Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read
A batch of the best highlights from what Joshua's read, .
The contemporary church model thrived in American soil. Americans’ staggeringly high appetite for church attendance, standardization, and franchising, accompanied by a significant reservoir of latent Christians who were only an invite away from re-engaging with the church, ensured that the model, if done right, could succeed. However, in other parts of the West, namely the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Western Europe, the model struggled to work as they found themselves further down the road of secularization.
Disappearing Church
Mark Sayers
In short, we will only adequately “read” our culture to the extent that we recognize operative there an array of liturgies that function as pedagogies of desire.
Desiring the Kingdom
James K. A. Smith
It wasn’t until reading Genesis one day that I finally came to a theological understanding of what had been happening in the pottery shop all along. “And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). This verse caught my eye because it explains the very metaphor that I had adopted to describe my pottery trips: sight and food. The stomach was made to hunger for food; the eye was made to hunger for beauty. We were made to consume beautiful things. Excellent music, great films, stunning performances—these are all food for the hungry soul.
The Common Rule
Justin Whitmel Earley
...catch up on these, and many more highlights