With any extra time I am working on a paper that I have committed to give at the Wesleyan Theological Society at the beginning of March. I am trying to use some of the concepts in chapter 2 of Telling God's Story with chapter 2 in my upcoming Postliberal Theology and the Church Catholic to tell a particular story of the sociological pressures that have overdetermined the development of the Wesleyan Theological Society that past thirty years. It has brought me into conversation with what is called "the new sociology of ideas" -- a vibrant and fascinating field of study.

Continue reading "From Social Gospel to "Leftist American Patriot""

Posted by johnwright at 9:05 PM
Filed under: Reflections

Today I celebrated Epiphany by grabbing my "Soccer Mom" chair and heading to the church before sunrise. Today was our first Friday distribution. Kathy spent yesterday making numbers that we re-introduced to help prevent a rush to the front of the line at the beginning of the distribution. Instead, I got rushed when I started to hand out the numbers before dawn, people got their numbers and then went home, and we still had a rush to the front of line when we began. We all survived. What is fascinating is how the anxieties to get the food turn into thankfulness when it is received. A particular interesting experience was one of our Ukrainian friends. We talked some. She is an Orthodox Christian. In her broken English she told me "Merry Christmas!" Then she said, "I am going home to cook for 50-60 people for our Christmas meal. Your congregation is helping us celebrate Christmas!" The wonders of the faithfulness of God!! Despite the church's fragmentation at one level, the visible unity of the church catholic still cannot be completely removed from the world because of our sin. Even with different calendars, the birth of Jesus still made this unity materially visible.

Continue reading "Happy Epiphany!"

Posted by johnwright at 6:59 PM
Filed under: Reflections

This morning I have entered the social media world. My adult children have all advised me away from Facebook -- creepy 50 plus year old white male not necessarily in an appropriate place. I have received clearance, however, to enter Google Plus. I have now began my profile. I would like to set up a "pastorjohnwright blog circle" as well as a "Mid-City English Congregation" circle. Given the fact that I am so old and such media is foreign to me, any connections would help me. It feels a bit creepy going looking for "friends" so I'm not sure how to proceed. I do hope that this helps me stay connected to friends, as well as find friends that I didn't know that I have.

Continue reading "Entered Social Media World -- and reflections on an interesting article"

Posted by johnwright at 8:44 AM
Filed under: Reflections

On December 11 the Pew Research Center published a report on the number and distribution of members of Christians throughout the world (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2151/christian). The percentage of Christians in the world has held basically steady in relationship to the world's populations in the past century (35% in 1910; 32% in 2010). As the summary of the report states, however, "his apparent stability, however, masks a momentous shift. Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world's Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole. At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in subSaharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century."

Continue reading "On the Second Day of Christmas"

Posted by johnwright at 9:06 PM
Filed under: Reflections

The end of the semester has come and gone. I only have a few (four exactly) grades to enter-- which I plan to finish before these evening. Tomorrow nights Christmas I (eve) service is planned, and I am excited to be able to gather with the congregation on Christmas morning as well. I have a stack of books by my chair that I hope to share with you in the coming days. Next semester hopes to be much more sane than this one -- for which I am thankful.

Continue reading "More Migrations -- Caught in the Movement"

Posted by johnwright at 8:55 AM
Filed under: Reflections

Bill Cavanaugh has recently published a collection of essays entitled, Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church. Bill's thesis is both simple and profound, deeply theological and historical: "The kinds of public devotion formerly associated with Christianity in the West never did go away, but largely migrated to a new realm defined by the nation-state" (p. 1). I have yet to read the whole book (my stack keeps growing), but the thesis, though controversial, should not be. Regina Schwartz, Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism: When God Left the World documents the same historical transition in England. Any scholar of the French Revolution and the Constitutional Church will tell you the same. Secularism is a Christian heresy, the replacement of the church by the European nation-state as the ultimate source for human allegiance (faith).

Continue reading "Migrations of the Holy and Thanksgiving"

Posted by johnwright at 10:58 AM
Filed under: Reflections

The past weeks have been full as usual. I have work to do on Marriage and Sexuality in the Early Church -- really interesting material. It seems to me that one finds in these teachings how the church's practice of sexuality and marriage was part of the politics of the church -- and cannot be understood outside the complex of networks in which it lived, to sustain its witness amid the nations.

Continue reading "The Colossian Forum is up!"

Posted by johnwright at 1:14 PM
Filed under: Reflections

In my reading this fall, I have read excerpts from an important book edited by\ Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe, The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of Neoliberal Thought Collective (Harvard University Press, 2009). Of course, the United States, despite which is officially in office, has underlying neoliberal commitments. The difference is largely rhetorical, with Republicans mastering a more "government is the problem" language, with Democrats pulling back from this use more in rhetoric than in action. Of course, such rhetoric is empty. There is no such thing as "government" per se, any more than there is anything like "free markets" per se. It is therefore important to get to empirical data to see what this language works to do in building various type of social collectives.

Continue reading "Neoliberalism as political theory of strong government"

Posted by johnwright at 12:41 PM
Filed under: Reflections

Yesterday we had our First Friday distribution at the church. I took advantage of the situation to spend time before dawn to spend on the sidewalks with those waiting. It is actually loads of fun, though I work to make sure the line keeps in order. Over the years we have actually developed a fun atmosphere on the line. I really would love to take the time to learn Vietnamese. "Good morning" and "thank you" are all that I can say.

Continue reading "Food and War Economics"

Posted by johnwright at 8:51 PM
Filed under: Reflections

Yesterday Tony, who is the PLNU Associated Student Body director of Spiritual Development, spoke in chapel at PLNU. He has graciously consented to allow me to post his sermon on my blog. It is very humbling for me; never have I been as wise nor as elegant nor as good reader of the Scriptures as he was. One can hear his presentation by going to the PLNU website through pointloma.edu/chapel.

Fortunately, I still had better glasses once in life than he will ever have. At least I have one thing up on him.

Continue reading "Humbled by a Son"

Posted by johnwright at 1:14 PM
Filed under: Essays