RECOMMENDED: A Decision in Ferguson: How Should Evangelicals Respond? by Ed Stetzer

November 24, 2014November 25, 2014Kirk E. Miller

Read this article by Ed Stetzer: A Decision in Ferguson: How Should Evangelicals Respond?

Here are some of my thoughts (originally shared via Twitter) that I’d like to share with you.

Whether or not injustice occurred in this specific incident, #Ferguson‘s response is telling of a more systemic race problem in our country.

— Kirk E. Miller (@KirkMiller_) November 25, 2014

We have a race problem. To conclude otherwise is to ignore and discredit the experience of large sector of our population. #Ferguson

— Kirk E. Miller (@KirkMiller_) November 25, 2014

White evangelicals, be slow to criticize the “what” of the #Ferguson response and quick to ask the “why?” #Sensitivity

— Kirk E. Miller (@KirkMiller_) November 25, 2014

Js 1:19 – “Be quick to hear, slow to speak.” Ecc 3:7 – There is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”

— Kirk E. Miller (@KirkMiller_) November 25, 2014

Goodreads Review of More than Just Race by William J. Wilson

September 11, 2014September 11, 2014Kirk E. Miller

More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City by William Julius Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good. Provocative. Challenging.

Thesis – “The experience of poor, inner-city blacks represent the influences of more than just race.” Their responses and situation “stem from the linkage between new structural realities, changing norms, and evolving cultural patterns.” (pg. 131)

Wilson’s critique – The politically liberal tend to focus on structural realities to the neglect of cultural realities. Arguments based on culture tend to be taboo for them. The politically conservative tend to focus on individual responsibility and cultural realities to the neglect of prevailing structural realities built into America’s history of racial tension and segregation. Both of these approaches are inadequate.

Wilson’s assessment – Wilson addresses both structural and cultural realities and discusses the relationship between the two as he seeks to assess the situation of the inner-city poor black community in America. On structural realities relationship to culture, he states, “Culture mediates the impact of structural forces such as racial segregation and poverty.” (pg. 133) And on cultures relationship to structural realities, he states, “The behavior generated by these autonomous cultural forces often reinforces the very conditions that have emerged from structural inequities.” (pg. 134)

View all my reviews

The Gospel for Christians

January 9, 2012May 6, 2021Kirk E. Miller

This message is the fourth and final message I delivered at Winterfest, 2011, at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp in Pembine, WI. Up until this point we had looked at the Gospel [Good News] of Christmas, the Gospel According to Jesus (the cost of discipleship), the Gospel’s [Inevitable] Effects on Those Who are Saved, and finally, in this message we looked specifically at Philippians 1:27-30 and how the Gospel is still the most important thing for us as believers. We took Paul’s principles from this passage and made multiple applications to our contemporary context of how the Gospel ought to affect our lives as believers.