Churches of reconciliation: the diverse church as good news for the world

Here’s the text version of the paper; the previous post offered a pdf version.
WA TEAR Conference 19 September 2009
As TEAR people, you already know that the good news is more than personal salvation after you die. You know that justice is an essential part of the kingdom of God. But have you ever heard the [...]

Writing novels for the kingdom

Last night I presented a paper to the Newbigin Group on “Writing novels for the kingdom.” Below is the introduction; if you like the sound of it, you can download the PDF file.
It might be much more appropriate to go off and write a novel (and not a ‘Christian’ novel where half the characters [...]

Political engagement: embodying the change AND speaking truth to power

Wonderful article by Jim Kumfer discussed last night at the Newbigin Group. (We didn’t get there, having locked ourselves out of the car and house as we were about to leave. D’oh.)
Kumfer uses Yoder’s Body Politics to suggest that we need to combine the approach of Shane Claibourne and Jim Wallis. Shane Claibourne and his [...]

Anabaptism for Baptists: a historical legacy and a theological challenge

This is a talk I gave to a Baptist denominational distinctives class yesterday.
Introduction
We could look at Anabaptism in two ways.
Firstly, as a historical movement in the sixteenth century – the radical reformers. That history is a helpful counterpoint for Baptists as Anabaptists are as important to the Baptist heritage as Luther or Calvin, and yet [...]

Politics of Jesus Simplified – update

I’ve finally posted the PDF version of my simplification of the Politics of Jesus. (Previously you were redirected to my old geocities site.)
You can find it here.

Yoder on church growth, the Great Commission and mission

I knew that Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder’s “Baptism and the new humanity” chapter of Body Politics had key things to say about my previous post concerning the shape of the church and anabaptist versus emerging church ecclesiology – but I forgot how many related issues this chapter speaks to. I went back and read [...]

Why the church must be attractional: an Anabaptist critique of the emerging missional church via Milbank

A few weeks ago, Hamo wrote an interesting post called ‘Why the missional incarnational church is screwed’. He quoted at length from the postliberal theologian John Milbank:
The church cannot be found amongst the merely like-minded, who associate in order to share a particular taste, hobby or perversion. It can only be found where many [...]

Body life #1 : Baptism is entry into a new people

This is the first in a series of six articles first published in Oikos. They are a simplification of John Yoder’s Body Politics Simplified – this time with a specifically house church audience in mind.
Our life together as a church is an important part of the good news we announce to people. This good [...]

Interpreting the Bible in Velvet Elvis: binding and loosing

From an Anabaptist perspective, what excites me most about Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis is the way in “Movement two: Yoke” it talks about using ‘binding and loosing’ to interpret the Bible together.
In Jesus’ world, it was assumed you had as much to learn from the discussion of the text as you did from the text itself. [...]

Ray Gingerich’s visit: violent God and pacifist Jesus?

 Over the weekend, me and Nicole went to three meetings where Mennonite scholar Ray Gingerich was speaking. His most interesting and challenging talk for me was the Sunday night one at Scripture Union House, Mt Hawthorn. It was a fundraiser for the Pine Gap 6, who are facing jail for doing a ‘Citizens’ Inspection’ of [...]