By: Dylan Branson on February 4, 2020
For the longest time, I have argued that I can find more theology within a song written by the American rock group, The Eagles, than I can in almost any song written within the contemporary worship movement. One of my favorite songs of all time is “Desperado”, the title track to the Eagles’ 1973 album. …
By: Darcy Hansen on February 3, 2020
The emergence of the megachurch onto the American landscape in the 1980s, though seemingly novel at the time, has deep roots in the Protestant movement, beginning in the 16th century when Huguenot architect Jacques Perret envisioned and then constructed a large, multi-functional worship space. Then in the Revivalism of the 1700s, George Whitefield “pioneered a…
By: Joe Castillo on February 3, 2020
Scripture and consumerism Jesus spoke often about the challenge of materialism. Sure, there weren’t all the advertisements, brands, cosmetics and fashion magazines but he did explain in Luke 12 how things have a way of taking hold of our hearts and becoming our master. He did talk about how we can so easily give our…
By: Steve Wingate on February 3, 2020
Miller challenges us to consider, how does “consumer culture change our relationship with religious beliefs, narratives, and symbols.”[1] Concurrently, in a purely free market what influences our desires that drive our choices? I ask myself; do we need a renewed or restored idea of what the telos, God’s influence ought to be in our communities?…
By: Shawn Cramer on February 3, 2020
Vincent Miller’s subtitle of Consuming Religion captures an easily overlooked aspect from his book. The subtitle reads, “Christian faith and practice in a consumer culture.” While this book obviously unpacks and critiques consumer culture, it is also (and just as much) an articulation and reflection on the connection between “faith and practice” with consumer culture…
By: Steve Wingate on January 30, 2020
If I am doing well in business, then God’s love will shine on me. Is that true? Or is God’s love predestined for a select. The proverb, “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men” [1] would seem to confirm the above questions. However,…
By: Greg Reich on January 29, 2020
Max Weber a German sociologist and political economist in his book The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism was looking into the foundational ideas that created the perfect storm for Capitalism to thrive. To Weber these ideas came from Protestantism, specifically from Luther’s concept of calling and Calvinism’s view of Predestination.[1] Weber noticed a…
By: Joe Castillo on January 29, 2020
The pre-suppose. «Max Weber presupposes, in Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism, the existence of the relationship of which he studies only modalities. The de chain of circumstances’ ends in a ‘causal chain.’ His question begins like this: ‘How do some religious beliefs determine the emergence of an economy mentality,’ in other words, the…
By: Jer Swigart on January 28, 2020
Observing that many of the most successful and well-educated business people of his day were Protestants, Max Weber, in his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, sought to answer the question: what is the connection between Protestantism and the emergence of the capitalism of his day? Drafted less as an economic expose,…
By: Dylan Branson on January 28, 2020
Reading through Weber’s The Protestant Ethic raised a lot of questions and contained a lot of thought provoking ideas. I can honestly say that the notion that Calvinism serves as one of the roots of Capitalism has never crossed my mind, so this was a deep dive into new territory. As I was reading, one…
By: Darcy Hansen on January 28, 2020
There is a deep hunger within each person, a wondering, a longing for a grounded Presence. For millennia, we’ve been searching. We want to know there’s more to this life then what is visible. So, we look about for the Divine, the God of Creation, Who spoke and all we see came to be.…
By: Shawn Cramer on January 27, 2020
Capitalism at is worst develops suffocating monopolies. The field of innovation is currently monopolized by the Mammonic grip of the evolving spirit of capitalism. Furthermore, innovation has been taken hostage by the Protestant ethic, and “the common good” requires innovation to be rescued from its inclusion as an agent of perpetual commodification and resituated as…
By: Chris Pollock on January 25, 2020
“No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Jesus of Nazareth “Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung This is a subject that I do…
By: Steve Wingate on January 23, 2020
We need government. We need to work from the Kingdom of God. And we need to seek to understand what our responsibilities are and how to be Christ-like within systems we often cannot control which are designed to maximize self-centered gain. We are not mere principles of use for complex systems of our societies. Scripture…
By: Greg Reich on January 22, 2020
“Some people say a man is made outta mud A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood Muscle and blood and skin and bones A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter don’t you call me…
By: Shawn Cramer on January 21, 2020
Innovation is inherently philosophical. Nearly every useful definition of innovation consists of two parts: a highlight of what is “new,” “novel” or “fresh,” and the second part nearly always points to “added value” to some group of people. When “value” is discussed, the conversation turns necessarily to philosophy – What is value? Value towards what…
By: Jer Swigart on January 21, 2020
It was a cold Minnesota Saturday and local Mohican faith leader, Jim Bear Jacobs, had joined a delegation that I was facilitating in order to challenge our dominant culture understanding of Scripture, Christian faithfulness, and restorative leadership. During the conversation, he brought up the commodification of land by white, European settlers. Referencing what some would…
By: Joe Castillo on January 20, 2020
The capitalist system A market is a social structure that brings together a buyer and a seller to agree on a price to exchange goods or services. … The nature of market is such that the market always tries to bring itself to equilibrium. The question I ask myself about the issue is capitalism. where does capitalism go? We may not know the…
By: Chris Pollock on January 19, 2020
Hockey was big in my family, as was soccer (of course, I mean British Football). Tuesday and Thursday mornings every week my brother and I were up before school for hockey practise. In the evenings after school, when we weren’t at soccer practise, we were playing ball hockey and shooting pucks in our driveway. When…
By: Dylan Branson on January 19, 2020
In the Gospel of John, we read of a story that many of us are familiar with: The cleansing of the temple by Jesus. John writes: When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at…
