ken wilson online

Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back is a book I wrote as an evangelical, by which I mean, as someone who cares about communicating the good news (gk. evangel) among those who have not heard good news.  Right here, for example, where I live.  It is based on a certain reading of the culture in which I live.   We who have received and therfore have a responsibility to be and share good news, also have a responsibility to face up to the cultural context we operate in.  Here’s the challenge: we have a branding problem.  We who love, admire and seek to follow Jesus of Nazareth, must acknowledge that the Christian brand in America has sufferred something very like trademark infringement.
Read the rest of this entry »

I stumbled into a concern for the environment.  It’s not something I sought out.  It was thrust upon me.  And my interest in this topic is fueled by my concern for the gospel, which has been getting a bad name of late.  For good reason.  Because we pastors have allowed the gospel to become polluted by political ideology. 
Read the rest of this entry »

Evangelical, what’s in a name?  It’s funny how you get these names.  I don’t recall signing up to be an evangelical.  It just happened.  Well, not quite.  I was a Jesus freak.  But  you can’t escape history, especially not with a religion whose founder was God coming into history and wearing it like a tool apron.  Who would want to take off what he put on? So you find yourself or that community of people that you’re part of, I don’t know, slowing down just long enough to let history catch up with you.
Read the rest of this entry »

Good pastors are about empowering people to do the Jesus stuff.  So there is a great need for pastors who can learn to trust others to do things better than themselves.  Clericalism, the view that pastors are the Christian professionals who can do Christianity better than anyone else is boo-honkey.

But it’s my belief that many pastors have been too passive in their leadership.  We’ve allowed ourselves to be cow-towed by other voices within the wider Christian community.  We let them take the lead because they have the biggest media megaphones, or the biggest mailing lists or they have somehow gained the ear of many people.  Which is fine.  It’s good to have a mix of voices in any movement.  But we’ve given too much of our pastoral leadership task away to some voices.
Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Rich Cizik, a prominent leader of the National Association of Evangelicals resigned recently after the proverbial firestorm of protest.   He candidly answered some questions posed by Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air.“  Cizik revealed the following things about his personal views when asked: that civil unions in his view are OK, that it might be wise for the government to offer contraceptives to those who can’t afford them in order to reduce the number of babies who are aborted rather than born, and that he voted for a Democratic candidate (Barak Obama) in the Democratic primary in his state.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since the average age of the Ann Arbor Vineyard is 33, I do a lot of hanging out with people half my age.  Ebony, who is less than half my age, citing The Fourth Turning, told me recently that we boomers have some important work to do that her generation is depending on our doing.  I think she meant in the culture at large, including the church.  I’ve been feeling the same thing lately.  The boomers have some work to do for the sake of their children and grand-children.  Hence this first of a new blog category: the boomer files.  First up: we boomers better find a way to trust the institutions that cannot work unless someone finds a way to trust them just a little.  The global financial crisis tells us so. 
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the political season, the golden moment for the talking heads.  I enjoy listening to them.  But I have a request: could we ban “look!”, “frankly,” and “sort of”?   Look seems to be the word of choice for the experts.   They are being asked to analyze the convention or the polls or their dog’s position in the race and they begin every other assertion with “look!”   I want to say, Look! We’re listening already!  We think you have something worth saying or we’d be on another channel. The hosts have asked you to be their guest, and not some other talking head.  Jesus said, “Behold!” but he was special.
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 »