[Multimedia Tuesday] Video – NT Wright on the Resurrection
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Just in time for Easter, here are two excellent videos of NT Wright discussing the importance of the resurrection of Christ for the Christian faith. We will be running a review of Wright’s newest book After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, in our next issue due out this Friday.
Also, there is less than a week left to enter our Easter N.T. Wright Book Giveaway (with over $250 of N.T. Wright books to be given away as prizes!). If you have not yet entered, you will want to do so soon!
Vince Antonucci is scheduled to be one of the speakers for the North American Christian Convention this summer, and I had heard that his church was doing some creative work in Las Vegas, a city typically recognized as resistant to Christianity, so I was interested to see what he had to say in his newest book Guerrilla Lovers: Changing the World with Revolutionary Compassion. I found Guerrilla Lovers to be a fun, yet challenging read; Antonucci writes in a very conversational style and is an engaging storyteller, very humorous and culturally-engaged. He takes following Jesus and loving our neighbors very seriously, even when this calling goes against the grain of American culture. Antonucci’s vision of our call to be “guerrilla lovers” is a radical call to friendship that bids us enter into the sufferings of others. His use of the imagery of “guerrilla tactics” reminded me of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s use of similar language in his recent book God’s Economy. Antonucci, can be a bit of a “shock jock” lobbing bold and shocking statements and then after he has raised the hackles of his readers, he eventually clarifies what he means. For instance, one such hook that caught me was his statement:
From now until Easter, we will be doing a read-through and discussion of the eBook: GROWING DEEPER IN OUR CHURCH COMMUNITIES: 50 Ideas For Connection in a Disconnected Age, on the 
Alex and Brett Harris are the authors of the recent book Do Hard Things, which they have described as “[countering] the Myth of Adolescence, which says the teen years are a time to goof off and have fun before ‘real life’ starts.” They have now also released a followup volume, Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are, which is a sort of practical guide beginning to explore the ideas offered in Do Hard Things. Although admittedly,I have not yet read the first book, in reading Start Here I am inspired by these young men’s social critique of adolescence and their striking call for teens to step up and to put their energy to use imagining and doing meaningful work. Start Here takes on many of the seeming impediments that would stand in the way; indeed the sort of “hard things” that the authors challenge youth to undertake. Secondly, I deeply appreciated their advice not to do these “hard things” by oneself, but rather to invite others into our undertakings or even to engage ourselves in the meaningful and redemptive work that others in our churches and families are already doing. Similarly, their encouragement to “move against the crowd” seem to resonate with the Gospel story and is an essential word for the maturing of teens beyond the social traps of popularity and “coolness.”
