Countdown Day 68
Through the 1980’s and 1990’s, conservative Evangelicals could contrast their growth statistics with the decline of their “liberal” Christian counterparts. They frequently suggested that their theological and socioeconomic conservatism was the secret to their statistical success. But in the first decade of the new millennium, Evangelicals also discovered that their trend lines were turning south; they too were losing their younger generations. (10)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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Shane and Bart get it right.
Shane Claiborne was invited to "preach" to Esquire here.
Bart Campolo offers a meditation on bedbugs here.
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Countdown Day 69
Not only were historic Protestant denominations shrinking numerically, but the remaining churchgoers were wrinkling. The average age rose as young people dropped out after high school or college. Episcopalians, for example, were losing the equivalent of a diocese per year, and the average age had crept up to sixty-two – almost twice the age of the average American (thirty-two). (10)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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this weekend – LA, Fuller, All Saints
I'll be in the Los Angeles area this weekend - I hope to cross paths with any of you who can come to one of these public events:
Saturday night at 7 at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena ...
Sunday morning at 10:15 at All Saints Episcopal in Beverly Hills ...
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the impossible is possible
... demonstrated in twenty fascinating minutes by hans rosling ... here.
(Thanks, Jared!)
... It is the societal map of greed, lust, arrogance, fear, racism, domination, oppression, revenge, and injustice that [Jesus] wants to redraw. He wants his disciples to move mountains of injustice and make new rivers of creativity and compassion flow. He wants them to uproot the fruitless fig tree of dual-narrative religion and plant in its place a spiritual vineyard of joy and transformation. He wants his followers to do the impossible: to label as unacceptable, unnatural, and changeable a world where homeless children beg outside the sprawling estates of the super-rich ... a world that could tithe its weapons budget and so feed, clothe, and shelter the poor.... Faith brings God's creative power into our global crises, so the impossible first becomes possible and then inevitable for those who believe. (Everything Must Change, 300-301)
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