Category Archives: Culture commentary

Liberal churches die, conservative churches lie, where individualism takes us all

Posted on July 20, 2009 by PaulVK

This grew out of a CRC-Voices discussion on the rupturing of the American Anglican church. Ginger wrote: I’ll read this, of course. It’s difficult when a denomination or congregation loses its conservatives, because conservatives often do more work and give … Continue reading →

Posted in CRC, Culture commentary, Institutional Church | 1 Comment

Gene Lyons Salon piece on the rise of idiot America

Posted on July 16, 2009 by PaulVK

This is an anti-Palin piece so some of you might not want to click on it, but some of the lines are worth it: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/07/16/lyons/index.html July 16, 2009 | “The rise of Idiot America … is essentially a war on … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Links | Comments Off on Gene Lyons Salon piece on the rise of idiot America

My own experience with rationing health care

Posted on July 16, 2009 by PaulVK

This NYT piece I think laid out a lot of the issues involved with the current US debate on medical care. This was my own journey into rationing health care. When I was a fairly new missionary an old pastor … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Links | Comments Off on My own experience with rationing health care

Why no one wants to be a great saint when they grow up

Posted on July 10, 2009 by PaulVK

I can’t think of anyone who has ever told me they wanted to be a saint when they grew up. I’ve heard a lot of things, but never a saint. We all know why no one wants to be a … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Devotional Reflection | Comments Off on Why no one wants to be a great saint when they grow up

The un-celebrity church

Posted on July 9, 2009 by PaulVK

The phone rang. “Did you watch it?” “Watch what?” ( I suspected what ‘it’ was but I didn’t really want to talk about “it” anyway.) “The funeral” After which she recounted to me a lot of the post-death spiritual paraphernalia … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Devotional Reflection, Quotations | Comments Off on The un-celebrity church

The necessity of institutional culture and expression of church

Posted on July 3, 2009 by PaulVK

Kevin De Young and Ted Kluck wrote a guest piece for the Washington Post calling out a whole generation for their “issues” setting Jesus against “organized religion”. It’s a piece worth reading. I wrote this as part of a discussion … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Institutional Church | Tagged | Comments Off on The necessity of institutional culture and expression of church

Mark Sanford: This week's case study in theological anthropology

Posted on June 29, 2009 by PaulVK

The “roundtable” on George Stephanopoulos’ “This week” spent a lot of time on Mark Sanford. The comments we feel most compelled to make regarding this tend to be to share our calculus of moral judgment. One of the interesting takes … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, theological | 2 Comments

How the American Experience enabled the development of World Christianity

Posted on June 17, 2009 by PaulVK

Mark Noll’s recent book “The New Shape of World Christianity” is a “must read” for anyone doing North American urban missiology where increasingly the urban church context is impacted by what is happening throughout the world. The thesis of this … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Institutional Church, Missional, Quotations | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Evangelicals as Mormons-lite

Posted on June 12, 2009 by PaulVK

Zondervan Academic posted the last installment of their teasers on a new book out on the LDS use of the book of Mormon. The experience I had reading it was similar to what I had reading the previous installments. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Institutional Church, Links | Comments Off on Evangelicals as Mormons-lite

Posted on June 11, 2009 by PaulVK

From Mark Noll’s book The New Shape of World Christianity pg. 88. The book explores the relationship between the development of American Christianity in the 19th century and the current development of World Christianity. Even more germane to the concerns … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture commentary, Quotations | Comments Off on