Opening and closing images this week are from Clark Bunch at The Master’s Table.
♦ Allegedly under pressure from large financial donors, Fresno Pacific’s University’s graduate program in Anabaptist Theology has removed the visiting lecturer status of Bruxy Cavey, Greg Boyd and Brian Zahnd, and has also demoted its president to professor status after he takes a sabbatical. Yikes! In one cohort, 21 out of 23 students have signed a letter of protest, while meanwhile 11 out of the 18 students who were registered for this year — many on the premise of getting to interact with these very lecturers — have withdrawn. Greg Boyd said he had, “letters of support from [Mennonite Brethren] pastors apologizing and worrying about their denomination losing Anabaptist distinctives and acclimating to American fundamentalism.”
♦ An Evangelical Who’s Who: A list of all the big shots in Evangelicalism who got invited to that White House dinner we reported last week. Who would you have added?
♦ Speaking of which, students in the film program at Liberty University got a rather rude awakening when instead of the productions they thought they would be doing, ended up filming something called The Trump Prophecy. “In December [2017], before we left for Christmas break, we were slated to shoot two short films that had nothing to do with Trump,” one student recalled. “The first day we were back in January for spring semester, that had changed. Needless to say, we all thought it was a joke at first, but as you know … it’s not.” They are concerned that this film will damage the reputation of film students and discredit the film program.
♦ California’s ‘anti-conversion’ Bill AB 2943, “which was designed to ban the sale of anything opposing the homosexual agenda – has been withdrawn after not receiving enough votes to reach Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.” “One of the most influential organizations leading opposition to the legislation was [James] Dobson’s Policy Center…”
♦ Funding for Churches: England will spend £1.8 million “to repair and maintain historic places of worship.” “The scheme will help listed churches and other eligible places of worship remain fit to serve their communities for generations to come. This will include managing a network of local volunteers in maintaining the listed buildings and exploring options for wider use of the buildings by the community.”
♦ No, it’s not about conflating patriotism with Evangelicalism. It’s actually a reason for removing the U.S. flag from the auditorium or sanctuary of Christians written from the perspective someone who knows a thing or two about flags.
🎥 Beyond Patreon: “Giving Films releases its third project, An Interview with God, to theaters this week. The new movie follows last March’s Paul, Apostle of Christ and 2015’s 90 Minutes in Heaven. Whether you enjoy any of these titles, there’s no doubt the look and feel of these movies is worlds apart from the crowdfunded fare.”
♦ Social concerns from the wider world: Chronic State, a 58-minute documentary looks at the impact of legalized pot on the state of Colorado. (Sample: “This is realistically a new drug. Yes, we call it marijuana and it comes from the same plant, but this is not the plant you’re thinking of when you’re thinking about marijuana.”)
♦ For the month of September, Mark Clark, pastor of Village Church in Vancouver and author of The Problem of God is creating a series of short videos teaching through the Gospel of Matthew for a Canadian television show. Start with this one — and learn a bit about Mark — and then click the channel to continue watching as new episodes are added.
♦ The object of our prayers: “We asked our nine year old, Lily Faith, to pray for our meal, and that’s when it happened: ‘Dear Alexa, please bless our meal today, and Daddy …’ Our entire family exploded with laughter (including some nice folks next to us). Lily, on the other hand, didn’t think it was funny at all. She began crying and couldn’t eat.” A look at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on our work and family.
♦ Parenting: Robert has a 5-hour-per-day addiction to the game Fortnite. But now school has started and it’s turning into a Fortnitemare. (Link is to 3-min clip from The Today Show, NBC)
♦ Parenting: Even if you don’t have kids this is good reading: 7 Parenting Errors Which Will Can Influence Adult Children to Leave the Faith.
♦ I hope you don’t need this article, but… How to be a Caregiver When it Feels You Can’t Go On.
♦ Skye Jethani revisits C.S. Lewis’ classic “liar, lunatic or Lord” argument with a visual flow-chart-like representation. (Click image to source.)
♦ This link is actually a year old, and we’ve carried it here before, but I found it interesting to see what John MacArthur’s Master’s Seminary was dealing with a year ago. The point is to say that the school is no stranger to controversy.
♦ Another one: “One worshipper has been killed and dozens of others injured after a church collapsed in southern Nigeria… Church collapses are relatively common in Nigeria. In December 2016 dozens of worshippers were killed when a church collapsed in Akwa Ibom state. The Nigeria Society of Engineers has blamed the problem mainly on the use of substandard materials and violations of building regulations.
♦ Musings when a pastor commits suicide: Navigating a pressure-packed vocation.
♦ Ed Young — who pops up elsewhere on this list — goes fishing with Steven Furtick. Supposedly Episode 1 of a series. 15 minute video.
♦ Most provocative headline we saw this week: Don’t Ruin Your Life for an Orgasm.
♦ This weekend, Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, DC presented his church with the vision for their eighth location, which he describes on Twitter: “The old Navy Yard Car Barn was the turnaround where streetcars were repaired and rerouted. We’ll turn it into a prototype campus with child development center, mixed-use marketplace and co-work space.”
♦ A critical look at a #1 bestselling book, Rachel Hollis’ Girl Wash Your Face. “Make no mistake, sisters. This book is all about YOU.”
♦ Guest writer at Internet Monk: “It looks like the beginning of the end at Willow Creek. They aren’t saying that, but I feel like that’s what’s happening. If so, good riddance. And you can take the megachurch movement you spawned with you.” [Ouch!]
♦ Charismatic Conglomerate: The parent company of Destiny Image Publishing has acquired Harrison House, home to many prosperity gospel and name-it-and-claim-it titles.
♦ CBN News: “When Influence Church Worship Pastor Michael Ketterer hit the stage Tuesday night for the live quarterfinal competition on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, he left the judges and the audience in tears – literally.”
♫ The band I Am They: Official video for My Feet are on the Rock.
♦ Dumbest. Sermon. Series. Ever. Ed Young’s church presents Wrastlin’ featured in this 60-second preview. (Though he didn’t use these words, in this article, Tim Challies suggests this is the moment the attractional church model “jumped the shark.”)
♦ Finally, when The Onion isn’t funny: If anything, people were complaining that this story was too true-to-life.
Thinking Out Loud 
[…] published back in June at the blog of LifeWay, and was spotted last night while I was compiling our weekly Christian news roundup for my other blog. Being American, it compares the preparation time in making a burrito vs. that of […]
Pingback by A Book Should Cost More Than a Burger | Christian Book Shop Talk — September 5, 2018 @ 8:32 am
It’s a good list. Thx to a hard workin’ you.
Comment by The Purging Lutheran — September 5, 2018 @ 11:32 am
Great list this week Paul. And your other dailies. Particularly have enjoyed tales of your travels in Europe lately. Hope you had a great trip. Would like to hear more of it.
I’m interested (from England) that there always seem to be divisions in Canadian and USA churches. We don’t seem to have that here. Maybe some might say that we are not as passionate about our faith as our Canadian/American friends are but I’m not so sure. My experience is that (those of us that are left) have a rather more simplistic and childlike? faith and tend to leave the semantics aside and focus on the real point of worship. I don’t know. It’s great to read your blog though cos I am interested in others views. Just hurts sometimes when Christians seem to fight each other instead of a common unity.
God Bless
Comment by Mark Bushell — September 5, 2018 @ 2:44 pm
I think you would tend to see dissension in the ranks of any organization if it’s extremely large (such as the Southern Baptist Convention) but I think that most denoms are doing okay. There is generally good cooperation at the local church level as well. There are always some negative stories, but they tend to dominate for only a short time. (Yes, there’s the Calvinist/Arminian split that I frequently allude to, but the hostility is all from the Calvinist side, something their people freely admit.)
Right now in the United States everything is extremely polarized — the internet doesn’t help that, either — and when Christians there take a position on subject “A” it’s automatically assumed that they fall into a pattern concerning issues “B,” “C,” and “D.”
They are also at the height of distraction now. They need more the simplistic and childlike faith you’re talking about. They need to get back to basics. They need to reset their priorities.
In Canada, I would like think things are little bit more mature. I may strongly disagree with you on item “A,” but be in total agreement with you on “B,” “C,” and “D.” And we can still be friends. Perhaps a smaller population forces us to work more closely together. I live in a small town and am currently connected to 3 different churches who have a great relationship with each other.
Comment by paulthinkingoutloud — September 5, 2018 @ 8:00 pm
I previously attended FC years ago and went back recently. The auditorium literally has 1/3 of the seats physically blocked off, so you have to sit down front so they can have better camera angles and fewer empty seats. Crowd was dead as a doornail. They had Ed on taped video speaking at a church (that FC recently acquired–I’m not making that up); the crowd didn’t have the sense to at least clap when the video crowd did. They’re getting hurt by other megachurches in the area, mainly Gateway which is only five miles away (and Gateway gets their music on SiriusXM while Pastor Robert Morris gets broadcast on Daystar and TBN–Ed just got kicked off a local station where he was relegated to the 1:30 AM Sunday slot).
Comment by markr65 — September 11, 2018 @ 6:06 pm