communique

Just found this online zine courtesy of Mr. Soupiset.

(And yes, Paul, that sounds pretty transpo to me!)

Brian McLaren on Larry King

The transcript has been placed on CNN.

And you can order a copy of the tape here.

The Future of Emergent and the Emerging Church

Two different things, as the folks at EC will readily admit.

jordon helpfully directs us to

• bob carlton
• who mentions tony jones.
• andrew jones
  

Andrew Sullivan Takes a Break

Thanks to Joshua Claybourn for the heads up on this breaking news.

Brian McLaren is on Larry King Tonight @ 9 PM

Cedar Ridge Community Church announces in their Feb 1 EPost:

Exciting news! Our own Brian McLaren has been highlighted in the current issue of Time Magazine as one of the “25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America.” Also, he will be on Larry King tonight at 9 PM [EST], because of the article.

Emergesque Readers: Care to "Register"?

I've noticed lately that some folks are inviting their readers who don't regularly comment to speak up and make their presence known. This sounds like an interesting experiment so...answer or ignore as many as you please in comments.

What's your name?
Age?
Significant other / kids?
How do you spend your days (job? stay-at-home mom?)
What's your country? region/state? city?
If you have one, what's your faith community?
How often do you visit emergesque?
Why do you visit emergesque?
Is there anything else you'd like to say?

And whether you "register" or not, thanks for reading.

Stephen Shields

Large and Small Churches' Use of Technology

Research results being released for the first time in the January/February edition of Facts & Trends magazine show nine out of 10 Protestant clergy have Internet access they can use for church business, but only about half of all Protestant churches maintain a Web site.

link

iPod Nation

Apple may have introduced its innovative digital music player in 2001, but of the 10 million iPods sold to date, 8.2 million of the $249 to $399 gadgets were purchased in 2004.

We ran a cover story today on Apple's iPod.

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.

;)

Cracking the Christmas Code

NT Wright compares The Da Vinci Code with the story of Christmas in this recent article.

Thanks to subvergence for the heads up.

I finished The Da Vinci Code last night and now I have a lot of research to do!

Brian McLaren on Emergent as a Movement

If you have been following the conversation in the Emergent as a Society thread you may have already read this. However, Brian McLaren suggested the following thoughts which I think are helpful, and it was difficult to post them yesterday in anything other than comments, so here they are more formally....

Will Sampson posts Brian McLaren's thoughts on Emergent as a Movement.

Tsunami in South Asia

The Washington Post has a continually updated interactive map that shows the growing death toll by country.

Yahoo News has an aggregation page pulling news related to this disaster from a variety of sources.

MSNBC has a page that links to various agencies to which concerned individuals can turn in order to help survivors. For other help pages, see

• CNN's How to Help Page
• Fox News' How to Help Page
  

McLaren's New Book

Brian's new book is now available for pre-order on amazon.com.

thanks to subvergence for the heads up.

The New Perspective on Paul (NPP) and NT Wright

Over the holidays I read an intriguing article - The Attractions of the New Perspective on Paul (link has been corrected) by J Ligon Duncan - critical of the NPP in general and NT Wright in specific.

There is so much enthusiastic support for the thinking of NT Wright within emerging church circles that in a bid to avoid a giddy triumphalism we do well to listen carefully to dissenting voices. I need to read more in this space, but I thought that Duncan brought up some intriguing cautions.

After reading the article, I asked Dr. Duncan if he would recommend any books or articles released since he wrote the article. He suggested (among others)

• Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The "Lutheran" Paul and His Critics by Stephen Westerholm
  
• Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul by Guy Prentiss Waters

Within the article, Duncan also recommends Charles E. Hill's article NT Wright on Justification.

I also found this site where a number of critiques of NPP, especially dealing with justification, are aggregated.

And, of course, more pro-NPP material can be found at the NT Wright Page.

The Day Peace Broke Out

An article about the first book written from a German perspective on the peace that broke out on Christmas Day in 1914.

The Famous Christmas Truce of WWII

The words drifted across the frozen battlefield: 'Stille Nacht. Heilige Nacht. Alles Schlaft, einsam wacht'. To the ears of the British troops peering over their trench, the lyrics may have been unfamiliar but the haunting tune was unmistakable. After the last note a lone German infantryman appeared holding a small tree glowing with light. 'Merry Christmas. We not shoot, you not shoot.'

It was just after dawn on a bitingly cold Christmas Day in 1914, 90 years ago on Saturday, and one of the most extraordinary incidents of the Great War was about to unfold.

a great article from the Guardian via one of jordon cooper's wonderfully inventive contextless links.

Do we Ever Stop Emerging?

In response to Tony Jones Worship Leader Sidebar, Chris Gonzalez asks:

The spirit of Emergent reminds me of the spirit that launched Restoration Movement - and that is precisely what bothers me. It was supposed to be a movement that was post-denominational, although they didn't use "post" so much in the 1800's. However, after a terrific movement got started with so many questions, challenges to the existing abuses of authority structures, and a desire to just be Christians, it degraded into a denomination when they answered all those questions, developed their own authority structures, and forged a certain kind of way to be Christian. After that they just spent their time making sure then next generation knew the answers to questions that generation had never asked. Their goal was met (so they thought) which was to restore the New Testament church. When they restored it (they answered all of their questions), they were good to go.

Their kids were not so good to go. I hope Emergent never quits emerging. When emergent becomes emerged, we're in big trouble. And there are lots of forces inside and outside of emergent that would like to see it emerge, and be done with it already.

If emergent ever arrives it will fail. Arriving is something that makes sense if time stops.

What is Emergent?

Worship Leader Magazine asked me to write a short sidebar for a lengthy upcoming piece by Chuck Smith, Jr. on Emergent.

tony jones gives his answer

via will sampson

jordon cooper

jordon's blog was listed by the guardian as one of their favorites!

The Washington Post and Slate

the Washington Post just announced that they're buying the online zine Slate.

Addiction to the Proposition

...sometimes we look to be in relationship with people simply so we can get the to assent to our "propositions." In the sense of a small group bible study, we state that our goal is spiritual maturity and determine maturity is based on how much we know. Our idea is that knowledge equals maturity in relationship with God. The reality is intellectual assent does not guarantee a deeper relationship with God becuase it is precisely that, a relationship; it is not a pop quiz that must be passed. We will learn more, we will know more but the knowing is a result of a growing relationship not whether or not we can pass the quiz.

todd littleton is on the money here. While propositions are necessary, they are not enough for spiritual transformation or for leadership development. A bible study is not to be considered successful only on the criterion of information exchange.

lately i've been very dissatisfied with my own degree of spiritual maturity. please understand i'm not being modest. i've written a lot here about how much the abiding meme has been helpful to me. yesterday, i realized that it's jesus himself that i need to get excited about, not the concept of abiding in jesus. i believe this may be why i haven't really gotten down to the depth yet of what it means to abide in jesus.

this past sunday during morning service i journaled as the pastor spoke, interacting with what he was saying. i wrote down that propositions are windows to the object of our faith. faith is the bridge that takes us from proposition to transproposition. transproposition, of course, is the object of our faith.

that's a long-winded way of my saying simply that I need Him. i need to realize He is with me, that He is my savior, my provider, and my Lord. all three realities are important.

I need Him.

"Neither Democrats nor Republicans Have a Clue"

We ran two opinion pieces today on Faith and Religion and a divided United States.

Jim Wallis of Sojourners penned a piece headlined as above.

Charles Haynes provided another viewpoint.

Top 5 Posts of 2004

Bob Carlton is asking folks to send him self-nominations for their top 5 posts for the year. He's aggregating them here. Should be an interesting collection! Here's mine:

• abiding in vine
  
  
• more on transpropositionality
  
  
• do blogs democratise knowledge?
  
  
• organizational excellence and spiritual life in community
  
  
• psychological hardiness
  

Brian McLaren

Christian Century has a new piece on Brian.

courtesy of jordon.

Andrew Flew

He now believes in God.

Courtesy of andrew zirschky

Legitimate Propositionality

A severe misunderstanding of transpropositionality is that it's anti-proposition or anti-information. Information is necessary but it's not enough.

Toward that end, I just learned that the Evangelical Theological Society is in the process of putting all the articles of the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society online. They'll stay 2 years behind what's published.

On that note, let me also mention the massive Theological Library Series, where with 5 and 6 you can get 300 years of Theological Journal articles including:

Bibliotheca Sacra Journal (1934-2002)
Grace Journal (1960-73)
Grace Theological Journal (1980-91)
The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (1966-2002)
Master’s Seminary Journal (1990-2000)
Trinity Journal (1980-2001)
Westminster Theological Journal (1960-2002)
Emmaus Journal (1991-2001)
Michigan Theological Journal (1990-1994)
Journal of Christian Apologetics (1997-1998)
Chafer Theological Seminary Journal (1995-2002)
Conservative Theological Journal (1995-2002)
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society (1988-2002)
Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1995-2002)
Reformation and Revival (1992-2002)
Journal of Ministry and Theology (1997-2002)
Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal (1996-2000)
Bible and Spade (1996-2000)

This has been one of the best reference purchases I've ever made.

Church Marketing Sucks

Brad Abare lets us know about his site's efforts to reach a wider audience.

Emerging Church Criticism, Part Deux

Andrew Jones sounds a helpful tone in his updated comprehensive blogpost on various sources of emerging church criticism. Reading his post and following the links will give you a good sense of the movement and its critics.

It's a Wonderful Life.

If you love It's a Wonderful Life, go here.

With thanks to Nick Ciske.

The Next Emergent Convention

Doug Pagitt gives us some lowdown.

Tony Campolo on the Emerging Church

Will Sampson and others refer us to this new article.

Emergent Church Criticism

Andrew Jones does a great around the room on this topic with a bit of EC history and commentary thrown in.

We contributed our own thoughts in the latest Next-Wave.

Results of Survey:
Best Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Books
for Protestants to Read

EASTERN ORTHODOX BOOKS

• from Matt
  
  
• Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church
  
  
• Ware, The Orthodox Church [Albeit a bit dated now post cold war]
  
  
• Fedotov, G.P. A Treasury of Russian Spirituality
  
  
• from Paul Soupiset
  
  
• "Orthodox Spirituality: An Outline of the Orthodox Ascetical and Mystical Tradition" (1945)
  Anonymous ("by a monk of the eastern church")
  published by fellowship of saint alban and saint sergius
  SBN 281 00843 4 [ss: follow url; this book is available used thru amazon.com]
  
  
• from Chris Criminger
  
  
• Timothy Ware " The Orthodox Church" (one of the best books to introduce one to the many facets of EO theology and practices as "a way of life").
  
  
• Vladimir Lossky "The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church" (how Christian theology is done by those outside the West and particularly challenges some western conceptions of theology whether from the Catholic or Protestant tradition).
  
  
• John D. Zizioulos "Being as Communion" (if Protestants are ever to understand the liturgical, sacramental, and eucharist understanding of the ancient church then Zizioulos is the one to read on this topic).
  

ROMAN CATHOLIC BOOKS

• from Solly
  
  
• Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul;
  
  
• JH Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua;
  
  
• Brother John of Taize, God of the Unexpected
  
  
• from Anonymous
  
  
• THE MASS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS by Mike Aquilina
  
  
• THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH by Mike Aquilina
  
  
• FOUR WITNESSES: The Early Church In Her Own Words (Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons)
  
  
• CROSSING THE TIBER: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church, by Stephen K. Ray
  
  
• from Matt
  
  
• Regula Sancti Benedicti [Rule of St. Benedict]
  
  
• Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God
  
  
• J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines
  
  
• from Dave Graham
  
  
• "Rise, Let us be on our way" by John Paul II
  
  
• "Prayer" (i think that's the title...it was published circe 1997 or so)
  
  Excellent reading and the depth this guy has is amazing.
  
  
• from Matt Oskvarek
  
  
• Called To Communion. It is written by Joseph 'Cardinal' Ratzinger, who is one of the present pope's authorities on doctrinal matters.
  
  
• from Chris Criminger
  
  
• Catherine Mowry Lacugna "God for Us" (she shows the depth and breadth of Catholic thoelogy while also being an example of the direction some Vatican 2 Catholics are going from a more moderate perspective. For example, the Catholic Church is very conservative on the women priests issue whereas Lacugna would like to see the church change on this issue).
  
  
• Avery Dulles "Models of the Church" (probably one of the best works on ecclesiology that takes the best from history and tradition and applies it to the modern church. One of the greatest challenges and needs of the modern church is to come to grips once again with ecclesiology).
  
  
• Henri de Lubac "Scripture in the Tradition" (Lubac is an old time French Catholic who sought renewal in the Catholic church by "ressourcing" Christian theology by a return to the early church fathers and the Scriptures).

pls pray for levi fusion

and his family as they are going through a very difficult and intense time.

Christian Churches Together in the USA

Christianity Today's Rob Moll interviews First Things' editor-in-chief Richard John Neuhaus about the US Catholic bishops decision to join Christian Churches Together in the USA.

link

Weblog 2004 Awards

Vote for your favorite - polling ends tomorrow.

Great Church Websites

rob williams points us to greatchurchwebsites.org where the webmaster writes:

The purpose of this site is to promote excellence in church website design by offering a "virtual gallery" of church home pages, along with other resources for church webmasters.

Zondervan Blog

Rob Williams lets us know that Zondervan now has a blog.

new leadership modes

I hit the road today for Philadelphia. I'm here with some great people: Alan Roxburgh, Brian McLaren, and George Hunsberger. We are in conversation with some of the faculty and the staff of Biblical Theological Seminary about the way they are seeking to transition their Masters of Divinity from a more traditional tract to a center for emerging leadership. This is the second time we've been here. The first was last July and the time was very productive and the conversation incredibly stimulating.

tim keel lets us know ab interesting goings on @ biblical.

Resources on Emotional Intelligence

Darren Rouse posts a good list of resources in EQ.

I have found all my reading in this space to be helpful. I see it as informing the emerging church's critique of an inordinately propositionalized evangelicalism. It also speaks to the necessity of character for making good decisions.

the emerging storm

Next-Wave ran a piece I wrote on emerging church/evangelicalism controversy.

The Emergent matrix: A new kind of church?

Christian Century has posted Scott Bayer-Sade's article about the emerging church.

In the School of Death

After watching my father struggle to breathe on his deathbed, I cannot believe that there are 21 irrefutable laws of anything any more.

...

Several years before his Alzheimer’s set in, my father told me his two regrets about the ministry: (1) that he had spent so much time at work, and so little time with us in the living room where he would die, and; (2) that he could not do it all over again.

Earl Creps shares what he's learned from the recent death of his dad.

Andrew Jones has been in this school as well lately and earl's post reminded me of some thoughts we posted some time ago.

u2 - how to dismantle an atomic bomb

rudy carrasco lets us know where we can listen to it in its entirety to find out what all the fuss is about.

on the label "emergent"

One could easily be "emergent" and not a participant in the life of God. Or a full participant in the hopes of God and not at all "emergent". Being emergent is not the goal. Life in harmony with God is.

Doug Pagitt has some interesting and helpful thoughts about "emergent" as a label and also speaks a bit about what was behind Emergent's original decision to use the term.