Common Grounds Online

The Most Exuberant Wedding Entrance (For)Ever

Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio Magazine interview in ByFaith Online

Ken Myers cares about culture. That stewardship, that intention to be concerned about and think about and nurture healthy cultural forms differs from those who merely want to manipulate culture as way to aggrandize their empires. Ken Myers caring about culture helps me to care about culture and resist some of the folly of our time. I hope to resist more.

I highly recommend that you subscribe to the Mars Hill Audio Magazine. Ken Myer's audio essays are challenging and beautiful, and his interviews with leading thinkers, writers, musicians, educators, etc. are worth far more than he charges. I don't know of another resource like this. Stephanie and I listen to past editions of the audio magazine repeatedly, even as we listen to the current ones. 

Lastly, check out this interview with Ken Myers in ByFaith Online.  You'll get a taste Ken and his mind and heart for the Church and for the world. It's a wonderful piece.

Excerpt:

Q. Yet Christians often defend certain cultural resources and practices based on the logic that if God is using them, they must be good.

Well, I don’t think everything that happens is evidence of common grace. I have a high view of the common curse, too. The fact that God can use something doesn’t make it intrinsically valuable. God uses us all the time, and we know how flawed we are. God used Judas to accomplish His purposes. God used Balaam’s ass. So cultural criticism should not be about whether something is potentially useable by God, because of course everything is useable by God. The question is whether the thing is inherently problematic.

Because evangelism drives so much of Christian cultural engagement right now, I think Christian critics are nervous about saying anything critical. Whereas secular critics, they’re not worried about being winsome. I’ve seen that skittishness increase remarkably in the last 30 years, and I think it’s a function of the fact that as our culture gets more post-Christian, the church is just going to look more and more out of sync. I think a lot of Christians are afraid that if we look like we’re too critical of things, then people aren’t going to be attracted to us. The worst thing that can happen to an evangelical scholar is to be mistaken for a fundamentalist.

Judy Nelson's Summer Reading LIst

Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King is one I’m in the middle of now. I’m loving it. I want to get  Michaelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling next (also by King). Amazon’s review: Filippo Brunelleschi’s design for the dome of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence remains one of the most towering achievements of Renaissance architecture. Completed in 1436, the dome remains a remarkable feat of design and engineering. Its span of more than 140 feet exceeds St Paul’s in London and St Peter’s in Rome, and even outdoes the Capitol in Washington, D.C., making it the largest dome ever constructed using bricks and mortar. The story of its creation and its brilliant but “hot-tempered” creator.

One of my favorite artists, Mako Fujimura, has a collection of writings on faith, art and culture. He is so thoughtful and graceful in his writing, just like his art. His book is Refractions. 

Someone I respect mentioned Peter Leithart, so I tracked his site down and ordered A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament.  Now, this might not sound like a summer read, but I sat by the pool for two hours reading this book! He has a fantastic way of noting themes, words and images that repeat themselves in Scripture. He points out types, accumulating associations of words and Israel’s history in a most fascinating way.

Charles and Rebecca Gilmer are friends of mine. They founded the Impact Movment, a partner ministry to Campus Crusade for Christ who reaches African-American students and leaders. His new book, A Cry of Hope, A Call to Action, chronicles the history of their movement including the significant struggles of trying to make it in a dominant White Evangelicalism. I learned a ton. May their work increase.

After working with the same department within Campus Crusade for 18 years, I made a change. Same city, same ministry, but significant changes. I picked up Transitions by William Bridges, a secular bestseller that normalizes the moves (good and bad) we face in life. Very helpful to me.

 The Prodigal God by Tim Keller. Just get it.

Take this Bread by Sara Miles is a fascinating look at the life-change of a self-professed liberal lesbian whose life is turned upside down when she takes communion at a San Francisco church and ends up running a food pantry. Beautiful, hilarious writing in the vein of Anne Lamott.

Eatonville, Fla., is a nearby town where I volunteer. It is also the first Black incorporated township in America and the birthplace of Zora Neale Hurston, an author and anthropologist whose most noted work is  Their Eyes Were Watching God (which I also recommend).  Dust Tracks on a Road is her autobiography and is fascinating not just for the local flavor, but for her winding journey that led to such meaningful work.

I was never a reader of Anne Rice’s vampire tales, but when I heard she had a spiritual awakening, I read her autobiography detailing her faith story (pretty good, somewhat slow). Then, I picked up her novel Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana since a friend recommended it. I loved it. She has done her research and given flesh to the day-to-day life of what Jesus’ call to ministry may have looked like. Her dialog of the temptation is worth the price of the book.

What God is Doing In US Cities, Including Austin

First, John Herrington, who heads up Hill Country Bible's church planting initiative, writes a post about pastors that he has met in various US cities who are seeing the Lord work in their churches to reach people. One of the pastors he mentions is an old friend of mine, West Brazelton, who started Grace Bible Church in Houston.

Second, Herrington highlights one of the Hill Country Bible Church plants called The City Community Church, which is trying to minister the grace of Christ to the urban core of Austin. Recently the Austin Statesman (the main newspaper in the region) published a favorable article about the church's efforts to reach out to dog-lovers in the urban core.

Herrington provides further context from his knowledge of Matt Haeusel (here).

Check out Herrington's blog, Saturate Austin.

Aaron Menikoff, The Baxters

After his wife died, Richard Baxter wrote a brief account of her life. A summary of these events and excerpts of this writing are found in J. I. Packer's A Grief Sanctified: Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope (Crossway, 2002). I think it is safe to say that Baxter, well known for his work on ministry, The Reformed Pastor, as well as his reflections on heaven, The Saints' Everlasting Rest, is not so well known for his marriage. And yet, it is a sweet, sweet story.

Washington Post Readers Sound Off About the Christian Right, Christians

Preface: We don't do politics at CGO so this is a difficult needle to thread. My interest in posting this article from the Washington Post is NOT the political angle, even though the article is about a new Christian Right organization. My interest in posting this is for CGO readers to read the comments of the Washington Post readers. Many, many of the reader comments are about politics.

Christian Right Revival?

But some of the coments are about Christians, some about Jesus. Personally, I found it instructive to read the negative accusations against us.

A Fascinating Interview with All-Star Ben Zobrist

I've written a few times on this blog about how Christians deal with sports in our culture. Well, I recently read this Challies.com interview with Tampa Bay Rays' infielder, Ben Zobrist, that I think deals with some of these questions really well. If this sort of thing is of interest to you, check it out. The interview is from 2008, but I think this is appropriate timing since Zobrist was just named to the American League All Star team.

Priorities

ALEX SIMS; ACTORS, MODELS, AND ATHLETES

At Glenn’s recommendation, I recently read a helpful book entitled Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin). It’s a good book, and I’m glad I read it.  Tchividjian describes the Church’s mission as extending Christ’s Kingdom in our culture by living as an unfashionable community. To be clear, the author doesn’t use the word “unfashionable” in the sense of dressing funny. Rather, as I understand it, the term “unfashionable” refers to our standards and priorities. For instance, Christians should prioritize service over selfish ambition. I won’t belabor the details of the book because Glenn’s already reviewed it on this website. I just wanted to set the context for a question that this book prompted me to ask.

 

The question that I have is this: how do Christians seek to redeem culture in fields where compromise is required from Day One?