By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 20, 2020
This past week has been very challenging, perhaps extremely distracting and dismaying, for all of us. For us here locally at the Vineyard Church of Houston, we held our first “COVID-19 Response” joint staff and Pastoral Council meeting (via Zoom) last Thursday evening, March 12. Since then, we have and continue to learn and share…
By: Jenn Burnett on March 20, 2020
This morning my husband and I looked again at the numbers: the COVID-19 count around the world. It is part of our new morning routine. We look for how our own nation is faring compared to other countries. This morning he had a hint of hope in his voice as he noted the increase wasn’t…
By: Harry Edwards on March 19, 2020
We are living in unprecedented times. There seems to be a general world wide malaise affecting everyone concerned about the coronavirus. It’s all what people talk about. In a week’s time we went from smiling at silly memes like “Throwback Thursdays” to pandemonium as if the world was coming to an end. Wherever one may…
By: Sean Dean on March 19, 2020
In his book Identity Francis Fukuyama argues that much of the recent shift in politics in the world is a result of people feeling that they are not getting a proper amount of respect or that they feel invisible or humiliated by the world as they understand it. These two motivations have led to the…
By: Andrea Lathrop on March 19, 2020
Francis Fukuyama’s Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment was a challenging assignment, given the situation the world is facing. I believe his premise has merit and is worth our attention but attention has been a scarce commodity. What a couple of weeks it has been. My fifteen year-old daughter realized and…
By: Steve Wingate on March 19, 2020
Reflecting on these two texts, I am focused upon the term ‘Ezer Kenegdo.’[1] The word Ezer Kenegdo is an old Hebrew term, but the purpose of discussion essentially means a strong warrior, a complimentary partner with the other half of the adam. I love the word complementary. Complementary is what one is and doing if they…
By: Mario Hood on March 19, 2020
Who am I? This question has always been and will always be the million-dollar question. Issues with identity are not anything new, but as Fukuyama points out, we might be in a new era of what is genuinely shaping people’s identity. In his book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, he…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on March 18, 2020
Continuing our semester study of the intersection between cultural movements and personal identity, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Stanford Professor Francis Fukuyama is a tour de force of the history and current reality of identity politics. The universal desire for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that…
By: John McLarty on March 18, 2020
What do we do when the historic interpretation of a passage (or two) of Scripture does harm? Certainly a multitude of faithful Christ-followers in every expression of Christianity, and as well as those who never really gave Jesus a chance, have been bruised, broken, and bloodied by the teachings of the Church. The Bible has…
By: Greg Reich on March 18, 2020
The date was around 1990. The place Lake Tapps Christian Church. My position was an unpaid Associate Pastor in a small growing church plant. The issue being discussed in our meeting was installing elders for the first time and whether we should consider a woman who was active in the church desiring to be an…
By: Dylan Branson on March 17, 2020
Within theology, “egalitarianism” is defined as “a movement based on the theological view that not only are all people equal before God in their personhood, but there are no gender-based limitations of what functions or roles each can fulfill in the home, the church, and society.”[1] It’s counterpart, “complementarianism” is defined as “the theological view…
By: Shawn Cramer on March 17, 2020
Paradox An innovation theory meta-paradox currently reigns: while innovation theory proclaims creativity is often developed on the fringes, innovation theory is still dominated by white men both through its praised exemplars (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg) and theorists (Buchanan, Brown, Kelley, Rogers and other names unique to that circle). I want to be sure…
By: Joe Castillo on March 17, 2020
One of the five freedoms of the Free Methodist Church denomination is to ordain women into ministry. Historically it has been a value of the FMC theology statement and rooted in the teachings of John Wesley and later carried on to the FMC by its funder B.T Roberts. Since its birth, women, called into ministry…
By: Darcy Hansen on March 16, 2020
The COVID-19 virus is spreading over the globe. It began in China and has migrated and infected people in numerous countries. “There have already been 174,000 cases and 6,700 deaths worldwide.”[1] Fear and panic has also infected communities through digital media outlets highlighting stock market corrections, health-care system overloads, and supply chain challenges. People are…
By: Jer Swigart on March 16, 2020
I had just arrived at the dinner table this evening, having finished up my reading of Katia Adams’ Equal and Lucy Peppiatt’s Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women. Both are remarkable works that, through careful exegesis, conclude that women and men are uniquely suited for equal roles of leadership and authority in the life of the…
By: John Muhanji on March 16, 2020
Growing up in a family that was the first generation of Christian converts after the missionaries arrived in the Eastern part of Africa. We grew up with the do and don’ts principle of Christianity. We had good and bad morals. Bad morals were punishable by God, and that was a sin. We have grown up…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on March 16, 2020
Sorry so late this week. It’s been a week of reflection and trepidation for me, so I am on tenuous ground. It’s a topsy-turvy world out there and trying to navigate these waters is both confusing and disheartening. I have additional fears with regards to this coronavirus situation, because all my kids are in the…
By: Shermika Harvey on March 16, 2020
Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and connection to something larger. That something larger might take various forms, but a sense of connection to God is it’s most visceral incarnation. And that kind of connectivity is hard to replicate. [1] Times are changing. People are no…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on March 15, 2020
It was challenging to find a non-Christian review of McLaughlin’s Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. While I did not do an exhaustive search, I landed upon Mark Ward’s review. Ward initially approached McLaughlin’s work, thinking it was written from a non-Christian perspective. He quickly became impressed with her grounded (an…
By: Digby Wilkinson on March 15, 2020
An important opening question. Did you know that Corona Beer sales have dropped by 55% in the United States? In New Zealand, sales are up for the same brew because some of us see it as a temporary vaccine to the virus of the same name. It’s a great theory and we are sticking to…
