Why am I so hard on Republican Christians? This is why. If you are a true Christian, no, let me say it this way, you are only a true Christian if you have been broken by Christ. Period. That is the benchmark. If you have not been flat on your face, or curled up into … Continue reading The Tares in Power
Category: Jesus
Evening Twinge
How clueless I am--still--about the Big Things and the Little Details of this life in Christ we share. A shudder of a thought just now, a cold shiver. Tonight, out of nowhere, the workings of Grace suddenly seemed too alien to hold in mind. Here's the twist. Even though I know I'm clueless about grace, … Continue reading Evening Twinge
Honey, Have You Seen My Rants?
They were here just a minute ago. Regular readers of this blog, who number anywhere from a starting five to a full bench with reserves, depending on summer vocations, may be wondering at the sudden removal of the most recent posts. If you have posted a like or a comment, I thank you sincerely. But … Continue reading Honey, Have You Seen My Rants?
Size Matters
Been trying to find a way into this topic, Brothers and Sisters, but no luck. Maybe if we just chat awhile it'll dawn on us. And there are a lot of us's. Seven billion human beings and counting, alive right this instant, each pumping out many thousands of thoughts in a day, emotions zigging high … Continue reading Size Matters
Know What I’m Saying?
I rant, I scold, I coo, tickle and poke but I'm not changing any minds here. Okay, something new. Newish. Or at least, more spontaneous. For instance, the first line, with the ranting and cooing just came out and I left it in, even though it invoked parents and children, a subject I'm avoiding; not … Continue reading Know What I’m Saying?
The Long View
The Christian life of faith is called the Walk--it is both the Walk of Faith and the Walk with Christ. What we see in the first years of our Walk is in the most charitable sense of the phrase about us. He finds each of us in our personal ditch of pain and dysfunction; most … Continue reading The Long View
Something Glorious This Way Comes
This is a spiritual exercise that arose out of a morning walk. I've been doing this for a few years now, not as a scheduled practice, but whenever I need a Spiritual recalibration. It requires a safe place to walk undisturbed for half an hour. You will want to turn off your alert survival mindset … Continue reading Something Glorious This Way Comes
It’s just Rock n’ Roll, Innit?…
"What I always say is, if God raised Jesus from the dead, everything else is just Rock n' Roll, innit?..." London cabbie to N T Wright Amen Amen. It is precisely here, at the most outrageous of claims, the most egregious assault on common sense and experience, that Christianity depends. Dear Brothers and Sisters in … Continue reading It’s just Rock n’ Roll, Innit?…
The Answer’s In the Back
I think I'm really starting to love this new iteration of the American Liberal. The way you love the happily retarded. Now, the anachronistic slur--not a slur really, as I hope we'll see--is intended only to set a time frame. I worked in the early 1970's at the now defunct Mansfield Training Center for the … Continue reading The Answer’s In the Back
Skeptic: Nothing to those “encounters” but faulty wiring in the brain…
Me: I accept that all my experiences are grounded in the chemical and electrical, which is to say material, processes of the brain. In fact, I'm willing to strip the experiences--the presence of Jesus, the personal demons, the Satori moment--of all spiritual implication if the topic is; what is the stuff in Dan's brain. Is … Continue reading Skeptic: Nothing to those “encounters” but faulty wiring in the brain…
…and the Middle Distance
When non believers ask me if I personally have had a supernatural experience this is the one I share. I was walking to Church on a sunny spring day through Heather Farms Park, as bucolic as it sounds, in a kind of humming, mindless state, when I had a vision. The vision itself wasn't remarkable--I'll get … Continue reading …and the Middle Distance
Middling Minds …
A Confession. Academic Theology, at its highest levels and a few rungs down as well, is a mystery to me. Words I recognize are arranged in a density that soon becomes white noise It might as well be Theoretical Physics. I don't read Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Aramaic, or for that matter German, Italian or Norwegian. … Continue reading Middling Minds …
Introduction
My name is Dan Bennett. I'm a Christian. This blog is, as of its inception, a vanity project rather than Evangelization. It is an attempt to explore what it means to be a Christian in today's world, from a necessarily singular and personal perspective. This seems a truism. Who else could anyone speak for but … Continue reading Introduction
The Hour is Coming, and Now Is 