BudapestAlive

Water From a Deep Well

My my, this is a gooood read so far. The author has two stated purposes which I’ll summarize this way:

1. To honor those faithful saints of the early church who suffered martyrdom for no other reason than being called “Christian” – to honor them by telling their stories.

2. To connect the present-day church to her spiritual roots, her glorious heritage, being rooted in the those same saints.

quote: “Christian still die for their faith, now more than ever. Martyrdom is as terrifying today as it was then, if not more so. In some parts of the world Christians disappear from their homes during the night; they are beaten and dismembered by hostile mobs. Missiologist David B. Barrett estimates that 160,000 Christians were martyred in the year 2000 alone. They died in that year for the same basic reason they died in the year 155, when Polycarp was martyred, or in 202, when Perpetua was martyred. The early martyrs believed that if Jesus is Lord and the only Savior, then he accepts no rivals – no person or religion or ideology or empire. They affirmed that the Christian faith requires nothing less than a firm and joyful commitment to this conviction. Jesus came as God in human flesh to show us the way to God and to be the way to God for us. This is the only Jesus there is. A lesser Jesus is not the real Jesus at all, at least not according to the testimony of the martyrs, from Stephen to the present.”

The Latest Read

I’m not a big “here’s what I’m reading” guy, but since my blog is slowing down (and soon to take a major revision in focus and design), I figured why not drop a few quick posts on some good reads of late.

I’m about halfway through this one. Wells follows the path evangelicalism has taken since WWII. The book is essentially a compilation of four previous works from Wells, all boiled down into 250 pages. It’s more of a historical apologetic (a-la Os Guinness) than a theological breakdown. Intriguing stuff.

Among other things he makes insightful observations on the similarities between the business-model marketing folks and the emergent crowd (that’s right…I said similarities, those two groups are never seen in parallel from any angle).

He also argues for how and why evangelicals are now fragmenting into three distinct groups and looks at the heritage and future of those paths.

If you’re in church leadership at any level or are someone who thinks about why churches do what they do…I recommend it.