The Surprising God

In Christ we died and rose to new life (2 Corinthians 5:14-17). This is the gospel, and the gospel-shaped invitation that flows from it is this: Come Awake! -- live into the reality of who you truly are in Christ. The video below powerfully offers this simple, yet profound invitation using the song "Christ is Risen" by Matt Maher and Mia Fieldes. Here is part of the lyrics: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death, come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave! O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory? O church, come stand in the light The glory of God has defeated the night! If you'd like to show this video in worship, you can purchase it at  Worship House Media   or  Igniter Media .  Free lyrics and chord sheets and information about purchasing the song are found at  WorshipTogether .

This post continues an exploration of the book Deep Church Rising  by Andrew G. Walker and Robin A. Parry. To read other posts in the series, click a number: 1 , 3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 .   Walker and Parry assert that a move toward "deep church" is essential if the church's "third great schism" is to be healed. That schism resulted from a centuries-long movement in Christendom away from the historic, orthodox Christian faith. In this post we'll see how the schism arose and what it entails. Modernity and secularization The authors largely attribute the third great schism to the  secularization of western-Christian cultures.   They define secularization as "the complex of social processes by which religious thinking, practices, and institutions become socially marginalized" (p. 32). The rise of secularization in the West has stretched from the 1500s until now, with the net effect being that God was effectively banished f...

This post begins a series exploring  Deep Church Rising  by Andrew G. Walker and Robin A. Parry. To read a review, click  here ; for an author's summary, click  here ; to download a sample chapter, click here . For additional posts in this series, click a number: 2 , 3 ,  4 ,  5 ,  6 ,  7 ,  8 ,  9 .   Subtitled The Third Schism and the Recovery of Christian Orthodoxy, the book  Deep Church Rising seeks to counter an ongoing movement that takes some churches away from key tenets of Christian orthodoxy toward a faith its proponents deemed more in step with modernity/post-modernity. Walker and Parry speak out against this movement (which they refer to as the church's "third schism"), calling for a return to "deep church"--the recovery of the historic, orthodox Christian faith (what they refer to as "the tradition"). For the authors of Deep Church Rising , the way forward in this return includes both looking  back...

This post concludes a series that reviews  Communion with the Triune God , in which Dick Eugenio examines Thomas F (TF) Torrance's trinitarian soteriology (doctrine of salvation). For other posts in the series, click a number: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 . TF was careful to approach the doctrine of salvation in accordance with the incarnational, Trinitarian understanding of the Christian faith set out in the ancient Christian creeds. As Eugenio notes, rather then seeing salvation as transactional (in accord with the reductionist formula of "accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,"), TF viewed it as "union with Christ and being adopted as sons and daughters of the Father in the incorporating communion of the Holy Spirit," by which humanity is enabled to "share in the inner relations of God's own life and love" (Kindle ed, loc 4925). God, in Christ, by the Spirit, makes this union and communion subjectively (personally) possible bec...