Life Without the Charismatic Celebrity

I thought you might be interested to read about the latest shenanigans taking place among our favorite charismatic “soap opera” celebrities. Actually, all silliness aside, this is a subject that I take kind of seriously because of the spiritual abuse/manipulation that I’ve experienced at the hands of power-hungry leaders. Not to mention the sad fact that I eventually learned to give my own form of manipulative “ministry time” along the way. I’m still repenting…

So, this might be a bit depressing…and yet, as sad as I am, it motivates me to seek the ordinary/reject the theology and apostolic “covering” which produces this kind of mess and toxicity. I don’t want to see any more harm…least of all coming from those of us who profess to be followers in His name. My prayer: Lord, have mercy on us sinners.

Apostolic Bullshit

Apostolic Bullshit II

Apostolic Bullshit III

Update: more thoughts on Life Without the Charismatic Celebrity here.

Cross-Gender Friendships [Revisited]

I’m on the Emergent Village (EV) email list. That means that I receive their latest blog posts in my inbox. Today, I was sent this blog post. It has to do with cross-gender friendships (cgf). Some of you may know I have blogged about this in the past. In fact, I referenced the person (Dan Brennan) who wrote this particular EV blog entry in my earlier discussion about cgf.

Ways of Resistance (at least so far) hasn’t been commented on very much and yet the post about cgf was the most popular in that sense (especially if I include private emails I received and “secret” conversations from people who didn’t want their views made public). I understand that this is a touchy subject. For some of my friends, it’s like a clearly visible (yet unavoidable) land mine–perhaps there is little good involved in it. Even still, I haven’t been able to resist the language I find in the gospel tradition about family and friendship, even intimacy among members in a community (male and female). Anyway, make of it what you will. I’m still thinking. What kinds of questions come up for you?