The Eagle and Child

Dignity and the stories of little people

2008-07-25T11:42:00.003-04:00

I made reference yesterday to the dignity of humanity....Chirstianity teaches that each human being bears the dignity of the image of God...and that each human being suffers under the depravity of the curse of sin.

That said, we can emphasize a redeemed humanism. Not a humanism that puts man as the measure of all things, but a humanism that sees each individual's story as a mini-epic drama/comedy authored by the Creator. Our stories are significant because they're His stories (that is, after all, a part of believing in a sovereign God.)

There are any number of websites that strive to help people tell their stories....to reach behind the public facades that we put on to ease the social obligations to those around us. In the past I've profiled such interesting sites as:

* PostSecret -- the site where individuals make postcard artworks sharing a deep secret they hold within themselves. Some are touching, many are disturbing, and a few are just bust a gut funny. New postcards are posted online each week. (see my original 2005 post)
* Look at Me -- this site is a collection of "found photos"....vintage family photos that were either lost, stolen, or thrown away. They are nameless and we have no idea of knowing who the subjects are. Yet strangely there is great power in the pictures. (see my 2006 post)

Here's a new one for you. I saw this video of artist Jonathan Harris talking about several of his projects. It's an interesting 18 minutes or so.

His most interesting project is one called We Feel Fine, a web project that seearches all weblogs for the phrase "I feel" then it copies the whole sentence and any photo that might go with the post. The website allows the end user to creatively browse through these snippets of feelings. One can click on the montage feature and see photos, or one can organize by age, feeling type, location, even weather.

Again, we see stories of both dignity and depravity .... and they teach us of the deeper heart cries to which the healing balm of Jesus can be applied.

Excelsior

Russell

Joel Osteen ... can we move beyond the critiques

2008-07-24T12:25:00.005-04:00

When I saw this link Tullian Tchvidjian's weblog, I was intrigued. Conde Nast Portfolio, the dreambook magazine of the wealthy and powerful, profiles one of the richest and most influential motivational speakers of our time: Joel Osteen.

I've held off of Joel for quite some time. Frankly, it's just too easy to satirize the carnival that his schtick has become. His Guy Smiley looks and featherweight message simply beg for some jester's lampooning. I've not read any of his books to date because of my refusal to read any book that features a toothy photo of the author dominating the front cover .... it's just a recipie for disaster. His routine isn't original; we can trace the lineage back through Robert Schuller, Norman Vincent Peale, and even to Henry Ward Beecher (see my review of last year's Beecher Bio for more on that lively character).

There is, however, another reason I've held off. Reformed Christians have become too good at whining for Jesus. We excel at adroitly skewering [insert popular religious figure] for his/her heresy/error/comedic value. Quite simply we've moved beyond being curmudgeonly to simply being cranks.

Yes, we must be discerning; yes we must call error what it is. Please don't take me for one who is advocating a watery blurring of doctrinal distinctions. Doctrinal conviction should inspire us to robust discussion and proclamation. We are dealing with truth here. Permit me to suggest however, that Reformed Christians are not in danger of going light on doctrinal error ....the danger we face is in failing to articulate the compelling truths that we hold. I don't want my writing to be focused on Joel Osteen....I want my writing to turn eyes to Christ.

For instance, let's look at the opening of the article:

Who will save us? Who will lift us up from crushing credit-card debt and resetting mortgage payments and impending foreclosure, from increasing gas prices and decreasing health-insurance coverage? We are a nation stumbling through our worst financial crisis in a generation and our worst housing market in a lifetime. And so we come, seeking gentle salvation, inspiring prayers, steadying words, soothing notions, and calming thoughts that will allow us to become, in Joel Osteen’s words, “victors, not victims.”
We are in Greensboro, North Carolina, making our way into the downtown arena through the hot, buggy air, to worship with the pastor who will save us, the man anointed, by one of his congregants, as “Reverend Feelgood.” Sixteen thousand will file in this evening, as have millions more to coliseums, concert venues, and baseball
stadiums around the country—all, in a way, his churches. We are a diverse, representative swath of troubled America: families struggling under debt, husbands and wives seeking reconciliation, young couples on first dates, children dragged by pious grandparents who promise them popcorn and BibleMan action figures. It is
religion as escapism, criticized throughout the Bible Belt as “Christianity lite” or “prosperity gospel.” But this murmuring crowd, slouching toward a kinder, gentler salvation, is a more telling indicator of the state of our union than consumer durables purchased or capital goods ordered. Unemployment they know; they don’t need to wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to publish a monthly number. O, but come to Joel, lift your hands to Jesus, banish your negative thoughts, and you can find in these dark times a beacon.
If, in this country, there is great hurting, then Osteen is here to soothe that suffering.

In this well crafted opening (I love the WB Yeats allusion in the "slouching toward a kinder, gentler salvation"), the author points us to some of the criticism about the hope that Joel extends. Rightly so. It's not so simple as "banish your negative thoughts" and all will be well. It's not so simple as God wanting us all to be fat and happy.

But let's frankly acknowledge that there is indeed a great craving for hope in our land. So let's speak frankly about that hope. Our hope in Christ is a hope that carries us through tears, pain and suffering. Our hope lies in the truth that we can honestly belt out the raw throated cry "My God My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?" (Ps 22:1). Far from banishing such negative thoughts, our God gives us a scriptural example of actually bringing them to Him. We worship a living God who loves us so radically that we can bring to him our doubts, fears, anguish, bafflement, confusion, disappointment, dysfunction, and general messiness. We can cry out with the father of the demon posessed child "I believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). We can run to Jesus and say with Martha "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!" (John 11:21). We don't have to banish our negative thoughts .... we bring them to the Living God.

But then he doesn't leave us that way. By the end of Psalm 22, David is crying out "The ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord!) (v 17). Our hope lies in the truth that "All things work to the good for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:28) .... all things includes our pain, our cancer, our divorce, our unemployment, our mess. Jesus doesn't merely soothe our pain, he redeems it. He doesn't just make all the bad stuff go away, he transforms it into something greater and more glorious than we imagined. That is our hope. Not that everything will be painless, but that our pain will be transformed into something glorious for Christ!

Our hope lies in the truth that we're not abandoned in the midst of our pain...."Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26). The Holy Spirit never abandons us, even when we feel most alone.

Shifting from hope, let's move to the "prosperity" part of the critique of Joel. Rightly, we raise an eyebrow at the concept that God wants you to be wealthy. God has a great plan for your life and he's waiting on you to realize it. Again, the critique centers on the sunshine and promise of bliss.

However, we believe so much more, don't we? We believe that every human being bears the imago dei. Psalm 8 asks "what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor." The bible clearly teaches both human depravity but also human dignity. Our dignity is not rooted in wealth, accomplishment, titles, position, power, accolades or recognition. Our dignity is rooted in the bearing of the image of God. No amount of poverty, sickness, degradation or dehumanization can take that dignity away. No tyrant, potentate, huckster, mountebank, or con artist can coercie it from you. Even the dirtiest, toothless, withered crone on the street corner carries that dignity. It's not a dignity that is from our nobility at all....it is bestowed by the one whose image we bear. We believe God loves little people ... and He is glorified greatly through them.

Then there is the issue of preaching the god of Love vs the god of Wrath. Again, we Calvinists tend to cringe at such language. We rightly dismantle the arguments that draw a sharp distinction between the two. But can we truly articulate why it is good to believe in a God of wrath.

Can we not articulate that God's wrath is what upholds, protects, and defends his love. That love must be defended by his wrath against injustice, cruelty, manipulation, agendas, and the human propensity to consume all into the self. Miroslav Volf, in his Exclusion and Embrace, lays out this very idea that it is God's justice that ultimately gives us hope to live lives of love in the present: "Without entrusting oneself to the God who judges justly, it will hardly be possible to follow the crucified Messiah and refuse to retaliate when abused. The certainty of God's just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it. The divine system of judgment is not the flip side of the human reign of terror, but a necessary correlate of human nonviolence."(p.302)

Let's actually believe our theology ... that it is the Holy Spirit operating through the proclaimed word that changes lives. Let's vigorously advocate for the truths we hold ... and may God be glorified through it.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Forget the 9/11 conspiracy --- this is the death star conspiracy

2008-07-22T16:04:00.002-04:00

Remember the conspiracy theories about 9/11 -- the idea that the Bush administration was behind the whole thing so they could justify invasion of Iraq for oil?

Now, an even more shocking conspiracy .... 9/11 was a bit farfetched, but this one must be true. The evidence is too well presented .... Emperor Palpatine blew up the death star!

see the evidence for yourself ... and be convinced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaB-CRFPHxY

Excelsior
Russell

Vintage Church .... are old and tangible things making a comeback?

2008-07-21T23:44:00.003-04:00

Now this was an interesting kick. I found this article on PSFK Trendwatching, a weblog that tracks the hottest trends in fashon, lifestyle, music, and art.

"We’re usually looking forward to find innovation. What’s the next big thing? What’s coming next? Future! At times though, looking backwards might provide a richer source of inspiration. Overlooked ideas lay in wait to be revived. Simple practices long forgotten may be the answer to a present problem. There’s also the cyclically recurring retrofitting of culture, most obvious in the fashion world. Iconography of an earlier age is appropriated and remixed into a hybrid form using past style values to make a statement."

The idea....that old, tangible, solid, non-digital vintage things might be making a comeback. Could this signal hope for the traditional church...hope for organs, pews, stained glass, and buildings that look like they've been around for a century or more? More or less.

But remember the caveat in the quote above....vintage material coming back into mode is more than likely a "remix"...not a slavish imitation of the past but an appropriation of past images, styles, and concepts and presented in a way that honors the past, but is also cool in the present.

The article links to a piece from Harvard Business Review that plays with this concept from a corporation's perspective. What "old things" might very well come back into fashon again. Some examples from the article:

Non-working vacations
Re-regulation of industries (such as airlines and power)
Paternalistic Management practices (the idea that you get a good job and the company sticks with you for your life)

Interesting points....but I think they're woefully inadequate. My perception is that younger generations are yearning for authenticity and relationships. Therefore, my take is that the types of things that are on the way back in:

Neighborhoods (the kind where you spend time with your neighbors .... you linger in conversation in the front yard)
Home Cooked Meals (anything that takes more than three steps to prepare)
Home-made music/arts/crafts
Entrepreneurship
Community-building organizations (bowling leagues, supper clubs, civic organizations....but again, the organizations that will benefit will be the ones that learn how to remix their tradition rather than insisting on slavish continuity)

Theologically, I'm really into old things: the substitutionary atonement, the dual natures of the person of Christ, justification by faith alone (heck....let's just throw in the TULIP of Calvinism for grins and giggles).

What old things are we mixing into our lives....and where are we breathing new life into them? Looking forward to your thoughts.

Excelsior

Russell

Off the Shelf: Herodotus' Histories

2008-07-21T16:42:00.003-04:00

So, for the past year or so I've been slowly working my way through Herodotus' massive Histories. It's a great snapshot of the ancient world leading up to and culminating in the Greek/Persian wars (5th c bc).

But why....why, in this pragmatic age, is this of any use? Especially when Herodotus is wildly inaccurate in some places? I suggest a few reasons why.

1) the world of the Bible is the ancient world. While we know that the main things of scripture are plain and clear, a fuller appreciation of scripture can only come through a fuller appreciation of the ancient world. We can particularly get a greater understanding of Esther, Ezra/Nehemiah, the prophets, and certain parts of the OT history books from Herodotus.

2) The challenges of the past help us grapple with the challenges of today: Herodotus shows us that globalization is not really anything new. Local cultures existed, but there was plenty of back and forth/ give and take. In some ways the struggle of militant Islam vs western liberalism is prefigured in the struggle of Persian expansionism vs Greek independence.

3) Ancient histories are not just descriptive, but didactic. The ancients were not simply concerned with relating what happened. They were concerned with fostering virtue. Herodotus tells us stories from history in order that we might learn and grow in virtue. Simply put, there are some really great stories in there (that can be looted for sermon illustrations, for instance).

4) I have a bias for primary sources. Many times I'll come across a commentary that will cite Herodotus.... When one sees a text cited enough times, it is well worth reading it to make decisions for oneself.

Case in point..... I'm preaching through Isaiah. I have to explain the role of the biblical prophet (whether the writing prophet, the court prophets, or the wandering band of prophets)... and how it differs from the oracles of the pagan nations. So I use Herodotus' stories about the most famous of them all -- the oracle at Delphi. He tells of how king Croseus of Lydia sent a message asking if he should attack the Persian army. The oracle replied "If you cross the Halys river, a mighty empire will fall"....Croseus assumed that the mighty empire was Persia....he invaded and was defeated, only to realize that the "mighty empire" was his own.

Simply put, the oracles of the ancient world dealt in ambiguity. You had to go to them to pay them for their utterings, and then you had to take what you got. In contrast, the biblical prophets sought you out...they went to the kings. They spoke painfully clearly (though they also used riddles, and jokes, and prophetic action -- but they always explained those things).

Just a tiny example. There's much more gold to be found in Herodotus for those who venture there.

Excelsior
Russell

Now Playing: The Dark Knight

2008-07-19T22:43:00.004-04:00

Warning--- Spoilers ahead, if you've not seen the film, beware.

Believe the hype....The Dark Knight is quite possibly one of the best crafted films of the year. And Heath Ledger puts in an Oscar-Worthy performance that would posthumously mark him as one of the iconic greats, just like Giant did for James Dean.

You'll hear all about the violence....the depravity of the Joker character (a niezchiean figure who goes on the idea that all the "rules" are hypocrisy and he's called to be an agent of chaos).

I want to focus on the idea of storytelling and the hero. In many ways, this film is the anti-matter version of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. John Ford's 1962 classic has two hero characters faced off against an amoral villan. The scrupulous lawman hero, played by Jimmy Stewart, runs afowl of the evil Liberty Valance and winds up stuck in a gunfight with him. Two shots ring out, Liberty dies, and the lawman is hailed as a hero because of his toughness. He rides his fame to Washington as a senator. However, he returns home at the death of an impoverished cowboy, and the newspaper editor corners him and gets him to tell the true story. That cowboy was the tough frontiersman hero, played by John Wayne. He was the only one who Liberty Valance feared, but he never did anything about him, until the lawman arrived and started talking about law and order. Then, on the night of the shootout, John Wayne's character hid out in an alley and he's the one who shot Liberty Valance. But he couldn't take credit for it because it would ruin the lawman's chances at bringing order to the west. He took his story with him to the grave so that the legend of the Man who Shot Liberty Valance could inspire the rest of the people.

Get it ... tough hero kills an amoral villan.... scrupulous law hero takes the credit .... the story is false, but the myth that is told is important for securing order in the community.

Contrast the Dark Knight....scrupulous lawman hero Harvey Dent is corrupted by the amoral villan Joker....he commits several murders for vengance. In this scenario, the scrupulous lawman hero dies without anyone knowing he has been corrupted, so the tough guy hero, Batman, takes the blame so that the scrupulous lawman can remain an inspiring figure for the community. Joker, the amoral villan, lives on.

So in the 1960s, mythmaking was around being tough and eliminating the amoral villan.
In the 2000s, mythmaking is around being a symbol of goodness to inspire the community to resist the amoral villan.

However, in both scenarios, lies are told to bolster the myth. Both stories acknowledge that we need heroes to inspire, we need good stories to help the community continue to fight the amoral villans. However, by their very nature, but stories undercut the nature of those heroes.

Id' be interested in your thoughts.....

Excelsior
Russell

BIg Talk

2008-07-18T11:29:00.003-04:00

Easily one of the most profound apologetic moments on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGyma1F49fQ

(clip from the british comedy sketch show "The Mitchell and Webb Look"

Testimony worth reading

2008-07-15T16:54:00.002-04:00

My friend Toby Brown over at the Classical Presbyterian put up a wonderful post yesterday. In it he speaks of his journey from "neoliberalism" to becoming a "fundamentalist". It's a lovely post, for it's a story I'm familiar with. It's the same story Steve Brown tells.... educated in all the shibboleths of fashonable cutting edge theology .... and then leaving it all behind to embrace the old verities of classical orthodoxy. Here's a snippet:

We had read radical feminists. We read Mujerista and medieval mysticism from Spanish and French convents. We grappled with Marxist Liberationists and Tillich as a side dish to our Barth. We played with some Calvin, but he was mostly an afterthought.
But now I started to read these wild and strange fellows that had been verboten in the seminary, they who must not named: I started reading J.I. Packer. I read Graeme Goldsworthy and D.A. Carson. I remember it so clearly--They were so rational and so clear! They were so confident and yet humble in their assuredness that the Bible really was without error and had a sweeping unity of narrative.
The scales fell from my eyes. Now, I began to understand why these writers had been hidden from us! They had just as much academic training and credentials as the people the seminary adored, but these theologians and biblical scholars had come to the opposite conclusion after studying the same data! They were utterly convincing.

It's not my story.... but it's a good story nonetheless. Thanks Toby for sharing your journey with us.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

A statue of responsibility

2008-07-15T10:34:00.003-04:00

Viktor Frankl, the wise psychiatrist and Holocost survivor, once said that to complement the Statue of Liberty on the east coast, America should erect a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.

I've thought about that vision, and believe it to be good, even great. I began to brainstorm how to make it happen. My thinking was to have a first stage that would involve a contest for design. The steering committee would raise an amount of seed money for an award, and then solicit submissions from American artists ... we could invite people across the country to comment upon designs via the web. If nothing else, such a contest would start the conversation about responsibility. If there were enough energy and interest, then the second phase could be explored ... site selection and raising the money for a full size statue.

However, a quick web search revealed that someone has beaten me to the idea. The Statue of Responsibility Foundation, based in Utah, has already taken the step of commissioning a design and starting to raise funds for the full sized statue. Their goal was to start construction this year (but they're still a ways behind on fundraising). This foundation is working as a private initiative, not seeking any public funding until the statue is completed and ready to be gifted to the US Park service.

The design they've chosen is interesting...two giant hands clasping on a vertical axis:

Honestly, I'm not wild about the design for this project. It's a neat concept piece....likely I'd enjoy it in a gallery or someone's home, but it doesn't carry for me the iconic impact of the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty is a full figure, an individual. You can peer into her eyes. She has an expression. I don't get that sense from the artist's rendering of the Statue of Responsibility.

I love the concept of a Statue of Responsibility, but I'm not sure I'm on board with what this planning committee has put together. What think you?

Excelsior

Russell

Rotary World Peace Fellowship -- congratulations Dyah

2008-07-14T10:19:00.004-04:00

Brimming with pride, I stepped to the microphone and introduced my friend Dyah. In just a few weeks, Dyah will be leaving Cincinnati to study at the Rotary Center for International Studies at Duke/UNC-Chapel Hill. Each year, Rotary International selects 60 scholars to study at one of six Centers set up in co-operation with major univiersities around the world. The selection process is rigorous. The brightest and the best are selected; and I'm proud to say that my friend Dyah made the cut. So, there I stood, before an assembled 200 Rotarians introducing her and briefly explaining the program (It bears noting that Rotary International is involved in so many projects, that most club members are not aware of even a fraction).

This was something of an odd spot. When theologians talk about "total depravity"...I'm right on board. I don't really believe in an innate goodness and reasonableness of humanity. King David got it right when he wrote of God's thoughts looking down upon the mass of humanity: "They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Ps 14:3). Depravity doesn't mean that we're slobbering lunatics ... it means that we have a bent toward selfishness that taints all our faculties. It takes God's supernatural grace to break through that taint and enable us to long and desire for that which is truly good.

So why would I nominate a friend for a program steeped in Wilsonian idealism about the perfectability and reasonableness of humanity? Check out this PDF prepared by the Rotary Foundation that tells the story of the program and it's goals. You might also read this summary of the UNC/Duke program ... a key quote:

"Each conflict is a social construct. It is being created through a particular combination of factors and therefore could be resolved if we understand its causation correctly and address it through targeted policy intervention."

Respectfully, I disagree. I believe this worldview shows a confidence in human perfectability and our capacity to realize a utopian society. However, my disagreement is not without qualification. There is without a doubt a social dimension to each conflict. By understanding conflict's causation we can mitigate the deleterious effects of conflict. Please understand, I don't think this kind of idealism is addleheaded. I believe they claim a little too much.

In contrast, my belief is that the best hope for peace lies in revival .... a recalling of Christians to be salt and light to a dying world. It lies in a recognition that we can't achieve peace on our ow, but that it is Christ who is our peace and who works peace within us. Why would I subject a good solid Christian to a program that seems to have a differing worldview?

The long and short of it is this: Christians who are called to work on the international stage need to know how to work with people coming from an idealistic worldview. We have so much in common with utopian idealists. Indeed, we also have a pretty idealistic worldview. The aims of Christianity are not all that different. Jesus meant it when he said "blessed are the peacemakers". Isaiah is deadly serious when he writes "cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." We have similar goals ... just a different understanding of how to meet those goals. We believe that understanding can alleviate symptoms, but only grace can cure the disease.

That different understanding doesn't mean we can't learn something from people with a different worldview. The doctrine of common grace shows that we stand to learn an awful lot from those with whom we disagree on some topics. It is a hallmark of maturity (and indeed a element of any kind of peacemaking) to be able to disagree and still work together and learn from each other.

For example: one of the great understandings that this program has is the complexity of each situation, and therefore the futility of "one size fits all" centralized solutions. As the vision for the Duke/UNC center says "Effective peacebuilding is based on coordinated efforts of various societal actors (governments, international organizations, NGOs, business community, civil
society and individuals) and has a complex, multidisciplinary and multidimensional character. Our task is to provide our fellows with theoretical approaches, analytical tools and knowledge of the best practices to prepare them to work efficiently in this field."

The program helps its students understand the vital role the private sector plays through business, philanthropists, nonprofits, and other non-governmental entities. There is a clear understanding that peace is not simply a by-product of governmental engineering .... there is an element of culture building that must come from the hearts and minds of individuals. This entrepreneurial mindset is spot on and much needed in the field of international development. Simply advocating for governmental change will not accomplish peace.

Dyah's desire is to work in a nonprofit international relief ministry such as World Vision. She's clear that she ultimately wants to work in relief ministry. However, her training through this fellowship and the connections she makes will position her to be exponentially more effective for the kingdom. Additionally, she'll be interacting with some hardened secularists....and I have no doubt that with her natural winsome spirit and charm (gifts from God themselves) as well as the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that God might use her to soften some hearts.

If we as Christians want to influence the world for Christ, we need to take steps out into where the world is working. That doesn't just mean the coffeehouses and the bars...it also means the institutions of higher learning. For that reason, I praise God for providing Dyah this great opportunity. I hope she'll be in your prayers.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Now Playing: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (spoiler warning)

2008-06-10T00:13:00.004-04:00

This summer has been a great one for fantasy/sci-fi...Iron Man, Prince Caspian. But I was honestly afraid that Indiana Jones would disappoint. It just had all the trappings of being another Temple of Doom....confusing plot and no real spark.

I have to say I wasn't overwhelmed by the film, but neither was it as dreadful as I feared. It was simply a fun ride for the summer with some old friends.

If you've missed the hype...the story takes place in 1957... well after the late 30s/early 40s settings of the earlier films. So we have homages to all things 50s ... soda fountains, the red meanace, the a-bomb, "I like Ike", and even aliens....yes aliens.

Therein lies the weakness of the film. I didn't have a problem with the introduction of Soviets as villans. It was the plain kooky idea of introducing interdimensional aliens as benign givers of ancient technology. This just seems to fly in the face of the precedent of supernatural powers in the great religious artifacts (particularly that of the Ark of the Covenant, which closely follows the Biblical accounts of its power). This felt absurd to me .... and thus the climactic scene was not breathtaking and cathartic as it was in Raiders or in Last Crusade. The climax simply felt....done.

Also, it seems that Indy hasn't learned much over his years of work. One would think that his hard nosed skepticism would be softened by his prior supernatural encounters, but at the beginning of the film, he's dismissing the tales of wonderful treasures as a "bedtime story".

He has at least learned something relationally....he reconciles with Marian, he discovers the son he never knew, he seems to have had a long and fruitful relationship with his father (after Last Crusade). And we get a sense of the academic friendships that have carried him in the new characters introduced to fill the gaping void left behind after Denholm Eliot's death (who still appears in the film in photo, painting, and statue -- apparently his character Marcus Brody, while a daft eccentric, was well loved at Indy's university).

All told, a fun adventure, but devoid of any of the spiritual content that we enjoyed in Raiders and Last Crusade.

Excelsior
Russell

Bubba Sorensen -- a folk artist who rocks....

2008-06-03T15:48:00.005-04:00

I normally don't like email forwards of "inspiring" or "shocking" stories .... I've seen most of them. Usually they're urban legends or misrespensentations that could quickly be cleared up by a google search. I believe every email user ought to do a little legwork before hitting the forward button ... check out Snopes.com or some other resource to at least try to verify a story.

However, every so often, one of these comes along that makes the forwards worth it. Ross Aldrich sent me one today about Ray "Bubba" Sorensen, a young man in Iowa who painted a large rock outside an old quarry on Highway 25 in Iowa.

A quick google search on Ray Sorensen showed that the story is better than the email indicated. Back in 1999, Ray saw Saving Private Ryan and was so touched by that film, he wanted to make a tribute to veterans on Memorial day. Now, every Memorial Day since, Sorensen has repainted the rock with a new patriotic theme. The website indicates that it takes him roughly 1-3 weeks to re-paint the rock each year. This talented young man is now working in Ames, IA as a professional panter and designer.

The nice thing about his website is the retrospective look at each year's "freedom rock"....go back and see how he started with a mural on one side, and then see how he has developed it each year. On his website, you can find information about contacting this impressive young man or supporting him through purchasing his artwork.

Here's what I really like about this project: not only is it heartfelt, but it is original. Sorensen's work is an expression of creativity that promotes good positive culture. The annual change is akin to the Well Dressing customs in the Peak District of England....it's a charming and delightful way to celebrate local culture. I also like that this is celebratory art...it's devoid of irony. Sorensen isn't trying to undercut anything, he's simply trying to say "thank you" to veterans. Indeed, his work becomes something of a prophetic statement against the jaded irony of much contemporary artwork.

I find Sorensen's work a refreshing contrast to Aliza Shvarts senior project at Yale. Shvarts made headlines for her controversial work in which she repeatedly impregnated herself and then took the morning after pill. She collected the blood from these various abortive pregnancies and smeared it within a plastic cube, then on the side of the cube, she projects video of herself collecting the blood samples. According to a Yale online article "The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body." She insists the motive was not shock value.

Another quote from the Yale online article: “I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts said. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

Shvarts defends her work in the Yale Daily News: "As an intervention into our normative understanding of “the real” and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are “meant” to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are “natural” (while all the other potential functions are “unnatural”) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives. "

So we have the contrast of two artists....one an artist in the heartland who strives to honor the values of self-sacrifice, the other an artist at an elite institution who strives to deconstruct social norms. Here we have a contrast of earnestness and irony. Here we have a contrast between a desire to build and a desire to subvert.

Now here is the supreme irony....Shvarts epitomizes the "establishment"....educated at an elite institution, and even though her project was disallowed by Yale, she has garnered acclaim in artistic circles and national fame. Sorensen, on the other hand, is the ultimate outsider... his work calls into question the whole enterprise of the artistic establishment. His very earnestness completely undercuts an artistic millieu that must advance through increasingly shocking and nihilistic statements.

Gene Veith of World Magazine comments on Shvarts' project: "Traditionally, art was an affirmation of meaning. Art imitated, in sometimes complex ways, the forms of nature. Beauty was connected with both truth and goodness. For Shvarts, Yale's art department, and a significant swathe of today's art world, art has nothing to do with aesthetics. Instead of creating something intrinsically pleasing, these artists try to shock and repulse people, while those in the know smile ironically."

I think with this view in mind, we can be pleased with Sorensen's work.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

See also
The Arts as Soulcraft: Love
A Tale of Two Artists
Christianity and Art - take one

Off the Shelf: The Emmaus Mystery

2008-05-30T22:49:00.003-04:00

It beckoned to me as I was browsing the extensive stacks at Cincinnati Public Library. The Emmaus Mystery carried the subtitle "discovering the evidence for the risen Christ." After dealing with James Tabor's Jesus Dynasty, I thought it would be nice to see something that takes seriously the biblical accounts.

The book didn't live up to the advertisement. It didn't give evidence for the resurrection.

It was, however, an entertaining and lively read. Thiede's thesis is that the gospel accounts are indeed reliable historical sources (contra the idea that they are mostly fabrications), and thus historians and archaeologists can use them for clues. He writes: “Hardly anyone will turn Christian because of an ancient inscription discovered among the ruins of a first-century village, and likewise no one will lose their faith if stories told in the Bible cannot be proven archaologically. ‘Proving’ faith is a futile endeavour. Appreciating the intelligence and learning of the witnesses and writers of the first centuries, on the other hand, takes us closer to the roots of our civilization.” (22) Thiede seeks to prove this assertion by using the account in Luke to help him find the "lost" village of Emmaus.

Thiede explains the various theories of where Emmaus was actually located....and takes us on a tour of history from Roman times up through the Crusades and beyond. However, be forewarned, he does like to ramble. This text reads a bit like an after supper conversation ... ranging back and forth and down little side alleys, but slowly pushing forward toward an end goal.

That end goal is the recounting of the archaeological digs that Thiede directed near Moza starting in 2002. For those not familiar with archaeological procedure, this might provide an interesting snapshot to the frustrations and the unexpected discoveries that await the researcher.

Some of the interesting points and quotes he makes:

on the antiquity of the gospels (Theide argues for an early dating of the gospels...say in the 30s - 40s): “No one, so far, has produced a single convincing reason why the Christians should have waited for ten years or more before they set pen to paper, given the fact that their neighbours, the rival messianic eschatological movement of the Essenes, produced, copied, and distributed scroll after scroll to proclaim their own messianic vision. It should be obvious enough that a new movement which proclaimed the fulfillment of these Jewish hopes and expectations had to write down what they knew and believed. An oral tradition was valuable, but on its own it was inadequate. The incident at Beroea proves the point: those pious Jews listened to Paul and Silas ….but afterwards they studied the Scriptures to find out if it were true.” (85)

on the nature of mystery cults they understood that myth “…simply was the oral and literary form of any given mystery cult. And mysteries were anything but secret affairs: contrary to what most of us assume, none of the ancient mystery cults was restricted to a small circle of select followers. We know from ancient sources that over the centuries literally millions of people were initiated into …the Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated in the Greek city of Eleusis in honour of the female godhead Demeter and her daughter Persepone.” (82)

All told an interesting read....though not entirely satisfying for those who are looking for hard scholarly evidence on the textual issues.

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Sinking Roots Deep: Compassionate Christianity in Ethiopia

2008-05-27T23:15:00.004-04:00

The latest issue of World has an in-depth article (online paid registration required) on Christian Compassion in Ethiopia. After a brief recap of the recent tragic history of that country, the article takes us on a whirlwind tour of just a few of the evangelical missionaries doing works of compassion there.

Note that this is in the midst of a country roughly equally divided between Islam and Ethiopian Coptic Christianity. And yet, evangelical protestants continue a vibrant witness ... offering compassion and outreach to AIDS victims, offering medical care to traumatized women, offering educational and agricultural aid.

However, it's not a matter of giving handouts. One of the stories is that of Marta Gabre-Tsadick, a 75 year old former member of the Ethiopian senate, and an unabashedly evangelical Christian. She started Project Mercy back in the 1990s....simply by asking local villagers what they needed and then when she figured out it was a school, she started one.

Only the local muslim population didn't like her talking about Jesus. "...when the children of the school started accepting Christ, they no longer wanted us....They threw stones at us. For a year and a half we could not go outside the compound at night."

But the school survived. Now here's the kicker for me. Check out this quotes from the article:

She applies here experience to the training of her students, telling those who only want to evangelize that they should develop a skill that will make people come to them: 'Go to nursing school and become a public health person. Learn medicine, engineering, business management, law.'

So she's actively encouraging her students to get involved in the watching world in a profession that actually meets needs...and then use that profession to tell people about Jesus. This is right in line with Paul's admonition in I Thessalonians 4:11-12: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."

Meet needs, but also be distinctively Christian about it. In her clinic, Gabre-Tsadick offers to pray for each patient...now over 11,000 ..."because Jesus is the great physician."

The second quote from the article expresses the impact:

The clinic and school still upset some Muslim leaders, one of whom complained about 'brainwashing students with the Bible" -- but Gabre-Tsadick recounts that he also admitted 'There's no use getting rid of you. You have sunk your roots so deep.'

And there is the great lesson for American Christianity. We need to re-learn the old discipline of sinking roots deep in the soil in which God has planted us. We need to re-learn how to be blessings to our community, but unabashedly Christian blessings. It is not sufficient to airdrop some sandwiches to homeless people in the park twice a year and consider our duty done. We need to be about the business of meeting needs, building culture, helping society be better. And in the process, we can also be crazy honest that we're doing it because we love Jesus...that Jesus died for our redemtion...that He rose to conquer evil, darkness and death (especially the evil darkness and death within our own hearts)...and that he rules pouring out the Holy Spirit to work in and through His people. That's really good news.

So let the African Christians challenge us to be salt and light in our own mission field as well...

Read more inspiring stories about Marta Gabre-Tsadick:
from the Deseret Morning News
from the Macneil/Lehrer news hour
from Jazz Musician Karen Cameron

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Sermon Post Mortem: Isaiah 14:24-19:25 -- the one about racism, God's sovereignty, and our calling

2008-05-15T12:35:00.008-04:00

OK...I've already missed a week, and here we are on Thursday when I'm getting this one up. It takes more time than I anticipated to get these post mortems up and running. However, given the discussion on the sermon from two weeks ago, I think this might be a valuable exercise. Go check out the comment stream -- some great feedback given by members of the church.

This week's passage was Isaiah 14:24-19:25....I'll post the link when the sermon audio is available. We only read selections from it and touched on a couple of the major themes:

First we look at the theme of God's sovereignty over the nations. Particularly, we tie the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost back to the oracles God gives here. (see Acts 2:1-41). We focused particularly on that astounding passage in 19:23-25:

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and the Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying 'Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheiritance.'

And we linger on how amazing it is that Egypt and Assyria ... the enemies of ancient Israel ... would come to be considered brothers before the throne of God. Here are some photos I have from the Oriental Institute Museum of Colossal figures from both Assyria and Egypt ... showing the impression of power over the people...the might of the temporal rulers ... indeed their claim to divine kingship. Throughout Isaiah, God pronounces judgment against these nations and rulers for their arrogance, but here God shows that judgment is not the last word. The last word is inclusion into the worshipping family of God. This is really big news.

I wish I had tied this back to the Abrahamic covenant .. Genesis 12:2-3 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you : I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." -- in that Covenant we see God's intent to bless the nations and to use the offspring of Abraham to be a blessing to the nations. In Isaiah, we see the nations being blessed by being included in the worshipping community of the God of Abraham. Very very cool.

And so the tie back to Pentecost...that all nations are gathered to worship...see Galatians 3:26ff "You are all sons of God thorugh faith in Christ Jesus for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

This truth confronts us with racism ... we don't have any room for racial discrimination. I had some people affirm the need to hear this...one person privately offered repentence for this sin. Others said that I might get in hot water. I was surprised however by one verbal feedback which indicated I was being tribal or sectarian. I think this person was trying to convey that they thought I was playing up bondedness in Christ too much at the expense of our common human bondedness.

To clarify on that point....we all share a unique dignity as being made in the Image of God. This dignity is to be honored and respected in all human beings. The commands to extend love and care and concern apply to our relationships with all human beings. However, at the same time, scripture makes clear that there is a special bondedness among the people of God. There is a special connection there based off our shared faith. Just as in Islam, there is an understanding of the ummah as the worldwide community of believers, so in Christianity we have this understanding of the church....that the Invisible Church is the worldwide community of true believers, bonded by the Holy Spirit ... a community that transcends national and political bounds. It is my belief that we can at the same time assert the universal dignity of humanity as made in the image of God alongside the particular community of the Invisible Church of God's covenant people.

Second, we see that this passage is a goad for missions. If I had my wits about me, I would have made very explicit the truth that the Sovereignty of God over the nations is indeed what gives hope to our mission efforts. And here we take a global view of the need to take the gospel to the unreached people groups.

I mention the Joshua Project -- encouraging prayer for the unreached people groups ... info is on their website, and I hope that some of you will check out their material.

Third, we see that God's sovereignty over the nations should give impetus to our own personal mission effort. God's purposes will be fulfilled. Here I applied God's sovereignty to the current troubles in our own time..... I quote John Adams' worries about his times.... the citation comes from McCullogh's biography, an excellent read. However, I'm embarrassed that I misquote scripture ... I talk about John Adams being formed in his mothers womb for his time and refer people to Psalm 138 -- when It should have been Psalm 139. That's what happens when I veer from the printed words in front of me.

The point being that God's sovereignty is not an excuse for us to be lazy and rest upon laurels or to cower in fear because the times are too great for us. Rather God's sovereignty is the grounding and foundation for us to act and involve ourselves in the world; We were made for these times and we were given a calling for these times.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments (if you even remember anything from the sermon by this point at all)....Next week, I'll try to get the post-mortem up sooner.

Soli Deo Gloria

Russell

3 times a day -- good for our spirit

2008-05-12T17:37:00.003-04:00

I'm doing a study of early Christian literature ... some fascinating stuff. One of the more important documents is the Didache, which purports to be the "teachings of the 12 apostles"...basically an early Christian handbook. Many scholars place the text to sometime in the first century.

The early chapters contrast the ways of life and death, and then the book moves into a description of early worship...and that's my interest for this post. The early christian audience of the Didache was encouraged to fast two days out of the week (Wednesday and Friday) and to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day. Here it is in a full quotation of Chapter 8 (from the Roberts-Donaldson translation):

But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth day of the week. Rather, fast on the fourth day and the Preparation (Friday). Do not pray like the hypocrites, but rather as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, like this:
"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily (needful) bread, and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (or, evil); for Thine is the power and the glory for ever."
Pray this three times each day.

Now the fasting part is pretty tough though certainly doable. Wesley used to fast from the evening meal of Thursday to mid-afternoon Friday. According to the Coptic church website, Egyptian Coptic Christians fast for 210 days a year.

Even so, I'd like us to look at that second piece...praying the Lord's Prayer three times a day. That's it. A simple little prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Three times a day. Is it possible that Christians could do even that? Many American Christians hardly ever lend prayer a thought save at mealtimes and when led to pray in church. What would it do to our spiritual lives if we made it a baseline committment between ourselves and God to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day .... not mechanistically as though it were some incantation to attain spiritual power. But praying it thoughtfully, slowly, applying the general statements of the prayer to the particular situations of our lives.

Perhaps some of us will give it a try ....

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

Picking up the conversation about funding...and catapaulting to the ever growing pie

2008-05-08T14:12:00.003-04:00

Here's an illustration of the extended conversations we can have online. John Schroeder blessed me today by picking up on one of my earlier posts and running with it. However, mine was a development from a post by Bradley Wright. It was basically a thought around the idea of non-profits and the scarcity of resources (attention, volunteering, fundraising) Follow the thread here, if you dare:

Bradley's original post
Russell's follow- up
John's follow- up

So Bradley has some very deep initial thoughts, I add my usual silliness, and then John adds some real value by givings us the distinction between obligitory giving and passionatie giving. Obligitory giving results in a scarcity of resources ... while passionate giving results in a multiplication of resources. There's any number of obligitory givers out there we can touch, but the real bang comes when we touch the people who are passionate about the ministry.

And this takes me to the recent work by Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody (see my review here). Now people with passion are able to remotely connect quickly, easily and all around the world. The use of social media on the web will dramatically increase the pie for everyone because passionate people can more easily bond. In addition, the tools allow them to collaborate much easier, as well as making it easier for obligitory givers/volunteers to provide simple/low cost contributions on their own terms (see Kiva.org as a fine example -- or my posts on how it works). Another fine example of this trend is in the Modest Needs foundation (which I heard about on NPR) .... you make your donation, and then you can choose which particular needy people you can donate to ... online ... at midnight while you're in your jammies and sipping a glass of Grape Nehi.

Social media does this by lowering the connection cost .... you can connect many to many very easily. The churches/nonprofits that learn how to use social media will reap great benefits in terms of breadth of connection, depth of committment, etc. There are challenges on how to navigate the social media realm .... it's new .... all the old rules don't apply ... there will be brand new norms of behavior and expectations (do i, as a pastor, by default "friend" people on Facebook, or do I wait for them to come to me? What are the bounds of information I can share about myself? What kind of messages will people treat as spam? etc).

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

A day in the life of a pastor: conversations with a student of Dharma

2008-05-05T09:09:00.005-04:00

One of the pleasures of having Panera Bread as a branch office are the providential encounters that happen there from time to time. Last week, I ran into an old acquaintence whom I hadn't seen in many months or more: Richard Blumberg. When I first met Richard, he was a self-described atheist, though interested in the teachings of Buddhism. Despite this difference (or perhaps because of it), we have great conversations. He's a warm hearted guy with a great sense of humor and and generous spirit.

Richard put up a blog post last week about the comparison of Buddhism and Christianity (in response to a question he'd been asked in one of the classes he teaches), and he asked me for feedback. I'm afraid that my understanding of Buddhism is but rudimentary, though I do know a thing or two about Christianity. So I offer these points just as a matter of clarification about the Christian faith. Richard...I'm looking forward to ongoing discussion on the deep things of faith and life.

Richard summarizes his opening thus: "There are three things, I think, that most clearly distinguish the Buddha’s teachings from the Christian scriptures: the authenticity and coherence of the scriptural documents, the differing natures of Jesus and the Buddha, and the vast differences in the core doctrines. I’ll take these one at a time."

Authenticity and coherence of scriptural documents:

"Almost from the beginning of Christianity, there has been significant dispute about the authenticity of the Gospels; they do, after all, differ considerably in the stories they tell of some of the more significant events in the story of Jesus the Christ; they frequently seem to be promoting a particular doctrinal agenda; and the emphasis each one lays on the events in the life of Jesus and the importance of those events and of his various teachings differs considerably from one Gospel to the next. There is also the nagging question of alternative Gospels, with an equal or greater claim to authenticity than the canonical four, that would have changed the message of the canon considerably had they been included with the others. "

I suppose the matter of believability depends upon the place from which one stands. Needless to say, I find the Gospels to be quite believable. The issue of "alternative gospels" is an interesting one. The debates in the first three centuries of the church seem to demonstrate a strong unity of belief among the majority of Christians ... though there were splinter groups that sought to carve their own way. The most significant debates in the early church were not whether to include "alternative gospels", but rather which of the canonical books of the new testament to include.

I prefer to look at the great unity across the canon of the New Testament. Yes, there are passages that exist in tension with one another (which is why some sects wanted to leave out certain books), but this is not necessarily contradiction. I must guard against my own chronological snobbery in which I assume that I as a rational enlightened 21st century figure can see contradictions that the first and second and third century Christians were blind to. The tensions were quite obvious to them...and they lived with them. This seems to accurately reflect life ... differing perceptions and yet behind them is truth.

So, I'm afraid I just have to disagree on the issue of reliability of the scriptures of Christianity. I, and many others, find them reliable and trustworthy and real. The scriptures of Christianity were recorded within the lifetime of Jesus' disciples and had the opportunity to be corroborated and challenged and cross checked, whereas the Pali Canon was written down 500 years after the Buddha's teaching. I can grant the reliability of the Pali Canon based upon the capacity of oral-based cultures to remember and transmit vast amounts of knowledge....however I must also grant that same reliabilty to the Jewish culture of antiquity which shared a similar reverence for oral tradition.

The differing natures of the teachers.

"While it’s possible to take from the Gospels a picture of Jesus that is distinctly human—a smart and charismatic person, standing in radical opposition to the orthodoxy of his day, leader of a small group of revolutionaries focussed on the overthrow of the priestly establishment and of the occupying Romans who supported it—that is not the Jesus on which the religion of Christianity or the Christian Church is based. The Christian Jesus is, above and beyond any other characteristics, a divine Being, Son of God Himself, Who took birth as a man to fulfill His Father’s heavenly purpose, and Who, after His crucifixion, was bodily taken back up to Heaven to sit at His Father’s right hand."

This is very close but not quite on. The Jesus of Christianity is both fully human and fully divine. Indeed, many of the early debates within Christianity were all about working out how does Jesus' human nature relate to Jesus' divine nature. The church very wisely followed the indications in scripture....Jesus is fully human, he suffers, he bleeds, he stands against the powers and principalities, he weeps, he laughs. But scripture also clearly indicates that Jesus is divine. This divinity however doesn't make Jesus some distant iceburg...rather it pushes us into the mystery of God with us. It pushes us to confront the idea that God chooses not to lord power over all of us, but rather becomes one of us to show His identificiation with us. Thus Christianity doesn't just embrace Jesus full humanity, it requires that it always be held side by side with Jesus' full divinity.

Contrasting Doctrines: The Meaning of Life

And that brings us to the most significant difference between Christianity and Buddhism: the vastly different doctrines at their cores. In what follows, I’m going to focus on two aspects of doctrine: what each religion teaches about the purpose of life and what each presents as the rules for living a good life—essentially, ontology and ethics. And I want to protest in advance that I am not and have never been a Christian; in all of what follows, I am on shaky ground.

The primary ontological focus of Christianity, as I understand it, is soteriological: Christianity is all about sin and salvation. Orthodox Christianity views the original condition of humankind as a state of sin; the role of Jesus as Messiah, Savior, was to redeem that sin and save mankind from the fate that sinners are doomed to suffer. To carry out His mission of redemption, Jesus had to die on the cross and rise from the tomb. To benefit from Jesus’s sacrifice, to participate in Salvation, it is only necessary to believe in Him.

Sadly, this is the impression that we as Christians give, isn't it. That Christianity is nothing more than a "get out of hell free card". That's never been the historic understanding of the Christian purpose of life, but somewhere we've allowed ourselves to get sucked into slick marketing of Jesus as though he were a "7 habits of highly effective gurus" programme.

In my tradition, we have a teaching tool called the Westminster Shorter Catechism...it was authored in the 1600's as a method of transmitting the essentials of faith from one generation to the next. It begins with the basic question "What is the chief end of man?" .... ie, what is our ontology? The answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Nothing in that about salvation. The end goal of all of creation is ultimately about reflecting back the innate glory of the Creator. The vastness of space, the intricacy of subatomic structures, the mysterious workings of the forces of physics, the greatest supernova and the smallest protozoa....all of it bears something of the thumbprint of the Creator. In so far as those things draw our breath in awe and wonder, they accomplish something of the purpose of bringing glory to the Creator. And this takes us to the second half "enjoy him forever" -- the Creator created us as personal relational beings that we might eternally be in relationship with him.

It is only upon that understanding that the whole story of sin and redemption operates. Salvation is not the purpose of life...it is the rescue operation from a tragic abberation from our purpose in life.

So here I might nuance your understanding of the difference between Buddhism and Christianity. For as I understand Christianity, our personhood ... our individuality is a key component. We are each as individuals in relationship with the living God. Relationship of course entails the mystery of combining individuality with self-loss for the other in a mutual relationship of love.

Buddhism, as I understand it, teaches that personality itself is illusion...that part of dukkha is the craving to be individuals. My understanding is that Buddhism teaches that personhood is illussion from which we must be freed. To my mind that personhood/non-personhood distinction is the more precise definition of the difference in ontology.

Contrasting Doctrines: Ethics

"Nor do I mean to imply that there is no place for faith in Buddhism. In fact, faith is a core virtue in Buddhism, but it seems to me that it means something different there than it does in Christianity. In Christianity, faith is where it ends; if you have faith, you’re in, you’re saved. In Buddhism, faith is where it begins; we have to have faith that the Buddha was, in fact, awakened, liberated from attachment to transient things and the dukkha that attends such attachment; and we have to have faith that he was being honest about the Path that led to his awakening. Without that measure of faith, we’d have no incentive to undertake the practice of the Path ourselves. But we also need to have faith that the Buddha did all that as a human being and that his accomplishment, awesome as it is, is within our reach as human beings. We must have faith in our own ability to reduce dukkha and, eventually, to bring it to an end."

Again, sadly this reflects how poorly the church communicates who we are called to be. The scriptures do speak of Christianity being rooted in grace, but that the grace is unto something: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) is a classic statement about grace and salvation, but the statement doesn't end there...the next verse is key "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." They key point here being that it is not sufficient to say "if you have faith, that's it you're saved" b/c that kind of thinking misses the whole point. Being saved isn't just a rescue from perdition, it is also a rescue to living a life of service and love. It means being transformed into a servant who loves his neighbor as himself.

Again, I believe the main difference on this issue of ethics is not so much the content of the ethical precepts...it's in the power and capacity. Who is empowering the good acts. You make the point that the Buddha was fully human and therefore he shows us that we humans can follow the path too. The idea in Buddhism seems to be that each of us must find that Path for ourselves and we must take responsibility for following that path.

By contrast Christianity emphasizes our inability to follow the path on our own. Our radical dependence upon Christ is what is in mind. Not only are we unable to reconcile ourselves to God, but we are also unable to walk the Path that Christ teaches...thus Christ offers help: "....work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13). This truth is tied into the relational nature of Christianity.... we can neither accomplish what we need nor live the way we ought. However we place our faith in Christ's working to accomplish the reconciliation with God that we need....and we trust in the inward guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us to live the way we ought.

Hope these thoughts help....thanks for providing some stimulating food for thought. I'm looking forward to future conversation (online or off).

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell

National Day of Prayer - 2008 at Hamilton County Courthouse Steps

2008-05-01T23:59:00.007-04:00

I went to the 2008 observance of the National Day of Prayer on the Hamilton County Courthouse Steps today. Days of prayer have a long and rich heritage in the US. The puritans regularly held days of fasting and prayer prior to large undertakings (such as the Plymouth expedition). In 1775, the Continental Congress asked the colonies to pray for wisdom in forming a nation. In 1952, a joint resolution by Congress authorizes an annual national day of prayer and it was signed into law by President Truman. In 1988, the law was amended to set the day of prayer is the first Thursday in May.

The local organizing committee has comprised of a group of volunteers, including Rocky Pegg, Phil Bishop, and Dr. Ted Kalsbeek. This year's programme featured Major Randy Fannon of the US Army Reserve praying for those who protect and serve. Major Fannon serves as a hospital chaplain at Bethesda North Hospital, and he rememberd not just our military, but also our local service personnel, such as fire, police, and other emergency responders.

Prayers for those who govern were offered by Judge Patrick Dinkelacker. Following his prayer, the assembled crowed enjoyed music from the orchestra and choir of God's Bible School and College. Most Cincinnatians are not aware of God's Bible School...it's a historic Wesleyan Holiness institution nestled right on the heights overlooking downtown. They operate dozens of ministries throughout the city, giving their ministerial students opportunities to work with prisoners, the elderly, children, and inner city folk. And yet very few people outside of Wesleyan Holiness circles are aware of them. Their choir and orchestra are pretty wonderful (in fact, they'll be performing at our church next week), and the open air concert was a real complement to the day's events.

Following the choral music, Sonja Vernon of God's Bible School led us in prayer for those who educate while Rev. Jim Bramlage of the historic Peter in Chains Cathedral led prayer for those who Minister. The ceremonies were rounded out with the inimitable Peter Bronson of the Cincinnati Enquirer praying for our City and Communities. All told it was a fine afternoon spent in worship, fellowship and enjoyment of God's good creation through nature, art, and the dignity of our fellow man.

Soli Deo Gloria

Russell

See also my reflections on the 2006 Day of Prayer

Essential non-obvious albums of the 1980s

2008-04-29T13:16:00.002-04:00

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost asks "What are the essential non-obvious albums of the 1980s" You have to read his post to get his criteria and his picks. I agree with many of his picks and those of his commentators, but, If we're really going for nonobvious I'm going to have to add a few (in no particular order):

1. The soundtrack to the Musical Les Miserables (the musical that re-established the rock opera as a viable genre...This 1980 composition is now the longest running production in London's west end and has been an inspiration to countless theatre geeks)

2. Jimmy Buffett Songs You Know By Heart. This 1985 Best of Album marked a transition from a Bacchanalian Buffett of the 70s to the more contemplative Buffett of Floridays, Hot Water, and Off to See the Lizard (these three arguably his best later career work). For most Parrothead geeks, this was a landmark release.

3. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. John Williams cements his position as THE composer for film orchestration for the decade...particularly with the all powerful empire march (Dum Dum Dum, Dum De Dum, Dum De Dum). Pride of place probably should go to his work in the 1970s (on the Star Wars Soundtrack)... but on this album, his music evokes the darker themes of the second film. Nothing less than brilliant.

4. Harry Connick Jr, Harry Connick Jr This self titled 1987 release brought the classic jazz of the 40s and 50s to a new generation. Fans said that the young Gen X Harry was positvely channeling Frank Sinatra at his best. Through Harry, Jazz became cool again for a young audience.

5. Amy Grant Lead Me On. Released in 1988, Amy Grant's album was a huge hit, particularly in the Bible belt. However its importance lies in the first hints of Amy moving toward a "crossover artist" from CCM to the mainstream. Several of her songs were not explicitly about faith, and she mastered pop vocal style. This transition was fully realized in her 1991 release Heart in Motion, a completely secular album. This album also was one of the portents of CCM moving out of being a weird subculture into being a massive media machine, as realized in the 1990s.

So that's my first pass... let me know what you think.

Excelsior
Russell

How to encourage your pastor

2008-04-28T22:50:00.002-04:00

This gem merits special attention because it is right on. John Piper answers the question how to encourage your pastor. Don't give your pastor a Rolls Royce when they're 60 but rather "I want to see your life changed. I want to see you pour yourself out for others." "Prove by your life that I haven't wasted mine." This is right on. A must read for every church member who cares about their pastors.

Hat Tip to Tim Challies

Soli Deo Gloria
Russell