Folks, meet the new face of cuteness, Simon James Bouma.

Today he is one month old. As cliché as it sounds, I can’t believe how fast he’s growing! Faster than the speed of the Twittersphere, it seems.

Before long he’ll be shaving, driving, and parenting his own bundle of cuteness. Don’t these things come with a throttler?

As you can imagine my life has been filled with all the pleasures of new parenthood: little squawks and coos; poopie diapers and gobs of Desitin; quiet moments when the world fades to nothingness as a spark of recognition flitters across his face; midnight feedings and sleepless nights.

Ahh the life of a parent!

Already I find myself wondering about the kind of person that will emerge from this infant cocoon, dreaming about the person he’ll emerge into over the years.

I also wonder about the world he’ll find once he’s old enough to bring it into focus.

Will we be at war, on yet another ill-conceived nation-building mission or drawn into a conflict not of our choosing?

Will the economy tank yet again when he’s ready to stamp his imprimatur on the world?

Will the Earth continue moaning in fits of climate change, to the point of no return?

And what about the Church? Will Her American manifestation be a shadow of Her former self? Will she continue refracting into a thousand splintered pieces of disunity? Will she sacrifice the core of who She is and what She believes at Zeitgeist’s altar?

What about the Christian faith itself—the historic, orthodox, once-for-all faith entrusted to God’s holy people? How relevant will it be for Simon’s world?

Will the Christian faith still be relevant for Simon?

Perhaps it’s because Simon is a PK that these latter questions keep me up at night.

Perhaps it’s because my own journey could be Simon’s journey—a journey fraught will spiritual angst while vacillating within the tension of Christian fundamentalism and Christian liberalism.

Perhaps it’s the tectonic shifts rocking the culture and the Church in the area of sexuality and marriage that make me want to take Simon and my family off-grid deep in Saskatchewan’s wooded safe room.

While gay marriage isn’t the only issue that matters, it does typify a problem that has gripped my soul for the past four years:

The reimagination of the Christian faith to accommodate our post-Christian, post-modern culture.

For some time now certain pockets within Christianity have taken it upon themselves to reimagine the ancient Christian faith for a new day. They go by many stripes—be it Emergent or “progressive” Christians—but one thing unifies them:

They insist that we need a new kind of Christianity, a Christianity worth believing that’s progressed in lock-step with the progress of this dark world. They believe this version of the story is more compelling and more hopeful than the story committed to the Church by Jesus Christ Himself.

But here’s the thing: This version is not hopeful because it is not honest.

It isn’t honest about our human problem, that we are busted beyond all self-repair. That every one of us is a rebel against a holy, righteous God and dead in sin.

It isn’t honest about who Jesus is as the only One True God in all the world, through whom and for whom it was made.

It isn’t honest about what happened on the very blood-soaked boards of execution that held the limp, lifeless body of Jesus—honest about the sacrificial death he suffered to pay our price in our place.

And it isn’t honest about the reality of judgment, that every single person on the planet will be judged by Jesus Christ himself either “in Christ” or “outside Christ” and separated from God. Forever.

The tragedy of this version of Christianity is that it has has sold the vintage faith entrusted to God’s holy people for something else entirely.

This version is not real. It is fake. And it’s time the Church stands up and says so.

For Simon’s sake.

Join Me in Exploring the Vintage Christian Faith.

Over the past 4 years I’ve made it my life work to make the Church’s vintage faith relevant for our 21st century world. But now the stakes are higher, because now I’ve got skin in the game,

Simon’s skin.

I have more to say in the coming weeks and months about these stakes and the shift that’s happening in the Church—a shift four generations in the making—but until then I want to extend an invitation:

Join me in exploring what it means and how it looks to make the vintage faith (a.k.a historic Christian orthodoxy) relevant again for Simon’s 21st century day.

Here’s how I’m participating in the ongoing conversation in the next year:

• This fall I’m launching From There and Back Again: A Novel, a spiritual coming-of-age story that follows a twentysomething navigating the tension of Christian fundamentalism and Christian liberalism. Think Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian trilogy, only orthodox.
• I’m working on a manifesto for like-minded Christians who long to rediscover and retrieve the vintage Christian faith for our 21st century day.
• There’s also a super-cool historic fiction/apocalyptic/fantasy series in the works that will launch next year. Let’s just say it’s gonna be like if George R.R. Martin and Tim LaHaye and H.G. Wells made a baby.
• I’m recalibrating this space to serve as a catalyst for making the vintage faith relevant again with a weekly column to start, and then some book excerpts and links.

If you’re interested in becoming a vintage Christian too or just want to see what craziness I’ll be up to in the coming months, then sign up to my list. It’s a great way to stay connected to my work and join the conversation about making the vintage Christian faith relevant for our 21st century world. For signing up you’ll get my first book for free. Don’t worry: I will never sell your information or spam you—that’s just stupid.

What If Jude Was Right?

The apostle Jude wrote at letter to a bunch of Christians and said this:

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.

What if he was right? What if there is a once-for-all faith we’re called to contend?

Guard?

Preserve?

And what if that once-for-all faith is just as relevant to Simon now as it was to Jude’s audience back then?

I believe it is; I believe others believe it is, too—others just like you. And every ounce of my being desires to make that vintage faith relevant again.

For me. For you.

For Simon James Bouma.

Will you join me?

PS—Again, if you’re game join my list for epic relevant-making content and join the party! Be sure to stop by this space to join the conversation by leaving a comment or two and share relevant content with your circles of friends and colleagues.

PPS—This week I released a 3-book bundle of my best selling work responding to Emergent theology. If you want to better understand Emerging Church theology this $6 resource will help you.

JOIN MY LIST. GET FREE STUFF.

Signup for updates on my work, resources making the vintage faith relevant, and my first book on showing Jesus and telling his hopeful story well—for FREE!

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