The Pope's Preacher

I am, of course, working on my disseratation this week--but not much on Tuesday. On Tuesday I will have the opportunity to hear Raniero Cantalamessa lecture on preaching. Cantalamessa is the preacher to the papal household. You can find out a bit more about him by following this link: Papal Preacher.

We Beeson students get to hear two lectures from him. He will also preach in chapel. I'm looking forward to finding out more about him and from him. My understanding is that he is a charismatic Roman Catholic (which is quite different, I suspect, from a charismatic pentecostal). His emphasis on the Holy Spirit is obvious in his books, two of which we have read for classes here at Asbury. I've liked his books.
Also on tap for this week is my first opportunity to preach in Dr. Baucum's class. That will be on Thursday. I will, of course, try to get some pictures of all these things for the blog.

The dissertation is the main thing now. All of the papers, sermons, books and assignments for classes have to be scheduled in and around the dissertation work. Those assignments essentially provide a break from the unending searching through books that is dissertation work.

Right now I'm trying to define the "kingdom of God." Which is silly. Jesus didn't define it. He told us what the kingdom is like. He lived in a kingdom way so we could see how it works. But he never gave us the kind of list that we could use to look at a person and be sure of his or her citizenship in the kingdom.

Alexander Campbell (our John Wesley, for those of you who are Methodists...or even if you're a Christian church person!) seemed quite sure who was and who was not in the kingdom. He was much better at seeing things in black and white than I am. He lived in a different time, though. In his day he was making bold moves by including more Christians in the kingdom, not just a denomination or two.

In our day I've been won over, however, by the likes of Steve Chalke, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., and Dallas Willard. If we follow their understanding of the kingdom then we have simply to do the things we think Jesus would do with anyone (of any stripe) who will join in. We become less concerned with who is in and who is out, and more concerned with sharing the knowledge of Christ while we share the labor of Christ. This fits best with some of the things we do at Grandview, things like the Interfaith Hospitality Network, where we wind up serving alongside people who might not call themselves Christians.

Besides "defining" the kingdom, I'm trying to uncover specific ways churches "reach out in relationships." The best person to read on that topic appears to be Steve Sjogren, who planted a church in Cincinnatti and who wrote the book, "Conspiracy of Kindness." His book "The Perfectly Imperfect Church" is good too. Simple . . . but good (or, maybe it's good because it's simple).