Next Thursday is a synchblog of ordained, commissioned, and local pastors and ministry professionals who are responding to the question “Who called you on the journey of ministry?” While it is obviously God who calls people, there are others who helped along the way and that’s who our group will be writing about on April […]
Archives for March 2013
The Goal of Slacktivism is Community not Change
If you logged into your Facebook or Twitter in the past 24 hours, you might have noticed a lot of red. In response to DOMA and Proposition 8 being argued in front of the Supreme Court, folks online are turning their profile pictures and cover photos red in support of both those laws being overturned. […]
Progress in a Middle Direction
If you like the Hacking Christianity Facebook page, then you get easy access to relevant images and links along with the blog posts–Like this one above! It’s a quote from E. Stanley Jones, a United Methodist missionary theologian. Here’s the full quote: “The conservative is a necessary element in human society. Without him we […]
Follow Your Passion on Nights and Weekends
The Onion is a satirical website that posts some really offensive stuff, but they often post some spot-on critiques of the human condition. Case in point is the March 20th post “Find the Thing You Are Most Passionate About” (NSFW language) which talks ironically about following your passion, but outside of the demeaning work-week. I […]
Green Street 02: When Biblical Obedience Finally Mattered to Straight People
The Law of Unintended Consequences takes place whenever outcomes present themselves that were not expected by one’s action. In a Connectional Church like the United Methodist Church, such reverberations are felt sometimes long after decisions are made as new groups of people make use of polity and ecclesial changes. Green Street United Methodist Church in North Carolina has exposed one […]
Green Street 01: When Pastoral Authority finally mattered to Straight People
The Law of Unintended Consequences takes place whenever outcomes present themselves that were not expected by one’s action. In a Connectional Church like the United Methodist Church, such reverberations are felt sometimes long after decisions are made as new groups of people make use of polity and ecclesial changes. Green Street United Methodist Church in […]
John Wesley thought the Nicene Creed was Weaksauce
I watched a fascinating exchange on Twitter last week. One person posted: The UMC must listen to Tom Noble: “When they abandon Nicaea & the Reformers, they cease to be ‘mainline’ & become sidelines.” The quote is from Tom Noble’s 2010 address to the Wesley Theological Society. But the twitter response was very interesting: [The UMC] […]
Did your Pastor break the Covenant on Sunday?
If you are a United Methodist, the word “covenant” was really important in 2012. It was the Secret Word of the Day (Ahhhh!) at Amy DeLong’s trial, it’s been the word to describe the actions of 1,000 Methodist clergy who have taken a marriage pledge, and it’s Hacking Christianity’s assertion that the FaithfulUMC movement gives apologetics for breaking the financial covenant of […]
Primer on Atonement Theories
For my Sunday School class, I have created the below graphic to help them understand what atonement means and the varieties of understandings of what it took for humanity to be reconciled to God. Here’s the lesson: The word atonement comes from sixteenth-century English and literally means at-one-ment. Atonement is the process of reconciliation between […]
The West Will Resource the Rest #UMC
In my recent United Methodist posts, there’s been a recurring theme by some commenters. The Western churches suck. They don’t have the membership, so they suck. They don’t have the finances or the connectional giving like the other jurisdictions, so they suck. They are mostly progressive (at least at the annual conference level), so they […]
