One of the great teachers of my life, the once Jesuit priest Ivan Illich (d. 2002), once said, "I have no interest in 'saving the planet,' but I have every interest in walking decently on the earth." This was not, as it might sound, a statement against the environment. The author of Energy and Equity could hardly be said to lack environmental concern. The statement was, instead, a call for perspective, proportion, and attention to the real in a life. There's no such thing as everything. One can't take it all in. One can live where one is, aware of the world around but not overly caught up in distorted dramas that may or may not represent much of what is. And so it's perspective I want to write about this week. It comes to mind because of the events of the past days that have gotten so much press beginning with the brutal killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three with him on September 11. Demonstrations of varying sizes...

In my "Echoes" entry of April 4, I outlined some ideas behind what's being called the "Missional Movement" in Protestant churches these days. Following the idea that if it's important, you oughta say it (at least) more than once, I want to talk about this some more here. But this time I want to take a little different turn, like looking at another facet of a jewel. I want to think about how we might rethink a few things about "church" in light of all of this. Theologian Brian McLaren is one of a handful of folks often quoted when the idea of "missional church" comes up. He was the morning speaker for General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) on Monday morning, July 2, in Pittsburgh. In his talk he described four thoughts about the church that are driving the missional movement. He was summarizing, so the ideas weren't all that new. But he crystalized

Theologians like to make up words — or use old words differently. Some folks call these "neologisms" (how's that for a word?). Every once in a while one of those words catches on, goes viral, and makes a difference. The word "missional" is one of those. It's spreading through the church, with impact. Books written (Missional Church; Cultivating Missional Communities; A New Missional Era; The Missional Church in Perspective), conferences had, websites put up, and blog articles written. Over the course of about 20 years the word has become a part of church culture, at least among "mainline" (or "oldline") Protestants. Alongside this word "missional," another term has also arisen, and that's "emergent." Coming from different sides of Protestant life — "missional" coming out of the mainline and "emergent" coming out of Evangelical churches — the two terms try to describe a singular phenomenon facing...

Here are three excerpts from an article about "new media" that I was recently asked to write for Reflections: A Magazine of Theological and Ethical Inquiry. The question was how we can think about our faith in our "wired" culture. You may find the rest on the Reflections website. From "Connecting With a Theology of Technology": ... A conversation at the ideas festival about education turned to how educators might keep the attention of students in the face of so many distractions in their hyper-mediated world. We spoke of the new normal in the upper middle class: an iPhone in one’s pocket, an iPad in one’s purse, and a laptop in one’s bag, all 
syncing every 15 minutes with Facebook, Twitter, and whatever one calls...

You are going to Nashville next week! What you haven’t heard? Well, it's true. On Sunday morning, 12 of our PPC church members are headed out early to Nashville, Tenn., to assist with flood relief. They were commissioned this past Sunday morning at the 8 a.m. worship service. When we commission mission or work trips, we are charging them with acting on behalf of the whole congregation. Their ministry and assistance in Nashville will be an extension of who we are as a congregation. In addition during that commissioning service, the congregation (represented by those present at the service) promised to go with them in spirit, to keep them in our prayers as they prepare and as they work in a new context, to support them financially and emotionally for their work, and to rejoice with them upon their return. Trips such as the one next week are called...

(A much expanded version of this was published as "Christian Anarchy and Reconciliation: A View from the Pulpit" in Reflections, Fall 2007. Thought I'd share some of it here.) “We believe that everyone — political figure or commentator, citizen or alien, man or woman, black or white, conservative or radical — who at this particular time says that this people and this nation are in deep, perhaps irremediable political trouble, speaks the truth.” — Will D. Campbell and James Y. Holloway. Some words come back with haunting relevance. Back in the 1960s, these two southern churchmen, Will Campbell and James Y. Holloway, co-edited the journal of the Committee of Southern Churchmen, called Katallagete: Be Reconciled. A collection of their essays from that journal was published in 1970 under the title, Up To Our Steeples in Politics (Paulist Press). The words above led the essay from which the title of the book was drawn. Wipf and Stock Publishers re-released this book. It’s eerily timely, but not for reasons a quick reading of this lead might have you believe. For these writers go on to unsettle an...

In my 2005 book, Where the Light Shines Through (Brazos Press), I begin the chapter, "9/12 Living in a 9/11 World," with this memory: In late September of 2001, not long after Sept. 11, the Washington Post ran an article by Hanna Rosen called, “God, You Around?” It was about the noticeable resurgence of both outward religious practice and private prayer in the wake of that September’s events. “It’s not just that the faithful are flocking to houses of worship,” she wrote, “it’s that people who have never been and still won’t go, who passed all those candlelight vigils . . . and kept on walking, are finding themselves, despite themselves, praying.” She quotes the head of a network of counselors working mostly with New York business folk: “‘Every other person we spoke to would get to a point where...

Pinnacle Theological Center hosted a Symposium on Immigration on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 21 and 22, 2011. Here are my opening and summary comments from the event. They seek to put the question of immigration, so pressing in Arizona, in spiritual and philosophical context. Opening comments, Jan. 21, 2011 The great issues facing our communities, our nation, and our world are multi-dimensional. They admit of political, economic, ideological, rhetorical, and theological dimensions. And each dimension effects the others in varying ways at varying times. There is no escaping that. Robust and positive responses to the issues of the day, therefore, must be equally multi-dimensional. Responses that deal with only one dimension of an issue will fail in their persuasiveness and fall short of their potential impact. As Reformed Christians, Presbyterians do not always agree on...