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Books and Authors

The McLaren Moment: What John Piper meant by “Farewell Rob Bell.”

Mar 17th, 2011
by Michael Krahn.
1 comment

My take on the Rob Bell controversy over at my other blog. Here’s an excerpt:

When the current Love Wins hype is over and the book completes its guaranteed run as a bestseller, Rob Bell will be able to release a book twice as controversial in the future and receive less than half the fanfare. HarperOne should enjoy the flood of free publicity from the power writers of the Evangelical blogosphere this time around. Next time out the bait will be a much tougher sell.

Read the rest here.

__________________

The “other blog” that features only my longer pieces of writing, some of which have been published in print and others that are waiting to be published. The post frequency is about once a week. So, if that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for…

Go and take a look at the new site here.
You can subscribe by email by clicking here.
You can subscribe by RSS by clicking here.
The Facebook group for the new blog is here.

Enjoy!

Seth Godin: The Power of Free

Mar 4th, 2011
by Michael Krahn.
1 comment

Seth Godin. For real.

Tim Challies – The Next Story

Feb 19th, 2011
by Michael Krahn.
1 comment

“Do you own technology or does technology own you?”

I’m really looking forward to reading the new book (The Next Story) by my friend Tim Challies. Below is a trailer produced by his publisher for the book. It is available for pre-order through Amazon.com and Westminster.

Look for an interview with Tim here at The Ascent to Truth in the next month or so.

(watch)

Producing the Peace of Heaven Arouses the Rage of Hell

Feb 4th, 2011
by Michael Krahn.
No comments yet

Jesus himself is our peace. He is the “Prince of Peace” but there is a paradox we need to deal with here found in Matthew 10:34-39 where Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace…”

Of this paradox Russell Moore says:

There are two very different kinds of peace pictured in Scripture, and in order to get to the one you’ve got to disturb the other. Jesus speaks of himself as one who brings peace (Jn. 14:27), just as the old prophecies and the announcing angels promised of him. But then he turns around and says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

In the gospel, that peace comes only through war. This isn’t violence, the way we think of it, flesh and blood against flesh and blood. It is the Spirit of Jesus marching as to war against the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

So the peace that he brings is:

  1. Peace with God
  2. Peace with other people are at peace with God
  3. Not always peace with others who are not at peace with God. As much as it is in our power to have peace with others there will be, but this will not always be the case.

It would be nice to have all three but we cannot always have it. When it comes to taking up our crosses and following Christ there will be many with whom we will not have peace, and Jesus tells us here that this will cut deeply, even into family bonds.

Charles Spurgeon said of this peace:

“Peace will be the ultimate issue of the Lord’s coming; but, at first, the Lord sends a sword among men. He wars against war, and contends against contention. In the act of producing the peace of heaven he arouses the rage of hell. Truth provokes opposition, purity excites enmity, and righteousness arouses all the forces of wrong”

Nonetheless it says here that Jesus, as the Prince of Peace, IS our peace (v14), makes peace (v15), and that he came to preach/proclaim this peace (v17). So first he achieved it and then he proclaimed it. Since it still his achievement, we should continue to proclaim it!

As John Stott says:

“Jesus Christ is still preaching peace in the world today, through the lips of his followers. For it is a truly wonderful fact that whenever we proclaim peace, it is Christ who proclaims it through us.”

Deeds and Creeds in The Kingdom of God

Nov 22nd, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
6 comments

Forget those other “discernment” websites, always looking for groundless and specious accusations against popular teachers.

Here, Kevin DeYoung carefully articulates and then deconstructs an argument made by Miroslav Volf based on a section of writing by Augustine. He begins with this “Never forget this: sometimes even very smart people make very bad arguments.” Indeed.

“Clearly,” Volf maintains, “Augustine believed, it is worse for concrete deeds toward neighbor to be misaligned with the character of God than for thoughts about God to be misaligned with the character of God” (147). Actually, though, the line from Augustine never prioritized deeds over thoughts. In the quote he simply states that right thoughts, devoid of the right deeds, are not pleasing to God.

Volf goes on to use this bad argument to make an even worse argument: “If Augustine is correct in his assessment, the consequence for Christians’ relation to non-Christians are astounding: non-believers or adherents of another religion, if they love, can be closer to God than Christians notwithstanding Christians’ formally correct beliefs about God or even explicit, outward faith in Jesus Christ! The elevation of deeds above beliefs is the consequence of the claim that God is love” (147). The path from Augustine’s homily on 1 John 4:7 to Volf’s logic is far from obvious. Augustine said faith without works is dead; Volf concludes that works without faith is a sign of spiritual life. The one does not imply the other.

What’s more, the real Augustine clearly disagrees with Volf’s version of Augustine. In Homily 10 the Bishop of Hippo argues that works apart from belief, though “they seemed good, were nothing worth.” When the non-Christian does good deeds it is like running, but not in the right direction. “[B]y running aside from the way thou wentest astray instead of coming to the goal…He that runs aside from the way, runs to no purpose, or rather runs but to toil.” And “What is the way by which we run?” Augustine asks. “Christ hath told us, ‘I am the Way.’” In other words, the only deeds that please God are the ones done through faith in Christ. Deeds apart from creeds are nothing and worse than nothing. For, “He goes the more astray, the more he runs aside from the way [Christ].”

It’s well worth your time to read the entire flow of DeYoung’s deconstruction here.

Also from the “very smart people who sometimes make very bad arguments” files,  I heard similar reasoning from Brian McLaren at a conference I attended a few years back at which he said, referring to a young Muslim who also spoke at the conference:

And I think that Fatmire [Muslim peace activist] working for peace, is an agent for peace, and I’d much rather her be working for peace being who she is than… becoming a person in a church worrying about the list over there on that wall.

You can read the full text (and hear the audio) of that post here.

Discuss?

Churches as “Heretical Structures” – Who Said It?

Nov 4th, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
16 comments

Below are some excerpts from an excellent book that was recently published (2007) and not widely read. Can you identify the author? (If you can, please just leave the name as a guess – PLEASE DO NOT TELL EVERYONE WHICH BOOK AND WHAT PAGES THE QUOTES ARE FROM)

If you can’t, can you guess what denomination or line of theological thinking the author subscribes to? Leave your guesses and observations in the comments section below.

I have a free copy of Kevin Abell’s book “The Edge of His Cloak” for the first 2 people who correctly identify the author of the following excerpts:

“The church must organize itself in such a way as to express its understanding of itself… The most common fault is for the church to be structured for ‘holiness’ rather than ‘worldliness,’ for worship and fellowship rather than mission… Further, our static, inflexible, self-centered structures are ‘heretical structures’ because they embody a heretical doctrine of the church…

Some zealous churches organize an overfull program of church-based activities… Such churches give the impression that their main goal is to keep their members out of mischief!

[This abundance of programs] inhibits church members from getting involved in the local community because they are preoccupied with the local church.”

How, then, should the local church organize itself?

“Every five to ten years each church should conduct a survey in order to evaluate itself and especially to discover how far its structures reflect its identity. In fact, it should conduct two surveys, one of the local community and the other of the local church, in order to learn how far the church is penetrating the community for Christ…

Is the church in reality organized only for itself, for its own survival and convenience, and for the preservation of its privileges? Is it organized to serve itself, or to serve God and the community? What are its cherished traditions and conventions which unnecessarily separate it from the community?”

On church members and leaders:

“Do we imprison our members in the church? Or do we deliberately release at least some of them (including leaders) from church commitments in order to encourage them to be active for Christ in the community, and then support them with our interest and prayers as they do so?

For example, a group of committed young people could adopt a local nightclub, not in order to make occasional evangelistic raids into it, but between them (in pairs) to visit it regularly over a long period, in order to make friends with the other young people who congregate there.”

Have at it…

I Don’t Have a Plan: The Joys of Small Talk

Nov 3rd, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
1 comment

The entirety of chapter 10 of Eugene Peterson’s “The Contemplative Pastor:Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction” is worth further exploration since it deals with small talk. What’s that you say… you didn’t think Peterson would be a fan of Seinfeld?

He may or may not be, but endless, mindless, pointless chatter is not what he’s talking about in this chapter.

I have to admit that sometimes as a pastor I feel the need to turn ordinary conversations into “spiritual” conversations. There is sometimes a guilt experienced in the aftermath of a coffee meeting or an evening spent with people from my church in which the conversation never made its way past the ordinary things of life. But this is more guilt than conviction; more a capitulation to a perceived requirement than a failure to act on what I know to be right.

“Pastoral work,” says Peterson, “is that aspect of Christian ministry that specializes in the ordinary. It is the nature of pastoral life to be attentive to, immersed in, and appreciative of the everyday texture of people’s lives – the buying and selling, the visiting and meeting, the going and coming.”

There are always crisis situations to attend to but most people, most of the time are not in crisis.

“Small talk: the way we talk when we aren’t talking about anything in particular, when we don’t have to think logically, or decide sensibly, or understand accurately. The reassuring conversational noises that make no demands, inflicts no stress. The sounds that take the pressure off.  The meandering talk that simply expresses what is going on at the time.”

This is about the only way I do person meetings. No agenda, no point list, no “desired outcome” – just start talking and see where it goes. But I’m not sure that this is working, insofar as I haven’t tried going prepared, with an agenda and a desired outcome. Something to try perhaps – being more “intentional” – but I don’t think I can bring myself to do it.

Being intentional, to me, means being available, being involved, trusting God providence to supply opportunity. Seeing what happens, watching where it goes, making my contribution (by the grace of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit) and then repeating the cycle. Time will be the judge of the effectiveness of this strategy.

Peterson’s childhood pastor was the opposite – the only thing he ever wanted to know was how your SOUL was doing. The pastor’s refusal (or inability) to engage in any other kind of conversation implied that most of Peterson’s life was being lived at a sub-spiritual level. “Vast tracts of my experience we ‘worldly’, with occasional moments qualifying as ‘spiritual’.”

Not only is this practiced by some, it is expected by many. Back to Peterson’s earlier quote about the Pastor as court jester.

“I never questioned the practice,” he continues, “until I became a pastor myself and found that such an approach left me uninvolved with most of what was happening in people’s lives and without a conversational context for the actual undramatic work of living by faith in the fog and drizzle.”

I don’t have a 5-year plan – I don’t have a 1-year plan… I question whether I can legitimately say I have a plan beyond next week. I rely on serendipity as much as intentional action. I am wary (and weary!) of manipulation – of me or by me.

Stay tuned…

Pastors and Prayer: “People would rather talk to the pastor than to God.”

Nov 2nd, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
2 comments

Eugene Peterson:

“Prayer is not work that pastors are often asked to do except in ceremonial ways. Most pastoral work actually erodes prayer. The reason is obvious: people are not comfortable with God in their lives. They prefer something less awesome and more informal. Something, in fact, like the pastor. Reassuring, accessible, easygoing. People would rather talk to the pastor than to God. And so it happens that without anyone actually intending it, prayer is pushed to the sidelines.

And so pastors, instead of practicing prayer, which brings people into the presence of God, enter into the practice of messiah: we will do the work of God for God, fix people up, tell them what to do, conspire in finding shortcuts by which the long journey to the Cross can be bypassed since we all have such crowded schedules right now. People love us when we do this. It is flattering to be put in the place of God. It feels wonderful to be treated in this Godlike way. And it is work that we are generally quite good at.”

– The Contemplative Pastor:Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction

The Pastor As Court Jester

Oct 19th, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
3 comments

Eugene Peterson:

[As a pastor] “the culture treats me so amiably. It encourages me to maintain my orthodox creed; it commends me for my evangelical practice; it praises me for my singular devotion. All it asks is that I accept its definition of my work as an encourager of the culture’s good will, as the priest who will sprinkle holy water on the culture’s good intentions.

But if I, even for a moment, accept my culture’s definition of me, I am rendered harmless. I can denounce evil and stupidity all I wish and will be tolerated in my denunciations as a court jester is tolerated. I can organize their splendid goodwill and they will let me do it, since it is only for weekends.”

– The Contemplative Pastor:Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction (p16)

To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World

Jun 18th, 2010
by Michael Krahn.
6 comments

I bought a big nerdy present for myself for my birthday yesterday: I ordered this book by James Davison Hunter: To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

Are you nerdy enough to read it together with me and discuss it chapter by chapter? If so, order it at Amazon or CBD.

I ordered it after reading this interview and the following endorsements by Charles Taylor and Tim Keller:

“How should Christians act in the world? The dominant answer in America today seems to be: through politics. But the major model of Christian political action, visible most obviously but not exclusively in the Christian Right, has been a politics fuelled by resentment and a sense of victimization, actuated by a strong will to power, and a propensity to demonize its opponents.

This politics is a capitulation to the worst elements of the contemporary culture it claims to be redeeming. Hunter offers an acute end penetrating analysis of this paradoxical and distressing phenomenon, and carefully charts an alternative course for contemporary Christians, a form of ‘faithful presence’ within culture and society. The book is brimful of insightful challenges to our conventional understanding of things, and of inspiring suggestions for a new departure.”

– Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age

“No writer or thinker has taught me as much as James Hunter has about this all-important and complex subject of how culture is changed.”

–Tim Keller, author of The Reason For God

Publisher’s description of the book:

The call to make the world a better place is inherent in the Christian belief and practice. But why have efforts to change the world by Christians so often failed or gone tragically awry? And how might Christians in the 21st century live in ways that have integrity with their traditions and are more truly transformative?

In To Change the World, James Davison Hunter offers persuasive–and provocative–answers to these questions. Hunter begins with a penetrating appraisal of the most popular models of world-changing among Christians today, highlighting the ways they are inherently flawed and therefore incapable of generating the change to which they aspire.

Because change implies power, all Christian eventually embrace strategies of political engagement. Hunter offers a trenchant critique of the political theologies of the Christian Right and Left and the Neo-Anabaptists, taking on many respected leaders, from Charles Colson to Jim Wallis and Stanley Hauerwas.

Hunter argues that all too often these political theologies worsen the very problems they are designed to solve. What is really needed is a different paradigm of Christian engagement with the world, one that Hunter calls “faithful presence” – an ideal of Christian practice that is not only individual but institutional; a model that plays out not only in all relationships but in our work and all spheres of social life. He offers real-life examples, large and small, of what can be accomplished through the practice of “faithful presence.”

Such practices will be more fruitful, Hunter argues, more exemplary, and more deeply transfiguring than any more overtly ambitious attempts can ever be. Written with keen insight, deep faith, and profound historical grasp, To Change the World will forever change the way Christians view and talk about their role in the modern world.

Interested in reading it together and discussing it online? Order it at Amazon or CBD.

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