-
Gentrified Church-planting
After an ad for a new church on the west side of Chicago popped up in my Instagram feed the other day, I posted this: From ad in my IG feed: "Did you know there is a gospel-centered, bible-believing church coming to your neighborhood?" There've long been gospel-centered, bible-believing churches in this now-gentrifying neighborhood. IOW:…
-
“There was never a time when God was against us.”
From her chapter on the atonement motif of blood sacrifice in The Crucifixion, Fleming Rutledge writes, God is not divided against himself. When we see Jesus, we see the Father (John 14:7). The Father did not look at Jesus on the cross and suddenly have a change of heart. The purpose of the atonement was…
-
#NeverForget… what?
Yesterday, on the 17th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, I tweeted this: Imagine the redemptive possibilities if we put even half as much effort remembering our nation's aggressions as we do the attacks we've suffered. #NeverForget — David W. Swanson (@davidswanson) September 11, 2018 I was thinking about that #NeverForget hashtag and wondering…
-
“There is nothing to be done. This is the way things are. It is inevitable.”
It is altogether probable that there is an executive of an air-polluting industry who has a beloved child who suffers from asthma caused by air pollution. In such a situation the Sympathetic Mind cries, “Stop! Change your life! Quit your job! At least try to discover the cause of the harm and do something about it!”…
David W. Swanson
Pastor and Author
David W. Swanson 