By: Wallace Kamau on February 15, 2019
This Quote by Gordon B Hinkley[1]is of great interest to me because life is like a battle and when you cease from fighting for the good, the bad automatically takes over. Life is about the choices that you make, knowing that every choice has consequences. God has given every person the important ability to make…
By: Mary Mims on February 15, 2019
Living in Washington, DC can be exhausting at times. I hate to continuously write about things going on here, but it is an ever present reality. The government is in full blown crisis mode, but everything is going about as usual. Even if you try not to look at the never ending news, someone will…
By: Kyle Chalko on February 15, 2019
I imagine the Apostle Paul hearing about this study… Tanya: “Let’s label and quantify anthropologically and psychologically effects that people experience and call “real” when they pray.” The Apostle Paul: stares blankly…. “Ok, well I’m going to go tell those people over there about the real Jesus. Bye now.” Tanya Luhrmann writes in…
By: Jean Ollis on February 15, 2019
I’m not sure how I feel about Luhrmann’s text, When God Talks Back. Luhrmann sets out to understand the American evangelical experience through personally assimilating herself into a church system. “Tanya began researching the American evangelical experience by attending weekly services at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church in Chicago. This church, the Vineyard, is one of…
By: Jay Forseth on February 15, 2019
Do You “Believe”? Written by: Jay Forseth on February 14, 2019 Before I jump into Luhrmann, I recognize she gives us MANY things we can EASILY discuss. I feel I must start this week’s Blog with the one word that kept coming up in my mind while reading Luhrmann’s, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. [1] The word is—“believe”. No, I’m…
By: Mario Hood on February 15, 2019
In the social sciences field, similar to Karl Polanyni’s, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Max Weber’s, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, is considered a seminal work and “still remains one of the most influential and widely read works in social science”.[1] Weber using both empirical research and…
By: Rev Jacob Bolton on February 15, 2019
While we were in Hong Kong, many of us chose to worship at the Hong Kong Baptist church. The entire service was both foreign and familiar to me. Though I had never been there before, and didn’t understand the language, many of the hymns were familiar, the feel of the worship space was familiar, even…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on February 15, 2019
There is a story I once heard about God talking to a child. The child asked, “God, what is a million years on earth like for you?” and God replied, “It’s like one minute in Heaven.” So, the little boy asked, “God, what is a million dollars on earth like for you?” and God replied,…
By: Dan Kreiss on February 15, 2019
I have little doubt that ‘When God Talks Back’ by Tanya Luhrmann could be a difficult read for many who call themselves Evangelical. Akin to deep introspection or even constructive criticism that is unrequested, the sense that one is being observed with a critical eye is unnerving. Many might be prone to react defensively, feeling…
By: Trisha Welstad on February 15, 2019
Christians all over the world pray to God. At my church we have at least five different prayer ministries. Seeking God is a normative part of the Christian experience. But what about hearing a response from God? T.M. Luhrmann asks about the Divine response to humans in her multi-year anthropological study of the Vineyard…
By: Andrea Lathrop on February 14, 2019
I remember the first time I heard that saying – God helps those who help themselves. I didn’t give it much notice except that my husband made mention of it later and hinted that it was not biblical. I was in my mid-twenties and for the life of me could not figure out the…
By: Sean Dean on February 14, 2019
“Hard work pays off.” my band director would say time and time again to us. “Hard work is its own reward,” my parents and grandparents would repeat over and over to me and my sisters. Even in our deeply Catholic community the remnants of the faith system of the Puritans who founded our city could…
By: Jay Forseth on February 14, 2019
Before I jump into Luhrmann, I recognize she gives us MANY things we can EASILY discuss. I feel I must start this week’s Blog with the one word that kept coming up in my mind while reading Luhrmann’s, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. [1] The word is—“believe”. No, I’m not saying God spoke this word to me. But maybe He…
By: Rhonda Davis on February 14, 2019
Weber’s book, The Spirit of Capitalism, is a founding sociology text. In this book, he advocates that capitalism is a direct result of the protestant work ethic. He argues that we are indebted to our religious heritage for the successes of capitalist economies.[1] According to Weber, it all began with the dawn of Protestantism. In…
By: Jason Turbeville on February 14, 2019
When I picked up When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God by T.M. Luhrmann I was expecting a hit job on evangelicals. Not sure why, just was. What I found was a deeply thought out discussion of the implications of hearing God speak. Luhrmann discusses her experiences within The Vineyard denomination, which, to my embarrassment, I had never heard of…
By: Jenn Burnett on February 14, 2019
Early in my youth I had an existential crises which led me to explore the purpose of my life. Perhaps this exploration is normal as children grow into adults, but it led me through a dark place. With an encouraging intent, a leader shared with me Jeremiah 29:11 “‘For I know the plans I have…
By: Mike on February 14, 2019
Tanya Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back explores a mental place of cognizance where Christianity, Science, and Psychology intersect to form a type of a sustainable space where one can pray, communicate, and hear the voice of God. Using a phenomenological approach and ethnographic method, Luhrmann immersed herself into the Vineyard church to observe, interview, and…
By: Digby Wilkinson on February 14, 2019
Back in the dark ages when I studied ethics for three years, I discovered to my consternation that the world of economics had a somewhat lopsided and precarious relationship to moral theory. Until the later part of the 19th century moral deliberations occupied a conspicuous place in economic studies. A principal notion in Max Weber’s…
By: Jake Dean-Hill on February 14, 2019
When I discovered Luhrmann’s book, When God Talks Back, was about the Vineyard Movement I got excited. I grew up in Southern California and was very well acquainted with the Vineyard Movement and even attended John Wimber’s founding Vineyard Fellowship in Anaheim, CA several times while attending Azusa Pacific University. I remember the excitement of…
By: Colleen Batchelder on February 14, 2019
T.M. Luhrmann, a social scientist[1]and psychological anthropologist[2], drops her readers down a rabbit hole and then challenges them to utilize their theological theories to climb up from the darkness. When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God presents an argument that is built on the facets of a Luhrmann’s four-fold theological viewpoint, which includes,…
