Author: Jonathan Blundell

I'm a husband, father of three, blogger, podcaster, author and media geek who is hoping to live a simple life and follow The Way.

A Christianity Worth Believing

Tim Conder (Emmaus Way) and Doug Pagitt (Solomon’s Porch) talk about Pagitt’s new book, “A Christianity Worth Believing” on the new Homebrewed Christianity.

From Amazon:

A Christianity Worth Believing

A Christianity Worth Believing offers an engaging, ‘come-with-me-on-a-journey-of-exploring-the-possibilities’ approach to what it means to be a follower of Jesus in our day. Written by Doug Pagitt—a leading voice in the Emergent conversation—this beautifully written book weaves together theological reflections, Christian history, and his own story of faith transformation.

Pagitt invites readers to follow him as he tells the story of his un-churched childhood, his life-altering conversion at age 16, his intense involvement in the church, and his growing sense of unease with the version of Christianity he was living. On page after page, Pagitt lays out his journey toward an authentic, passionate expression of a faith that feels alive, sustainable, and meaningful.

A Christianity Worth Believing is for the growing numbers of people who have serious and thoughtful questions about Christianity, who have lived for years with deep-seated wondering and doubts about their faith. Pagitt points the way to a new kind of faith by asking the “off-limits” questions about God, Jesus, sin, the Bible, humanity, church, and the Kingdom of God. Rather than rehashing old debates, he offers new insights, provocative possibilities, and hopeful alternatives.

In A Christianity Worth Believing you may well discover questions you didn’t think you could ask, ideas you didn’t think you could pursue, beliefs you didn’t think you could hold onto. Ultimately you will discover a Christianity worth believing.

The U.S. housing crisis

In case you haven’t been paying attention, or just simply ignored the crisis, NPR’s This American Life had a great summary and explanation of the current mortgage/housing crisis in the U.S.

Here’s a very brief summary as I understand it. Basically there’s suddenly been all this new money in the world. The amount of money being spent worldwide doubled over the last 6 years.

Poor countries were becoming richer and richer by making things like TVs and selling oil so suddenly there’s LOADS of money with no place to invest. And what good is money if you can’t invest it to make more money for you? So we end up with twice as much money looking for investments but not twice as many places to invest into.

Alan Greenspan kept the fed interest rate at 1% – so that folks couldn’t make money off of us treasury bonds. The show says basically, Greenspan said, “Screw the international pool of money – we’re not going to help you make money off our treasury bonds.” Ha!

So the investors looked for other places to invest – like the US housing market. And investors were willing to take a risk on mortgage loans in order to make well more than 1% on their investments.
But of course the investors don’t want to worry with the hassle of individual loans so folks on Wall Street found a way around the issues and hassle of individual loans. Folks would sign on to a mortgage at 5-10% and then those loans are sold to small banks who then sell them to a guy on Wall Street.

That guy on Wall Street now has several thousand loans with big fat checks coming in every month – and will be scheduled to come in for the next 30 years. So he turns around and sells shares of his investment to all these folks with loads of new money, aka mortgage bank securities.

By 2003, just about everyone who could qualify for a loan could get one – yet the money was just getting started. So the loan qualifications and guidelines got looser and looser till folks could get half-a-million dollar loan without any proof of income.

Of course the more loans you give out, the stronger your security will be.

“We almost couldn’t produce to help keep the appetite of our investors happy.”

And the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Of course this is just a brief summary of a one-hour program. Listen online for the real details and what really started the crisis.

Quote for the day

“We want to create a sense of community, particularly that which will included those who are marginalized…We try to help them discover what does ‘good news mean for them’. Whatever that is we try to work for that. For some it might mean providing friendship… it may mean providing support groups… it may involve literacy training… or a co-op for generating income… or an advocacy group.”
– Dave Andrews of the Australian Waiters Union
via Nick & Josh Podcast

twisted pressure on pastors

Brian shared some thoughts on the encounter blog about pastors and a new book by George Barna, Pagan Christianity…

  • 94 percent feel pressured to have an ideal family
  • 90 percent work more than 46 hours a week
  • 81 percent say they have insufficient time with their spouse
  • 80 percent believe that pastoral ministry affects their family negatively
  • 70 percent do not have someone they consider a close friend
  • 70 percent have lower self-esteem than when they entered the ministry
  • 50 percent feel unable to meet the demands of the job
  • 80 percent feel discouraged and deal with depression
  • more than 40 percent report that they are suffering from burnout, frantic schedules, and unrealistic expectations
  • 33 percent consider pastoral ministry an outright hazard to their family
  • 33 percent have seriously considered leaving their position in the past year
  • 40 percent of pastoral resignations are due to burnout

Brian says he’s rarely faced any of these issues since encounter began, but I wonder if there are other pastors in our lives that might be struggling with these issues while there are things we can take off their plate, encourage them about, or ensure them that its not expected of them.

Tony Jones and Collin Hansen discuss their “movements”

ChristianityToday is sharing an e-mail exchange between Tony Jones and Collin Hansen as they discuss their most recent books and their “movements” within Christianity.

Tony Jones is the national coordinator of Emergent Village and author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier. Collin Hansen is editor-at-large of Christianity Today and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists. Both books take a sympathetic journalistic approach to a young but growing movement in American Christianity, examining why it’s growing and how it’s changing the larger church.

From Tony Jones:

Where we probably differ is not so much on theology, but on epistemology. That is, it seems the difference between the people you profile in Young, Restless, Reformed seem pretty darn sure that they’ve got the gospel right, whereas the Emergents that I hang out with are less sure of their right-ness. In fact, they’re less sure that we, as finite human beings, can get anything all that right.

The discussion is being spread over three days. You can read the first two days online now, and tomorrow the third installment will be posted.

Thanks to John for the tip.

Love wins

I was reminded of this quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today.

“I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say: ‘We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you…. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”

Sounds like Dr. King saw a third-way. It wasn’t running. It wasn’t hitting back. It was standing up – reaching out – and loving.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” – Jesus (Matthew 5)