Interview with Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw

A while ago, sometime during Holy Week, Brian had the opportunity to chat with Shane and Chris about what it might mean to bring the Jesus for President tour to the great white north. The following is the audio from that conversation:

Jesus for Prime Minister Interview

Don’t forget that you can catch all three together at Church of the Redeemer on Monday June 30th at 7pm.

“Born Again,” A Murderous Shibboleth

by Brian Walsh

So what’s wrong with being “born again”? In my last blog I suggested that the term “born again” is a ‘shibboleth.’ You remember where this word ‘shibboleth’ comes from, right? In Judges chapter 12 the Gileadites engage in genocide against the Ephraimites. But how do you know who an Ephraimite is and who is not an Ephraimite?

Well, when the men of Gilead met someone who they suspected of being an Ephraimite they asked him to say ‘shibboleth’ and if they replied ‘sibboleth’ then their accent and their inability to make the ‘sh’ sound in this word was proof that they were Ephraimites and they were then killed.

Nice stuff.

The “Born Again” Shibboleth

by Brian Walsh

Some years ago I was teaching a course on postmodernity and a biblical worldview. The material was difficult for some of the students, both intellectually, but perhaps more to the point, it was difficult spiritually. And before class one day a student was just kind of hanging around as I was getting my act together. He clearly wanted to talk. So I asked him if there was something on his mind.

“Well,” he began, “I did have a question.”

“Sure,” I replied, “go ahead.”

“Are you born again?” the student asked.

There’s No Place Like Home

The following is an excerpt from an essay written by Brian Walsh and Steven Bouma-Prediger, originally published in the 2008 edition of Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought. The essay is an adaptation of a chapter from their forthcoming book, Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement. The book will be released by Eerdmans at the end of May.

If you ever met them, you wouldn’t think that Kenneth and Kenny share much more than their names. But even their names are different. No one would ever call Kenneth “Kenny” and “Kenneth” doesn’t even appear on Kenny’s birth certificate. No, Kenny was Kenny from the beginning.

Gratitude and Empire

by Brian Walsh

I love thank you notes. And I know that I don’t write enough of them. But I love getting them and on those occasions when I write one, or when I send an email to someone to say thanks for something, I love that too. Now I know, some of those Hallmark thank you cards are pure sap, pure sentimentality. But even those cards mean something to me. Sometimes it really is “the thought that counts.”

In the last few months I’ve got more than my fair share of thank you cards and notes. Sometimes it is a card in our box at church from someone who simply wants to say thanks to Sylvia and I for picking up on a lot of the preaching while our church is without a pastor.

Sometimes it is an email out of the blue from someone who has appreciated something that I have written (sometimes on this website!). But most often these thank-you notes come from folks in the incredible community of people that I get to hang out with as a campus pastor at the University of Toronto.

Hurt, Love and Empire

by Brian Walsh

During the buildup to the war in Iraq I wrote an op-ed piece for a campus ministry newsletter that the editor refused to publish. Essentially I argued that empires are always deceitful and the American empire was no exception.

When the President of the United States uses phrases like “Operation Infinite Justice,” “Shock and Awe,” and “Enduring Freedom,” Christians should recognize the arrogant deceit involved.

Or when he confidently proclaims that “the liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to the world” the imperial overtones should be clear to all of us, and Christians should recoil at such blasphemy.

Remixing the Empire

by Brian Walsh

A reflection on John 18:28-19:30
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered March 18, 2008

Prophet, Priest … and now King. Our Lenten journey at Wine Before Breakfast stayed in one place and at one time this year. We spent our Lent meditating on John 13 to 17, the “Upper Room” discourse on Thursday night of Holy Week.

And in the upper room with the disciples we have met Jesus the priestly prophet who demonstrates what kind of a community his disciples are called to be through the washing of their feet.

We have then sat at the feet of the one who teaches us not to fear because he knows where this story is going; who gives a new commandment that fulfills all the commandments; who retells Israel’s story of wine and vines so that it applies to the community he leaves behind. And then we listened in as Jesus exercised his priestly ministry in a prayer, a high priestly prayer, for his disciples … for us.

Memory and Rebuilding in the Ruins of America

by Brian Walsh

Five Years in Iraq and Holy Week. These two come together today. We are in the middle of Holy Week, walking that path of the cross with Jesus. And today marks five years of war in Iraq.

So I thought that I would share with you some words that I wrote for a chapel talk at Messiah College in Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago. I had been speaking about Isaiah 58 and how the prophet not only dismisses any pious fasting that is devoid of justice in the attempt to rebuild life in the midst of the ruins of post-exile Jerusalem, but also how he offers the community deeper and more liberating memories for their reconstruction efforts.

You see, the fasting that was instituted after the exile was a fasting in mournful memory of the loss of the Temple and the Monarchy. Isaiah doesn’t think that these are memories worth keeping.

Look closely at Isaiah 58 and you will see that the prophet offers better and deeper memories to this community … memories of exodus, jubilee, creation and sabbath. In that context, I then said the following to the students of Messiah College:

The Testimony of the Stones

by Brian Walsh

We had heard that voice before. Somewhere we had heard that voice. We had felt that presence. And we have very long memories.

You see, we have been around for a very, very long time. Longer, in fact, then anyone else.

But where was it? Where had we heard this voice before? And why did this voice, this presence, awaken in us such joy?

Why did this voice, this man riding by on a donkey arouse in us such hope?

To Hell With “To Hell With Romans 13″?

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

There has been a little reaction out in the blogosphere to Brian’s post on Romans 13. Some of the posts are charitable, and others think we’re lunatics. That said, when you get down and dirty in the comments, it seems like some people have simply missed the point.

Arguments about whether the word “hell” is profanity, blasphemy or heresy seemed to stir the pot, as well as some blithe assumption that the post would actually have us remove Romans 13 from scripture. It’s apparent that those commenters didn’t actually read the post in its entirety.