Resident Theologian
About the Blog
How many American churches are screen-free?
A brief little wondering out-loud about church buildings and their sanctuaries in America.
My (two) latest: reviews of Morell and Huerter, in CT
Links to my two latest reviews in CT.
My latest: a plea for screen-free church, in CT
A link to my new piece on screen-free worship for Christianity Today.
More screens, more distractions; fewer screens, fewer distractions
A vision for the design of our shared spaces, especially public worship.
My latest: on lights and liturgy, in CT
A link to my latest article for Christianity Today, on lights, liturgy, and American practices of worship in contemporary evangelicalism.
The tech-church show
A reflection on two issues raised by the recent viral clip of a prominent pastor lecturing his listeners not to treat public worship as a “show.”
I’m in Mere O on streaming worship
Should churches continue live-streaming worship? In a new essay for Mere Orthodoxy, I make the case that the answer is no.
Church on Christmas Day
A response to the responses to Ruth Graham’s piece in the New York Times on American evangelicals staying home on Christmas Day. A sympathetic defense of the normies, in other words.
Sermon length
A friend mentioned that there was recently (is currently?) a vigorous conversation on Twitter about the ideal, or proper, or fitting, sermon length. Since I’m off Twitter I barely have access to people’s most recent two or three tweets; I definitely can’t go perusing anyone’s account for extended back-and-forth replies and RTs. But the mention piqued my interest.
CCM
My friend and colleague Richard Beck, author of the best theology blog around, has been on fire lately with some stimulating reflections on church, ministry, preaching, and what it means to be faithful in the contemporary American context. If you’re not reading his Friday series on Jordan Peterson, get on it forthwith. His post this past Monday was a sort of follow-up to his latest Friday piece on Peterson. Both posts, along with many preceding ones, are about interpreting the state of the culture and what that interpretation tells us about how to respond with the gospel—not in 1950, not on an exotic mission field, but here, now, today, in the United States in 2022.
Perennial epigraph
Plaster this as the epigraph or foreword to every work of theology, every essay, every review, every lecture, every class, every tract, every sermon, every degree in doctrine or ministry or biblical studies.
Needing Jesus
Start with a man. A young man, to be more specific. He lives in a small but well-furnished apartment in a gentrified neighborhood of Austin (or Chicago, or Brooklyn, or Portland). He’s 26. He’s single, he’s got friends, and he works a reasonably well-paying job with a tech start-up, a consulting firm, or perhaps a non-profit. He eats good food, reads good books, listens to good music. In general he’s a nice guy. He’s not a jerk. He recycles. He has reliably soft-progressive opinions. He voted for Bernie then for Biden. You’d enjoy his presence if you spent an evening with him.
Anti-sacramentalism
[W]hile sacraments have precarious or penultimate status in religion by and large, it is a distinguishing mark of Christianity that it is decidedly and finally sacramental. If God is one thing humans have to communicate with one another, to the saying of which the word’s embodiment is essential, God is the one thing Christians cannot cease to communicate.
Mary’s gaze
Don’t look up, Christ’s concave golden gaze
unbearable, wholly
beyond, beyond
holy: taste
the gold scent and kiss
Digital ash
I'm on the record regarding "streaming" the sacraments, or otherwise digitally mediating the celebration of the Eucharist. With Lent approaching, the question occurred to me: Might churches "stream" Ash Wednesday? That is to say, would they endorse or facilitate the self-imposition of ashes?