John March

Author: webadmin

  • In Search of a Self?

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    Have you ever been annoyed when a spiritual guru has told you to do some self-exploration?  I think that’s fair.  There’s enough self-absorption in our country that when another Christian pastor or spiritual leader tells people to “look inward” or to “know thyself” that it sounds like New Age Narcissism.  Often times, Christians object to…

  • Christianity 2.0

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    It seems like everyone in the evangelical world is talking about starting over.  Everyone is talking about how corrupt the church has gotten.  Many are urging us to return to the purity of the early church.  Others are saying our theology has been co-opted by a Greek or Roman or Platonic philosophical system, and we…

  • The Promising Pleasures of Porn

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    In a soon to be released interview with Playboy magazine, John Mayer says that his “biggest dream is to write pornography.”  He says a lot of other thing in the interview that are unsavory and for which he’s taken a lot of heat.  This statement however mostly just gets an eye-role.  It’s seen as an…

  • Happy Families Are all Alike

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    “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” ~ Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina This, the opening line to Tolstoy’s novel, Anna Karenina, is packed full of meaning, and the rest of the book expounds in story form what he means.   We read of one miserable family owing its…

  • Good Christians are Called Atheists

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    There’s often a lot of talk by Christians lamenting the non-religious nature of our government, but what I find ironic is that the early Christians faced criticism from the government lamenting that they weren’t religious!  The Roman Government repeatedly called Christians atheists and even killed them for it.  In fact, the first martyrdom recorded in…

  • Parable on Faith and Doubt

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    Imagine a couple that is considering getting married, Jack and Jill. They have been dating for years. Jack and Jill come from different family backgrounds. Jill comes from a family with abusive parents that had a dysfunctional marriage. This has made her skeptical about her ability to have a healthy marriage. She wonders if a…

  • Kierkegaard on Doubt (of the Ascension)

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    “So some have doubted.  But then in turn there were some who sought to refute doubt with reasons.  As a matter of fact, the connection was actually this: first of all they tried to demonstrate the truth of Christianity with reasons or by advancing reasons in relations to Christianity.  And the reasons fostered doubt and…

  • I will not be an emotionally manipulative pastor: Or, Why I promise to Play

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    Don’t you hate overly serious pastors?  Don’t you know that their earnestness belies their insecurity?  When one’s in a position of spiritual authority, be it a situation where we counsel, preach, or lead a meeting, there can be a temptation to use seriousness to gain leverage.  By being overly serious about a matter, we can…

  • Blessed are those who bust human traffickers

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    Last night on my way back from Denver I had the privilege of sitting next to a cop.  This individual was working on a case aimed at arresting some people engaged in sex-trafficking.  She shared some stories, and she talked about the anger she feels when she hears the stories of abuse that these girls…

  • In Denver for Midwinter, Ordination Interview

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    I’m in Denver right now for my denomination’s annual pastors’ conference.  I love our denomination, and this conference is a great reminder of it.  This year’s speaker is John Ortberg.  After I have coffee with a friend, James Kim, I’m going to go into the opening session with Ortberg this morning.  I look forward to…