Part 1: Confronting the Bewildering Extremes.
The role of women in church leadership causes division among my Christian friends, untold heartache among my girl friends with ministry gifts, and all too often a huge black-eye in my generation’s view of the church. In truth, it would be easier to simply duck the question, but this really isn’t a halfway proposition. I have to decide if want to join a church that fully embraces women in ministry, or one that doesn’t. To join a church that says one thing, but practices another isn’t an option for me.
Parker Palmer on How to Let Your Life Speak, by Maria Popova
What it takes to learn to listen to the timid wild animal that is the soul.
“Trying to live someone else’s life, or to live by an abstract norm, will invariably fail — and may even do great damage.” -Parker Palmer
Can a church be too big to fail? by William Vanderbloemen
“True leadership is measured by what happens after you die.” -Myles Munroe
Becoming Matthew McConaughey: INTERSTELLAR Reflections on Fatherhood, by Aaron Niequist
While he was off trying to save the world, Cooper’s kids had to grow up without a father. It didn’t matter that he loved them…because he wasn’t there to show them. Will we make the same choice for a less noble reason?
Jonathan Edwards in a New Light, by Pulitzer Prize Winner Marilynne Robinson
A Pulitzer prize-winning novelist writing of her intellectual debt to Jonathan Edwards in a major intellectual journal it is definitely worth a read:
“I have heard it said a thousand times that people seek out religion in order to escape complexity and uncertainty. I was moved and instructed precisely by the vast theater Edwards’s vision proposes for complexity and uncertainty…”-Marilynne Robinson
Partnership not Persecution: A Modest Proposal for the Future of China and her Christian Intellectuals
The current spiritual awakening on Chinese campuses could provide China with its best hope for a future of peace and prosperity. The moral strength provided by genuine Christian intellectualism could help shape the People’s Republic of China into the greatest nation on earth.
Religion in China – Cracks in the Atheist Edifice, The Economist
China’s Constantine Moment: After simmering in the countryside for decades, Chinese churches are exploding among young urban college educated professionals to such a degree that Chinese Christians now outnumber Communist party members. What’s an atheist state to do?
Why Spiritual Transformation has a lot to do with the Brain, by Rob Moll
The attention required in spiritual practices like deep prayer, contemplation, study, and worship is what the brain needs to grow in lasting ways.
Shia LaBeouf’s Journey through Fury to Faith?
How a war movie, Brad Pitt, and writer/director David Ayer helped one of Hollywood’s most talented (and troubled) stars find peace.
“I found God doing Fury. I became a Christian man, and not in a f***ing bullsh*t way—in a very real way.” -Shia LaBeouf
Is the Internet Killing Christianity? by Christian Piatt
Do we deserve the obsolescence toward which we are so steadily headed?
As For Me and My House (We Will Break Your Arms), by Ginger M
My initial neurotic thought was, “Is this a test to see if we really are a Christian family worthy of their house?”