We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

When Tradition is a Too Small Cage…and a Fence
fusion-of-horizons via Compfight
Jonathan Storment wrote a fabulous article on the functions of tradition and the ways it can sometimes lead to senseless division among us. We’re really tired of division over things that don’t really matter. Aren’t you? Let’s keep the center the center, and offer grace where we differ.
From Jonathan’s blog post:
We church people don’t change well. And this, In fact, can be one of our strengths. I get that we don’t need to marry ourselves to the spirit of the day, but I do think we need to pay deeper attention to our tradition. And we must learn how to bring it to bear on the culture and time that we are living in.
Because every tradition, at one point, was a break with the status quo. Every tradition started off with trying to do something new and fresh and compelling. And over time, what was once revolutionary becomes static and codified.
Related Reading

Ana-What?
In this sermon clip from last weekend, Greg discusses how throughout Scripture, we see a strong emphasis on positive traditions in the Church. In both the Old and New Testament, God repeatedly calls his people to be anchored with a sense of history. In this sermon, Greg explains why the Anabaptist tradition is closest to…

The Political Ambiguity of Caring for the Poor
Ronn aka “Blue” Aldaman via Compfight In case you think the last post was a veiled endorsement for Obama, here’s an article arguing that Mitt Romney is the candidate to vote for if you really care for the poor. Again, there are many schools of thought and it’s overly simplistic to think that voting for…

We’re in This Together: Unity and Disunity
Hartwig HKD via Compfight Christena Cleveland has been doing a series called Beyond Multiethnic on her blog for the last several weeks. It’s superb. In her introductory post, she states: I’m excited about the booming interest in multiethnic/multiracial church, I really am. But racial/ethnic divisions are really just the tip of the iceberg; they’re often the most glaring…

The Political Ambiguity of the Abortion Issue
José Manuel Ríos Valiente via Compfight. As an illustration of the ambiguity of the abortion question when approaching it from a political point of view, here’s an article portraying Obama as a hero of the pro-life movement. Our purpose for posting this isn’t to suggest that all of us should vote for Obama in light of…

Read This Before You Drop the H-Bomb (“Heretic”) on a Fellow Christian
Image by yhoitink via Flickr Greg co-wrote the following article on heresy with Frank Viola for BeliefNet. Check it out! “Heretic.” It’s a favorite word that many Christians have no problem dropping on the heads of their fellow sisters and brothers. In common parlance, the term is used to describe any person who disagrees with “orthodox Christian teaching.”…