I’m going to go out on a prophetic limb here and state that the postmodern zeitgeist is hung over. Gone are the heady, intoxicated days of liberation from transcendent norms and meta-narratives. The all-too-early wake up call of a deep economic recession and Gulf ecological disaster has the next generation groggily taking stock of itself and it’s coming up all zeroes.
 
Teddy Thompson is the only son of British folk-rock legends Richard and Linda Thompson. Two summers ago, Teddy released A Piece of What You Need for Verve. My favorite track on the album is “Where To Go From Here,” partly for its gentle acoustic rhythm and brush-on-snare sound, partly for its existential angst that demonstrates my aforementioned point.
 
The safe lie of the in between
I never lose but never win
I wait at the edge of lifeRead more

Soundtrack music runs the gamut between trite and smarmy all the way to powerful and moving. There are few times in recent memory when I have been as haunted by a piece of soundtrack writing as I was by Jamie Collum’s theme to Clint Eastwood’s Golden Globe nominated film Gran Torino.
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 In the liner notes to the best selling album of all time, jazz pianist Bill Evans describes the challenge that jazz ensembles have when performing a piece of music:
 
Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.
 
Kind of Blue is the gold standard for the word “masterpiece.” Rarely do the planets line up to bring together such talent at the heights of their careers quite like this recording.

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Of all the convictions that unite Common Grounds readers and writers, it is a hope to speak to the questions being asked by those outside the boundaries of Jesus’ followers that I appreciate the most. Different kinds of questions emerge as we seek to bring insight from Scripture to the skeptic, but are we being a “blessing to the Gentiles” if we refuse to entertain those questions?

Lately, I have noted a handful of persistent questions coming from those watching Christianity from the outside in. First, I keep hearing questions about the Bible’s blood and gore. “Why all the messy need for death and bloodshed in Christianity’s teaching about salvation? Why can’t God just wave his hand and forgive?” Second, I had my umpteenth conversation recently about conservative Christianity’s opposition to same sex relationships. Almost on cue, the comment was offered, “Really? Do you wear a poly-cotton blend in your shirt? Because the Bible forbids wearing a garment that mixes two different kinds of threads.” Finally, our own President during his campaign last summer worked to debunk simplistic understandings of how religion and politics work by saying, “Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? [Some] suggest slavery is okay, and that eating shellfish is an abomination?” Read more

 There, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see a decidedly curious picture of the central figure of Christianity. Jesus of Nazareth, soon to be ironically hailed King of the Jews, awaits the events that would surround his death. And he’s terribly shaken.

The scene would not be so interesting were it not for the fact that so many of his followers would face death with far more courage than the emotionally torn man we see before us. Generations of Christian martyrs would go to their deaths without so much as a blink, not a shadow of turning.

Jesus, however, is on his face, an uncommon posture for a rabbi. The stress levels reach maximum as the capillaries under his skin burst and mix with his sweat. And much to our surprise, we find him asking his Father for a way out, a way to pass from having to experience “the cup.”Read more

 My impression is that faithful readers of Common Grounds Online do not suffer from any want of critique from the more fundamentalistic strains of evangelicalism still dominating the religious experience of so many in America today. For most of us, the pendulum is still swinging quite in the opposite direction without too much help, thank you very much. Yet a recent Saturday morning children’s devotional I attended warrants some comment.

Halftime at my 9-year-old daughter’s basketball league is given to “devotional time,” due to the fact, I assume, that she plays in a church league. The speaker opened his message by holding a pen out in the palm of his hand. “Who would like to have this pen? It’s a free pen and anyone who wants it this morning can have it.” It took a minute or so before someone mercifully played along and walked up to take the free pen.

“You see,” he explained, “that’s exactly what the Gospel is. It’s free and it’s available. But you don’t have it until you receive it. And once you’ve received it, you need to use it.”

Again, my intention is not to nitpick what was likely a kindly volunteer at a simply country church function. Rather, the comment revived my recent quest to identify the nature and practice of this most fundamental of Christian acts: believing. The message of the Gospel, we were told growing up, was not activated in the life until it was “received” and “believed.”

My question for the gentleman speaker last weekend is simply this: when presented in this way, how do you avoid making faith meritorious? The gift of the Gospel exists, as it were, outside of me prior to my conversion. What releases the effects of that gift into my life is the simple act of “receiving and believing.” So then how is faith not a condition of salvation? How is salvation “free” if it costs me an act of reception in order to enjoy its effects? Read more

I used to hate it when I was young and people would say what I’m getting ready to say.

I have a vivid memory of a spat between my father and older sister back in the ‘80’s over, of all things, the movie Footloose. My sister had taken a bit of a shine, as did most teenage girls in that decade, to Ren McCormack and his misunderstood rebel ways. My father had taken the position that the film had glorified youth rebellion and was far from something to be celebrated.

I watched and kept score as the two traded volleys over this little nugget of cultural artifact. My father lost the debate, in my estimation, at this comment, “Well, if this is where the young people of our generation are headed, then I’m frightened to think where it might end.” There it was—the old slippery slope argument. Long before I even knew to call it such, it already sounded lame.

Fast forward to late July 2008. I am sitting in a comfortable “stadium” seat in a local theater watching the mega-blockbuster The Dark Knight. And a shudder runs through me. I am terrified of our younger generation in a way that has not struck me in over 20 years of youth ministry. Read more

I went to a theater in 1991 and saw the movie The Fisher King, starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges. It recently came on TV and I found that it brought back quite a few memories—not all of them welcome. 1991 was not a good year for me, for reasons that I have neither the time nor the energy to write. But for some reason, I remember finding this movie strangely healing.

The story is about a man, played by Bridges, who, because of his pride and ambition, incites a madman to go on a killing spree. The husband of a woman killed in that massacre, played by Robin Williams, goes insane and ends up on the streets. As the story goes, the two end up meeting and beginning a great healing in each of their lives.

In the middle of the movie, William’s character relates the story of The Fisher King. It’s a simple, clumsy story, but has a kernel of insight in it that now, some 17 years later, I can see more clearly. It is reproduced here as it was told in the movie: Read more

Ever since Augustine penned the classic City of God, City of Man, the Church has wrestled with the question of how to be the Church in the world. Throughout the ages, the pendulum swings along a predictable trajectory. At one end, what might be called the Antithetical Church stresses that the Church is to be separate from the world. “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins,” says John in Revelation 18:4. At the other end, the Engaging Church, living under an obligation to advance the Kingdom of God as a tangible, “this-world” reality, seeks that God’s will be done personally, socially, politically, and intellectually “on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is an inescapable question with which every churchman must grapple: what is my congregation’s posture towards the world that they occupy six days out of the week? Am I to load my sermons with warnings from Scripture about the necessity of holiness and how dangerous it is to come in contact with the patterns of this world? Or, am I to embrace the church’s necessary “missional” charter by constantly pushing my people into the world to engage them with the transformational power of the Gospel? Are we about personal piety or cultural transformation?Read more

A couple of weeks ago, I innocently stepped into our church’s fellowship hall only to hear 250+ people scream, “SURPRISE!” Turns out my wife had orchestrated a two-month plot to surprise me (probably the most suspicious person you’ve ever met) two weeks prior to that grim anniversary of life—my 40th birthday.

By anyone’s estimation, it was a total success. Not only was I surprised that night by the overwhelming show of love and affection from those who had traveled from near and far to celebrate with me, I was equally unable to mentally flip through the last two months and find something, anything that might have made me say, “Ahh, so that’s what she was up to.” Nothing. Nada.

My wife, Ginger (if that IS her real name…?!), was quite proud of herself. Most of the rest of our evening was spent cataloguing the web of stealth and intrigue spun by one of the most good-natured, non-conniving people I know. Heretofore, my wife just hasn’t been capable of that level of deception. She told me about fake email addresses and super-secret Facebook groups, about hiding text messages and sneaking around my fickle schedule.

What struck me that night after the party was over, after the almost crippling disorientation that dominated my mood throughout (see the photo above for my split-second reaction upon entering the room), was the sheer beauty of the thing. So much time, so much planning, so much concern—just so that a group of people could tell me that they cared about me. I found my thoughts turning to the doctrine of predestination.

Yes, you read that correctly—predestination. Let me explain.Read more