A roundup of links floating around the interwebs that you may of missed this week.

Our Problem Is Authoritarianism and Not Legalism

I used to think the problem in modern Christianity was legalism. I was wrong. I now see that some Christians flaunt their freedom and taunt their foes while other Christians consult their legal formulas and insult their libertine friends. One man’s freedom is another man’s sin, but both groups suffer from a much larger problem. The church of Jesus Christ in the 21st century is losing its power because of an infatuation with authority. It is authoritarianism, not legalism, that has become the biggest challenge Christians face.

…Back to (a Theology of) Work We Go!

…the missional approach relies on a young adult’s spare time, extra resources, and expendable energy. It doesn’t capture a core identity issue the way family-based ministries do. When a church helps a 40-year-old mother with her struggling marriage and anxiety-driven parenting, it is applying Christian faith to the center of her life and identity. Missional ministries that try to engage a single 30-year-old don’t accomplish this because they ignore what’s at the center of his life to nibble at the margins. And what is at the center for most young adults? Vocation.

Sister Cities: Fort Bragg & Otsuchi, Japan

Thousand of miles divide Otsuchi, Japan, from Fort Bragg, CA., but they were sister cities. What can we learn from these cities about the Kingdom, global engagement and the practice of giving ourselves away?

The “Ten Commandments” of American Culture

Here are ten very common sayings that will help you understand ten key American cultural values. I call them the “Ten Commandments of American Culture” even though they are not really “commandments.” They have no religious or moral authority like the “Ten Commandments” of the Bible do for Jews and Christians. However, if you break any of these “cultural commandments,” many Americans might think you do not fit very well in America.

2011, The Year in Photos from the IMB

What does God’s heart look like? Perhaps the joy on the face of a newly baptized Japanese believer in the wake of a killer earthquake. His hands? Maybe a worker comforting a starving child in Central Asia. His voice? An Egyptian Christian woman worshipping amid tumultuous political changes. See images of 2011 captured by IMB photographers as they trace a year of God’s presence in places filled with darkness and light.

A Space Oddity

Newt Gingrich takes his South Carolina primary Newt-mentum down to Florida and reveals his plan to build a permanent U.S. moon base by 2020.

A roundup of links floating around the interwebs that you may of missed this week.

Why the American Dream Doesn’t Work in Developing Countries

The United States was founded on the idea of idea of individual liberty, individual ownership, and individual needs…Nearly 250 years into the evolution of our ethos of individuality, some Americans are starting to recognize that the primacy of individual ownership is not always economically sustainable. A movement has begun that places value on providing access to products and services, rather than ownership.

Business as Mission Resources

If you are new to the topic of Business as Mission, this is a one stop overview of the subject in the form of FAQ’s as well as several recommended resources.

The Road to Missional

Ed Stetzer interviews Michael Frost about his book The Road to Missional. Michael writes:

It seems people have had it with whole missional thing, which breaks my heart, because as I say in The Road to Missional, if the missional conversation is over, it occurs to me that it probably hasn’t really ever been had.

The Death of the Fringe Suburb

By now, nearly five years after the housing crash, most Americans understand that a mortgage meltdown was the catalyst for the Great Recession, facilitated by underregulation of finance and reckless risk-taking. Less understood is the divergence between center cities and inner-ring suburbs on one hand, and the suburban fringe on the other. It was predominantly the collapse of the car-dependent suburban fringe that caused the mortgage collapse.

The Mark Driscoll Fiasco: What the Latest Flap Teaches Us About The Neo-Reformed Movement

In fact the whole encounter reveals the Christendon assumptions that drive his theology. There are three missional “bugaboos” that he clashes with Brierley on. Each bugaboo represents a theological position we Missionals fear/resist because of the way these things work against mission. In this interview, these bugaboos are a.) Driscoll’s singular obsession with penal substitutionary atonement, b.) his commitment to hierarchical male authority in the church, and c.) his blind belief in the importance of preaching/successful preacher to the church’s identity. These bugaboos represent the Christendom assumptions behind Driscoll’s theology and way he operates.