“To tell you the truth, terrifying someone into a relationship with God is also easier. Love makes us vulnerable. I have to throw myself out there and be honest and naked and open to getting rejected if love is what I give to you. But fear doesn’t require any of that. I can yell and scream and try to intimidate you without getting hurt or taking any real risks. Love is harder because it demands that I get personally involved in your life. Fear doesn’t carry those same requirements.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want either group to “meet its demise” because I love elements of both! In fact, I think there are a lot of progressive, mainline churches that could benefit from a shot of evangelicalism, and a lot of evangelical churches who could benefit from a shot of progressivism.  We have so much to learn from one another, but instead we’re like a pair of toddlers fighting over space in the sandbox. 

But if the early church could survive—and in fact, thrive  amidst persecution—when it included both Jews and Gentiles, zealots and tax collectors, slaves and owners, men and women, those in support of circumcision and those against it, those staunchly opposed to eating food that had been sacrificed to idols and those who felt it necessary, then I think modern American Christianity can survive when it includes democrats and republicans, biblical literalists and biblical non-literalists, Calvinists and Arminians...so long as we’re not rooting for one another’s demise.”

derekwebb:

we live in a world of categories. it’s a symptom of the nearly unlimited choices which bombard us online and offline every day. things must be organized, sorted, and categorized to be manageable. while this can sometimes be incredibly helpful, in other cases it can be dangerously deceptive.

an…