“If you knew Jesus was coming back at the end of this week, how would you live your life? Okay, so, why aren’t you living your life like that? He might come back at the end of this week!”

I’d ask you to raise your hands if you’ve heard a variation on this theme from a pulpit in your lifetime, but I’m blogging, so I couldn’t see your hands. It doesn’t matter: they’d all be up. We’ve all heard a variation on this theme. It’s a good theme, in a way: the people who preach this way usually have a strong sense of the urgency of the Great Commission and a real grasp on the doctrine of Christ’s imminent return – both good things. But as with many good things, they can become bad things when carried too far, or carried thoughtlessly without regard to other good things. Read on, intrepid explorer →

In Family Vocation, Gene Veith and his daughter Mary Moerbe apply Luther’s views on vocation to family. (Shocking, I know.)

Sometime in the last two or three years, I stumbled on Gene Veith’s blog, Cranach: The Blog of Veith. Though I didn’t initially add his blog to my reading list, I kept finding myself back there. Links from a variety of other sources I read regularly kept drawing me back, and though in general I tend to skip over blogs with cultural or political emphases – it’s just not my main focus – I found his thought and writing unusually compelling. His blog is now among my most regular reads.

One of Veith’s major projects has been reintroducing evangelicals to Lutheran thought on vocation. I’ve heard nothing but good about his previous book on vocation, so when I saw that he’d released a book on relating vocation to family, it immediately went on my reading list. Read on, intrepid explorer →

It has become increasingly apparent to me over the past three to five years that evangelicalism suffers from a serious deficit of careful thought to our theology of vocation. Though evangelicals pay lip service to the notion that every believer’s work is valuable in the sight of God, in practice we do not act as though this is true. We do not, deep down, seem to actually believe that working as a software engineer or an electrician or a clerk or a manager or a lawyer or even a doctor is really important and God-honoring. Or at least, not as much as doing ministry. Read on, intrepid explorer →

If your computer crashes today, and you pick up your phone to call tech support, the chances are good you’ll hear an Indian voice on the other end. The computer was likely designed by a team of engineers in America, perhaps with collaboration in Europe, Japan, or Korea. The majority of its parts were probably manufactured in factories in China, Taiwan. It may have been assembled anywhere from Brazil to Biloxi.

The world is flat. Read on, intrepid explorer →