by Brother Maynard | Nov 22, 2016 | Culture, Politics
I can already hear you responding with choruses of “NO!” and “Of COURSE Not!” Yes, you’re thinking of Jesus overturning the tables and upsetting the status quo, speaking truth to power, and “telling it like it is.” And you’re right, of course, he did all that. But then there were some other times that might be downright confusing from a PC-standpoint. Remember when he was asked if it was okay to pay taxes, and he pointed out a coin with Caesar’s image on it, and said “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s”? What about when he extracts a coin from the mouth of the fish in order to pay the temple tax? Those aren’t instances of speaking truth to power, they’re examples of acquiescence. Jesus can be a thorny dude to understand. Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Sep 21, 2016 | Current Events, Politics
I don’t write much anymore, lacking both time and inclination. The church doesn’t listen. By and large, I mean. The church I used to know has no ears for this, and there’s little point writing to them. The people on the outside, on the fringe, the ones who mistrust the church and cannot reconcile the Jesus they read in the Bible with the one that is preached at them from the pulpit — these people listen. But they already know most of the things I write about. On the other hand, I’ve found writing to be cathartic as well as helpful in processing my thoughts, as evidenced in the many pages of this blog. 
And I don’t read much on these subjects anymore unless they fall directly in my path, as when some asinine boneheaded comments are made on Facebook or in the pages of Christian publication or blog that gets passed around, and I sometimes still begin to compose a response in my head. Because I don’t write it, the response usually fizzles before it is fully formed since there is no audience for it but the converted. The unconverted do not wish to hear it, and sometimes it’s just outrageous. I shake my head and move along. There’s a lot of that during the election season. Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Mar 13, 2016 | Current Events, Politics
On Facebook and in general conversation, I tend toward being cavalier and take a somewhat mocking tone about Trump’s popularity in the GOP primaries. “Dear America, you may see this as a primary campaign but the rest of the world sees it as an IQ test, and it isn’t looking good.” There’s so much there to find abhorrent that you’re left with a very small variety of optional responses once you’ve fought off the deer-in-the-headlights impulse. Maybe the most common ones are laughter and despair. Or fear. It has, of course, been pointed out that it’s cheaper to vote than it is to move to Canada, so I’d urge any American to vote responsibly. (Note on photo selection: a quick image search confirmed what I already suspected: there are no flattering photographs of Donald Trump.) Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Feb 23, 2015 | Current Events, Emergent
As I said almost a week ago, Tony Jones posted a statement countering the allegations made by his ex-wife, Julie McMahon. Tony’s statement was filled with lies, innuendo, half-truths, horrible leaps of logic, and other miserable attempts to control the narrative. One of the few bits of truth in the statement is that he has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. R.L. Stollar has published documents which set the record straight in an evidentiary way; these can be compared with Jones’ statement to show his lies and misrepresentation. I was a little steamed at Jones’ blustery statement, but glad that I archived it because it disappeared from the site a few days later. I’m not surprised, and my links to that statement and several others from the “WhyTony” site on Scribd are all to my own local copies of the statements for this very reason. You can’t simply post something on the Internet and then remove it to pretend it had never been there. Not when people are watching, and the people who are watching highly suspect your motives and are onto your tactics. These tactics are simply means of attempting to control the narrative, to bend it and alter perceptions in one’s own favour. Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Feb 15, 2015 | Current Events, Emergent
So it’s now public knowledge that the Golden Boy of the Emergent Village has lied about almost all of the facts surrounding his divorce from his first wife, Julie McMahon. R.L. Stollar bravely published excerpts of the documents, including those indicating the injury that Jones denies causing to McMahon’s shoulder. There remain two things which are not immediately clear. (1) Why certain leaders continue to support Jones; and (2) How the leadership of Emergent Village could have allowed an environment where this could take place while they feigned ignorance.
I’ll back up. There are a lot of summaries of this mess out there already, and even more commentary upon the matter. But I’ll recap some “highlights” with a few notations of my own, after which I’ll explain why this matter catches my attention enough to resurrect this blog and comment publicly, and I’ll pose some questions around what I consider to be the larger issues at play. As has been said all along, this is not just about the breakup of one family — as painful as that was and continues to be for them. Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Jul 4, 2010 | Blogging, Books, Current Events, E/MC Community, Emergent, Emerging Church, House Church, I Ramble, Missional, Unfinished Reading
I know, it’s overdue. Long overdue. This blog seems to have disintegrated into one of those that has an irregular stream of posts saying, “Sorry I haven’t posted more, but I will soon, I promise.” But I don’t believe in those posts – and maybe I don’t really believe in apologies for not blogging. Sorry to disappoint you. ;^) Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Mar 1, 2010 | Books, Current Events, Easter, God Life, I Ramble, Simple Church
This evening is in a way a day of closings. It’s the end of the week, and the end of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I think our television has been on almost nonstop for 17 days now. And it’s been good seeing our Canadian athletes doing so well. 14 gold medals, more than any country has ever won in any winter Olympics. I think the early glitches of the games were pretty much forgotten as we showed the world how we party at home. People in the street spontaneously singing the national anthem? That’s pretty remarkable for any country anywhere, I’d say. And of course, we made sure to remind the world that hockey is our game. I might have over-tweeted that point, but there it is. Here we are being Canadian… thoroughly proud to the core of all our athletes who scored a podium finish, and feeling sorry for those who didn’t, whether those others are Canadian or not. Read more…
by Brother Maynard | Jan 26, 2010 | Church, Church 2.0, Culture, Emerging Church, Missional
Well, I started out with some prognostication, and then I got distracted, and got back on track regarding my thoughts on The Decade Ahead for the Emerging Church. As I set up my thoughts and predictions (scary word) in that post, I asked three pairs of questions, the last of which was, “where is the world outside the church in all of this? Do they benefit at all, or are they worse off?” And then I pretty much didn’t answer that one, just the other two. This set of questions is fundamentally different because they have to do with the church’s interaction with the world, and are therefore the most important (certainly to the missional crowd, at least). For these reasons, I felt a separate post was warranted. Read more…
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