Making Christianity appealing to young men...

The New York Times reports on the latest attempt for evangelical Christians to appeal to young men--mixed martial arts.

Here's a portion of the story:

Nondenominational evangelical churches have a long history of using popular culture--rock music, skate boarding and even yoga--to reach new followers. Yet even among more experimental sects, mixed martial arts has critics.

[However,] fighting as a metaphor has resonated with some young men.

"I'm fighting to provide a better quality of life for my family and provide them with things that I didn't have growing up," said Mike Thompson, 32, a former gang member . . . who recently had struggled with unemployment and who fights under the nickname the Fury. "Once I accepted Christ in my life," Mr. Thompson said, "I realized that a person can fight for good."

If I recall correctly, the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) was created nearly 100 years ago to give men a Christian alternative to drinking and gambling. Same song, different verse, I guess.

The passing of Edward Schillebeeckx

Although Edward Schillebeeckx is far from a household name in the United States, his theological scholarship in the 1960s and '70s shaped the Catholic Church in America during and just after the Second Vatican Council. Schillebeeckx passed away this week at age 95, the New York Times offered this obituary.

An excerpt:

[In contrast to neo-classical emphasis on Thomas Acquinas,] strong emphases on human experience and on the importance of examining church teaching in historical context became hallmarks of Father Schillebeeckx’s work.

His early writing on the sacraments, for example, portrayed them as personal encounters with God rather than mechanisms for the distribution of grace. In two books — “Jesus: An Experiment in Christology” (1974) and “Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World” (1977) — he recast classical Catholic teachings about Christ around the experiences that gave rise to his followers’ faith in Jesus as messiah and the son of God.

These were groundbreaking attempts at rethinking church doctrine in light of the scholarly research about the historical Jesus that had accumulated in previous decades. But the fact that Father Schillebeeckx did not begin with Christianity’s great creedal statements about Jesus and the Trinity but instead focused on the subjective experience of the first generations of believers, as expressed in the New Testament accounts, stirred considerable controversy and a Vatican investigation.

Imagine, influential scholarship AND a Vatican investigation in one fine lifetime!