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 »

Something’s happening in American Evangelicalism. We are waking up from a stupor. We are attempting to fear our founder more than we fear our movement’s group think.  Because He is asserting his proprietary rights over His brand–a brand which has been the subject of trademark infringement for too long.  We are standing up to be counted as  conscientious objectors to the evangelical culture war that has been distracting us from the evangelical mission.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had helpful conversations lately with some people pushing back on me for various things. Man, can you learn a lot from these conversations, especially when the people in question are mature, thoughtful, and friends. The kind of people you know are fundamentally for you. It’s what I love about being part of a church. A church is such a diverse place when it’s being true to its founder, so you find yourself loving, admiring, respecting people who have a very different take on the world regarding many different issues. So these conversations have helped me to zero in on the critique I have of the religious right. Sometimes in a sermon, I’ll make a passing comment, a sideways reference that impugns the religious right, and for those who identify with the religious right it can be quite annoying. So I’ve been challenged to state more clearly my concern. This post is one such attempt.
Read the rest of this entry »

Writing a book, like having a conversation or putting words to your thoughts in any form, is an exercise in learning what you believe. It’s not just that you believe something and then put it into words. You discover what it is that you believe in the process of putting it into words. You read the book you write, or you hear the words formed by your thoughts in a conversation, for the first time. Like God in Genesis, chapter one, orchestrated the creation, made what he made, and then saw it himself for the first time, pondered it, and said, “It’s good.” Here’s a crack at summarizing what I believe after more than a few decades of organizing my life in fits and starts around Jesus of Nazareth and his path through this world:
Read the rest of this entry »