Internet Monk Radio Podcast #124

podcast_logo.gifUPDATE: A generous friend has stepped in to resolve the computer issue. Such wonderful people in the IM audience. Thank you!

This week: Evangelical Christians and Obama Christians.

Our sponsors are: Rhodes: The band with our great intro music.

New Reformation Press. Order your copy of the Treasury of Daily Prayer from NRP. And do it soon.

Zaccheus Press– Fine Catholic Books, including Priestblock 25487.

The Wonder of Creation.

Want to be an IM advertiser? Want over 400,000+ unique visitors with close to 5.5 million page views last year to see your ad on the sidebar? IM has the most diverse readership in the blogosphere. Contact me if you are interested. Outstanding rates available on request.

Is This the “Better World” You Were Talking About?

tvComments are moderated.

I grew up as television was growing up. I was born in 1956 and lived through the “Golden Age” of network television.

Television was part of my childhood and teenage years, but I had no reference point before television. Captain Kangaroo had always been there on the black and white television in the corner of our modest house.

My parents also lived through the “Golden Age” of television, but they had many years of life without television. They had grown up in rural America in the first quarter of the 20th century. Nether had education beyond high school. They grew up around the birth of radio, but television was something new to them.

I remember the many experiences we shared together around the television. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Kennedy and King assassinations. The Space program. Sporting events. Vietnam.Continue reading “Is This the “Better World” You Were Talking About?”

An IM Must Read: The New Evangelical Scandal by Matthew Anderson

Readers of Internet Monk.com are aware that my perspective on the future of evangelicalism is often controversial. The keepers of the flames of blogosphere orthodoxy often ridicule my choice of “post-evangelical” as an identifier, and my prediction that younger evangelicals are heading for the exits is often criticized as too dire and without basis.

Matthew Lee Anderson writes in the Winter 2008 edition of “The City,” a publication of Houston Baptist University, on “The New Evangelical Scandal.” It’s a comprehensive look at the future of evangelicalism through what we know about the emerging generation of younger evangelicals. It’s very long, but the second half in particular will be of interest to IM readers.

Anderson sees what I see. He’s more optimistic than I am, but this is an article that all evangelicals with concerns for the future will want to read. The times they are a-changin’. More importantly, evangelicals themselves are rapidly, significantly changing. While the movement will remain, what will it look like, and who won’t be around to see or care?

After reading, your pertinent comments are welcome:

Am I the Unbeliever?

A good and dear friend recently updated me on developments in her recent spiritual journey.

Let’s stop here. If you’re reading this, here’s a question for you: What do you expect to hear now?

Thought about it? Good. Let’s go on.

Most of what she told me about would go in the category of signs and wonders.

A prayer was answered with the sudden appearance of a rainbow, and so on. Mystical, personal stuff in the realm of answered prayers and personal experience. Her entire spiritual life is not studying scripture, but about what she describes as a “deep, personal experience of God” that includes His very real activity to show His hand in signs and wonders.Continue reading “Am I the Unbeliever?”

Christians: What are you saying about the President?

When Mr. Obama was elected, I told some of my friends, “This is going to be difficult for some people.”

And, unfortunately, not only was I right, I was right on the money as to who would have the most difficult time seeing a black Democrat take the office of President.

For the past two months, almost daily, I have listened to too many- not all thankfully, but many- of the evangelical Christians around me say untrue and hateful things about President-elect Barak Obama. As Inauguration Day grows closer, the rhetoric is getting worse.

“I will not support a man who hates our flag and hates our Bible.” This from an educated adult.

“He’s not even a Christian. He’s a Muslim.” I have heard this over and over and continue to hear it.Continue reading “Christians: What are you saying about the President?”

Recommendation and Review: Lord, Save Us From Your Followers

As documentaries go, I’m sure that Dan Merchant’s Lord, Save Us From Your Followers (LSU) could be critiqued in more than a couple of areas, but as tool to break up the logjam that is bad evangelical thinking on the culture war, it’s incredible.

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers is more than must-see evangelical entertainment; it’s an opportunity to truly open up a conversation and a reconsideration of the way we’ve presented the Gospel in our culture. This is documentary dynamite. Handle with caution when around dedicated culture warriors.

Let me go ahead and say that LSU will, within the first 30 minutes, offend all those culture warriors and theological purists who believe, along with Ann Coulter, that the best thing Jesus ever did was get mad and turn over some tables. When Merchant spends 20 minutes apologizing to gays for the behavior of Christians and his own less-than-Christlike attitudes, some evangelicals are going to turn several shades of red and possibly need medication.Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: Lord, Save Us From Your Followers”

The Liturgical Gangstas 4: What About Children’s and Youth Ministries?

Welcome to IM’s popular new feature, “The Liturgical Gangstas,” a panel discussion among different liturgical traditions represented in the Internet Monk audience.

Who are the Gangstas?

Father Ernesto Obregon is an Eastern Orthodox priest.
Rev. Peter Vance Matthews is an Anglican priest and founding pastor of an AMIA congregation.
Dr. Wyman Richardson is a pastor of a First Baptist Church (SBC) and director of Walking Together Ministries, a resource on church discipline.
Alan Creech is a Roman Catholic with background in the Emerging church and spiritual direction. (Alan’s not a priest. If he is, his wife and kids need to know.)
Rev. Matthew Johnson is a United Methodist pastor.
Rev. William Cwirla is a Lutheran pastor (LCMS) and one of the hosts of The God Whisperers, which is a podcast nearly as good as Internet Monk Radio.

Here’s this week’s question: In my own Baptist tradition, one of the most significant developments of the post-war era was the investment in “age group” programming, especially for children and youth. Successful Baptist churches are almost always churches with successful children’s and youth programs, usually with significant amounts of staff, facilities and resources dedicated to the experience of children and youth when they are “at church.”

But today there is a re-examination of this approach. A vocal minority of SBC churches are now questioning this methodology. Not in terms of its ability to grow churches- there’s no doubt that consumer minded families want full service churches- but in terms of producing disciples. Many believe this methodology has undermined the role of parents in the spiritual nurture of their children and produced young adults who are almost guaranteed to be uninterested in an adult commitment to the church. “Family centered” ministry is a label heard more and more often as a signal that age group programming is discouraged or limited.

What do the liturgical gangstas have to say about this debate? How much age specific programming do you believe is needed? Are children and young people in your worship services, or do they have their own options? What is the right balance between Christian education provided by the church and spiritual nurture provided by the family?Continue reading “The Liturgical Gangstas 4: What About Children’s and Youth Ministries?”

A Shocking Confession

I’m sorry to have to share this kind of personal information at my blog, but I just can’t help myself.

Something terrible has happened.

Denise, I’m sorry you have to read this, but I have to tell the truth. I can’t keep it in.

Everything that’s happened is the fault of a woman; an evil, possessive woman toying with my very soul.

Yes, I’m married, but I’m only human. For years now, I’ve had a relationship, a strange, obsessive relationship, with a woman who could do for me what no other woman could do.

I’ve seen her several times a week, sometimes near where I live, sometimes when I travel. Our meetings have been brief, but regular. My devotion has been intense. This relationship is a passion, even if a guilty one. I thought it was under control, but now I’ve seen that there was so much more to it than I ever was willing to admit.

Now…now she’s done something that has changed everything. I never thought it would come to this. I never thought she would hurt me so much and make me have to go in front of the whole world and confess my love for her.

But that’s what it’s all come to. So….I’m telling all, and I don’t care what happens. If this is the end of the life and reputation I’ve earned, then so be it. I have to choose, and this woman is worth it.Continue reading “A Shocking Confession”

Who Needs Galatians 3?

Galatians 3:15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.Continue reading “Who Needs Galatians 3?”

Riffs: 01:10:09: “They Are Sinning Through Questioning” + The Pope Needs A Business Meeting

It seems so familiar…..a young pastor winds up with an incredibly successful megachurch. We hear all the good stories. Then the media picks up the scent of some of the stories most of us didn’t hear. True? False? Don’t make too quick a judgement because these things can surprise you, but unfortunately, there is a familiar pattern.

Success = doing stupid things and saying stupid things to those who disagree with you.

Yes, there is a tendency to think that the successful church is God’s cause, so anyone who becomes a critic, becomes an enemy. A sinner. One to be shunned.

Enter the New York Times profile of Mark Driscoll and his Mars Hill Church success story.

It’s a big article, and it will take some time to read it. You’ll learn a lot. I’ve read and listened to a lot of Driscoll the past few years. I’ve defended him from the watchblogging idiots and I’ve criticized him for his gender obsession. It all sounds like Pastor Mark to me.

And then we get to this:

In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached.

Like I said, you can’t be sure, but there is an all too familiar ring about this.

I’d like to get up on my box abut this, but it turns out that I already have. Many moons ago in the early days of Internet Monk, I was frequently critical of Rick Warren. I’ve taken a more sympathetic and positive route lately, but in the old days, Rick said some bone-headed things…..like “Never criticize what God is blessing.” That line could be translated as “If the pastor says it’s God’s will we do this, we aren’t going to listen to the critics.”

That inspired me to pen an IM essay many of you have never read, but which I feel was me at my snarky best: The Pope Needs a Business Meeting.

Go with me to the way our Baptist churches used to keep guys like Driscoll and Warren from saying things like “questioning is sinning.” The Business Meeting is a thing of beauty when applied directly to the blockhead.

READ: The Pope Needs A Business Meeting.

Then I’d like your thoughts and business meeting stories.