When Celebrity Comes to Church

Review: Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church by Katelyn Beaty (Brazos Press, 2022)

Katelyn Beaty is one of a number of writers who has been part of the Christianity Today (CT) orbit, as I was briefly, and generally speaking, I find that people who come out of that environment have a healthy and balanced perspective on issues facing the church, and are often granted access to information which provides for additional insights.

Celebrities for Jesus is very much (almost) equal parts

• history lesson
• analysis
• memoir

As a (recent) history lesson, because of my involvement over the years with this blog and its attendant attention to Christian news stories, there was a sense in which Katelyn and I had much of the same information. As soon as she stated something, my brain would signal ‘Yes, but you really need to mention ___________,’ only to find her doing so in the very next sentence.

My wife reminded me that not everyone has the same knowledge. While it’s true that some of the stories she covers in this book were part of Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes Du Mez and A Church Called TOV by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer (which we reviewed here and here respectively) there was coverage of situations and people that were beyond the scope of both books, and at least one name that caught me off guard given the context.

Generally speaking, the context was American, which left me wondering as to the preponderance of superstar pastors in other places. (We do hear occasional stories from South America and Africa; but these were not mentioned.) Is the case of Christian celebrity somewhat unique to the United States?

This brings us to the next part, analysis. This is where I felt the book shines the brightest, especially when the author compared the present state of Christianity to its Biblical ideals.

We do fall short in various ways. Our willingness to confer celebrity shows a flaw in our character, long before the man or woman in question has a misstep. Our stories are looking for heroes.

In each chapter, I never questioned Beaty’s qualifications to offer us some of her perspective. My only wish is that she had explored some of these things further and deeper, which would have resulted in a welcomed longer book.

Finally, there was memoir. On page 158, speaking about the high rates of deconstruction and “faith detox” among her peers, “I sometimes wonder why I am still a Christian.”

That could be said about so many that work or have worked at CT or similar environments such as Religion News Service or Relevant, and get to see the spectacular crashes of individuals and ministry organizations close-up.

And yet, she celebrates that something “about that early faith… that could blossom into an orientation that could withstand doubt, the loss of dreams and cultural pressures.” Absent the more progressive identification of an author such as the late Rachel Held Evans, she still shares that honest vulnerability as she’s wrestled with all she has seen and heard.

…Celebrities for Jesus covers its topic well. I even wonder if this needs to be required reading for those younger leaders whose desire to do something great might materialize more about building their kingdom instead of God’s kingdom?

It might have helped a few people not trip up.

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Celebrities for Jesus is published by Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, for which its author is also employed. A review copy was made available through publisher representative Graf-Martin Communications who provide publicity, marketing and brand development for clients from their base in Elmira, Ontario, Canada.

Guys: The Book We Need

A Review of The Men We Need by Brant Hansen

Only once or twice a year do I receive books unsolicited, and this is one I specifically asked for and wanted to share with my sons and have as part of my personal library. This is also the fourth time (see below) I’ve reviewed one of Brant Hansen’s four books. Am I a little biased toward this writer? Absolutely. A little greedy to ask for a fourth review copy by the same author? No doubt.

By writing The Men We Need: God’s Purpose for the Manly Man, the Avid Indoorsman, or Any Man Willing to Show Up (Baker Books, 2022), one could argue that Brant has limited his potential audience by 50%, but he states early on that this is a book that women might find beneficial as well. (I’m reminded that the first time I picked up a copy of The Five Love Languages, I thought it was a book about the expectations of my spouse, only to find it’s more about my own expectations. Sometimes books work in reverse!)

One woman noted in her review, “As a woman, this book has caused me to more fully notice and appreciate when the men in my life are living this out.” Furthermore, to state the obvious, many women are raising sons. If Dobson can write Bringing Up Boys, you could read this as ‘Bringing up Men.’

The book is arranged around six ‘decisions’ or what I would say are ‘determinations’ men need to make. In each section there are four to six very short chapters — this was written for guys after all, and guys usually lose their focus after three to five pages — which relate to the broader topic. Honestly, though; I didn’t see the organization of the book that way. I simply enjoyed each short chapter as a stand-alone, and thought that some offered prescriptions that were every bit as weighty as the six key statements which were singled out.

Part of the appeal of this book is its inclusivity of people who aren’t the typical, macho men. The type of person who fears a paper cut if they read one of John Eldredge’s titles. But just because Hansen describes himself as a flute player who was the head of his state’s high school library association doesn’t mean this is a book for wimps.

That myth is shattered somewhat in his descriptions of projects he has carried out overseas as part of his work with CURE, a medical mission; or taking church youth groups to build houses in Mexico. The guy who was scouted by the NFL in high school and never drives anything other than his Ford F150 (always black, always wearing a baseball cap) is not going think the book has nothing to speak to his life and situation.

Brant goes out of his way to include single guys. The whole tone of the book is similar to the book of Proverbs; something you might want to give as a graduation present for either high school or college. But there are great insights for married men here, not to mention married with children. While we’re making gift suggestions, this would be a great Father’s Day gift.

Like his others, this book is conversational in style, and points toward a God who is equally relatable; a God who has given us the keys to the garden and told us, ‘Take good care of the place.’ Whatever your personal garden you’ll find points of resonance here.

 

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January, 2017 — Review of Unoffendable
November, 2017 – Review of Blessed are the Misfits
April, 2020 – Review of The Truth About Us

Link to BrantHansen.com

Link to book’s page at Baker Books

Thanks to Graf-Martin, a Canadian publicity agency who handle, among other things, promotion and publicity for Baker Books in Canada, for a review copy of this great resource.

Patriarchy’s Historical Roots

I originally thought that The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr was a book that needed to be read either in tandem or serially with Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes DuMez. I’m now of the opinion that at least the first third of A Church Called Tov by Scott McKnight and Laura Barringer should be thrown into the mix.

So I hope you don’t mind if I discuss the book in comparative terms with the other which I reviewed here about a month ago.

It took me a long time to finish this — I read J&JW in the middle of the process — and also due to various interruptions, and complicated by the fact that due to certain deficiencies in my high school education, I have problems processing things related to history. (It’s a long story.) Beth Allison Barr is a historian, and she takes a historical approach, not a theological approach. Her concern with today’s popular patriarchy, which is best expressed by organizations such as the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW), is understanding how we got to this place, something that she contends did not happen overnight, though its meteoric rise to a default doctrine in Evangelicalism is relatively recent.

I’m continuously drawn back to a quotation I can no longer source where it was said that the purveyors and propagators of today’s patriarchal culture, and the pastors and authors which helped promote it, these people never dreamed they would be the object of historical or sociological study, they never imagined that they would be the focus of academic or scholarly research. They never expected their motivation and actions to be dissected and analyzed. They didn’t foresee books like TMBW and J&JW becoming part of the conversation.

Barr’s book goes back much further than DuMez’ however, back into medieval Times, to show both that some of this thinking did not emerge yesterday, and yet at the same time to show that historically women have occupied a much larger and more active place in the history of Christianity. In the most general sense, the current situation does not have strong historical precedent, even if there are glimpses of that attitude.

Beth Allison Barr also makes this story personal, inserting places where studying the historical timeline has intersected her own story. It genuinely puts a face on what might otherwise be a dry academic research paper. It matters. It matters to her. It matters to the women who have been completely marginalized by patriarchy in the church, and more than a few men who have suffered trying to defend them.

Because I’m late getting to this review, I’ll keep it short, except to reiterate that I really think it and J&JW really do need to be read together, perhaps along with others that are yet to be written, as those of us with a different understanding of scripture try to compassionately and gracefully put an end to misogyny within the church, including conditions with which many of us were raised.

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The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth by Beth Allison Barr (Brazos Press, 2020, paperback 2021); page at Baker Publishing Group.

Pages from a Church-Planter’s Diary

Review: Why Would Anyone Go to Church? A Young Community’s Quest to Reclaim Church for Good by Kevin Makins (Baker Books, 2020)

Kevin Makins has assembled the story of planting Eucharist Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada so vividly, that there were times I felt I could actually smell the buildings and hear the floors creaking in a succession of five inner city locations.  Eucharist Church is located in the urban core of a city that is now part of what is called the GTHA — the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area — and the book is packed with insights and practical lessons for anyone who wants to do ministry in the inner-city. Learn more from the publisher about the book at this link. Follow Kevin on Twitter at this link.

As I mentioned here just days ago, the period post-2000 brought a bounty of church growth books and no end of people making the attempt to create alternative church experiences that would make it past the critical five-year mark. It had been a long time since I’d looked at this particular book genre, but after some superficial email exchanges with Kevin about book publishing and distribution, something drew me to ask the publicist if any print copies were still available.

I’m so glad I did.

Why Would Anyone Go to Church? arrived on a Tuesday, but I didn’t pick it up until Friday. Before suppertime on Saturday I had consumed its 192 pages. The chapters are somewhat equal parts story and teaching and the story also resonated because my youngest son now lives in Hamilton, where he’s involved with two very different churches in the urban core so it was somewhat easier to picture the environs where the story takes place.

The story is told with generous amounts of humility. That the church has existed in five different locations in ten years offers one indication how it would be hard to proceed otherwise. But Kevin and his wife Meg also demonstrated great resolve and self-awareness as to what projects to accept and which ones to pass, as various opportunities arose. Their giftedness for such a church as this is evident, even if a ‘professional’ team of church planting experts didn’t agree.

Eucharist Church clearly lacks the homogeneity you see in the sprawling suburban churches conveniently located at the intersection of two freeways with a massive parking lot for Becky and her husband to park their van and take their well-dressed 2.4 children to a very age-specific Christian education program tailored just for them.

Rather it’s a mix.

Kevin writes,

Part of our family is toddling. They help us not to take ourselves too seriously.

Part of our family is married. They practice love together for the sake of the community.

Part of our family is single. They strengthen the bonds of friendship.

Part of our family is contemplative. They model how to listen.

Part of our family is faith-filled. They urge us to keep hope alive.

Part of our family is doubting. They remind us that skepticism has its place.

Part of our family has immigrated. They carry in their bodies and culture a different side of the Imago Dei.

Part of our family is queer. They remind us that God is found uniquely among those who don’t fit neatly into our societal boxes.

Part of our family is building its career. They teach us about the importance of work and hustle.

Part of our family is retired. They remind us that there is life after work.

That list just scratches the surface.

It includes people who technically speaking, don’t actually come, at least to weekend services. It includes people who only show up after their latest relationship has crumbled, stop at the church for a reset, and return when the next relationship has collapsed.

The cycle of any given year might include a children’s ministry for which no children show up. Or a Sunday service where everyone stretches out on the pews and shuts their eyes and snoring is absolutely permitted.  Or perhaps a Sunday where, instead of a longer sermon, everybody just shouts out the name of the denomination or type of church they came from, and the list becomes quite lengthy.

It includes potluck dinners which are almost sacramental in nature, a statement I make in this context realizing it could be the subject of a whole other book.

Finally, it includes laughter; it includes tears. Sometimes a lot of tears.

This is church in the margins, the type of church I truly believe Jesus would choose to attend over the mall-like complex in suburbia; and this is a book about a team of people who were willing to risk and willing to get their hands dirty to make it happen.

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I used an excerpt from the book last week at Christianity 201. I won’t say this is a typical passage, as I had to choose something devotional for C201, but I wanted to create further awareness of the book. You can read that section at this link.

To recommend a book like this and just continue to go on with Christian life as usual isn’t possible. I have the good fortune of being married to someone who herself demonstrated a great heart for people on the fringes and now serves a church that could hardly be called upscale. Before we got married, I spent several winters doing street ministry in nearby Toronto. Maybe that’s why I get this book.

You don’t need to travel to Africa to go to the mission field. My guess is there’s one not far from where you live.

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A copy of Why Would Anyone Go to Church? was generously rushed to me by Graf-Martin Communications – Providing Integrating Marketing in Canada.

Additional media:

• Interview with The 700 Club Canada
• Podcast interview with Jonathan Puddle (one of Kevin’s favorite interviews)
• Interview with Context-TV
• Book Trailer

Brant Hansen’s Exposé on Arrogance: The Truth About Us

We have a rather high opinion of ourselves, and I say “we,” I mean you, me and the human race in general. Or, rather than ‘human race,’ Brant prefers to say, ‘the humans,’ as if he isn’t one of them. In a way he isn’t. Brant has a couple of personality exceptions that cause him to stand apart from how some view normalcy, but instead of hiding them or compensating for them, he wears them on his sleeve.

That’s the reason why, while it certainly isn’t a prerequisite to reading this book, I encourage people who don’t have The Brant Hansen Show in their radio market to take a couple of hours to listen to five or six episodes of the Brant and Sherri Oddcast (each runs about 20 minutes) to better understand what’s taking place in his books. In the end you might identify better and the truth is, we all have our personality quirks.

In looking back on my review of Blessed Are The Misfits (Brant’s second book), I noted that, “There’s a heck a lot of us out there who feel we just don’t fit in. Brant not only sees himself as a misfit, but he’s even been diagnosed with a few things just to make it official.” In many respects, it’s a book about accepting ourselves the way we are. Understanding that those of us in the church are what Henri Nouwen called “the community of the broken.”

But The Truth About Us (his newest) is more like his first, Unoffendable, which was a call for personal realignment. In my review of that book, I noted that, especially with today’s social media “We can be so quick to assume, to lash out, and to hurt. Our knee-jerk reactions aren’t good for the people in our line of fire, and they’re not good for us.” Of course we do this because we think we’re right.

And in The Truth About Us, Brant is essentially saying that we do things because we think we’re good. So this third book continues where the first left off.

Both anecdotally and statistically we think we’re better people than we are. This isn’t at all along the lines of Andy Stanley’s How Good is Good Enough, where he showing that we could never achieve right standing for salvation in terms of our personal righteousness, because before a holy God, the bar is impossibly high in terms of our merit.

No, that’s what I thought the book might be about before I started reading.

Rather, if anything is happening in a soteriological sense, it’s about how we see ourselves as already there, and although it goes beyond the scope of what Brant wrote, we see ourselves perhaps as not even needing a savior, since we’ve achieved goodness already.

The Truth About Us: The Very Good News about How Really Bad We Are is really a mix of spiritual and psychological content. The book references a number of studies and in many ways reminded me of the writing and research style of Drew Dyck’s Your Future Self Will Thank You, which is about self-control.

Brant Hansen accomplishes in his third book what he does daily on the air: Mixing the silly with the serious to take a light-hearted approach to something at the core of our beings we need to carefully examine.

We’re not all that good.

“It’s the Rapture!” “No, It’s Not!”

Two forthcoming titles take two different paths to explore a similar theme. I thought it was interesting that both of these have a scheduled release date of March 19th. For the record, I did not receive review copies from either publisher.

First, Herald Press offers Unraptured: How End Times Theology Gets it Wrong by Zach Hunt, available in both hardcover and paperback.

Are you rapture ready? As a teenager in the buckle of the Bible Belt, Zack Hunt was convinced the rapture would happen at any moment. Being ready meant never missing church, never sinning, and always listening to Christian radio.

But when the rapture didn’t happen, Hunt’s tightly wound faith began to fray. If he had been wrong about the rapture, what else about his faith might not hold water?

Part memoir, part tour of the apocalypse, and part call to action, Unraptured traces how the church’s focus on escaping to heaven has it mired in decay. Teetering on the brink of irrelevancy in a world rocked by refugee crises, climate change, war and rumors of war, the church cannot afford to focus on the end times instead of following Jesus in the here and now. Unraptured uses these signs of the times to help readers reorient their understanding of the gospel around loving and caring for the least of these.

Then, releasing on the exact same day, Chosen Books releases Not Afraid of the Anti-Christ: Why We Don’t Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture by Michael Brown and Craig Keener in paperback.

Despite the popular belief that Christians will be raptured before the start of the Tribulation, Scripture paints a very different picture. Nowhere does the Bible promise that believers will escape the revelation of the Antichrist and his war on the saints. In fact, God tells His people to expect tribulation–and to persevere through it.

In this eye-opening text, acclaimed scholars and authors Michael Brown and Craig Keener offer encouragement and hope for the approaching dark times. Together they walk you through an intensive study of Bible passages, helping you gain a better understanding of what the future holds. Through it all, there is no need to fear; God has a plan. He will not abandon His people in the terrible days ahead.

Take comfort in the words of Jesus: He has overcome the world. Even in the midst of great sorrows on the earth, we live in Jesus’ victory until He returns at the end of the age.

People who are strong adherents of traditional Evangelical eschatology may be offended by both books (!) but there are those who have misgivings about that end times model which may welcome these two books.

The Ultimate Dumbing Down of Christian Publishing

Some Christian bloggers feel a compulsion to weigh in on every trending topic, but most are ignoring this one entirely. I’m talking about the growth market of stress-relieving adult coloring books. Never heard of it? The uniquely Christian editions simply mirror something taking place in the larger publishing market except that we Christianize it through the adding of a few Bible verses, though maybe not on every page.

Dominating the religious market is Today is Going to be a Great Day! released by Christian Art Gifts, a worldwide consortium of manufacturers and distributors best known for their line of Bible cases. It probably offers the best deal on a price-per-page basis.

But Baker Book Group offers one also, Live Loved containing the writing of Margaret Feinberg, which has author name recognition. On Wednesday, I noticed this title on a list of possible blog review titles. How do you review a coloring book? I dared to ask this, and was told to, “…see this as an experience, and review based on that. Perhaps talk about what you reflected on or if you felt anything during, or coming away from the experience.”

I’ll have to get out my colored pens. Or is it pencils? I know nothing about this genre. Anything I was to color would look like it had been done by a 5-year old. It wouldn’t make the refrigerator door of a preschool, even a politically correct one where everybody’s pictures get posted. I am always coloring outside the lines, which, on reflection, would be a great name for a blog.

Some Christian bookstores are finding this whole trend to be a cash cow. They are in fact selling the pens, or markers, or whatever you use to share this stress-relieving experience. I’m hearing of stores ordering 500 copies at a time of Today... This is Christmas 2015’s Jesus Calling, a veritable gift to Christian merchants.

Where does all this lead? When you have a trend, build a Bible around it; ergo Journaling Bibles:

“Don’t write in your Bible;” I was told as a child. Hence a vast scripture collection adorns my shelves that are void of any underlining or highlighting. But now we have the sample pages above where apparently every one of us is potentially the next Timothy Botts. It’s a Bible marking adventure that makes Kay Arthur’s intricate inductive study method of Bible marking (see below) appear downright drab by comparison. Again, I know people awaiting the Winter release of these Bibles with baited breath.

So what is this blogger going to say in response?

I have no words. I just don’t get it. Coloring books? This is what it comes down to in a world that faces so many spiritual challenges right now? The gifts under the tree this Christmas are going to be coloring books for adults?

I guess I said it all when I wrote the headline for today’s piece.

 

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If you want to take pen (or pens) to Bible, I propose that this might be a better use of your time:

 

Big Box Book Stores’ Christian Shelves Lack Essentials

Saturday night around 6:30 PM we dropped into a Chapters store. The Chapters and Indigo stores are the Canadian equivalent to Barnes and Noble, and whether I’m in Canada or checking out B&N on holidays, I love to hang out in the Religion section and see what conversations I can initiate.

This time it was a couple whose son was being baptized the very next day in the church where I was baptized many years earlier. They were looking at a couple of Joel Osteen books and when I tried to steer them away from those, they didn’t actually need much convincing. They immediately commented on the somewhat random assortment listed under ‘Christianity.’

“Why is Deepak Chopra here?” they asked.

“You could always move them around the corner;” I offered. I like to keep my options in these stores open, so re-shelving books isn’t in my repertoire.

Anyway, instead of just scanning the shelves out of personal interest, I tried to see it from their perspective and said to myself, “Okay, if we were standing in a Christian bookstore right now, what would I suggest to them?”

And then I hit the wall.

First, so much of the inventory on these shelves was new releases. There wasn’t much in the way of recurrent, perennial Christian books. The strength of the Christian book market has largely rested in the strength of what is called its ‘back-list’ titles. By this I don’t mean the classic writers who are now deceased, but rather simply the best books of the last 25 years. Some earlier Yancey titles. Experiencing God by Blackaby. The Lucado series on the crucifixion and resurrection. Even more recent stuff like Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield and the first two Case for… books by Lee Strobel were missing. (Having the classic writings of Andrew Murray, A. W. Tozer, Spurgeon, etc. isn’t a bad idea, either. The Lumen Classics series would be a good fit at low price points.)

Second, there are so many books which simply did not belong in that section at all. I saw title after title that was completely foreign to me. To sort this out you need two things. One would be an awareness of the publisher imprints on each book and a knowledge of who’s who. The other would be a combination of discernment and plenty of time to study each book carefully. Obviously trusting the publisher imprints is faster, but if it’s a truly special occasion — say a Baptism gift — you do really want to take the time to get the best book.

Given their son’s age, I decided to go for younger authors. I’d just watched the live stream release party for Judah Smith’s newest, Life Is _____; and then they had Jefferson Bethke, the guy whose launch was tied to a YouTube video, “Why I Hate Religion.” But then, a book that seemed almost out of context: Radical by David Platt. I told them a bit about the book, and Platt and the Secret Church movement, and even though I don’t usually align with Calvinists, I said I thought this was the best choice overall. I left before they made their final decision.

…The reason this family was in the store at all was because the nearby Christian bookstore had just closed permanently. A friend of a friend was supposed to do a book signing and release party that day and had arrived to find the doors padlocked. These (for lack of a better word) “secular” bookstores are all that many communities have now, but finding the book you need is a major challenge.

The publisher reps who visit these stores are no doubt aware of strong back-list titles that would work, but the bookstore chains’ buyers are under orders to buy only the newest titles. To get their foot in the door, publishers need to be constantly re-issuing the older titles in new formats, but it’s hard when their orientation is to what’s new and forthcoming.

Wednesday Link List

I’m writing this assuming everyone survived the prophetic implications of the blood moon, but maybe the April 15 income tax deadline is a form of judgment. 

As we do each Wednesday, clicking anything below will take you to PARSE where the links are live.

• With the movie version set to release, a now 14-year-old Colton Burpo affirms the story on which Heaven is for Real is based.
• Jamie Wright notes correctly that the many Mommy Bloggers are really moms to young children and that mothers of teens seem to share fewer stories.
• For I know the verse I have for you! Why the context for Jeremiah 29:11 isn’t what a majority think it is.
• Is the gigantic cultural shift brought by technology responsible for the growth of “the nones?”
• Another U.S. arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar is planned for the summer, this time with The Sex Pistol’s Johnny Rotten as King Herod.
• Scot McKnight is one of many asking what might be expected when a person of faith hosts The Late Show on CBS…
• …Speaking of whom, articles by Scot and others are part of a wealth of Biblical Studies resources that are free from now to the end of the week from Oxford University Press. (Try off-peak hours if the site is being swamped.)
• In Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, one religion’s schools enjoy full funding while the others get nothing. A new push is on to end the favoritism.
• Gospel Light Publishing has entered into an agreement to sell Regal Books to Baker Book Group. Regal publishes current authors Dennis Rainey and Gene Getz, and classic writers Henrietta Mears and A.W. Tozer.
• Bible translations are often updated shortly after publication. The team at The Voice Bible already have that day in view.
• Here’s the first in a series of four blog posts worth reading and recommending: Jesus’ Baptism and Ours.
• Essay of the Week: Micha Boyett on what turning to God looks like when it involves multiple turnings.
• Devotional of the Week: A former pastor who spends much time barefoot on a Florida beach looks at Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.
• The announcement that Benny Hinn was offering Liberty University diplomas was shocking enough, but then it dredged up other weird associations in Liberty’s past.
• What if the greatest threats to the church are not the things everybody else is talking about, but rather cultural norms that mitigate against the Kingdom?
• This week two writers looked at our obsession with church metrics. Dan White introduces an entirely different ministry paradigm…
• …While Tim Challies has some suggested answers when people ask you how big your church is.
• At my own blog this week, as an outsider, I peek behind the Reformed curtain into the Together for the Gospel conference.
• Despite some objections, a Christian university in Vancouver, Canada has had the main hurdle cleared for opening a school of law.
• This week I caught up with veteran Christian cartoonist and illustrator Kevin Frank. When you visit his recently updated website, check out “Heaven’s Love Thrift Shop,” my favorite among his comic series.
• I’m not sure if this article about 5 things we can learn about love from our kids is here because I enjoyed it (which I did) or because I was just intrigued by a blog titled Psychosermons.
• NSFCO (Not Safe for Church Office): Are we seeing an increase in Occultic themes in the broader entertainment world?
• An excerpt from ExPastors.com founder Bo Lane’s book, Why Pastors Quit.
• Work in progress, even as you read this: An entire denomination’s commitment to read the entire New Testament in eight weeks.
• On Grief: Each loss is different, each involves different amounts of time, but with the hope we have, death slowly loses its sting.
• This ain’t The PTL Club: A detailed analysis of the theological claims in Jay Bakker’s latest book.
• Increasingly, we substitute more visitor-friendly terminology for words like “Christian” or “church,” but eventually, we have to call it like it is.
• While another aspect of the Vatican Radio broadcast grabbed headlines, Pope Francis affirmed the reality of Satan last week.
• Talk about a home field advantage… PARSE inteviews Skye Jethani.
• Missed this one last month. The Inquisition is alive and well; one in ten countries have police who enforce religious norms.
• Spiritual Health Checklist: See how you measure up to these spiritual life standards from the 18th Century.
• Women in ministry, 20 years from now: This nine-year old wants to be a pastor.
• CCM Music Video of the Week: He’s not exactly new, but a lot of people are discovering the music of John Mark McMillan and songs like Love at the End of the World.
• Worship Video of the Season: It’s not new, but I’ve just really come to love this song as we head into Good Friday and Easter. Stuart Townend’s The Power of the Cross.
• Christian music veteran John Fischer brings back memories of Christian music veterans, LoveSong. (But what’s the album cover? I thought I had all their stuff.)
• No crazy news story to end with this week, just my sincere wish that as another Good Friday and Easter pass before us, we see something we’ve previously missed, and find our hearts drawn closer to the wonder of Amazing Love.

Paul Wilkinson writes the rest of the week at Thinking Out Loud, and edits the daily devotional Christianity 201 page.

Sometimes You Just Know

Part One — The Apocrypha

There are a number of reasons why the Apocrypha doesn’t appear in the majority of Bibles that will be sold today.   The issues of canonicity (it’s a word now!) are varied and complex, and have more to do with authorship and authenticity.

But after reading almost every chapter and verse several years ago, I sensed there was a different “tenor” to those books.   That’s subjective on my part, and I know that by applying the same criteria, others have rejected the book of Esther or Song of Solomon, while still others will be quick to remind us all that the original edition of the 1611 King James Bible actually contained these extra books, something KJV-only advocates are not quick to mention.

But sometimes you just know.   It just doesn’t feel right.   I think that’s the application of the gift of discernment.    There is much accuracy in the books of I and II Maccabees.   There is much wisdom in the book of Sirach.  But these things are true of a host of extra-Biblical writings, not to mention the contribution of contemporary authors.

Part II — God Calling

I’m all for devotional readings to start or end the day — I include a link on this blog’s sidebar to Daily Encouragement in case you missed this morning — but I’m not sure that it should be one’s entire source of spiritual input for the day.

Some of the books available are published by general-market publishers and simply contain the odd Bible verse here and there.   Others are simply too short.   And then there’s God Calling, written by “The Two Listeners” and edited by A. J. Russell.

This book came out of the Oxford Group (don’t Google ‘Oxford Movement,’ that’s different) which also was the ground zero for the Alcoholics Anonymous program.    The unknown authors ‘received’ the book through a process called ‘automatic writing,’ sitting with pads of paper in a room and waiting for God to speak to them.

Several years ago it’s origins were reconsidered in an article in the Christian bookstore trade magazine Christian Retailing which resulted in many such stores pulling it off the shelf.    Others don’t have a problem with it however, and two Christian publishing giants, Baker Books and Barbour Publishing, each continue distribution to this day.

If you negate the book’s orthodoxy on the basis of automatic writing alone, you’re also negating every prophetic word ever published by Charismatics, the “Footprints” poem and the book and video of The Father’s Love Letter. (And yes, there are some reading this who are quite prepared to do this.)

But God Calling presents other challenges as well, and if someone can find one or two good critiques online, I’d be happy to post them here and in my book industry blog.

There is a huge sometimes-you-just-know factor at play here.

Part III — 66 Love Letters

Applying all the above discussion to a new book by respected Christian author Larry Crabb, 66 Love Letters, (Thomas Nelson) it’s hard to see a difference.    The book is based on major themes from each of the 66 books in the core Biblical canon, but again written in the first person as though from God.

I haven’t read the book, but I subscribed by e-mail to the Lenten reflections based on 40 of the 66 chapters.   After negotiating the first few, I found myself skimming the remainder or filing them away for future reference if I ever wanted to consider those major themes.

It’s a personal thing; I just find there’s a danger in putting words in God’s mouth in a format like this.    I’m not questioning the theology or the doctrine contained in Crabb’s writing, and it’s not about him in particular.  And I am in no way dispensational when it comes to “Thus Saith the Lord” prophetic messages from persons having that gift, if it’s truly God speaking.

It just doesn’t feel right; it just doesn’t resonate with my personality or with my spirit; and it brings me back to the same position:  Sometimes you just know.