I have a friend in Wales, who works at How the Light Gets In philosophy festival. As a volunteer for the event, I’ve spent a bit of time with him in the late spring while volunteering at the festival. He is a fluent Welsh speaker in his late 50s. He grew up in Wales, and … More Oes Heddwch? Is There Peace?
My preparation for moving to Wales includes trying to become fluent in a Celtic language. Welsh is the most living and regularly used Celtic language in the world, but it is still a minority language in its own country. My moving to Wales will be focused upon working in the Welsh language setting. In this … More John Robinson on Minority Languages and the Gospel: Wild Theology Flashback
This is the second episode looking at the subject I call The Obscene Hermeneut, and we ask whether it is possible that we are being polarized against our own neighbors. Have we begun to see evil where it does not exist? This issue seems even more of a problem only a couple years after first … More Wild Theology Flashbacks – The Obscene Hermeneut Part 2
I’ve been a Christian since 1980, and a Pentecostal/Evangelical pastor since 1985. I’ve been a pastor on both coasts of the continental United States. First, in Carlsbad, California: a beach city in North San Diego County. Then in the infamous and beautiful New England port city of Salem, MA. I’ve ridden the waves of the … More The Diminishing Returns of the Evangelical Movement
A Brief History of 20th Century Evangelism Activities: Personal Soul-Winning Tools: The American Tract Society: At the turn of the 19th century, short gospel tracts were being distributed for a quick readable presentation of the gospel. In Boston and New York City, societies were established for the printing of gospel tracts. The two organizations merged … More Too Earthly Minded to be any Heavenly Good – Part 4c (evangelism techniques)
A Brief (and extremely incomplete) History of Major American Evangelism Influencers: Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758): Although the 20th century influences on Evangelism are the primary focus of this section, one cannot avoid the American Great Awakenings as fundamental influences in the development of American Evangelical evangelistic praxis. The Mathers, the Williams, and the Stoddards are just a … More Too Earthly Minded to be any Heavenly Good – Part 4b (influential personalities)
This section in the ongoing study series is extremely long, and will be broken into three or four parts. The topic of evangelism is fundamental to the understanding of Evangelicalism, and this multi-part topic is evidence of this fact. In this part of the series, I look at the history of evangelism theology and praxis … More Too Earthly Minded to be any Heavenly Good – Part 4a (some popular theologies informing evangelism)
This was my tweet on Friday April 10th. If the world order was benevolent and intelligent this would be a Sabbath year for the earth, and a jubilee year for the people. Unfortunately, the world order is seldom benevolent and only intelligent on short-term gains. The world just might be taking a Sabbath without our … More Are We in a Nature Imposed Sabbath?
I have been working on a book entitled Love Big or Go Home over the beginning of this year. It is a theology of mission based upon the idea that the Gospel is inherently nomadic, and that this nomadism informs how we approach the world. By saying this I do not mean to assume that … More Love Big or Go Home nears completion
You can stay at home and go out for the purposes of the Great Commission at the same time. Not recognizing this potential limits our capacity to touch the world, I talk about this potential in Wild Theology Podcast #25 Wild Theology Podcast #25 – Love Big or Go Home. You can go into all … More Wild Theology Podcast #25 – Go Local
Today, I was reading an article from the BBC about the recent letter from Burning Man CEO Marian Goodell. There is nothing new in this BBC article (except the letter from Marian), and in fact, the information is a number of years old. We were already talking about this stuff at my first Burning Man … More Burning Man, Growth Struggles, Cultural Course Correction…
Premier Christianity Magazine in the UK, and the Church Mission Society have posted a couple things from me in the last few days. The Church Mission Society posted an interview about Halloween, Burning Man, Witches, and festival work. I was a speaker at their conference about “Mission among People who are Spiritual but not Religious”, … More Halloween Blog Post and Interview in the UK
Burning Religion is certainly my most ambitious literary project to date, but it would not have been conceived without the long hard years of working as a pastor in the rather (in)famous little city of Salem, Massachusetts. Almost 20 years of monthlong Halloween entertainment and outreach projects, and befriending the Witchcraft community in Salem helped … More The Reformation of Halloween: Where Burning Religion Began
“Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way … More Constitutional Crisis? Why not a Constitutional Solution?
So, Governor Cuomo is in hot water for saying that “America was never that great.” Now he is backing down and saying that his statement was “inartful” – whatever that means. I think Cuomo has made a huge mistake, he should never have backed down from his first statement. Instead, he should have doubled down … More America is not Great? I think Cuomo is Right.
Burning Religion 