ken wilson online

I know these guys. They are young pastors. Many of them are young fathers. And they are sons. It’s the latter that most impresses me. A son is not always an easy thing to be. Because the world is hard on fathers. Mine fought in the Big War, was shelled in the heaviest day of shelling in the Big War, survived injury, came home, went to college, went to work. They didn’t have a clue in those days about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Men muddled through. His father was gassed in the previous Big War. As I said, the world is hard on fathers, almost as hard as it is on mothers.
Read the rest of this entry »

Phyllis Tickle, in her latest and greatest, The Words of Jesus, writes in the introduction about an “actualist” reading of the canonical gospels. Typical Tickle: lay it out and let the readers make sense of it themselves. Or perhaps lay it out as if she needs the readers’ help figuring out what she’s written. Well it hit me like a ton of basement block and I’ve been trying to make sense of it ever since. Not a “modernist” reading of the words. Not a “literalist” reading of the words. But an “actualist” reading of the words.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got some thoughtful responders to this blog and it’s one of the real benefits of a blog. You toss your thoughts out there and people respond. You rethink or you go a little deeper in your thoughts, maybe you revise, maybe you come away even more convinced having heard the responses of others. One of my thoughtful responders is Clif and I want to continue from a thought Clif laid down in a comment about the Rush Limbaugh post. Clif indicated that he thinks Christians who listen to Rush regularly do a pretty good job separating the wheat from the chaff. If Clif is right, then I’m probably a little overwrought in my previous post. But I wonder about that. Because there’s a Christian I know pretty well who used to listen more than he does now to Rush, and at least in one case, he didn’t do a very good job separating the wheat from the chaff. And I have a very high regard for the perspectives and discernment of this particular Christian, him being myself.
Read the rest of this entry »

Been doing little print and radio interviews related to the release of Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back. It’s a good exercise because both print and radio are looking for colorful and concise little expressions of things that pop up in the book. Like the idea that we need to dig extra hard for Jesus as the treasure buried in the field of religion, owing to the current “trademark infringement on the Jesus brand”–meaning the negative public perception of Christianity among those on the outside of faith looking in. I find myself illustrating this with the popularity of Rush Limbaugh among many Christians in the United States.
Read the rest of this entry »

So I need to explain something. I’ve been to the same place for vacation for the past 28 years. I know, boring as the post office. Which is exactly the way I like vacation. Maybe as a result, vacation clears space in my head. Maybe for God to speak. Several years ago, I’m guessing now but 1998 or 1999, I’m praying on vacation and a voice gets through saying, “Pay attention to what I’m doing among liberals.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Just getting back from the arctic with various luminaries and a week’s worth of memories to unpack with family and friends. On day five we saw a rare sight at close range: three polar bears on the sea ice after taking a seal for food, with the arctic ivory gull flying around. It was a stunning sight. And a sight that is itself at risk because the ice is melting at a higher rate than expected. We sailed through areas normally shut off from the pack ice, but that’s all changing and it’s the reason polar bears have been placed on the endangered species list. Throughout the trip, I was meditating on Genesis, chapter one: the days of creation.
Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a biblical category they don’t tell you about in many seminaries: the category of the moral dilemma. There are moral dilemmas as surely as there are moral certainties. There are situations through which the way forward is not clear, just as surely as there are situations through which the way forward is is indicated with flashing lights, blaring horns, and a helicopter hovering above to draw your attention. Thankfully, the latter, in the realm of moral choices, exceeds the former, but the former exists. King David, for example–read the account of his life and some of the choices he faced, his heart being after God’s heart and all. How after serving for a time, he knew it wasn’t for him to build the temple because he had blood on his hands, and not just Uriah’s. Take Abraham, walking with his son Isaac to Mount Moriah–did what he learn about moral dilemmas in seminary prepare him for the one he was walking into? Can you even read that story without understanding that its dramatic impact makes no sense without the category of moral dilemma?
Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of those posts where I’m working something out, in this case trying to come to grips with a niggling annoyance that keeps coming up.  Pops up like a prairie dog and then down in the hole again, then up again, then down again.  Now you see it, now you don’t.  What was that?  Fear, but of  a particular sort.  Fear with a religious or pious bent.  It’s not that bracing fear that wakes you up either, a fear that clarifies and  sharpens focus. Like Isaiah in the temple fear or whatever the fear is that is the beginning of wisdom.  This is more like an anxious fear, a whining kind of dread that won’t look you straight in the eye.  It’s a worrying nervous sort of fear.
Read the rest of this entry »

One of the reasons you don’t pray more has nothing to do with your dedication to God or your capacity for self discipline or your forgetfulness in matters spiritual or your busy life. It has to do with your need to learn how to calm your praying brain. Too often you close your eyes to pray and it’s an unpleasant experience. You become more aware of your underlying anxiety. You become more subject to your grinding thoughts. You put up with it as long as you can, then open your eyes and move on to the next distraction. There are ways to calm yourself. Thankfully many ways. Here’s one: a way to present your embodied self to God, and it goes like this….
Read the rest of this entry »

Time arrived with this cover copy a while back: How to Win the War on Global Warming. Shall we confront a brutal fact in evangelical perspective? The thoughtful person on the outside of American Christianity looking in at its dominant form (evangelicalism) has every right to think: Evangelicals have been among the most dismissive of the effort to address global warming. If I am considering the Christian message, I should take this into account. If I support efforts to address climate change now for the sake of the vulnerable poor and future generations, I will be viewed as one of those environmental whackos by evangelicals. Life is stressful enough. I think I’ll get my spirituality on the golf course instead.
Read the rest of this entry »