In all of Christian culture, the thing I find most absurd is the Catholic Church's prohibition against gluten-free Communion wafers. This sacrament is a means of grace to spiritually feed God's people, but even microscopic levels of gluten make it dangerous to worshipers with celiac disease and other severe gluten sensitivities. Yet the Vatican's dogmatic hierarchy refuses any … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Bends Over Backwards to Accommodate Special Needs
Roman Catholicism
Beatnik Christianity Merges House Church Community with High Church Worship
Over the last two decades, I've felt a steady pull towards the house church movement. My soul longs for its slow pace, warmth of hospitality, depth of community, and conscious removal of all the bureaucratic crap that usually dominates church life. I've quietly read books by its leading authors. Not gonna lie, there are times when I feel like Frank Viola and Neil Cole are … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Merges House Church Community with High Church Worship
Beatnik Christianity Overthrows Spiritual Authoritarianism
Britannica defines authoritarianism as the "principle of blind submission to authority." Spiritual authoritarianism demands rank and file submission to religious leaders who've ascended to positions of institutional power. It's a centralized structure that functions through a chain-of-command mentality like the military. Christian culture justifies this with nesting set of … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Overthrows Spiritual Authoritarianism
Beatnik Christianity Recognizes Scripture’s Awkwardness and Fuzziness on Marriage
The more one deep-dives the evolving relational contract of marriage within the Bible the more it becomes clear it's as awkward as it is fuzzy. Almost none of our modern marital ideals like love, trust, equality, communication, and reciprocity are anywhere near as apparent as we'd like. Instead what we find throughout the Old Testament are practices like arranged marriages, … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Recognizes Scripture’s Awkwardness and Fuzziness on Marriage
Beatnik Christianity Leans More Toward Byzantine & Celtic Theology
The theological legacy of Augustine is just awful. Dude established precedents that permanently butchered Western Christianity with his teachings on things like original sin, grace, sexuality, Mary, (androcentric) natural law, just war theory, and predestination. He's like an ancient Wayne Grudem, painstakingly trying to remove mystery and tension in order to create a tidy … [Read more...] about Beatnik Christianity Leans More Toward Byzantine & Celtic Theology
