April 2008

It's time for round two of the Subversive Blogger Awards.

American author Henry Miller (1891-1980) once said, "The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive."

Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a "return to") - even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.

For round two of the Subversive Blogger Awards, I am tagging the following five blogs/bloggers:

1. Sarcastic Lutheran by Nadia Bolz-Weber (e.g., Why she isn't that kind of Christian)
2. The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus by Jon Birch (e.g., Hamster Wheel Church)
3. Missio Dei by Jonathan Brink (e.g., Top 50 Possible Reasons Why You’re Not Emergent)
4. Nate Ritter (e.g., Ideas that Change the World via Twitter)
5. novus•lumen by Jeremy Bouma (e.g., The Good of Affluence: A Critique and Evaluation of Capitalism)

The rules of participation are pretty straightforward:

1. If you are tagged, write a post with links to five subversive blogs.
2. Link back to this post on JakeBouma.com so people can easily find the origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the "Subversive Blogger Award" somewhere on your blog (images below) with a link to the post that you wrote.

That's all there is to it. Keep in mind that this award is meant as an encouragement to bloggers to keep doing what they're already doing - being subversive (however you interpret it). May we never forget that Jesus (and His message) was the original and ultimate subversive.

Here are the images you can use for your blog, courtesy of Josh Brown and Red Cowboy Designs. All I ask is that you download them and upload them to your own server.

The Subversive Blogger Award The Subversive Blogger Award

Blog on.

UPDATE: Nate Ritter has graciously designed an additional badge for the award which you can find below. Feel free to use it in addition to or on place of the original badges.

The Subversive Blogger Award

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I added a kickass new podcast to my list last week: Watching Theology (link opens in iTunes). The podcast explores "the theological, philosophical, and thematic content of a single film." The episode I listened to was on Casino Royale (2006), and it was fantastic. Related: Pat Loughery’s podcast list.

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This quote is pertinent to the topic we discussed at youth group tonight: "Who is the focus of the Church? Who is the person we are concerned about? The person we exist to serve? For Jesus there was no question. In the Kingdom, the humble are lifted high and the most vulnerable have pride of place. That is why you cannot ask Jesus into your heart alone. He will ask, 'Can I bring my friends?'" From With God in the Crucible by Peter Storey. [via]

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Spectacle(s)
Brian McLaren, originally uploaded by jakebouma on flickr.

It's day two of the Shift conference at Willow Creek in Chicago, and it's been going pretty well. Yesterday there were three main sessions, with Brian McLaren, Mark Yaconelli, and Shane Claiborne, and they were all great. At points throughout the sessions, I laughed, cried, and gained some insight and wisdom.

I've decided to not post any of my notes from the past day and a half, because much of what I've been mulling over boils down to the question of the seemingly simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the gospel and its implications. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, keep reading. This morning at Brian McLaren's Onramp to Postmodernism discussion, there was a Q&A session in which I decided to go up and ask for his insight into the matter. I really liked his response, and I recorded both the question and his answer for your listening pleasure.

Click here for the mp3 of my question and Brian McLaren's answer (03:58, 3.7mb)

I looked up the quote he's referring to (read: "Googled"), and it comes from former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He said, "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." Do you know what he's saying? Do you understand how awesome that is? I totally dig that.

Anyways, there are several people blogging and Twittering from the conference; Gavin has a roundup (actually, I met the guy thanks to Twitter). I started using hashtags to track tweets from the conference, so check the hashtag page for #shift08 to see all of the various comments and perspectives, and be sure to keep up with my Twitter feed as well.

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What?

April 7, 2008 · 6 comments

Yeah, that about sums it up.

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I'm heading to Chicago on Tuesday to attend a pair of conferences: the Shift Student Ministry Conference and the Wheaton Theology Conference. I'm staying with my good friend and academic journal connoisseur, Brandon Mick. Like the National Youth Workers Convention last fall, I'll be blogging my experience throughout the week.

Here's a rough (and flexible) schedule of what I'll be doing this week.

Wednesday

[Shift Conference]
9:00 - 10:30am -- Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change; worship with Charlie Hall
11:15 - 12:45pm -- Mark Yaconelli, Failure, Frustration & Loss: The Youth Worker's Path to Holiness; worship with Charlie Hall
2:15 - 3:45pm
-- Shane Claiborne, The Scandal of Grace; worship with Charlie Hall

Thursday

[Shift Conference]
7:45 - 8:30am -- Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President
9:00 - 10:30am -- Brian McLaren, Onramp to the Postmodern Conversation
11:00 - 12:30pm -- Scot McKnight, Missional Jesus
2:00 - 3:30pm -- Tommy McClam, Mentoring Students in Your Ministry
4:00 - 5:30pm -- Kara Powell, Deep Justice in a Broken World
[Wheaton Theology Conference]
7:30 - 8:30pm -- Kevin Vanhoozer, Keynote Address #1

Friday

[Shift Conference]
7:45 - 8:30am -- Aaron Niequist, Worship Songwriters Unite!
9:00 - 10:30am -- Kara Powell, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World; worship with Brandon Grissom
11:15 - 12:45pm -- Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus, But Not the Church; worship with Brandon Grissom
[Wheaton Theology Conference]
1:30 - 3:00pm -- Mark Husbands and John Franke, The Trinity as Social?
3:30 - 5:00pm -- Robert Lang'at and Keith Johnson, The Trinity and Mission
7:30 - 8:30pm -- Kevin Vanhoozer, Keynote Address #2

Stay tuned to JakeBouma.com this week for updates from the conferences. Any fellow bloggers going to be at either of these conferences? Leave a comment and let me know; I'd love to meet up.

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