Tony Jones: April 2009 Archives

It seems that the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association will not reprise the ill-fated CBE. As Marcia Nelson reports in Publishers Weekly, the ECPA is "pulling the plug" on the CBE, and hoping to clean up the quarter-million dollar debt they amassed before diving back in to direct-to-consumer events.

As someone who just co-started a company that specializes in small events (100-300 persons), I'm neither surprised nor worried. There's still a market for events, but I think the era of mega-events is coming to an end.

In Phyllis Tickle's latest book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why, she writes of the "centering" of Christianity. In her famous quadrilateral diagram, she demonstrates how liturgicals, social justicers, pente-charistmatics, and doctrinal evangelicals are all swirling toward the center. Many of us find it a compelling argument, and the latest data seems to reinforce her thesis.

Well, this morning, I was watching Morning Joe, as I often do with my, er, morning joe. (I actually like Joe Scarborough, although his recent defense of the torturers has left me cold.)

Of late, Joe has been hammering on the fact that only 21% of Americans identify themselves as Republicans. It's a bad story for the GOP, especially as blue encroaches from the coasts into the Heartland -- Joe said this morning that it will soon be the Dixie Party, meaning that the southeastern U.S (a.k.a., the "Deep South") will be all that's left in the Republican base.

Of course, the switch of Arlen Specter really brings this home. And it was in talking about Specter that Joe said something thing reminded me of Phyllis:

Yesterday, Pew released a follow-up to their much ballyhooed religion survey that showed a 10 percent rise in a decade in the number of Americans that, when asked their religious affiliation, declared, "None."

The original press reports declared, and the in-depth graphics make clear, that the younger an American is, the more likely s/he is a None; Catholics leave their religion more frequently than Protestants; and most Nones, though not practicing a religion, still consider themselves spiritual and tend to believe in God.

At Explore the Spirit, David Crumm digs a little deeper to find some hidden gems in the study, and he lays out a Top Ten list of "secrets" in the Pew Report.

In the past, I've used this space to challenge advocates of Reformed theology to stand up to other advocates of Reformed theology. More specifically, my worry is that all of the press is going toward a particular version of "Reformed" that Calvin himself wouldn't recognize -- this group represented by Piper, Driscoll, MacArthur, Carson, and Mohler; they follow the hardline "TULIP" doctrine; and they are fêted by TIME Magazine, Christianity Today, and in books.

But there are other Calvinisms out there -- other Calvinisms that are truer to Calvin himself and, honestly, in better accord with the Bible and with modern theology. Further, alternate Calvinisms play well with others -- TULIP does not.

Adam has convened a great conversation at Pomomusings called Plurality 2.0. My friend, Phillip Clayton posted last week.  Money quote:

I'm guessing that most readers of this post in fact already live in Pluralism 2.0. If you're one of those people, interwoven identities is second-nature to you, like the air we breathe. Of course our Christian identities are not rigid and fully definable in "essentialist" fashion. All important identities weave their roots in, around, and through everything that we are. Does this mean that we have to listen really hard to understand another's identity? Yes. Does it make judging others, whatever labels they use of themselves, more difficult? You better believe it. Does Pluralism 2.0 make us relativists who could never be Jesus' disciples with our entire heart, soul, strength, and mind? By no means! (If I had another post, I would walk through the major moments in Jesus' ministry when he showed incredible awareness of the complexity of human identities, like John 4, Luke 7, and Luke 10.)

Well, not exactly. Tad DeLay, a fan of things emergent, was a music pastor at an evangelical church plant. But he was fired for the direction his theology was taking.  He performed this song, indicative of his theological musings, a...

A couple weeks ago, I hypothesized that Rod's disdain for SSM has something to do with his conversion to Orthodoxy -- actually, to the kind of personality that would convert to Orthodoxy. In response to that post, I was contacted...

Last week, Doug Kmiec went on Colbert and became the next in a long line of people: Those who've gone on Colbert and said what I want to say on Colbert. Kmiec said what more and more of us are...

From John La Grou: Volume Two of the Wikiklesia Project has been announced. Taking Flight: Reclaiming the Female Half of God's Image. A Journey of Freedom and Reconciliation The award winning Wikiklesia Project (www.wikiklesia.org) broke new ground as a crowd sourced, collaborative...

D.Min. Students Take Note:Both of the events listed below are being offered for credit at Fuller Theological Seminary. Fuller is offering 4 credits for each event, and Tony Jones will be the professor of record. The course will consist...

In one of my early posts on same sex marriage, I wrote that I used to be in the "natural law" camp of persons who said that, thought there's not an overwhelming amount of verses in the Bible about homosexuality...

You may recall that Kevin DeYoung, co-author of the book, Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), was on a panel discussion with me a few weeks ago at the Christian Book Expo in Dallas. I have...

The doods at Homebrewed Christianity have taken my conversation with Bart Ehrman about his book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know about Them). You can, of course, get it on iTunes, or...

I ran my book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier though Wordle. It's 87.790 words, and this is what I got:...

Whilst I was at Furman University this week (which, I must say, is one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen), I received an email from Princeton Seminary granting me an extension till March, 2010, to finish my dissertation....

Earlier this week, I interviewed Bart Ehrman, New Testament scholar at UNC. We talked about his latest book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know about Them). Among the other topics: philosophical hermeneutics,...

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Some of my favorite commenters (like Annie) have accused me of "straw man" arguments this past week. I disagree. That would mean that I had overinflated the arguments of my theological opponents and then popped their balloons.  But, in fact,...

No. I simply deny it pride of place.  Here's what I wrote in October, 2006 about my lunch with John Piper:One thing that won't surprise anyone who knows about these things: John Piper basically equates a penal substitutionary understanding of...

So, I wrote a couple of posts over the weekend -- "Why Jesus Died" and "Why Jesus Rose" -- that affirmed a traditional and orthodox understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  But because I don't afford the...

I'll be interviewing Bart Ehrman tomorrow for Bnet regarding his latest book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know about Them).If you've got a question you think I should ask, leave a comment....

Leave it to Rick to finish his countdown of emergent music by naming a band that no one has ever heard of as the official band of emergent Christianity.OK, I suppose that some people have heard of Arcade Fire. But...

I'm on no quest to reject the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement (PSA). (I merely intend to dethrone it.) :-)  In fact, that's the understanding of Jesus' death that was taught to me in my youth group as a...

It's Good Friday, the day that we Christians "celebrate" -- actually, commemorate -- Jesus' crucifixion. For the last several years, in my little corner of Christianity, there's been lots of talk about the atonement -- that is, about what exactly...

Then consider DART Stations of the Cross."Holy Railin'" in the Oak Cliff Advocate....

For the third year in a row, I've spent the past few days in Waco, TX at Baylor University.  As a yankee, I hear all sorts of stereotypes about things and places Southern.  But, with the exception of some rather...

I'll be on Think with Krys Boyd on KERA in Dallas, and available online.  You can call in with questions, too.1pm: How is religion changing in America and how does the new Christian practice differ from the traditional church? We'll...

Claudia, AKA Ragamuffin Diva, read my post in which I proposed that Rod's opposition to SSM is related to his conversion to Orthodoxy -- actually, that certain persons are attracted to EO...  Here's what she wrote:Dear Tony,I was interested to...

If you're a PC user and have Real Player, you should be able to see it here.In any case, I really like Baylor.  It's continued to be a moderate place, and the people I know there are genuine and hospitable. ...

It just turns out that he won't debate it with me.Last fall, Rod and I agreed, at the behest of our then-editor, Patton Dodd, to hold a friendly "blogalogue" on same sex marriage.  It was in the aftermath of California's...

It's National Poetry Month, so here's my favorite poem, first introduced to me by my Brit Lit teacher, Bud Jensen, during my senior year in high school.  Good words for all of us -- emergent, evangelical, Reformed, Democrats, Americans --...

I've already blogged about this a couple times, but here's the video artifact of the panel at the Christian Book Expo.  If you've got 90 minutes to spare, you can decide for yourself about whether Scot's (and my) charges of...

Christianity21 is an event that JoPa Productions is producing next October 9-11.  And it's the first event of its kind -- historic, you might say.You see, we have invited 21 of the most compelling voices we can find to...