deeplycommitted.com

02 Tuesday Dec 2008

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Yesterday I purchased the domain http://deeplycommitted.com! This means that if you are in the habit of manually typing the url into your browser you no longer have to type “wordpress”. The domain used to be https://deeplycommitted.wordpress.com, but it is now http://deeplycommitted.com. If you forget and type the old address, no big deal, you will simply automatically be redirected to deeplycommitted.com.

According to the folks at wordpress, if you have subscribed to this blog, your subscription should still work (either by email or to a reader account). However, they do suggest updating the subscription to be safe. I have updated the links on the top right of this page that allow you to subscribe in a reader or subscribe by email. So, you should be able to simply click on either of those to subscribe to deeplycommitted.com.

I don’t know about you, but http://deeplycommitted.com just seems so much more hip (and easy to remember) than https://deeplycommitted.wordpress.com! If you are just as excited as I am, consider it my early Christmas present to you. (And don’t expect anything else…)

And if you haven’t already subscribed to deeply committed, why not do it now? By subscribing you don’t have to come directly to the site to check for new content and it will be brought directly to you so you don’t ever miss it. All you have to do is click on the link to subscribe in a reader, or subscribe via email.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

01 Monday Dec 2008

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Just a quick update to interrupt the consecutive days without posting streak…

I very much enjoyed a respite from the end of semester writing and studying this past week. Tuesday after class Melissa picked me up on campus with dogs and Bethany in tow. We headed straight to Norman to visit Melissa’s family. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I got to catch up on some sleep.

Friday morning we headed to Tulsa to see my folks. It was especially nice to get to see my brother, who was still in town. It was also great to get to see my grandmother, who I hadn’t seen since the end of May. Saturday we put up the Christmas tree and watched a very competitive football game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. It is always the hardest game for me to watch all year because Melissa went to OSU and I don’t like rooting against her team.

The best part of the whole week, though, was simply getting to share Bethany with both sides of our family. She is really growing and becoming much more interactive. Having Bethany in my life is an incredible blessing, and I am grateful that she has so many relatives who love her so well.

Today I am feeling rested and ready to finish the work that remains for this semester.

Peter Rollins at SMU

13 Thursday Nov 2008

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One of the things I really like about being back in academia is that you never know who is going to show up. Yesterday a friend told me that Peter Rollins was going to be at a church in the Dallas area on Sunday. I began digging around to try to find out if there was any way that I might be able to connect with him while he was in the area to get some guidance on my paper for philosophy of religion on the philosophical foundations of the emergent conversation… I discovered that he would be in a class at Perkins at 10am and he was gracious enough to meet with me for about thirty minutes afterwards to discuss my interests.

Rollins is nearly the perfect person for me to have met because he is a philosopher and he is a part of the emerging conversation. He also is the author of a book that several people had recommended to me as a very important book for me to read for my paper: How (Not) to Speak of God. He has subsequently written The Fidelity of Betrayal: Toward a Church Beyond Belief.

The timing of his visit, from my perspective, could not have been any better.

Here are a few of many arresting statements he made in his lecture this morning:

  • The rule of the leader is to refuse to be a leader. The priest refuses the priesthood so they can insist on the priesthood of all believers.
  • If you seek God becasue you seek meaning, you are seeking meaning not God.
  • Sometimes the things that we think are making a difference are the very things that keep us from making a difference. (This was one of the main ideas that he spent quite a lot of time fleshing out. He pointed to things like working at a soup kitchen as a possible way of allowing us to do some good which can actually serve to make us more comfortable with not actually changing. Or talking about how superficial fashion is, while nevertheless shopping for fashionable clothes.)

It must be Halloween

31 Friday Oct 2008

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I woke up this morning to hear the local news anchor say: “Did you feel the earthquake this morning? 911 operators were inundated with phone calls from Irving, TX reporting an earthquake.”

And apparently there was in a fact a 3.0 earthquake this morning. Given the weird enviornment that seems to be surrounding the Cowboys lately, maybe God was trying to take out Texas Stadium…

And even closer to home, as I was walking to the bus stop this morning the sprinkler system came on for about two blocks. I was walking on a sidewalk that had a busy street on one side and a park on the other (that had more sprinklers going on). So, there was no where to run and no where to hide. I got soaked. Which was humbling when I got on the bus all wet (on a completely otherwise beautiful sunny morning). This guy on the bus gave me a look that seemed to say, “Dude, I can understand getting out of the shower and rushing out of the house so your hair is wet, but why were you wearing your clothes in the shower?”

Hopefully I can dry off before the next earthquake comes…

Are Christians Really Good Liars?

30 Thursday Oct 2008

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In a previous post I vented about my frustration with the slanderous emails I received about one of the Presidential candidates. Today I noticed that Adam Hamilton has posted about receiving similar emails. He makes a very interesting (and disturbing) observation that he consistently receives these emails from Christians, not from folks from another religious background, or from people who do not believe in God. Are Christians particularly good at spreading lies, or are we particularly lazy, or uninformed? I appreciate Adam’s post on this topic, and the reasonable response he occasionally offers to the emails he receives.

Steve Rankin has recently posted about a similar trend, except through campaign ads. His disgust at the way that Christians have been influenced by distortions and lies is palpable. And, I must confess I identify with his frustration. I can see how people could come up with good reasons to vote for McCain or Obama. Yet, the reasons Christians offer far too often are not good reasons because they are based in fear or lies. (For example: It is not a good reason to vote for McCain because Obama is a Muslim. In fact, Obama is a professing Christian, which is why that would not be a good reason… it is really pretty straight forward.)

It seems to me that we have a tremendous opportunity in being able to voice our opinion in the political process by voting. This year it has been particularly obvious that with this opportunity comes great responsibility. I believe that Christians have an obligation to be informed and to take the time to separate the truth from lies, and then vote based on the real issues at stake. We should be a city on a hill, or salt and light in an often putrid process… but too often we seem to be the ones that are keeping the rumor mill going and perpetuating misinformation. God help us.

Good thing the election is almost here, maybe I can stay off this soapbox for awhile…

“I’m Kevin and I approve this message.”

Updates to Wesleyan Resources Page

29 Wednesday Oct 2008

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I have added a few resources over the past few days to the Wesleyan Resources Page. If you are interested, I have listed a few resources under the headings of “Wesley’s Works,” “Wesley Biographies,” and “Wesleyan Theology.”

I will continue updating this page in the days, weeks, and months to come.

On another note: I would like to be able to have a table of contents at the top of that page so that all of the headings could be listed at the top, and then people could click on, say “Wesley Biographies,” and it would take them to the list of Wesley Biographies. The only problem is – I don’t know how to do that. If you do and are willing to help me, please shoot me an email at deeplycommitted (at) gmail (dot) com, or bless me with your wisdom in the comments.

What’s New at Deeply Committed

26 Sunday Oct 2008

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I have made a few changes to deeply committed. The most obvious change is that I have changed themes. This allowed me to have a header with a bit more interest. (Bonus points to the first person who correctly identifies what the header is a picture of.)

Another significant change is that I have deleted the “Documents” page and I have added a “Wesleyan Resources” page. The purpose of this page is to provide links to some important Wesleyan Resources. I will try to update this page periodically. I started by providing links to the two different versions of Wesley’s works that are currently in print. I will also add works on Wesley biographies, Wesleyan theology, Methodist history, and more. You can go to the Wesleyan Resources pages by clicking here, or click on the Wesleyan Resources tab at the top of this page.

I also have updated a few things here and there throughout the blog. I updated the “About Me” page, and cleaned up a few other things. I hope these updates are helpful improvements.

By the way, if you have any suggestions about how to improve this blog, or comments about what you would like to see in the future, please feel free to give your input in the comments.

Philosophical Foundations of the Emergent Church

21 Tuesday Oct 2008

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Ok, I need your help! I am thinking about writing my term paper for Philosophy of Religion on Philosophical Foundations of the Emergent Church. I have read quite a bit of the work of important voices in the Emergent Church (McLaren, Jones, Kimball) but I am not as confident in my understanding of the philosophers and philosophies that influence folks in the Emergent Church. In my paper, I am particularly interested in looking at issues of epistemology (concerns the origins, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge). On the Emergent account, how do we come to know God? How do we go about investigating the truth claims of a proposition? Who and what have influenced emergent understandings of these issues?

My interest in this paper is not to write an apologetic, or to attack the Emergent Church movement, rather it is to seek to understand the foundations that it is built upon better.

I would be grateful if you would post any specific books that you would recommend in the comments (again, I am not looking for books by the Emergent authors like McLaren’s Everything Must Change, but books that have deeply informed McLaren and others and are at work behind the scenes in their practical theology). I would appreciate books that might provide a general introduction to postmodern philosophy that are particularly insightful to folks in emergent, and particularly important works by actual philosophers that have influenced the emergent understanding of epistemology and answering truth claims about God.

One more request: If you don’t know, but you know someone who might have ideas, I would be grateful if you would take a second to email them and mention this post and ask them to help me out. And if you happen to have a direct contact to Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Dan Kimball, or anyone else, you get bonus points if you get them to directly respond! (Notice how I linked to their names so that they might stumble upon my post… devious, I know…)

I think this paper could make an important contribution to understanding the Emergent Church, but my ability to undertake it will depend on being able to find some starting points for getting into the material.