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Jan 16, 2025 | 
mereorthodoxy.com | Myles Werntz
For some time now, the gold standard of localism discourse, at least on Substack, has been Paul Kingsnorth. In his long-form essays on “the machine”, he casts a full-scale vision of how modern technocracy is not simply an overreliance on machinery or technology, but that modern technocracy is a combination of ideology, wealth, and power made visible.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
christianitytoday.com | Myles Werntz
The flight of the holy family is more than a historical curiosity. It points us toward the breadth and beauty of God's redemption. The Christmas story is not a story of peace and quiet but a tale of tumult and danger. It is the story of the Son sent of the Father into a harsh world, of a difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, of the magi travelling far from the East.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
christianitytoday.com | Myles Werntz
The new biopic from Angel Studios twists the theologian's life and thought to make a political point. Fifteen years ago, scholar Stephen Haynes mapped out the many interpretations of the life of 20th-century German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a conservative who sought to restore Germany-or perhaps he was a progressive who wanted to move past stale dogmatism. Bonhoeffer was a closet Anabaptist, concerned with questions of the church first and society second.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
mereorthodoxy.com | Myles Werntz
Power and its abuses have received no shortage of discussion. Unfortunately, for all the conversation, we have missed the problem almost entirely. For the last three decades within Christian circles, “empire” has been the metaphor of choice, with the Kingdom of God and the empires of Rome, Babylon, and Egypt as the counterpoints to the way of Jesus. In this discourse, “empire” serves as a top-down kind of force, an imposing and overt mechanism by which people are constrained.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
open.substack.com | O. Alan Noble |Aaron M. Renn |Alastair Roberts |Myles Werntz
I had a plan for today’s paid subscriber’s post. It was a good plan. I intended to respond to ’s article on ladder climbing. I knew that had already responded with a great Twitter thread. But I thought to myself, that’s just a Twitter thread. Surely there’s still room for me to contribute. Then swooped in with this brilliant take and beat me to it. And this is after Myles forced me to rethink the direction of my book last week with his article in Christianity Todayon “Rules of Life” and the church.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
newsletter.oalannoble.com | O. Alan Noble |Aaron M. Renn |Alastair Roberts |Myles Werntz
I had a plan for today’s paid subscriber’s post. It was a good plan. I intended to respond to ’s article on ladder climbing. I knew that had already responded with a great Twitter thread. But I thought to myself, that’s just a Twitter thread. Surely there’s still room for me to contribute. Then swooped in with this brilliant take and beat me to it. And this is after Myles forced me to rethink the direction of my book last week with his article in Christianity Todayon “Rules of Life” and the church.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
thecommon.place | Tsh Oxenreider |Myles Werntz
Hey there,I’m writing this Thursday evening (the night before you’re reading this), having just gotten home from a quick dinner date with Kyle. We’ve been on a barbecue kick lately (I mean, hello, Texas, etc.) so we’ve been doing a tour de ‘ques. There’s a fantastic restaurant inside our local grocery store (see: Texas) and I have zero shame in admitting that we have, indeed, gone on a dinner date to this very store that I usually bemoan going to for our family’s weekly fare.
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Aug 12, 2024 | 
christianitytoday.com | Myles Werntz
I am an educator. I believe in the good of education for everyone and that public schools should be amply funded and resourced. I believe in contributing to the common good even when it doesn't directly benefit me. And in the summer of 2020, my wife and I found ourselves in what I'd once have called a most improbable situation: We became homeschool parents. Let me explain. One of the attractive parts about moving to Abilene, Texas, five years prior was the well-loved public school system.
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
theotherjournal.com | Kait Dugan |Myles Werntz
In the world before the global pandemic, the question of digital church was relegated to futurists and megachurches, to church planters–cum–app developers. Without a doubt this question of digital church was already too late, though. By the time that 2020 happened, it was no longer a question of whether digital church would become normalized but of how rapidly that normalization would unfold and transform the church. I come to this question as a skeptic and a realist.
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Jun 26, 2024 | 
christianitytoday.com | Myles Werntz
There are many reasons to expect that the Western church, at least, is heading into a long season of scarcity. Much of the European church is already there, and here in the States, we aren't so far behind: Attendance is down, though there is reason to suspect this trend line may have plateaued. Giving to church ministries was up in recent years, but the group giving the most is aging quickly, and it's not yet clear that younger cohorts will fill the gap.
