While not a social scientist by trade, New York Times columnist David Brooks has become one of the most sound, sane and well-reasoned voices in analyzIng our current cultural landscape. Far from the bombastic, politically-tainted voices of many in the media, Brooks does a masterful job of connecting the dots on social trends and human behavior while remaining unflagging in his willingness to shed light in dark places.
Jeannie attributes much of her growth as a leader as well as the recent success within her office to her experiences with Gotham. It has helped recalibrate the way she views not only her position but also work as a whole. “Gotham changed my thinking and now my vision… my purpose is that God put me in this leadership position.”
The world is undergoing a massive demographic shift. Nearly 80 million Baby Boomers will retire in the next 20 years, at a rate of nearly 10,000 per day. By 2035, Americans of retirement age will exceed the number of people under age 18 for the first time in U.S history. Globally, the number of people age 60 and over is projected to double to more than 2 billion by 2050.
Please take the time to listen to this podcast with Case Thorp and Brandon Queen, the host of The E.A.R. podcast, on Common Grace. Among other things they discuss common grace as a tool for common ground. Below are a variety of link options for your listening pleasure.
For many the unofficial start of summer has begun with another school year completed and the Memorial Day Weekend in the books. As you enjoy a slower pace and perhaps some vacation, have you thought about what you want to read? These warmer days often provide greater margins for stealing away time that could be spent with a good book
To combat the cultural disobedience and dualism that plagues the American church, common grace provides six practical benefits for individual discipleship, and for the local church with her role in the public square (the first three come from the Christian Reformed Church’s 1924 Synod statement and subsequent revisions.)
The riches of our tradition and the renewing work of the whole gospel offers hope. Not a shallow, fleeting feeling of optimism, but rather the hope of Christ that brings to bear the power of the Almighty so that we might be a redeemed people who have been charged with bringing about redemption in this fallen place and in our fallen state. It is this life sustaining, transformational hope where we must find our rest. It is our only true path out of the valley. The Reformation tenet of common grace contributes to a needed correction towards obedience.
There are, no doubt, numerous deficiencies in the church, her leaders, and this author as a result of cultural disobedience. One of the devastating effects of disobedience results in functioning dualism that is crippling the church’s understanding of herself, and her role in society—not to mention confusing and frustrating the public square. We will see how the doctrine of common grace is uniquely able to sweeten the bitterness of such dualism.
Our hope rests in the purposes for which we were created—to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And such hope is realized when church leaders, with humble hearts fresh with words of repentance, embrace God’s work of common grace as the common ground of the public space.
For too long, some American Christians have explicitly suggested or subtly assumed that God’s goodness and grace was reserved for those with saving grace. Non-believers were corrupt, without hope, and therefore the work of their hands less good and capable than that of a Christ follower, the thinking goes. In this blog series we are going to explore this dynamic, how it hurts the cause of becoming a vigorous church that contributes to the public square in a relevant and productive fashion, and ways to re-learn common grace for today.
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