Just a quick update on my writings for the past week — usually it’s just my weekly sermon — but things have been busier than usual.
Some of you will have got this in bits in pieces, or not at all, so here it is.
My Ascension Day sermon, “What C. S. Lewis gets right and wrong in ‘The Weight of Glory’” was picked up by and published in Confessing Anglicans. You can read it here.
I was asked to contribute a piece for the inaugural line up of TruthScript, a new online journal that aims to “provide a positive Christian vision in both this life and the life to come.”
In “Is ‘Reconquista’ a Good Strategy for the Mainline Churches?” I write on the possibility of reform and revitalization in the mainline churches. One of the interesting things about this piece is that the idea is from a member of Gen Z, but he sure sounds a lot like yours truly circa 1988!
Aaron Renn weighs in on the whole idea on his Substack here. It’s behind a paywall and his is more of a grab-and-go approach: as in go in, reorganize a dead congregation, and then try to take it independent (which is not at all what I am proposing) but he’s right when writes:
“So you say, okay, Aaron, Mr. Smart Guy, how precisely do we go about taking over these mainline denominations? And maybe take over is the wrong wording. How do you go about resuscitating them? Because frankly it’s not even a matter of saying, ‘Oh, we just need to take these things over.’ The reality is they’re dying, they’re literally dying out. These things are becoming essentially pension plans with a real estate portfolio of these church buildings. It’s not a good scenario for them, and so they need to be reinvigorated.”
Then, today, I was interviewed by Jon Harris for his podcast on the article. I get to go more in depth with him about my efforts to revitalize the two Episcopal churches I’ve served. You can watch the interview “Is It Possible to Reform the Mainline Denominations?” here.
Well, that’s it so far, and it’s only Tuesday. No sermon this Sunday from me. I’ll be back on June 4, with a sermon for Trinity Sunday.