Vegas Cohort (Emergent)

Evolution of Christianity

2009-05-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

With the discovery of a 47 million year old transitional ancestor, Darwin has just been fully confirmed, and as a documentary will soon claim, this changes everything.

“'Whither is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?...Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.'” These are the ominous words of Frederick Nietzsche's madman, who stumbled into a circle of unbelievers and pierced them with his eyes. Such words have a significant new meaning with the discovery of the “missing link” and the subsequent confirmation of Darwinian evolution, something creationist/author Lee Strobel has said “puts God out of a job”1.

Nicknamed “Ida”, a once fabled transitional ancestor between mammals and primates has been found and will soon be displayed for the world to see in an A&E documentary called “The Link”, which aires this memorial day. Over 47 million years old, Ida has already made international headlines as the “8th wonder of the world”2, and is considered to be the final blow to the creationist campaign against Darwin's theory of evolution.

But have we killed God? Has our search for truth yielded freedom from even the gravity of God's love? Have we finally, as Dawkins would hope, evolved into atheists? What room is there for a Christian in the wake of such a stark and vibrant confirmation of the dreaded theory of evolution? Is God truly dead?

Dr. Karl Giberson doesn't think so. In his book Saving Darwin he writes, “I think evolution is true, its an expression of God's creativity...[but] in deep and important ways we have not dispelled the mystery of our existence at all—we have simply established it with greater clarity.” For Giberson and a growing number of Christians, evolution is our generation's helio-centric universe. Darwin is Galileo, and sooner or later we are all going to have to adapt our theologies to the tidal wave of information that comes as a result of the progress of science. It isn't that God is being ousted by science, its that science is reshaping the way we see God.

Enter the evolution of Christianity. It isn't that God has died, but rather our understanding of Him. As the church in the 17h century struggled to reconsider their faith in the wake of empirical science and its placement of Earth in orbit around the Sun, so also the contemporary form of Christianity must adjust to the now obvious truth of evolution. It doesn't displace God, it merely causes us to wonder all the more at His mystery.

What has died is our hubris. Our babelic tower of over-confidence topples just as we were sure it had reached the heavens. We are forced to remember how small our knowledge is, and how little we actually know. For many this is a hard truth. God is best imagined as a conspicuous, domineering, whiz-bang creator; not as a subtle and indirect guide. Though truth be told we know him better as the latter, somewhere along the way we came to prefer the idea of the former. But this concept has not always been in vogue.

Blaise Pascal, the 17th century scientist and mathematician, believed that Christianity uniquely respected the obscurity of God. "If this religion” wrote Pascal in Pensees, “boasted of having a clear view of God, and of possessing it open and unveiled, it would be attacking it to say that we see nothing in the world which shows it with this clearness. But, on the contrary, it says that men are in darkness and estranged from God, that He has hidden Himself from their knowledge, that this is in fact the name which He gives Himself in the Scriptures, Deus absconditus (God Hidden).” It was the opinion of this intellectual giant that Christians can be trusted precisely because they don't try to rigorously explain what God is, or how he does things. Christians being comfortable with mystery makes them better representatives of the mystery that is God.

Of course, with the tectonic shift of accepting evolution, our systematic theologies are left dismantled. We must again ponder the mysteries of the cross, the atonement, the creation, and now even the fall. But this reconstruction is nothing new. “Theology can usefully be thought of as a science”, Says Dr. Nancey Murphy in Reconciling Theology and Science, “We can think of doctrines as being comparable to theories in the sciences, rationally justified by their ongoing ability to explain the data....However the traffic between theology and science goes both ways, we sometimes have to correct our theology as science advances.” Correcting our theology is something Murphy claims Christians do every day in the wake of their experiences. If a grandmother dies despite prayer and petition, a Christian learns how to interpret the verse “ask anything and it shall be given to you”. This hypothetico-deductive side of Theology is the mechanism we use to conclude doctrines, and at varying times in history it has been used to determine all sorts of spiritual truths.

When the Pope's crusades failed miserably Christianity reconsidered exactly how much say the Pope had as the head of the church, which changed our theology of authority. When Martin Luther decried grace by works it changed our entire theology of salvation. When John Wycliffe ended priest corruption of scripture by printing the Bible in common english our theology of the bible was never the same. Our theology of worship has changed from austere chants to decadent guitar solos; our theology of marriage has changed to consider both wedded clergy as well as pious homosexuals; our theology of purpose has changed from conquering the world under Christendom to engaging the world's pain and fear with the teachings of the Kingdom of God. Not 200 years ago our theology of humanity changed as we realized slave ownership was evil. In the last 10 years we have seen our theology of environment change as we consider industry's poisonous effects on the world around us. It is the way of Christianity's narrow path to twist and turn into directions we could never have imagined, our job is merely to follow that path, not determine where it will go next.

God is not dead, but some of the ideas we have used to describe Him are. For us, creationism now goes the way of the geocentric universe, we must accept evolution as a revelation from nature and adjust ourselves accordingly. But even with Darwin navigating the old church van, God is still in the driver's seat. As G. K. Chesterton once said, “Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'in the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'in the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could himself create one.”

Christian theology is not meant to declare God's truths, it is meant to discover them. In this sense it is the truest nature of Christianity to evolve.

Ponzi Prosperity Gospel

2009-04-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today we shriek as we hear of financial scams, corporate greed, and virtually anything money related that isn’t entirely on the up-n-up. While religion has generally been a help in these economically difficult times, there is one segment of Christianity that is scamming as many as they can. Those who have ears (and debt) let them hear.

The Prosperity Gospel, which is manifested in the “Word of Faith” movement (a louder voice in Pentecostalism), has been writing checks with its lips that’s its theology can’t cash. Last year’s Pew Foundation mega poll, which surveyed nearly 35,000 people (one of the largest religion polls ever accomplished), revealed a few interesting facts about Christians in the Pentecostal tradition¹:

Pentecostals have the lowest incomes of any other Christian denomination.
Pentecostals have the lowest education of any other Christian denomination.

The results show that Pentecostals have the most high school dropouts, the fewest college grads, and also the fewest post graduates. But the most interesting thing is that they earn the least annual income of ANY other Christian tradition polled. This is shocking, considering that a main feature in popular Pentecostalism is the Prosperity Gospel, where church members are promised that God will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams if they tithe generously and believe that they will receive the money.

The trouble Ive seen...

These Pew findings fly in the face of the main tenets of the Prosperity Gospel. Not only do Pentecostals fail to out-earn the regular “non-spirit filled” Christian, they make less. For me, to read such information is heartbreaking. I am a teacher in a private school that’s part of a Word of Faith church. The church is doing very well for itself, as most Pentecostal churches are, but the people are suffering.

Frequently I speak with coworkers and church members who are slowly slipping into despair. I watch helplessly as their hopes dim, and their pennies fade. When I attend a service at this church I hear the Pastors declare that God will make everybody rich, if first they will throw what little they have into the offering plate. Loud confident voices echo off the palatial walls of the sanctuary, while weary, struggling believers bristle with the hope of God’s "promises". My once weeping friends gleefully dance down the plush expensive carpet to the altar and pull out their dollar bills (not their food stamps and government checks, though they have those also) and cheerfully give. The Pastor nods approvingly as his hands are folded in prayer (a shiny Rolex on his wrist) and his eyes tear up.

Say what you want about the corruption of the pulpit, or the decadence of the minister- that’s not my issue. My point is that while the world howls at the scam artists who make big promises then don’t deliver, Christianity has its very own Ponzi scheme that’s alive and well. At least when Bernie Madoff promised big returns he initially delivered, the prosperity gospel doesn’t even do that much. When Joel Osteen, Ken Copeland, Paula White, or Benny Hinn take your money, you’ll never see it again (unless you happen to glimpse one of their private jets leaving a runway for Bermuda)²

Creating “The Least of these”

When a major tenet of your theology is that people who invest in your church will experience wealth, but then the facts show that your congregants are among the poorest and most disparate in the country, you have just been falsified. Further, when the national economy is in shambles, it should be criminal to continue to avoid taxes as a charity, yet earn immense amounts of capital on the promise of a better future. When we see such things in the business world, we rightfully call it a scam and send those people up the river. Why are we so silent while this happens in every neighborhood in America?

Another concern that the Pew Poll raises is the type of person that is being taken advantage of in these churches. The Pentecostal tradition holds more uneducated people than any other denomination, making them a prime target for would be millionaire pastors. In many ways I am as green with jealousy as these prosperity preachers are with greed, in that the scammed believers have more faith in their little finger than I will probably ever know in my lifetime. They would give the shirt off their back if they believed God wanted them to, and many of them have. These people, while simple, are in essence the purest of Christian hearts, trusting like children the intentions of their Shepherd, and being led as lambs to the slaughter.

If not for the absurdity of the scheme, or the arrogance of the theology, then for these poor, benevolent, mistreated souls our hearts must break. That these people, who would be the very first to give of themselves to please God have been allowed to flush so much money into the off-shore bank accounts of so few is a travesty. While their pastors make a spectacle of themselves these poor faithful who are the least able to earn a decent wage in our society run to the altar with everything they have as an act of worship. If even a tenth of what they have given had been redirected to the charities that truly do serve God, our country and our world would be substantially better.

Bankrupt Prosperity

Imagine that there was a brand of theology in which people were taught that God has promised to give followers an additional arm, say right from the center of their chest. It taught that scripture had everywhere indicated that this was the case³, and that by believing this “fuller” version of the gospel, you were opening up the as-of-yet closed off area of blessings that Christians have forgotten about (ie growing another appendage to better do God's work). After about 50 years the movement has spread worldwide and followers number in the millions, and you look to see how many of these folks have in fact grown that “arm of the Lord”. Upon inspection you find that the vast majority of them have lost an arm, leaving them worse off and less able to even serve God than even two-armed folk do. The irony would be overwhelming, that while it was said that God would give these people more for realizing this secret truth, somehow they have ended up with less than they perhaps even began with.

Despite the fact of statistics, and the continued empirical evidence of devastated human lives (Pentecostals also have the most divorces^⁴), few if any Christians have plainly spoken against the Prosperity Gospel, or raised awareness that measures any merit. While high level corruption, and financial disrespect are the soup de jour of each week's media cycle, this prominent and aberrant theology has been allowed to wreak havoc on a mass of people who are grasping at economic straws.

Prosperity Gospel theology is bankrupt. The debate raged for years about how much sense coveting money made in the context of biblical principals, but now the fruit has been born and the numbers don't lie: those who attend prosperity gospel churches are in fact worse off for it.

1http://religions.pewforum.org/reports/detailed_tables

2All except Osteen have been suspected by the Senate of Tax Fraud due to their ostentatious lifestyles on the backs of non-profit “charities”

3Maybe John12:28 would be their anthem (This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: "Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" )

4Of all major denominations Pentecostals had the highest amount of divorced members (16%). While the “Reformed” group was higher (18%) it was only a tenth the size of most every other denomination.

Apocalypse

2009-04-10T18:47:00.001-07:00

I find it interesting that every sensibility of man, even from his most primitive reflections, has pointed to the sudden and terrible end of the universe.

Before men knew what the lights in the night sky were, before they could comprehend the sun or our place in its orbit, mankind seemed to universally know that at some point these things would pass away.

Despite the absolute reality of natures consistency, seasons never failing to come and go on schedule, dawn endlessly rising in the morning and fading into dusk in the evening, animals and trees bearing new life in the spring and withering in the winter; despite all this near nauseous repetition and pattern, primitive man knew that it would end.

It is incredible to me that ancient literature records even more ancient oral traditions in which people commonly believe that the universe (whatever their understanding of it at the time) would in one fell swoop close curtain and be dim forever more. Science had at one point believed the universe was static, endlessly looping from rising states to falling states, but then learned of the 2nd theory of thermodynamics, which states with solemn infinity that all energy in the universe is slowly being extinguished.

Upon realizing this our future seems very sober. No matter how many galaxies we one day explore and conquer, no matter how wide the universe actually is, or whether our species numbers in the trillions as it colonizes and evolves into new and exciting complexities; one day all of sentient life will hold its breath as the cold dark wave of oblivion comes to rest upon it. Death; still, frozen, vapid and unintelligent death will be the final word no matter how far our science or our biology takes us. For mechanics and medicine are governed by a deeper magic: physics.

One day Paley's watch will tick its last tock, and this is as unavoidable and irreversible as the sun setting in the west. Try as I might, I cannot now or ever pluck the star from the pink and purple sky and place it back in the east. Darkness, desolation...death, will be the last word for all known reality, and somehow, remarkably, humanity has known this all along. Discovering that the universe is winding down wasn't shocking, it was the validation of a knowledge we have stragely had all along.

Ironically though, for just as long as mankind has intrinsically known that time itself will come to an end, it has also believed in a transcendent being who has the power to resurrect. A Governor of life and death, an unquenchable source of light and power. Perhaps when the universe has dimmed to only a faint glow, when the light is all but extinguished, finally we will be able to clearly see what was there all along, diminished by the pollution of so much other energy closer to our observation. Perhaps we will see the far off but brilliant light of a new dawn, a new universe, the ever present hope of a future, and life everlasting. Perhaps we will then know, as we have always suspected, that while death will be the final word in our reality, there is another word that comes after that, a word that must be spoken by the being that created us whom we have always suspected was there. He will speak again as He did in the beginning, and we will all come into new life; "Let there be light".

Getting De-Baptized

2009-04-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

I read about this story and it added to my ongoing concern for the divide between secularists and theists. I am currently reading the book "Saving Darwin" to try to understand the middle ground between the volatile atheists like Richard Dawkins, and the staunch creationists that line the fundamentalist ranks.

Part of our calling is to reconcile with people, I think we need to consider the implications of that, and at least be willing to find a way to reach into these lives that have become so separated from us.

For Nana

2009-03-19T21:49:00.001-07:00

Today my grandmother called me and shared terrific news. She has been given the honor and privilege of sharing the message Easter Sunday at her Unitarian Church in Arkansas. She called because she had a very unique question to ask me, a question that captured my thoughts for the rest of the day and left me tossed in endless directions. Her question was: If Jesus had been here in the 20th Century, how would he have interacted with American Society? How would he react to things like the Vietnam war, or to communism, or to the plight of the urban sprawl? Imagine that Jesus had been there, what would that be like?

When I got home I made myself a cup of tea and sat in my recliner in the living room. Sunlight slipped through blinds, rays visible from the glass of the window all the way to the curled up kitty cats on the floor. I leaned back in my chair and listened to some music playing on my stereo, I tried to imagine Jesus in the 20th Century.

My first thought was John Lennon sitting behind a white piano, a well lit room and Yoko Ono sitting at his side. John was singing his song "Imagine", and I couldn't help but wonder if Jesus wouldn't have held a lighter in the air at a Lennon concert. "Imagine there is no country" says the former Beatle, "and no religion too" I drifted in the waves of thought, the image of Jesus with a fire in his palm, swaying back and forth to the music.

The 20th century was characterized by war, by oppression, and by evil. In the 20th century we saw two world wars, and countless smaller ones. We saw the rise of super-powers, and the first abuses of the popular media. We saw the creation of the ultimate death machines, and the radiation poisoned, half melted faces of their victims. In the 20th century we saw the results of colonialism, the prestige and power of sovereign nations dominating the weaker, the exploitation of everybody from the factory worker, to the dark skinned farmer suffering under Jim Crow. Yes, the 20th century saw the evil in Hitler's eyes, the massacre of 10 million people, the haphazard destruction of the environment, and the disaster of saber rattling hawks with power. For those that lived through the last century, one would think they would recall a literal hell on Earth. However most will tell you that days were not always so dark, that even in the thick of despair, somehow hoped shined through, and things got better. When I consider that I think I realize why that is, and also the answer to the question my Nana asked me; Jesus was there.

Jesus was there with the Jews starving in a prison camp, giving them strength to last until rescuers arrived. Jesus was there when the American economy collapsed, and honest men and women found themselves penny-less and without a bed to sleep in, but somehow managed to forge the bread line in to a better future. Jesus was there when dust bowls ate the crops and lungs of weary eyed farmers, who summoned the courage to leave behind their history and their lives in the name of survival. Jesus was there when a burst of light flashed over Hiroshima, Jesus wept over Nagasaki. Jesus was there with Neil Armstrong as he stepped toward the bleach white surface of the moon, floating in the infinite darkness of space. Jesus was there when a young black preacher rallied millions of men and women of color to demand equal rights, when those people chose non-violence over riots and terrorism.

When Titanic was found, when King Tut's Tomb was found, Jesus was there. When soldiers from Vietnam were buried in Arlington Cemetery, Jesus was there. And during 14 Presidential funerals, Jesus was there. The reason I know that, the reason I know that Jesus was there during the good times and the bad, the reason I know he is that flicker of hope that inspired the greatest among us to rise up and illuminate the darkness is because Jesus' grave, unlike the rest I have mentioned....is empty.

The vacancy is notorious, outrageous, and the source of the greatest debate in human history. This conspicuous absence is also the reason we celebrate Easter, it is the day we reflect on Jesus' rising from the dead, and consider whether his presence has been observable since.

When my Nana asked me if I could imagine a 20th Century with Jesus in it, my first thoughts were a Jesus who protests wars, and marches in the streets with John Lennon. But soon I realized that despite the brokenness, conflict, and savagery that colored the last 100 years, there was an ever present light that guided humanity to a new dawn. A star that lead us over the turbulent seas of misfortune and agony, into the terra nova of God's Kingdom. While humanity continues to grapple with its iniquity, I still am compelled to notice that star shining above us, that great light by which all things are seen, hovering steadily, loyally, by our side helping us to see. Though this light may set, it rises again and brings with it a new day, a new age, and the bright hope of a future. Christ, is this light for me. He has set and yet risen again. When we see our world in horror, when we sense the vacancy again of the Son of God, when hopelessness is its most potent, this is when our Sun rises again, giving us new hope and new life. This is the essence of resurrection.

I see Jesus in our common history, I see our need for him in terrible times, I see our inspiration through him in times of human victory. I believe that it is by seeing his presence in so many stories, that I can embrace the romance of this thing called resurrection, that I can celebrate a day like Easter. On Easter we remember the King who came back for us, who still comes back for us, who's love will not cease, until it is on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Resurrection is the promise of hope, and the reality of Jesus. Seeing his fingerprints in our time, helps me to remember that he does indeed live on, that the grave could not hold him, that victory will yet be his, and that because he has risen to new life, I also may find new life through him. For that is the promise of the light rising in the east, with each new day we hear it say to us, "Fear not" and then with hope and light, “Because I live, you also live” (John 14:19) .

Remember the wheel?

2009-02-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

I was thinking today about the difference between "Emerging" and "Emergent". Mark Driscoll seems to have defined the two terms very differently, and noted that "Emerging" is the group of people who are thinking differently about how to do church, considering how to become relevant yet still keep with the past, while "Emergent", explains Driscoll, is the group that is questioning everything from relevancy to theology.

I will be brief but to me its sort of like the car industry right now. On the one hand you have the industry that is trying to put new paint on the old things, produce new models of the old tried and trues. They are asking the question: "How can we sell this in the new market?" The same is true for Emerging churches. They are asking themselves how they can sell their church in the new market, how they can appear relevant in a world that is quickly changing, how can they stay on top?

Of course what these churches, and that end of the auto-industry, are missing is that for some reason their surges of buyers are getting smaller and smaller. Quickly they are being overtaken by the other end of the spectrum, those who are rethinking their philosophies all together, the Hybrids.

Instead of putting new paint on old ideas, the Hybrid industry and those who are leading it are asking entirely new questions. Not "how can we sell this?", but more "why is this?". They aren't just seeking to stay on top, they are seeking to recreate the way we view transportation, burst through the old molds and create something altogether new. Something, ironically enough, that if successful makes fully irrelevant all previous molds and models. Who wants the gas guzzling diesel when the new 100 mpg truck comes out? Who will care about land speed and maneuverability when cars can fly?

These are the Emergents. They are the side that is rethinking everything they thought they knew about church, God, theology...everything. Instead of asking how they can make their church more relevant, they are asking why they do what they do in the first place. Their changes are coming from the inside out, from deep shifts in their ways of thinking, that far surpass a simple new coat of paint...they are a whole new concept. They are reconsidering the old fuel economy of ideas, and inventing new sources of power, new balances and new measures of success.

Where once speed and power were the trophies of a ministry (and the auto industry), now environmental impact and long term resource allocation are fast becoming the new badges of honor. A few decades of this new thinking and we won't even call what we drive churches (or cars) anymore, because they will just be too different from what that word describes.

Emergents are not trying to reinvent the wheel, they are trying to make it obsolete in the wake of what comes next. What if one day people turn to one another over coffee and say, "Remember the wheel?"

Agnostic Christianity

2009-02-15T18:45:00.000-08:00

I wonder sometimes if there is such a thing as the sin of certainty. If knowing and not knowing are actually the same thing, only the latter is more honest. What can we actually say that we know? Do we know ourselves, do we know each other, do we know our faith? Are we 100% sure that we know the things we think we know, beyond any shadow of a doubt? And if we can affirm that yes we do know things this well, should we be committed for having too simple a view of reality?

I was considering the word Gnosis the other day, wondering at the very first heresy Christianity ever birthed within itself, the group that became known as Gnostics. Gnosis, I learned, means "knowledge", and that band of heretics were so named because they believed that God had given them a special knowledge about himself, a knowledge that if attained could make one a more perfect Christian. But only those who realized this knowledge were speical, only those who obtained the gnosis would live forever.

Do you see where I am going with this? If the first heretical Christians were called Gnostics because they believed in a supernatural knowledge which saved people, I would imagine that would make the other Christians, the Orthodox Christians, the Agnostic Christians.

Today we use the word Agnostic in reference to the certainty of there being a God. We see it as the middle ground between Theism (one who believes that Theos, God, is extant) and Atheism (one who does not). But this assignment is arbitrary and out of place, sure the word can conveniently convey that there is an opinion of not knowing which is correct, but the word itself I think expresses a much deeper meaning than this mere position can provide.

To be Agnostic about something is to profess unknowing. Its to say that you have been well informed about the various side's theories, have measured and weighed them but feel there is not enough to lead you to firm conclusions. Yet despite this seeming lack of confidence in a particular direction, you are comfortable in your unknowing, content with floating along the waves, unsure which coast these ultimately lead to.

Back again to the first Christians, I wonder if there is an irony in their clash with the Gnostics. The first heresy was believing you had a special knowledge that others didn't have, something in your version of faith that was better, higher, and more enlightened than the rest. These heretics were excited to proclaim their special understanding, but the true Christians were content to remain Agnostics, unable/unwilling to deduce the wonders and marvels of God.

The irony is in how that group of orthodox Christians who were once happily agnostic, morphed to become the various tribes we see today, each claiming to have found something others haven't. Protestants telling the Catholics that they don't understand salvation, Eastern Orthodox telling everybody that they don't get worship, Catholics telling the others that they don't have the knowledge of the Pope. How ironic that the very first heresy, gnosticism, found its way into each faith tradition. Sure the form has changed, but the concept is clear: some have the special knowledge that others don't.

In this light it would seem that the Christians who might be willing to admit how little they actually know, would be the one's returning to true orthodoxy. The one's who would be willing to drop their systematic theologies and monopolies on truth might be the one's closest to the humble beginnings of our sacred story. I'm sure that would seem ignorant at first, but perhaps like Socrates, being confident about what one doesn't know will actually prove how wise one actually is.

"We all want progress, but progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man." - C.S. Lewis

I wonder if there could be Agnostic Christians again. Christians who don't bask in their high and lofty understanding, but follow as if their souls depend on it; who judge not others lest they be judged by the same measure. I'm sure at first these Christians would be seen as "liberal" or "progressive", but wouldn't they actually be regressive? Wouldn't theirs be a departure from the well accepted heresy of special understanding, and a return to the discipline of humility and trust in Christ?

I have no idea.

"If this religion boasted of having a clear view of God, and of possessing it open and unveiled, it would be attacking it to say that we see nothing in the world which shows it with this clearness. But, on the contrary, it says that men are in darkness and estranged from God, that He has hidden Himself from their knowledge, that this is in fact the name which He gives Himself in the Scriptures, Deus absconditus (God Hidden)."

-Blaise Pascal

Apologetic

2009-01-11T02:54:00.000-08:00

After my post where I recaptured my student's response over the atheist bus advertisements, I received a surge of attention from various atheist websites and bloggers. With this very small window of attention at my disposal, I could think of no better message to send to so many atheists, than this:

I am sorry.

I am sorry for the oppression: mental, emotional, physical, legal, and spiritual (if you will permit me to use the word in a non-offensive way) that my faith community has put you through.

I am sorry that you have been hunted, persecuted, fought, hastily and unfairly treated. I am sorry that you were never listened to.

I am sorry that I never took the time to listen to your stories, or cared enough to see how my story was impacting you. I am sorry that I allowed my faith to control politics in a way that self destructed government, and imposed upon your, and others', rights.

I am sorry that when you asked me for a reason for my faith, I gave you nothing but ignorant platitudes. I am sorry that when I gave you my best reasons for God, I betrayed the very fabric of his mystery by attempting to capture him in theology, doctrine, and systems.

I am sorry that I have so profoundly misrepresented the man described by the four gospels in the New Testament, I am sorry that I have failed you.

I am sorry that you have to see religious relics every where you go, I am sorry that you have been afforded no voice in the public.

I am sorry that my best attempts to care for you have only botched things up incredibly, I am sorry that when you needed me the most I was cold to you.

I am sorry that I have created a noticeable (please, I mean no harm in saying this) cynicism within you. I am sorry that I have so poorly dialoged with you.

I am sorry that this small post will never make up for the literal thousands of years that the religious have oppressed the non-religious. I am sorry that your honest and straightforward pursuit of truth has been scorned at every turn by those who seem more deluded with their own superiority, than awestruck with having discovered the reality of a thing called "God".

I am sorry that my testimony is unconvincing, as it is laden with hate, cruelty, bigotry, arrogance, and failure.

I am sorry for the crusades. I am sorry for the inquisition. I am sorry for the witch trials. I am sorry for the way we treated Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus, and an infinity of others. I am sorry that we have stifled growth, progress, and human discovery.

I am sorry that we have built monuments to the wealthy instead of homes for the poor, provided temples to the unseen instead of food for the starving, robes for the rulers instead of clothes for the naked. I am sorry that we have used religion as an excuse for wickedness.

I am sorry for the Holocaust. I am sorry for the use of religion to justify violence. I am sorry for 9/11.

I am sorry for the countless people who have been murdered in the middle east due to our blind ignorance, I am sorry for eagerness to take life, instead of preserve it.

I am sorry that I have manipulated, controlled, beguiled, lied, killed, raped, stolen, and blasphemed to maintain my hold on power. I am sorry, that when you needed me most to follow the claims of my Religion, as they are truly presented, I did not.

With perhaps only seconds left of this extraordinary attention my small blog has received, let me say this: I cannot begin to tell you how profoundly sorry I am for the treachery those representing my faith have caused. Had you no other reason not to believe in a deity of some kind, the actions of those who claim to have discovered that deity would be enough to dissuade you, and for that we...I...can only feel ashamed.

I have no ulterior motive here, no secret plan to covert all of you reading this to my wonderful great way of thinking. I wouldn't dare extinguish the richness, the vibrance of your voices that have been so long kept from the ears of the world. I only hope, that somehow despite the anger, despite the betrayal, despite the tyranny I have done to you, you may hear through all that these final words, and know that I mean them with all my heart: I am, I really am, sorry, though I know that alone will never be enough to make up for what I have done.

This apology is overdue.

Getting out of the way of God's Atheist Bus

2009-01-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

I recently read an article in the New York Times that explained how Atheists in Britain, with the strong celebrity of Dr. Richard Dawkins at the helm, launched a campaign to preach a godless message across their country via bus advertisements.

I shared the article with my Apologetics students (I'm a teacher at a private school) and asked them to give me their initial thoughts. Most of the kids were filled with outrage. "We should hit back with our own billboards", one yelled. "Yea, and the government shouldn't let Atheists write that kind of stuff anyway, it should be illegal", agreed another.

I kept a blank face while I listened to the students campaign for censorship and more aggressive proselytizing, but in my heart I sighed with discouragement. These kids don't hear anything I say, I thought to myself, despite months of instruction, they still see these issues in only two dimensions. But then, to my great astonishment, one my students bravely put forth a different opinion.

"Well wait a minute", he said with conviction, "haven't we been talking about this all quarter? Before we can just go off half cocked on these ads and the Atheists who put them there, we need to ask ourselves questions about why this is happening in the first place, put ourselves in their shoes." I held my breath as he looked at me for permission to continue his thought, I nodded hiding my excitement.

"Well, what made these people feel it was necessary to put these ads on buses in the first place? Maybe its them who are striking back, at us, not starting a fight or anything. Maybe we started it." A few of the other students began to release furrowed brows as they leaned in to listen. The brave young man continued, "We can't just take aim and fire at them, getting our revenge or shutting them up. Jesus didn't tell us to do that, he told us to see things from their world, take pity on them, even turn the other cheek. And I think if we put ourselves in their shoes, we will understand why they might feel ads like this are necessary. Have you ever thought of how it feels, especially during the holidays, to be bombarded with advertisements talking about the religious reasons for the season? Or how many Christians start flooding their conversations with their christianese and religious verbage that makes zero sense to everyone around them? If I were an Atheist I would be pissed off to no end!"

The students shot a quick glance at me to see how I would respond to the outburst at the end of his explanation, I kept my poker face. Seeing he hadn't gone foul, he continued. "We should feel sad that we make Atheists feel like they need to defend themselves, sad that they are getting aggressive and pushy, because we caused it. We caused it because we made them our enemy after the scopes trial, we made them out to be devils and demons, opposing soldiers in some imaginary culture war. But Christ says our war isn't against flesh and blood, and you don't beat evil with matched aggression, you beat it with love, you beat it by laying down your swords. Fires aren't put out with more fire, they are put out with their opposite, water."

As the students reflected on what was said, they looked at me to measure my approval, which I could no longer fully conceal. With a smile, I held back the excitement in my voice and asked what he would propose Christians do in response to these signs. Sensing my probe for previous lessons in his next answer, he gladly regurgitated whatever he could. "Well" he began, "I would say we shouldn't respond to the intent of the signs, but to what caused them in the first place. We know that its hurt that caused the Atheists to do this, so we need to figure out how that happened, and work hard to fix those relationships. If we really love our neighbor, we should see these ads as a symptom of our broken relationship, not as an attack to be offended at."

He turned and addressed the class as he continued, "And why should we be upset about the message in the first place? The hardest thing in leading people to Christ is to break through their indifference to the 'meaning of life', 'reality of God' stuff anyway. These signs force people to wonder whether or not what they say is true, this practically invites conversation about God, thats the best possible thing that could happen for followers of Christ!"

The room suddenly glowed by the flame of his growing enthusiasm. "Can you imagine how great it would be to stand at a bus stop when one of these things pulls up? Standing next to all those strangers who are tilting their heads reading it, looking around puzzled and all that, how easy would it be to just ask them what they thought, begin a conversation about God's universe with nothing more than a nod and a 'get a load of that'. We should be thanking these guys for making our job easier, for daring the world to wonder about God instead of never stopping long enough to think it through at all. Instead of bursting in with our arguments for God and how much smarter we are than everybody else, we can ask questions and listen to peoples' hearts, hurts, and hell.

We can gently tell them, show them even, that God is real, and does love them. We can even apologize for causing the sign in the first place, and show these people who Christ really was, not the guy who chased people around trying to create a world where nobody thought differently than himself, but loved everybody unequivocally and regardless of their culture or their creed. We can finally say we are sorry for how badly we have misrepresented Christ, we can finally be, finally be...." he stammered trying to think of the right word. "Apologetic", I said, looking him in the eyes.

Suddenly the realization was palpable, the whole room had a new understanding of the subject of my class, and the method that must go behind it in these contentious, and difficult times. He smiled and nodded, then sat down satisfied that the point had been made. I couldn't have been more proud of my student that day, and I can only hope he rises up to become a voice of calm in the storm of ideas that he will face as an adult.

It's rare that a teacher gets to feel he's making a difference in the world. But when I get to hear a 16 year old kid talk like this, hear him blatantly reject the ideas of anger and revenge, to instead choose forgiveness and love, I feel like God has given me a glimpse into a brighter future. I don't think teachers like me bring these sorts of people into the world, I think God does. And since hearing this kid go off like that, my prayer everyday has been that God wouldn't let me get in the way of His revolution, that I wouldn't be the barricade that stops the voice of Christ from spilling out of the mouths of babes, but if I ever am, that He would rip through me without a moments pause.

God is good, my greatest accomplishment in life will have been getting out of His way, and I couldn't be happier than to have a legacy like that.

Revisiting "Emergent"

2008-12-11T13:08:00.000-08:00

I thought I might repost one of the first posts on this blog, because I recently invited some facebook friends to join this group, and I think these quotes embody "emergent" thinking more than any of my recent posts would. I would really like to get some more posters to this blog, and also some more conversation partners in general. Thanks for checking these quotes out, please don't be mislead by my posts throughout this blog that can at times be inflammatory and dubious, I have been talking to myself for some time in this website, and what you read is just my attempt to self-reflect and struggle with some things.

Thanks,
-Jimi

A New Kind of Christian- Brian McLaren

"Now take a moment and let this really sink in. To the Christian culture of medieval Europe, none of you today could be considered real Christians. True, you might say that you believe in Jesus and that you follow the Bible- but that would sound like nonsense to them if at the same time you denied what to them was essential for any reasonable person to accept: the medieval worldview, which was the context of their faith [(ie-astronomy, Copernicus etc)]. That brings me to an important question for you to think about: Is it possible that we as moderns have similarly intertwined a different but equally contingent worldview, with our eternal faith? And another question: What if we live at the end of the modern period, at a time when our modern worldview is crumbling, just as the medieval one began to do in the sixteenth century?" - Pg 34

"Most modern people love to relativize the viewpoints of the others against the unquestioned superiority of their own modern viewpoint. But in a way, you cross the threshold into postmodernity the moment you turn your critical scrutiny from others to yourself, when you relativize your own modern viewpoint. When you do this, everything changes. It is like a conversion. You cant go back. You begin to see that what seemed like pure, objective certainty really depends heavily on a subjective preference for your personal viewpoint." -Pg 35

"Our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves. They reveal what we want to defend what we want to attack, what we want to ignore, what we're unwilling to question. When Judgment Day comes, God might ask a lot of us how we interpreted the Bible-not to judge if our interpretations are right or wrong but to let our interpretations reveal our hearts. That will be telling enough." =Pg 50

Searching for God Knows What- Donald Miller

"How many people have walked away from faith because their systematic theology proved unable to answer the deep longings and questions of the soul? What we need here, truly, is faith in a Being, not a list of ideas." p 161

"The story bears repeating: I presented the gospel to Christian Bible college students and left out Jesus. Nobody noticed....To a culture that believes they "go to heaven" based on whether or not they are morally pure, or that they understand some theological ideas, or that they are very spiritual, Jesus is completely unnecessary. At best, He is an afterthought, a technicality by which we become morally pure, or a subject of which we know, or a founding father of our woo-woo spirituality."p 159

"And then I wondered at how Jesus could say He was a Shepherd and we were sheep, and that the Father in heaven was our Father and we were His children, and He Himself was a Bridegroom and we were His bride, and that He was a King and we were His subjects, and yet we somehow missed His meaning and thought becoming a Christian was like sitting in a chair."p 157

"I get this feeling sometimes that after the world ends, when God destroys all our buildings and our flags, we will wish we had seen everybody as equal...." p104

"If you ask me, the way to tell if a person knows God for real, I mean knows the real God, is that they will fear Him. They wouldn't go around making absurd political assertions and drop God's name like an ace card, and they wouldn't be making absurd statements about how God wants you to be rich and how if you send in some money to the ministry God will bless you. It seems like, if you really knew the God who understands the physics of our existence, you would operate a little more cautiously, a little more compassionately, a little less like you are the center of the universe."p 38

"If I weren't a Christian, and I kept seeing Christian leaders on television more concerned with money, fame, and power than with grace, love and social justice, I wouldn't want to believe in God at all."p 28

"The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think He is. By that I mean they have Him all figured out, mapped out....dissected and put into jars on the shelf."p 20

Blue Like Jazz- Donald Miller

"Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to a formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder." p 205

"I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror or awe. And this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, because we want to be able to predict Him, to dissect Him...We reduce Him to math so we don't have to fear Him, and yet the Bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that it is the beginning of wisdom...I stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon once, behind a railing, and though I was never going to fall off the edge, I feared the thought of it." p 205

"Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it." p 202

"It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in this system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished. But that doesn't make us good people; it only makes us subdued." p 18

Fools Gold- John MacArthur

"By the way, true worship is not something that can be stimulated artificially. A bigger, louder band and more sentimental music might do more to stir peoples emotions. But that is not genuine worship." p38

"The showman's ability to lure people in should not impress us more than the Bible's ability to transform lives"p 41

"There are plenty of gifted communicators in the modern evangelical movement [who] massage people's egos and focus on fairly insipid subjects...
Like the ubiquitous Plexiglas lecterns from which these messages are delivered, such preaching is lightweight and without substance, cheap and synthetic, leaving little more than an ephemeral impression on the mind of the hearers." p36

"Choice- saturated, capitalistic, American Christians [need to] discern the difference between seeking God's kingdom and building their own." p 165

"Truth be told, Jesus never spoke in terms of a one-time decision that you make about Him but rather exhorted His hearers to follow Him wholeheartedly for all of their lives. Christ was calling people to a life that continually confesses Him before men. We do not find in Scripture that the test of discipleship is a one time decision." p134

"Mindless emotionalism, often hyped up by repetition and "letting go", comes closer to the paganism of the Gentiles (cf Matt 6:7) than to any form of biblical worship." p126

"The music has been carefully and purposefully brought to this intense emotional peak. One senses that this is the whole purpose of the congregational singing-to elevate emotions to a white-hot fervor. The more intense the feeling, the more people are convinced they have truly "worshiped"." p 120

"When we look at contemporary ministry, we see programs and methods that are the fruit of human invention, the offspring of opinion polls and neighborhood surveys, and other pragmatic artifices. Church growth experts have in essence wrested control of the church's agenda from her true Head, the Lord Jesus Christ." p37

A Generous Orthodoxy- Brian McLaren

"Has [Christ] become (I shudder to ask this) less our Lord, and more our mascot?"p86

"How many of us have used the cross in Caesar's way, to dominate, rather than in Jesus' way, to liberate?" p 91

"Is it any surprise that with this understanding of salvation, churches tend to become gatherings of self-interested people who gather for mutual self-interest--constantly treating the church as a purveyor of religious goods and services, constantly shopping and "trading up" for churches that can "meet my needs" better?"p118

"This competitive Protestant religious market eventually spawned a kind of infomercial mentality, where each group advertised its unique features, seeking loyal customers for their religious products and services." p137

"To the degree they preoccupy themselves with the question of who's right , to the exclusion of considering whether they are truly good (as in bearing good fruit) they're destined to fade, wither, fail. To the degree that they have sold their spiritual birthright for a political ideology, they must repent; neither left nor right leads to the higher kingdom." p154

"We must, therefore, never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God...language can be a window through which one glimpses God, but never a box in which God can be contained." p170,171

"I believe that we must be always reforming, not because we've got it wrong and were closer and closer to finally getting it right, but because our mission is ongoing and our context is dynamic. For this viewpoint "getting it right" is beside the point; the point is being and doing good as followers of Jesus in our unique time and place, fitting in with the ongoing story of God's saving love for Planet Earth." p 214

"Believing as I do that doctrinal distinctives are a lot like cigarettes, the use of which often leads to a hard to break Protestant habit that is hazardous to spiritual health (and that makes the breath smell bad)..."p217

"While some Protestants seem to let Jesus be Savior, but promote Paul to Lord and Teacher, Anabaptists have always interpreted Paul through Jesus, and not the reverse." p231

"Just as the early Christians could not imagine the gospel outlasting the Roman Empire, 19th century Evangelicals couldn't imagine the gospel outlasting modernity, the empire of Scientism, consumerism, and individualism." p268

"Given the chance, would Christianity eradicate every vestige of the world's other religions?" p286

"We must be open to the perpetual possibility that our received understandings of the gospel may be faulty, imbalanced, poorly nuanced, or downright warped and twisted." p 294

"I am more and more convinced that Jesus didn't come merely to start another religion to compete in the marketplace of other religions. If anything, I believe he came to end standard competitive religion (which Paul called the law) by fulfilling it; I believe He came to open up something beyond religion- a new possibility, a realm, a domain, a territory of the spirit that welcomes everyone but requires everyone to think again and become like little children" p299

"A generous orthodoxy must look back on our first 2,000 years of Christian history and face our failures, our atrocities, our abdications, our cowardice, our complicity, our betrayal of Jesus, and say to ourselves, "Never Forget"." p 305

"True prophets (those who bring a new word from God to assist in the current process of emergence) are crucified; false prophets (those who promise shortcuts that will cause regression or stagnation) are made rich and famous. The process is messy." p 323

"In Christian theology, this anti-emergent thinking is expressed in systematic theologies that claim (overtly, covertly, or unconsciously) to have final orthodoxy nailed down, freeze-dried, and shrink wrapped forever." p 325

God is Pro-Choice

2008-11-19T16:29:00.000-08:00

In this overheated political landscape, where Christians often blur the lines between their moral convictions and scriptural mandates, we have heard all too often that abortion is banned in the Bible and considered blatant murder. However, I intend to show here that if God was not Pro-Choice, we would all be going to Hell.

To date the great dispute between Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers has been over precisely what time the zygote/fetus/sperm-egg becomes a Human-Being with a spirit, soul, and inherent right to stay alive. However all this issue does is distract from the real crux of the debate: Does a parent have the authority (right) to end their child's life?

What is fascinating about the Evangelicals is how quickly they aligned with the political right on this issue. It was assumed from the beginning that ending any living thing's livingness was by definition murder, especially if that living thing is a human being. However the Biblical view of murder is, and has always been, quite different from the modern view of murder.

In the Old Testament we see God commanding the Israelite army to kill unarmed citizens of conquered cities, something that by today's standards would be murder, but that Christians vehemently argue was not -because it was one nation versus another nation in war, which requires different rules. We even see God commanding the Israelites to kill women and children, and to commit systematic genocide, which again would be murder by our international laws, but the Christians defend it as an act of war, and casualties in war are not murders.

In the Old Testament we see citizens being commanded to pick up rocks and execute criminals in the streets without trial or verdict, something that by every civilized nation's standards would be murder, but Christian's are quick to point out that this was a primitive Justice system -the society was dealing punishment to social offenders, something that is Just in any culture of law and order. We see God himself striking down countless people, even innocent ones, which looks from every angle like murder, but Christians again defend this as Just -since God is Master of all things it is His prerogative to give life, or take it away.

C.S. Lewis once explained this phenomenon of death in the Bible and the appearance of foul play like this, "All killing is not murder any more than all sex is adultery." Murder is a Sin, a criminal act in direct disobedience to God's law. It happens when one human kills, without proper justification, another human in cold blood.

When Cain killed Abel, it was murder. When David killed Uriah, it was murder. They were individuals acting without prior justification against another. However when the Israelites killed their enemies, even their women and children, it was merely an act of war (justified killing according to the conditions of one nation at war with another). When Hebrews picked up stones and executed a rapist in the streets, it was merely a justice system being dealt out not by a mob, but by conscientious citizens acting as agents of the society (the equivalent of citizen's arrest today).

Nobody questions that these killings were not murders, a fact only bolstered by God having commanded people to do them. Since God is perfectly Holy, it is impossible for him to sin, or to command others to sin, so its impossible for these actions to be murder if God commanded them. They may have become illegal by man's standards of law and order, but by God's standards of sin and righteousness, they are not considered murder, or else he would have never allowed them in the first place.

By God commanding these occasions of killing, it is implied that the person doing the killing has some sort of authority to do so, otherwise it would clearly be murder. For instance, a nation at war has authority to destroy the people it is at war with; a society has authority to deal justice against criminal offenders. These groups already had the authority to kill the people they killed, God's command for them to do so wasn't an act of giving them permission, it was an act of direction. We know this because God only directs these killings using people who already had the authority to kill their target: a sovereign nation, a justice system.

This all leads us to the third and final time that God has commanded somebody to exercise their preexisting authority to kill somebody else: Abraham and Issac.

Just as in the other examples, God commands Abraham to kill (not murder) his son. What's fascinating is that this (by the contemporary Evangelical's assumption) is so blatantly murder that of course Abraham would have cried out against God and questioned the directive -but Abraham was silent. The same Abraham who argued with God to defend the homosexual deviants of Sodom and Gomorrah didn't even utter one word to defend the life of his own son! Amazing!

How is it that Abraham, the progenitor of the chosen people, could have so much trust in God that he was willing to commit murder in order to obey Him? How did it not register in Abraham's mind that God cannot possibly be "Holy" and also command him to murder in His name? Despite these obvious contradictions, Abraham unflinchingly drags his son to the altar and raises his knife....

The answer to these questions is obvious: Abraham didn't oppose God because it wasn't murder to begin with! Israel had authority to vanquish her enemies, so God directed that authority toward certain nations. A society had authority to capitally punish offenders, so God directed that punishment toward certain crimes. A Father had the authority to end his own child's life, and God was acknowledging that authority in His directive to Abraham.

If this were not the case, then this story of Abraham and Issac is the only account in all of recorded history where God has blatantly commanded somebody to sin - a situation that would raise countless questions about the validity of God's claim to holiness, and the nature of sin itself. Suddenly it isn't a sin to cheat on your wife if you think God told you to, or rob a bank if you felt lead. But we know better than that. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He can allow a person to be tempted, even play a role in causing the temptation, but God by the nature of being Holy, cannot command somebody to break His own commands. Its a paradox we will never have to face, and must readily surrender in this Abraham/Issac instance -God didn't command Abraham to do something that would have ordinarily been sinful.

Abraham had the authority to end his own child's life, that is why it was such a great test for him. What role would faith play if God had asked Abraham to murder Lot? Or an Egyptian King? The sacrifice came in Abraham's inherent ability to surrender his son's life by his own hand, to throw away his most cherished possession. Parent's have authority over their children's lives, even to the point of death. Its a point clearly illustrated in scripture, and nowhere disputed.

If this were not so, then our salvation is false as well.

Abraham's test of faith is the archetypal story for the crucifixion of Jesus, the center for the Christian theory of salvation. Just as Abraham had the choice to kill his own son as a sacrifice for God, so God had the choice to kill His son as a sacrifice for man.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." The story of Christ is not that Jesus willingly surrendered His life on the cross. Its that God willingly gave His own son up to death. The fact that Jesus, like Issac, willingly walked up the hill to the altar is the side plot, the climax however is a Father's choice. You cannot give what isn't yours to begin with. On a certain level, we all know that our children are our own.

There is another dimension to this that few have taken seriously: what could possibly kill God? Nails? Lashings? A spear? Could mere suffocation stamp out the life of the Son of God? The man healed lepers and rose the dead from the grave. He survived for 40 days without food or water. He walked on water and calmed storms, the material world bowed before his ever whim. There is no knife sharp enough, no cross painful enough, to kill the Holy of Holies.

Only one thing could have killed Jesus, only one thing could be strong enough to choke the life out of the Son of God...the hands of the Father. It was the Father who killed his son, and so sacrificed him for the souls of men. Just as Abraham lowered the knife upon Issac, so God rained death upon His beloved Son, only no angel dare stay His hand. "For God so loved the world..."

Yes Jesus died willingly, yes Jesus surrendered his spirit, but consider in what context. Was it not only hours earlier in a garden that he wept and sweat blood over what his Father was commanding him to do? Did he not beg for another way? There can be no question that Jesus wanted anything but the cross, it is part of his incredible story that he obeyed his Father despite this. But regardless, it was his Father who made the choice to give up Jesus' life.

While Jesus and Issac were the sacrifices, they were not the one's doing the sacrificing. Jesus and Issac look up at the familiar hands descending upon them, the hands that had taught them to walk, to eat, to create, now striking down toward them with a force to end their lives..."Father..." they whimper as they watch the horror, "why have you forsaken me?"

Something cannot be forsaken if it was not at one point owned. I am able to forsake my wealth, because its mine to use or to throw away. In fact that is the very definition of forsake, to cast away. How can you throw away what you were not already holding? God was able to forsake His son, able to choose death for His son, because it was within His authority as a Father to do so. The same authority that was implied by God commanding Abraham to kill Issac, that was the great sacrifice, to throw away something that belongs to you.

God is Pro-Choice, and I know this because God already made that choice. If a parent has no right to end their child's life, no authority over them at all, then the story of Christianity is a hoax, and our Jesus is not a savior or a martyr, but the victim of a cruel and twisted crime.

If a Father does not have authority over the life of his own son, then Abraham had no right to kill Issac, and the greatest threat to God's divinity lies in His own command to Abraham, a command to commit murder, a command to commit sin. Even if God was determined to stay Abraham's hand, Holiness does not self-defeat, it does not command its own betrayal. If Abraham did not already have the authority to surrender his own child's life, then God's command that he do so disproves God's very goodness. This would be the mother of all blunders.

The truth is that Abraham did have authority over his son's life, just as Israel had the right to punish criminals or lay waste to enemies -God has given them these authorities for their use.
The truth is our very salvation is based on the fact that God had the authority as a Father to put his own son to death as a payment for our sin.

The authority of a parent to end their child's life is complicated and does not likely come without restrictions. One quickly notes that Abraham had a reason to kill his son, just as the state only kills guilty criminals, and not on a whim. And a nation only kills their enemies, and not just any group of people who are inconvenient. Its likely that certain contexts must be present for a parent to exercise their authority, but what cannot be disputed is that they have that authority.

Christians can still oppose abortion. They can still decide that life is a value presented in the bible, and that they would like to see that value bear fruit in America's laws. Christian's can have any number of reasons to ask the state to limit or outlaw abortion, and if this is their conviction, let them pursue these ends to the glory of God. However, let them also understand that they are asking the secular power of Government to impose upon themselves an authority that scripture clearly says they as parents have. Its like asking the Government to outlaw spanking, when the Bible tells us we can choose the rod to discipline our child. Or asking the Government to outlaw alcohol, when the Bible is clear that a person is completely within their boundaries to have a responsible drink. If you feel more comfortable having the restrictions, by all means fight for them, but you should do so with full knowledge that you seek to limit the authority given to parents by God Himself.

Is abortion a Holy thing? Of course not. I myself am politically Pro-Life, I believe that Abortion is a medieval thing and that our country is above killing 40 million unborn citizens, for whatever reason. However I refuse to Lord scripture over Pro-Choicers and support the harassment of Abortion clinics and those who are considering it. Especially when that harassment finds it's justification in the over-simplified and over-used "Thou shalt not murder". I believe that we must submit ourselves to what the Bible says, and not use the Bible to support our own views. I fear that the Pro-Life Evangelicals have done exactly that.

At the very least the reader of this article should understand that Abortion is a clouded issue in scripture. Its something that is not spoken to directly, and something we pretend to have very clear commands on. However if this Biblical Pro-Choice perspective has accomplished anything, let it be to shed doubt on the certainties we take for granted, and the things we think we have pegged in the word. Even if you think you have found holes in the above argument, you must admit that there is at least some discussion that needs to take place over what the Bible says about this issue, and how arrogantly the Evangelical Pro-Lifers have touted their supportive scripture without giving ear to the whole bible, or even humbling themselves before the word to ask honestly what it says. They came to it with their conclusions, and got back what they already had- in this way scripture is more a mirror than a window.

Part of the point of this essay is to be a caricature of how the Bible is used with little to no real humility. One assumes that they can nail down truth, find the right things, and then present them as a newly formed spiritual law. Part of emergent Christianity is to overcome these temptations, and to have a little fear and trembling in the way we read scripture.

Clarification:
I thought to make this section a separate post, but realized it was most appropriate to drop it here where it will make the most sense. The above argument, and its confident explanation, is an attempt to balance a scale that has been tilted long in only one direction. My sincerest belief about abortion is that it is among the many issues that we do not find a clear opinion from scripture on, and it is impossible to make such forthright determinations on it, such as calling it a sin, or claiming that God is actually Pro-Choice.

My attempt was to demonstrate how easy it is to make one's argument by slanting scripture in their direction, and then accusing the other side of being disingenious. As I said at the end of the essay, it is a caricature. My hope is that people will realize that there are many issues where God has not given us a clear statement, and it is wrong for us to impose an opinion on the word, or claim to bring one about when no clear statement exists. I feel like that is bullying the writer's words, using them as an incharitable tool that only hurts, and never heals.

Update: I was reading through John, and stumbled upon an old verse that I knew, but had forgotten.

John 10:17-18

"The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."

Another good one, John 14:31

"but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me."

Christian Charity

2008-11-19T14:26:00.001-08:00

Christian Charity Raising Money To Feed Non-Gay Famine Victims

Im not one of those "Love thy neighbor" Christians

2008-11-19T14:08:00.001-08:00

This is an article that was posted on The Onion and I found it amazing. Here is the original link for it.

I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians

By Janet Cosgrove
Christian
November 19, 2008 | Issue 44•47

Everybody has this image of "crazy Christians" based on what they hear in the media, but it's just not true. Most Christians are normal, decent folks. We don't all blindly follow a bunch of outdated biblical tenets or go all fanatical about every bit of dogma. What I'm trying to say is, don't let the actions of a vocal few color your perceptions about what the majority of us are like.

Like me. I may be a Christian, but it's not like I'm one of those wacko "love your neighbor as yourself " types.

God forbid!

I'm here to tell you there are lots of Christians who aren't anything like the preconceived notions you may have. We're not all into "turning the other cheek." We don't spend our days committing random acts of kindness for no credit. And although we believe that the moral precepts in the Book of Leviticus are the infallible word of God, it doesn't mean we're all obsessed with extremist notions like "righteousness" and "justice."

My faith in the Lord is about the pure, simple values: raising children right, saying grace at the table, strictly forbidding those who are Methodists or Presbyterians from receiving communion because their beliefs are heresies, and curing homosexuals. That's all. Just the core beliefs. You won't see me going on some frothy-mouthed tirade about being a comfort to the downtrodden.

I'm a normal Midwestern housewife. I believe in the basic teachings of the Bible and the church. Divorce is forbidden. A woman is to be an obedient subordinate to the male head of the household. If a man lieth down with another man, they shall be taken out and killed. Things everybody can agree on, like the miracle of glossolalia that occurred during Pentecost, when the Apostles were visited by the Holy Spirit, who took the form of cloven tongues of fire hovering just above their heads. You know, basic common sense stuff.

But that doesn't mean I think people should, like, forgive the sins of those who trespass against them or anything weird like that.

We're not all "Jesus Freaks" who run around screaming about how everyone should "Judge not lest ye be judged," whine "Blessed are the meek" all the time, or drone on and on about how we're all equal in the eyes of God! Some of us are just trying to be good, honest folks who believe the unbaptized will roam the Earth for ages without the comfort of God's love when Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior returns on Judgment Day to whisk the righteous off to heaven.

Now, granted, there are some Christians on the lunatic fringe who take their beliefs a little too far. Take my coworker Karen, for example. She's way off the deep end when it comes to religion: going down to the homeless shelter to volunteer once a month, donating money to the poor, visiting elderly shut-ins with the Meals on Wheels program—you name it!

But believe me, we're not all that way. The people in my church, for the most part, are perfectly ordinary Americans like you and me. They believe in the simple old-fashioned traditions—Christmas, Easter, the slow and deliberate takeover of more and more county school boards to get the political power necessary to ban evolution from textbooks statewide. That sort of thing.

We oppose gay marriage as an abomination against the laws of God and America, we're against gun control, and we fervently and unwaveringly believe that the Jews, Muslims, and all on earth who are not born-again Pentecostalists are possessed by Satan and should be treated as such.

When it comes down to it, all we want is to see every single member of the human race convert to our religion or else be condemned by a jealous and wrathful God to suffer an eternity of agony and torture in the Lake of Fire!

I hope I've helped set the record straight, and I wish you all a very nice day! God bless you!

Spurgeon Quotes

2008-11-11T13:33:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1: The minister's Self-Watch.

“It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus”.

“It is a terrible thing when the healing balm loses its efficacy through the blunderer who administers it. You all know the injurious effects frequently produced upon water through flowing along leaden pipes; even so the gospel itself, in flowing through men who are spiritually unhealthy, may be debased until it grows injurious to their hearers.”

“True and genuine piety is necessary as the first indispensable requisite; whatever “call” a man may pretend to have, if he has not been called to holiness, he certainly has not been called to the ministry.”

“Should we as a a nation be called to defend our hearths and homes, we should not send out our boys and girls with swords and guns to meet the foe, nether may the church send out every fluent novice or inexperienced zealot to plead for the faith. The fear of the Lord must teach the young man wisdom, or he is barred from the pastorate; the grace of God must mature his spirit, or he had better tarry till power be given him from on high.”

Chapter 2: The Call to Ministry

“The apostle says, 'Now then we are ambassadors for God;' but does not the very soul of the ambassadorial office lie in the appointment which is made by the monarch represented? An ambassador unsent would be a laughing-stock.”

“The first sign of the heavenly calling is an intense, all absorbing desire for the work. In order to a true call to the ministry there must be an irresistible, overwhelming craving and raging thirst for telling to others what God has done to our own souls.”

“'Do not enter the ministry if you can help it'...for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants.”

“This desire should be one which continues with us, a passion which bears the test of trial, a longing from which it is quite impossible for us to escape, though we may have tried to do so; a desire, in fact, which grows more intense by the lapse of years, until it becomes a yearning, a pining, a famishing, to proclaim the Word.”

“If a man be called to preach, he will be endowed with a degree of speaking ability, which he will cultivate and increase.”

“Do not run about inviting yourselves to preach here and there; be more concerned about your ability than your opportunity, and more earnest about your walk with God than about either. The sheep will know the Godsent shepherd; the porter of the fold will open to you, and the flock will know your voice.”

“That which finally evidences a proper call, is a correspondent opening in providence, by a gradual train of circumstances pointing out the means, the time, the place, of actually entering upon the work.”

“It is very difficult to restrain ourselves within the bounds of prudence here, when our zeal is warm: a sense of love of Christ upon our hearts, and a tender compassion for poor sinners, is ready to prompt us to break out too soon; but he that believeth shall not make haste.”

Chapter 3: The Preacher's Private Prayer

“All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private prayer.”

“Prayer, as a mental exercise, will bring many subjects before the mind, and so help in the selection of a topic, while as a high spiritual engagement it will cleanse your inner eye that you may see truth in the light of God.”

“Certain brethren aim at inspiration through exertion and loud shouting; but it does not come: some we have known to stop the discourse, and exclaim, 'God bless you,' and others gesticulate wildly, and drive their finger nails into their palms of their hands as if they were in convulsions of celestial ardor. Bah! The whole thing smells of the green-room and the stage. The getting up of fervor in hearers by the simulation of it in the preacher is a loathsome deceit to be scorned by honest men.”

Chapter 5: Sermons-Their Matter

“Brethren, weigh your sermons. Do not retail them by the yard, but deal them out by the pound. Set no store by the quantity of words which you utter, but strive to be esteemed for the quality of your matter.”

“We must throw all our strength of judgment, memory, imagination, and eloquence into the delivery of the gospel.”

“You should make your sermons like a loaf of bread, fit for eating, and in convenient form.”

“We must in these times say a great deal in a few words, but not too much, nor with too much amplification...One tenpenny nail driven home and clenched will be more useful than a score of tin-tacks loosely fixed, to be pulled out again in an hour.”

Chapter 6: On the Choice of Text

“Let us abhor all one-sidedness, all exaggeration of one truth and disparagement of another, and let us endeavor to paint the portrait of truth with balanced features and blended colors, lest we dishonor her by presenting distortion instead of symmetry, and a caricature for faithful copy.”

“Your pulpit preparations are your first business, and if you neglect these, you will bring no credit upon yourself or your office.”

Chapter 12: The Minister's Ordinary Conversation

“The bow, of course, must be at times unstrung, or else it will lose its elasticity; but there is no need to cut the string.”

“Salt is of no use in the box; it must be rubbed into the meat; and our personal influence must penetrate and season society...Our Master went to a wedding, and ate bread with publicans and sinners, and yet was far more pure than those sanctimonious Pharisees, whose glory was that they were separate from their fellowmen.”

“Give me the man around whom the children come, like flies around a honey-pot: they are first-class judges of a good man. When Solomon was tried by the Queen of Sheba, as to his wisdom, the rabbis tell us that she brought some artificial flowers with her, beautifully made and delicately scented, so as to be facsimiles of real flowers. She asked Solomon to discover which were artificial and which were real. The wise man bade his servants open the window, and when the bees came in they flew at once to the natural flowers, and cared nothing for the artificial. So you will find that children have their instincts, and discover very speedily who is their friend, and depend upon it the children's friend is one who will be worth knowing.”

“An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker, and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living.”

“But if you are drawn into controversy, use very hard arguments and very soft words. Frequently you cannot convince a man by tugging at his reason, but you can persuade him by winning his affections.”

Chapter 21: Earnestness: Its Marring and Maintenance

“In many instances ministerial success is traceable almost entirely to an intense zeal, a consuming passion for souls, and an eager enthusiasm in the cause of God, and we believe that in every case, other things being equal, men prosper in the divine service in proportion as their hearts are blazing with holy love. 'The God that answereth by fire, let him be God'; and the man who has the tongue of fire, let him be God's minister.”

“Moreover, for the sake of our church members, and converted people, we must be energetic, for if we are not zealous, neither will they be. It is not in order of nature that rivers should run uphill, and it does not often happen that zeal rises from the pew to the pulpit.”

“If the prophet leaves his heart behind him when he professes to speak in the name of God, what can he expect but that the ungodly around him will persuade themselves that there is nothing in his message, and that his commission is a farce.”

“Be earnest, and you will seem to be earnest. A burning heart will soon find for itself a flaming tongue. To sham earnestness is one of the most contemptible of dodges for courting popularity; let us abhor the very thought. Go and be listless in the pulpit if you are so in your heart. Be slow in speech, drawling in tone, and monotonous in voice, if so you can best express your soul; even that would be infinitely better than to make your ministry a masquerade and yourself an actor.”

“If non-success humbles us it is well, but if it discourages us, and especially if it leads us to think bitterly of more prosperous brethren, we ought to look about us with grave concern.”

“Never say 'it is enough', nor accept the policy of 'rest and be thankful.' Do all you possibly can, and then do a little more.”

Kierkegaard Quotes

2008-11-09T22:31:00.000-08:00

From "The Journals"

"God creates everything out of nothing -and everything that God will use he first reduces to nothing."

"The only possible exception [to having chosen Christ] would be: that you might have possibly been saved another way. To that he cannot answer. It is as though one were to say to someone in love, 'yes, but might you have fallen in love with another girl'; to which he would have to answer: 'there is no answer to that, for I only know that she is my love. The moment a lover can answer that objection he is eo ipso not a lover; and if a believer can answer that question he is eo ipso not a believer."

"Paganism never gets nearer the truth than Pilate: What is truth? And with that crucifies it."

"The idea of philosophy is mediation-Christianity's is the paradox."

"A man who cannot seduce men cannot save them either."

From "Philosophical Fragments"
"One cannot seek for what he knows, and it seems equally impossible to seek for what one does not know."

From "Postscript"

"But who is this systematic thinker? Aye, it is he who is outside of existence and yet in existence, who is in his eternity forever complete, and yet includes all existence within himself-it is God."

"And the principle that not only he is in want who desires something he does not have, but also he who desires the continued possession of what he already has."

"If a dancer could leap very high, we should admire him. But if he tried to give the impression that he could fly, let laughter single him out for suitable punishment, even though it might be true that he could leap as high as any dancer ever had done. Leaping is the accomplishment of a being essentially earthly, one who respects the earth's gravitational force, since the leaping is only momentary. But flying carries a suggestion of being emancipated from telluric conditions, a privilege reserved for winged creatures, and perhaps also shared by the inhabitants of the moon-and there perhaps the System will first find its true readers [lunatics]."

"On the contrary, the subjective acceptance is precisely the decisive factor; and an objective acceptance of Christianity is Paganism or thoughtlessness."

"In this way Christianity protests every form of objectivity. It desires that the subject should be infinitely concerned about himself."

"Devoutness inheres in subjectivity, nobody ever becomes devout objectively."

"If one who lives in the midst of Christianity goes up to the house of God, the house of the true God, with the true conception of God in his knowledge, and prays, but prays in a false spirit; and one who lives in an idolatrous community prays with the entire passion of the infinite, although his eyes rest upon the image of an idol: where is there most truth? The one prays in truth to God through he worships an idol; the other prays falsely to the true God, and hence worships in fact an idol."

"In the case of a mathematical proposition the objectivity is given, but for this reason the truth of such a proposition is also an indifferent truth. But the above definition of truth is an equivalent expression for faith. Without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe."

"The eternal truth has come into being in time: this is the paradox"

"For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith; the more objective security, the less inwardness (for inwardness is precisely subjectivity), and the less objective security, the more profound the possible inwardness."

"The absurd is precisely by its objective repulsion the measure of the intensity of faith in inwardness. Suppose a man who wishes to acquire faith; let the comedy begin. He wishes to have faith, but he wishes also to safeguard himself by means of an objective inquiry and its approximation-process. What happens? With the help of the approximation-process the absurd becomes something different: it becomes probable, it becomes increasingly probable, it becomes extremely and emphatically probable. Now he is ready to believe it, and he ventures to claim for himself that he does not believe as shoemakers and tailors and simple folk believe, but only after long deliberation. Now he is ready to believe it; and lo, now it has become precisely impossible to believe it. Anything that is almost probable, or probable, or extremely and emphatically probable, is something he can almost know, or as good as know, or extremely and emphatically almost know-but it is impossible to believe. For the absurd is the object of faith, and the only object that can be believed."

"Christianity is no doctrine concerning the unity of the divine and the human, or concerning the identity of the subject and object; nor is it any other of the logical transcriptions of Christianity. If Christianity were a doctrine, the relationship to it would not be one of faith, for only an intellectual type of relationship can correspond to a doctrine. The realm of faith is thus not a class for numskulls in the sphere of the intellectual, or an asylum for the feeble-minded. Faith constitutes a sphere all by itself, and every misunderstanding of Christianity may at once be recognized by its transforming it into a doctrine, transferring it to the sphere of the intellectual. The maximum of attainment within the sphere of the intellectual, namely, to become completely indifferent as to the reality of the teacher, is in the sphere of faith at the opposite end of the scale. The maximum of attainment within the sphere of faith is to become infinitely interested in the reality of the teacher..."

"Neither the bird in its cage, nor the fish on the shore, nor the invalid on his sickbed, nor the prisoner in the narrowest cell, is so confined as he who is imprisoned in the conception of God; for just as God is omnipresent, so the imprisoning conception is also everywhere and in every moment."

"Humility. What sort of humility? The humility that frankly admits its human lowliness with humble cheerfulness before God, trusting that God knows all this better than man himself."

"Passion and reflection are generally exclusive of one another...even he who is lost through passion has not lost as much as he who lost passion, for the former had the possibility."

"He who with quiet introspection is honest before God and concerned for himself, God saves from being in error, through he be never so simple, him God leads by the suffering of inwardness to the truth. But meddlesomeness and noise are signs of error, and signs of an abnormal condition, like wind in the stomach."

From "Training in Christianity"

"In an impermissible and unlawful way people have become knowing about Christ, for the only permissible way is to be believing."

"By degrees, as this came to be accounted wisdom, all pith and vigor was distilled out of Christianity; the tension of the paradox was relaxed, one became a Christian without noticing it, and without in the least noticing the possibility of offense. One took possession of Christ's doctrine, turned it about and pared it down, while He of course remained surety for its truth, He whose life had such stupendous results in history. All became as simple as thrusting a foot into the stocking. And quite naturally, because in that way Christianity became paganism."

"Talent is to be ranked according to the sensation it produces; Genius according to the opposition it arouses (religious character according to the scandal it gives)."

From "Attack on Christendom"

"'Grace' cannot possibly stretch so far, one thing it must never be used for, it must never be used to suppress or to diminish the requirement; for in that case "grace" would turn Christianity upside down."

"But gradually the human race came to itself and, shrewd as it is, it saw that to do away with Christianity by force was not practicable--'So let us do it by cunning,' they said. 'We are all Christians, and so Christianity is eo ipso abolished.'"

"In the magnificent cathedral the Honorable and Right Reverend, the elect favorite of the fashionable world, appears before an elect company and preaches with emotion upon the text he himself choose: 'God hath chosen the base things of the world, and the things that are despised.' And nobody laughs."

"Wherever there is a cause to be promoted, an undertaking to be carried out, an idea to be introduced--one can always be sure that when he who really is the man for it, the right man, who in a higher sense has and must have command, he who has seriousness and can give to the cause the seriousness it truly has--one can always be sure that when he comes to the spot, he will find there before him a genial company of twaddlers who, under the name of seriousness, lie around and bungle things by wanting to serve the cause, promote the undertaking, introduce the idea; a company of twaddle’s who of course regard the fact that the person in question will not make common cause with them (precisely indicating his seriousness) as a certain proof that he lacks

"Up comes a priest, a priest who jumps up whenever he sees a five-dollar bill. And thereupon the priest celebrates the Holy Communion, from which the tradesman, or rather both tradesmen (both he priest and the business man) return home to their customary way of life, only that one of them (the priest) cannot be said to return home to his customary way of life, for in fact he had never left it, but rather had been functioning as a tradesman."

[About Priests] "Their whole business is based upon living off the fact that others are sacrificed; their Christianity is to receive sacrifices. If it were proposed to them that they themselves should be sacrificed, they would regard it as a strange and unchristian demand, conflicting violently with the wholesome doctrine of the New Testament, which they would prove with such colossal learning that the span of life of no individual man would suffice for studying all this through."

"The fact that one believes can be proved in only one way: by being willing to suffer for one's faith. And the degree of one's faith is proved only by the degree of one's willingness to suffer for one's faith."

"No, the proof that something is truth from the willingness to suffer for it can only be advanced by one who himself is willing to suffer for it. The priest's "proof"- proving the truth of Christianity by the fact that he takes money for it, profits by, lives off of, being steadily promoted, with a family, lives off of the fact that others have suffered--is a self contradiction; Christianly regarded, it is fraud."

"Thou plain man! The Christianity of the New Testament is infinitely high; but observe that it is not high in such a sense that it has to do with the difference between man and man with respect to intellectual capacity, etc. No, it is for all. Everyone, absolutely everyone, if he absolutely wills it, if he will absolutely hate himself, will absolutely put up with everything, suffer everything--then is this infinite height attainable to him." seriousness! I say, when the right man comes he will find things thus."

The Last Word

2008-11-04T19:20:00.000-08:00

Christianity is changing with the world, and while change for many of us is scary, its something that we should be used to by now, and almost always realize is for the better.

I believe in a Christianity that is fused into the red letters of Jesus, that is slow to anger and quick to listen, that is humble and genuine and so focused on saving the very least of these, that it is often mistaken to be a tribe of drunkards and sinners as it is so often seen anywhere these sorts can be found. I believe in a Christianity that unites the many denominations, the many unique attributes and theologies that color the cells of this body, into one glorious tapestry of complexity, sincerity, and unity. I believe that the best of our faith, the most remarkable things we will accomplish in our King's name, are yet to come. I believe in hope.

I think Christianity has cornered itself with the emphasis we have always put on our thoughts, and so little put on our actions. The treachery of the Reformation cut deep wounds that made us afraid to do things that align with our faith, despite Jesus clearly commanding them. So entrenched in our theological warfare, that we consciously chose to ignore our King, for no other reason than he seemed to align with our enemies.

Modernity has taught me that "truth" is something tentative at best. Consider the "truth" of Journalistic objectivity, where no two people can agree on any one stated "fact" entirely dependent on which network it was gleaned from. There are countless other examples, especially in theology, which have lead me to conclude that while "Absolute" truth exists, we are far from capable of attaining it, or discerning it in any potent portion. The entirety of our faith is dependent upon our feebleness at the feet of a Father, who must become truth so that we may, in our finitude, come to know it. That truth was Jesus Christ.

For me, there is a new world ahead. A world where Abortion, Gay marriage, and anti-intelligence no longer color the "Christian Worldview". A world where we can be open about our doubts, and even more open about our convictions. A world where a Christian isn't so named for what he thinks, but for what he is- heart, soul, and mind. A world where the enemy is no longer "them", and the hero "us", but instead we see both the villain and the victor in ourselves.

Obama won today, and I made a concious choice to vote for him. The most vehement opposition I faced about my selection was from Christians, who were convinced that I was supporting either the anti-Christ, or that I had no faith at all. For me, in a special sort of way, Obama's victory is my victory. Tomorrow I will return to those same red, angry faces that were apalled at my choice, and they will likely mourn their great loss, and the impending doom of their republic, but I choose to celebrate the creation of something new. I cannot support a government where Christians are the decision makers, and exist only to promote and extend their own existence. Instead, I saw in Obama a chance to still obey scripture (caring for the poor, extending peace to your enemies) while taking a chance of breaking away from the party that claimed to own my faith. It was for me, a bold step toward independence, and toward realizing who I am, and who God has called me to be.

Thank you to the many who were my conversation partners in this theological, and political experiment. All you who challenged my views, supported my views, or merely respected my views. But to no other person can go greater thanks than to my Dad. In his mind he vehemently opposed my decision to support Barack, but refused to lose his son to ideas and jargon, nor stiffle my growth with an overbearing fathertude. He showed me what Christianity should be- a family, even with strident differences at almost every turn, still, a family that refuses to shun, harm, or neglect one another. His love for me exceeded his certainty that he was right, his compassion for his child overwhelmed the scorn of his judgement, and the dissapointment of his son's naivete. Love overpowered his highest confidences, and left him humbly offering his son a chance to be his own man. It reminds me of what Tertullian said, when he observed how Romans saw the Christians they were killing, "...but look how they love one another."

For me this election has been a process of becoming. Not becoming liberal or democrat, I'm honestly neither, but to become something entirely new, a new kind of Christian, evolved for just such a time as this. The journey isn't over, it never is, but I see now a special calling toward something God would like accomplished in my generation.

"Let us hope that the present and wasteful divisions among us are a disease of infancy. Never forget that we are the early Christians."
-C.S. Lewis

Fake Plants

2008-11-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

I live in Nevada, an arid, dead, dusty, scorched, wasteland. A place where there is so little natural life, that its entirely likely nuclear waste will soon be stored here, in our endless desert of rocks and dirt. I was sitting on my porch today, reading a book, when I paused to think about what I was reading and reflect a little. I looked around and saw no less than 4 plants decorating my patio, a cherry tree off to the corner, several plants in baskets lining a small black shelf. I thought for a second at how plastic they were, how they were nice to look at, but provided no oxygen, no reality. Over the wall of my patio I saw a few pine trees, planted in my apartment complex to impress visitors into moving in. I thought about how much more real these were than my small, eternally lifeless decorations. However, just as soon as I had thought that, I realized that even these trees, and the grass that surrounded them, were fake. They didn't grow naturally in the low desert of Las Vegas, they had been planted there. Then meticulously and consistently the environment they were planted in manipulated so they could survive. Constantly they were dying and withering away, entire new patches of grass laid down to replace the uprooted brown eye-sores that had either burnt under the summer sun, or dried in the parched winter winds.

I started to think about what constitutes a "real" plant. My plastic patio plants didn't make the cut, nor dd the forced trees and grass that outlined my apartment building. I wondered at how people use plants to decorate, how we can manufacture nature into a pattern, into a place it doesn't belong. Grass and trees in the desert, gardens behind glass, planted on concrete. Even gardens, though beautiful and soothing, are not in many senses "real". They are the intended design of a gardener, of a person who professionally plants things where they would not have naturally occurred, in an order not observable in the natural world. Pruned and perfect, pleasing to the passer-by.

I think many of our churches are little more than the same. New plants are often fake and plastic, only trying to establish a brand and become a decoration for their members, having a building and a purpose, pretty walls and moving music. Other plants are manipulated and gardened. They may be semi-natural in that they are not so fake as their buisiness minded cousins, but they are far from real since they only follow the statistical instructions of seeker-sensitive how to's, or guide book outlines. They follow the steps precisely, and hope to establish some sort of forced presence where they would not have naturally grown, through landscaping they change their fragile climate to better suit their presence. Or worse, they try to only draw into themselves the resources they need to grow, and leave the rest of their environment, the poor, the minorities, the un-Christian, to rot in the desert sun. Gardens-pretty but unnatural, forced into a place against nature's will.

I have always found forests more moving, more awe-inspiring, more peaceful, than any other place. My patio's plastic plants offer me little solace when I think of how lifeless they are. The garden and landscaped world just outside my appartment seems forced and unnatural, only a reminder how little such things matter in a desert world. But forests are so powerful, so overwhelming. They have done naturally what thousands of gardeners over eons of effort could never do. They have created an eco system, a conglammeration of plants, all living and working together to create something beautiful, something powerful, something life giving. Oxygen comes from places such as these, and so does a rich scent of bio-harmony. Forests are the antithesis of gardens, which are carved out of lifelessness, and plastic plants, which are fake to begin with.

So I wonder what a church could learn from these three examples of "plants". One way of missing the point in my illustration would be to assume I mean that planting is easiest amongst friends, in places of Christian stronghold. Thats not what I mean. I mean to question the reality of garden plants, which can only exist to continue their own limited existence, and plastic plants, which are little more than decoration and exist to give us the feel-goods. It seems to me that there is something existential, something real about the forest, or the trees that run up and down non-desert states. They don't exist to exist, they don't exist to be looked at, they exist to give life, they were planted by God himself.

I'm starting to wonder if the best laid plans of mice and men aren't thwarted by God's own expansion project. If our attempts at gardening our plants into existence aren't mistakes to begin with. If our attempts to plant mere frauds to decorate the area aren't blasphemies. What if planting a church God's way meant letting Him plant it, whatever that means, where-ever that takes you. What if relying on the Holy Spirit meant you put as little effort as possible, a concious and difficult choice for the enterprising church planter, into the preparations and manipulations of the landscape, or themself, to ensure their existence. Sometimes I think we choke ourselves with so much preparation or manipulation of people and resources, instead of letting God handle it all. We think that plants won't occur without our gardens and our plastics, but we forget that the forests have been here forever, and somehow without our interference thrive. Sometimes I think our best efforts only get in the way of what God intends to do.

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matthew 6:25-34

Emerging Church Conference

2008-10-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

I got an email today telling me that there was soon to be an Emerging Church Conference in Albuquerque New Mexico.

One question: Who's going with me?

I voted

2008-10-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

I want to say a few things out loud, I will be brief, and I will leave it all here on the table.

First Im terrified of how closely faith and politics have intermingled in the last few decades. It kills me to see political figures "controlling" the Body of Christ, it conjures images of a marionette and a puppet master. I agree with Kierkegaard who said that Christians, by the very nature of their faith, are always in revolution, and cannot be controlled or contained by any person, or group of people. He called the result of that control "Christendom", and accused it of being a cooled down solid, instead of the white hot magma of Kingdom change Chrisitans are called to be. I refuse to surrender to any political party, person, or issue, and believe strongly that Christians are called to be a fire that dissolves the evil in this world, and cannot ever be controlled, not by a pope, not by a president. We are an unstoppable rebel force, and should never be caged by the ideas or convinctions of any small segment.

Second I think presidential elections do little to institute real change. I get that the Obama campaign's slogan is probably little more than that. I get that after the $700 Billion bailout, we have no chance of seing much of the social reform take place that he promised back in September. I see the slogans of both candidates, and really don't put much stock in them. My voting issue wasn't race, it wasn't age, it wasn't parties, it wasn't presence, it wasn't intelligence. Honestly my issue is just the poor, and the war. I think Obama takes the poor seriously, and I think his heart aches for the war casualities. I think McCain does too, but I also know there is still a chance he won't follow through with providing refuge on either of those issues, because of the constituency he serves, and the neo-con values of premptive strike, and small fiscal government. I see a good heart in McCain, and he would make an impressive leader. But I voted for Obama, because I feel like he can't walk away from those two major tenets of his platform, and his constituents will eat him alive if he does.

Part of me voted out of spite, and I'm a liar if I don't admit it. In 2004 I campaigned for George Bush, in the second closest election of all time, I fought for Bush in a battle ground state, making calls, going door to door, manning booths. I did it because I felt like my faith depended on it, I was made to believe that Bush wasn't the Republican candidate, he was the Christian candidate, and the other guy wanted to weed out Christian values forever. So I fought for Christ, and to my shame, watched with a smile as a President who ushered in death again took office. I was tricked I feel. More abortions than ever before have happened in the last 8 years, despite having the most conservative president in modern history. War casualities pile up, but we can't even begin to count the piles of bodies in other countries, or men, women and children we have killed in the name of freedom. My cousin is in the army, and in his 3rd tour in Iraq, and he hates himself, and our country now, for what we have done to the people "over there".

I felt lied to over the last four years, as I watched decision after decision happen with no reflection on scripture, or "what Jesus would do". I felt like I had been duped, and my faith used to deceive me for political purposes. I am quick to forgive the people who did that, and I am very thankful that McCain didn't take his campaign that far this time around, since he himself spoke out against that sort of thing in 2000. But I want the Republicans to see me, a guy who fought hard for them in a key state, who really resents the way they treated my sacred loyalty to Jesus, as if it was something they could direct on a whim. I don't want that to happen ever again, and I'm still ashamed for what I did in 2004. This vote, in a small way, is me saying "I'm sorry" to Jesus, though I know he doesn't endorse a candidate. Voting the other way this time is me freeing myself of any remaining shackle that a political institution may have on my faith.

Third I want to see "emergent" Christianity become something, and I mean now. I caught some of the "change we can believe in" riot over the last year, and a little bit of that "revolution" bug got into my system. Regardless of how much bull it all is, I liked that feeling, and I only remember feeling it once before: when I first read "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren. Emergent Chrisitanity has been on the verge for over a decade, the brightest lights in it are starting to become old hat, or maybe just old (no offense), and I don't see them passing on their torches, or raising up new leaders in a recognizable way. Yes they are publishing books, yes they are helping others to do so, but something more needs to happen. We cannot ever be satisfied with what we are doing. Some say that we need to slow down, that we dont want to "get ahead of God". My friends if we are right about the Kingdom values of God, and right about our critique of modern Chrisitanity, we are so far behind God that we can sprint the rest of our lives and never catch up. My heart burns to move forward! I feel a divine adrenaline pumping through me, begging me to use what energy has been given and grow a new and vibrant form of Chrisitanity, one that can be relevant to the world of today, and promise a better future to the world of tomorrow. I'm tired of sitting on my hands waiting for these ideas to come of age.

Maybe all this only points to myself. Perhaps I shouldn't be waiting for Tony Jones and Brian McLaren to sound some sort of trumpet, but perhaps I should be making moves here in Vegas. I don't know to be honest, but I do know that a while ago we put to vote what we would have Emergent become in 2009. I want to know the results of that vote. I want to know what is coming next.

The Great Emergence- Almost done

2008-10-13T22:37:00.001-07:00

Im really thankful for this book, as it is now putting into perspective some of the things I have observed happening in Christianity. I still wish it hadn't (in my opinion) wasted so many chapters on recapping a scavenger hunt of happen-stance in efforts to cast validity on whats going on, but Im thankful that its starting to get to the point.

Im at the part where Tickle is using a four part quardrant to define North American Christianity, and has laid over that a crucifix type image of four ovals. In the middle she created swirling circles, on the outside corners she created darkened triangles, and in dashed concentric circles she created four spheres of emergence.

This is all getting a bit exciting as I read on, and I hope that everything comes to a head somewhere. But I want to observe some things (and maybe Tickle will cover these- or conspicuosly ignore them) that I am thinking about already.

1) The other "Greats" that occur every 500 years are centralized around definition. In the Schism it was one side, defined against the other. In the Reformation it was one side, defined against the other. Lines are drawn, and that is where the revolution comes out of. I notice that the only real "line" drawn in todays world is "Liberal" and "Conservative". Emergent writers often claim that emergence is the "third way" between them, and I think we are all hopeful that it is, but without definitions one cannot easily see how emergence makes its claim a reality. What we may see with the rumbling of the next "Great" epoch, may just be the final division of Liberal and Conservative Christianity. What if Emergence is just a break-away from "Evangelical-Conservatives" toward the left? Its difficult to counter that idea with more than anecdotal support when Emergence cannot be defined with any actual beliefs.

2) If we reject my first thought, then we confess that "emergence" which Tickle says isn't really named yet, is a reality and will soon solidify into a coherent body that challenges the status quo. The way Christianity did Judaism, the way Gregory did the Papal office, the way Eastern Orthodox did the Western Church, the way Protestants did the Catholics. So this new body must soon become real, and not only theory. At some point somebody has to nail something to a door somewhere, or fire that shot heard round the world. My question is this: Can somebody point to the frame of this body? More than ecumenism, more than rejection of modern frameworks. What the hell are we? Tickle only at the end of her book admits the reality of "postmodernity", which is awkward because for me, Postmodernity has been THE rallying cry of the Emergent Church. We reject Left and Right because we are beyond the modern framework- everything gets reinvisioned. But if thats who we are, why aren't we standing for it? Is it because "standing" is a modern idea, or because seeing emergence as rooted in postmodernity is really missing the point, and Tickle's methodical history of religious explosion is more the real describer of what this is?

In short- What defines us? And the answer "we are defined by a lack of definition" thing is really getting old fast. No revolution started from the "know nothing" party. We can't really take ourselves seriously when we only dress ourselves in invisible clothes-eventually everybody realizes your really just naked (and not in a good way, in a silly way).

And please don't give me a "thats the point" referendum. Nor any "you just dont get it" line. I ache when books like this get published and we all bristle to read them and find out who the hell it is we are, only to read that we need to establish that for ourselves. At some point something happens- somebody tell me what, somebody tell me who.

2 steps back...

2008-10-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

I'm not fond of saying "I told you so"...but...

October Surprise

Further there was the Charlie Gibson incident, and the Katie Couric incident.

Then the Tina Fey mockeries.

The week McCain chose Sarah Palin for his Vice President, I had made some serious comments about how I thought that would effect women in politics. I felt she was unready, I felt she was not vetted, I felt she was two-steps back from Hillary's one step forward.

In short, I was right.

Give me Liberty or give me Freedom

2008-10-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Click Here to hear news story that inspired this post.

Liberty University of Virginia (my alma mater) is rallying its troops for the fight of a life-time. Its goal? To be the first University to be the deciding factor in a presidential election.

Virginia is a battle-ground state, and Liberty is a power-center of College students who are almost all voting republican. Liberty has decided to cancel classes on November 4th, and register every student living on campus, to ensure that Virginia remains red.

I have very strong convictions about the irony in all this. Eight years ago McCain gave a dilly of a speech that struck down Jerry Falwell (who founded Liberty) and Pat Robertson for mobilizing the religious of the right to interplay politics and faith. Sure it was at a time when they were painfully criticizing him and protecting George W. in the primary, but McCain had made some solid points about where he saw that sort of thing going.

Liberty's position in this election is just another symptom of something much larger, something that I think threatens the body of Christ. First it was the Moral Majority, then it was Pastors punditting from the pulpit, now its Christian Universities deciding presidential elections. I'm worried that Christianity may have made an unholy alliance with politicians.

I recognize that Brian McLaren has seen fit to use his celebrity to endorse Obama for 08. I recognize that he is not a Pastor anymore, vocationally, and that he is just being an activist. But what I am seeing isn't so much the tragedy of Christians taking political sides, as it is the now political definition of what a Christian is or should be. Whether its McLaren and Miller for Obama, or the late Falwell or Robertson for McCain- what is really happening is that arguments are being made from each side that a person who is following Christ will incorporate certain principles (shared by their candidate) which exemplify a Christian.

What bothers me about this is that we, as emergents, are supposed to be leaving alot of this behind, not just taking the other side. We are supposed to be ecumenical, and the response to 500 years of denominationalism and Christian definitional nuance. But I fear that we may only be playing into the moment, only fueling the fire. We are letting ourselves and our Christ be defined by party platforms, or we are showing how one candidate is more Christian than the other. This is a failure on our part, and I wonder what it looks like to ditch this attempt entirely.

What would it look like if a new kind of Christianity emerged that didn't play the political game. What would it look like if they worshiped God by abstaining from mere human ambitions. I get that part of emergence is being socially concerned and actively pursuing good, but shouldn't that stop short of lobbying for politicians and openly endorsing candidates?

What Liberty is doing isn't wrong, its the norm. And instead of standing up to this sort of thing and laying down our power of persuasion in the hope for a better future, absent of religio-politico corruption and ambition, we have only drawn our swords and taken up with the other side. How are we any different? We are deluded by the same lie: that we can harness the political machine to build an express way to God's Kingdom, and to accomplish God's goals. While that is, sometimes, and only partially, true- it is much more often vociferously false.

I think that if Dan Poole and Dr. Oliver were discussing this it would look like this:

Dan would draw a line in the sand and note how alot of Christians are on one side or the other in politics. He would ask which are really pursuing the Kingdom of God, which had the correct values from scripture: pro-life or social justice; fighting tyranny or healing the terrorized; preventing war by using it, or delaying war with diplomacy? Poole would look to Neo with moist, confused eyes. since politics had become so much apart of his modern faith. A good Christian, Dan would think, votes as God would have him do. 200 years of American democracy has taught us that about our faith. "So which is it?" Dan would ask. "Which side and which issues?"

Neo would shake his head and wave his hand above the line in the sand. "Its up here Dan", the good doctor would say, "its not about left or right, this guy or that guy. God is above man's politics. A new kind of Christian should not submit faith to elections, nor allow the journey to be defined by pundits and perspectives. These are modern fixtures in our thinking. Instead we should look beyond the next four years to the next four-thousand- not where our politics and politicians will be, but where will the Kingdom of God in the hearts and minds of men be? Modernity went hand in hand with democracy, because democracy was the invention of the rational mind. But as we have discussed, God is beyond logic, beyond reason. His ways are higher than ours, and so the way of the cross is not on either side of the line, but hovering above it. A new way, for a new Christian."

Dan would swing a stick wildly and swear in-between gasps. Its impossible for some to cut from their faith, especially those who have an active faith, the political promise for a different world. But as Neo would know even as he dodged the angry stick, Christians and politics are awkward bedfellows. In the pre-modern era we saw Religion use Politics for gain. Then the moderns through their enlightened sense of reason untangled the two, and allowed them to exist separately but supplementally, but it was naive because one always will bleed into the other. In the postmodern world, it shouldn't be the re-entangling of politics and religion, that's a regression. It should be the transcending of the two, a new way, a higher way.

When we will show the world a new way? When will we emerge from this fiddle-faddle of religio-politico hang-ups? Will we ask to be like Liberty, only peddling our politics along side our faith? Only in-grouping and out-grouping, who is with us, who is against us? How do we rise above what we did in the modern-matrix? This is the question: How do we free our minds from that matrix? Freedom from religio-politico hybrids, hell-bent on seeing the world become as they want it to be?

Or maybe I'm missing the point about all this.

The Great Emergence with Phyllis Tickle

2008-10-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

I have read a third of the book so far, all in one sitting, and feel that it doesn't measure up to the hype. I get that its all supposed to be one big history lesson, and is supposed to make the case that what is happening now with Emergent is really the eruption of Christianity that occurs every 500 years. I think that argument is a little weak, and baseless besides the trend that something important happens in every 5th decade. I've heard similar claims concerning generations (every 14 generations or whatever) that are equally baseless, and left almost entirely to imaginative speculation.

I may change my tune as I finish the book, but so far I am unimpressed. If anybody really wants a good read that considers what the calamity of Emergence is and where it indeed comes from, I would read Carl Raschke's "The Next Reformation: Why Evangelicals Must Embrace Postmodernity" (pictured below).

Sticks and Stones

2008-10-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

When I first came to Christ, I did so with a longing to be forgiven. I was told that Christ spoke the language of mercy, and could give me a life of grace. So I stepped over and entered the kingdom. I embraced my new life, and threw the old one away. Sometimes I would stumble and fall a little as I took my first steps, but my brothers and sisters would pick me up and brush me off. Sometimes they were stern with me. Other times they politely looked the other way until I got myself cleaned up, so I wouldn't feel judged. I'm thankful for both.

I'm even more thankful that nobody judged me before I became a Christian. Nobody chased me down for not knowing the principles and commands of Jesus. Nobody made me feel ugly or unloved. If they had, I may not be here right now. I'm one of the fortunate ones I think. You see today we have forgotten the teachings of our scriptures, our disciples and even our Christ. We persecute and chastise the people in this world not blessed by the blood of Jesus. We criticize and push down those who do not see the light, and struggle blindly in the darkness. We cast stones at the blind. Today we haunt the minds of the lost with a perforating roar of anger. We are fierce , and we are frightening. We hunt them like lions. We shred them like sharks. We are the moral citizens of heaven, sent as an onslaught of righteousness to capsize the sinking ships around us.

Where did we learn this creed, frantically punching holes in others boats? Not from Jesus- He didn't need one. He told us to love the people who weren't in the church. To extend grace and mercy. That they would know Him through us, by our love for them. The picture the world was supposed to get of Christ was to be an endearing foot-washer who desperately desired them. They were supposed to feel loved, affirmed, welcomed and sought. Christ was the guy who sat at a sinners table and talked about life with them. Today, I fear they see Jesus as an angry and vengeful tyrant, who has already picked His favorites, and hates everybody else. And he orchestrates that through the cruel and oppressing Christian kingdom. They hear us chant “turn or burn”, but its not hell's flames that the world fears, its our fiery insults and judgment.

The thing we were taught as kids was “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. I think we all believed this for a time. But eventually we learned that we'd prefer a temporary broken bone and bleeding, to the seething lacerations that fall on our spirits from broken relationships and hurtful words. James wrote that the tongue is ”a world of evil” and that it is “set on fire by hell”. He points out that all the sticks and stones in the forest are consumed by just a single flame. The tongue is that struck match that frees hell on earth. Much opposed to what I learned as a child, I know I would welcome a stick or stone, over a hell-fire tongue.

Today our tongues run amok. We constantly burn the people of this world with our words and judgment. We leave lasting scars on their hearts when we speak to them the way we do. When we call out our judgment on them, we cast the very stones that were meant for us. Somehow that doesn't feel like what Jesus would do. I think we all have read of when Jesus happened upon a public execution of a worldly woman. He pointed out the iniquity of the judges, and they dropped their stones in shame and left. Nobody was fit to cast stones into world but Jesus, and instead he opened his palm and pierced it with a nail. Then he told us to love each other so people would know we belonged to Him, because of our love. Shame on us for who we are today: a loveless, self righteous, bigoted community who is more concerned with changing the world than saving it.

I think the problem came when we got confused by something Paul said. Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 5 that the church should hold one another accountable to obedience. And if a person within the church was living in a perpetually sinful way, it could corrupt the whole church so we need to ask them to leave and be stern with them. So sin cannot abide in the body of Christ. However, here is what Paul says in those same verses about the people who do not yet know Christ: “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? God will judge the world”(v 12-13). Paul only reaffirms what we saw with Jesus and the stones; nobody but God is adequate to judge the world. Somehow we've missed this. We've gotten so caught up in the blinding light of the life we've obtained that we forgot what it was like to be unsaved. How intimidating Christians can be, how much of a majority their principles and values are in this country. Believers don't see things the way they can appear to an unsaved person. Because of that, and our very strident view of things, we will rarely shepherd non-believers into faith in Jesus. We're too busy antagonizing them if they are homosexuals, rebuking them if they are pro-choice, ignoring them if they are atheists, and fighting them if they are Islamic. These people are so busy running from us that they are unlikely to turn around even if we did have open arms for them. But still, open arms is a start. Just not enough to get us where we should be biblically.

For too long we have been casting verbal stones of judgment at our worldly neighbors without a second thought. We burn them with our fiery tongues and never look back to see the ashes we've left them in. To me, thats amazing. Christians, who try to live transparently, hurling insults all over the world while they themselves live in a glass house. We wonder why people think we're hypocrites! Isn't this exactly what the Pharisees did so long ago? They were morally in the safe zone by following God so they criticized and ostracized everybody else, whom they called “sinners”. Today, I fear we are no different. And our neighbors, who we are supposed to be loving on, are fleeing from us because they are tired of us! Tired of our attacks and our “holier than thou” rhetoric. Tired of only being a stones throw away.

I think the bible told us to hold each other accountable, but to love the world with blindness. Which is pretty smart if you think about it, because why would people want to obey Christ, if they didn't love or trust Him? Its especially hard for this to happen when we are so busy calling those people names and telling them we don't like them. How can they know Christ's love if they only see our anger? Before they will want to obey Christ, I think they need to know Christ. And before we can hold them accountable, we may just need to hold them. They have a lot of scars that need healing, and there are a lot of fires our tongues have started that we need to put out. Its time for us to drop our sticks and stones, and pierce our hands. I think its what Christ wanted, I think its what He did.

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. This is my command: Love each other.”

-Christ. (John 15:12,13,17)

What is truth?

2008-09-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

I have been reading Soren Kierkegaard lately, or maybe he has been reading me. I am learning about how he viewed truth, and how he felt that any attempt to find "objective" truth, "absolute" truth, was a hilarious mistake in identity.

Kierkegaard thought it was the most comical thing ever, when a philosopher proposed some new system of figuring out truth; whether it was Hegel and his dialectic, or Descartes and his doubt. Kierkegaard laughed because each of these philosophers were trying to write as if they were the detached perspective, hovering in space. As if they were an alien, and merely showing up and diagnosing humanity, without having been tainted by their disease. How can a man, who is part of a culture, a tribe, a society, propose that he can leave all those things behind when he comes up with his system of truth? How can men serve us objective truth, with subjective hands?

Kierkegaard chuckles at this, and sighs as he sinks back into his chair. The only real truth holder, says he, is God almighty. God is the only thing absurd enough for us to believe. At first that seems a little derogatory, God being absurd and all, but Soren meant it as a compliment. Jesus, able to be a man born of Mary, and yet the Son of God, is a paradox, a flagrant offense to logic and reason. Its impossible for a man to be God, or for one God to be three people, or for everything to come from nothing: ex nihilo. But where most Christians reach for their erector sets to delicately explain how this is not an offense to the mind, Kierkegaard screams from the rooftops that it is, and it must be. He says these paradoxes are absurd, they render logic impotent, which is exactly why they must be believed.

Truth, for most of us, is what we can see touch hear smell and taste. Too often, we try to make God fit those criteria so we can help others believe, but Kierkegaard says we do them a disservice. He says the only thing that honors God, the only thing He really wants, is for us to take a blind leap, and trust. Like Abraham did when he held a knife to his son's throat, the way Peter did when he stepped out of the boat. Logic, it seems, is the bridge many of us build so we don't have to leap as far. We try to rationalize and consider the probability of it all being true, and so shorten the gap. But this only hurts us, when finally we cannot find the fortitude, the faith, to "leap" even the few inches left that our bridge cannot cross. Our feet have grown accustomed to standing still, and have taken root. We are unbelievers when we try so hard to make sense of our faith, and we are blasphemers when we claim that all of it is "True".

That is a difficult thing to say, or let be said. Kierkegaard thinks that Truth isn't a perspective avaiable to any man, save one: the Son of the Living God. Jesus, then, is the only person who we can find absurd enough to have had Truth. The only person who's entire life violated logic and reason so much, that just as the storms of the sea, logic lay herself bare to him. All other men were born of men, but Jesus was born of God.

It is interesting that the Bible records a conversation about Truth. Jesus is being tried by Pilate, and Pilate is trying to find error in him. He asks Jesus if he claims to be a King, and Jesus responds telling him that he is a King, a King of Truth, and all those of truth hear his voice. Pilate shrugs and says "What is truth?". Irony, observes Kierkegaard, as Pilate was looking right at it when he asked.