Tripp: disappointment

...we find midlife hard because it is hard! We struggle with the plan because it is not our plan. We are disappointed because we age. We are dissatisfied because our dreams slipped out of our hands. We are discouraged that, in our sin, we failed many, many times. We are disappointed that good things come to an end and people move on. Midlife exposes how much we struggle with the fact that God completes his work of redemption in us by keeping us in the middle of all the harsh realities of the fall.

Lost in the Middle, p62.

The Happiness Paradox

"the more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce a life bereft of depth, meaning, and community."

quoted Ortberg (see previous post)

...which sounds a lot like CS Lewis view of joy:

Only when your whole attention is fixed on something else...does the "thrill" arise...It's very existence presupposes that you desire not it but something other and outer.

Suprised by Joy, p.136

Knowing your following

In our day, I think, we are seeing more accurate ways of understanding the gospel. But we need clarion calls of directness to help people respond today.

When Jesus walked the earth, the call "Follow me" was easily understood. People would actually, physically, bodily, walk with Jesus. People knew if they were following.

When the church formed, the call to follow Jesus was easily understood. There was an alternative community that met daily, that radically transformed people's financial lives, social lives, time, learning, allegiances, and hope. People knew if they were following.

In our day, that experience has become so diluted and enculturated that people have a hard time knowing.

The availability of life, with God, in his favor and power, as a gift of grace we receive by repentance and trust, through the death and resurrection of Jesus—that's the gospel with power. What needs still to be done is to find ways to express this with great clarity and simplicity, ways to help ordinary people know for sure they have made the great decision, the great commitment of their lives.

John Ortberg, Leadership online, October 20th 2008

Herbert: The Size

Inspired a bit by Doug's current series of posts on poetry, and following on from yesterday's post on midlife...well, it seems to me that when the frailty of life is very present, then the strength comes from heaven. Herbert wants us to let the blessings from above pour into the here and now, when our present experience of life is insufficient for us:

Content thee, greedy heart.
Modest and moderate joys to those, that have
Title to more hereafter when they part,
                                 Are passing brave.
Let th’ upper springs into the low
Descend and fall, and thou dost flow.

A principle to live by

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Robert J Hanlon

Tripp: what we live for

Midlife exposes what a person has really been living for and where a person has tried to find meaning and purpose. It has the power to reveal the significant gap between a person's confessional theology and their functional theology. What we say we are living for on Sunday may not, in fact, be the thing that has taken daily rulership over our hearts. And when these things which rule us are taken out of our hands, we tend to become angry, fearful, bitter or discouraged. We will experience a loss of identity and a flagging of meaning and purpose.

p.51

(I find this a facinating insight: from a Christian perspective then, the range of emotions that might come to us in midlife can actually be caused by the limitations of aging compromising the things we were really living for. It's showing us what was really at the centre, instead of Christ (because aging does not effect our ability to have a fulfilling life with Him; but it does, for example, stop us from feeling physically invincible, when our knees start to give out! So, to some degree our hope was actually just a teeny weeny bit, in being physically strong, in being a bloke (if you are a bloke that is). So my knees are helping to tear down idols, which means I can be stronger in the inner man even though the outer man perishes! This certainly, for me, adds another layer of meaning to 2 COR.4:16ff. It's just that "I'm being saved by my knees!" doesn't sound as cool as I hoped).

Tripp: life living us

There is a way in which we don't live our life, but our life lives us. We just get carried along by its locations, relationships, situations, responsibilities, opportunities and activities without stopping very long to look, listen, and consider. Huge chunks of time can pass virtually unnoticed.

p.49

Tripp: exposure

The struggles of midlife expose the true health and character of the relationships to which God has called me...

...everything we do is somehow shaped by who we think we are and what we have been called to do...

...midlife crisis is a struggle of identity and responsibility, and it exposes weaknesses in these area that have existed for a long time but are aid bare during this passage of life...

p.37

Tripp: little boxes

Instinctively, we organise things into the little boxes that we carry around in our brains. Sometimes we are wise enough to see that our boxes are too little or too few, but often we are quite skilled at squeezing our story into whatever boxes we happen to be carrying around in our minds. In doing so we fail to recognise how important and influential this interpretative function is. Life will always look like the categories you bring to it, and what you do will always be determined by the way you have organised your understanding of your own story.

...The overgeneralised category of 'adult' tends to ignore the fact that a human beings we are always in some kind of process of change...

Lost in the Middle, p34,35

Mid-life

I remember hearing Rob Parsons say there is no point in waiting til your children reach their teens before reading a book on teenagers - you have to start much earlier. That made a lot of sense to me. So on that basis, although I am not having a mid-life crisis at the moment (at least...I don't think so...am I?) I need to plan ahead for it. I don't simply mean making sure I have enough money for an Austin Healey; I mean by reading about it - so I have started Lost in the Middle by Paul Tripp, and the first 50 pages have been great. So I intend to start posting the bits that really strike me.... His essential point seems to be that mid-life itself is not a crisis, but that mid-life exposes issues that were there before - especially our wrong interpretations of life:

...we do not live by the facts of our experiences, but by the ways that our interpretations have shaped those facts for us. The difficult disorientation of midlife is not because the passage itself is disorienting. Whatever trouble midlife brings to us is essentially caused by the wrong thinking we bring to it. Suddenly we see things about ourselves that have been developing for years but went by unnoticed...

p.33.

The Shack

The Shack has engendered a huge amount of attention. For some it seems to have been a revelation (including Eugene Peterson who likens it to Pilgrim’s Progress). It has, on the other hand, attracted criticism for being a very imperfect view of Christianity and tending towards universalism. It’s really good, it’s really bad.

FWIW, here’s my opinion: it’s neither. It’s just not that good or that bad.

The story behind the story is great: homespun tale for family and friends becomes global publishing phenomenon, through efforts of said friends who have to form a company to deal with success. But the novel itself is a good deal more ordinary.

Without giving too much away, it seems to be a novelised attempt to present Christianity to a post-modern, suffering world. A man who cannot recover from a terrible event gets an opportunity to talk to God about it - and in the process God is revealed as compassionate and purposeful. So where do the radical, new, unexpected bits come in?

Good question because, I dare to suggest, there aren’t many. The answers the book suggests are actually fairly traditional evangelical apologetics. For example, in understanding why this event could happen: it’s a broken world where bad stuff happens, God works through bad events to bring about a greater purpose, He still loves you despite the appearances of the situation (witness His nail scarred hands) and is not distant. Along with this comes the usual stuff about God never forces anyone to do anything, but basically you could read similar themes in books on providence, suffering and theodicy. Perhaps putting it into novel-form, these ideas can be communicated well to those who would be resistant to other forms. But it isn’t new or radical; although it does lapse into what I would think of as a leap in the dark when God reveals that the victim of the crime was accompanied by Him through the experience, that she was conscious of this and therefore wasn’t scared. So there is a theological answer, and a sentimental one: good things will come (fine) and they didn’t suffer fear (not so fine or realistic).

There does seem to me to be a note running through it which I also found in some emergent stuff: the author appears to be reacting against a kind of church background. The main character learns the Trinity is a loving communion, that God cares in sorrow etc and reacts as though church has never taught him these things. Many of us have been in churches where, actually, we have always heard this. So, although not stated explicitly, it does imply the same idea as, say, Rob Bell, that probably all churches are like that and we need something new and different. (Which is a remarkably narrow view for allegedly open-minded people.)

So, having said all this, what’s good and bad in my illustrious opinion?

GOOD

• Trinitarian - at least to a degree - which not a lot of writing has been in recent decades. OK, so the Trinity seems to include two females, but I think this is largely a literary device to shake our preconceptions about God. I don't think it works well, and I think if you were looking for an exposition of the Trinity here, you will leave disappointed and confused. But I don’t think the writer set out to portray a feminist God. And critics don’t seem to notice that one member of the Trinity appears as male again at the end of the book.
• Compassionate: it really is trying to provide answers for hurting people.
• Biblically Literal (in some senses anyway): so, for example, it clearly holds the garden of Eden and the fall to be true. Absolutely shocking in this day and age.

BAD

• God is very cuddly. Now, what I mean by this is: cuddly to the point of not really having any other attributes. Admittedly, it is a book about how God’s love impacts our sorrow, but even so I could not imagine The Shack’s Jesus speaking the words of Revelation 1-3. In fact I couldn’t imagine this Trinity saying a great deal of the harder sections of the Bible. And when Mack, the central (human) character raises the question about OT violence, no real answer is made. If William Young is reacting against churches that major on judgment I can see why. But someone who read this book as an introduction to following Christ, is going to get a big shock later on when they read the whole Bible.
• It’s not strong on the Bible: it’s there, it’s referred to, it’s even stated we can hear God speaking through it - but it does seem somewhat relegated.
• Going back to cuddliness, this Jesus is so chummy and ordinary that His divinity is almost entirely lost, even though it is stated. The author’s theology implies he feels Jesus is completely and eternally limited by His human nature - which may be a reaction to the way-too-divine Jesus many emergents critique. But even so…
• Is there universalism? Possibly. The author has an unlimited atonement position, and because this is repeatedly emphasised it may wrongly seem imply he is universalist. It’s a bit too fuzzy to say for sure.

So what kind of book is it? It’s not a great book, because the writing is not up to, say, CS Lewis. This is evident for example in a sequence towards the end which resembles the final sections of Perelandra. I know which will stand out in my mind for the longest. But neither is it a terrible book. It may in fact open up helpful avenues for discussion. Would I buy it for a non-Christian friend? Maybe, if other routes had failed.

Badger.

Not the gospel

The gospel message is not that' God so loved the world that He inspired a certain Jew to teach that there was a good deal to be said for loving one another'.

Donald Coggan

Finally!

Back on line....

Hopefully....

back soon. We are inching towards a new internet connection...

sorry!

Just to apologise for not posting a post to say I won't be posting for a couple of weeks due to no internet.

Hopefully back on by mid-August!

Emergent eschatology

I don't understand enough about the emergent church to comment on many of their distinctive ideas (although part of the problem can be actually pinning down what those ideas are). But one area where I feel they are adrift is eschatology.

A recurring theme in emergent writing is the relative neglect Christians should have for the future. Now I understand where this comes from: as far as I can see there is a reaction against the ghetto mentality of some 20th century eschatology which led churches to abandon the needs of the world in favour of waiting out the last days in an ecclesiastical bunker. But to then advise us that the bible says little about the future and the emphasis is all now and that if we concentrate on the second coming etc then we will neglect present needs....is just wrong. There is no necessary connection at all.

I recently preached through the latter half of Romans 8. The whole basis of this most encouraging passage is that we can persevere in the present because we have such an overwhelming future hope (v25). Nowhere in Romans are we advised to ignore the present; rather we are told we will be joyful and strong Christians because of our hope based on the promised future that God gives to us in Christ. Which is why Paul can repeatedly speak of living in eager expectation (vv19, 23, 25). Daily, he powers himself up on future hope.

He then goes on to demonstrate how solid and infinite the foundation of this hope is, strecthing out of time (v29); and then spends most of the rest of the passage assuring us that absolutely nothing can rob us of this life, stretching from the present into the everlasting. Indeed it is the future that provides the great verse of hope (v28): because we are promised that we will be conformed to Christ we can be sure that all things work together for good: because everything feeds into this conformity, all events good and bad, in the hands of God, make us like Jesus, work for us an everlasting weight of glory.

I really think that emergent teaching on this point is losing out badly. Maybe I have misunderstood their teaching, because I can't see how anyone would willingly give up the present power of such a future hope.

Piper: live like He is treasure!

If Christ is an all-satisfying treasure and promises to provide all
our needs, even through famine and nakedness, then to live as
though we had all the same values as the world would betray
him. I have in mind mainly how we use our money and how we
feel about our possessions. I hear the haunting words of Jesus,
“Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall
we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after
all these things” (Matthew 6:31-32). In other words, if we look
like our lives are devoted to getting and maintaining things, we
will look like the world, and that will not make Christ look
great. He will look like a religious side-interest that may be useful
for escaping hell in the end, but doesn’t make much difference
in what we live and love here. He will not look like an
all-satisfying treasure. And that will not make others glad in
God.
If we are exiles and refugees on earth (1 Peter 2:11), and if
our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), and if nothing can
separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35), and if his
steadfast love is better than life (Psalm 63:3), and if all hardship
is working for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17),
then we will give to the winds our fears and “seek first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). We will
count everything as rubbish in comparison with Christ
(Philippians 3:7-8). We will “joyfully accept the plundering of
our property” for the sake of unpopular acts of mercy (Hebrews
10:34). We will choose “ rather to be mistreated with the people
of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin,” and we will
count “the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures
of Egypt” (Hebrews 11:25-26).

Don't Waste Your Life, p107-8

Chesterton: acceptable ideas

Whatever else is true, it is emphatically not true that the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth were suitable to His time, but no longer suitable to our time. Exactly how suitable they were to His time is perhaps suggested in the end of His story.

Baker: Trinitarian community

The fulfilment of God's image is when we enter into the Trinitarian indwelling (keep the greatest commandment) and reproduce it among ourselves (keep the second, which is like the first). this is our eternal purpose; to do this is life...

God, having set Himself the task of making a creature that dwells in a community resembling the community of the Trinity, will not rest until He has accomplished all he has said.

Baker, p.93

Fenelon: stubborn sins

Bear with yourself in your involuntary frailties as God bears, wait patiently for His appointed time of complete deliverance, and meanwhile go on quietly and according to your strength in the path before you, without losing time in looking back; sorrowing over [your sins] with humility, but putting them aside to press onwards; not looking upon God as a spy watching to surprise you, or an enemy laying snares for you, but as a Father who loves you. … Such you will find to be the path toward true liberty.

The value of the unborn

From this week's West Briton:

A YOUNG woman whose unborn child was killed in an horrific car crash has called for a change in the law after the driver responsible – her ex-boyfriend – was fined £200 and given six points on his licence.

Care worker Christopher Sloggett, 21, admitted driving without due care and attention.

He had lost control of his vehicle on the A39 at Playing Place a year ago and hit an oncoming car.

His badly injured ex-girlfriend in the front seat, 20-year-old Kim Quigley, had been eight months pregnant by another man at the time and lost her unborn boy, Thomas.

Serious charges of causing death by driving could not be brought against Sloggett because the law regards a person as alive only once they have taken their first independent breath outside the womb.

After the court case at Truro Magistrates last week, former nursery nurse Miss Quigley, now 21, called for a change in the law.

The police officer in charge of the case, Motor PC Claire Hawkins, said: “While we have to accept the sentence was proportionate to the charge brought against Mr Sloggett, nothing can reflect the terrible loss that Miss Quigley has suffered.

“Unfortunately, legislation does not account for the death of an unborn child and it was therefore not possible to bring a more serious charge before the court.”

Unfortunately for this lady she doesn't stand much of a chance. The lobby fighting for the 'rights of women' would prevent her very logical wish - they cannot afford to allow the unborn to be termed as 'alive', the psychological effect of this would reinforce the very gradual rise in support for unborn children. And if they are alive and human, then what? Where would it all end? We would have to take responsibility for our actions. Deary me.

Ideas from Postman

...the adoration of technology pre-empts the adoration of anything else...[religious symbols must] be made impotent as quickly as possible - that is, drained of sacred, or even serious, connotations. The elevation of one god requires the demotion of another.

(an example would be the way clergy are portrayed in the media as idiots or terrorists)

Those who resist 'technopoly' are people-

who pay no attention to a poll unless they know what questions were asked and why...

people who:

• refuse to accept efficiency as the pre-eminent goal of human relations
• who have freed themselves from the belief in the magical power of numbers
• who are, at least, suspicious of the idea of progress, and who do not confuse information with understanding
• who do not regard the aged as irrelevant
• who take the great narratives of religion seriously
• who know the difference between the sacred and the profane, and who do not wink at tradition for modernity's sake.

Quoted in Dawn, p.271, 282 &283

I suppose it was going to happen

Barbara Wagner is dying of lung cancer, and Oregon won't pay for any more treatment. But it will cover a fatal dosage of drugs so she can kill herself, according to citizenlink.org. Dr. Kevin Olson, a member of the Oregon Health Services Commission, said coverage is limited to "those services that offer the most benefit in terms of prolonging life, especially those services that are low cost and high value." So the state is offering Wagner end-of-life "comfort care" — suicide. A pharmaceutical company has stepped in to pay for the medicine Wagner was denied.

Interruption.........

Just to say: this is the 200th post!

Who would have thought it?

Thanks again, Mintiernational.

Degree of Image

Humanity is made both to represent God, to stand in his place, and also to resemble him to such a degree that we might be mistaken for him.

Baker, Covenant and Community, p68-69

What to do in danger

Thou mayest do in this as it is in thy heart. If it is in thy heart to fly, fly: if it be in thy heart to stand, stand. Anything but a denial of the truth. He that flies, has warrant to do so; he that stands, has warrant to do so. Yea, the same man may both fly and stand, as the call and working of God with his heart may be. Moses fled (Ex. 2:15); Moses stood (Heb 11:27). David fled (1 Sam. 19:12); David stood (1 Sam. 24:8). Jeremiah fled (Jer. 37:11-12); Jeremiah stood (Jer. 38:17). Christ withdrew himself (Luke 19:10); Christ stood (John 18:1-8). Paul fled (2 Cor. 11:33); Paul stood (Act 20:22-23). . . . There are few rules in this case. The man himself is best able to judge concerning his present strength, and what weight this or that argument has upon his heart to stand or fly. . . Do not fly out of a slavish fear, but rather because flying is an ordinance of God, opening a door for the escape of some, which door is opened by God's providence, and the escape countenanced by God's Word (Matt. 10:23).

John Bunyan, Advice to Sufferers

Pleasing people the wrong way

To give the whole store away to match what this year's market says the unchurched want, is to have the people who know least about the Christian faith determine most about its expression.

This writer fears that we are on the verge of seeing happen what happened in the 1950s to mainstream Protestant churches: they retooled for people who were casually attracted and liked big parking lots, spectacle, and low demands; and people left as easily as they came. You can see that I lean toward the search for the dynamisms in the longer-pull worship traditions and against the emerging market orientation. But I am never cocksure abut this and try to listen.

Martin E Marty, quoted in Dawn Reaching Out... p258

Chesterton: Joy

Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live.

Orthodoxy p159)

Yancey: self righteous & grace

God's grace, the only solution to death and evil, comes free of charge, apart from law, apart from any human efforts toward self-improvement. For a free gift, we need only hold out open, needy hands—the most difficult gesture of all for a self-righteously evil person.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/may/32.80.html?start=2

Piper: knowing what counts

You don't have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not people who have mastered many things, but have been mastered by one great thing. If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effects of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on into eternity, you don't need to have a high IQ. You don't have to have good looks or riches or come from a fine family or a fine school. Instead you have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things - or one great all-embracing thing - and be set on fire by them.

John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life, p44.

CSL: literary gossip

If I had some rare information about the private life of Shakespeare or Dante I’d throw it in the fire, tell no one, and re-read their works. All this biographical interest is only a device for indulging in gossip as an excuse for not reading what the chaps say.

Letter dated Jan 19, 1948

Baker: what is man?

"What is man? What am I? Why would the creator of the universe care about us, about me?"

David's question, so famously asked in Psalm 8, has been ringing in every human soul ever since we hid in the bushes from the sound of God's approach. We may have the option of ignoring the question's answer, but we do not have the ability not to ask it.

Doug P Baker, Covenant and Community, p1.

Bunny wunny

I was sitting on my front porch watching a rabbit hop across a field, towards the road and the field beyond. As the rabbit was just beginning to cross the road, a car came by hit it, knocking it flying over the car and onto the pavement.

The driver slammed on the breaks, jumped out of the car and ran back to examine the rabbit. Then, she went back to the car, opened the trunk and got out an aerosol can. She returned to the rabbit, used the can; and to my surprise the rabbit revived. It got up, hopped a few steps towards the field, turned and gestured to the woman. It then hopped a few more steps into the field, turned and gestured, and continued on across the field and out of sight.

At this, I came over and questioned the driver about the contents of the aerosol, how it revived the rabbit and caused such odd behavior.

"Well," she said, "It's just hare restorer with permanent wave."

(Sorry, I couldn't resist)

http://merecomments.typepad.com/merecomments/2008/05/the-tragic-deat.html

Eliot: perfect systems

Read part of this quotation in an article questioning what would happen if all politicians and laws were just right - would we have the life we want?

They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is shall shadow
The man that pretends to be.


TS Eliot

Hope: US/UK TV

The British people generally seem to disdain commercialism. (They've been brainwashed for years by the non-commercial BBC.) Their attitude is mostly evident in the soft-sell on their commercial television. They do a lovely little domestic scene, and hidden somewhere in it is the product. They rarely refer to it directly...

...the big difference in those days was that in England the government subsidized TV, in America we work on TV so we can subsidize the government.

Bob Hope, I Owe Russia $1200 (1963), p 27

Tolkien: Ogre Hotels

Even more alarming: goodness is itself bereft of its proper beauty. In Faerie one can indeed conceive of an ogre who possesses a castle as hideous as a nightmare (for the evil of the ogre wills it), but one cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose - an inn, a hostel for travellers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king - that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not - unless it as built before our time.

JRR Tolkien, Tree and Leaf, p.65

Tolkien: Faerie and 'real life'

'On Fairy Stories' is a sometimes esoteric discussion of the subject - but towards the end of the essay JRRT turns his attention to the modern denunciation of the imagination. I really enjoyed this bit!

Not long ago - incredible though it may seem - I heard a clerk of Oxford declare that he 'welcomed' the proximity of mass-production robot factories, and the roar of self-obstructive mechanical traffic, because it brought his university into 'contact with real life'. He may have meant that the way men were living and working in the twentieth century was increasing in barbarity at an alarming rate, and that the loud demonstration of this in the streets of Oxford might serve as a warning that it is not possible to preserve for long an oasis of sanity in a desert of unreason by mere fences, without actual offensive action (practical and intellectual). I fear he did not. In any case the expression 'real life' in this context seems to fall short of academic standards. The notion that motor cars are more 'alive' than, say, centaurs or dragons is curious; that they are more 'real' than, say, horses is pathetically absurd. How real, how startlingly alive is a factory chimney compared with an elm tree: poor obselete thing, insubstantial dream of an escapist!

For my part, I cannot convince myself that the roof of Bletchley Station is more 'real' than the clouds. And as an artefact I find it less inspiring than the legendary dome of heaven. The bridge to platform 4 is to me less interesting than Bifrost guarded by Heimdall with the Gjallarhorn. From the wildness of my heart I cannot exclude the question whether railway-engineers, if they had been brought up on more fantasy, might have done better with all their abundant means than they commonly do. Fairy-stories might be, I guess, better Masters of Arts than the academic person I have referred to.

Much that he (I must suppose) and others (certainly) would call 'serious' literature is no more than play under a glass roof by the side of a municipal swimming bath. Fairy tales may invent monsters that fly the air or dwell in the deep, but at least they do not try to escape from heaven or the sea.

JRR Tolkien, Tree and Leaf, p.62-63

the year of living sabbathly

Part of an interview with AJ Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically:

What did taking a Sabbath do for you?

I had been a workaholic, so I would work 24 hours a day. The first thing I would do when I woke up was check my Blackberry. The Sabbath is a great thing, because the Bible is saying you can't work. You can't check e-mail. You have to spend the day with your family. It's a real smell-the-roses type of day. I found it to be a day for joy, for just really reconnecting with my life and realizing that work is not everything. I loved it, but it was a huge struggle. I had to do it in stages. I still practice the Sabbath now. I'm Jewish, so I do it on Saturday. It's a day where I spend time with the family and refuse to work.

CT Leadership 8/4/08
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/001/18.17.html

Bilbo's walking song

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Keller: Gospel

I'm reading The Reason for Belief, but not blogging from it for the same reason it is difficult to blog from CSL: 50% of the book would end up on the blog, and that's overdoing it a bit. But here is one paragraph that really struck me:

When my own personal grasp of the gospel was very weak, my self-view swung wildly between two poles. When I was performing up to my standards - in academic work, professional achievement, or relationships - I felt confident but not humble. I was likely to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. When I was not living up to my standards, I felt humble but not confident, a failure. I discovered, however, that the gospel contained the resources to build a unique identity. In Christ I could know I was accepted by grace not only despite my flaws, but because I was willing to admit them. The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. this leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. it undermines both swaggering and snivelling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead I think of myself less. I don't need to notice myself - how I am doing, how I'm being regarded - so often.

p181.

Dawn: subjective

...emotions are not best addressed by focussing on cosy feelings into which all worship participants may not be able to enter. Instead let us convey glorious and wonderful truths to which we might all respond with genuine emotions of our own. Subjectivities cannot be shared; telling you about my feelings will not bring about the same feelings in you. Only if I tell you what aroused my feelings can you respond to that same stimulus with subjective reactions of your own.

Dawn p175.

Persecution & silence

This raises significant questions: Where is God when millions of his children are being persecuted in the most brutal ways? Why does he keep silent in the middle of persecution but speak loudly in the middle of conferences with famous speakers and worship bands? I have prayed many times like Luther: "Bless us, Lord, even curse us! But don't remain silent!"

This reality forces us to take another look at what Paul means in Romans 8:28 by "our good." If our good is a stable, safe, healthy, happy, and reasonably wealthy middle-class life, then logically one can conclude that God really does not work for the good of the largest portion of the global church today.

Ziya Meral

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/march/29.41.html

More figures

In a 2007 edition of the New Oxford Review, Dr. A. Patrick Schneider II, who holds boards in family and geriatric medicine and runs a private practice in Lexington, Kentucky, did a statistical analysis of cohabitation in America, based on the findings of a number of academic resources. Here are five conclusions Schneider draws from his studies:

Relationships are unstable in cohabitation. One-sixth of cohabiting couples stay together for only three years; one in ten survives five or more years.

Cohabiting women often end up with the responsibilities of marriage—particularly when it comes to caring for children—without the legal protection. Research has also found that cohabiting women contribute more than 70 percent of the relationship's income.

Cohabitation brings a greater risk of sexually transmitted diseases, because cohabiting men are four times more likely to be unfaithful than husbands.

Poverty rates are higher among cohabitors. Those who share a home but never marry have 78 percent less wealth than the continuously married.

Those who suffer most from cohabitation are the children. The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is fivefold greater than the rate among children in married-couple households. Children ages 12–17 with cohabiting parents are six times more likely to exhibit emotional and behavioral problems and 122 percent more likely to be expelled from school.

source: A. Patrick Schneider II, "Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children," www.lifesite.net (10-4-07), reprinted from an original article in the New Oxford Review
http://preachingtoday.com/illustrations/weekly/08-03-10/10031008.html

Marriage figures

One of the common myths about marriage in America is that "50 percent of all marriages end in divorce." But that figure is derived, not from long-term analysis, but from the fact that the raw number of new divorces each year is roughly 50 percent of the raw number of new marriages. These numbers are distorted by the fact that people with successful marriages usually marry only once, while people with failed marriages have often married and divorced multiple times.

Fortunately, new data from pollster George Barna included a more meaningful statistic. Of all Americans who have ever married, only one-third have ever been divorced. This two-to-one ratio of marital success should encourage young people who may actually fear the "50-50" marriage myth.

Another misconception is that a person's religion and values have nothing to do with marital success. Barna found that the percentage of people who have been divorced after marrying is lower among Catholics, evangelicals and conservatives than it is among non-Christians and liberals. That's not to mention the fact that more born-again Christians (84%) have been married in the first place than atheists and agnostics (65%).

from Pastor's Weekly Briefing, April 4th 2008

NTW: reclaiming God's time

The church that takes seriously the fact that Jesus is Lord of all will not just celebrate quietly every time we write the date on a letter or document, will not just set aside Sunday as far as humanly and socially possible as a celebration of God's new creation, will not just seek to order its own life in an appropriate rhythm of worship and work. Such a church will also seek to bring wisdom to the rhythms of work in offices and shops, in local government, in civic holidays, and in the shaping of public life. These things cannot be taken for granted. The enormous shifts during my lifetime, from the whole town observing Good Friday and Easter, to those great days being simply more occasions for football matches and yet more televised reruns of old movies, are indices of what happens when a society loses its roots and drifts with prevailing social currents. The reclaiming of time as God's good gift (as opposed to time as simply a commodity to be spent for one's own benefit, which often means fresh forms of slavery for others) is not an extra to the church's mission. It is central.

NT Wright, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/april/13.36.html?start=3

Dawn: Narcissism & Community

Narcissism in parishes is both a cause and a result of community deterioration. Because churches are not truly communities, many believers seek fulfilment elsewhere. I share Arthur Just's conviction that "if a renewal of biblical theology allows the people of God to see themselves as first and foremost as a community of saints, then they will no longer tolerate metaphors of their life that reflects the individualism of today's culture which has become pervasive in their lives".

Dawn, p134.

Dawn: Memory

Research studies show that the earliest memories are retained longest in people's minds. How important it is, then, to fill children's memories with hymns, songs, prayers, Scripture verses, and creeds!

I want to emphasise this point doubly because of my own experiences with chronic illness and life-threatening crises. Last year a retinal haemorrhage in my good eye made reading barely possible only for very short periods with a double set of magnifiers. During seven months of near blindness, I thanked God constantly for my 8 years at a Lutheran elementary/junior high school, during which I memorised hundreds of hymn verses and passages of the Bible. This background enables me to participate almost fully in worship even when I cannot see the words. In times when I have been near to death, those songs and texts have flooded my brain and brought enormous comfort and strength.

In crises, old age, blindness, or other infirmities, our faith and hope continue to be nurtured by what we have stored in our memories.

Dawn, p.120.

Liberal cynicism

...I return to my dreary classroom, populated, it often seems, by under educated but deeply committed Phi Beta Kappa ideologues - leftists who believe in class warfare but have never opened Das Kapital and certainly have never perused Werner Sombart, hard-line capitalists who accept the inerrancy of the invisible hand but have never studied Adam Smith, third-generation feminists who know that sex roles are a trap but have never read Betty Freidan, social Darwinists who propose leaving the poor to sink or swim but have never heard of Herbert Spencer or William Sumner's essay on The Challenge of the Facts, black separatists who mutter bleakly about institutional racism but are unaware of the work of Carmichael and Hamilton, who invented the term - all of them our students, all of them hopelessly young and hopelessly smart and thus hopelessly sure they alone are right, and nearly all of whom, whatever their espoused differences, will soon be espoused to huge law firms, massive profit factories where they will bill clients at ridiculous rates for 2000 hours of work every year, quickly earning twice as much money as the best of their teachers, and at half the age, sacrificing all on the altar of career, moving relentlessly upward, as ideology and family life collapse equally around them, and at last arriving, a decade or two later, cynical and bitter, at their cherished career goals, partnerships, professorships, judgeships, whatever kind of ships they dream of sailing, and then looking around at the angry, empty waters and realising they have arrived with nothing, absolutely nothing, and wondering what to do with the rest of their wretched lives.

Or maybe I am just measuring their prospects by my own.

Stephen L Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park, p.109

One bit of Bible

This approach of focusing on one specific passage in counseling settings is one I learned from my friend David Powlison, articulated in his article “Think Globally, Act Locally.” He writes,

In a nutshell, connect one bit of Scripture to one bit of life. In other words, always ask two questions for yourself and others: What is your current struggle? What about God in Christ connects to this? … Apply one relevant thing from our Redeemer to one significant scene in this person’s story. Bring one bit of Bible to one bit of life. You can’t say it all at once. (The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Fall 2003, p. 3)

Well, you cannot and should not say it all at once, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying in the past! My impulse is to help others by downloading as much information as possible. But I’ve learned this is not wise and really unhelpful. Those we counsel can contemplate and apply a limited amount of information, so in caring for their souls—and especially in the immediate situation—I want to provide counsel they can easily consider and remember. And that’s where David’s wisdom proves so valuable.

In these situations, we must restrain the impulse to bury others under vast amounts of theological information.

CJ Mahaney
http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/Shifting-Ground-Finding-Joy-in-Adversity.aspx

Deserving Poland

That little whisper - "You deserve it" - comes, I believe, from the worst part of our sinful natures, the part that always wants another cookie, a bigger house, a nicer TV. I'm pretty sure it's the same voice that told Hitler he "deserved" Poland.

Phil Vischer, Me, Myself, and Bob p215-216

Psalms of darkness

The use of theses 'psalms of darkness' may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community, their use is an act of bold faith, albeit a transformed faith. It is an act of bold faith on the one hand, because it insists that the world must experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way. On the other hand, it is bold because it insists that all such experiences of disorder are a proper subject for discourse with God. There is nothing out of bounds, nothing precluded or inappropriate. Everything properly belongs in this conversation of the heart. To withhold parts of life from that conversation is in fact to withhold part of life from the sovereignty of God. Thus these psalms make the important connection; everything must be brought to speech, and everything brought to speech must be addressed to God, who is the final reference for all life...

Walter Brueggemann, The message of the Psalms, quoted in Dawn p.92

Veggie suicide

Read this a while ago I realised I should post it here in case the original post ever vanished.

In spite of all my best efforts at self-destruction, I have been told by others that I somehow managed to be a fairly decent father to my children. Even today, that provides me with some small comfort when I look back on the Federally declared disaster area that my life had been. I guess my main reason for even trying to be a good dad was so my offspring would have it better than I did. I wanted them to be smarter than I was, richer than I was, and healthier than I was.

Most of all, I didn't want to see either of them where I was going.

I guess that is why I broke down and bought the Veggie Tales Silly Songs VHS tape from the Christian book store that was across the hall from the dry cleaners where my wife worked. That, and it was on the bargain table. Whatever. My daughter loved it and that was all the endorsement I ever needed. Slowly, I acquired every title in the Veggie Tales series, first on VHS, then again on DVD, and I have never had a reason to regret it.

My wife and I have both lived by the motto that only a totally unfit parent does not know what their children are watching on TV. So, naturally, I have seen every single Veggie Tales episode over and over again and each one (except for Esther, The Star of Christmas, and An Easter Carol) ends with Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber telling us that "God made us special. And he loves us very much."

Bob the Tomato is voiced by a man named Phil Vischer, who is also the co-founder and CEO of the company that makes the videos. Sometimes on the tapes, but more often on the DVDs, he would come on and talk. Mostly he would talk about upcoming shows, but sometimes about why he started the company and about his faith. That really bugged me.

It bugged me that he was so certain about God's existence, God's love, and God's plan for all of us that I wanted to fast forward through his talking. But I never did. I let him talk because he was talking to my kids, teaching them something I never could have at the time. It didn't take me long to hear that same certainty come through the little CGI tomato at the end of each show. That's when I started to get angry.

I actually wanted to punch a tomato in the face.

About two months before my decision to end my life, I knew why: I was jealous of Bob the Tomato. I wanted his certainty. I wanted his confidence. I wanted to experience the same love he was experiencing and it was making me furious to the point where I almost stopped watching the shows with my kids. I say almost because they had become my children's favorite shows by now and I wanted to cherish each moment I had with them, because I had decided on some level that they would be my last, so I had to watch the shows.

When I had decided to take the final step, I was desperate for someone to stop me. Clever me, for having made sure that my children were at school and my wife was at work. I am not going to flatter myself by saying that I hit rock bottom, but I could definitely see it from my seat on the roller coaster and I was going straight down. The only other thing that I saw, and heard, was a stupid little tomato telling me over and over again that 'God had made me special and He loves me very much.'

Really? He loves me? Even after all the stupid stuff I had done, God still loves me?

I had to know, so I went on my knees and asked Him. He answered.

I read somewhere once that sometimes angels have the faces of strangers. Another time I read that they have the faces of kids. Now I know for a fact that sometimes angels have faces of tomatoes.

God bless you, Bob.

Cliff


(original post:
http://cliffslnf.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-blog-iii-tomatoes.html)

Vischer: kid's media values

By the mid-1990s, the media industry had consolidated so aggressively that the vast majority of children's entertainment was controlled by just three companies - Viacom, Time Warner, and Disney. Each employing more than 50,000 people, these companies were now so large that one industry analyst described working with them as more like working with nation-states than companies. The problem with these giant, publicly traded goliaths isn't that they are immoral, but rather that they are profoundly amoral. They are valueless. They are simply too big to focus on any specific value system or moral code, and instead must be all things to all people. So Warner Brothers sells Bugs Bunny with one hand and Snoop Doggy Dog with the other. Viacom sells Blue's Clues with one hand and MTV with the other. Disney sells Mickey Mouse with one hand and Desperate Housewives with the other. We're not talking about companies in the business of selling blenders or farm implements here; we're talking about companies in the business of selling images and ideas - the business of influencing beliefs. And each is valueless! Why do they sell good values to preschoolers? Because there is money in it. Why do they sell lousy values to the same kids ten years later? Because there is money in it. When faced with the choice between doing what is beneficial and doing what is profitable, these companies choose profitable every time. Their shareholders require it.

I sat at a media conference in New York and listened to Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone explain to a roomful of Wall Street analysts how he intended to hook kids with Blue's Clues, then lead them through Nikelodeon straight to MTV. When I passed the eighty-year-old billionaire in the men's room a few minutes after his speech, I noticed how small he was. I could take him, I thought to myself. not for the fun of it of course, but for the sake of America's kids. The world's kids.

I decided that probably wasn't the solution God had in mind.

Phil Vischer, Me, Myself and Bob, p.144-145

Stott on miracles

IS NOT the most helpful way to approach the gospel miracles to place them within the familiar and inescapable tension between the already and the not yet, kingdom come and kingdom coming, the new age inaugurated and the new age consummated? To the skeptical (who doubt all miracles), I want to say "but already we have tasted the powers of the age to come." To the credulous (who think that healing miracles are an everyday occurrence), I want to say "but not yet have we been given resurrection bodies free from disease, pain, infirmity, handicap, and death.

John R. W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials

Don't make worship useful

An emphasis on what we "get out" of a worship service - above all, that we feel good about ourselves - displaces the theocentric praise of God with anthropocentric utilitarianism. Since the worship of God is an end in itself, "making worship useful destroys it, because this introduces an ulterior motive for praise. And ulterior motives mean manipulation, taking charge of the relationship, thereby turning the relation between Creator and creature upside down."

Dawn (quoting Keck), p88.

Widows

Please Do, and Please Don't

Suggestions for encouraging widows.

Miriam Neff Christianity Today 1/18/2008

Apart from the outreach of the church, there are many ways individuals can encourage widows on their journey. But it's often hard to know what to say, for fear of making things worse. So let me offer some "Please do" as well as some "Please do not" suggestions.

1. Please do stay connected. Do not assume we need "space" to grieve. There is already a huge hole in our universe.

2. Please do say you are sorry for our loss. Do not tell us you understand, unless you do from personally experiencing the loss of a spouse. We would rather you tell us you do not know what to say than tell us the story of losing your friend or even close relative. We may be able to listen to your story later, but not now.

3. Please call and ask specific questions, such as "Can we go for a walk together? May I run errands for you? Meet you for coffee?" Do not say, "Call me if you need anything."

4. Please refer to our husband's acts and words, both serious and humorous. We are so comforted by knowing our husband has not been forgotten.

5. Please invite us to anything. We may decline but will appreciate being asked. Do not assume we no longer want to participate in couples events.

6. Please accept that we are where we are. Marriages are brief, long, healthy, dysfunctional, intense, remote. Death comes suddenly or in tiny increments over years. Again, our experiences are so different, as are we. So are our journeys through grief. Do not assume we go through the grief process "by the book."

7. Do say, "I've been thinking of you" rather than make a conversation-only offer, such as "We'll call you, and we'll go out to dinner"—unless you can follow up. We'd love that, too.

Between odd and imersion

The primary key for holding the two poles of this dialectic [being out of the world & relating to culture, holding tradition whilst reforming] is education - teaching the gifts of the faith tradition to those who do not yet know and understand them and teaching those who love the heritage some new forms in which it can be presented to others.

Dawn, p59.

Tradition breakdown

"Tradition is the process whereby one generation inducts its successor into its accumulated wisdom, lore and values. the family once served as the chief conduit for this transmission, but the family is now collapsing, not merely because of divorce but as a result of affluence and the innovations of the technological age....Film and television now provide the sorts of values that were once provided by the family. And public education...has also contracted out of this business, pleading that it has an obligation to be value-neutral. So it is that in the new civilisation that is emerging, children are lifted away from the older values like anchorless boats on a rising tide."
(David Wells)
In its desire to hold on to the traditions of its faith and to pass them on carefully, the church is, to some extent, alien to this new civilisation.

Dawn, p58-59.

Dawn: Subversive worship

If the Church's worship is faithful, it will eventually be subversive of the culture surrounding it, for God's truth transforms the lives of those nurtured by it.

Dawn, p.57

Dawn: Don't dumb down

When we allow our society to force us to "dumb down" the Church, we kill theological training, inhibit the forming of character, prevent appreciation for the rich gifts of the Church's past. Most of all, we miss the infinitely faceted grandeur of God and destroy the awe and wonder that characterized worship before God became only a "buddy" ill-conceived and only subjectively experienced.

Dawn, p55.

Celebrity

Celebrities are not heroes; they foster instead narcissistic idealisation, spectacle, and passivity.

Christopher Lasch, quoted in Dawn, p.51

Marva Dawn at the Zoo

Recently Myron and I spent my birthday at the Portland zoo, which among other wonders, features an extraordinary glass house of African birds. In my wheelchair I sat astounded by the birds of many shapes and colours and habits. Because of my visual handicaps, Myron pointed out to me various things that I couldn't see and helped me locate what I couldn't find. We tried to share with others our interests in what we were seeing and hearing, but all sorts of people walked into the building, spent two minutes and hurried out. They missed everything that could be caught with a little silence,some reflective waiting, and the sharing of community. but they had "done" the zoo - efficiently.

This is a commentary in itself, but the next paragraph starts with the disturbing words:

We can observe the same patterns and habits in some congregations...

Marva Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, p.49

Nostalgia: last year's t-shirt

people

Most of the Christians I know are disappointed with their church, finding it to be either too traditional or too modern. The sermon is either too theological or not theological enough. The people, too cold to one another or too cliquish. In the end, the root problem is always the same. It is the people.

John Koessler

Postman: technopoly

...consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorisation in technology, finds its satisfaction in technology, takes its orders from technology. This requires the development of a new kind of social order, and of necessity leads to the rapid dissolution of much that is associated with traditional beliefs.

quoted Dawn p29

Dawn: intimacy & worship

Living far apart from each other, members of a congregation do not hold each other as their primary community. Consequently churches do not experience the deep intimacy that could characterise our times together. We might know some facts about each other, but we do not actually know who our fellow congregant really is, so we talk about trivia when we gather. We do not know how to share what genuinely matters, how to deal with the real lives and deep hurts or doubts of honest people, or how to speak the truth. Lacking sincere intimacy in congregational fellowship, we often put false pressure on worship to produce feelings of intimacy...

Marva Dawn, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down, p.28

Disney: celebrity

As far as I can remember, being a celebrity has never helped me make a good picture … or command the obedience of my daughter or impress my wife. It doesn't even seem to help keep fleas off our dog, and if being a celebrity won't give one an advantage over a couple fleas, then I guess there can't be that much in being a celebrity after all.

Walt Disney

Fenelon: die every day

Bear your cross. Do you know what this means? Learn to see yourself as you are and accept your weakness until it pleases God to heal you. If you die a little every day of your life, you won't have too much to worry about on your final day

Fenelon: peace

Encourage peace, become deaf to your over-active imagination. Your spinning imagination will harm your health and make your spiritual life very dry. You worry yourself sick for no good reason. Inner peace and the sweet presence of God are chased away by restlessness

Fenelon: suffering

God never makes you suffer unnecessarily. He intends for your suffering to heal and purify you. The hand of God hurts you as little as it can. The yoke that God gives is easy to bear if you accept it without struggling to escape.

François Fenelon

Church Removal

HISTORIC CHURCH DRIVEN TO NEW HOME

Removers this week delivered a 700-year-old church to a new location after strapping it to the back of a flat-bed truck. The Migbrag mining company paid £2 million for the removal job after learning that the Emmaus Church and surrounding village of Heursdorf, near Leipzig were sitting above 50 million tonnes of brown coal. The road trip represented a victory for the 320 residents of the East German town who had refused to leave the village unless the church went with them.

Sources: The Guardian (1/11); The Times (1/11)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2781251.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,2202902,00.html

Piper: fight

This faith will fight anything that gets between it and Christ. The distinguishing mark of saving faith is not perfection. It is not that I never sin sexually. The mark of faith is that I fight. I fight not with fists or knives or guns or bombs, but with the truth of Christ. I fight anything that diminishes the fullness of the lordship of Jesus in my life. I fight anything that threatens to replace Jesus as the supreme treasure of my life.

John Piper, quoted CT (also in When I Don't Desire God)

Just a thought....

Do you think the reason God has not revealed the date of the Second Coming, is that some church members' would vote against it as being on an inconvenient day?

Vision and obedience in preaching

Only after people have a vision of God (the love, beauty, justice, and power of his kingdom) will they be ready to intentionally seek and employ the means to experience him through obedience—an aspect of spiritual formation that occurs most effectively in smaller settings through the medium of relationship.

Skye Jethani, CT.

Media dumbing

"When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a comedy show, then a nation finds itself at risk."

Schoerghofer, quoted CT 8th October 2007

CSL: Books in heaven

"Yes", my friend said. "I don't see why there shouldn't be books in Heaven. But you will find that your library in Heaven contains only some of the books you had on earth." "Which?", I asked. "The ones you gave away or lent." "I hope the lent ones won't still have all the borrowers' dirty thumb marks", said I. "Oh yes they will", said he. "But just as the wounds of the martyrs will have turned into beauties, so you will find that the thumb-marks have turned into beautiful illuminated capitals or exquisite marginal woodcuts."

"Scraps", in Christian Reunion, p69

CSL: Thinking Sins

Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others.

'Miserable Offenders', in Christian Reunion, p80.

CSL: the wrong way of hating yourself

The other kind of self-hatred, on the contrary, hates selves as such [as opposed to the self-centred self]. It begins by accepting the special value of the particular self called me, then, wounded in its pride to find that such a darling object should be so disappointing, it seeks revenge, first upon that self, then on all. Deeply egoistic, but now with an inverted egoism, it uses the revealing argument, "I don't spare myself" - with the implication..."I need not spare others"...

CSL, "Two Ways with the Self", in Christian Reunion.

Breeding out atheism

...recently the most common explanation atheists give for religious belief is that such belief is evolutionarily favored: that is—for reasons which some atheists guess at, while others decline to speculate—religious belief in a person increases the chance that that person will pass on his or her genes to another generation.

Now, an atheist saying this immediately has a new problem, especially if he or she thinks that religious belief produces violence and intolerance—which is what many atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, have shouted from the world's rooftops. Anyone who holds both these views is in an interesting position, to say the least. Do we say that if I am violent and intolerant toward others I am more likely to pass along my genes—perhaps because I kill or injure those who do not share my religious beliefs before they can reproduce? If we do say that, then the atheist who protests against violence and intolerance will have to argue that we should behave in ways that do not maximize the likelihood of passing along our genes.

But this is a bad situation for an atheist to be in...If religiously inspired violence and intolerance are evolutionarily adaptive, and the blind processes of natural selection are the only ones that determine reproductive survival in the long term, then people who argue against religion and its accompanying pathologies are certain to diminish in numbers and eventually become totally marginal—nothing more than the occasional maladaptive mutation. The selfish gene will ultimately, necessarily, win out over the altruistic one.

Alan Jacobs, Christianity Today Books & Culture

Public art

The problem was that, squatting in an area that the county wanted to convert into office space, there was a large ugly wad of metal, set into the concrete. So the county sent construction workers with heavy equipment to rip out the wad, which was then going to be destroyed.

But guess what? Correct! It turns out that this was not an ugly wad. It was art! Specifically, it was Public Art, defined as ''art that is purchased by experts who are not spending their own personal money.'' The money, of course, comes from the taxpayers, who are not allowed to spend this money themselves because 1) they probably wouldn't buy art, and 2) if they did, there is no way they would buy the crashed-spaceship style of art that the experts usually select for them.

Dave Barry

Peterson: remembering spiritual direction

I was angry over what had been said about me personally and I was concerned about the seeds of dissent in the congregation. And what was I going to do about it? I was going to confront the people who were criticizing me behind my back and force them to deal with me face-to-face. And 1 would rebuild the peace of the congregation through visitation and preaching. Actually, it was routine pastoral work. He interrupted my conventional approach. “Don’t you think there might be more to your anger than righteous indignation? Don’t you think it could be a symptom of pride that you didn’t know you had? Why don’t you explore the dimensions and ramifications of your anger? And as to the unrest; what if the Spirit is preparing something new in the congregation? What if the whitecaps on the recently smooth waters are caused by the wind of the Spirit, not the whispers of critics? Isn’t it possible that you are working for a premature and bland peace when something deeply creative is in motion?” He named the anger as sin; he discerned the unrest as Spirit. He directed me to the essential work of dealing with my sin and responding to the Spirit. The things I had set out to do still had to be done, but they were mere footnotes to the major work that he set before me. He directed me to the obvious, but in my passion to clear myself and to have a smilingly harmonious congregation I hadn’t so much as noticed the obvious. That is why the work of spiritual direction is essential — because we need to deal with the obvious, with sin and with the Spirit, and we would rather deal with almost anything else.
In these moments when we are in conversation with another and spirit touches spirit, “deep calling to deep,” there is often a confirming sense that we are doing our best work. So we don’t need to be talked into doing this, at least most of us do not. For most pastors being a spiritual director doesn’t mean introducing a new rule or adding another item to our overextended job descriptions, but simply rearranging our perspective: seeing certain acts as eternal and not ephemeral, as essential and not accidental.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, p152-3

CSL: improving poetry

Those who read poetry to improve their minds will never improve their minds by reading poetry. For the true enjoyments must be spontaneous and compulsive and look to no remoter end.

CSL, "Lilies...", Christian Reunion, p26.

CSL: being religious

The word religion is extremely rare in the NT or the writings of mystics. The reason is simple. Those attitudes and practices to which we give the collective name of religion are themselves concerned with religion hardly at all. To be religious is to have one's attention fixed on God and on one's neighbour in relation to God. Therefore, almost by definition, a religious man, or a man when he is being religious, is not thinking about religion; he hasn't time. Religion is what we (or he at a later moment) call his activity from outside.

CS lewis, "Lilies that Fester", in Christian Reunion and other Essays, p23.

Desire

IT IS THE DESIRE for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry.

Simon Tugwell, The Beatitudes (Christianity Today quote)

Narrative context

It is fatal to exegesis when this narrative sense is lost, or goes into eclipse. Every word of Scripture fits into its large narrative context in one way or another, so much so that the immediate context of a sentence is as likely to be 85 pages off in words written 300 years later as to be the previous or next paragraph. When the narrative sense is honoured and nurtured, everything connects and meanings expand, not arbitrarily but organically - narratively. We see this at work in the narrative-soaked exegesis of a preacher like John Donne whose texts always lead us "like a guide with a candle, into the vast labyrinth of Scripture, which to Donne was an infinitely bigger structure than the cathedral he was preaching in." (Northrop Frye)

Working the Angles, p124

Tribal brands

Depending on your Unique Buying State, you can join any number of tribes on any number of days and feel part of something bigger than yourself. You can belong to the Callaway tribe when you play golf, the VW tribe when you drive, and the Williams-Sonoma tribe when you cook a meal. Brands are the little gods of modern life, each ruling a different need, activity, mood, or situation. Yet you're in control. If your latest god falls from Olympus, you can switch to another one.

from The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier (AIGA, 2006)
Christianity Today

Patronising the poor

This could be a bit wrong, but I was wondering about attitudes toward charity.

I have often heard it said (by ordinary plebs like us, and concerned celebrities and politicians) that the two-thirds world must have access to clean water and sufficient food. We must wake up and respond to this charity bash, to this appeal, and be like them: crusading concerned people of conscience. And when we have done so, we will have helped them.

And yet, whilst stating righteously that these are the things they need, we also know we would never settle for these ourselves. Here in the West we would never vote for a government that promised only clean water and sufficient food. Those are invisible givens: we also want tax breaks, mortgage relief, private healthcare, motorways and multiple vehicles, spare cash for gadgets, fripperies and booze...and on and on. These are our needs.

So whilst we virtuously demand basics for the developing world, we retain our basics at a massively inflated level. Why? Presumably because we are more important than them, so our basic needs are much greater.

So even in charity, we can patronise the poor.

Bible reading for money

This acquisitive mode is so culturally expected and congregationally rewarding that it cannot fail to affect our approach to the Scriptures. When we sit down to read the Scriptures we already have an end product in view: we want to find something useful for people's lives, to meet their expectations of us as pastors who deliver goods. If someone says to me, "I don't get anything out of reading Scripture", my knee-jerk response is, "I will show you how to read it so that you can get something out of it". The operative word is "get". I will help you be a better consumer. By this time the process is so far advanced it is nearly irreversible. We have agreed, my parishioners and I, to treat the Bible as something useful for what they can get out of it. I, a pastor shaped by their expectations, help them to do it. At some point I cross over the line and am doing it myself - looking for an arresting text for a sermon, looking for the psychologically right reading in a hospital room, looking for evidence of the truth of the Trinity. The verb looking has taken over. I am no longer listening to a voice, not listening to the God to whom I will give a response in obedience and faith, becoming the person he is calling into existence. I am looking for something that I can use to do a better job, for which people will give me a raise if I do it conspicuously enough.

Peterson, Working the Angles, p98-99.

Sabbath

It is no use claiming "I don't need to rest this week and therefore will not keep the sabbath" - our lives are so interconnected that we inevitably involve others in our work whether we intend to or not. Sabbath-keeping is elemental kindness. Sabbath-keeping is commanded to preserve the image of God in our neighbours so that we see then as they are, not as we need them or want them.
Working the Angles, p.71.

Happy birthday to me!

Just noticed I have been blogging for a year. And thanks to Dickie Mint who talked me into it (at least the blog didn't cost anything...)

Outrage & Blasphemy (prayer)

Most of the people we meet, inside and outside the church, think prayers are harmless but necessary starting pistols that shoot blanks and get things going. They suppose that the "real action", as they call it, is in the "things going" - projects and conversations, plans and performances. It is an outrage and a blasphemy when pastors adjust their practice of prayer to accommodate these inanities.

Working the Angles, p46

World perspective

One gets an impression that because of the numerical strength of Africa's church, Africans Christians can be equal partners with their Western counterparts. But we cannot pretend that the power of America does not exist. There is a new desire to learn from one another, but how deep does the learning go? I have a hard time getting a serious answer when I ask American churches what they have learned from their African "partnerships." Perhaps instead of spending $2.5 million on a building, they scale it down to $2.3 million. But they're still constructing baptismal fonts that automatically adjust the temperature! In a world where millions of Christians have no clean water, how much has been learned here?

Emmanuel Katongole

Prophets, prayers, psalms

Pastors who imitate the preaching and moral action of the prophets without also imitating the prophets' deep praying and worship so evident in the Psalms are an embarrassment to the faith and an encumbrance to the church.

Working the Angles, p40.

Giving cemeteries the vote

What is the most important pastoral act for maintaining your identity? GK Chesterton said that tradition is the only true democracy because it means giving a vote to your ancestors. If we count only the votes of those who happen to be on their feet at the moment, we are letting a small minority make the decision, and a not very distinguished minority at that. Chesterton argued for extending the franchise to the cemeteries. When we do that, the ballots naming "prayer" come in with an overwhelming majority. For the majority of Christian centuries most pastors have been convinced that prayer is the central and essential act for maintaining the essential shape of the ministry in which they were ordained.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, p26

Peterson's triangle

Most of what we see in a triangle is lines. the lines come in various proportions to each other but what determines the proportions and the shape of the whole are the angles...

Working the angles is what gives shape and integrity to the daily work of pastors and priests. if we get the angles right it is a simple matter to draw in the lines. But if we are careless or dismiss the angles, no matter how long or straight we draw the lines we will not have a triangle, a pastoral ministry.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, p5.

Peterson: sinner church and pastor

The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does His work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor's responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.

Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles, p2.

Prayer: the delight of God

The reason our hope is a pleasure to God is because it shows that all our joy comes from the bounty of His grace. And the reason our prayers are a pleasure to God is because they express this God-exalting hope. It is a precious thing beyond words - especially in the hour of death - that we have a God whose nature is such that what pleases Him is not our work for Him but our need of Him....

The most wonderful thing about the Bible is that it reveals a God who satisfies His appetite for joy by answering prayers. he has no deficiency in Himself that he needs to fill up, so He gets His satisfaction by magnifying the glory of His riches by filling up the deficiencies of people who pray.

John Piper, The Pleasures of God, p.215-216 (commenting on Proverbs 15:8)

Life in commuter suburbia

Incomprehensible Worship

In his sermon "The Divine Being," medieval mystic Meister Eckhart quotes Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Gregory the Great, and the Bible to remind his listeners about a commonplace of Christian theology. At one point, he sums it up by saying:

To know him really is to know him as unknowable … . God is something which is in no sense to be reached or grasped … . God's worth and God's perfection cannot be put into words. When I say man, I have in my mind human nature. When I say gray, I have in my mind the grayness of gray. When I say God, I have in my mind neither God's majesty nor his perfection.

In other words, God is anything but "meaningful," "understandable," or "intelligible." And worship, if it is authentic worship of the biblical God, will, at some level, remain incomprehensible. Worship that enables us to encounter the living God should leave worshippers a bit stupefied; they should leave their pews, pump the minister's hand, and enthusiastically blurt out, "I didn't understand large portions of the service. Thank you!"

As noted, our desire for worship that is "understandable" is, well, understandable for evangelistic reasons. But there is a less seemly side of this desire: It's sometimes about worshipping a God we can control. Just as we furiously pursue some line of study in order to "master" a subject, so we are tempted to pursue God in an attempt to master him. As A. W. Tozer put it in Knowledge of the Holy:

Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get him where we can use him, or at least know where he is when we need him. We want a God we can in some measure control. We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing what God is like.

Mark Galli

Nouwen: theological leadership

The Christian leaders of the future have to be theologians, persons who know the heart of God and are trained - through prayer, study, and careful analysis - to manifest the divine event of God's saving work in the midst of the many seemingly random events of their time.

In the Name of Jesus, p.68