Imago Dei

Christian Blogosphere

2007-03-21T10:29:00.000-06:00

So I can't use javascript at my new WP blog. Ugh. So I'm going to link to this post from over there.

I've joined a new group called "Christian Blogosphere."

Imago Dei has moved!

2007-03-06T15:20:00.000-07:00

Please visit the new home of Imago Dei, http://freeindeed.wordpress.com

After too many problems with Blogger, I decided to make the switch to WP. Please update your feeds and links accordingly!

New feed: http://freeindeed.wordpress.com/feed/

Blogger Hates Me (and everyone else)

2007-03-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

I am fully aware of the problems people are having in commenting. I reported it to Blogger last night and haven't heard back from them yet. The problems were also occuring when clicking on links to my previous posts.

*sigh*

The good news is that it seems to be fully functional this morning. Wonder how long it will stay that way.

Abortion is apparantly "a moral good"

2007-02-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

Some bloggers make me so mad I want to spit nails. Some women make me so mad I usually let a few 4 letter words fly (only in my head, of course). So what happens when it's a woman blogger who makes me mad?

Don't ask.

I can't believe that there are people out there like Amanda Marcotte. Amanda is one of the contributors to the Pandagon, and the author of this little gem here.

She takes the position that having an abortion (and she does clarify that she means the actual procedure, not just the right to have one) is a moral good because women are thinking of their own well-being and the well-being of their families when they make the decision to have one.

What about the well being of the baby whose life she's choosing to end?

It seems to me that having an abortion is, in most (not all) cases, an extremely selfish act.

She says:

Women who get abortions should be recognized as people who can accurately weigh their choices and make the most moral one.

Then she goes on to laud the unsung "heroes" - the men and women who perform the abortions.

There are really no words for this kind of woman.

Blogs that link here: Pursuing Holiness, Dumb Ox News, Right Voices, and Third World County.

I Am the Wretch the Song Refers To

2007-02-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

Amazing Grace opened on Friday, so of course I dragged my roommates along to see it that night.

I'm so glad I did. I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the audience - and their reaction at the end.

The story focuses on William Wilberforce's tireless effort to end the slave trade in England.

It's not an overtly Christian film, though it is clear that Wilberforce's faith drives what he does. At the beginning of the film, right after his conversion, he struggles with the direction his life should take. He's involved in politics already, but at this point he questions if he should remain there. He can't figure out if he should praise the Lord all the time or still work to make the world a better place. One of the greatest lines in the movie is when someone tells him, "I humbly suggest you do both."

I think that phrase was the catalyst behind all of the conviction I felt at watching this movie. Wilberforce had a dream; a dream to make the world a better place. I share that dream; I'm just too lazy to do anything about it.

Throughout the movie, I found myself wanting to do something worthwhile. I want to make a difference. Wilberforce labored for more than fifteen years before he saw the results of that work. But what a reward it was when he finally accomplished what he'd been working for!

I love the way Brent described his reaction to the movie and the convictions stirred in him:

The portrayal of William Wilberforce (and John Newton) convicted me personally of how little diligence I truly have in the Christian life. I claim allegiance to the kingdom of Christ yet fight so little for it. Instead, I try to smuggle my scraps of contraband sin in through the back door and pretend that they’re really not so bad. I hold my words when I know that I should speak because I don’t feel like a conflict that day or I pretend that sin isn’t really all that bad. At least my sin isn’t. After all, I’m still better than that guy over there.
Wilbeforce represents a life so gripped by the power of the Gospel that there is no choice but to act because even our dreams will convict us when we do not. Modern American Christians often worry about the perceived persecution we believe is coming our way, but we rarely stop to think that it could actually be more dangerous to the church if the persecution doesn’t come. We don’t live radical lives of faith because we feel as though we don’t have to.
Wilberforce stands as a larger-than-life reminder that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:14) and a rebuke that so few of us have the discipline or diligence to make a difference for the kingdom. Though we may argue that we don’t face such blatant societal evils as slavery, ceratinly abortion is no less hideous. How is it that so many of us are willing to do so little? Such was the case in Wilberforce’s day and we stand as testimony that there is indeed nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

I also loved John Newton's journey of faith throughout the movie. At this point, he's already written the well known hymn, but he's still unable to recount what he saw during his days as a slave trader. He laments that he lives with 20,000 ghosts. By the end of the movie, he can finally put together his "confession" and he utters one of the most profoundly simple lines:

Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly. I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.

A Very Special Graduation

2007-02-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Simpson's greatest dream was to graduate high school. After struggling with leukemia for nearly 4 years, doctors told the high school senior that she had weeks, or days, to live. So her high school, North Raleigh Christian Academy, held a special graduation ceremony for her on Friday, February 23rd.

Rebecca passed away that night.

Template

2007-02-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

I think it's time for a new template. I've had this one for a good 8 months or so, and as much as I love it, I want something fresh and new. Something to go along with this new season of freshness I feel with God.

I really don't want to go with a standard Blogger template.

I really don't want to pay a designer (been there, done that...although the designer I used didn't exactly design this template, she merely wrote the code for me).

So, does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone have enough html experience that if I "design" something you could put it in html for a template?

Worth Dying For

2007-02-21T21:57:00.001-07:00

I finished the book. I won't try and dissect it all in one post - Bell covers way too many topics. This post is about one particular section that really spoke to me - enough so that it brought tears to my eyes when I read it. I swear, he wrote this particular passage specifically for me.

You see, I've realized that I define my worth through the man I'm with. If a guy wants me, then I must be worth wanting. I feel special when he makes me feel special, and only when he makes me feel special. From Sex God, chapter six (emphasis mine):

Do you realize that you are worth dying for?

You don't need to give yourself away to someone who won't give himself to you. You don't need to use your body to get what you need. It's a cop out for not being a certain kind of woman - a woman of dignity and honor.

Some women only know how to relate to men by making a series of transactions. They want to be wanted, and the man wants, well, the man wants what lots of men want. So they trade. Essentially they strike a deal with men, time and time again.

I have what you want, and you have what I want, so let's make a deal. I need this, you need that.

Some women learn at an early age how to negotiate. They need to be loved, to be validated, to be worth something, and they discover that by giving a little of themselves to a boy, they get what what the need in return. It's a cycle, a pattern that can stay with them their entire lives.

Sex becomes a search. A search for something they're missing. A quest for the unconditional embrace. And so they go from relationship to relationship, looking for what they already have.

This search is about that need.

But sex is not the search for something that's missing. It's the expression of something that's been found. It's designed to be the overflow, the culmination of something that a man and a woman have found in each other. It's a celebration of this living, breathing thing that's happening between the two of them.

You don't need a man by your side to validate you as a woman. You already are loved and valued. You're good enough exactly as you are. Do you believe this? Because it's true? You have limitless worth and value. If you embrace this truth, it will affect every area of life, especially your relationship with men.

You are worth dying for.

Your worth does not come from your body, your mind, your work, what you produce, what you put out, how much money you make. Your worth does not come from whether or not you have a man. Your worth does not come from whether or not men notice you. You have inestimable worth that comes from your creator.

You will continue to be tempted in a thousand different ways not to believe this. The temptation will be to go searching for your worth and validity from places other than your creator.

Especially from men.

But you don't have to give yourself away to earn a man's love. You're better than that. You're already loved.

When you give too much of yourself away too quickly, when you show too much skin, you're not being true to yourself. When you dress to show us everything, then in some sense we have all shared in it, or at least been exposed to it. There is a mystery to you, infinite depth and endless complexity.

As the woman says in Song of Songs, "My own vineyard is mine to give." In the ancient Near East, a vineyard was a euphemism for sexuality. She is saying that she doesn't give herself to just anyone. She is fully in control of herself, and she is not cheap and she is not easy.

Your strength is a beautiful thing. And when you live in it, when you carry yourself with the honor and dignity that are yours, it forces the men around you to relate to you on more than just a flesh level.

You are worth dying for.

Those are the words that made me cry. I see myself in them. I've made bad choices because I wanted to feel loved and feel validated. I put my worth in something other than God. I still struggle with this. I don't know when I'll be able to change. It's not as easy as reading these words and flipping a switch in my brain. But it's a start.

Biblical Role of Women in Ministry

2007-02-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight has written an interesting post on how biblical our churches are in determining what a woman can and can't do.

The comments are even more interesting.

What is Love?

2007-02-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Rob Bell's new book Sex God and it's incredible. But I'll write a post about it when I'm finished with it. I came across a section that I couldn't wait to share though, so here's a sample:

Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don't want it. That's why it's such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn't wanted.
Love is giving away of power. When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they choose. They can do what they like with our love. They can reject it, they can accept it, they can step toward us in gratitude and appreciation.
Love is a giving away. When we love, we put ourselves out there, we expose ourselves, we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.
Love is giving up control. It's surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two-love and controlling power over the other person-are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.

A World Without America

2007-02-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

From 18 Doughty Street, a British, political, web-tv station:

World's Smallest Baby

2007-02-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing story. Little Amillia was barely bigger than a ballpoint pen when she was born at 9.5 inches long and only 10 ounces!

Mom lied about how far along she was in order to get the docs to work to save the baby.

The medical standard is not even to resuscitate a 22-week baby, so when Sonja Taylor knew she was going into labor in October after just 19 weeks, she lied about the baby's term.
Doctors worked to delay the birth, but nine days later, they had no choice but to perform an emergency C-section, thinking they were delivering a 23-week baby.

Way to go mom!

Hooray for Legalism!

2007-02-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Read some open letters to Legalism:

Dear Legalism,
Thank you for making my life easier. Boy, do I owe you one. Had I never met you, I would have been forced to thoughtfully engage people and their opinions and beliefs at every turn. But after reading your book, How to Think and What to Say You Believe, I always seem to have an answer for them. What a great book!
I have been seeking ways to try and simplify my life, and what your book showed me was that I needed to instead simplify my mind.
And it was so affordable too! All it cost was a regular monthly installment of any independently formulated thought I might have for as long as I live. It’s practically free!
Just the other day this guy at my work invited me to go and share a beer with him. Before reading your book I would have been bogged down with worries like, “I’d better be careful and drink responsibly.” But thanks to your book I got to tell my friend that I would not share a beer with him because I am a Christian, and I didn’t want to suffer an eternity of damnation and torment in hell-fires with him. Then I smiled and said I loved him and would be praying for him.
Everyone knows that alcoholism is an ugly destructive force in our world. Your book goes so far as to say that everyone who drinks beer or whatever also likes alcoholism and thinks it is good, and wants their kids to become alcoholics and drive drunk too.
Thanks legalism.
Thanks to you, I know that all pleasures are off limits. Since raging, irresponsible indulgence in pleasure can be just as destructive as wildfire, you showed me that enjoying pleasure responsibly is still playing with fire, and would be just as destructive to society as using fire responsibly.
So does that mean that fire is evil too? The book only references fire as a destination for people who disagree with us. Oh well. I suppose I should condemn it just to be safe.
And last winter I stopped sleeping with my wife, because I know that people who enjoy sex support rapists and AIDS and pregnant teens and abortion and sex slaves and child pornography and all of that.
She divorced me, but that’s OK, because I still have you, and you keep me safe.
I don’t listen to music anymore, either. Now I only listen to Turning Point.
Also, I’ve had all my taste buds scraped off my tongue.
Ok, well, I just thought you’d be interested in how I was doing, and I hope you are proud of me. Thanks for everything, I really owe you one.
Love,
Ben
—————-
Dear Legalism,
Sorry, I know it’s been a while since my last letter but I have some more questions for you.
You see, I’m a member of this church, right? And it’s a great church, and everybody there loves your book (or at least says so for fear of what might happen), and we scowl and hiss at people who do things you say are evil, and at people who don’t think like you tell us, or don’t vote like you tell us, or are just otherwise too different from the way you tell us to be.
But, the thing is, I recently won an argument (with your help, of course) against this guy who lives in my building, and all of his points were insane and didn’t make sense, and directly contradicted everything you told me to say I believe.
After the argument I asked him where he heard all those ridiculous ideas, and he said that he heard them in these four books called The Gospels of Jesus Christ, which is funny because that’s what you keep claiming to be based on.
So I started laughing and he left. But a few minutes later he came back with a copy of the Bible and opened up to those four books and started reading out of them and I saw pretty soon that they did, in fact, contradict most all of what you tell me.
I felt panic creeping over me, but then I got a good look at his Bible. Whereupon seeing that it was the wrong version, I knew at once he was a heretic, and scowled and hissed until he left again.
But the doubt had been planted and would not go away. Oh, dear sweet Legalism! This feeling of doubt was so new and frightening that, for the first time since reading your book, I wasn’t able to fall asleep that night. I wish I would have never allowed him to read out of that wretched book! I can see now why you warn us so emphatically about the fatal dangers of doubt.
In my torment I turned to my own Bible, one of an agreeable version, and began reading those four books. When I saw that the same passages existed in my own superior version as well, though they were phrased with far more exegetical sophistication. Once again, I started to panic.
So, with some serious misgivings, I went to church with my neighbor. Boy, was I surprised at what I found. The pastor preached straight out of those Gospel books, and everything he said made sense and was beautiful and profound, and he didn’t even once refer to your book, or accuse anyone of boiling in sulfur. It was the first worship service I had seen in a long time that didn’t end in at least one person gnashing their teeth.
Needless to say I was pretty confused when I left.
I guess what I’m getting at is that when I started reading the Gospels with an open mind, and actually listening to what Jesus said, things started to change. Now my parents scowl and hiss at me when I come over for dinner, my old friends won’t talk to me, everything I had devoted my life to began to crumble; namely, my devotion to you.
With that in mind, I am forwarding all the bills from my therapy and psychoanalysis sessions to you, and I would really appreciate it if you would cover them, since you are the one who makes Christians like me go voluntarily insane.
Also, I would really like my soul back.
Thanks for all the laughs!
Ben

I really don't think I need to add anything to this. It speaks pretty well for itself.

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)

2007-02-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

I have a new favorite song.

I doubt there's a single person in the United States who has never heard the song "Amazing Grace." Everyone at least knows the first verse.

Chris Tomlin has taken that song and added a new refrain/chorus to it.

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found
Was blind, but now I see

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures

He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, Who called me here below
Will be forever mine
Will be forever mine

You are forever mine

Chris Tomlin said, "I was doing some research on John Newton and the writing of the hymn, "Amazing Grace." John Newton wrote these lyrics as a poem for a sermon describing what God had done for him; that God had not only saved his soul, but also saved him from slave trading. That inspired me to write the simple refrain, "my chains are gone..." I also found it interesting that the familiar last verse, "when we've been there ten thousand years..." was not in the original, but added years later by another author. I have included in this version Newton's original last verse."

Today is the world premiere of the video. Watch it here.

Watch the trailer for the movie Amazing Grace.

Non-Christians go to Hell

2007-02-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

This is a great essay written by Ace (a nonbeliever, by the way) about how people who aren't Christian shouldn't get upset when a Christian says that unbelievers go to hell.

It's a fairly common claim in religions. It's as if atheists want to be credited as being "just as good Christians as anyone else." Well, see, they're not, because, like, they don't believe in Christ. That's sort of, um, central.
I know there are Christian churches that are, let us say, de-emphasizing this whole controversial "Christ" business. "No man enters Heaven but through me" is being rewritten into the more inclusive, "Hey, man, you want to believe in me? That's cool. But I'm just one of many ways, dude. Take your pick. I'm easy, brother."
I don't want to denigrate their religion just as I don't want to denigrate more, um, textually-faithful versions of Christianity. I will say though that I think there's an inherent amount of exclusionary rhetoric in all religions, and if you stop trying to be exclusionary, you're really not providing much of an incentive for folks to come to your churches. If the Episcopaleans now believe (I don't know this) that Christ is just one of a large number of possible ways to get into Heaven, well, then I guess I can just blow off religion entirely and hope I make it through in one of those less-demanding alternative-admissions programs.
[...]
But, getting back to that whole excusionary Jesus Saves thing: We seem to have an awful lot of people who don't believe in Hell, and think Christianity is bunkum for the retarded, but who are neverthelss going apeshit crazy that people they think are deluded believe they're going to a place they don't believe exists.
Makes sense to you? Not to me.
According to Christians (and Muslims, and kinda-sorta Jews, though they're super sketchy about the afterflife, like they're hiding something), I'm going to Hell myself.
I am not bothered by this, because I accept their right to define their religion, and I accept that most religions promise rewards for the believers and punishment for the nonbelievers. I'm a nonbeliever, so, as Puddy might say, "I know where I'm goin'."

For those of you lost at the "Puddy" reference.... Here's the Seinfield clip of Puddy and Elaine. It's really funny.

Global Warming? Global bunk.

2007-02-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

The newest buzz "issue" seems to be Al Gore's campaign against Global Warming. Everybody keeps talking about how the polar icecaps are going to melt and life as we know it will change forever.

Puh-leeze.

Did you know that the media has been talking about major climate shifts since at least 1895? HT: Laura

In all, the print news media have warned of four separate climate changes in slightly more than 100 years – global cooling, warming, cooling again, and, perhaps not so finally, warming. Some current warming stories combine the concepts and claim the next ice age will be triggered by rising temperatures – the theme of the 2004 movie “The Day After Tomorrow.”

Check out these timelines:

Read the full article here. It contrasts the media coverage of the different climate change trends the world has seen.

Great Quotes

2007-02-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
Anatole France

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.
Henry David Thoreau

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
Michelangelo

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.
Kashavan Nair

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Elie Wiesel

Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.
Henri Frederic Amiel

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles Dubois

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
M. Scott Peck

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
Pearl S. Buck

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
Edward de Bono

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.
Benjamin Disraeli

God, Inc. Episode 6

2007-02-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here's the final episode of God, Inc.

Happy Birthday!

2007-02-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today is a milestone for Imago Dei! Today marks 1 year of blogging. Who would have thought that when I wrote that first post last year that I would still be going strong today and have an actual readership base? I certainly didn't.

Looking back over the past year, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this blog has been absolutely integral in my spiritual growth. I'd even say that my writing has grown (although some of my most recent posts may not reflect that).

Here's to hoping I have another great blogging year!

HPV Brouhaha

2007-02-08T10:58:00.001-07:00

Most of you probably don't remember when I wrote about the HPV Vaccine last summer. In short, no one (of the conservative side, at least) is against the vaccine. What we are against is the mandatory universal vaccination of children for an STD.

Unfortunately, it looks like mandating this vaccine has started. Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order on February 2nd that requires girls to be vaccinated before entry to the sixth grade.

There is an allowance for parents to submit "a request for a conscientious objection affidavit form via the Internet." But that's not good enough for me. At least the effort (if you can call it that) to keep parents in charge of their children's health is there.

Fear of mortality?

2007-02-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

As Friday approaches, and the day Imago Dei turns 1, I thought I'd return from my blogging absence with a post that actually fits the theme and reason for this blog.

Someone left the January issue of Christianity Today on our break table yesterday, and I picked it up because it's usually an interesting, and insightful, read. Besides, it's not any more biased than where I usually get my news (blogs).

One article in particular stood out to me. As I read it, I found myself thinking What were they thinking? There's a section called "Where We Stand" and it details the magazine's views on key issues. The first issue was, of course, embryonic stem cell research. The headline reads: Go Gently into That Good Night. Under that it says: Fear of mortality lies at the root of our bioethics confusion.

The problem is not just the immoral destruction of the embryos from which stem cells are extracted. The larger cultural issue is an ethic of immortality that undergirds the push for embryonic stem-cell research. It's an ethic that has already warped our culture's perspective and now threatens to warp our Christian worldview, too.

Quoting Leon Kass, a professor at the University of Chicago, the article says "victory over mortality is the unstated but implicit goal of modern medical science." He continues, "In parallel with medical progress, a new moral sensibility has developed that serves precisely medicine's crusade against mortality: Anything is permitted if it saves life, cures disease, prevents death."

Sherwin Nuland, a surgeon and author of How We Die, agrees with Kass. "The fantasy of controlling nature lies at the very basis of modern science...The ultimate aim of the scientist is not only knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but knowledge with the aim of overcoming that in our environment which he views as hostile. None of the acts of nature (or Nature) is more hostile than death."

It says that we are "tempted daily by that perfect apple, by promises of youth and immortality."

The priceless paragraph comes next:

The apple that's currently tempting our society is the half-million frozen human embryos created in fertility clinics. Our culture so clings to life that it is prepared to legislate taking of life at its earliest stages in order to graft it on at the end.

The solution offered by the magazine?

Preach on death's inevitability, God's providence in its timing, and its defeat in Christ. Offer classes on the art of visiting the dying and learn to comfortably converse with those grieving their loss. Post pictures of deceased church members in the church hall.

When we show in our weekly life that we follow the Way that transcends death, the larger culture will begin to see that its obsession with youth is not a celebration of life, but a rejection of the inevitable. Science and medicine, for all the good gifts they provide, will never be sure paths to human happiness.

I'm honestly not sure where to begin here. There are so many things that are wrong with this article.

Seeking cures for disease is not quite so melodramatic as seeking the Fountain of Youth. It's perfectly normal not to want to die. I'm a Christian, and even knowing what I have to look forward to, I don't want to die. Does that make me a heathen? No. Not wanting to die is nothing new. Fortunately, we live in an age where most things are treatable. You're more likely to die in a car accident than from a disease.

From a Christian perspective, life is precious. God ordained each life that's on the planet. And to try and keep that life as healthy as possible is a good thing!

And I, for one, can tell you that bringing death into full view will not make me more comfortable with the thought of dying. Death is death whether I see it or not.

Stem cell research is not about becoming immortal; it's about trying to make life as we know it better.

Troops Say You Can't Have It Both Ways

2007-01-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Troops respond to US criticism:

God, Inc. Episode 5

2007-01-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

Tom Cruise is the "Christ" of Scientology?

2007-01-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

This makes me angry.

High-ranking Scientologist David Miscavige is convinced in years to come Cruise, 44, will be worshipped like Jesus all over the world as he becomes a prophet for the religion.

The worst part?

A source close to the actor is quoted by Britain's The Sun newspaper as saying: "Tom has been told he is Scientology's Christ-like figure. Just like Christ, he has been criticised for his views. But future generations will realise he was right, just like Jesus."

I think part of that bears repeating:

But future generations will realise he was right, just like Jesus.

Explain to me how, if Jesus was right, anything relating to Scientology can be right?

This is insane

2007-01-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

A New York City judge has ruled that two spouses in the middle of divorce proceedings may both remain in the same house, so long as they erect a wall to divide the home and keep the feuding spouses apart. This is crazy!

The Persecuted Church - This Week

2007-01-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

From the Voice of the Martyrs:

1. Sixty-Eight Eritrean Christians Police and military authorities jailed sixty-eight Christians during the first week of January, according to a January 23 report from Compass Direct. The wave of arrests occurred in three official round-up operations against both Protestant evangelicals and Orthodox renewal movement church members.

On January 4, military commanders at the national Sawa Military Centre performed what they called "a random check-up on the activities of Christian extremists" on student conscripts. They searched the conscripts' personal effects, finding 250 Bibles which they burned in front of the entire military camp. The commanders then arrested thirty-five of the teenage students and ordered that they be subjected to severe military punishment, including physical torture.

On January 5, police took eight staff members of government ministries, five men and three women, into custody. The Christians -- who are all members of Medhane Alem, an Eritrean Orthodox Church renewal movement -- are reportedly being interrogated and pressured by police to identify all leaders and supporters of their movement. Police have informed their families that the arrest order came from higher authorities.

In another January 5 incident, twenty-five Christians in the southern port city of Assab were arrested by police. All of the prisoners, including seven women, were incarcerated at the Wi'a Military Camp, where they were pressured to recant their faith.

Pray for the release of all Eritrean Christians who are imprisoned because of their loyalty to Christ. Ask God to open doors of opportunity for them in prison so that they can share the gospel for which they suffer (Colossians 4:2-3). Pray that those who are being tortured for their faith will be strengthened and delivered by the Lord (2 Corinthians 1:9-11).

For more information on persecution in Eritrea, go to www.persecution.net/country/eritrea.htm .

2. Pastors and Believers Beaten, Arrested During Prayer Meeting in Karnataka, India

Two pastors and two female Christians were beaten and arrested during a prayer meeting in the village of Gokul, Karnataka on January 19, according to a January 19 report from the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC).

Pastor Raj Shekhar and Pastor Raja Naik were attending the meeting when members of a Hindu militant organization gathered around the house. The militants accused the believers of forcible conversion, beat the four Christians and called the police. After the police forced the worship service to an end, they took the four Christians to the police station. Pastor Naik was later released but Pastor Shekhar and the two women are still being detained.

Pray for the release of the three who are detained. Ask God to heal those who have been injured. Pray that those who falsely accuse Christians in India of forcible conversion will see that the message they bring is one of a free gift, not coercion, and respond to God's grace (Ephesians 2:8-9).

For more information on the persecution facing Christians in India, go to www.persecution.net/country/india.htm . Also visit www.persecution.tv for recent video reports from India.

3. Worship Service Disrupted in Madhya Pradesh, India

A worship service in Kanpur, Madhya Pradesh was disrupted within the past week when members of the Hindu organizations Bajrang Dal and VHP stormed the meeting. According to a report from the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), the militants appeared to be targeting foreign missionaries from Japan who were present at the meeting. The pulpit and sound system were destroyed and those attending the meeting were pushed and abused for approximately two hours before police arrived.

A police report has been filed against the Hindu attackers and the GCIC reports that the local media has condemned the attack.Pray that these believers will remain steadfast in the faith (1 Peter 5:8-10). Thank the Lord that no one was seriously injured in this attack. Ask that the Lord will enable Christians in India to continue to lovingly and boldly proclaim the gospel (Ephesians 6:18-20).

4. Pastor and Wife Beaten in India for Preaching to Slum Dwellers

Pastor Paul David (29) and his wife Prasanna Kumari (25) were beaten and forced from their home in Bangalore, Karnataka on January 15, according to a report from the Global Council of Indian Christians. For the past two years, Pastor David has been conducting church services in his home that are mostly attended by people from the nearby slum.

On January 11, a mob gathered outside the couple's home, beating Pastor Paul and forcing him and Prassana to flee from their home. Fearing violence, local Christians did not offer them any assistance and they had to spend the night on a terrace. After finding safe storage for their belongings, the couple returned to Bangalore the next day and found a small room in the slums.

At approximately 6:30 p.m. on January 15, a mob surrounded Pastor Paul and Prassana's room. Both of them were robbed and severely beaten. When Pastor Paul demanded that they be taken to the police station, the mob continued to abuse them for over an hour before taking them to the Mico police station. They were falsely accused and questioned for two hours before being released. The couple then hid in a half constructed building in a school compound until the next morning, when they found shelter in a friend's home.

Ask God to give Pastor Paul and his wife healing. Pray that, as sufferings overflow, their comfort in Christ will be more than enough for them (2 Corinthians 1:5). Ask that all Christians in India will keep their eyes on Jesus, persevere in their faith, and not grow weary or lose heart. (Hebrews 10:32-39; 12:1-3).

5. Christian Aid Workers Accused of Forcible Conversion in Himachal Pradesh, India

There were two separate attacks on Christian Aid workers reported over the past week.

On January 18, four Christians working at "The Last Resort," a drug rehabilitation centre in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, were arrested on false accusations of forcing patients to read the Bible and convert to Christianity, according to a January 19 report from the Evangelical Fellowship of India. The complaints were filed by two patients who had escaped from the facility on January 16. One of the escaped patients, Vinod Saini, later told the Christian Legal Association that he was pressured to file the report and wanted to withdraw his statement to the police. The four Christians, Pastor Rajesh Toppo, Mr. Nizam Minthang, Mr. Gopal Singh Bhatia and Mr. Lalboi were released on bail on January 19.

A few days later, on January 20 or 21, as many as 250 Hindu militants from the Bajrang Dal, Siva Sena and VHP gathered at the home of Pastor Behal in Kangra, Himachal, who works with drug addicts and orphans in the community. According to reports from the All India Christian Council (AICC), the militants protested Behal's missionary activities, demanding that he close down his home for orphans and his church and leave Kangra. The militants accused him of forced child labour and forcibly converting people to Christianity. The AICC has contacted officials, who assured them that all measures would be taken to protect Pastor Behal and his institutions.

Thank the Lord that those arrested were released on bail. Pray that they will remain faithful to the task He has given them, knowing that they will receive the crown of life (1 Peter 5:1-4). Pray for Christians as they continue to minister to the needy of Himachal Pradesh. Pray that those who persecute will come to repentance and salvation.

Losing an Icon

2007-01-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

I got my BA from Meredith College. It's a great school--a small, private, Southern, women's college. It's very steeped in tradition, and that's part of its unique charm. Right now, some folks are looking to change the face of Meredith College. For as long as anyone can remember, the Meredith mascot has been the Angel. Now they want to change the athletic mascot to something else...Meredith Meerkats anyone? There's been a lot of protest over the potential change, and Louise Taylor, former professor of English and Department Head, has written the following fabulous poem:

To the mascot shoppers
So you don’t like the
Angel.
You’re ready to dump it.
You want something scarier
than Gabe and his trumpet.
There’s a range of names out there.
I’ve googled the lot.
And is Angel the wimpiest?
Definitely not.
There’re Banana Slugs from Santa Cruz.
From Washburn, hail
the Lady Blues.
Whittier fields Poets.
And trust me, folks,
Scottsdale suits up
Fighting Artichokes.
The Violets play
for NYU.
The Yaks of Yakima
are no scarier than you.
Would you rather be a Hokie,
a Hooter, a Zip?
Of the iceberg of mascots,
you’ve seen but the tip.
Crusaders and Pilgrims,
and that’s not all. A
team of Missionaries
play in Wall Walla.
If being an Angel seems a bit of bad luck.
Be glad you’re not a
Richland Thunderduck.
There’re Wildcats and Cougars
and Tigers galore.
But it’s only at Meredith
that Angels suit up and score.
If you look, you can find
a mascot’s that’s scarier.
But the Angel’s unique,
and it seems sad to bury her.

Stem Cells

2007-01-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

As a Christian, I'm supposed to be against stem cell research. At least, that's what they tell me. But then I started thinking for myself. While I do disagree with destroying embryos that may have a chance at life, I can completely understand (and support) the use of embryos that are never going to be used and will be discarded anyway.

However, it's been reported that stem cells have been found in amniotic fluid and would completely sidestep the controversy of using embryos.

Researchers at Wake Forest University and Harvard University reported Sunday that the stem cells they drew from amniotic fluid donated by pregnant women hold much the same promise as embryonic stem cells.
They reported they were able to extract the stem cells from the fluid, which cushions babies in the womb, without harm to mother or fetus and turn their discovery into several different tissue cell types, including brain, liver and bone.

And while this is good news to those who oppose embryonic stem cell research, it's still too early to replace the controversial method.

Nonetheless, Daley said, the discovery shouldn’t be used as a replacement for human embryonic stem cell research.

“While they are fascinating subjects of study in their own right, they are not a substitute for human embryonic stem cells, which allow scientists to address a host of other interesting questions in early human development,” said Daley, who began work last year to clone human embryos to produce stem cells.

Either way, it's a great step in the right direction. The scientists have seen the controversy and tried to find an alternative method. Human embryonic stem cell research is important; but if there are other methods that can garner the same results without destroying a potential human life, then we should go in that direction.

Changing the Face of Baptists

2007-01-22T12:19:00.001-07:00

So I'm a little behind the times on this one, because things have been so crazy. Plus I've been struggling with a little bit of writer's block and wondering if spiritually I'm still in a place where I can write posts fit for a blog titled Imago Dei.

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton want to improve the negative image of Baptists in the United States.

"North America desperately needs a true Baptist witness," Bill Underwood, president of Mercer University in Atlanta, told Baptist leaders at an April summit last year.

Underwood said the current image of Baptists is largely painted by conservative leaders who frequently appear on television news shows or other media. Such leaders represent some of the most conservative political views and fundamentalist theology among Baptist denominations.

Am I the only one who thinks that the only way you can improve the image of Baptists is if Baptists step up and act the way they want to be portrayed? Forming an initiative, convocation, coalition, or whatever you want to call it isn't going to do anything to change anything. Talking isn't going to change anything. If they want to produce change, then they need to change.

And it isn't going to be a huge group doing the changing. It's going to start with the individual person. Each person needs to decide that they want to live like Christ, not like the SBC. Then, and only then, will this country begin to see some of the fundamentalist conservatism start to lift.

MKH on 7th Heaven

2007-01-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've mentioned my love for Mary Katherine Ham lately. Now, don't get me wrong--there are several things I disagree with her on, but she's a strong conservative woman who isn't afraid to speak out. Rock on!

This post on 7th Heaven and its recent politics is a good one. I used to love 7th Heaven. But since it switched to Sunday nights I can't watch it anymore because that's when my small group meets.

Go read it!

God, Inc. Episode 4

2007-01-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest:

Christian Carnival CLVII

2007-01-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to this week's edition of Christian Carnival! This is my first time hosting, and coming up with a theme is killer so I decided to keep it simple.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. ~Proverbs 14:12

This is a verse I've been meditating on this week. And each of these posts reflect that it is God's way that leads to life and not man's way.

Mark, from Pseudo-Polymath, wonders how we choose our denomination in the cafeteria that God and man have made of His church in Dwelling in Ruins.

Catez, from Allthings2All, believes that words like "justification," "sanctification," "repentance," and "flesh" are not just theological terms and can used in everyday conversations in Language: Don't Lose It - Use It."

Michael looks at the commonly believed heresy of Spiritual Neutrality at Tantalizing but True.

Rodney wonders why people are turning their backs on God and asks if we need to take some responsibility for the way others see God in Losing our Religion.

Carina presents Journey to Somewhere.

Josh, from Church Hopping, wonders Who is the Angel of the Lord?

Laurie Bluedorn presents Greek and Hebrew Texts posted at Trivium Pursuit.

Patricia challenges us to find out where our priorities are in What Matters Most: Lessons from a Tornado.

Veracity takes a look at the reasons people get baptized or confirmed and wonders what our responsibility is when we see people doing it for the wrong reasons in To Confirm, or Not to Confirm?

Shang Pei Lin presents the Father's Love.

Sherry offers a great review of the book Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout.

Martin takes a look at the word Play in the Bible at Sun and Shield.

Nancy Geiger presents Someday posted at What I Learned Teaching Sunday School.

Heather Tenney presents part one of Protecting the Family posted at Truth in Politics.

Zach, from ZS Ramblings, offers a short discussion on whether a job should dictate who you are in You Are What You Do (or are you?).

In his second post on C.S. Lewis and Bible translation, Lingamish riffs on Bible translation wars, shopping as a spiritual exercise and the situational ethics of book borrowing in C.S. Lewis on Bible translation, part 2: More useful than the Authorized Version.

Thomas describes the blogging encounter he had on WorldMagBlog that sent him tumbling down the rabbit hole of the vague idea of pacifism, and starts fleshing out the complexities of being labeled a pacifist in the world we live in.

Annette finds it fascinating to watch How God Works.

Mick, from The Romans 15:4 Project, passes along a message from Gateways to Better Education on the President's Proclamation for Religious Freedom Day.

Kim Anderson at Mother-Lode reminds us to keep our focus on the aim of discipline - restoring the soul - in her post, Comfort and Discipline.

Fresh from a complete site redesign, John at Light Along the Journey has a few thoughts about Christ's command to Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

Don Bosch over at The Evangelical Ecologist considers whether Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have become an advocate for environmental justice, and offers some thoughts on the state of inter-racial Christian ecologytoday at MLK.

Rev Bill raises the question: "Do Christians in other countries havesomething to teach us?"

Henry offers us an overview of Isaiah 27, and the final entry in his series on Isaiah 24-27, looking at Isaiah 27 as an early apocalypse in Isaiah 27: Accomplishing Redemption at the Participatory Bible Study Blog.

Ben presents an inspiring story of a missionary trying to reach a muslim tribe to explain what place short term missions holds in the field in Missions Theory.

John thought those involved in ministry, or just curious about how churches define themselves, might be interested in the outline of "The Membership Meeting" at his new church. Come over to Brain Cramps for God.

God, Inc. Episode 3

2007-01-14T13:03:00.000-07:00

And now we're current with the series. I'll post the next installment as soon as it's available.

God, Inc. Episode 2

2007-01-13T13:43:00.001-07:00

For your viewing pleasure:

God, Inc. Episode 1

2007-01-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

This is probably the best thing I've seen on You Tube yet. This new web series is the creation of Francis Stokes, and while I know nothing about him other than his name, he's pretty darn cool.

So far only three episodes are posted, and I'll post Episode 2 tomorrow and Episode 3 on Sunday. After that, I'll post the new episodes when they're available.

Hopefully you'll enjoy these as much as I do. They're pretty darn funny.

Warning: These are slightly irreverent and contain some profanity.

Catching Up

2007-01-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

I know that my posting has been sporadic, at best, recently. Work got insanely busy, and in the middle of the chaos I missed two weeks due to a holiday vacation and snow days. I'm nearly caught up in the office now and should be able to resume a more normal posting schedule in a day or so. I've got a pile of things I'd like to post about, I just haven't had time!

Hopefully I'll get to catch up on some sleep too...but that's doubtful, at least for the next month or so. DJ is keeping us all awake at night because his bladder isn't big enough to make it through the night. And his sleep patterns are like a baby's. He wants to sleep for 4 hours and play for 2. Unfortunately, his two mommies want to sleep for 8 hours!

Please welcome to the family...

2007-01-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

This lil guy is DJ. He's a 10 week old Blue Heeler mix that my roommate and I adopted from the humane society this weekend. Isn't he too cute?

Are Animals Gay?

2007-01-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

I just read a fascinating article written by Laurence Thomas, a man who does not think homosexuality is wrong, titled Are There Gay Animals? On Justifying Gay Behavior in Humans. (HT: Jeremy)

The basic premise of the article is pointing out the foolishness of the argument that homosexuality is found in nature so it must be natural for humans as well.

The issue is this: What might we infer about human beings from animal behavior? The answer is not much. And holding this view has nothing whatsoever to do with being for or against homosexuality among human beings. Consider, for instance, that fidelity in the animal kingdom is relatively rare. All the same, no one supposes that this is thereby a reason to eschew fidelity as an archaic notion of no relevance to human beings. Again, in most instances, though not all, the male bares very little responsibility for raising the children that he sired. Yet, we do not argue for moment that this is how human males should behave. Indeed, our sentiments are exactly the opposite. Then there is the reality that animals have little or no sense of shame with regard to when and where they relieve themselves, whether this is about urinating or defecating. I can only hope that we should not regard this as virtuous.

[...]

In the end, then, appealing to animal behavior as some form of justification for human behavior is very tricky business. If we pick some behaviors and eschew others, then we need an independent and defensible principle that explains why some animal behaviors fall on one side of the divide and other animal behaviors fall on the other side of the divide. Appealing to animal behavior as a justification for human behavior is loathsomely self-serving when it turns out that the only animal behaviors that we pick out are those that serve our own ends.

[...]

Strikingly, we humans do not think for a moment that the behavior of bears is an indication of how monkeys should behave, or conversely. Likewise for whales and dolphins. And so on across the board. So it makes no sense to me that so many are so quick to invoke behavior among animal species as an indication of how the human species should behave.

It seems to me that he makes some good points, though I encourage you to read the whole article. Remember, this article is NOT a stance against homosexuality; it is merely addressing the argument in question.

Gratitude

2007-01-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

This song is on my heart for some reason. It's one of the most beautiful songs I've heard in the CCM genre. Just close your eyes and listen to the words. Hopefully it will touch you too.

Eragon's Theology

2007-01-04T21:52:00.001-07:00

I just finished reading Eragon and Eldest, the first two books in the Inheritence trilogy. Both are fantastic. Christopher Paolini needs to hurry up and finish the last installment!

There's one part in particular that I found interesting, and I immediately wanted to blog about it when I read it. And don't worry, this excerpt won't give away anything about the storyline or spoil anything. Eragon is in the middle of his training with the elves. He has just asked his teacher, Oromis, what religion the elves believe. Oromis tells him that they worship nothing; they do not worship at all.

     "Where do you think the world came from, then, if it wasn't created by the gods?"
     "Which gods, Eragon?"
     "Your gods, the dwarf gods, our gods...someone must have created it."
     Oromis raised an eyebrow: "I would not necessarily agree with you. But be as that may, I cannot prove that gods do not exist. Nor can I prove that the world and everything in it was not created by an entity or entities in the distant past. But I can tell you that in the millennia we elves have studied nature, we have never witnessed an instance where the rules that govern the world have been broken. That is, we have never seen a miracle. Many events have defied our ability to explain, but we are convinced that we failed because we are woefully ignorant about the universe and not because a deity altered the workings of nature."
     "A god wouldn't have to alter nature to accomplish his will," asserted Eragon. "He could do it withing the system that already exists...He could use magic to affect events."
     Oromis smiled. "Very true. But ask yourself this, Eragon: If gods exist, have they been good custodians of Alagaesia? Death, sickness, poverty, tyranny, and countless other miseries stalk the land. If this is the handiwork of divine beings, then they are to be rebelled against and overthrown, not given obeisance, obedience, and reverence."
     "The dwarves believe--"
     "Exactly! The dwarves believe. When it comes to certain matters, they rely upon faith rather than reason. They have even been known to ignore proven facts that contradict their dogma."
     "Like what?" demanded Eragon.
     "Dwarf priests use coral as proof that stone is alive and can grow, which also corroborates their story that Helzvog formed the race of dwarves out of granite. But we elves discovered that coral is actually an exoskeleton secreted by miniscule animals that live inside the coral. Any magician can sense the animals if he opens his mind. We explained this to the dwarves, but they refused to listen, saying that the life we felt resides in every kind of stone, although their priests are the only ones who are supposed to be able to detect the life in landlocked stones."
     For a long time, Eragon stared out the window, turning Oromis's words over in his mind. "You don't believe in an afterlife, then."
     "From what Glaedr said, you already knew that."
     "And you don't put any stock in gods."
     "We give credence only to that which we can prove exists. Since we cannot find evidence that gods, miracles, and other supernatural things are real, we do not trouble ourselves about them. If that were to change, if Helzvog were to reveal himself to us, then we would accept the new information and revise our position."
     "It seems a cold world without something...more."
     "On the contrary," said Oromis, "it is a better world. A place where we are responsible for our own actions, where we can be kind to one another because we want to and because it is the right thing to do instead of being frightened into behaving by the threat of divine punishment. I won't tell you what to believe, Eragon. It is far better to be taught to think critically and then be allowed to make your own decisions than to have someone else's notions thrust upon you. You asked after our religion, and I have answered you true. Make of it what you will."

     Their discussion--coupled with his previous worries--left Eragon so disturbed that he had difficulty concentrating on his studies in the following days, even when Oromis began to show him how to sing to plants, which Eragon had been eager to learn.
     Eragon recognized that his own experiences had already led him to adopt a more skeptical attitude; in principle, he agreed with much of what Oromis had said. The problem he struggled with, though, was that if the elves were right, it meant that nearly all the humans and dwarves were deluded, something Eragon found difficult to accept. That many people can't be mistaken, he insisted to himself.
    When he asked Saphira about it, she said, It matters little to me, Eragon. Dragons have never believed in higher powers. Why should we when deer and other prey consider us to be a higher power? He laughed at that. Only do not ignore reality in order to comfort yourself, for once you do, you make it easy for others to deceive you.

I find myself thinking very much like Eragon here. I do see logic and reason in the position that doesn't believe in God. But, as he noted, billions of people are deluded if there is no God (and at this point, I mean any god at all...Hindu gods, Muslim gods, Mayan gods, the Christian God, etc). I don't accept that. Without the existence of God, hopelessness exists. We do live in a world of death, sickness, poverty, tyranny, and countless other miseries. With no God, there's no hope of ever having anything better. It's only this. So when faced with a choice, I put my faith, my trust, and my hope in God.

Rent

2007-01-04T20:39:00.001-07:00

I'm rewatching my favorite movie tonight: Rent. I absolutely love the movie, and would love to see the broadway musical. Something about this musical strikes a chord in me. If you've not seen it, it follows a year in the life of a group of 8 friends (ok, Benny isn't really a "friend") struggling to make it in New York City. They have an incredible closeness that I envy. They care about each other. They worry about each other. They love each other.

I want that.

I'm closer to it now than I've ever been. I've developed more close friendships in the last 2 years or so than I have in my entire life. But for some reason, I hold back. I'm terrified of rejection. I'm terrified that people will see all of my flaws and want nothing to do with me. I've opened up a lot more recently, but I can feel those old familiar fears coming back. I don't know why.

Pachelbel Rant

2007-01-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Musicguy, for the head's up on one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time...

A Mocking Challenge

2007-01-03T18:11:00.000-07:00

There's a new website in town...one that I absolutely will not link to. This website, The Blasphemy Challenge, nearly made me burst into tears. The premise is simple: the Rational Response Squad will give away 1,001 copies of the DVD The God Who Wasn't There to people who record a message that includes the words, "I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit" and upload it to You Tube. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of responses to this.

You guys all know I wholeheartedly respect your choices to not believe in God. It is your choice, after all. But this blatant display of mockery just breaks my heart.

This is nothing new

2007-01-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

Pat Robertson is at it again.

Men like this frustrate me! As Laura noted, he isn't quite so bad as Phelps, but this is still utterly ridiculous.

These predictions do not come from the Lord. If Robertson would spend as much time being a disciple of Christ as he does spewing these ridiculous predictions, people might take him a little more seriously. But right now? Come on.

Shut up and preach.

Tags: Christianity, Pat Robertson

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year everybody!

I'm finally home. Wasn't sure I was going to make it home last night, due to fog delays in Chicago that delayed all United flights leaving RDU (apparantly all of their planes come from Chicago). Miraculously I was put on an earlier flight (trust me, it was a miracle) and made my connection and made it home on time.

I've got a lot of catching up to do in the blogosphere, but I should be able to start posting normally tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

I'll be out of town until January 1, so I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. :)

See ya next year!

Amazing Grace

2006-12-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

I want to see this movie. Just watching the trailer gave me goosebumps.

Amazing Grace is, without a doubt, the most influential song in Christian history. Written in 1779 by a former slave trader by the name of John Newton, this song has inspired countless people.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear,
And Grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come.
'Tis Grace hath brought me safe thus far
And Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His Word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

A Funeral at Christmas

2006-12-19T08:53:00.001-07:00

Chris Morgan died on Friday night. I'm still in shock. 25 is way too young to die. Chris was one of my closest friends, even though I haven't seen him in 6 years. I met him when I was 15, and I had a crush on him all through high school and even beyond that. We spoke several times a year, but this past year we talked a lot. When he finally got the internet at his house we could talk on a regular basis. And it was like no time had passed. We were both completely comfortable with each other, and we could share our pains, our joys, and our lives with each other. I'm going home for Christmas and we had plans to see each other on Saturday, December 30th. It would have been the first time we had hung out in six years. And now I'll never have the chance to hang out with him again.

I was hoping it was a cruel joke. I last spoke with him Friday afternoon. Right after we talked, he got into his car to drive to a family wedding. On Sunday, I came home from the wedding I was in to an away message on his screen name that freaked me out. It said, "Our Brother has departed us. 12-12-06. We miss you Chris. @--->----" I thought there had to be some mistake because I had talked to him on the 15th. Yesterday morning the information had been updated to include information on visitation and the memorial service and specified that in lieu of flowers donations should be sent to the Durham School of the Arts Foundation. So I began to search newspapers for an obituary or information about a car wreck. Anything that could confirm the information. His cell phone would go straight to voice mail. I didn't know his parent's names. I had no way to get in contact with anyone. Because of the date given, I really hoped it was just a cruel joke. That someone was trying to mess with people who knew Chris.

Finally, last night I posted a bulletin on myspace asking for information, because a lot of my myspace "friends" are folks I knew in high school and still live in our hometown. This morning I woke up long before my alarm was set to go off because I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I checked my email and found the confirmation that Chris died on Friday night due to brain injuries from a car crash.

I'm flying home on Thursday for Christmas. My flight lands at 1:44. His funeral is at 3. What a welcome home.

Thanks for voting!

2006-12-18T11:32:00.001-07:00

A HUGE thank you to everyone who voted for me in this year's Weblog Awards. Though I did not win, I came in 4th with 4.94% of the total votes (3620). Not too shabby considering this blog is less than a year old. The best part of this experience? Finding out how many absolutely awesomely cool people I have in my circle of online friends. You guys rock!

Blogger Hates Me

2006-12-15T15:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have me in your feed readers, I'M SORRY! I discovered the great feature of post labels today, and every single post I added a label to will be delivered to your feeds unread. If I had known that would happen, I wouldn't have gone back and labeled old posts.

Sorry for the inconvenience, I'll leave well enough alone. :)

Problems Commenting

2006-12-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

The folks at Blogger have finally acknowledged that there's a problem with old Blogger accounts trying to comment on new Blogger accounts. Here's what they say:

Logging in with an old Blogger account to post a comment on the new Blogger is giving a “please try again later” error. Until we fix this, it may work to log in first at http://www.blogger.com/login.g, and then go to the comments page on the new version of Blogger in beta. — latest update on Thursday, December 14, 2006

Hopefully they'll have it fixed soon!

Newsboys - Entertaining Angels

2006-12-14T20:23:00.001-07:00

Enjoy. :)

Newsboys - Entertaining Angels

What the hell happened to Christianity?

2006-12-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Musicguy, for the heads up on this absolutely fabulous article on cnn.com.

Written by Jay Bakker and Marc Brown, it offers an alternative to the "Religious Right" brand of Christianity (which really isn't Christianity in the first place).

Jay Bakker, son of former Praise The Lord leaders Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Messner, is minister of Revolution Church and subject of a new documentary series, "One Punk Under God," on Sundance Channel. Marc Brown is a Revolution staff member.

I'm only going to highlight some of the article here, but I highly encourage you to go read the whole thing (and Musicguy, I think these are probably the same passages you highlighted...what can I say, they stuck out to me too!).

What the hell happened? Where did we go wrong? How was Christianity co-opted by a political party? Why are Christians supporting laws that force others to live by their standards? The answers to these questions are integral to the survival of Christianity.

[...]

So when did the focus of Christianity shift from the unconditional love and acceptance preached by Christ to the hate and condemnation spewed forth by certain groups today? Some say it was during the rise of Conservative Christianity in the early 1980s with political action groups like the Moral Majority. Others say it goes way back to the 300s, when Rome's Christian Emperor Constantine initiated a set of laws limiting the rights of Roman non-Christians. Regardless of the origin, one thing is crystal clear: It's not what Jesus stood for.

[...]

Christians should be able to look past their differences and agree to disagree. This allows people to discuss issues with respect for one another. Christians are called to love others just as they are, without an agenda. Only then will Christianity see a return to its roots: Loving God with all of your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself.

[...]

But don't take our word for it; look at what Jesus and his followers stood for in his time and what Christianity stands for today. Then come to your own conclusion.

So here's where I step into the fire. I'd like to know if there are places you see me not living up to these standards. Do I teach anything other than unconditional love? Do I say one thing and do another? Let me have it. Tell me my shortcomings here.

Tags: Christianity, God, Jesus, unconditional love, Jay Bakker

Christian Carnival CLII

2006-12-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

This week's Christian Carnival is up at The Buzz Blog. There are some great articles this week, as there are every week, and these are a few that really stood out to me.

Just Prayer - a great look at the things we say out of habit when we pray.
Ten Verses Never Preached On - the commentary on these is just funny.
Is Christianity Opposed to Science? - This is part 2 in a series by Thinking Christian, and it's definitely worth a look. I'm particularly interested in what Matt and Lifewish may have to say about this one.

And just for the heck of it, I want to throw this article in there. It's not in the Carnival this week, but it was reference by the above post. Who Invented the Flat Earth?

Tags: Christianity, Christian Carnival, Science

What does "Christian" mean?

2006-12-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

The word "Christian" is nearly as ambiguous as the word "love" in the English language. Ask 5 people what it means and you'll likely get five different answers. Often it's used to describe the following:

a church member
someone who has been baptized or confirmed
someone who is very moral
someone who is very religious

But if you look to the Bible for a definition of Christianity, you'll see that it is none of those things.

So what does it mean to be a Christian?

The simplest answer is this: a follower of Jesus Christ. Of course, in this day and age that, too, is also fairly ambiguous.

So let's start with the basics. How do you become a follower of Jesus Christ? That's probably the simplest question to answer.

"That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:9-13 NIV)

I really like what the Message says here too (emphasis mine):

Say the welcoming word to God—"Jesus is my Master"—embracing, body and soul, God's work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That's it. You're not "doing" anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: "God has set everything right between him and me!" Scripture reassures us, "No one who trusts God like this—heart and soul—will ever regret it." It's exactly the same no matter what a person's religious background may be: the same God for all of us, acting the same incredibly generous way to everyone who calls out for help. "Everyone who calls, 'Help, God!' gets help."

It's all about realizing that you're a sinner and that there's nothing you can do by your own power to redeem yourself. It's about calling on Jesus to become Lord of your life and allowing Him to change you from the inside out.

Once you take the initiative to call on Jesus, then a process has started in your life. A process that changes you to become more like Christ in attitudes, ambitions, and actions.

From Jim Berg's Changed Into His Image:

Christlikeness is not the same as following a moral or ethical ideal. It is not simply possessing more knowledge of Bible content or Bible principles. It is not merely replacing old habits with new ones or being and doing good. Furthermore, it is not becoming well-adjusted or recovering from some life-dominating sin. Christlikeness is the manifestation of the fruit of God's Spirit* in the life of a believer beholding the glory of God.

[...]

While living on this earth, Jesus Christ exemplified the characteristics of a man controlled by the Holy Spirit and in perfect fellowship with God. His submission to and dependence upon His Father and His sacrificial ministry to others blended those characteristics into a perfect ideal Paul called "the form [nature] of a servant" (Phil. 2:7). Servanthood is grown-up Christianity.

*The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Jim goes on to talk about how the word "servant" means little to nothing to modern man, but to a first-century believer the word was filled with meaning. The NT word that corresponds is diakonos which appears more than sixty times. It's the Greek word that we get the word "deacon" from and describes someone who is actively involved in meeting the needs of others. Jesus used the word in Matt. 20:25-26, 28; Matt. 23:11-12; Mark 9:35; and John 12:26. According to Berg,"In these passages our Lord taught that those most exalted in His scheme of events had an attitude of "otherness." Their energies and concerns were not with themselves and how others could serve them but on how they could become a blessing to someone else."

A useful first-century slave did not hang around the shadows hoping he would not be called upon to perform a task. He was right in the middle of the action--washing feet, filling water pots, tutoring children, working in the fields, running errands, and so forth. God's attributes of love, compassion, kindness, patience, and mercy, when manifested in the life of a believer beholding the glory of God, result in Christlike service for others. This servanthood is grown-up Christianity!

Examples of this servanthood include:

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (John 13:12-17)

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:1-7)

But there is another aspect of Christlike servanthood. There is another Greek word, doulus, that emphasizes the second aspect of slavery--being responsive to the will of another. This word speaks to the total ownership and sovereignty of the individual by someone else.* Used 125 times in the NT, it eventually took on a different meaning in the Christian use of the word. Paul used it in Romans 1:1 and elsewhere when he called himself "a servant of Jesus Christ." John the Apostle used it in the same way in Revelation 1:1. According to Berg, "These men were stressing their total submission to their Master, Jesus Christ. They were testifying of their responsiveness to His will--to His commands."

*See Matthew 8:9, 22:1-14; Mark 12:1-5, and Luke 12:41-47; 14 16-23 to see how first century slaves were quick to respond to the will of their masters.

This aspect of servanthood is often overlooked in our freethinking, democratic society. By this definition, many believers are not very good servants.

[...]

There was no doubt about the obedience required of first-century slaves.* They belonged to someone else and were expected to carry out the wishes of their master without complaint or back talk. They were to submit even to unreasonable masters with a single-minded humility that "adorned" the gospel they professed. Our Lord Himself played by His own rules; He came to this earth and responded to His human authorities the same way.

Christlikeness, then, will be evidenced in doing good for others; but just as important, it will be evidenced by submission to authority. Those who want the image of being a "good Christian" but who are not good servants will have a fierce struggle with submission.

*See Eph. 6:5-8; Col. 3:22-25; 1 Tim. 6:1-2; and Titus 2:9-10

Peter gave a great testimony of how Christ suffered at the hands of human authority in 1 Peter 2:21-23, "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly."

It is these two issues--being responsive to the needs of others and being responsive to the will of our masters--that are the true tests of Christianity.

Let's take it one step further. In Matthew 5:13-16 Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

This is a mandate for our lives to have a Christlike influence on others.

What is influence? It's simply making a difference in the lives of others. Basically, you have to be different to make a difference. You cannot change anything by adding more of the same. An example:

Suppose you have in front of you a glass of unsweetened iced tea, but you do not like unsweetened tea. You wish, therefore, to add something to your glass of tea to change the taste. You cannot change the taste by pouring more unsweetened tea into the glass. You must add something different to the glass, such as sugar, lemon, or ginger ale.

It's the same thing with people. You must be different to make a difference. That's the significance of Jesus' words in the Matthew passage.

There is still much to be said on the topic, but this is already much longer than I anticipated. What I was trying to get across is that Christianity is not a set of rules or commands that you must follow. It's not a moral code. It is a relationship. And as a result of that relationship, the Christian is transformed into a servant who is like Christ.

Blogs who link here: Blue Star Chronicles, Conservative Cat, Right Pundits, Renaissance Blogger, Third World County, bRight and Early

Spiritual Maturity

2006-12-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

I've been asked to explain what I mean when I use the phrase "spiritual maturity." Ironically, Musicguy was trying to be facetious when he defined it, but in actuality he did a pretty good job when he said, "a Christian who applies the word of God to all aspects of his life and displays the fruitage of the spirit as described in the Bible which he receives because he loves goodness and sincerely wishes to please his creator."

That sums it up fairly well.

Spiritual maturity is not something that is instantaneous. If it were, everyone who accepts Christ would spiritually "arrive." But, just like physical growth, spiritual growth is a gradual process.

Romans 12:1-2 says, "I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

It is this process of transformation--becoming more like Christ--that exemplifies spiritual maturity.

From Jim Berg's Changed Into His Image:

While living on this earth, Jesus Christ exemplified the characteristics of a man controlled by the Holy Spirit and in perfect fellowship with God. [...] The believer is brought, as Paul said, "unto the meausre of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). When the nature of God is reflected fully through the nature of a man, as it was in Christ, the blend produces a person who is the Father's humble servant. Spiritually mature humanity is in essence Christlike humility--the humility of a servant.

Please note that this biblical goal of Christlike humility is a far cry from many currently popular, but unworthy, goals of helping someone become well adjusted or develop his "moral consciousness" or acheive personal happiness and success. Our Lord did not come to this planet, live a perfect life, and become a worthy atonement for the sins of the world so that those who become His children can merely be well adjusted, live morally upright lives, and enjoy personal happiness and success. He died to redeem us from the penalty and power of a sinful heart that keeps us from being useful servants of the living God. A truly humble servant of God will be well adjusted, will have a morally sensitive conscience, and will enjoy the blessedness of life with God--but these are byproducts of godliness, not primary goals for the Christian life.

[...]

Preachers through the years have described is as the process whereby the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and changes us to become like the Son of God.

For you ought to put off the old man (according to your way of living before) who is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And you should put on the new man, who according to God was created in righteousness and true holiness. (Eph 4:22-24)

Therefore putting aside all filthiness and overflowing of evil, receive in meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls. But become doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror. For he studied himself and went his way, and immediately he forgot what he was like. But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty and continues in it, he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one shall be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks to be religious among you, yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (Jam 1:21-27)

Someone who is spiritually mature is someone who is continually striving to become more like Christ. It is someone who realizes that he can't do it by his own power and allows the Holy Spirit to empower him to become like Christ and become useful to Christ.

Blogs who link here: Pursuing Holiness, Dumb Ox News, Blue Star Chronicles, and Conservative Cat.

Standards

2006-12-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

This post will deviate from my normal posts, as I will be delving into the world of my personal life for a bit.

Is it possible to have too high standards for what you're looking for in a life partner?

I recently broke up with my boyfriend because he didn't meet all of my standards, and as a result I couldn't see being with him long term. I was a lot more upset about this than I thought I would be. When I talked to my mom about it, she made a statement that's been with me ever since. She said that my standards are so high that God himself couldn't meet them.

I have to wonder if she's right. Are my standards so high that they will only set up any guy for failure in my eyes? Has my unconscious done this so that I will never have to confront my fears of trust, intimacy, and rejection?

Voting for the 2006 Weblog Awards

2006-12-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

Voting is now open! You can vote once a day, so make sure you vote for me each day! (Or someone else if you think they're more deserving in my category!) No matter what, vote once a day!

You can vote in my category by clicking on the image below or the one in my sidebar.

You can find the links to all other voting sites here.

The Bible is not a sling shot

2006-12-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

It's funny how on a day when I'm at work sick, I find the time to post more than usual. Oh well. :)

Zach posts some clarifying comments about his sarcastic reply to James Dobson. But I don't want to focus on all of that. Zach said something in the middle of his defense that really struck a chord with me:

It’s just saddening (sometimes maddening) that the Bible is treated more as a device for casting stones rather than moving us towards mercy, humility and acceptance.

Isn't it crazy how so many things that I'm reading lately are addressing this topic?

Tags: Christianity

America is not a Christian nation

2006-12-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

Keith Ellison, America's first Muslim congressman (Minnesota, D), has come under a lot of fire after letting it be known that he will carry a copy of the Koran to his swearing in ceremony on January 4th. Dennis Prager, conservative pundit, seems to be the most vocal of those opposed. The funny thing is that Prager's opposition is based on faulty information.

Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.

[...]

When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization.

The issue here is that elected officials do not take their oaths of office with their hands on any book.

In Congress, newly elected representatives do not put their left hands on any book. They raise their right hands, and are sworn in together as the speaker of the House administers the oath of office. Some do carry a book, according to House historians, and some choose to photograph a private swearing-in afterward with their hand on the Bible.

The Constitution says: "The senators and representatives ... shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

Some confusion may come from the long-standing tradition of presidents taking the oath with a hand on the Bible. But this is a choice and matter of custom, as is the phrase, "so help me God." President John Quincy Adams took the oath on a law book including the Constitution. President Theodore Roosevelt didn't use a book.

First of all, the United States of America is not a Christian nation. There is no official religion that governs our country (as much as people may try to claim this). Our country is made up of such a diverse population that elected officials should also be diverse if they are really to be representative of the citizens (there's a reason that every middle schooler in America is taught that we are a "melting pot"). Because of this diversity, and because of our freedoms to be whatever religion we choose, this shouldn't even be an issue. It's a definite form of hypocrisy for Prager to say, "In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath."

Am I the only one who sees the inconsistency in this logic? America will fight for your freedoms, but we will take those freedoms away from those who will be fighting for yours.

Prager wrote a follow-up article to respond to the various accusations thrown at him, and all I can say is grow up, man! In his rebuttal, all Prager really does is throw all of the blame on Ellison in an effort to take the heat off of himself. Grown men should not act that way.

Righteous Anger

2006-12-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

Brent, from Colossians Three Sixteen has posted a great article on Fred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church, righteous anger, and how the first two do not possess the latter.

While Westboro calls their pickets “Love Crusades,” most who have come in contact with the church members and their message would call them anything but loving. While I do not know, I presume that Phelps and the others would say something like: “telling the truth is the most loving thing we can do.” Regardless of their stated intentions, the group often comes across as anything but loving which prompts the question, if God hates sinners, should we also hate them?

The obvious answer, of course, is NO!

Rather than hating those who sin, we are called to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44). Rather than spewing messages of hate, we are called to speak softly (Proverbs 15:1, etc.). Rather than cling to wrong-doing, we are to forgive (Matthew 18:15-35, etc.). While this does not mean that we accept homosexuality, it does mean that we must be sensitive in how we portray our message.
The minute we single out the sin of others, we have opened ourselves to the charge of hypocrisy. Jesus very clearly warns against trying to peer around our log-eyes to poke at someone else’s speck (Matthew 7:3) and we must be clear that God hates all sin and will judge all sinners. But we must first feel this reality in our own hearts and it is with tears that we must call men and women, boys and girls to repentance, knowing that salvation is undeserved, by anyone. Yes, we must call sin what it is and we must call for repentance, but:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
It’s often said that how we say something is as important as what we say. While the Gospel is the most important message anyone could ever hear, it is still true that our presentation affects the reactions of many. Dressing the Gospel in gowns of hatred only shows how little we’ve understood it in the first place.

This all goes back to the saying "Hate the sin; love the sinner." It seems like such a simple concept, yet people everywhere get tripped up on it. Why? Why is it so hard to see past the sin? Whenever a Christian fails (like the recent Ted Haggard scandal) it seems that the church wastes no time picking them up. But whenever a nonChristian fails, the church seeks to push that person down even further. It shouldn't be that way.

2006 Weblog Awards Finalist

2006-12-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it! The finalists were announced last night for the 2006 Weblog Awards, and I'm a finalist in the Best of the Top 2501 - 3500 Blogs. Voting begins tomorrow, and I'll have the poll site linked to the image below and in my sidebar.

In war you shoot the enemy, not the hostage

2006-12-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

Donny has written another post that everyone should read.

He writes about how something Donald Miller said in Searching for God Knows What really struck him and made him stop to think.

“In war you shoot the enemy, not the hostage”.

Think about that for a second and then apply it to Christianity. It almost made me cry for some reason, but that’s not really too hard to do lately. I’ve been experiencing so much of Jesus’ love lately that, at times, it’s pretty difficult not to become emotional.

Let me share with you the direction that sentence took my mind. Tell me in the comments section where it took yours. Don used that sentence to sum up the idea that Christians too often focus on attacking the person sinning, rather than the source of that sin. Man may be sinful by nature, but covering him with the true love of Jesus can alter his nature. Instead of attacking and “killing” people, let’s focus on the Enemy and not on the hostage. The only way to kill the influence of evil within another person is to cover the hostage with the love Jesus challenged us to show to all people. That love will smother the one who tries to hold each of us hostage.

It seems to me that Satan has really used the church to do his bidding. Much of the world is so turned off by the war Christians have raged against “hostages” that it refuses to listen to the true message it’s meant to hear. That message is love. That message does not focus on sin. That doesn’t mean sin should be ignored, just that it needs to be placed in proper context.

There's no way I could have said that any better, and I really don't think I can add anything to it. I wish every Christian could read this. I wish every person who has ever been attacked by a Christian could read this and understand that we aren't all like that.

Tags: Christianity, God, Sin, Love, Donald Miller

The Meaning of Christmas

2006-11-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

I think that says it all.

Tags: Christmas, Meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown, Linus

Christian Carnival 150

2006-11-29T10:27:00.001-07:00

Christian Carnival 150 is up at Brain Cramps for God.

Posts everyone should read:

Evangelical Outpost has one of the most important posts I've read in a long time. The Next Abolition Movement: Abolishing Slavery in the 21st Century
I Still Don't Get Church is a post that resonates with me - and makes me sad.
Practical Quandary explains how A New Set of Glasses can liberate Christianity from its cultural captivity.

Tags: Christian Carnival, Christianity, God

The Limits to God's Grace

2006-11-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind in posting this week. I've been meaning to write about this since last week, I just haven't found the time.

Bart Campolo recently had an article published in YS' Student Ministries Journal called "The Limits to God's Grace." The article has subsequently been removed because of controversy.

I'm going to go through the entire article here, interspersing my own comments throughout.

The Limits Of God’s Grace
Written by Bart Campolo

A few years ago, after being politely asked to depart early from yet another speaking engagement for giving the wrong answer to a question about the limits of God’s mercy, I decided it wasn’t fair to keep sneaking up on unsuspecting Evangelicals.

Strange as it seems to me, I know all too well that to proclaim a God compassionate enough to seek the rescue of every one of his children—and powerful enough to pull it off—is a dangerous scandal to such folks. In a very real way, they don’t even hope for universal salvation. After all, without the fear of their unsaved loved ones’ eternal damnation, how would they motivate one another for outreach and missionary
service?

And yet, almost everywhere I go, I meet people—especially young people—who are not motivated at all by such fear. On the contrary, these people are utterly horrified by the notion of a Heavenly Father who essentially says to his children, “I love you, but if for any reason you fail to accept that fact before your mortal body expires, I will kill and torture you for all eternity.” Especially if that same Heavenly Father holds in hand all the reasons the children do or don’t accept in the first place. These are the people who ask me the questions that used to lead to my early departures, and who write me letters and emails like this one:

Dear Bart,
This might be kind of weird, but I have a question for you.I lived and worked among the poor with MissionYear in the inner-city of Atlantalast year. When you came to visit
my team, you told a story about how when you first started working in rough neighborhoods, you got to know a girl who was gang-raped as a nine-year-old and—after her Sunday School teacher told her God must have allowed it for a reason—rejected God forever. Because you believed God was indeed in control, and because you believed that girl’s lack of faith doomed her to eternal damnation, you decided that God must be a ‘cruel bastard.’ You sort of said the words inside my head out loud, words I had wanted to say for a long time.

Anyway, after putting this off for almost a year, I want to know how you reconciled that. How did you make it from, “God is a cruel bastard” back to “I can trust him”? I can’t seem to make that leap. Sometimes I begin to really trust him, but as soon as I think about my past abuse and those I know and love who are bound for Hell, it just doesn’t add up. I want to know the God you know—who apparently allows for horrible things in this world to happen, yet remains pure and holy and trustworthy and faithful and loving.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you, but as I was wrestling with it again today I was reminded of you and hoped you might be of some help.

Sarah

I am impressed by the letter. Those are tough questions that people have to deal with all the time. It's unfortunate that the actions of humans can cause a person's perception of God's character to change.

Dear Sarah,

Thank you for writing to me. Over the past few years, I have become convinced that yours is actually the single most important question in the world. As Rabbi Harold Kushner observes, “Virtually every meaningful conversation I’ve had with people about God has either started with that question or gotten around to it before long.” While I am sure my answer will not be as eloquent as his, I will do my best.

First of all, while I certainly believe my most cherished ideas about God are supported by the Bible (what Christian says otherwise?), I must admit they did not originate there. On the contrary, most of these ideas were formed during that difficult time I described to you, when I was suddenly disillusioned by the suffering and injustice I discovered in the inner-city—I suddenly did not trust the Bible at all. At that point, for the first time, I realized that people’s lives don’t depend on whether or not they believe in God, but rather on what kind of God they believe in.

I love his honesty. And I think he makes a great point here. What matters is what kind of God a person believes. Everyone believes in some sort of god--be it the God of the Bible, a force, a deity, or themselves. There is a ruling authority in everyone's life.

I also realized, for better or worse, that the only evidence I could rely on was that which I saw for myself. What I saw then, and still see now, is a world filled with dazzling goodness and horrific evil, love and hate, beauty and ugliness, life and death. In the face of such clear dualities, it seemed to me then, and still seems to me now, that there are but a handful of spiritual possibilities:

* There are no spiritual forces. The material universe is all. Our lives bear no larger meaning, and those who hope for more hope in vain. In this case, considering that nine-year-old rape victim, I despair.

* There is only one spiritual force at work in the universe, encompassing both good and evil. This world is precisely as this force wills it to be, and everything—including the rapes of children— happens according to its plan. In this case, again, I despair.

* There are two diametrically opposing spiritual forces at work in the universe, one entirely good and loving and the other entirely evil. Satan (or whatever one chooses to call that evil force) is most powerful and therefore will utterly triumph in the end. The suffering of that poor little girl is but a foretaste of the complete suffering that is to come for us all. In this case, of course, I despair.

* There are two opposing spiritual forces at work in the universe, one entirely good and loving and the other entirely evil. God (or whatever one chooses to call that good and loving force) is most powerful and therefore will utterly triumph in the end. The suffering of that poor little girl—evil’s doing—will somehow be redeemed, and she herself will be healed as part of the complete redemption and absolute healing that is to come for all of us. In this case—and in this case alone—I rejoice and gladly pledge my allegiance to this good and loving God. I cannot prove or disprove any of these possibilities, of course, based on the evidence of my experience.

What I know with certainty, however, is the one that makes me want to go on living, the one I choose for my own sake, the one I deem worthy of my allegiance. I may be wrong in this matter, but I am not in doubt. If indeed faith is being sure of what we hope for, then truly I am a man of faith, for I absolutely know what I hope to be true: that God is completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving, that God is doing everything possible to overcome evil (which is evidently a long and difficult task), and that God will utterly triumph in the end, despite any and all indications to the contrary.

It's easy to see how he came to these four conclusions. And I agree with him that the last one is the only one in which I won't despair (and of course, as you all already know, that's the one I identify with). And I, too, gladly pledge my allegiance to that good and loving God. Again, I love his honesty, "I may be wrong in this matter, but I am not in doubt."

This is my first article of faith. I required no Bible to determine it, and—honestly—I will either interpret away or ignore altogether any Bible verse that suggests otherwise.

And this is where my first big problem is within this article. On the one hand, I have to give him props for not being afraid to say it. And admittedly, a lot of Christians do this. A lot of Christians preach about the authority and infallibility of the Bible while doing this. That doesn't make it right. Either you believe the Bible or you don't. Don't pick and choose the verses that mesh with your own brand of theology.

This first article of faith was the starting point of my journey back to Jesus, and it remains the foundation of my faith. I came to trust the Bible again, of course, but only because it so clearly bears witness to the God of love I had already chosen to believe in. I especially follow the teachings of Jesus because those teachings—and his life, death, and resurrection—seem to me the best expression of the ultimate truth of God, which we Christians call grace. Indeed, these days I trust Jesus even when I don’t understand him, because I have become so convinced that he knows what he’s talking about, that he is who he says he is, and that he alone fully grasps that which I can only hope is true.

Unfortunately for me, God may be very different from what I hope, in which case I may be in big trouble come Judgment Day. Perhaps, as many believe, the truth is that God created and predestined some people for salvation and others for damnation, according to God’s will. Perhaps such caprice only seems unloving to us because we don’t understand. Perhaps, as many believe, all who die without confessing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior go to Hell to suffer forever. Most important of all, perhaps God’s sovereignty is such that although God could indeed prevent little girls from being raped, God is no less just or merciful when they are raped, and those children and we who love them should uncritically give God our thanks and praise in any case.

My response is simple: I refuse to believe any of that. For me to do otherwise would be to despair.

And here's problem number two. Some of the doctrine that he is completely blowing off here is clearly Scriptural (of course, what would I expect from someone who just said he would ignore the verses that don't mesh with what he believes). John 14:6 says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me." The concept of hell is also clearly taught in Scripture.

Some might say I would be wise to swallow my misgivings about such stuff, remain orthodox, and thereby secure my place with God in eternity. But that is precisely my point: If those things are true, then God might as well send me to Hell. For better or worse, I simply am not interested in any God but a completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving One who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil. Such a God may not exist, but I will die seeking such a God, and I will pledge my allegiance to no other possibility because, quite frankly, anything less is not worthy of my worship.

He's confusing concepts here. A completely good, entirely loving, and perfectly forgiving One who is powerful enough to utterly triumph over evil will still send people to hell. Because there are people out there who will choose not to follow Him. How is a God who automatically decides that everyone ends up in the same place regardless of that person's will or choice a completely good and entirely loving God?

Please, don’t get me wrong. I am well aware that I don’t get to decide who God is. What I do get to decide, however, is to whom I pledge my allegiance. I am a free agent, after all, and I have standards for my God, the first of which is this: I will not worship any God who is not at least as compassionate as I am. If Mahatma Gandhi and my young friend who got gang-raped are going to Hell because they failed to believe the right stuff, then I suppose I am too, for the same reason.

This is true. Everyone gets to choose who to pledge their allegiance to. But I think it's a little (ok, a lot) arrogant and presumptuous to proclaim that you have standards for God. If God has to bend to your standards, what kind of god is that and why would you want to worship it?

John Calvin—or Jerry Falwell for that matter—may well be right after all, but if they are I would rather cling to my glorious hope than accept their bitter truth just to save my own skin. You can figure out the rest. I don’t hate God because I don’t believe God is fully in control of this world yet. Heck, God is not fully in control of me yet, even when I want God to be—so how could I possibly believe that God is making all the bad stuff happen out there in the streets? I don’t hate God because I believe God is always doing the best God can within the limits of human freedom, which even God cannot escape. On that last point, consider for a moment the essential relationship between human freedom and love, and then consider the essential identity between love and God. If God is love and made us for love in God’s image, then God had no choice but to make us free, to leave us free, and to win us over to his Kingdom as free agents (which, evidently, is a long and difficult task). So God did, I believe, and so God will.

This is definitely something else that I think Campolo got right. And I think he said it far better than I ever could. God is limited by the limits He placed on Himself. When He gave us free will, He stepped out of the way. Think about it this way: if you have kids, do you want your kids to love you because you forced them to? Or because they want to?

I don’t hate God because, although I suppose God knows everything that can be known at any given point in time, I don’t suppose God knows or controls everything that is going to happen. I also don’t hate God because in more than 20 years on the street, I have seen too much of evil (and too much of my own, moving-in-the-right-direction-but-still-pretty-doggone-sinful nature). I don’t hate God because it seems to me that this world is a battleground between good and evil, not a puppet show with just one person pulling all the strings. I don’t hate God because the God I have chosen to believe in isn’t hateable, and because I refuse to believe in the kind of God that is.
Now here is the good news: I may be entirely wrong, but even in my darkest hours, my God of love hasn’t stopped speaking to me. On the contrary, I hear God’s voice in places I never did before, always saying the same things, one way or another: I am with you. I’m sorry about all the pain. It hurts me, too, especially when my little ones suffer. I have always loved you, and I always will. Do the best you can, but don’t worry. Everything will be all right in the end. Trust me.

And I do. And I hope you will, too, sooner than later.

Your friend,
Bart

While I disagree with some key points theologically, I think he did a phenomenal job of answering the question at hand. I hope that Sarah read his answer and was motivated to rethink her perception of who God is.

Of course, to believe in God the way I do is to change all the rules of ministry—especially of youth ministry. I still do my best to convince young people to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, but not because I’m afraid God will damn them to Hell if they don’t. On the contrary, I want the kids I love to follow Jesus because I genuinely believe following Jesus is the best kind of life. Eternity aside, I want them to be transformed by the Gospel right here and right now, for their sakes and for the sakes of all the lost and broken people out there who need them to start living as Jesus’ disciples. After all, the sooner we all start following Jesus by feeding the poor and freeing the oppressed, the sooner God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

I don't want anyone to be damned to hell, that's for sure. And I think that he's right when he says that he wants to see people transformed right here and right now. But there has to be a happy medium. You can't ignore the fact that Scripture does teach the concept of hell. But you also can't spend all of your time looking up into the sky longing to be in heaven. See my post on being eternally minded and not heaven minded.

Most of all, however, I evangelize people because, having discovered that they are the beloved children of my beloved God, I don’t want them to suffer one minute longer than they have to without knowing that most wonderful fact of life.
And I stay in the inner city, in spite of all the suffering and injustice I see here every day, because I can. No longer do I blame God for what is beyond his control or hate God for so much pain his little ones endure. Even in the midst of such ugliness, I can stay here because I am full of faith. I may not be sure of what I know anymore, but I am absolutely certain of what I hope for, and most of the time I manage to live
in that direction.

I stay here for one more reason, of course: In places like this, nobody asks you to leave early because you can’t find the limits of God’s grace.

All in all I think that the article was a good one. I think he's missed the boat a bit theologically, but his heart is good.

Christian Bloggers

2006-11-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

An "evilutionist" friend of mine and I were once talking about how it seems like all Christian blogs have the same blogroll. I figured out why yesterday...it's because they do! Apparantly, there's a Christian Blogger Aggregator.

I reworked my sidebars and added the blogroll to Imago Dei. That's the fair thing to do since I am included on the blogroll (though I'm not sure why, seeing as how I didn't know it existed until yesterday).

Just because a blog is linked in that blogroll does not mean that I agree with the views and opinions expressed within those blogs.

I just felt like I needed to include that disclaimer.

Philophronos Blogging

2006-11-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed a new blogroll in my sidebar: Philophronos Blogging. This is a new blogging concept come up with by Laura and Henry. It's an effort for Christians to reflect gentleness, respect, and kindness to everyone regardless of belief. It's an effort to keep debate civil. It was conceived with politics in mind, but I think this is so much bigger than just politics.

philóphrōn: to think, have a mindset. Friendly, courteous, benign (1Peter 3:8). Deriv.: philophrónōs (G5390), in a friendly or kind manner.
Philophronos is defined by Louw-Nida in their Dictionary of the New Testament According to Semantic Domains as “pertaining to friendly concern and kindness toward someone.”
Christian bloggers should purposefully express our political beliefs with gentleness and respect, with the intention of setting the example for non-Christians. We’re not all going to agree. We don’t need to agree. But we can debate the issues in such a way that the debate glorifies God and points people to Christ.

If you're interested, check out the guidelines and then get the code.

Atheist-Christian Discussion

2006-11-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to realize more and more that there is a lack of common sense among the masses.

When I first read this post, I found myself thinking, "Duh. That's common sense." Of course an atheist would disagree with a theist and find a way to tell them so in a conversation. Of course an atheist already has basic presuppositions going into a conversation that are different than mine.

Then I realized that not everyone has common sense. That's why Henry saw the need and wrote the post.

I have noticed from time to time that Christians become very angry with atheists or other skeptics in debate simply for being and saying who they are.

Go read it.

Paul, a feminist?

2006-11-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here's an alternate look at the passage in 1 Corinthians that have traditionally been interpreted as Paul saying men must have short hair and women must have long hair. I have to say, this makes sense, but I'll have to investigate further.

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage...

2006-11-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

Great, now that song is stuck in my head.

Ask anybody what Scripture passage is best read at a wedding and you'll always get 1 Corinthians 13 aka the Love chapter (all of a sudden I hear bow chica bow wow 70s style music in my head...).

Slacktivist has a great post on the kind of love talked about in this passage and what it means to all of is (in other words, this is the kind of love that you should live, not just how you should treat your significant other). (HT: Zach)

You should also check out this comment about a wedding where the passage was misread.

Pride? Humility? Truth?

2006-11-14T23:02:00.001-07:00

Update: I wrote this post last night when I was exhausted. Looking back over it this morning I realize that it isn't as coherent and cohesive as it seemed to be last night. Following is my rewrite.

Where do you draw the line between pride, humility, and truth? Bizarre question, I know. I've been struggling with this for awhile. My beliefs and even my personality have really done a 180 in the last year or so. It started a few years ago, but the change really happened this past year. I've gone from uber conservative to more moderate. I'm less shy. I stand up for what I believe in, even though it goes against the status quo. If you're not familiar with me and my blog, you can find most of what I'm talking about here and here.

And I've gotten a lot of praise for it from unlikely sources.

And I guess that's where my problem is coming from. It's really odd when a Christian gets praise from a bunch of atheists and people who normally completely bash Christianity.

And I've gotten some flak from Christians for the changes. Many seem to think that I'm compromising my convictions or trying too hard to stand on middle ground.

But then again, there are more and more Christians out there who are beginning to stand up, as I am. I am convinced that I have done nothing wrong and that the changes that have happened have actually brought me closer to God. I'm one step closer to being more Christlike (again, pride?).

I'm reminded of something Shane Claiborne said in The Irresistible Revolution:

I got many letters from non-Christians who were fascinated by the gospel I preached and the God I've grown to love, and I got many letters from religious folks and church elders who were upset that I would talk with such heathens. We must have done something right.

So have I done something right?

I think that because of the baggage I still carry from my more fundamentalist days, I'm struggling with this. Sometimes I feel like I must be wrong if those people are supporting me and the change that has occured. But then I reprimand myself and realize that it's those people who are the very people Jesus would be hanging out with. He wouldn't be warming a pew in a church somewhere. And it's this new group of people (I grew up in a Christian bubble) that has opened my eyes to a different God than the God I was exposed to when I was younger (How's that for irony? I learned about the God of love from the people who don't believe in Him!)

So then I get excited that I've made a dent in the stereotypes surrounding Christianity. But then that also seems like pride. But if I shake off the praise that I've gotten then it seems like false humility. And that's where my question comes in. Where do you draw the line between pride, humility, and truth?

A commenter noted that I'm talking about two different ideas when I speak of an atheist agreeing with me and hanging out with an atheist. I wasn't intending to imply that the two are related...although, if you think about it from a church perspective, they are. I was always taught growing up that I should not be friends with people who aren't Christians. I can witness to them, I can bring them to church, I can minister to them...but God help me if I became their friend. The underlying thought process to that, I think, is that they're wrong so you shouldn't spend time with them. If you do, they'll corrupt you.

That's the mindset that I'm trying to change. It's wrong. It's so unChristlike that for Christians to think like that is, in a way, taking the name of Christ in vain.

And just to clarify: those who are nonbelievers have not "agreed" with me on things relating to God, faith, or Jesus. What they have agreed with me on is how the actions and mindsets of many mainstream Christians needs to change..especially if their intent is to be Christlike.

The Prosperity "Gospel"

2006-11-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Laura has a great post about the prosperity gospel, and she had an awesome parody of the prosperity gospel. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Faith is not the opposite of reason

2006-11-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

There is an incredible debate between atheist biologist Richard Dawkins and Christian geneticist Francis Collins in the Time magazine dated November 13, 2006. What struck me the most was how these two men could debate the very divisive topic of God vs. Science in such a civil manner. I'm not accustomed to that in the debates I see or get involved in online. And while I think Francis Collins still made his points much better than Dawkins, Richard refrained from name calling (with the exception of one question). The interesting thing to note is that Collins agrees with Dawkins scientifically. He says, "I don't see that Professor Dawkins' basic account of evolution is incompatible with God's having designed it." I think this way of thinking is beginning to be more widespread among evangelical Christians. Less people are taking the account of creation in Genesis as literal; this paves the way for God to be the catalyst for evolution. At this point, I still disagree, but that's okay.

Excerpts from the debate:

Time: When would [God designing nature] have occured?

Collins: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

Time: The book of Genesis has led many conservative Protestants to oppose evolution and some to insist that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

Collins: There are sincere believers who interpret Genesis 1 and 2 in a very literal way that is inconsistent, frankly, with our knowledge of the universe's age or of how living organisms are related to each other. St. Augustine wrote that basically is it not possible to understand what was being described in Genesis. It was not intended as a science textbook. It was intended as a description of who God was, who we are and what our relationship is supposed to be with God. Augustine explicitly warns against a very narrow perspective that will put our faith at risk of looking ridiculous. If you step back from that one narrow interpretation, what the Bible describes is very consistent with the Big Bang.

This next one will get long because I want to include what both Collins and Dawkins said. It's an interesting exchange, though I found myself completely flabbergasted at what Dawkins suggested.

Time: Dr. Collins, you have described humanity's moral sense not only as a gift from God but as a signpost that he exists.

Collins: There is a whole field of inquiry that has come up in the last 30 or 40 years--some call it sociobiology or evolutionary psychology--relating to where we get our moral sense and why we value the idea of altruism, and locating both answers in behavioral adaptations for the preservation of our genes. But if you believe, and Richard has been articulate in this, that natural selection operates on the individual, not on a group, then why would the individual risk his own DNA doing something selfless to help somebody in a way that might diminish his chance of reproducing? Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they may help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chamers. That's the opposite of saving his genes. Many of us think these qualities may come from God--especially since justice and morality are two of the attributes we most readily identify with God.

Dawkins: Can I begin with an analogy? Most people understand that sexual lust has to do with propogating genes. Copulation in nature tends to lead to reproduction and so to more genetic copies. But in modern society, most copulations involve contraception, designed precisely to avoid reproduction. Altruism probably has its origins like those of lust. In our prehistoric past, we would have lived in extended families, surrounded by kin whose interests we might have wanted to promote because they shared our genes. Now we live in big cities. We are not among kin nore people who will ever reciprocate our good deeds. It doesn't matter. Just people engaged in sex with contraception are not aware of being motivated by a drive to have babies, it doesn't cross our mind that the reason for do-gooding is based in the fact that our primitive ancestors lived in small groups. But that seems to me to be a highly plausible account for where the desire for morality, the desire for goodness, comes from.

Collins: For you to argue that our noblest acts are a misfiring of Darwinian behavior does not do justice to the sense we all have about the absolutes that are involved here of good and evil. Evolution may explain some features of the moral law, but it can't explain why it should have any real significance. If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil. But for me, it is much more than that. Themoral law is a reason to think of God as plausible--not just a God who sets the universe in motion but a God who cares about human beings, because we seem uniquely amongst creatures on the planet to have this far-developed sense of morality. What you've said implies that outside of the human mind, tuned by evolutionary processes, good and evil have no meaning. Do you agree with that?

Dawkins: Even the question you're asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil--I don't believe that there is hanging out there, anywhere, something called good and something called evil. I think that there are good things that happen and bad things that happen.

Collins: I think that is a fundamental difference between us. I'm glad we identified it.

Am I the only one who noticed that Dawkins said he doesn't believe that there is something called good, but in the next breath said that good things happen? How can good things happen if there is no good?

Time: But to the extent that a person argues on the basis of Scripture rather than reason, how can scientists respond?

Collins: Faith is not the opposite of reason. Faith rests squarely upon reason, but with the added component of revelation. So such discussions between scientists and believers happen quite readily. But neither scientists nor believers always embody the principles precisely. Scientists can have their judgment clouded by their professional aspirations. And the pure truth of faith, which you can think of as this clear spiritual water, is poured into rusty vessels called human beings, and so sometimes the benevolent principles of faith can get distorted as positions are hardened.

That is the best analogy I've ever seen for faith and the fallibility of humans.

Time: Do the two of you have any concluding thoughts?

Collins: I just would like to say that over more than a quarter-century as a scientist and a believer, I find absolutely nothing in conflict between agreeing with Richard in practically all of his conclusions about the natural world, and also saying that I am still able to accept and embrace the possibility that there are answers that science isn't able to provide about the natural world--the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I'm interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist.

Dawkins: My mind is not closed, as you have occasionally suggested, Francis. My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot event dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up. When we started out and we were talking about the origins of the universe and the physical constans, I provide what I thought were cogent arguments against a supernatural intelligent designer. But it does seem to me to be a worthy idea. Refutable--but nevertheless grand and big enough to be worthy of respect. I don't see the Olympian gods or Jesus coming down and dying on the Cross as worthy of that grandeur. They strike me as parochial. If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.

Yes! Dawkins got something right! "If there is a God, it's going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed."

Here are a few Scriptures that Dawkins may be interested in:

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect thing comes, then that which is in part will be caused to cease." (1Co 13:9-10)

"And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (Phi 4:7)

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa 55:8-9)

This was an incredible debate to read and I would encourage you to read the whole thing. It's refreshing to read such extreme differences of opinion without the mudslinging.

Update: Jim Jordan has a great post on Dawkin's concluding comments.

Tags: Christianity, Faith, God, Evolution, Richard Dawkins, Francis Collins

Faith is not blind belief

2006-11-09T15:22:00.001-07:00

I’ve been having a great discussion with Lifewish on this post, and I think part of it warrants its own post. Lifewish brought up a great point and this post is an expanded version of my reply to him.

It's argued that religious beliefs, "potato chips for the mind", lead to a greater willingness to accept data from sources of marginal trustworthiness, such as gut instinct and televangelists.

Faith is not "blind belief." I can see how someone on the outside looking in might interpret it that way though. But the definition of faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 12:1). There are definite results in my life (evidence, if you will) that are a result of my belief in things that I can’t see (like God). I realize I’ve already committed a faux pas among nonbelievers by using the Bible to back me up, but the basis of my faith is found in the Bible. I will also argue that my belief in the Bible is not blind belief. Because of my faith I believe the Bible; because of the Bible I have faith. It’s a catch-22. Both are integral to my belief system and both rely on the other.

In the Bible, we are told to test everything against Scripture before believing it. This is why Paul praised the Bereans in Acts 17--they compared what they were taught with what was in Scripture before they would accept it. They made sure they believed what was right. Testing everything hardly leads to a greater willingingness to accept what people say. In that same vein, I love what Rob Bell wrote on the back cover of Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith.

We have to test everything.
I thank God for anybody anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God.
But those people would all tell to you think long and hard about what they are saying and doing and creating.
Test it. Probe it.
Do that to this book.
Don’t swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it.
Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed. I’m contributing to the discussion.
God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?

As far as "feelings" and "gut instincts" go...those really don't have a place in Christianity. I'm not saved because I "feel" saved. If that were the case, I'd rarely be saved! It's about what I know, not what I feel.

Now, unfortunately, a lot of Christians do place a lot of emphasis on feelings and instincts. They forget to test what they're taught. This is why men like Joel Osteen have mega churches. It's easier to believe what someone tells you to believe rather than what you've learned yourself through studying and spending time with God. And c'mon, this is America where the easy way is always the right way.

Blogs that link here: Pursuing Holiness, Dumb Ox News, Conservative Cat

An Environment of Honesty

2006-11-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

Scot McKnight has written what is probably the best post on the whole scandal surrounding Ted Haggard. (HT: Rhett Smith)

A few nuggets:

It is easier sometimes for us to trumpet the grace of Jesus for the sinfully-marginalized and excluded, than it is for us in our day to apply the same grace to the fallen. In my assessment, this point is where we must dwell: in praying for the grace of God to heal this man, his family, and the church in which he served.

But, what I find here is what I want to call the evangelical environment. In evangelicalism, and the charismatic stream in which Ted Haggard swims, sin is bad and sin by leaders is real bad. This leads to a complex of features that creates a serious problem:
1. Christians, and not just pastors, do not feel free to disclose sins to anyone;
2. Christians, including pastors, sin and sin all the time;
3. Christians, including pastors, in evangelicalism do not have a mechanism of confession;
4. Christians and pastors, because of the environment of condemnation of sin and the absence of a mechanism of confession, bottle up their sins, hide their sins, and create around themselves an apparent purity and a reality of unconfessed/unadmitted sin.
5. When Christians do confess, and it is often only after getting caught, they are eaten alive by fellow evangelicals — thus leading some to deeper levels of secrecy and deceit.
What we saw with Haggard is not just about leaders; it is about all of us.

It is dishonest to the human condition to pretend that Christians don’t sin; but as long as we are afraid to confess to one another we will continue to create an unrealistic and hypocritical environment.

I have to agree with him. We have created the kind of environment that leads to this kind of behavior. We bottle our sins up because we're afraid to let anyone see how human we are. We live in this mindset that Christians are someone above the rest when it comes to temptation and sin. Let's join Scot McKnight in trying to create an environment of honesty.

Theocracy panic

2006-11-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

There is a fabulous article in the National Review Online about the folks who "warn that America is beset by raging theocrats seeking to overturn our liberal democracy." (HT: Parablman)

In the article, Rick Lowry challenges those on the left who would argue that most conservative politicians are trying to turn the America of the 21st century into a theocracy.

Keep reading for the full article.

Items in bold my emphasis.

In the 1650s, Oliver Cromwell governed England with a cadre of major generals, establishing a kind of low-church Protestant theocracy. Catholic priests were chased from the country, and Anglican clergy were suppressed. Censorship and blue laws were tightened.
What does Cromwell’s rule have to do with contemporary American political life? If your answer is anything other than “nothing,” you are probably in the grip of the “theo-panic” that is sweeping precincts of the American commentariat. They warn that America is beset by raging theocrats seeking to overturn our liberal democracy.
Otherwise respectable historians, Kevin Phillips and Garry Wills, have made this charge. It is a staple of the New York Times op-ed page. It has launched a slew of books with dire warnings: by Michelle Goldberg (“high tide for theocratic fever”), by James Rubin (“an effort to change America into a Christian theocracy”) and by Damon Linker (“the end of secular politics”).
The theocracy charge relies mainly on blowing Christian conservative positions out of proportion. Do Christian conservatives oppose the public funding of embryo-destructive stem-cell research? Well, then, Calvin’s Geneva can’t be far behind. Never mind that in opposing such funding, they are usually supporting the status quo. It’s a little like saying that because Democrats oppose cuts in Medicaid, they favor a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Purveyors of the theo-panic love to exaggerate the influence of the bizarre Christian Reconstructionists who actually want an American theocracy. As New York Times religion writer Peter Steinfels notes in a review of the spate of new books, Christian Reconstructionists play “a greater role in the writings of the religious right’s critics than they ever have in the wider evangelical world.” He notes that the flagship evangelical journal, Christianity Today, almost never shows up in these books, because, inconveniently, it is “moderate, reflective and self-questioning.”
National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru has pointed out that you can take all Christian conservative positions — including far-fetched ones like banning sodomy and contraception — and if they happened overnight they “would merely turn the clock back to the late 1950s. That may be a very bad idea, but the America of the 1950s was not a theocracy.”
Writing in First Things, Ross Douthat explains a problem with the theo-panic, which is that the influence of institutional religion is at a low ebb: “No prelate wields the kind of authority that Catholic bishops once enjoyed over urban voters, no denomination can claim the kind of influence that once belonged to the old WASP mainline, and the evangelical Protestantism that figures so prominently in anti-theocracy tracts is distinguished precisely by its lack of any centralized ecclesiastical government.”
The truth about Christian conservatives is that they support public-policy goals infused with a certain view of morality. This isn’t unusual. The greatest reform movement of the 20th century — the civil-rights movement — was explicitly Christian. Today, the opposition to torture is based on a moral view that trumps all practical considerations (the inviolable dignity of the human person). A moral sense is often behind the liberal opposition to the Iraq War and to the death penalty. No one in American politics says, “I believe this is immoral and therefore should become the policy of the United States.”
Some of the anti-theocracy writers claim that what sets Christian conservatives apart is that their advocacy is explicitly religious. But most of the time it isn’t. Take the high-profile issue of abortion. It doesn’t take any particular religious faith to think that embryos in the womb are humans deserving protection — the key claim of abortion opponents. But their critics don’t want to hear it.
For such self-professed advocates of reasoned discourse, they show an appalling tendency to want to shut down the other side with their swear word of “theocracy.” They are emotional, self-righteous and close-minded. They are, in short, everything they accuse Christian conservatives of being. When the theo-panic passes, maybe a few of them will regret their hysteria.
— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.

More on Ted Haggard

2006-11-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

Ted Haggard has been removed from his position of leadership at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, CO after confessing to "sexual immorality."

My heart breaks for this man, his family, and his church.

Following are statements made by both Ted Haggard and his wife, Gayle, to their church about the recent scandal.

November 5, 2006
My Dear New Life Church Family,
I am so sorry. I am sorry for the disappointment, the betrayal, and the hurt. I am sorry for the horrible example I have set for you.
I have an overwhelming, all-consuming sadness in my heart for the pain that you and I and my family have experienced over the past few days. I am so sorry for the circumstances that have caused shame and embarrassment to all of you.
I asked that this note be read to you this morning so I could clarify my heart's condition to you. The last four days have been so difficult for me, my family and all of you, and I have further confused the situation with some of the things I've said during interviews with reporters who would catch me coming or going from my home. But I alone am responsible for the confusion caused by my inconsistent statements. The fact is, I am guilty of sexual immorality, and I take responsibility for the entire problem.
I am a deceiver and a liar. There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life. For extended periods of time, I would enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom. Then, from time to time, the dirt that I thought was gone would resurface, and I would find myself thinking thoughts and experiencing desires that were contrary to everything I believe and teach.
Through the years, I’ve sought assistance in a variety of ways, with none of them proving to be effective in me. Then, because of pride, I began deceiving those I love the most because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint them.
The public person I was wasn’t a lie; it was just incomplete. When I stopped communicating about my problems, the darkness increased and finally dominated me. As a result, I did things that were contrary to everything I believe.
The accusations that have been leveled against me are not all true, but enough of them are true that I have been appropriately and lovingly removed from ministry. Our church's overseers have required me to submit to the oversight of Dr. James Dobson, Pastor Jack Hayford, and Pastor Tommy Barnett. Those men will perform a thorough analysis of my mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical life. They will guide me through a program with the goal of healing and restoration for my life, my marriage, and my family. I created this entire situation. The things that I did opened the door for additional allegations. But I am responsible; I alone need to be disciplined and corrected. An example must be set.
It is important that you know how much I love and appreciate my wife, Gayle. What I did should never reflect in a negative way on her relationship with me. She has been and continues to be incredible. The problem was not with her, my children, or any of you. It was created 100% by me.
I have been permanently removed from the office of Senior Pastor of New Life Church. Until a new senior pastor is chosen, our Associate Senior Pastor, Ross Parsley, will assume all of the responsibilities of the office. On the day he accepted this new role, he and his wife, Aimee, had a new baby boy. A new life in the midst of this circumstance—I consider that confluence of events to be prophetic. Please commit to join with Pastor Ross and the others in church leadership to make their service to you easy and without burden. They are fine leaders. You are blessed.
I appreciate your loving and forgiving nature, and I humbly ask you to do a few things:
1. Please stay faithful to God through service and giving.
2. Please forgive me. I am so embarrassed and ashamed. I caused this and I have no excuse. I am a sinner. I have fallen. I desperately need to be forgiven and healed.
3. Please forgive my accuser. He is revealing the deception and sensuality that was in my life. Those sins, and others, need to be dealt with harshly. So, forgive him and, actually, thank God for him. I am trusting that his actions will make me, my wife and family, and ultimately all of you, stronger. He didn’t violate you; I did.
4. Please stay faithful to each other. Perform your functions well. Encourage each other and rejoice in God’s faithfulness. Our church body is a beautiful body, and like every family, our strength is tested and proven in the midst of adversity. Because of the negative publicity I’ve created with my foolishness, we can now demonstrate to the world how our sick and wounded can be healed, and how even disappointed and betrayed church bodies can prosper and rejoice.
Gayle and I need to be gone for a while. We will never return to a leadership role at New Life Church. In our hearts, we will always be members of this body. We love you as our family. I know this situation will put you to the test. I’m sorry I’ve created the test, but please rise to this challenge and demonstrate the incredible grace that is available to all of us.
Ted Haggard

And from Gayle:

November 5, 2006
Dear Women of New Life Church,
I am so sorry for the circumstances that have led me to write this letter to you today. I know your hearts are broken; mine is as well. Yet my hope rests steadfastly in the Lord who is forever faithful.
What I want you to know is that I love my husband, Ted Haggard, with all my heart. I am committed to him until death “do us part.” We started this journey together and with the grace of God, we will finish together.
If I were standing before you today, I would not change one iota of what I have been teaching the women of our church. For those of you who have been concerned that my marriage was so perfect I could not possibly relate to the women who are facing great difficulties, know that this will never again be the case. My test has begun; watch me. I will try to prove myself faithful.
I love you all so much, especially you young women—you were my delight.
To all the church family of new Life Church—Ted and I are so proud of you. You are all we hoped you would be. In our minds, there is no greater church. As you try to make sense of these past few days, know that Ted believes with all his heart and soul everything he has ever taught you, those things you are putting into practice. He is now the visible and public evidence that every man (woman and child) needs a Savior.
We are grateful for your prayers for our family.
I hold you forever in my heart,
Gayle Haggard

It is so evident that this family is broken by the events that have occurred. I am proud of Ted for standing up for the Truth (though it took some time) and admitting what he did, regardless of the embarrassment and shame he feels.

I am proud of Gayle for standing by her husband during this trial. And make no mistake--this is most definitely a trial for this family.

I urge you to keep this family in your prayers. Keep New Life Church in your prayers. My fear is that a scandal like this will cause a church split or send many looking for a new church. It is important that we keep the man separate from the ministry. They are not one and the same. Ted Haggard may have been a pastor, but he is still just a man.

Evangelicals in the news

2006-11-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

What a week for evangelicals. Two well known (okay, one more than the other) have both made headlines this week (for bad things, of course).

Ted Haggard, former President of the National Association of Evangelicals, has been accused of having an affair with another man, Mike Jones. At first, Haggard vehemently denied all allegations, including drug use. Now, Haggard has admitted to buying methamphetamines and having Mike Jones, a gay prostitute, give him a massage.

Regardless of whether these allegations are true or not, we all need to keep Rev. Haggard and all of his ministries in prayer. This man has done a ton of stuff to further the kingdom of God and even if the allegations end up being true, that doesn't change the good things that have come out of his ministries. Unfortunately, allegations like this can do major damage to ministries that have done a lot of good. Let's remember to keep them in prayer.

Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind and his wife were both convicted of tax fraud. He faces up to 288 years in prison and she faces up to 225 years.

Hovind also believes that as workers of God, he and all employees of the theme park and his ministry are exempt from paying taxes.

What in the world was he thinking?

Christian Carnival

2006-11-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

This week's Christian Carnival is up at the Evangelical Ecologist.

I don't have time to do any highlights this week, so go read all of great posts!

Heaven minded or Eternally minded?

2006-10-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

I took about a week off posting so I could reflect on the things that God keeps speaking into my heart. You know what most of them are--I've shared them here and here. It's been an interesting journey, that's for sure.

Tonight the small group that I attend with girls from work got into a discussion that ended up being pretty relevant, I think. I left contemplating the difference between being heaven-minded and being eternally-minded. I think the difference is pretty big, and I think Shane Claiborne gets to the heart of the matter when he says:

"While the voices of blockbuster movies and pop culture cry out for a life outside the matrix of numb efficiency, Christianity often has offered little to the world, other than the hope that things will be better in heaven."

That, to me, is being heaven-minded. You know who I'm talking about. The folks out there who are constantly moaning about how bad this world is and how they can't wait to get to heaven to be with Jesus. They spend all of their time thinking about how much better life will be in the afterlife that they forget to live this one to the fullest.

But then you come across verses like these in the Bible:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor. Yet I do not know what I shall choose. For I am pressed together by the two: having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. (Phi 1:21-24)

My problem is that I'm not like Paul. I'm not torn between wanting to be here and wanting to be in heaven. I long for Jesus to be with me; not the other way around. When I brought this up in Bible study tonight, I immediately felt...alone. I guess that's the right word. I was the only one in the room who holds this position. To begin with, they tried to tell me that I must not have been through any major trials or else I would understand what they meant. Eventually, after I elaborated a bit more, they began to somewhat see what I meant.

God has a purpose for my life. I know that. I also know that He's not going to take me to heaven until that purpose has been fulfilled. So why should I long for something that I can't have right now? My effort should be placed in fulfilling that purpose in life.

Read Shane's quote again:

"While the voices of blockbuster movies and pop culture cry out for a life outside the matrix of numb efficiency, Christianity often has offered little to the world, other than the hope that things will be better in heaven."

To me, that's the result of heaven-minded people. And it's sad! We need to be more concerned with this world than the next. This is the world full of sad, lonely, and hurting people. This is the world in which we can offer the hope that we have found.

Being eternally minded, to me, is what is talked about here:

Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. (Mat 28:19-20)

I want to be on the earth because this is what I'm supposed to do. Jesus is with me, I know that. And I know that eventually, I'll be with him. That's good enough for me. My focus isn't on getting there as soon as possible. My focus is on working to make this world a better place--isn't that what God has asked us to do? We're supposed to offer hope to the world.

And may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Rom 15:13)

Blogs who link here: Pursuing Holiness, Conservative Cat, Dumb Ox News, Blue Star Chronicles

The Irresistible Revolution

2006-10-22T20:37:00.000-06:00

God never ceases to amaze me. I started reading (and nearly finished) a book on the plane today that completely affirmed everything that I've been feeling recently. Take that, Satan!

I feel a little silly that I allowed myself to get so discouraged. But you know, it happens. But I want to share with you a little more of my heart, this time in the words of Shane Claiborne in The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. I hope you will take the time to read all of these quotes. This is only a small portion of the book, but each of these spoke volumes to me. I found myself in tears several times on the plane today because of the intense hunger for God I feel.

"While the voices of blockbuster movies and pop culture cry out for a life outside the matrix of numb efficiency, Christianity often has offered little to the world, other than the hope that things will be better in heaven."

"Sometimes we speak out to change the world, and other times we speak to try to keep the world from changing us."

"There are many false prophets (and false profits) out there, and all kinds of embarrassing things being done in the name of God. Religious extremists of all faiths have perverted the best of our traditions. But there is another movement stirring, a little revolution of sorts. Many of us are refusing to allow distorted images of our faith to define us. There are those of us who, rather than simply reject pop evangelism, want to spread another kind of Christianity, a faith that has as much to say about this world as it does about the next."

"Dualism has infected the church, a dualism in which folks separate the spiritual from the political or social, as if the political and social issues were of no spiritual significance, and as if God had no better vision to offer this world...The issues we will stir up can be volatile and gut-wrenching. But I think there are enough of us so discontented with the old answers and traditional camps--whether believers or activists, capitalists or socialists, Republicans or Democrats, pacifists or just-warriors--that the risk is worth it. The time has come for a new kind of conversation, a new kind of Christianity, a new kind of revolution."

"In our culture of "seeker sensitivity" and radical inclusivity, the great temptation is to compromise the cost of discipleship in order to draw a larger crowd. With the most sincere hearts, we do not want to see anyone walk away from Jesus because of the discomfort of his cross, so we clip the claws on the Lion a little, we clean up a bit the bloody Passion we are called to follow."

"We would like to include people like the rich ruler and Ananias and Sapphira, but we would end up with the sort of Christianity that arose after Constantine, in which everyone can be a Christian but no one knows what a Christian is anymore."

"We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor."

"I'm not sure we need more churches. What we really need is a church. I say one church is better than fifty. I have tried to remove the plural form churches from my vocabulary, training myself to think of the church as Christ did, and as the early Christians did. The metaphors for her are always singular--a body, a bride. I heard one gospel preacher say it like this, as he really wound up and broke a sweat: "We've got to unite ourselves as one body. Because Jesus is coming back, and he's coming back for a bride, not a harem.""

"For us, belief is only the beginning. What really matters is how we live, how what we believe gets fleshed out, so we also have a statement of orthopraxis (meaning, "right living, right practices"). And this is where most belief-oriented faith communities fall short. They tell us only what they believe, but they do not tell us how their beliefs affect their lifestyles."

"People are poor not just because of their sins; they are poor because of our sins (and people are rich because of our sins). On the wall of New Jerusalem (a facility made up of people recovering from addictions) is a sign that reads, "We cannot fully recover until we help the society that made us sick recover.""

"Jesus never talked to a prostitute because he didn't see a prostitute. He just saw a child of God he was madly in love with."

"We live in an age in which people, when they hear the word Christian, are much more likely to think of people who hate gays than people who love outcasts, and that is a dangerous thing."

"The world has seen Christian extremists who will blow up abortion clinics and dance on doctors' graves. We have seen Christian extremists who hold signs that say, "God hates fags." The world has seen Christian extremists who declare war in the name of the Lamb. But where are the Christian extremists for love and grace?"

Perhaps my words earlier did not seem to carry love and grace in them; I assure you, it was there. My heart cries out for the world to see Jesus! And to see Jesus through those of us who carry his name. And for that to happen, the church needs to see itself the way the world does. We are supposed to be a light in the darkness. We're supposed to help the poor and the outcasts and the sick. But those who don't believe see us as full of hatred and judgment and condemnation. We have our exclusive Christian bubbles and often don't want to be bothered by anything outside of them.

Burst the bubble.

Reach out a helping hand.

Do, don't just tell.

I'm using my voice

2006-10-21T02:00:00.000-06:00

I wrote an article recently and I ended up pretty discouraged as a result. My intended audience was people like myself: those who follow Christ. The response to the article only confirmed for me what I was intending to expose. In general, Christians have become complacent and comfortable with life the way it is.

Christians are seeing the world as right/wrong, heaven/hell, black/white, and pharisee/disciple.

The way we do things at my church is right.

The songs we sing at my church are right.

The way we dress at my church is right.

The Bible we use at my church is the right one.

How selfish and self-centered can we be? Why is it so hard for a Christian to accept criticism? Or change, for that matter? Why have we become so complacent and content where we are that suggesting anything radical (like Jesus, perhaps?) would cause a stir?

Satan has certainly put me under a fair amount of attack since I posted the original article. I even began questioning whether or not what I had written was really something that God had laid on my heart. I began to think that if the nonChristian crowd enjoyed it so much, then maybe the ideas I presented were wrong and not from God.

But that's just silly. God has been dealing with me and this issue for quite some time. And while I certainly acknowledge that I don't know everything and that I am not perfect, I know that there is definite truth behind my words. There is a problem with mainstream Christianity today. And those of us who see it aren't using our voice to deal with it. And not speaking up is the same as condoning it.

I refuse to do that any longer. I used to ask how one lone voice can make a difference. I still have the question, but at least I'm trying to use my voice to find the answer to that question.

Where's your voice?

NBC will not show Madonna on the cross

2006-10-19T15:19:00.000-06:00

It looks like the AFA succeeded: NBC has edited out the portions of Madonna's concert special in order to cut the scenes where she is singing while on a cross.

Read my thoughts on Madonna's mock crucifixion.

Judge Dismisses Charges Against Woman Who Killed Her Unborn Child

2006-10-19T12:53:00.000-06:00

This story, about a woman who shot her stomach, killing her unborn child, on the morning she was to deliver (she was having contractions), makes me want to scream and rage and cry all at the same time.

I want to hurt the judge.

That may not be the most Christ-like attitude to have, but at least it's an honest one. I am very adamantly pro-life. Oddly enough, it isn't rooted in my faith. I don't think abortion is a moral problem--it's a legal one. If this woman had waited a few hours to shoot her baby once it was outside the womb, there would be no question about her guilt. She would have been convicted of murder. But because the child (who was completely formed and full term) was still in the womb, she's innocent of murder.

Why does some skin, tissue, flesh, and fluids count as the line that is drawn between murder and legal abortion?

All she was charged with was carrying out an illegal abortion. And then she was found not guilty because it is apparantly not a crime for the mother of the child to kill her own child.

If someone else had pulled the trigger, he or she would be criminally accountable. Because it was the pregnant woman herself, no crime was committed, the court ruled.

What kind of crap is that?

Christian Carnival 144

2006-10-18T17:34:00.000-06:00

This week's Christian Carnival is up at The Buzz Blog.

Highlights:

Why students are dropping out of church by Life in Student Ministry
Why do I stay at New Life Church? Making the hard decision to care covenentally for my church family at the Faith at Work blog.
What God has joined together at Every Thought Captive

Which Does Jesus Find Funnier: You or Me Laughing At You?

2006-10-18T11:24:00.000-06:00

There's a great post on OblivionTouch's Xanga site.

Go read it.

Which Does Jesus Find Funnier: You or Me Laughing At You?

A Call to Christians

2006-10-18T10:18:00.000-06:00

I am told that Christians do not love each other. I am very sorry if that be true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love each other are not Christians.

Charles Spurgeon

I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months becoming more and more aware of how the world views those who use the label “Christian” to describe our lives. At first I just dismissed those negative views as some anti-Christian bias, but I’ve recently become acquainted with a group of people who harbor some very strong and very negative feelings and opinions towards anything having to do with Christianity. When I took a step back to ask myself how anyone could possibly feel that way, I didn’t like the answers I found.

It felt like a slap in the face when I realized that all of the spiritual growth I’d experienced in the last several months had come with no help whatsoever from the Christian world. God has brought me to some new places by opening my eyes to those outside of the Christian bubble I’ve always lived in.

I noticed pretty quickly when I became a frequent commenter on an atheist blog that it seemed as though the most hateful and condescending comments often came from those proclaiming the name of Christ. Sadly, the problem is not confined solely to the internet. The only “Christians” getting any media exposure these days always seem to be the extreme fundamentalists who are busy proclaiming “God hates fags” or promoting similar hate-speech. If it’s not that, they’re busy condemning our nation as wicked and predicting God’s wrath raining down upon us in the form of a natural disaster. The biggest churches in America are now promoting the “prosperity gospel” where followers are promised financial prosperity through faith, thus turning evangelizing into a form of bribery.

Christians: it’s time to get back to the basics! Is this the face of Christianity that you want the world to accept? Is this what it truly means to be a follower of Christ?

We have become complacent in our faith.

We have forgotten what it means to be like Jesus.

We watch daily as these “Christians” run the name of Christ through the mud, yet we are content to sit idly by and do nothing about it.

Would Jesus ever condemn a man or woman by proclaiming “God hates fags”? Absolutely not! Would Jesus ever sit on a pew in a church comfortably listening to doctrines that promote the “prosperity gospel”? Never!

We must ask ourselves why we let those who call themselves “Christian” do those same things. Why is no one standing up and proclaiming “Hey! That’s not right! That’s not what it means to be a Christian!”?

I once heard a great story about a bag of Oreo cookies that nicely parallels our current situation. A husband and wife bought a box of snack-sized bags of Oreo cookies. When they arrived at home they decided to open up a bag for a snack. The bag looked like all of the other bags, but when they opened it there were no cookies inside! The bag contained nothing but air, so they threw it away and opened another one. Again, though the bag looked normal from the outside, they found no cookies inside the bag. The husband turned to his wife and asked “How many bags of cookies will you go through before you give up and assume they’re all empty?”

How many times does a nonbeliever have to get burned by someone claiming the mantle of Christ before they give up on Christianity altogether?

How long will it take before Christians stand up and show the world what it really means to be like Christ?

Many people, after a brief look, come to the conclusion that Christians have become the most judgmental and hypocritical group of people on earth. Many Christians, it seems, go to church on Sunday and spend the rest of the week living however they choose.

Is it any wonder that people don’t want to associate themselves with anything “Christian”?

The Bible says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was” (James 1:22-24).

That paints a perfect picture of how most people view the Christian: hypocritical! Dare I say it: Christians are the most hypocritical group of people living today.

When are we going to start doing everything we say we believe in?

When are we going to stand up and let the world know that Christianity isn’t a label, but a lifestyle?

When are we going to show the world who Jesus really is?

Blogs that link here: Conservative Cat, Blue Star Chronicles, Random Yak, TMH's Bacon Bits, Linkfest Haven, Dumb Ox News, Planck's Constant, Third World County

We Don't Want to be the Church Anymore

2006-10-17T12:33:00.000-06:00

I'm not really sure what God is doing in my life these days. He's revealing all sorts of new things to me and putting things in my path that all affirm what I've been feeling the need to get across to Christians in this country--and across the world.

I'm a regular reader of the Burnside Writer's Collective and there is an article posted that spoke volumes to me--particularly considering what God is showing me as of late.

Don't Want To Be The Church Anymore

Dear Church,
I don’t mean to hurt your feelings here, Church, because I know you’re all about living up to Jesus’ expectations for you. But sometimes, how can I say it, the word church just doesn’t have that ring to it.
Know what I mean?
Like I kinda want to whisper the word sometimes. Not because I’m ashamed, because well, I know better than to be ashamed. Don’t think I’m not aware of that verse. You know, the one that says we’re not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. I can recite it in my best monotone-KJV-memorizing-Scripture voice, if you want.
I want to whisper the word church because I know that as soon as it leaves my mouth, someone in the room will flinch, inevitably thinking of steeples and crosses and roadway signs sporting interchangeable cheesy sayings. It’s like playing one of those terrible psychological games where I say the word and everyone else says the first thing that comes to their minds. Only when I say “church,” they tell me their reactions with their eyes, with their body language, and yes, sometimes with their mouths. And let’s just say, the “gee, tell me more” reactions are hard to come by.
I want to whisper the word church because sometimes the person in the room who is flinching is me. Because, despite all the amazing, mind-blowing images that come with any institution appointed by Christ himself, the term church has developed some negative connotations even for me. So sometimes I resort to saying it softly, or kind of half-mumbling, half-coughing it out into conversation without pausing to let someone point out that they can’t understand my slurring.
Sometimes I just skirt mentioning the C word altogether. Not to sell my faith short, you understand, but to get around all the assumptions attached to the label. Unfortunately, it is not easy to describe your brand of Christian faith without affiliating yourself with an institutional church.
Simply saying that I’m a Christian would be an immediate giveaway, of course. Christians go to church. Churches are full of Christians. Everyone sees the connection.
I can’t really go around telling people I am “a person of the Way” because that brings to mind cults and stories of churches gone bad, like David Koresh and Jim Jones. And God knows, enough people already think the local Christian churches are cults as is. Heck, it’s our favorite churchy joke to recount how the neighbors heard that people in our “cult” light candles at late-night services and get what they’re sure is garden-variety Crisco oil slapped onto their forehead at various prayer meetings.
I can’t say I’m “an evangelical,” because that is even worse than being a church-going Christian. Evangelicals are those people who preach a rotating list of twelve sermons all written to describe the eternal torment of hell. They are the people who play eerie music as the pastor asks people to raise their hands or “come forward.” Or if they are on TV, maybe they ask you to touch the screen where the static electric charge doubles as the spark of the Holy Spirit.
I can’t say I’m “a conservative,” because then it beckons images of men with three-piece suits and neatly parted, shiny hair who build coalitions to defeat the Democrats, the Smurfs, and billions of other alleged tools of Satan.
I can’t say I’m “religious,” because we’ve all been taught the folly of that. Now everyone say it together: “This is not a religion, it’s a relationship.”
I can’t say I’m “a Jesus Freak,” because although I do know D.C. Talk’s rap by heart, I like people to wait in suspense a while before deciding I’m a freak. I don’t want to tell them right from the beginning. It takes the fun out of it.
I can’t say I’m “spiritual,” because people translate that as a simple “two thumbs up” for Mel Gibson’s Passion movie. Or they figure I subscribe to an online horoscope and watch TV shows about channeling my dead pets. Spirituality is very in, you know. My waitress, drycleaner, dentist, and grocery store cashier all have WWJD bracelets and copies of The Prayer of Jabez to prove it. The emergent church opts for “Christ follower” which, I have to admit, is the best term I’ve got as well. (But darn it, I don’t want to be pigeonholed as “emergent” either.)
I wish I could land on a self-description that’s new and fresh, something not so stained in people’s minds. The only problem being, of course, that eventually too many Christ followers (myself included) will show their humanness and our new words will be blacklisted from the usable list too.
Maybe instead of worrying about labels, Church, I should be taking the advice of Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”
Maybe I should demonstrate that “going to church” infers something broader than keeping a pew warm in a cross-clad building. Maybe it’s time to rewrite the age-old, folded hands illustration: Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open the door and see all the people.
Here’s my edited version: Here is the building; it doesn’t need a steeple. Inside is the church … see, the church is the people.
Perhaps I should make it clear that church, at its most basic level, is just a big group of Christians. And then I could point out that Christian was never supposed to be a synonym for “perfect,” “blameless,” or “never hypocritical.” We already have a synonym for that. It’s Christ. The two words sound similar, and look similar on paper—and obviously there’s an inescapable relationship between them—so it’s understandable that people sometimes get confused. But, thank God for us, they are far from identical twins. Mistaking even the best Christian for Christ is like seeing your first Model T and walking away thinking you’ve met Henry Ford.
Maybe we should revamp the newcomer’s orientation. You know, touch on the disillusionment piece. Maybe we should tell potential converts about our various shortcomings upfront.
(Note: We used to call potential converts “seekers,” but apparently the cool term is now “inquirer.” Although I think “inquirer” sounds like someone who buys up those checkout lane magazines about Elvis’s three-headed dragon living in a box of Cheerios. By the way, when it came to vocabulary, Jesus cut right to the chase. He called the unsaved “lost,” and he said it in a way that made the lost sound like the treasure we should all be out looking for. Now that’s cool.)
Regardless of the lingo, maybe we should let potential Christians know that no one in the church keeps all the standards spelled out in the manual all the time. Unfortunately, to my own discredit, I slide here and there, sacrifice a few rules when I’m in a hurry or if it’s convenient. Maybe I should tell them that I strive to perform at my maximum capacity … well, except for when I’m tired, or cranky, or acting in my own self-interest.
Maybe I should point out right from the beginning that there is a reason why Jesus is the head honcho and I am the company gofer. That no matter how many promotions I get, he’s actually the only one who is following procedure all the time. We try to keep up, but we can’t. And the really annoying part? He’s not even following guidelines. He just is that way naturally.
Maybe I should try to help newcomers separate God from me. Hey, a good start on that lesson would be to stop acting like I am God. Stop acting like I know exactly what to say, what to do, how to think, how to live every moment of every day. Stop projecting that I am the ever-so-useful-and-always-accurate judge, jury, and executioner all in one.
Maybe I have to realize that if I want disillusionment to change, the first person who has to change is me.

All I can say is wow.

Lack of posting

2006-10-12T10:11:00.000-06:00

There won't be any new posts until at least Tuesday of next week. My mom is flying in today and I get to spend four whole days with her. I'm so excited! We're going to do the tourist-y thing while she's here and just spend time together. I've seen her all of 6 hours since I moved here in January, and since she's one of my best friends, this is going to be an incredible weekend!

See you next week.

Christian Carnival

2006-10-11T10:43:00.000-06:00

This week's Christian Carnival is up at Roman's 15:4 Project.

Highlights:

Reflections on Discipleship--part 1 is the first in a series of posts and open discussion on the topic and need of Christian discipleship.
The Pharisee Factor looks at the error that what you believe—what you profess, that is—counts for far more than what you are. It's an error that needs correction before the church can regain lost credibility, to say nothing of favor with God.
Christian Counting thinks about what Paul told the Philippians about counting.

Milestone 200

2006-10-11T10:33:00.000-06:00

My last post yesterday was a milestone for Imago Dei. I have written 200 posts since the inception of this blog in February 2006.

For those of you who are regular readers...thanks for sticking it out with me!

What in the world is Truth?

2006-10-10T13:09:00.000-06:00

During my morning blog-reading (which I finally was able to get back to this morning), I came across a great post about Truth by Chris Cree of CREEations. Above all else, one statement of his stood out above the rest.

“Philosophers go around hunting for truth as though it is a collection of ideas, when in actuality the thing they are looking for is a person. Is it any wonder so many miss it?”

Chris is referring to John 14:6 when Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."

But what a statement. When stated so simply as that, I feel like I've been living a huge DUH! moment by not getting it.

Sadly we’re seeing a lot more people take the stance that truth is relative. Those of us who believe in what the Bible says about truth obviously believe that truth is absolute and that we have found the truth.

Jesus is the Truth.

But we can't force people to accept or believe this. Forcing people to choose Christ goes against the very nature of the Gospel. We are to choose life; not be forced to accept it.

As Chris stated in a reply to my comment to him, we can present the truth (by introducing them to Jesus), but the rest is up to them.

Out of curiosity, I have to wonder why the idea of relativity is so popular. Why has it gained such a stronghold in our society?

Under the Overpass

2006-10-05T15:58:00.000-06:00

This book is absolutely incredible. I sat down to read it last night and couldn't put it down! I finished the whole thing in about an hour and a half, and it was one of the most convicting books I've read in awhile. He got inspired to give up everything he had and fully rely on his faith.

Basically, he and a friend became homeless and lived on the streets for 5 months. They went through 6 cities and the book chronicles the journey. He starts out by transitioning through the rehab program at the Denver Rescue Mission (we give this book out to a lot of our donors) for 30 days. That way he gets slightly acclimated to the homeless culture before he gets thrown out into it. Then he does each other city for a month: DC, Portland, Phoenix, San Francisco, and San Diego.

The experience was, needless to say, life changing for him and reading the book was pretty revolutionary for me too. One thing he kept bringing up, and it keeps coming up in my own life, is how a Christian needs to do. He mentioned church after church that would not welcome the two smelly homeless guys. There was one occasion where Mike and Sam slept on the front steps of a church on a Saturday night hoping to get woken up the next morning in time for the service. They woke up while the service was going on and realized that every person there had avoided the front door and gone in a side entrance.

Another example was when they got kicked out of a church picnic...by the Director of Homeless Outreach for the area! It made me angry. But it was a wake up call. I got a lot of great quotes for my own article. One thing that really convicted me is that even though I work at the Durham Rescue Mission, I'm not really doing anything. You know? I mean, I know the place couldn't run without the admin folks like me, but that doesn't replace any of the actual doing that I should be out there doing. I'm not offering hope to anyone by sitting at my computer screen. Of course, it's easy for me to recognize that but it's an entirely different story when it comes to actually doing anything about it. I don't want to leave my comfort zone!

Here are some great quotes from the book. It's just a sampling of the book, and I definitely encourage you to go out and read the whole thing!

“Something critical is missing in places that care for the broken and needy if the only people there are also broken and needy. Without the presence of people…whose lives are not defined by addiction, alcoholism, crime and mental illness, there is little positive influence. Chaplains and pastors can only spread themselves so far.”
“Telling someone who is suffering deeply that he’s going to suffer more is probably a waste of breath. It’s like warning someone who is already starving that they’re about to get really hungry. But tell him of the restaurant that serves heaping meals to all who come no matter where they’re from or what they look like, and he’s more than likely to listen. I thought of Christ’s words, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John ).”
“What do you do when a good tree bears bad fruit or a bad tree bears good fruit? Look harder.
What’s your definition of a Christian? Is it broad enough to encompass the drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, and broken people of the world? Jesus said that he came to heal the sick. Drug addicts are messed up just the same as liars are messed up, just the same as all humans are messed up. We all need Jesus. We all struggle with personal ways in which sin plays itself out in our lives.
What’s worse? To not do dope or to not love your brother? Why do we kick drug users out of the church while quietly ignoring those who aren’t dealing with other, equally destructive sins? Why do we reject the loving, self-sacrificing, giving, encouraging, Jesus-pursuing drug addict but recruit the clean, self-interested, gossiping, loveless churchgoer?
Which one do you suppose Jesus would rather share a burrito with under a bridge?”
“If we as believers choose to forget that everyone—even the shrunken soul lying in the doorway—is made in the image of God, can we say we know our Creator? If we respond to others based on their outward appearance, haven’t we entirely missed the point of the gospel?
Christ cared a lot about the simple dignities. He stopped to talk to lepers, and touch them with healing (Luke ). He prepared meals for strangers. He rescued outcasts. He wept with those who wept.”
“As CS Lewis wrote, “Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for: to make them worth it.”
“To me, one of the best things about the gospel is that Jesus Christ proclaims and restores human and eternal worth for everyone who believes—regardless of what a person might look or smell like now. No matter what’s crawling through his hair. And because we follow this Christ, each of us has both the ability and the responsibility (“response-ability”) to do the same.”

What's a dual-citizen to do?

2006-10-05T14:08:00.000-06:00

There's an incredible article by Tomas Perez at the Burnside Writer's Collective this month: The Tension of Dual Citizenship. Ordinarily, I would just excerpt an article, but this one is so good I'm going to post the entire thing. All of the emphasis in bold is mine.

At first glance, it seems like a question of allegiance; am I loyal to my country or not? The assumption here is unquestioning support of all of our country’s policies and practices both foreign and domestic. The war in Iraq, a tax structure that favors unbridled corporate expansion at the expense of small business, while poor families live without adequate healthcare and children go without food; if I’m going to be a good citizen, I have to either embrace or tolerate (read, “look-the-other-way”) these and many other current realities.
My more conservative brothers and sisters seem to want to wrap the Church in an American flag and declare the U.S. a Christian Nation whose only problem is simply remembering our spiritual heritage and returning to those roots; like a Prodigal nation-state coming home. Such a scenario, incidentally (or maybe intentionally) would restore the Church to a position of cultural and political power.
I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
I’m not sure it’s that simple.
I’m not sure it’s Biblical.
On the other side of the aisle (in the Church and in Congress), my more liberal brothers and sisters want to separate the spiritual from the political. They want to throw out the bathwater of violence, hatred, racism and suffering inflicted on society in the name of Religion. And with it, all that is good; the transformational, healing power of love, grace, forgiveness and peace that the “Baby” Jesus brought into the world.
I’m not sure that’s a good thing either.
I’m not sure it’s that simple.
I’m not sure it’s Biblical.
Honest, thinking, American followers of Jesus find themselves in a difficult situation these days. We have dual citizenship. We enjoy the huge privilege of living in a wonderful country that has, for a long time, enjoyed God’s blessing. But that citizenship is secondary. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus was not being poetic or engaging in meaningless hyperbole when He spoke of a Kingdom. And he wasn’t talking about a distant place we go to when we die; He spoke of a Kingdom that was “near,” and “among you.” What makes all this difficult is that sometimes the values and purposes of these two kingdoms collide.
Like right now.
One kingdom supports wanton, corporate greed. The other calls its citizens to generosity and sacrifice. One Kingdom would seek to extract every last ounce of resources from our planet. The other calls for stewardship and sustainability. One kingdom fights relentlessly for the protection of the unborn (a noble and just fight) while giving tacit support to a foreign policy of unilateral military intervention to confront perceived threats to our national security…a policy that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The other kingdom demands to know why we’re so vocal about fighting the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, but so quiet about the genocide in the Sudan and Congo. Is the terror facing the Darfuri people any less important than the terror we faced on 9/11?
What’s a Dual Citizen to do?
Please forgive me if it seems like I’m being too simplistic. I realize my argument so far seems to create an “either/or” dichotomy. I know its not that simple. I’m just trying to make the point that we need to think critically and act strategically as followers of Jesus.
The election season is upon us, and with it comes a chance to act. So let’s act like good citizens. This is not a “get-out-and-vote” brochure. Its a call to exercise our responsibility to be wise and active participants in a political and social process that, while flawed, is still the best “flawed” system ever devised.
Personally, I’m trying to do five things I believe show proper respect for the freedom I’ve been given both as an American Citizen and as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.
I’m trying to be as well-informed as I can about the issues that impact our world. Notice I didn’t say the issues that “affect me.” Kingdom citizens accept the fact that its not all about us; we understand that we have a greater responsibility than just lowering taxes and restoring prayer in the public schools. So…I read, listen, think, and discuss issues with those who support and those who oppose my ideas.
I’m trying to be Biblically rooted. I re-read the Old Testament prophets (highly political, by the way!) and I’m re-re-reading the Gospels; all in an attempt to better understand from a Scriptural perspective what God’s agenda is.
I’m trying to order my thinking and my actions around a clear sense of Christian (though maybe not American) mission. In this context, answering the question, “what would Jesus do?’ is probably the best thing a Follower could do. When applied to the host of important issues these days, the answers will probably be difficult, but then Jesus warned us about this.
I’m trying to be constructively engaged. Active, nonviolent protests and boycotts can be good things, but coming up with alternatives to injustice and bad policies is better. So I vote, but I also volunteer my time and energy in initiatives and activities that serve the public good.
And I pray for a spirit of humility. Let’s face it, this is all heady stuff we’re talking about here. Wielding power is a risky business; whether its political or religious, power is like nuclear energy. It has enormous potential for good or evil depending on the motive of those controlling it. As much as I admire and respect Washington, Jefferson, King, Dobson and many others, I’ve never found a more compelling example than that of Jesus…who…
“…though he was God…did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing, he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross.”

More info from Westboro

2006-10-05T09:42:00.000-06:00

Fred Phelps has agreed not to protest the funerals in exchange for an hour of airtime on Mike Gallagher's show.

HT: Laura and Randy

I will pose the same question here that I posed on each of those blogs: What can we do as a unified body of Christ to stand up and be heard over the lies being spewed?

This makes me sick

2006-10-04T09:44:00.000-06:00

Fred Phelps is at again, and this time he has hit a new low. The Phelps clan, known for picketing funerals of American soldiers, plans to protest the funerals of the 5 little girls who were killed in the PA shooting last week. (HT: MKH)

How can anyone be as vile as that man? Satan's attacks are certainly working. Men like Fred Phelps have fallen victim to the lies that Satan is spreading.

Now I know that our battle is not with men like Fred Phelps...it is against the powers and principalities of the darkness. But I tell you what...it sure is hard to remember that whenever I read stories like this one.

Christian, it's time for us to unite! Let's lift our voices to the heavens and claim the blood of Christ and rebuke these lies of Satan.

Christian Carnival 141

2006-09-28T15:25:00.000-06:00

Christian Carnival 141 is up this week at A Penitent Blogger. Make sure you check it out!

Busy Busy!

2006-09-28T11:34:00.000-06:00

I know it's been awhile since I've been able to post, but don't worry! Regular posting will resume soon (I hope!). Things have really picked up at work so I'm finding less time to write. By the time I get home at night, my brain doesn't want to be near a computer. If you're a newer reader, feel free to browse my archives. There's some good stuff in there (if I do say so myself). And hopefully, regular posting will resume within a week or so.

Points to Ponder as a Christian

2006-09-24T17:26:00.000-06:00

I was surprised to find this posted over on Martian's blog, but it's definitely something Christians need to read.

I believe there are millions of Americans--faithful Christians, Jews and Muslims--who are tired, fed up and angry. They want this country to once again be the beacon of moral clarity it once was. They want this nation to lead when it sees fellow human beings dying of hunger and disease. They want this nation to lead when it sees melting glaciers and rising oceans due to global warming. They want this nation to reflect the best of their religious traditions when it comes to taking care of our brothers and sisters no matter where they live, of taking care of this planet that God created and entrusted to us to cherish and respect.
In my book, "Middle Church, Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right," I have a chapter entitled, "Changing our Beatitudes: Guideposts for Deep-Water Citizenship." The Beatitudes refers to the section of the Gospel of Matthew (5:3-12) and Luke (6:20-23) where Jesus has a list outlining what are his priorities for his followers: "Blesses are the peacemakers..., Blessed are the meek..., Blessed are the poor in spirit...," etc. It is my firm belief that if we are to reclaim our nation's values that the rest of the world has looked up to for so many years we must shake ourselves from our complacency and connect the values of the faith we share with the faith of the nation we cherish. I know that we can do this.
The reference to "deep waters" refers to a saying of Jesus in Luke's Gospel. I see it today as Deep-Water Citizenship which is a simple plan I humbly offer to change today's world with seven beatitudes.
1. Blessed are the faithful risk-takers. Too many faith leaders are silent on matters Jesus cared about deeply. My evangelical friend, Tony Campolo, laments that he can't quote Jesus in churches these days because folks don't want to hear about loving your enemies or overcoming evil with good. Faith leaders should be grounding their message from the pulpit in the deep waters of Jesus.
2. Blessed is the courageous remnant. The Hebrew prophets were not very popular. But they remind us even majorities can be wrong. Jesus quoted those prophets all the time. They were vilified by those in power. Some were stoned. But they spoke the truth and found the courage to do so. We need to find that same courage and speak up for what is right. Sometimes the majority needs to be led.
3. Blessed are those who love the stranger. If there is one thing common to the religious traditions of Abraham--the Muslims, Christians and Jews--it's the Golden rule. If we really, really kept that law there would fewer people killed in name of God in the world today.
4. Blessed are those who read the Whole Bible. I've often said you can use various verses of the Bible to justify almost anything...slavery, polygamy, subjugation of women and children, even child sacrifice. But Middle Church has to own up to the whole of the Bible. We have to take seriously the words of Jesus when he tells us to love God with all our heart, mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as we love our very selves. How important is what is called the Greatest Commandment? Jesus even answered that: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:40)
5. Blessed are the Faithful Voters. What would our government do if Middle Church voters followed the Greatest Commandment? We would trigger a seismic and historic change in American politics. I don't care which party is in power because I think the faithful voter should speak Gospel truth to power regardless of party loyalty. If we are to be faithful voters, politicians must be afraid to cut welfare as they are to raise taxes, as eager to make peace as they are to start wars.
6. Blessed are those who challenge us to work for Justice. A lot of mainline Protestant pastors tell me they're afraid if they preach prophetically they'll lose members in their already dwindling congregations. They'll lose those members if they don't preach prophetically. We need leaders with vision who can take the Gospel imperatives to help "the least of these", our brothers and sisters, in cooperation with corporations and government. We need everyone's shoulder to the wheel to rid our towns and cities of poverty, homelessness and hunger. We are the leaders we've been waiting for. Let's get to work.
7. Blessed are those with a sense of humor and a sense of hope. At the heart of Christianity is hope. We are a people of hope. And we should be people who can laugh in the face of great adversity. We must not let the enormity of what we see in today's world to overwhelm us into inaction. We must always draw on that hope with its companion joyful laughter to carry on this Gospel gladness. The question I ask my fellow Christians in Middle Church is, "Do we value our faith enough to reclaim it?"
I do. I believe in my hopeful heart of hearts there are millions like me who want to reclaim the values this country once held dear. We've been distracted recently. We need to get back to the Greatest Commandment, the Sermon on the Mount and the Jesus who reached beyond the boundaries of his society to include everyone.

That was written by Rev. Bob Edgar, Secretary of the National Council of Churches USA.