Culture Making

Posted on July 23, 2008

Andy Crouch’s book, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, is now available. Andy is an editor for Christianity Today and is a creative, insightful author. I had the privilege of reading an early form of this book, which was very good. Though his thesis is not without critique, his message is one that Evangelicals do well to heed–Create, not just critique, culture. Here is a 40 page excerpt, enjoy!

Tim Keller says: “Culture Making is one of the few books taking the discussion about Christianity and culture to a new level. It is a rare mix of the theoretical and the practical, its definitions are nuanced but not abstract, and it strikes all kinds of fine balances. I highly recommend it.“

Learning from the Demon Possessed

Posted on July 23, 2008

Jesus was radical, a spiritual Van Helsing, if you will. But instead of vanquishing only evil and preserving good, Jesus vanquished evil and restored the broken. When arriving on the shores of the Gerasenes, Jesus was immediately welcomed by a zombie-like, demon-possessed, Houdini kind of being who lived among the graves. His name was Legion because he was filled with many demons (perhaps 2000). The kind of creature that anyone in their right mind would want to lock up. But he couldn’t be contained. Having the strength of two thousand men, Legion shattered shackles and snapped chains. He was an otherworldly creature who cried aloud in torment from the graves, day and night, cutting himself with stones in an attempt to release demon from human.

See the whole thing here.

Stetzer on Movements

Posted on July 22, 2008

Ed Stetzer lists at least 10 Elements to Christian Movements:

  1. Prayer Prayer must be a conviction that establishes its priority. Before we see movemental Christianity, we will have to be praying, asking God to change us.
  2. Intentionality: We will also need to show the intention of being movemental (see the next 8 elements). As of now, I believe our focus is primarily defensive and incremental, not intentional and exponential.
  3. Sacrifice: Change will not come without giving something up.
  4. Reproducibility: Movements do not occur through large things (big budgets, big plans, big teams). They occur through small units that are readily reproducible.
  5. Theological Integrity: Churches wanting to be involved in transformative, movemental Christianity hold firm and passionate positions on biblical views.
  6. Incarnation: Movemental Christianity recognizes that the gospel is unchanging, but the expressions and results of the gospel will vary from culture to culture.
  7. Empowerment: Movements only occur when the disempowered are given the freedom, and then take up the responsibility, to lead.
  8. Charitability: A movement of God cannot be contained in a single movement or theological tradition. Therefore, movemental Christianity requires charity to maintain our firmly held convictions while rejoicing for and speaking well about those with whom we differ but are being greatly blessed by God.
  9. Scalability: When God begins to move, and believers allow movement Christianity to begin to grow, structures must be able to rapidly re-size to not stifle such movements.
  10. Wholism: Movemental Christianity will practice wholistic ministry much in the way of Jesus.

Read the whole post here.

New Associate Professor of Theology @ Gordon Conwell

Posted on July 22, 2008

Dr. Adonis Vidu Becomes Associate Professor of Theology at the Hamilton Campus
Dr. Adonis Vidu (Ph.D., University of Nottingham) will move from Romania this August to join the faculty of Gordon-Conwell (Hamilton campus) as Associate Professor of Theology. Dr. Vidu has written two books: Postliberal Theological Method (Paternoster, 2005; Wipf & Stock, 2007) and Theology After Neo-Pragmatism (Paternoster, 2008), and is currently working on a research project examining metaphors for the atonement. His current research interests include emerging theology, the doctrine of the atonement, ecclesiology, and public theology. He and his wife, Adriana, have a four-year-old daughter, Hannah.