Category Archives: Interviews

Interviews, Politics, Spirituality

Shane Claiborne: Trump is the Result of American Idolatry

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This weekend, activist theologian Shane Claiborne and his friends at Red Letter Christians will arrange a Red Letter Revival in Lynchburg, Virginia. That’s right, the town where Liberty University, the world’s biggest Christian university whose president Jerry Falwell Jr. is a passionate Trump supporter.

The Revival will be themed “Jesus and Justice” and include sermons, worship and workshops on how to fight Trumpism by going back to the Sermon on the Mount. I got the chance to speak with Shane Claiborne on this historic event.

– The reason we do the Lynchburg Revival is that Christianity and Republicanism have been fused together, Shane Claiborne says. They have become almost indistinguishable from each other. When you have the First Baptist Church in Dallas singing ”Make America Great Again” as if it was a hymn in worship, when the American flag is bigger than the cross, what happens is that you begin to see a discrepancy between the values of America and the values inherent to the Gospel. Continue reading Shane Claiborne: Trump is the Result of American Idolatry →

Interviews, Nonviolence

Greg Boyd: How the Violent Portraits of God Can Point to the Cross

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Greg Boyd is a charismatic Anabaptist with a passion for theology, preaching, writing and playing the drums. He is the Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in S:t Paul, Minnesota, and has authored several best-selling books, including Letters from a Skeptic and The Myth of a Christian Nation.

His most recent books are Crucifixion of the Warrior God and Cross Vision, both of which argue that we need to reshape our view of the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament. PCPJ managed to interview Boyd on

What have the main reactions been to the books?

So far the responses have been overwhelmingly positive.  Some of the testimonies I’ve received have been so awesome – and so humbling!  For example, I have had a number of people tell me that they felt like Crucifixion of the Warrior God (or Cross Vision, which is a popular version of the more academic Crucifixion of the Warrior God) finally set them free to fully trust that God is as beautiful as he’s revealed to be in the crucified Christ. Continue reading Greg Boyd: How the Violent Portraits of God Can Point to the Cross →

Interviews, Spirituality

Can Science Prove Miraculous Healing?

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Previously published at Jesus Army.

Elijah Stephens is a former Vineyard pastor and spiritual coach belonging to Bethel Church in Redding, California. Since 2015, he has been working on a documentary about medically verified miracles. Micael Grenholm asked him a few questions.

WHAT is a medically verified miracle?

That is a good question. When it comes to miracles, we are talking about when God enters the world and does something. What makes something a miracle is God’s activity.

This is why you can’t study miracles scientifically, but what you can do is to find cases where people have prayed and there’s “before and after” medical evidence. For example, a person has a tumor, one day there is prayer, the next day the tumor disappears.

What you want to do is to corroborate miracles with medical evidence. So that’s what we’re attempting to do with the movie; finding cases where miracles have been corroborated by medical evidence. Continue reading Can Science Prove Miraculous Healing? →

Economic Justice, Interviews

How the Holy Spirit Caused Jesus Army to Practice Community

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Huw Lewis is one of the apostolic leaders of Jesus Fellowship Church, or Jesus Army, in the UK. A charismatic church founded in the late 1960’s, it has practiced intentional Christian community with a complete sharing of possessions for over 40 years. Pax Pneuma interviewed Lewis about what community is like:

Please briefly describe how the outpouring of the Spirit led you to practice community!

The main consequence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit was a very real and deep love for God and one another. This meant that we wanted to be together, to share meals, to meet and gather, worship, pray and open up our hearts to each other. Each night we would spontaneously just gather at the chapel and stay around until late.

It became something of a disturbance at the end of an evening to have to go back to our own houses/ flats so it was a natural progression to start experiments of living together. It began small but grew to larger community houses in time. I believe “God’s love shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5) will lead to a changed lifestyle of sharing, openness, justice and equality as hall marks of God’s character. We just didn’t want to be away from the very tangible presence of God that we found when we gathered together.
Continue reading How the Holy Spirit Caused Jesus Army to Practice Community →

Economic Justice, Interviews

Why Most Pentecostals Around the World are Progressive

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When sociologists Donald E. Miller and Tetsunao Yamamori decided to study indigenous churches with active social programs in the developing world, they were astounded to find that the overwhelming majority of them were Pentecostal or charismatic. They studied the dynamic of Pentecostal social engagement further in their book Global Pentecostalism: The New Face of Christian Social Engagement in which the coined the term “Progressive Pentecostal”. PCPJ’s Micael Grenholm asked Dr. Miller to expand on their findings in an email interview.

don-miller
Donald E. Miller

What does it mean to be a “Progressive Pentecostal”?

The stereotype about Pentecostals is that they are focused exclusively on salvation and not social transformation. In our research, this was a false dichotomy since we encountered many Pentecostal and charismatic congregations that were engaged with their local community, addressing issues related to poverty, drug addiction, mental illness, corruption, etc. It is relatively rare that Pentecostals are addressing social policy issues at a political level and, unfortunately, they have sometimes supported right-wing dictators.   Continue reading Why Most Pentecostals Around the World are Progressive →

Economic Justice, Interviews

What is Community of Goods Like?

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Since early August last year, PCPJ:er Micael Grenholm lives in a Christian intentional community in Kettering, central England, called Holy Treasure. Erica Ramirez interviewed him about what it’s like to live and share income with nine other people.

Micael, can you explain to me your living arrangement, both in domestic terms and economic terms?  

Holy Treasure is part of something called New Creation Christian Community (NCCC) which in turn is part of the Jesus Fellowship Church, or Jesus Army. NCCC is at the core of Jesus Army, basically every local congregation is based around a community house, and almost a quarter of all church members live in community.

I work at one of the church’s businesses called Goodness Foods with video making. All my wages are sent to the bank account of Holy Treasure, the “common purse”, which then provides me with all the food, clothing and transport I need.
Continue reading What is Community of Goods Like? →

Interviews, Racial Justice

The Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism

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I read and listen to a lot of people who talk about race, racism, and oppression within the church and the academy. Some are academics who I, a seminary-trained theologian-activist struggle to understand. Others are pastors and lay leaders who are excellent storytellers but have less of the critical race theory and historical context to round out their dialog.

Continue reading The Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism →

Interviews, Racial Justice

Eyes to See: How We View Racism in the Church

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An Interview with Dr. Drew G.I. Hart

by Micky ScottBey Jones

Dog-whistle politics. Protest in the streets. Changing religious norms. For many, there is trouble to be seen everywhere we look. In Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism, author and theologian Dr. Drew Hart shares the racism he has observed in the American church and in the larger culture.

Continue reading Eyes to See: How We View Racism in the Church →