High School Social Studies Classes Confront Islamophobia @LaceyPatch

I’ll be dealing with some of the issues raised in this lecture in my next NJ Shore Patch column. I didn’t have the opportunity to do so in this article.

Lacey Township High School is attempting to break cultural boundaries as guest lecturer Engy Abdelkader, a Muslim American, spoke to students about Islamophobia.

Social Studies teachers Julie Ferenc and Joe Humenick hosted Abdelkader in an effort to increase tolerance and reduce bullying, Humenick said. Although previous classes have learned about intolerance and a holocaust survivor is scheduled to speak before the school year ends, Abdelkader is the first person invited to speak on the topic this year, he said.

Abdelkader is a Monmouth County attorney of Egyptian descent. She was born, raised, and educated in the United States. Her goal for the event was to reduce conflicts, misunderstanding, teasing, and bullying, and to build trust and supportive relationships so that a more effective learning environment is created for all students, she said.

Abdelkader opened the discussion by asking students what stereotypes they have heard about Muslims and/or Arab Americans.  …

To learn more and to see how Lacey residents are responding, go to Lacey Patch.

 Posted on April 29, 2011 by

 Community, Culture, Democracy, Education, Faith, Family, Friendship, History, Islam, Leadership, Public Square, Race, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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What Is Scripture for? An Architect Wrestles with His Calling @TheHighCalling

Rick Archer was a rising architectural star in Washington, D.C., when some fellow believers challenged him: “You’ve always chosen what was best, but have you chosen what was right?”

For Archer, what was right was synonymous with what was best for his career, and he had just been offered the opportunity to rise further in his field through a two-year all expenses paid fellowship to study in Florence, Italy. His friends advised him instead to take a sabbatical so he could learn about Jesus and what it means to be his disciple.

“The story of the rich young ruler who went away sad because he wouldn’t follow Jesus hit me like a ton a bricks,” said Archer. …

Find out what happened next and why at The High Calling.

 Posted on April 25, 2011 by

 church life, Community, Culture, Ethics, Faith, Leadership, Public Square, Redemption, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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Brookville Community Church Celebrates Easter @BarnegatPatch

Tiny but devoted congregation meets monthly in historic one-room church.

Easter 2011 at Brookville Community Church, Barnegat, NJEaster service at Brookville Community Church in Barnegat began at 11:30 a.m. At 11:20, Dave and Tammy were sitting in their car chatting with Bill, who was leaning into their window. My husband and I pulled up and said hi.

Tammy and Dave have been attending the one-room church for almost two years. They live in Beachwood, but park their motor home at Brookville Campground down the street, said Tammy.

“We saw this little church. We’re very fond of it. We love it. It’s just beautiful, ” she said.

The little building reminds her of an old Victorian chapel, she said. She’s equally fond of Brookville’s pastor, Eileen Murphy.

“She’s a wonderful speaker,” said Tammy.

At 11:25, I pushed open the church door and Bill turned on the light. He lives in the neighborhood and had the keys to the church. Dave began searching for a brochure that would tell me about Brookville’s history. He gave up a few minutes later when three women arrived.

One woman sat in a chair at the front of the sanctuary facing the congregation – eight of us altogether. She asked if anyone had joys to share.  …

Read the rest at Barnegat Patch.

 Posted on April 25, 2011 by

 church life, Community, Culture, Faith, Family, Friendship, Theology, Walkin' the Talk

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What Does It Mean to Live a Missional Life? @TheHighCalling

A Christian radio station commissioned a listener survey and learned that less than 100 people were tuning in to its programming. Instead of being concerned, management’s response was to say that it didn’t matter because their sole responsibility was to get the station’s message out.

Hearing this story in a Consumer Behavior class at Wheaton College was a defining moment in branding expert Karen Dougherty’s vocational journey. “They didn’t care how the receivers on the other end actually connected with the message,” said Dougherty.

The story illustrates a problem that Laity Leadership Institute Senior Fellow Darrell Guder and his colleagues tackled in their 1998 landmark book, Missional Church: A Vision for Sending of the Church in North America.

In the introduction, Guder identified these crises in the Western church: “diminishing numbers, clergy burnout, the loss of youth, the end of denominational loyalty, biblical illiteracy, divisions in the ranks, the electronic church and its various corruptions, the irrelevance of traditional forms of worship, the loss of genuine spirituality, and widespread confusion about both the purpose and the message of the church of Jesus Christ.”

I talked with Guder at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he is the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology, about what it means to live out the Christian faith in light of these crises.

Read the rest here.

 Posted on April 19, 2011 by

 church life, Community, Culture, Faith, Leadership, Public Square, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow

Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University in Chicago, Illinois, but I know him as a prolific blogger and internet friend.

What I love about Scot is that he has a unique ability to successfully bridge the divide between theologically conservative evangelicals and more progressive ones. When they get busy fighting, he gets busy trying to get them to listen better to one another, or at least to treat each other with more respect.

Scot isn’t uncritical of either group, but his critiques are always rooted in a graciousness that stems from his commitment to what he calls The Jesus Creed, but what others know as Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets from Mark 12:28-33, which says, in essence: love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. I value his contribution because I think he helps to shake conservatives free of their unbiblical sacred cows and reminds those who have left the fold not to despise the breasts that nursed them.

Another thing I love about Scot is his heart for young people. He’s a serious academic, but he’s first and foremost a teacher. This comes through in his blog and his many books, the latest of which is One.Life: Jesus Calls We Follow.

He writes in the afterward that the book was written for “people who really do think a Christian is someone who follows Jesus,” but I read it as a love letter to his students, especially those who may be floundering as they try to figure out what to do with their lives.

In chapters with names like Kingdom.Life, Love.Life, Peace.Life, Sex.Life, Vocation.Life, and Eternity.Life, his approach both stylistically and narratively seems geared toward a youthful audience. He tells stories about his students and then proceeds to answer the questions these stories pose or advocate the big living they demonstrate.

In the chapter called Justice.Life, he writes: “When I hear Christians describe the Christian life as little more than soul development and personal intimacy with God … I have to wonder if Christians even read their Bibles.” And in the promotional material, McKnight says, “Jesus offers to us a kingdom dream that transforms us to the very core of our being. His vision is so big we are called to give our entire life to it. His vision is so big it swallows up our dreams.”

One.Life exhorts readers to live up to their Christian calling.

There’s a section in the chapter on Vocation.Life that is classic McKnight. He quotes from two members of evangelical tribe who don’t exactly represent consensus in a way that makes a beautiful point about our interdependence while subtly reminding evangelical readers that our diverse members all belong the same spiritual family. He writes:

“When Rob Bell and John Piper, two famous pastors, speak of sex as ‘this is that,’ meaning sexuality points us toward spirituality (Bell) or ‘the mystery of Christ and the Church’ (Piper) they are tapping into the deepest mystery of life by connecting what we get to do—marriage and sex and love—to who God is. This deep mystery of life reveals that life itself is personal. The deepest dimension of the kingdom dream and of life itself is that we are persons who dwell with other persons, and only in loving others do we tap into the core of that mystery. When we do, we know it.”

So while John Piper unhelpfully tweets “Farewell Rob Bell.” in response to promotional videos for Bell’s latest book and Bell ignores him and other critics, McKnight takes the high road that defines his work and that faithful Christian living requires.

On the topic of hell that is at the center of Piper’s disagreement with Bell, McKnight writes,

“I believe in heaven. I believe in heaven because Jesus did and I hope I believe in heaven as Jesus did. I believe in heaven because I believe in justice, in peace, and in love. …I don’t, however, believe ‘heaven’ is forever and ever. I believe that what is forever and ever is called the New Heavens and the New Earth, the time and the place where heaven comes down to earth. The New Heavens and the New Earth will be the fullness of flourishing.

But belief in the New Heavens and the New Earth also means I believe in hell. I believe in hell because Jesus did. And I hope I believe in hell as Jesus believed in hell. I believe in hell because I believe in justice, in peace, and in love. But I don’t believe hell is a gassy furnace where humans are scorched forever and ever and ever and ever. …I don’t believe in Dante’s hell or in God as the grand torturer. Hell will be the end of flourishing.”

To find out more about what McKnight thinks the afterlike will be like and what it means to live the One.Life you’ve been given as God intended, you’ll have to read his book for yourself. He does say this, however: “I’ve aged enough to wonder what’s on the other side and I’ve come to this conclusion: ‘If you’ve got One.Life and if there is a life after death, and if that life is ‘forever and ever,’ then I want to live now in light of the longer stretch of life.”

Me too Scot. Me too.

 Posted on April 13, 2011 by

 Books, Faith, Social Action, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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Q&A: Will Graham on Preaching Hell and Why He Doesn’t Believe in Mass Evangelism @Christianity Today

The son of Franklin Graham and the grandson of Billy Graham discusses his family and ministry.

William (Will) Franklin Graham IV is the grandson of Billy Graham and the son of Franklin Graham. CT contributing editor Christine A. Scheller interviewed him when he was in Red Bank, New Jersey, on March 25 preparing for the May 20-22 Jersey Shore Will Graham Celebration that will be held at the historic Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove. Graham is an associate evangelist at the evangelistic organization his grandfather founded and assistant director of The Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove. He is a graduate of Liberty University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He preached his first 3-day Celebration in Leduc, Alberta, Canada in 2006. Graham and his wife, Kendra, live near Asheville, North Carolina and have three young children.

Last year Harvard professor Robert D. Putman published a book called American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. He and his co-author found that Americans’ doctrinal commitments are weakening and they don’t believe God is going to send “Aunt Joanie” to hell. How do you preach the gospel to a generation that questions the eternality of hell?

I always go back to the Bible. It’s what the Bible says, and oftentimes as Americans— and this is not just in religion, it’s in a lot of things—we try to design stuff, today we call it designer religion: “I’ll take a little bit of this and take a little bit of that” and so on, and we kind of come up with our own little religion. We try to make our own God, our own idol in a sense. This is what our God is going to be: he’s going to be more compassionate, no more hell. But always I go back to this is what the Bible says; not this is what Will Graham says, but this is what God is saying through his Word.

But you have a generation that is not biblically literate and doesn’t necessarily respect the authority of the Bible the way society did in the past. And people like Rob Bell are communicating that it hasn’t always been clear that Christians believe in the eternality of hell. The fact that CNN, ABC News, and all these other secular outlets reported on it tells me that Bell is tapping into something. …

To find out his answer to this and other questions, go to Christianity Today.

 1 Comment

 Posted on April 8, 2011 by

 Christianity Today, Culture, Faith, Family, History, Leadership, Public Square, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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Clarence Clemons Asks: Who Do I think I am? @Manasquan-BelmarPatch

Documentary on E Street Band’s ‘Big Man’ premieres at Garden State Film Festival.

Clarence Clemens Garden State Film Festival 016Clarence Clemons had dispersed a crowd on the Great Wall of China so a filmmaker could record him playing his saxophone when a member of the crowd demanded, “Who do you think you are?”

The accusation can be heard off camera in theWho Do I Think I Am? documentary that emerged from the encounter and that Clemons premiered at the Garden State Film Festival in Asbury Park Saturday night.

Clemons narrates the story himself.

It was 2005 and he had gone to China in search of rest and alternative medicine after a grueling tour took a toll on his body. Instead his accuser’s question became both the title and subject of his film and a catalyst for a spiritual quest. …

To find out where his quest leads, go to Manasquan-Belmar Patch.

 Posted on April 5, 2011 by

 Art, Beauty, Culture, Faith, Family, grief, Medicine, Redemption, Theology, Travel, Vocation

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Lessons from Elite Leaders: What Have We Learned? Part 8 of 8 @TheHighCalling

Highlights from the series.

For seven weeks, The High Calling has engaged with the ideas Laity Leadership Institute Senior Fellow D. Michael explored in his new PLATINUM Study on elite leaders.

In “Limits, Accountability, & Marriage,” we learned that setting limits on ambition, being accountable to peers, and getting married are important contributors to career success. A regular practice of Sabbath rest, for example, differentiates people who are successful over the long haul from those who experience significant difficulty creating life/work balance. We also learned that small groups can provide the kind of personal support leaders need, but only if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to our peers. Finally, we learned that a strong social support networks like marriage are vital to managing the challenges of demanding leadership roles. …

Find out what else we learned at The High Calling.

 Posted on March 30, 2011 by

 Capitalism, Community, Ethics, Faith, Family, Leadership, Public Square, Social Action, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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How I Learned to Love a Show about Mormon Polygamy @Her.meneutics

Despite its troubling views on marriage and family, HBO’s Big Love always felt like an allegory for real people I know.

Years before TLC launched its polygamous reality show Sister Wives, Tom Hanks and company produced HBO’s award-winning drama series Big Love, about a family of polygamists who emerged out of a creepy Mormon splinter group.

I’ve watched all five seasons of Big Love, including Sunday night’s series finale. Creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer told the Los Angeles Times this week that the series emerged from their marriage, with the goal of communicating the idea that marriages can endure change. What appealed to me about the show was how it parsed the challenges of breaking free from a closed religious community while grappling with the community’s best ideals and penetrating reach. …

Read the whole review here.

 Posted on March 22, 2011 by

 Community, Democracy, Faith, Family, Her.meneutics, Public Square, Redemption, Theology, Walkin' the Talk

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The Catholic Community of Saint Joseph’s Celebrates Its Patron Saint @TomsRiverPatch

More than 250 gather to observe the Feast of St. Joseph

St. Joseph's Day ShrineHe was humble, a good father, the “perfect husband” —  and Saint Joseph is also the patron saint for one of the area’s largest Roman Catholic Churches. …

In the short homily, [Rev. John] Bambrick said St. Joseph is the patron saint of the whole Catholic church and is particularly beloved among Italians. He joked that his Italian mother and his Irish father tussle over who is the greatest saint, Joseph or Patrick.

Images of St. Joseph can be found beside those of the Virgin Mary in Catholic Churches throughout the world, Bambrick said, even though Joseph never speaks in the gospel narratives and disappears early in their stories.

“A lot of women would say he is the perfect husband,” Bambrick joked in regard to Joseph’s silence in the scripture. He said he is often depicted with a staff and lilies to symbolize his virtue and purity as a model husband and father. …

To learn more about this Holy Day of Obligation everywhere but the United States, go to Toms River Patch.

 Posted on March 19, 2011 by

 church life, Culture, Faith, Family, Theology, Walkin' the Talk

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Lessons from Elite Leaders: A Theology of Power for the Workplace, Part 6 of 8 @TheHighCalling

How can powerful leaders be effective and responsible?

In a 2009 Journal of Religious Leadership article, Laity Leadership Senior Fellow D. Michael Lindsay wrote that evangelicals populate halls of power, but generally “have no theological framework for managing the privileges that accompany the mantle of public leadership.” He then outlined a theology of power that can help us consider how to wield power effectively and responsibly.

“Christians in public leadership would be wise to pursue their lives in ways different from the dominant culture, especially in terms of their consumption practices and workplace politics,” he said. Lindsay drew this conclusion after analyzing anecdotal evidence that suggests “whatever suspicions non-religious colleagues may have of these Christians emerge not from hostility toward the teachings of Jesus but from the lifestyles of those who claim to be his followers.”

For example, two business leaders, MCI WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and Enron Corporation CEO Kenneth Lay, have been depicted as notoriously corrupt. Yet both were active in their churches. Conversely, when Tyco International needed to “renew its commitment to ethics, it hired Eric Pillmore as senior vice president of corporate governance. Obviously, Pillmore’s faith and work is the public witness we want to emulate. But how do we ground such a witness theologically?

Find out the answer to that question here.

 Posted on March 14, 2011 by

 Community, Ethics, Leadership, Public Square, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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Jersey Shore Churches Preparing for a Celebration @NJShorePatch

 

Long before MTV popularized a negative caricature of the Jersey Shore with its Seaside Heights reality show, a fourth grade teacher from Belford was worried about what kind of community his three young children would grow up in.

Robert Talmage took that worry and turned it into a lament that he emailed to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). He really didn’t expect a response.

“I was more opining than I was anything else,” Talmage said with a laugh. “It’s just funny how one thing led to the next. They actually got back to me.” …

To find out how a BGEA event comes to fruition and for details about how you and your church can participate, go to NJ Shore Patch.

 Posted on March 2, 2011 by

 church life, Community, Culture, Education, Faith, Family, Leadership, Public Square, Redemption, Social Action, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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