Ontological Goo

Time To Go

2009-05-12T14:06:00.007-05:00

I originally created this blog to grapple with what I was learning in seminary. Since then, I have become a contributor to www.mockingbirdnyc.blogspot.com. Presently, that is where I am posting most of my thoughts and the action over there is hot, hot, hot.

With that in mind, I think it is time to say goodbye to Ontological Goo. And a sad goodbye it is. There have been many wonderful discussions and debates. That, and I have been able to read back and see how much I have learned through the years.

Hopefully, you will join me over at the Mockingbird blog.

The Fruits of Justice

2009-04-22T10:02:00.000-05:00

April 22 (Bloomberg) -- Freddie Mac Acting Chief Financial Officer David Kellermann, 41, was found dead early today in his home in the Washington suburbs, police said.
There were no signs of foul play, and the death is under investigation, Fairfax County, Virginia, Police Officer Shelley Broderick said. Broderick said early reports from others in the department indicated Kellermann’s wife reported a suicide, though the cause of death hasn’t been determined.

Read the article here.

The Theology of the Cross, Sovereignty, and Crimson Tide Basketball

2009-03-13T16:34:00.005-05:00

This is an article from sports Illustrated:

THE CLOCK STARTS WHEN THE SHOOTER CATCHES the ball, on the left wing, 24 feet from the basket. Two seconds left. He has run off a screen from the baseline, so his momentum carries him toward midcourt. He pushes hard off his right foot and pivots back to the left. One-point-four seconds. When he rises off the floor, the force of this hard cut is still carrying him left. One second. He believes Jesus will guide this shot.

The shooter flicks his right wrist at the peak of his jump, and if you photographed him now, you could put it in a textbook. Eight tenths of a second. The ball is still airborne when time expires and the horn sounds. The shot is almost perfect. But the shooter was drifting left, as you recall, and the ball lands just left of the target. It hits the back of the rim, the boxy part with the springs, and the springs rattle. The ball caroms from back rim to front, seeming to gain speed as it goes, and it suddenly leaps out of the cylinder.

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. The shooter believes this because his King James Bible says so, and because of what he has seen, and soon he will believe it more deeply than ever. The ball sails toward the backboard, hits the center of the white square, and falls through the net.

This shot does nothing to change the game's outcome. And yet, for pure utility, it may be as great as any play in the history of sports. Eight minutes later, on the evening of March 14, 2008, during this Southeastern Conference tournament game between Alabama and Mississippi State, a tornado will roar through downtown Atlanta, and high winds will breach the Georgia Dome, and metal will strike the hardwood, and players will flee for cover, and it will seem to be snowing indoors. By morning Mykal Riley's three-pointer will be known as The Shot That Saved Lives.

Each life turns on a trillion silent hinges, and every act has an infinite series of prerequisites. For Mykal Riley to be where he was and do what he did, an incalculable number of things had to happen just so.

Before he could play for Alabama, he had to quit two other colleges and happen upon a third.

Before he could play in high school, he had to wash sweaty uniforms and sweep the gym floor.

And before he could learn the jump shot, someone else had to fire a gun.

Read the whole thing here. This is an amazing article. - DOB

The Great Martin Luther

2009-03-01T13:45:00.001-05:00

“A good tree needs no instruction or law to bear good fruit; its nature causes it to bear according to its kind without any law or instruction. I would take to be quite a fool any man who would make a book full of laws and statutes for an apple tree telling it how to bear apples and not thorns, when the tree is able by its own nature to do this better than the man with all his books can describe and demand. Just so, by the Spirit and by faith all Christians are so thoroughly disposed and conditioned in their very nature that they do right and keep the law better than one can teach them with all manner of statutes; so far as they themselves are concerned, no statutes or laws are needed.”
- Martin Luther

The "Nominal Christian"

2009-02-26T09:29:00.002-05:00

Here is part of a post from a seminary professor of mine:

"I have become more and more suspicious of the concept of the nominal Christian. Our parish churches are supposed to be full of nominal Christians who are just going through the motions, of half-believers who are relying on their good works and who have not really surrendered to Christ and accepted the Gospel. In any parish church there are a few real apostates, and a few real scoffers and perhaps a few who genuinely hate God. Their numbers are routinely exaggerated. Most of the people who come to the church Sunday by Sunday know they are dying and are placing their hope in Christ. It may be an inarticulate hope, it may be a confused hope. Often there are huge brambles of misunderstanding that must be cleared away before the whole power of the good news can come in upon them. Often there is real darkness into which the light of Christ has not yet come and which cries out for a light-bearer. Yet, they come. When Jesus saw such as these gathered in their multitudes on the hill side, the sight provoked in him not contempt for the nominal but compassion, “for they were like sheep without a shepherd.”.
- Leander Harding (read the whole thing here)

Here is a follow-up comment from a friend of mine:

"This quote directly addresses something I recently heard at a diocesan clergy meeting where a rector of a large church talked about how most of the people in our church were not true "disciples" but just "consumer Christians" looking to have their needs met. Now, I am not lauding narcissism or praising the "me-first" sort of Christianity. But I found this pastor's comments so contemptuous, so lacking in compassion. Shouldn't we praise God that there are actually people coming to church on Sunday, instead of lamenting their level of so-called discipleship? Anyways, I love Leander."

Steppin' Into Tomorrow

2009-02-25T20:37:00.000-05:00

Low Church

2009-02-15T15:41:00.003-05:00

In the C of E and the C of I traditional evangelical Anglicanism (at least historically speaking) is clearly defined. The Scriptures are the final authority in all matters. The Three Creeds and the XXXIX Articles define the biblically derived summations of precise Christian doctrine. The BCP, ordered after the received theology of the Creeds and Articles, defines matters liturgical. Ceremony and clergy attire is traditionally evangelical, Morning Prayer and monthly communion…no bells or incense…no sacrificial vestments. The XXXIX Articles are more than minimally assented to, they are believed wholeheartedly. In earlier times English and Irish evangelicals would have read Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Ussher, and Ryle, and would unreservedly agree with Dean Litton’s assessment that (quoted by Dean Paul Zahl, in his work ‘The Protestant Face of Anglicanism’), “The Anglican Church, if she is to be judged by the statements of the Articles, must be ranked amongst the Protestant Churches of Europe.”

Really nice article about the ebb of the low church evangelicals in our Anglican tradition. Read it all here. - DOB

Angry All the Time

2009-02-01T18:24:00.003-05:00

Bruce Robison is a terrific singer/songwriter out of Texas. - DOB

Looking Progressive

2009-01-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive. "
- Charles Peguy

I can certainly relate to this. - DOB

Man on Wire

2009-01-27T16:59:00.004-05:00

I watched this last night and I have never been so amazed at a story like this. Amazed in the sense of wonder and disbelief. This guy is just on a different plane than everyone else. Tightrope walking between the tops of the Twin Towers in NYC? It made me think of three things:

1) Insanity. Of course. Yet, is was the insanity to do something beautiful and surreal. Insanity to take us away from the normal drudgery of our lives. A wonderful thumb in the pie, if you will.

2) Kierkegaard. Obviously, this man had been captured by something transcendental. Something irresistible that made him go beyond the "ethical" mode that the majority of us find ourselves in. It made me quite envious of that state with the full understanding that an undertaking of that magnitude would never fall to me.

3) Art. I have been given of late a monumental influx of appreciation for art. Literature, especially. But visual art and music is right up there. What this man did was art. Graceful art. Notice the smile and salute he gave 110 stories above the ground. It was literally the most wonderful performance I have ever seen.

It was the sublime act of a dead man offering horrific martyrdom to something transcendent. Crazy transcendent but transcendent nonetheless.

If I Needed You

2009-01-26T14:12:00.002-05:00

There are several things that resonate with me in this song and Van Zandt's recounting of how he came to write it. First of all, he was broke, sick, and alone (with regard to companionship of his own) at the time. Secondly, it was his unconscious that wrote the song in a dream, waking him up in the middle of the night. Thirdly, it is the lyrics that poignantly and clearly articulate a place of need and a desire to be loved in that need. Townes Van Zandt was a brilliant man with a powerful insight. - DOB

David Brooks Article - People Are Irrational

2009-01-20T16:43:00.001-05:00

The economic spirit of a people cannot be manipulated in as simple-minded a fashion as the Keynesian mechanists imagine. Right now political and economic confidence levels are running in opposite directions. Politically, we’re in a season of optimism, but despite a trillion spent and a trillion more about to be, the economic spirit cowers.

Mechanistic thinkers on the right and left pose as rigorous empiricists. But empiricism built on an inaccurate view of human nature is just a prison.

This is an amazing article by David Brooks. Read it all here. - DOB

Howlin' Wolf

2009-01-19T09:05:00.000-05:00

One of my favorites. - DOB

Ted Haggard Was Given No Quarter

2009-01-13T10:53:00.027-05:00

The following are exerpts from a recent Foxnews.com article:

"The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more..."

Haggard moved his family to Arizona after the scandal and also lived in Texas. He re-emerged last month at a rural Illinois church, where he delivered guest sermons and said he was sexually abused as a second-grader.

He now sells insurance and, in the documentary, says he isn't successful.
"At this stage in my life, I am a loser," he says.

Read the whole article here.

Ever since this happened, I have not been able to get it out of my mind. I remember hearing his interview on Issues, Etc. (unfortunately, I cannot link the interview because the Missouri Synod inexplicably yanked the show suddenly... it is now, thankfully, back on the air) before it became known that he was sleeping with a male prostitute and buying meth. Haggard was saying he had not sinned in some time and the host of the show was challenging him with the Sermon on the Mount. I remember thinking, "Ha, ha. Here's another Christian who doesn't think he sins. He obviously doesn't understand the bondage of the will. Ha, ha, LOL..." and all other sorts of derogatory (and arrogant) remarks.

Well, then it happened. The male prostitute saw him on television and then publicly revealed the whole affair. The secular (and theological) Left and the gay lobby were ecstatic. They watched gleefully as the life of an enemy (how could they ever regard him as anything other than that?) was destroyed and sank below the waves like the Titanic. No quarter.

Then, the Christian Right totally threw him under the bus. And then (just so no mistake could be made about it), they backed the bus right up so it could run over him again. The church of our Lord Jesus Christ, friend of sinners, turned its back on Ted Haggard. No quarter.

Read this again: "The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more..." Thank God, however, for that rural Illinois church that took him in and his wonderful wife.

I'll spare you, the reader, my theological disputation on this. If you look back into the archives of this blog, you will find it. I simply want to address Rev. Haggard with these words from my tradition's Book of Common Prayer:

Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all that truly turn to him.

Come unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. St. Matth. xi. 28.

So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. St. John iii. 16

Hear also what Saint Paul saith.
This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 1 Tim. i. 15.

Hear also what Saint John saith.
If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins. 1 St. John ii. 1.

God bless you, Ted Haggard. Sleep well tonight because you have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. - DOB

Just Let Me See...

2009-01-13T10:39:00.001-05:00

"...Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel's consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow..."
- T.S. Eliot A Song for Simeon (Luke 2:29-32)

Penn & Teller Are Atheists But....

2009-01-06T15:16:00.003-05:00

This Might Be the Blog Entry of the Year

2008-12-21T13:46:00.007-05:00

This is an exerpt of a post from http://www.internetmonk.com/. In my opinion, we should read this over and over. Tremendous. - DOB

This post is inspired by a FoxNews piece updating the situation of disgraced megachurch pastor Ted Haggard. Haggard was a major leader in evangelicalism until he was brought down by evidence of sexual sin and drug use.

Dear Ted,

May I call you Ted? Not “Pastor Ted,” “Reverend Haggard” or any other ministerial name.
You may not feel like it, but you’re at a good place. Finally. It’s taken a while, but you’ve made it to the place where the Gospel of Jesus has its power. On the verge of the fourth Sunday of the season of waiting, you’ve made it to the place where all that can happen now is for a savior to be born to a virgin. Your savior, no less. Yours and all the other losers.

Yes Ted, honesty, your best gift now has arrived.

“Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard says in a new documentary that he still struggles with his sexuality yet is committed to his marriage for the sake of his children.”

Struggles. YES!

"He now sells insurance and, in the documentary, says he isn’t successful. ” At this stage in my life, I am a loser,” he says.”

Loser. YES!

Ted, I hope I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but all those years that you lived in the center of the evangelical circus, all those years you covered up your struggles and desires, all those years you were taught to lie, deny, obfuscate and yammer on and on with various high-octane versions of the evangelical revival story (complete with band and movie clips), you were far, far away from the truth.

You were living a lie and you were teaching a lie.

And some of the things you’ve said since your fall? How you were fixed with a few sessions of counseling? Not good, Ted. Not good. A very bad place. Avoid it.

Now, Ted, now…now you are starting to see the light. You can say “I was abused as a second grader.” “I struggle…..I’m a loser.” This is major progress.

My recommendation is to find a good group somewhere that will understand how you feel and what you’ve experienced. You see, the evangelical version of that you can say you strugglED and you WERE a loser, but now everything is all right because you prayed a prayer, got saved and got called to preach. You know that’s not true- you’re not all right. You’re a walking wreck and lying about it has just made things worse.

Read the whole post here. If you just read one post a year, this one is it. - DOB

A Charlie Brown Christmas (Enjoy!)

2008-12-20T19:44:00.001-05:00

Ecclesiastes

2008-12-15T21:04:00.003-05:00

Ecclesiastes 2:20-23
So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity.

In a former life, I worked extensively in banking. Especially in the nonprofit sector where there are all sorts of worthy causes that do a great deal of good. In this one instance, I worked on a nonprofit entity that is well-known to a particular geography in the eastern United States. The entity was struggling financially and one of the executive managers of the bank was on its board of directors. This manager had a long record of service in the bank and was highly respected for his contributions and financial acumen.

The financial condition of the nonprofit began to deteriorate and the executive tried with all his might to help this particular entity. He was personally tied to it and he genuinely wanted to see it succeed. Well, the financial deterioration increased in severity and, finally, action had to be taken to protect the bank's interest. This was done, but there was an additional caveat. A head had to roll. It turned out that this executive manager who had given so many years of dedicated and competent service was fired. To add insult to injury, there were certain ambitious young managers who gleefully and smugly approved of this "justice".

Perhaps you have seen this happen in whatever part of the world you live in. Maybe it was a coach who gave years of successful service, impacted many young lives, had a bad season and was fired immediately. Maybe it was a pastor who had a public moral failure and was subjected to a self-righteous feeding frenzy.

The givens of life very quickly destroy two naive notions: cause-and-effect and self-created identity. Cause-and-effect basically says that you will get out of a thing what you put into it. For instance, if you read your Bible, good things will happen (commonly called "magic"). If you succeed academically, you will be accepted into Stanford Law, work on Wall Street, marry the man of your dreams, and have a fulfilled life. This is a terrible myth, as the former bank executive will be quick to tell you. The empirical fact is that life will crush cause-and-effect thinking.

Another thing that dies is the idea of a self-created identity. This is baldly prevalent in the United States but it is the same in Africa or anywhere else. It is Aristotle's idea that "you are the sum of your actions" but it the idea of the natural man most profoundly. If this is true (and it is if there is no Christ) then life is "vexation" and "striving after wind" because you have to re-create your identity every day for your entire life. Even if you were to theoretically succeed, the end of your life comes and you are quickly forgotten. Your gains are distributed among others and the whole process begins anew.

In this short devotional, I invite you to despair of cause-and-effect thinking and self-creation. Receive, instead, the perfect and unconditional gift of eternal love through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Hans Holbein the Younger

2008-11-07T11:31:00.002-05:00

Hans Holbein the Younger was a brilliant Lutheran artist who was captivated by Luther and the Reformation. Here you see the dramatic depiction of both the Old and New Testaments pointing the troubled sinner to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Praise God for Hans Holbein the Younger. - DOB

The Onion

2008-11-05T21:19:00.001-05:00

OK, this is all in fun. I love all my Obama supporter friends and I hope that they will laugh with me over this one. - DOB

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Obama

2008-11-01T20:01:00.002-05:00

Obama: 'I Will Change The World'
Read here.

OK. I have nothing against Obama other than just disagreeing with him from a policy standpoint but this just reeks of meglomania. Just sayin'. - DOB

Just A Reminder

2008-10-22T10:59:00.002-05:00

"It [the Law] doesn't serve for the construction of the new man but rather for the destruction of the old man. It must ceaselessly tell us that we lie when we say that we have no sin. It unceasingly exercises the principle function (usus proprius) because it always accuses (semper accusans) and because it can't ever be anything else. To be driven by the spirit means not only by Christ but also to be driven unto him because we are unceasingly troubled by the accusations of the Law. The proper function (usus proprius) of the Law is, in the language of the old domaticians, the accusatory funtion (usus elenchticus) and therefore it is always the paedagogical function (usus paedagogicus) that drives us to Christ."

- Werner Elert "Gesetz und Evangelium"

David Foster Wallace

2008-10-20T13:24:00.001-05:00

This is powerful. - DOB

The Theology of Russia and Georgia

2008-08-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

One of the most pressing events going on in world affairs now is the Russian invasion of Georgia and its subsequent chain reaction. In case you have just flown in from Mars and have not heard of this, you may read the whole story here. Europe (especially those countries of the former Soviet bloc variety) has been put on notice by a resurgent (or desperate) Russia and has rightly become quite nervous. In any case, my immediate blame was cast on Russia due to a variety of reasons including its “coincidental” concurrence with the Olympic Games (thereby restricting press coverage) and the enormity and coordination of the attack which military experts have asserted could only have been prepared for and premeditated. There have also been attacks on parts of Georgia that are not associated with the disputed regions.

This is not a political blog entry, however. This is a theological thought. Plenty of political analysis can be reviewed from calculated opinions to frothy denunciations on both sides and in between. My particular thoughts have to do with the experience of life which is codified most deeply in the Bible. In this case, the most striking theological issue is that of total depravity. In other words, our condition is such that we are profoundly mixed to the depths of our conscious and unconscious and therefore tainted. We are both victim and victimizer. Murdered and murderer.

In a way, it is almost easier to see this on a geo-political scale and is undeniable even to our most fastidious opponents who champion a high view of the capability of man. One need only look in the well-documented history books and speak with survivors. In the case of Russia, history tells of a quite violent and unfortunate past. Its peoples have been at war with a dizzying array of people groups. Mongols racing in, painting the steppes red. Japan driving Russian forces through Korea and China . Bonaparte and Hitler gashing its borders from the West, leaving a wake of misery in their path. Kaiser Wilhelm wishing to do so.

If one reads Dostoevsky, Sergei Bulgakov and others, one will find a highly developed Russian nationalistic theology that makes American civil religion look like kindergartners trying to count to five (although this is hardly a notable accomplishment). “The sun will rise in the east,” “The Divine Wisdom in the soil of Mother Russia suffering for redemption,” and all that. Only now, God is out of the equation and the ultimate good is the state. Is it any wonder this nationalism arose?

The fascinating part is that the same Russia that is gashed and bleeding from the aforementioned attacks (as well as the internal revolution of Red October, the subsequent Stalinist purges, and the rigors of the Cold War) is the same Russia that has its boot on the neck of the hapless embryo of a democratic Georgian state and threatens both Ukraine and Poland (again). In the same breath, the Georgian majority that was persecuting the Russian minority in South Ossetia is now being persecuted in grand fashion by Russia proper and its partisans.

So who is the good guy? Iran or Iraq? Britain or Argentina? The United States, the Creek Nation, or the Confederacy? Russia or Georgia? What about our lives and the inevitable conflicts that arise with other individuals?

Ecclesiastes 1:13-15 And I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.