On her 2004 album, Natasha Bedingfield released a song called “Unwritten.” The song imagines that our lives are stories which are in the process of being written. Here’s the first part of Bedingfield’s song:
I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you Read More »Right Turn: Turning Lives Around Through Conversation
Chris Altrock – Highland Church of Christ – Memphis, TN
Summer Celebration – Lipscomb University – July, 2010
In a recent article for Christianity Today Ed Stetzer surveyed multiple studies of the Christian faith in America and then provided these concluding thoughts:[1] “Mainline denominations are no longer bleeding; they are hemorrhaging. Increasingly, they are simply managing their decline. For evangelicals, the picture is better, but only in comparison to the mainline churches. Southern Baptists, composing the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., have apparently peaked and are trending toward decline. The same is true of most evangelical denominations…. There is little doubt in my mind that the cultural expression of Christianity in America is declining. True, Christianity is losing its “home-field advantage” in North America.” There is little doubt that Christianity in America is facing significant challenges and that fewer Americans are embracing the Christian faith.
During the first half of this year, newspapers and newscasts were filled with reports about potential abuse occurring within the Catholic Church. Allegations have poured in from half a dozen countries, including 300 accusations from Germany, the home of the current Pope. Many Catholics and non-Catholics are fed up with the Catholic Church.
Many more people are fed up with church in general. Dan Kimball has written a book entitled They Like Jesus But Not the Church.[i] In it, Kimball reports that many today find Jesus attractive but not the church. They feel that the church is too politically motivated.
And, in his book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Christopher Hitchens writes about the ills of all institutional religion.[ii] He states that religion is “violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”
There’s a lot of hostility these days toward religion in general and toward the church in particular.
This is nothing new, of course. Even in Jesus’ day there was ill-will toward religion. Mark, one of the four biographers of Jesus’ life, focuses on this ill-will. His Gospel includes 10 occasions during which Jesus and religious leaders got into conflict. This summer, we’re using these 10 conflicts to reflect on the difference between being religious and following Jesus.
At the end of 2008, the website connected to television’s “The Travel Channel” posted their list of the “Top 40 Travel Songs of All Time.”[1] The list came from a poll of Travel Channel fans regarding what music they love to listen to when they drive or fly. The web site tabulated the results of the poll and produced a list of the top forty travel songs.
Read More »The Ride of Your Life: Why Community is so Vital to Your Voyage (Ps. 133)