What's Tony Thinking

News and Upcoming Events

Hey friends, we’ve enjoyed a nice jump in new subscribers as the New Year has begun. If that’s you, welcome. Glad you’re here. Hope you’re enjoying the posts, and that you might forward some to friends and invite them to join us.

If you’ve been with us for a time, or a long time, please know how much I appreciate you as a reader. Also I appreciate hearing from you, either to tell me you particularly enjoyed a post (or that you didn’t), or with a correction or a suggestion. I try to respond to most comments. Use the “connect” tab on the homepage to be in touch.

I also want to highlight our new webinar done in cooperation with the folks at the “Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast.” It is a study and discussion of Robert Farrar Capon’s book, The Mystery of Christ and Why We Don’t Get It.  

It is a fun, yet challenging, book. Relatively short, under 200 pp. and very accessible. Capon is a vivid and entertaining writer who disrupts the way that many of us learned to think about God, that is as a cosmic accountant who was keeping a careful record of our credits and debits and rewarding, or punishing, us accordingly.

That’s a man-made idol, and a especially convenient one for ecclesial authorities who position themselves as this god’s enforcers. But it’s not the God of the Bible or of Jesus Christ.

Here’s a link to a video of the first session which took place earlier this week. Live sessions will take place every Monday evening, 4:00 p.m. PST or 7:00 p.m. EST. You can join in to listen and post your comments and questions on the panel’s discussion at the link to the right >

Another bit of news I want to mention is the upcoming NYC Conference of Mockingbird Ministries. Mockingbird is an ecumenical gathering and organization focused on God’s grace. Ergo, the “mockingbird” name as said bird hears a song and repeats it endlessly. So mockingbird.com is a collective of folks ringing changes on the song of God’s grace. I’ve been publishing with them, as a contributor to their site and newsletter, for a couple years now.

The annual conference is being held May 1 – 3 this year at Calvary Episcopal Church in the Flatiron District of New York City (lower east side, near Union Square). I will be one of the speakers at the Friday morning, May 2, plenary session. My talk is titled, “Isn’t Christianity Really Just About Being Good?”

I will link you here to more information about the Conference, registration, and hotels with a discount for conference goers. Linda and I went for the first time two years ago and made a trip out of it, seeing a couple Broadway shows, visiting galleries and enjoying walking in that great city. We missed last year as we were serving the church in San Miguel de Allende at that time.

I have mentioned the work of Dave Zahl, the Director of Mockingbird, before. I loved his book Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others (and yourself). The theme of this year’s conference is “Relief,” keyed to Dave’s new book, out this spring, The Big Relief: The Urgency of Grace for a Worn-Out World. 

I’ll close with a quote from his Low Anthropology book, which addresses a criticism of a low anthropology, grace-first (and last) approach and church:

“This does not mean that a church that espouses a low anthropology isn’t a space of moral concern. These sorts of churches, both the storefront and the limestone variety, feed the hungry and clothe the homeless in places where no one else will. They also provide a crucial community of support as members recover from various addictions. They ‘do the work’!

“But that’s not all they do. A church with a low-anthropology is a place to bring your failures and your shame. It is a place to lay those things down, to hear about second chances and third and fourth chances. It is a place to go and not be turned away no matter how overwhelming your limitations are, by what forms your self-centeredness has expressed itself, or how much damage your doubleness has done. Even more than a place to come together, it is a place to fall apart.”