David Bercot: No, but..
Dean Taylor:Yes, but..
Showing posts with label anabaptist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anabaptist. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Kingdom violence: WWSD?
"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence,
and the violent take it by force." Matthew 11:12
...at least, that's how the NRSV styles it.
One of the several "gnotty" issues with this text is that translations take it in several different...even contradictory... ways.
Of course, "Whatsup with the violence here?" must be tackled. How do we deal with the violence in the text without doing violence to the text?
This was
One thing I do here, as I have done for some time now--even in much more formal "sermons"-- is letting the saints speak.. so Kevin, Ivana, Scott, St John,
I love open source/open sores church.
Friday, January 15, 2016
Johnny Cash, Sting, and rifles that go off in our hands.. even when we are not in favor of it
"I Hung My Head."
The lyrics mention a rifle that "went off in my [the narrator's] hands."
I immediately connected that to a vintage U2 lyric in
God Part II:
"I don't believe in the Uzzi; it just went off in my hands."
Knowing Bono is a huge Cash fan, I figured he was intentionally referencing the Cash song (After all, he references a Cockburn lyric in the same song (and the title of course references Lennon's "God").
But then checking the footnotes in the book, I found that even though "I Hung My Head" was included in a lineage of Cash songs, it was a Sting-written song that Cash covered. It is in the league of chilling covers from his late-era American Recordings (Drop eveything and watch "Hurt" for the definitive example) that Cash owned, and the listeners feel "how could Cash not have written that?!"
Here's the song-- by Sting, and as covered by Cash, and also by Springsteen.
I cite it as way of tipping you off if the song is also new to you;
also to get you into the "Violence and Peace" section of Clapp's book; which can be read (almost) in full on Google Books. The section on the song at hand is p. 102ff here.
Of course, some Christian fans will be freaked about yet another "controversial" Cash song or cover.
To those folks, I invite you to consider these clicks:
--Beth Maynard on "the naive thought that any artist who writes about sin must be in favor of it." -
--
"Here is the easiest way to explain the genius of Johnny Cash: Singing from the perspective of a convicted murderer in the song ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’ Cash is struck by pangs of regret when he sits in his cell and hears a distant train whistle. This is because people on that train are ‘probably drinkin’ coffee.’ And this is also why Cash seems completely credible as a felon: He doesn’t want freedom or friendship with Jesus or a new lawyer. He wants coffee. Within the mind of a killer, complex feelings are eerily simple. This is why killers can shoot men in Reno just to watch them die and the rest of us usually can’t.
("Chuck Klosterman, "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs", page 186) -
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Monday, February 09, 2015
Lamech or Lament? Tearing out Bin Laden's Adam's Apple..or singing the songs Jesus sang?
Branson Parker:
I wanted then, as I do now, revenge for what happened. Bring me the head of Osama bin Laden” wrote Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen two years ago. Cohen was in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and isn’t shy about acknowledging his desire for revenge. At the root of his foreign policy, he declares (with complete seriousness), is his desire to grab bin Laden “by the throat and tear out his Adam’s apple.”1
Cohen’s sentiment finds a counterpart in the early pages of Scripture. One of the first poems recorded in Genesis is Lamech’s boast. Lamech revels in a vengeful violence: “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times” (Gen. 4:23–24, NIV).
My first impulse is to deride and reject everything for which Lamech and Cohen stand. Lamech’s boast, after all, is specifically countered in Jesus’s command to forgive seventy-seven times (Matt. 18:22). Nevertheless, I’ve often found that my arguments don’t carry as much weight as I’d wish, both with Christians and non-Christians alike. The violence and suffering of 9/11 stands out so strongly in their minds that all my theological arguments—about their vain attempts at peace without eschatology, about Jesus as suffering servant, about the church as a new creation—seem to fall on deaf ears.
But perhaps I’m going about things wrong. What if my carefully crafted arguments against violence are less compelling than singing and giving voice to lament over the evil in the world? What if, as John Howard Yoder suggests, the ultimate source of violence goes deeper than any rationalization we give for violence?2 What if the antidote for Lamech is thus not argument but lament? Perhaps we are to sing the kinds of songs that Jesus himself sang as he suffered (Matt. 27:46 and Mark 15:34)....continued here
Pail Hiebert: An Anabaptist, Christus Victor perspective on spiritual warfare
There are a wealth of resources (lecture notes, articles, audio, video) from respected missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert on the Hiebert Global Center website. You'll have to email the curator of rhe site to get the passwords for many items (including the video seminar below).
This below is Hiebert on spiritual warfare; a course I enjoted with him many years ago at Overseas Ministry Center on the Yale campus.
Copyright2015, Hiebert Global Center. All rights reserved. www.hiebertglobalcenter.org
This below is Hiebert on spiritual warfare; a course I enjoted with him many years ago at Overseas Ministry Center on the Yale campus.
Copyright2015, Hiebert Global Center. All rights reserved. www.hiebertglobalcenter.org
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
"Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up?"
From his website:
David Bercot began his professional career in 1980 as an attorney, and he still practices law part time. However, for most of his life, his driving passion has been for Christ. In 1985, to satisfy his theological curiosity, he began reading all of the existing writings of the early Christians (A.D. 100-325). Although his aim at the time was merely for theological inquiry, what he learned about Christianity in the early centuries profoundly affected his entire life. When David shared what he had discovered with various Christian friends, they encouraged him to write a book about how Christianity looked when it was still young.As you can see, his seminal work is "Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up."
Bercot eventually followed up on their suggestion, and he wrote the book Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up, which was published in 1989. That book provides a provocative look at early Christianity in contrast to modern Christianity. Since the book challenges many of the cherished beliefs of evangelicals, Protestants, and Catholics alike, Bercot wasn’t sure what type of response the book would have. To his astonishment, the book sold out of its first printing in six months—and the Heretics book is still in demand over twenty years later.
When Bercot began receiving letters from his various readers, he learned about various Christian churches and groups that he had never even heard of before. What he has learned as he has interacted with different groups of Christians has had an enormous spiritual impact on his own life and that of his family. Today, David Bercot works full-time as an author and speaker. For a complete list of the books authored by David Bercot, please click here.
(much shorter version of his argument is in this Kindle book,
An excerpt below on one area of his teaching which hits home on this blog (role of the pastor)
and some video below.church-w
From "Real Heretics..":
Shepherds Who Graduated From the School of Hard Knocks
..Today's evangelical churches are typically governed by a pastor and a body of elders and/or a board of deacons. Normally,the pastor is a professionally-trained man with a seminary degree who wasn't raised in the congregation that has hired him. Frequently, he has no governing authority other than the power of persuasion. The body of elders or board of deacons are normally men with full-time secular jobs. They oversee church finances and programs, and they establish church policy. But typically, no one in the church goes to them for counseling, and they aren't usually the shepherds of the flock.
Although we use many of the same names for church leaders..our church government differs considerably from theirs in substance . Instead of a sole professional pastor, the entire body of elders (presbyters) were full-time pastors in the early churches. As Christianity grew, all Christians in a given city were not able to meet together in one place. But each separate fellowship of believers in that city had at least one elder or presbyter to shepherd them. And each city had one overseer or bishop who coordinated all of the individual congregations in that city..
The overseer (bishop) and elders (presbyters) weren't outsiders brought into the local church. Rather, they had generally lived in that community for years. Their strengths and weaknesses were well-known to the entire congregation. Furthermore, they didn't qualify to serve...by studying in school and stuffing their heads with knowledge....As Tertullian told the Romans, 'Our presbyters are proven men who obtain their position not by purchase, but by established character.'
..Once an elder or overseer was appointed, he normally stayed in that local church for the rest of his life, unless persecution forced him to moved. He didn't serve for three or four years and then move to a large congregation with better compensation...the entire body of elders were normally full-time shepherds and teachers. Unless the congregation was simply too small to support them, elders were expected to free themselves from any secular jobs. By doing so, they could devote their full attention to the flock..
..With so many full-time pastors, each member of the congregation undoubtedly received close, individual attention.
To serve as an elder or overseer in the early church, a man had to be willing to lay down everything for Christ. This began with material possessions. An elder didn't leave his secular occupation in exchange for middle-class salary from the congregation. It was considered heretical for a congregation to pay any salary to its overseers or elders. Instead the church financially maintained its leaders on the same basis it supported widows and orphans . pp 44-47 Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up."
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"It's Just War" - Should Christians Fight? Debate from FollowersOfTheWay on Vimeo.
On March 28, 2014, Anchor-Cross Publishing and Followers of the Way sponsored a debate on the subject of just war. We sought to bring leading thinkers together to discuss the issue in historic Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston. Speaking of behalf of just war were Dr. Peter Kreeft (professor of philosophy at Boston College) and Dr. J. Daryl Charles (Berry College). Speaking against just war and for biblical nonresistance were David Bercot and Dean Taylor.
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