On New Years Resolutions and Rules of Life

I don't exactly know when this started for me, but over the years I have grown to love the first few days of the new year. I find it very rewarding to look back over everything that the previous year brought, and then look ahead to everything the coming year might. 

I especially love the looking ahead. 

I usually spend a good day or two in the last week of December setting goals for the coming year, writing out lists of all the books I hope to read over the next 12 months, thinking through all the creative projects I hope to tackle, dreaming up new dreams for my career, my family-life, my personal growth. ThenI take time to think through my daily and weekly habits, which of them are helping me in life, and which are holding me back, and plan out whatever course-corrections seem necessary. 

To be honest, I might be a bit obsessive about it; but if I am, it's only because over the years I've seen how doing this on a annual basis has helped me experience things and accomplish things that I probably never would have if I just let life come at me from any direction it happened to.

As a pastor, of course, I'm conditioned to think through all aspects of life from a theological perspective, and when I do that with my tradition (read: ritual) of setting new years resolutions, I see a couple of theological themes that inform the process.

On the one hand, the Scriptures have some poignant cautions about seeking too much to be the master of your own destiny, of planning your life two confidently, without acknowledging God's sovereignty over it. In James 4:13, for instance, it warns against planning out a year of "buying and selling and getting gain," and exhorts us instead to say simply, "if the Lord wills it, we will live and do this or that." In other words, make your plans with a healthy does of humility, admitting that they're all contingent on the will of God. In another place it talks about how a man can make all sorts of plans in his hearts, but in the end it is the Lord who establishes his steps (Proverbs 16:9). In that sense, a New Year's resolution made too resolutely may blind us to the will of God unfolding in our lives. It may even idolatrously close us off from it.

On the other hand, the Scriptures remind us of the wisdom of making careful plans (Prov. 21:5), of taking careful inventory of the cost of the steps we will take in following the Lord (Luke 14:28), of learning well how to number our days (Psalm 90:12). In this sense, it is altogether wise, a matter of good stewardship, in fact, to regularly take spiritual stock of where your life is headed and how it's getting there, and then to make the heart-commitments necessary to move your life in a direction that honors God.

In his phenomenal book, God in My Everything, Ken Shigematsu talks about all this in terms of having a "rule of life." The terminology comes from the monastic tradition, where Christian monks would make spiritual commitments to live a certain way-- praying at regular intervals, reading scripture, fasting in healthy rhythms, and so on-- as a way of giving structure to their spiritual journey. He uses the analogy of having a trellis for a vine to grow on. The trellis is simply a structure that helps to stabilize the plant as it grows, giving it a framework to hold to as it bears fruit.

This is how I've come to think of my new years resolutions. More than simply goals that I'm resolving to accomplish in the coming year, the whole process, for me, is about revisiting my rule of life and determining which aspects of the trellis is helping the plant to flourish, which have fallen into disrepair, and which are no longer useful.

I'm sharing all of this to explain why I've started posting at terra incognita again, after almost nine-months of inactivity. When I started this blog back in 2009, some 1045 posts ago, I hadn't read God in My Everything, and I didn't really have much sense of what role blogging might play in my spiritual growth. Over the years, however, this quiet corner of the world-wide-inter-web has served as a bit of a sanctuary for me, a place to process ideas that don't really have any other outlet in my life, a place to test-run this or that theological theory before voicing it in a more public venue, a place to be creative, think out loud, and share some of the spiritual flotsam that bobs to the surface from time to time in my life as a pastor. 

As life-giving as it's been, though, I almost decided to wrap it up this year. I've blogged on everything from the theology of video games to the true meaning of Halloween, and I was starting to wonder if I hadn't run out of things to say. At the same time, I have found that my schedule is far fuller these days than it has been in the past, and even when I have the time to devote to it, I haven't had much energy to blog 

But then, as per my usual, I sat down at the end of 2022 and took careful stock of my "rule of life." As I did, I realized how much blogging has given me over the last 14 years. Between sharpening my writing muscles through regular use, and building me an archive of fascinating ideas I've come across, blogging has been a very rewarding practice, and I didn't quite feel ready to say good-bye to it.  This might very well be my last year at terra incognita, but after careful, prayerful reflection, I decided to keep "regular blogging" on the goal list for at least one more year. I can't exactly say what "regular" will mean. My hope is that it will involve a post a week, but my experience tells me it's wise not to make any commitments as grandiose as all that. I do know that I want this year on the blog to be more spontaneous and less edited than some of my previous writing on this space has been. If hearing one pastor's unfiltered reflections on God, life, faith, love, words, and spirituality is at all of interest to you, let me invite you to join me for the journey.

If the Lord wills, I hope it will be a productive year of blogging, whatever he has in store for us in 2023.

My Christian 2015 in Review

Usually at some point every January I try to take a minute to look back on the year that was, and reflect on some of the major news events that impacted, influences or otherwise illuminated the world of Canadian Evangelicalism.  This year I am a bit behind the eight-ball, as usual, and 2015 is already feeling a bit cobwebby and archaic, but even so, I hope you’ll join me for one last glance over the shoulder at the flotsam and jetsam of 2015’s headlines.  When it comes to the “evangelically-significant” events of 2015, this list is hardly exhaustive, I admit, but it’s a good place to start.  Who here remembers when ...

January 7:  Two gun men attack the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, killing 11 people.
As it relates to Canadian Christianity, this story was particularly of note for the way it brought into stark relief a number of global issues all at once: the West’s distorted view of the Muslim world, the recurring narrative of armed gunmen randomly killing victims, the conflicting themes of tolerance and free-speech.

January 22:  Historical Jesus writer and member of the Jesus Seminar, Marcus Borg, dies at age 72.
Given the plethora of more notable and weighty headlines, the passing of Marcus Borg went almost unnoticed, but I’ve included it here inasmuch as: a) his rigorous debates with his friend (and evangelical scholar) N. T. Wright was part of the grist for the historical-Jesus mill that eventually produced Wright’s seminal book Jesus and the Victory of God; and b) it seems to me that the era of liberal  “Jesus-Seminar” style speculation on the “historical Jesus” has in many ways run its course.

February 6:  The Supreme Court rules that the Canadian ban on Physician-Assisted Suicide is unconstitutional, giving Parliament 12 months to enact new legislation.
Along with the question of Muslim relations, and how we will respond to acts of terrorism and violence, 2015 seemed also to be the year when God was asking Canadian Christians how they will respond to the ongoing erosion of traditional Christian values in the broader culture. The EFC has done much good work, speaking out on this issue, which I would encourage those who are concerned about where this one will land, to check out.

February 13:  The film Fifty Shades of Grey released amid much controversy.
On a strictly aesthetic level, this film was, by all accounts, a piece of cinematic drivel.  The only reason it holds a place on my list is because of the attention it drew for its supposedly “risqué” and “raw” handling of sexual themes.  It suggested to me, at least, that Christians have, in fact, a unique word to speak on the meaning of sex, in a world that has almost entirely unmoored it from the things that once gave it meaning and beauty and life.

June 18:  A gunman opens fire on a church prayer meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, killing 9.
2015 was also a year where God confronted his people with their calling to be reconcilers and peacemakers in a world where race relations are as conflicted and fraught as ever.  This racially/religiously motivated act of violence was only one of many headlines that challenged us this year to take our calling as Christians seriously when it comes to the issue of racial reconciliation.

June 26:  The US Supreme Court requires all states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions.
Celebrated by some as a major victory for human rights, and lamented by others as the final crack that broke the dam, this decision effectively legalized gay marriage in the US.  It seemed to bring out the worst in everyone.  In its wake I saw a lot of defensive vitriol from Christians who felt backed into an ethical corner, and also a lot of vindictive smugness from “liberals” who couldn’t understand why traditionalists weren’t yet with the program.  I heard stories of Christian business being bullied for holding positions of conscience on the issue; and I also heard stories of Christians retaliating with their own share of bullying.  At the very least, it suggests to me that any church that wants effectively to proclaim the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century will have to have thought through this very pressing issue.

September 2: A moving photograph of drowned child sparks international concern over the plight of Syrian refugees
Another story with a whole bunch of themes braided into one: Muslim/Christian relations, xenophobia and hospitality, the plight of the world’s displaced, questions about American foreign policy, the proper Christian response to the refugee crisis all got discussed in turn.

October 1:  An armed assailant opens fire at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, killing 10.
Reports are unconfirmed and still under debate, but some suggest that this assailant targeted Christians in his rampage.  This story would be just as heartbreaking and appalling, either way, but what strikes me in looking back is how rote our response to such incidents has become.  I include it on this list because of my hunch that it was one of the events that motivated Jerry Falwell's tirade on December 2 (see below).

October 19:  Newly elected liberal government pledges to receive 25,000 Syrian Refugees by years’ end.
Another story that shone a spotlight on issues of xenophobia and the Christian call to welcome the stranger in Jesus’ name.

December 2:  Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty Christian University in Lynchburg, Va. encourages students to carry concealed weapons.
This headline almost seemed like it was pulled from The Onion, when I first saw it, but when I read further and realized it was serious I was dumbfounded.  That the president of one of the largest Christian colleges in North America would be received with cheers from his student body when he publically encourages them to start carrying concealed weapons to defend against Muslim terrorists should any decide to show their face on campus... and that they should do this, expressly, in the name of Jesus ... well ... I don’t know what to say.  Except to lament how distorted the Way of Jesus is becoming in an increasingly polarized and dangerous world.

December 15:  Wheaton College, Illinois, suspends professor of Political Science Larycia Hawkins, for public comments claiming that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
Here high-falutin’ theology and down-to-earth current events come together, as voices from all corners of the internet chimed in on the questions: do Muslims and Christians indeed “worship the same God?”  Is that the best way to put it?  And, inasmuch as this was one of the questions related to Ms. Hawkins’ suspension (now dismissal): what are the theological implications of saying they do?  Given the way this list is sprinkled so liberally with headlines relating to the Muslim faith, it seems that these are no longer lofty ivory tower ruminations, but issues that Christians from all walks of life should be thinking through.

My Evangelical 2014 in Review

I always feel like I'm late for the party on this one. Most people do their year-end reviews in December, before the New Year starts, but who's got the time in December? So my Year-End retrospectives usually happen in the opening throes of January rather than the dying throes of December. Anyways, if you're not already too far into 2015 to look back on 2014 one last time, here are some of the headlines that stood out to me last year as telling, concerning, intriguing or otherwise noteworthy, from a Christian perspective.

February 4: Bill Nye the Science Guy debates Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis
Creationism created controversy early in 2014, as the poster-boys for popular science and biblical literalism respectively went head to head in a much-touted debate. Debates like these generally feel like way too much barking up all the wrong trees to me, so I didn't watch the bout; but the murmuring I heard in both the "Science Only" and the "Christian is as Christian does" camps suggested to me that the stakes in this fight have really changed over the years, and both camps are unhappy with how we've traditionally drawn the battle-lines.

February 28: Mark Burnett and Rona Downey release Son of God film
2014 was the year of the Christian Cinema, it seems, with a whole slew of Faith-based, Bible-themed or otherwise religiously-inspired movies coming out. I went to a special screening of Son of God, and, while it had its moments, I didn't really think much of it as a movie. The acting was stilted, the story-telling clunky, and Jesus just way too good looking (why do they always make him a supermodel?). So I won't say much about the movie itself, but inasmuch as it was followed by God's Not Dead (March 4), Heaven is For Real (March 21) Noah (March 28) and Gods and Kings (December 3), it's hard not to wonder if Hollywood wasn't trying to woo (or lure, depending on your view) Christians to the Box Office this year.

March 28: Russell Crowe's Noah hits the big screen
Okay, just one more thought on Bible-based movies in 2014. While I struggled with many of the aforementioned made-for-Christian films, I did like this movie (if "like" is the best word). Much was made of the additions to the narrative-- the stone Watchers, for instance, or Tubal-Cain as a stow-away on the Ark--but overall, I thought the movie handled the biblical material insightfully and respectfully, and drew out some of the very profound themes in the Noah story that Christians often over-look because we're so eager to explain how and why the story is in fact plausible. I preached through the Noah story this Spring at the FreeWay, and this movie was a helpful point of contact for me.

April 30: Mayor Rob Ford takes a leave of absence from his job as Toronto's Mayor
You may wonder why the salacious saga that was the Rob Ford scandal appears on this list, but consider: 1) I live right next door to Toronto and really couldn't escape it; 2) through the worst of Rob Ford's struggles, I was dealing some mental health struggles of my own, and found the whole story mesmerizing; and 3) there are actually a ton of very significant theological themes to be studied here that, if I'd had my wits about me, I would have loved to have chronicled as they unfolded. From Rob Ford's misappropriation of Jesus' teaching that "he who is without sin should cast the first stone," to the theological problems with the cult of personality (as represented by Ford Nation), the theological difference between apology and repentance, the theological difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, the spiritual dynamics of addiction and the spiritual dimensions of the news media, from the call for Christians to pray for our leaders to the promise of Jesus that the truth will set us free ... this story had it all.

July 14: The Church of England votes to appoint women bishops
Having been Free Methodist for so long that I'd almost forgotten there were still some rooms in the big house called Christendom where they were still wrestling with the question of women in leadership, I was first surprised, and then quite pleased to see that the Holy Spirit seems to have poured some old wine into some new wineskins on this one for our Anglican brothers and sisters across the pond.

August 9: Michael Brown shot in Ferguson, Missouri
Many of the American-Christian blogs I read dealt with this tragedy in raw, honest and reflective ways, calling on American Christians to start taking more seriously the problem of racial relations in their society and their churches. While it may be tempting for Canadian Christians to look down self-righteous noses at their southern brothers and sisters in Christ, I think there is a clarion call ringing for all of us here, about our vocation to be peace-making salt and reconcilatory light in a world that is growing increasingly divided along political, cultural, racial and economic lines.

October 13: The Synod of Catholic Bishops (possibly) changes its tone on the issue of homosexuality
Some pundits thought the Catholic Church said too much on this one, others not nearly enough, and apparently the tone of hospitality and pastoral care in the original document was vetoed by a vote of the bishops a few days later; but still: that the Catholic Church is facing this issue speaks volumes about the seismic shift that is happening, or has happened, when it comes to sexual identity and the Faith.  It's no longer possible to pretend the ground hasn't moved on this one, and where ever we end up standing when we regain our balance, it won't be where we once did.

October 15: Marc Driscoll resigns as pastor of Mars Hill
I have followed Marc Driscoll's ministry over the years oscillating between concern, distaste, and ire, so when the controversial pastor resigned from his post as the lead-and-founding pastor of Mars Hill in Seatle, after a long season of accusations and counter-accusations, with tales of bullying and church-politicing and misappropriation of funds leaking out of the woodwork at every turn, I at least noted it down. I wonder if we're witnessing the beginning of the end of mega-church-celebrity-pastor-culture.  Or maybe that's too much to hope for?

November 19: Rosetta Probe lands on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko
Though we may not have connected the dots, 2014 sort of ended where it started: with questions of origins. The feat itself-- landing a robot on a comet, for crying out loud!-- is remarkable enough; but even more remarkable is the justification they gave for the billion-dollar, decade-long project: the hope of discovering clues about the origins of life on planet earth. Go figure. They could have saved 10 years and $999,999,990, and just bought a Bible from their local bookstore.  In the beginning, God.  'nough said?

December 9: The US Senate releases its report on CIA "enhanced interrogation methods" for suspected terrorists
There are very serious questions here that more Christians should ask, about violence and truth and what we're prepared to sacrifice for our security, and the uneasy relationship between the Christian and Empire in its modern forms. Some Christians were asking those questions when this report came out (one incredulous blogger I read pointed out the startlingly high number of American Christians polled who felt that torture was justified for the sake of national security).  Given the fact that the New Testament is shot through with counter-Imperial rhetoric, we probably all should have taken notice of this one.

My Evangelical 2012 in Review

Another year of news-making has come and gone.  Not to trivialize Kate Middleton's morning-sickness or anything, but as I look back over the headlines of the last 365 days, I'm thinking more about those news items that impacted the Evangelical world, and more particularly Evangelical Canada, in some way or another.  I am, of course, no pundit, so in presenting this list of the "Top Headlines of the Evangelical Year," I am not claiming any expertise on these matters; they are simply the stories that stood out to me as significant.

January 3:  Mark Driscoll publishes Real Marriage.  Nearly everything Pastor Mark says in the public sphere seems calculated to shock his listeners into sending it viral, if not by assent then at least by incredulity, so I don't want to give this tell-all "marriage manual" any more air time than absolutely necessary.  However, the publication of a very explicit and prescriptive book about the state of holy matrimony, by the self-styled guru of locker-room evangelicalism was notable to me for a number of reasons.  (Not least of which was the way it reinforced my commitment to rigorous and christocentric exegesis when it comes to teaching the Scriptures.  Esther is not a housewife's handbook, nor is the Song of Solomon simply a Christian Karma Sutra.)

January 9:  Rob Bell's final service at Mars Hill.  I followed the publication circus that was Love Wins pretty closely (see my review of the book in the sidebar), so the headline announcing Rob Bell's last service at Mars Hill stood out for me.  Whether or not Pastor Rob's decision to leave his church was really due to the fallout from his book (as some suggest), a number of things stand out to me in this dramatic conclusion to the story.  Among other things, it shows how the "culture of celebrity ministers" in the States actually has a pretty dark underbelly.  (Note how Pastor Bell was maligned almost as viciously for leaving his church as he was for publishing the book in the first place.  In celebrity culture, the once the famous have fallen from grace the only thing left to do is devour them whole.)

March 5:  Invisible Children launch Kony 2012 campaign  I have not been able to establish whether Invisible Children should be called a "Christian organization" or not.  They have certainly been accused by their detractors of being "insidiously Evangelical," though nothing in their literature or campaigns is explicitly Christian.  What stood out to me in the Kony 2012 campaign, however, is how black and white the underlying narrative they presented was, and how simplistic the solution they proposed (wear an arm band and throw up some posters).  Even if Invisible Children is not a Christian group, there are lessons for the Church here.  Solutions to world issues are seldom as simple as getting the "good guys" to stop the "bad guys."  And as a side note, we might take the whole thing as a cautionary tale, pointing out how celebrity has become the new source of moral authority in an age of viral videos (what was going to stop Kony, after all, was "fame").  Whatever else we make of the campaign, it illustrates how inconsistent and unstable this particular "source" of authority actually is.

March 21:  Canadian film-maker Kevin Miller releases Hellbound  Kevin Miller's documentary "Hellbound" explores traditional Christian perspectives on the fate of the departed from a number of angles, interviewing pastors, psychologists, theologians and historians alike.  Coming so soon after the aforementioned Love Wins debacle, and from the hands of a Canadian film-maker no less, it suggests that the question of Hell will be the hot issue (no pun intended) for Canadian Christians in the coming years.

August 16:  Dr. Gary Paterson elected new moderator of the United Church of Canada  Realizing that a two or three line mention on a list like this is hardly space enough to unpack the significance of the vote itself, I will simply state that it is extremely significant, that this year the United Church of Canada became the first Christian denomination in history to appoint a practicing homosexual as its leader.

September 27:  Rona Ambrose votes in favor of Motion 312  I mention this one if for no other reason than that it vindicates me in this blog post last month.  Rona Ambrose was the Federal Minister for the Status of Women; Motion 312 was a private member's motion introduced by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth asking Parliament to review the Criminal Code's definition of when life begins (i.e. does it begin, like the Criminal Code states, only after the baby fully emerges from the birth canal, or does it begin at some point between conception and birth?).  The motion failed, but pro-abortion advocates slammed Ms. Ambrose for being one of the few MPs who voted in favor of it.  Of all people, they claimed, the Minister for the Status of Women ought to have known better than to risk reopening the abortion debate.  Ms. Ambrose's defense:  as Minister on the Status of Women, she felt the issue should be studied, because in some parts of the country gender-selective abortions are being used to terminate girls.

October 30:  Rachel Held Evans publishes The Year of Biblical Womanhood   There were, I am sure, more scholarly books published this year on gender issues and the Christian faith, but I note this one here because A) I suppose if there is such a thing as a yang to the yin of Mark Driscoll's Real Marriage, The Year of Biblical Womanhood would probably be it; and B) as a blogger, the fact that Ms. Held Evan's writing ministry began on the blogosphere suggests to me that there have been some pretty seismic shifts in the balance of power in the Christian publishing industry.

November 21:  The Church of England rejects female bishops  A friend pointed out to me the irony inherent in the fact that the Anglican Church could have accepted a theological canon as loose as John Shelby Spong as bishop for so long, but still vote to reject women (although, to be fair, Spong is Episcopalian, not specifically C of E).  But the point still stands: the Church of England, it seems, missed a golden opportunity to follow the gospel to some logical conclusions here. 

December 26:  President Morsi signs Egypt's Islamist constitution into law  Speaking of inherent irony, I suppose there is some small irony in the fact that Egypt's President Morsi signed the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamist Constitution into law the day after Christmas-- inasmuch as many analysts suggest that a constitution based on Sharia Law bodes very ill for the Coptic Christians in the country, and is likely to result in increased marginalization and persecution of Christians in that part of the world.  As William Dalrymple suggests, the much lauded Arab Spring is turning into a Christian Winter (and by and large the Christian West seems indifferent to the plight of their Middle Eastern Brothers and Sisters).

(My) (Evangelical) 2011 in Review

The novelty of the New Year wanes quickly, so only two weeks into 2012, this reflective look back at '011 already feels a bit cool.  But I was away for the first week of January so I'm only getting to it now, and hoping that enough of you are still mistakenly writing "2011" on your cheques that a year-in-review will still strike a nerve. 

Not sure how many of you remember any of the following headline highlights, but each in the list below stood out to me as especially significant, either for its impact on the Christian world, or for the light it shed on the State of that Nation known as the People of God.

January 12: Jay Bakker releases Fall to Grace
Son of the infamous televangelist with the same last name, Jay Bakker released a humble-autobiography-cum-church-manifesto about what's wrong with our present practice of the Fundamentals of the Faith, and what needs to change.  I was under the impression that fundamentalist snipers had neutralized most leading lights in the Emergent Church, but Bakker's book, at the very least, shows that the movement's not yet dead.

March 2:  Pakistani Minorities Minister shot dead
Shahbaz Bhatti's assassination for his political work in Pakistan to guarantee the religious freedoms of that country's Christian minority (1.5% of the population) was far more stunning and troubling than either the mainstream or Christian press gave it time for.  It struck me then, and later still when Coptic Christians in Egypt started to suffer persecution after the much-lauded "Arab Spring" thawed that country, how little attention the Canadian media pays to Christian persecution around the world.

March 15:  Rob Bell releases Love Wins
So much to say about this whole doctrine-meets-Internet debacle, so little time (which is perhaps why some distilled their commentary down to a single Tweet).  It demonstrated in ways few were prepared for what the gasoline of social media can do to the fires of doctrinal disagreement; it showed us how ill-prepared Christians really are after all to navigate the sticky strands of the World-Wide-Inter-Web; it showed us that the closets of Western Evangelicalism were bulging with Universalists of all description waiting-- just waiting-- for someone to jiggle the handle and discover it was unlocked; and it showed us (yet again) the dark under-belly of celebrity-pastor-culture.

April 23:  The Conservative Party promises Canadians an "Office of Religious Freedom" if elected
Whether this was, as some cynical pundits suggested at the time, a shameless ploy to secure the Christian Right vote, or not, it does shed light on the way politics and religion mix far less easily in Canada than they do down south, and that, more than any other party, the Tories "got" the psyche of the average Canadian evangelical.

May 1:  John Piper vets Rick Warren
That John Piper, the old-guard of the Neo-Reformed movement, saw fit publicly to interview Rick Warren, the Hawaiian-shirt-frocked front man for Purpose-Driven pragmatism, on his doctrinal soundness, says less about Warren's supposed "orthodoxy" than it does about the cult of celebrity in American churches, the widening fissures in Western Christendom, the crisis in Evangelical ecclesiology, the troubling in-grouping-out-grouping tendencies of the Neo-Reformed movement, and the even more troubling ex-Cathedral authority pastors with lucrative publishing deals can accumulate to themselves.

May 21:  Harold Camping's Rapture doesn't come
Probably the less said about this one the better, but it did remind me why I'm an Amillenialist, all over again, and reminded me of the wisdom of humbly taking Jesus at his word, when he said what he said back in Matthew 24:36.

June 1:  Christianity Today launches a "Quest for the Historical Adam"
This was, it seems, the year of the "Evangelical Doctrine on Public Display":  Hell, the Rapture, and Genesis-literalism all nova-ed brightly across the canopy of cyber-space this year.  Though this article received less attention than Love Wins, it did show us that the debate is much further from being settled than we ever thought, and that along with those universalists, the closets were also bulging with theo-evolutionists of a distinctly Evangelical variety.  

June 12:  The Book of Mormon (The Musical) wins a Tony for Best Musical
I include this one on the list because the fact that a Broadway musical about Mormonism garnered so much acclaim and accolades illustrates, among other things, how mainstream this religious movement has become.  One Mormon commenter, when asked if it troubled her to see a play so directly and irreverently satirizing her faith, said it all for me in her reply:  "No," she said, "it just tells me that the broader culture has finally become comfortable enough with Mormonism to poke fun at it."  At the risk of sounding prophetic: this illustrates an evolution in the main-stream perception of Mormonism that will have significant implications for credal Christianity and its witness in the world.

July 7:  Mark Driscoll's latest drivel
I'm thankful to Pastor Driscoll for the regular lessons he gives me in throttling my own indignation and choking back my bile.  He's so uniquely adept at saying stupid things insensitively that he has almost become his own adjective.  So: suffice it to say that this summer, when he posted an open invitation on Facebook for his friends and followers to share derisive stories about their encounters with "effeminate anatomically male" worship leaders, it was, for lack of a better word, totally driscollian.

July 27:  John Stott passes
We commended a lovely servant of Jesus and a humble states-man for the Faith to the Grace of God this year.  Preacher, pastor, evangelist, philanthropist (in the best sense of that word), writer, Christian leader, missionary, he was, by all accounts, a beautiful man and God used him wonderfully.  To commemorate his going to be with the Lord, I've added The Cross of Christ to my reading list this year.

Welcome 2012

Happy 2012 everyone. I trust you rang in the New Year with verve, and I assume the word "verve" means enthusiasm and abandon, in the context I'm using it in here. Me, I spent the evening watching family home-videos with the kids, cherishing the times and loving the people God's put in my life over the years.

For those of you who have almost given up hope of ever seeing something new posted here at terra incognita, let me assure you that my blogging hiatus is officially over and I have resolved to resume consistent posting for 2012. When I launched this blog three years ago, the well was near brimming with blogging ideas; this winter I kept putting the bucket in deeper and deeper and coming up dry. A few months break has allowed me to refresh and recharge, and I trust this coming year at terra incognita will be better than ever.

But as I sit here at the start another 365 days of potential, let me take a short glance back at the personal highlights of 2011:

1. Preaching a series on Ecclesiastes. This time last year I was gearing up to tackle this profound book in the pulpit. Little did I know how indelible mark this series would leave on my own soul.

2. My first (2) weddings. This spring I had the honour of officiating at my first two weddings (one in April, one in May) as a pastor.

3. Appointment to SCOD. This spring I also had the honour of being invited to sit on SCOD, the Free Methodist's "Study Commission on Doctrine." Our 2011 meeting was in October, and it was truly a joy to be sitting at a table with such a dynamic group of brothers and sisters in Christ who share my passion for going deep with the things of God.

4. Final ordination interview. The process to become an ordained pastor in the FMCiC involves 3 interviews with the Ministerial Education, Guidance and Placement Committee, spread out over four years. This September, being two years into the tracking process, I had my second interview. What a gift it was to discover, after the interview, that the Committee had agreed to "fast track" my journey, and my second of three interviews would serve as my final. Just this week I sent in my final paper for the final course required for ordination: the ordination itself will be sometime in the next few months.

5. Vacation to the Prairies. I miss the Prairies, a lot.

6. Learning the ukulele. We found Dani`s old childhood ukulele in a closet at my father-in-law`s house this summer. Toying around with it slowly morphed into experimenting with it into discovering its playful personality as a serious instrument.

7. Moving the church. I haven`t said much on this blog about the church move the FreeWay went through this summer. Mostly because I was so busy with the move itself, that I had little time to reflect in blogging form. I expect this winter I`ll have some time to do this kind of processing of the experience, but here as I look back at 2011, let me say that in many ways the church move dominated this year, and that God was doing some community-transforming stuff through it that has been a thrill to be part of.

Top Headlines of (my) Evangelical 2010

The parenthetical "my" in the above title is my acknowledgement that I am neither knowledgeable nor impartial enough to offer a list like this with any objectivity. That said, I've put together this survey of news items from 2010 that stood out to me as notable landmarks on the evangelical landscape. I post it here IMHO, and welcome any nominations for additions to the list:

January 12:, 2010 Pat Robertson waxes inflammatory on Haitian disaster.

Not that I think his (at best) poorly timed comments and (at worst) cruel drivel about Haiti's alleged "pact with the devil" was even worthy of the attention it got, but it made me sad on a number of fronts: sad that for some, Pat Robertson's comments will just reinforce the tainted view of Christianity they already have; sad that a camera and the celebrity it creates has made a man like this some sort of spokesperson for a certain kind of Christianity (and that this "kind of Christianity" is so often held up as normative by the secular media); and sad, too, that mere "outrage" has somehow become a legitimate and sufficient moral response to ideas we dislike.

April 27, 2010: N. T. Wright announces his retirement as Bishop of Durham and his appointment as Research Professor at St. Andrews University.

This barely made a ripple in the headlines, I admit, but the fact that one of my favorite biblical scholars has taken a teaching post at St. Andrews was news to me, inasmuch as it gave me hope that the eagerly anticipated fourth volume of his Christian Origins and the Question of God series may be along sooner rather than later.

June 30, 2010: Anti-theist Christopher Hitchens diagnosed with cancer.

One of the world's best-known and more vitriolic opponents of religion announced this summer that he's been diagnosed with cancer. While some people (people of Pat Robertson's stripe, perhaps) have taken this opportunity to use vindictive phrases like "what he had coming," and "cosmic justice," others have taken the opportunity to practice pious prayer for the enemy, which, depending on the motive and content of the prayers, may be just as opportunistic.

July 13, 2010: The Canadian Government scraps the mandatory long-form census.

While this made more than a ripple in the secular media, I only noticed it because it hit the fan the week my family was away in Alberta and I was home alone, so I was listening to the CBC more than usual. At the time I didn't give it much thought. The portent of the decision didn't sink in until months later, when I was sitting in a room full of pastors, and a representative from the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada explained to us how we might use statistical data to help us in ministry, and I finally realized how useful a tool we'd lost.

July 31: Author Ann Rice "quits Christianity."

When Ann Rice first became a Christian, it turned heads especially because she was the famous writer of novels that could morph into multi-million dollar Hollywood productions staring the likes of Tom Cruise. Now that she's "left" the church (in her words: "In the name of Christ, I quit being a Christian") this is "news" only for the same reason; the story mattered to me primarily because it seems to illustrate James' wisdom in warning us against giving preferential treatment to the rich and famous (James 2:1-5).

August 15, 2010: Theologian Clark Pinnock dies at age 73.

I've read very little of this somewhat controversial theologian, but parts of his Flame of Love and parts of his Wideness in God's Mercy were helpful to me. I'll refer you to David Guretzki's tribute to him over at Theommentary, and commend him here to the mystery of the divine grace he worked his lifetime to describe.

August 24, 2010: Donald Bloesch dies at age 82.

It struck me as notable that two theological servants of the church-- in many ways so different in their theological bent-- should both pass away within 10 days of each other. I read swaths of Bloesch's work in Seminary, and found him to be thorough and challenging. When I heard about his death, I thought of a line in Barth (a theologian for whom he had a special affinity). I remember it imperfectly, but he wondered out loud once if God didn't laugh to see him pushing around his wheelbarrow full of books. I commend Bloesch, and his own wheelbarrow full of books, to the mystery of God's grace.


September 7, 2010: Florida's Terry Jones threatens to burn thousands of copies of the Koran on September 11.


Not that I believe a guy like this deserves anywhere near the amount of the attention he got, but it illustrated a number of things for me: a) the media's tendency to pour gasoline on a fire so they can write with incredulity about the religious flames; b) again how we've come to value "outrage" as some sort of "moral" response to things we think are wrong; and c) how tribal the notion of god has become in a world of tolerance and wars on terror.

October 1, 2010: Rick Warren speaks at John Piper's national "Desiring God Conference."

Purpose-driven Pragmatism meets Hedonistic Calvinism? This one raised my eyebrow. After all, when one of the most vociferous doctrinal watchdogs of American Evangelicalism invites one of the most effective pragmatists of American Evangliscalism to the party, eyebrows are going to raise. And they did: 40,000 blog-posts worth of indignant eyebrows, apparently; some even invoked 2 Timothy 4:3 and warnings about latter-days apostasy. For my part, I was left musing about how, in the absence of a clear ecclesiology, Evangelicalism in this part of the world looks and feels like a doctrinal clique.

December 13, 2010: Barna survey finds North American church to be theologically illiterate.

For the record, I saw methodological problems with Barna's survey so huge that it was hard to take their conclusions seriously, but at the very least this headline shored up my resolve to preach on the Incarnation the first Sunday after Christmas.

A Blogging Year in Review

Happy 2011 everyone. I trust you rang in the New Year with verve and gusto. Me: a rollicking game of Settlers of Catan followed by our family's New Years tradition: watching home movies. Nothing like welcoming a new year by laughing and reflecting together on the last 12 as a family.

And speaking of traditions: this time last year I posted a random list of stats and figures on my first year blogging. Not long after that post, I discovered Google Analytics, a free service provided by Google that tracks a wide variety of stats on your web-site's usage. With the help of Google Analytics I've compiled this list of statistical curiosities from another year blogging at terra incognita. For those of you who contributed to any of the following numbers, thanks for joining me for another trip around the blog-o-sphere sun. For what they're worth, here're some random weights and measures of 2010 .

1. Top five cities from which visitors arrived: Oshawa, Ontario (327); Toronto, Ontario (204) Grand Rapids, Michigan (194),Caronport, Saskatchewan (177); London, Ontario (125)

2. Most distant visitor: Someone from Chennai, India, (13,646 km away)

3. Most common landing keyword (i.e. what people typed into Google to find their way to me): “prayer for the offering”

4. Top five most commonly visited posts: A Prayer for the Offering (916); On Kafka Dreams (113); Tidings of Great Joy (96); Pangs of Northerness(92); The Geometry of Heaven? (66);

5. Overall average time spent on site: 49 seconds

6. Most common (non-search engine) referring site: This Side of Sunday (314)

7. Total hits in 2010: 6,646

8. Most Commented-on Post: Blogging in the Echo Chamber (5)

9. Worst Post: Upon hearing that Austin Texas is renaming 2nd Street (this one sounded funnier in my head than it did on the screen; at least it was short).

10. Most Fun Post to Write: The Adventures of Elroy (or what has Nintendo to do with Jerusalem?)