THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY OF JULY IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN. CAN JESUS SURVIVE RELIGION? One of the great strengths of the Christian faith has been its ability to endure, accommodate, and use the cultural shifts across the centuries without losing its essence. Even in its most misguided forms, the Christian religion has continued to pass along its central message about Jesus death, burial, and resurrection. People in the most abysmal of churches in the most corrupt of cultures still have been counted among the redeemed. There were people in a church Jesus pronounced … [Read more...]
Family Notes 15/07/2015
THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF JULY IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN. TRUE HUMILITY If someone tells you that somebody else is saying awful things about you, don't defend yourself against the accusations, but reply, "He must not know about the other faults that I have, if these are the only ones he mentioned." -- Epictetus, Enchiridion. LOVE, NOT TERROR Increasingly, believers around the world are finding the traditional doctrine of unending conscious torment to be a slander against the character of God. It has no scriptural basis and should be discarded as a horrible … [Read more...]
Family Notes 08/07/2015
THE EIGHTH DAY OF JULY IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN. YOUR FEEDBACK ON PERSPECTIVE The gracEmail for July 5 titled "Perspective" touched on the influence of Christianity in America. Not surprisingly, it generated even more feedback than usual. Following is a sample of your comments: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FRANK COATS -- Beautifully said, … [Read more...]
Family Notes 01/07/2015
THE FIRST DAY OF JULY IN THE YEAR OF GRACE TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN. GRAND ADVENTURE TRUMPS NOT-SO-FRIENDLY SKIES Two Sundays ago, wife Sara Faye and I were scheduled to depart Houston at 7:15 a.m. for Chicago, change planes at O'Hare for a short hop northeast over to Traverse City, Michigan, then drive 30-45 minutes to our destination, Northport Bay Retreat. There were thirty-seven of us, representing four generations of Fudges from California, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, who would spend a week together at what must be one of the most beautiful settings anywhere. Sara … [Read more...]
EXTENDING BLESSING: THE OTHER SIDE OF THANKFUL
Today's gracEmail is written by my friend Fred Peatross, who introduces himself as a "cultural architect" for Christ. Fred is an influential participant in the emergent/missional movement, "Conversation Editor" for New Wineskins online journal and the author of a regular e-column as well as several books. He writes from the edge where faith meets the future and his writing often leaves me a bit uncomfortable -- which, I usually conclude, is exactly what I need. * * * Extending blessing: the other side of thankful by Fred Peatross Scripture always bends towards the oppressed and the … [Read more...]
HE KNEW US FIRST
A gracEmail subscriber asks what it means that God chose and predestined us before the creation of the world (Eph. 1:4-5). * * * These verses are part of a 203-word sentence in Greek that includes all of verses 3-14. Paul is bubbling over as he considers God's overwhelming generosity to us through Jesus Christ, and once he starts talking about it, there is hardly any way to stop! "Blessed be God," he exclaims in verse 3, "who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing!" The three words I just italicized are three different parts of speech, but they are all forms of a single root word that … [Read more...]
RANDOM THOUGHTS: INDIVIDUALS NOT INSTITUTION (5)
The ekklesia/church consists of individuals but it is not about individualism. New Testament writers emphasize the togetherness, the "one-anotherness" of the ekklesia/church. God did not send Moses door to door in Egypt, distributing maps with instructions on how to escape slavery one person at a time. God rescued all the Hebrews and all non-Israelites associated with them, in a single, mighty work of deliverance. Jesus does not rescue the world from sin by a succession of single-person saving events. He accomplished redemption once for all--and once done, it will never need doing … [Read more...]
RANDOM THOUGHTS: CHURCH AS INDIVIDUALS AND NOT AS INSTITUTION
In this unusually-lengthy column I explore the interesting possibility that the self-described "non-institutional" wing of the Churches of Christ might spring from premises that are excessively and unbiblically institutional. In the next (final) serving of random thoughts on this theme, I want to ramble about the American danger of over-emphasizing the individual to the neglect of a sense of community in the body of Christ. The 1950s and 1960s saw the divisive climax of a controversy within the Churches of Christ as an estimated fifteen percent of churches, who charged that certain … [Read more...]
A THIRD OFFERING OF RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE CHURCH AS INDIVIDUALS AND NOT AN INSTITUTION
My first published article, as best I can recall, appeared fifty-one years ago in a periodical called Firm Foundation, whose editor Reuel Lemmons was a peacemaker in a fractious brotherhood that glamorized conflict and regarded peacemaking as a cowardly past-time for compromisers and weaklings. According to Jesus, editor Lemmons deserved to be called a child of God, but extremists on both sides called him other names instead and I think that must have made Jesus sad. I called my article "Emphasis Christ," naively thinking that title would be universally agreeable. Within a month the piece was … [Read more...]
A SECOND, SMALLER SERVING OF RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE CHURCH AS INDIVIDUALS AND NOT AN INSTITUTION
Someone might ask why it matters if the distinction suggested by the title to this gracEmail is valid or not. I suppose that the emotional and logical thinking parts of the brains of many believers are so wired that they are never tempted to ponder such subjects. I have encountered a few folks who apparently are allergic to thoughts of that genre and also to the eccentric (in the literal sense of the word, as a wheel "out of circle") thought processes that produce statements of the kind that got this sentence started. Still, I cannot stop it, don't think I need to, and would not want to do so … [Read more...]