Rainn Wilson of The Office fame is not a Jesus follower but wrote an excellent book based on his Baháʼí Faith. While promoting it on The Holy Post Podcast he mused, "Bottom line: the #1 most important question anyone can ask themselves is, is there a god?... We're either a random assemblage of molecules that happened to have developed this incredible consciousness or there is … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Asks, “WHO is God?”
Roman Catholicism
Beatnik Christianity Resists the Temptation Toward Ideological Purity
Ideology is one of those expansive words like "culture" that encompasses a lot. Merriam-Webster defines ideology as "a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture; the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program; a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture." Ideological … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Resists the Temptation Toward Ideological Purity
Beatnik Christianity Calls for Discernment with Our Theological Metaphors
1980's Metaphors We Live By is a classic book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The authors suggest that the conceptual metaphors we use in day-to-day conversations both reflect and create the way we think, feel, perceive, and interact in the world. A popular American metaphor like "time is money" shapes our collective cultural values and cultivates our individual interior … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Calls for Discernment with Our Theological Metaphors
Beatnik Christianity Expects Jesus Followers to Grow and Develop
Show me a person who's virtually unchanged over a 20-year period and I'll show you someone who's terribly boring and likely suffering from trauma-induced stagnation. It's an entirely natural psychological process of human growth and development for people to have experiences that influence their worldviews, personalities, relationships, interests, and values. Therein lies a lot … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Expects Jesus Followers to Grow and Develop
Beatnik Christianity Invokes Pro-Jesus, Un-American Kingdom Values
The problem with most counterculturally-inclined Jesus followers isn't that they're too out of sync with the social norms of the dominant culture. The problem is that they usually don't go far enough in identifying the insidious ways they've been unknowingly enculturated by Christian culture and secular culture alike. Two such presuppositions among American Christians are … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Invokes Pro-Jesus, Un-American Kingdom Values
