The UmBlog

Two years ago, I wrote a post , which generated more hits than I normally see on my little ol' blog, criticizing Dr. Tony Jones's decision to have a sacramental but not civil marriage in order to demonstrate his allegiance to the gay community in Minnesota. His Twitter statement read, "But we are not getting legally married until you can. We are getting sacramentally married." In hindsight, as my views have evolved on gay marriage as a civil right, I really appreciate his sentiment. I still do not think it was the right call as a church leader or seminary professor. Even a national columnist thought it was a poor choice. But today, Minnesota legalized gay marriage, and Dr. Jones has announced his plans to civilly marry his sacramental wife this summer. I'm happy for them.

Controversial Christian writer and retired pastor Brian McLaren recently led a commitment ceremony for his gay son and his partner. Here are the facts. Brian is a dad, and a pastor. He loves his son and he loves Jesus. Some of his critics, and I've been one on other topics, are holding this up as an example of McLaren's apostasy, that he doesn't love Jesus and advocates for a false Christianity. Years ago, McLaren wished aloud for a long pause on the American church's dialog on homosexuality. I've been part of that conversation for that while and have certainly shifted in my approaches to the issue. How is a dad to love his son who is gay and entering into a commitment with his partner in a state that did not legally recognize gay marriage? Protest it? Picket it? Shun the two men? Condemn them? Gather up a group of preachers, kidnap his son, and collect some rocks to throw at him? Is that what the love of Christ looks like? I don't think so. See John 8. I...

Addendum May 2013: Dr. Jones announces his attention to civilly marriage . Back on January 4, 2010 Tony Jones PhD, recent author of The Church is Flat and resident theologian of Solomon's Porch --an ecclesiastical community in Minneapolis--posted a call for clergy to get out of the Legal marriage business . He thought it incongruous for the church to act as agents for the state. He writes, And most problematic, from my perspective, is that the clergyperson, with the stroke of a pen, makes legal a contract that s/he has no ability or potential to end. And, having gone through a divorce, I can tell you that extricating oneself from the legal contract that is marriage in our society is no mean feat. And the clergyman who married us was, understandably, not around to help unravel what he had helped establish. It kind of sounds legit. His further intention was to lower the barrier for gays to marry; somehow. I'm not sure how. I have gay friends in Connecticut who were sacra...

I've seen probably a half-dozen of these now. The ones during the presidential primaries were a riot. Andrew Jones linked to this one today. It's funnier if you watch a few of these and if you know the names and current history. I love when Hitler calls Tony and Andrew "brothers."

i've been a believer in Jesus since i was 5 years old. some things i thought were scripture quotes aren't. the principle is there, but not the proof text. i thought the Bible had a verse telling us in 7 words to be "in the world but not of it." but the reality is the principle is explained in a chapter, John 17 and a couple other places. Here's a link to see all those passages that bear this concept . here's a nugget from John 17 6 I have revealed Your name to the men You gave Me from the world . They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. 7 Now they know that all things You have given to Me are from You, 8 because the words that You gave to Me, I have given to them. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from You. They have believed that You sent Me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those You have given Me, because they are Yours. 10 All My things are Yours, and Yours are ...

Eric Pement concluded Christians are not immune from stumbling themselves or others by loose habits of speaking. It may occur with vulgar words or in other ways. I know of a much-loved minister who cannot resist making sexual or scatalogical innuendos in private conversation, even though “technically” he has never said anything obscene. At some point, he needs to be reminded that “coarse joking” is out of place in the life of the believer (Eph. 5:4, NIV). Not knowing what he’s doing, he loses more esteem by his off-color remarks than he gains from having a new joke to tell. Our point was summarized long ago in James 1:26: “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.” Swearing does not show “realness” or gutsy emotion. Rather, it betrays a flaw in our ability to communicate sensitively and tastefully, not unlike the woman who dumps four spoonsful of sugar in her coffee and imagines she really lik...

Mike Adams writes Before I left the United Methodist Church to join Scotts Hill Baptist Church, I made a few remarks critical of the United Methodists. Since I officially walked out of the “open doors” of the UMC, I’ve been asked repeatedly about what motivated me to make that decision. Based on my conversations with a number of other unsatisfied Methodists I started to have an increasing number of unanswered questions about the direction in which the church is going. Many of these questions deal with sin in general and sexual sin in particular. Instead of answering the question of “why I left”, perhaps some Methodists who did not can answer some of my questions concerning “why they are left.” 1. A young pastor was conducting a UMC 101 course required of all prospective members of a small Methodist Church. When asked whether there was such a thing as hell, she answered “I’m not sure and I don’t know that it’s important.” Given that Jesus talked about hell more than anyone else in the...

interesting report  here  and here on a sermon by Rob Bell on how are people saved. all i can say is, picking 40 verses on the topic is not enough. but hey, what's Paul got to offer?

"I’m often asked what I think of the emergent church movement and in answering I’ve reminded people that I’ve had very little firsthand touch with it. Thus my conclusions have come from reading some of its authors and what others have said so that my conclusions can’t be construed as definitive. But I have said that I think the movement is asking better questions than many traditional congregations and in many cases has a better message that focuses on relationships with each other and a more relevant engagement with the world. On the downside, however, they seem to be compressing that into the same institutional structures that will eventually subvert their message. They are still caught up in building, leadership and services. Also, I’ve not found that the ever-present Christ is an important part of the conversation. It is more a movement driven by principles and ideology that find identity in the movement and its leaders, rather than finding a deeper intimacy with the Father,...

i remember visiting the massive Orthodox Church in Helsinki Finland and being amazed at the lack of seats, then shocked to find out that people would stand for hours at a time. In this post, Dan Kimball notices that standing wasn't the only option but also kneeling or falling prostrate. The idea wasn't vertical pews. Now i'm intrigued. what if chairs were only an option. what if bean bags were included as an option. what if kids were allowed to burn a little energy in service?

Andrew, back from a month long blogfast, has begun recounting his view of the church emerging from the 80's. Some interesting thoughts on church in alternative venues and church within church.

interesting article at the Ooze, an emerging church type site...this author does outreach to gangs and ex-cons... I’m excited about this Emerging church discussion because I’ve been waiting for the church to be missional enough to reap the harvest on my own mission field. Based on my experience, I can say without a doubt that the Emerging church’s focus on being more missional, more hospitable and more focused on “the least of these” will open up a world of ministry possibilities that the Emerging church has not yet dared to dream of. While it’s great to hear those in church-based ministries say they want to get more missional, it may be worth noting that some of us para-church types have been doing the missional part without the church for some time. Missionaries will prove to be your biggest potential source of wisdom for the emerging church. No missionary would have, for example, come up with the idea to use a worship service as a primary means of evangelism (as opposed to actual ou...

The Problem With Kevin: Da Vinci and McLaren : "In a recent interview with Sojourners (a pseudo-Christian far-left magazine with growing appeal), Brian McLaren describes the appeal of The Da Vinci Code (bestselling literary dreck appealing to the lowest common denominator). Find it here. In an answer to a question as to why this book has achieved such popularity, McLaren has this to say: 'I think a lot of people have read the book, not just as a popular page-turner but also as an experience in shared frustration with status-quo, male-dominated, power-oriented, cover-up-prone organized Christian religion. We need to ask ourselves why the vision of Jesus hinted at in Dan Brown's book is more interesting, attractive, and intriguing to these people than the standard vision of Jesus they hear about in church.' This is nonsense. The reason this vision of Christ is so intriguing is that it allows people to believe that Christ was just some nice dude. Of course, the notion tha...

There are so many things wrong in this interview. It's not even heavy lifting. Here's an easy snippet. "McLaren: See, this also comes from, I think, a very unhelpful way of reading the Bible where, we’re going to parse every sentence and say, oh, that means God’s doing it. I don’t think that Jesus or any of the other biblical writers—and you’ve got to remember that Jesus was a speaker. He wasn’t a writer. But you know, the speakers and writers of the Bible, I don’t think that they’re working in this technical theological way that we very often push them into. I think they are speaking the way we would speak. The way we are having conversation right now. Some day if you go and parse one of your sentences or parse one of my sentences and you know, 500 years from now be making really bizarre conclusions about it. You know, you said a couple minutes ago something about being a pain in the ass. Well, 500 years from now people don’t know that that is an idiom that is used today....