Religious Minority:

I just realized that I am, by virtue of my belief that the bible is full of historical and other errors, a religious minority. Sure, there are baptists, pentecostals, catholics, anglicans etc. that would agree with me, but most churches, most "christians" globally believe things like adam and eve were real people, and the idea that the there is only one theological view/ethical view presented in the bible etc.

This hit me as a went to a worship service last night. The presence of the holy spirit was palpable and as people shared their testimonies of God changing their lives, it was evidence of the resurrection still changing things. You could kind of tell which people saw the bible more literally and which ones, like one of the leaders I met, had a more postmodern view of the bible. It is usually in worship that the divide beween the postmodern progressive and the literalist seem the least divisive. until someone makes a huge blanket statement I know is patently both a) usually bad theology and b) literalistic

it really saddened me. I guess the fact that most people don't love god with their ethics does not suprise me...that is hard to do. What amazes me is how most people waste their god-given brain and the wonderful tools of the enlightenment. cause just thinking aint hard. it is the doing in life that is hard! maybe that betrays my sedentary, reflective nature. 

progressive, skeptical, postmodernist thinking is my native soil. the gospel grows in that soil just like it CAN grow in a modernist-fundemental soil, or grew in ancient world views. 

but I wish more people liked the soil of the enlightenment.

if it was not for scientists and thinkers including freud and jung, I would already be dead. let alone Andrew Fleming (an enlightenment catholic) for finding penicillin.

Micheal Dowd on Homebrewed Christianity.

Sometimes you get an idea that excites. sometimes you meet a person that excites you. I just heard the homebrewed podcast by Micheal Dowd and the person and his ideas blew me away. I am not sure I totally get all of what he was saying but I was very impressed with his marriage of science and faith where faith is not just an adjunct or science a prop.

He is the evolutionary evangelist. He stumping just as hard for evolution as he is God. in fact, his God is the force of evolution in some ways. seriously. would like to quiz him about my only sacred cow: the resurrection.

click here for instant (via the tubes of the internet) link all the way to tripp's blog on Michael

blah.

I have not blogged in awhile.

And my non blogging should probably first turn to blogging on the VIA website.


I got the game bioshock. Sweet. not as sweet as fallout 3 but very replayable.

REVISIONSIM VERSUS REFORMATION

I realized today that the difference between re-visioning and re-forming are merely bias.

If you like what is being re-done, it is reformative.

if you don't like it, it is revisionist.

I saw a friend on facebook who likes the bishop that is "against" revisionism.

seriously? VIA media, no inerrant bible or literalism, and you still choose to stick to your guns about gay marraige? where is the certainty coming from? At least catholics make sense with the magesterium and the idea that God chose the bishops?

if god don't choose the gay bishops, then surely God could strike em down? Cause if bishops really matter, and gay matters, and God lets that slide, God needs to rethink his (sic) priorities. If the bishops are just gifted christians like the rest of us, then it probably don't matter. of course, I am congregationalist so that is my bias.

School has started...somewhat. Some sort of map due on tuesday. ugg.

It is freezing here in NC. My truck is needs a new clutch and is in the shop. So I have a rental car.

Going to start contemplative prayer on sundays with the youth at FCC.

RICK WARREN


I am actually glad that Rick Warren is saying the prayer at the inauguration.

Rick Warren is not a bad guy. He, like every other inerrantist/infallibilitist, is either delusional on that topic, naive, or obstinately ignorant.

But the importance of the gospel does not depend on understanding higher critical understanding at the bible. The gospel that rick preaches has the truth in it, just a harsher, more parochial version than others.

I am glad that Obama is reaching across the aisle.

But Rick does need to turn in his baptist card. Baptist believe in seperation of church and state. They cannot deny the religious view that that some have that says that GOd is pro-gay marriage. it is a religious, not civil, issue. WHy not just whip out the koran and force women to wear hijab.

Poor Katy Perry.

I decided to see what the Christian blogosphere had to say about her new song lyrics.

She put out a christian album many years ago. You can find it reviewed in christianity today, in fact.

now she is kissing girls and liking it.

her parents are scandalized. wait! new reports minimize that take on things.

btw, her parents are evangelical pastors. with, apparently, wild pasts before finding god.

I think about how christians are worried about her promoting "the GAY" or bicuriousness and how this disapprove of her partying and very sexy clothes.

i did not read one bit about how the basic message of katy perry is that if you are really pretty and sing well, you have a better chance of getting famous if you go VERY provocative. but there is a line.

peaches and lords of acid would be examples. much more raunchy and explicit. and not at the top of the charts.

I googled katy perry and pic. the first 4 were pretty dang sexy. and not the most.

I wonder what katy perry is telling the average 17 year old girl about how to be happy in america.

we had a good discussion in the optional church history class. basically talking about church versus state. as usual the dean had some great one-liners and stories.

I need to listen to his interview on homebrewed christianity.
http://trippfuller.com/?p=405

I was called an idealist today. is it possible to be both a cynic and an idealist. probably.
http://trippfuller.com/?p=405

I do not wish to be a king. I am not anxious to be rich. I decline military command. (2.69) Tatian

Tatian sums up the known universe and it's praxis: to rule, to own, and to coerce. the paradoxical way of the kin-dom is to serve, to give, and to love. if these powers cannot prevail, it is not that we did not here Jesus correctly, but that he was wrong. And in claiming the resurrection as real, I find it hard to be persuaded that Jesus was wrongheaded in his plan to bring heaven to earth.

If your plan's success relies on social, monetary, or military power, it may win but it will never transform the human heart, where the seeds of the kin-dom flourish.

It has come to my attention that my birth in Hawaii is doubted. That I may not, indeed, be a citizen. perhaps I should produce a birth certificate on line!! no? not enough? what about multiple websites owned by 3rd parties that have it and the raised seal...no?



oh and goto beliefnet and read the blogalouge about gay marriage.

i can't get a link up. damn. it is tony jones.

been on an eating a lot binge...ugg.

this is turning into a vaguely personal blog which sucks...who wants to read that?

will be working some more on papers tonight.

Take Two
After having a night to sleep and to hear the voice of wisdom from my mom and girlfriend, I have realized I have made a classic rookie mistake and by now I should not be a rookie.

I did not realize the the phenomenon of maturity was to account for why people who "veg out" politically/morally/ethically for years are so annoying: they lack maturity.

I used to think in black and white. I was young once. I was arrogant.

I am reminded we should be glad for those who seek God.

some person from way back in high school who was never particularly religious when I was trying to save the world is now "right with God." let me give you a anthropological study from texas:

kid A tries real hard to be a jesus freak throughout high school and college. 1 out 2 realized evangelicalism has a paucity of answers..and becomes liberal or moderate or emergent.

kid B screws around....until finally they land the spouse/money/house trifecta and usually during the acquisition of those three turns back to the evangelical fold. and is also more annoying than the good people who ALWAYS stuck with Jesus and are still conservative...

after she slammed obama I posted just

www.matthew25.org

and this is the reply I got.




Sorry man...I prefer the real deal. Scripture is God-breathed and not meant to be manipulated. Sin is sin. I know that's not a part of the "conversation" you emergents like to have...but if you want to love people...you have to be prepared to tell them the Truth. You have to stand up for Jesus, even when it costs you friends. Part of standing up for Jesus is letting your heart break for what breaks His, and I've done that. I love people, and I hate sin, even my own. Obama does not believe in the same things Christians do. He believes in similar things, what Ortberg would call a "shadow mission". Very destructive things. I just can't endorse that. It's not my job to make people feel good about themselves. It's my job to be a Christ Follower, even when that means going against the rest of the world. I think giving should come from the heart, not a government mandate. I think abortion is the desecration of God's creation and of femininity. I think marraige should be left as God designed.

******
a) what a jerk to not talk to me in 20 years and then insult me
b) i thought we emergents believed the bible was inspired and that sin existed...? when did we quit?
www.matthew25.org
Source: www.matthew25.org

I wish Doug would post again on his website about the way of the master thing:

it went down that he fought about the literal placeness of hell:


http://dougpagitt.com/theology/what-did-he-just-say#comment-915

Let me break it down and play Melancthon to his Luther.

Heaven and Hell are not places. Heaven is not up there, somewhere...that would make it a big spaceship like the deathstar. Up is not up. because up from the south pole goes for a trillion light years away from the up of the north pole.

I don't know doug's belief in atonement or soteriology.

but if a good muslim dies, in my belief, based on what Luke says...
if being a "good muslim" means that he "loved the Lord (allah is just arabic word for theos or god) with all his heart soul and mind, and his neighbor as himself, he shall be saved.

paul said that if you confess jesus as your master/caesar/king and believe in your heart he rose from the dead, you shall be saved.

telling people the story of Jesus and HOW he said to live and how he saw god is the fastest way I know to find God.

but I meet people who have pyscho-socially "accepted" the dogma of christianity but I see little of Jesus in some of them.

I have felt the spirit in a godly jew. I don't know if it was the human spirit or god's spirit but I think when a human is full of wisdom/light/love they are full of God.

there is a judgment...

I do not think God will force people into something. If they want hell, they get hell. if you love wickedness and yourself rather than others as yourself...you will be in a bad way on judgement day. real bad.

does God end your existence?
do you spend eternity in the presence of God and it is painful?

i don't think it is literally a place with worms or fire.

you can't have worms that never die (eating corpses) and fire....they would fry up juicy!

is the language of jesus descriptive? literal? symbolic? or is it motivational? or simply a word picture?

there is no lake of fire. there are no streets of Gold.
but there is the glory/love/presence of God.

doug may be a universalist.
way of the master is exlcusivist.
I am inclusivist.\

i refuse to believe that the lakota sioux indians, for example, are all in hell because christians were too lazy to get to the midwest until 1700.

Posted by Thom under Christian Ethics
I do not wish to be a king. I am not anxious to be rich. I decline military command. (2.69)

from thom stark:


Also around AD160, Tatian’s is an even clearer example of the fact that Christians are now being faced with the possibility of participation in the Roman army, and are renouncing it. Moreover, according to Tatian, the desire to rule, to be rich, and to wield the sword are in some way connected, if not simply as pursuits unworthy of Christians.
http://thomstark.jesuspolitics.net/?p=263

what is up with the jesus fascists

seriously, a lot of my friends who were passionately trying to serve god from the age of 15-25 are now moderate or liberal. and the ones that are conservative still have some dignity and compassion about it. most of the time.

nut the ones who partied like it was 1999 in 1991 are now republican anti-obama anti-gay inerrantists...who are also jerks about it.

yeah, I am gonna sleep with half of america, party, get drunk, f*ck around, get divorced, finally get house/kid/spouse and BAM! I turn into sarah palin.

We are trying to begin a new faith community in Winston-Salem.

Beverly Hatcher, Linda Jones, and myself are all on board. I am suprised that more people have not jumped on board.

I sent out an email to the divlist.

anyway, I miss Tripp and Zach.

It is the crunch time. But isn't life usually crunch time?

I think I learned a lot about people from the election cycle.

I have a lot of sympathy for John Mccain. He did what I am afraid I might do. I am afraid that convinced that the other side, my enemy, will mess things up, I am willing to change my character and values in order to win.

John Mccain convinced himself that a fleeting fundraiser by Ayers made Obama dangerous.

He called Obama "that one"... I am sorry but any white person who refers to a black person other than "hey buddy" or "sir" is an idiot. which item do you want? "that one"

he could have called him "This candidate" or "This gentleman" and still sounded condesceding. This is not splitting hairs. Our character is revealed in moments like that statement.

I recently said that I refuse to believe that half of america is stupid, unpatriotic, evil, or anti-american. I have relatives that have said as much.

I refuse to believe that conservatives are stupid or evil. I do think most, not all, are underinformed, but I don't think that most of the people that voted liberal were informed either. It might be interesting to see how many votes would have swtiched if people had educated themselves dispassionately.

It has become more evident that faith plays a great role in American politics, probably more so here than in the other western democracies that the United States inspired in the last 200 years. But what role should faith play in politics? James Dunn, when asked what role faith should play in politics said, “faith should, [and I do not mean just church doctrine] but personal faith should inform the individual with lasting values that are more transcendent and permanent than any political exigency or or temporary accommodation. It should inform the individual with lasting values. Secondly it should demand greater civility and respect for all individuals who are in fact made in the image of god. The faith of all biblical believers and all abrahamic believers, both in genesis and Koran, agree that people are made in the image of God. In fact it is amazing that we can all say that people reflect god or are somehow like god but we treat people like things! It should shape how we see people. It should also warn us to basic sin which affects all humankind. We have just seen a a dramatic example in this country where economic greed trumped free market. Greed has caused a destruction of ordinary commerce in this country and it has spilled over to the whole world. Faith should alert us to the sins like the seven deadly sins.” This view allows for faith that serves as a guide while keeping in mind that others are also in the image of God and have their own faith values. Others see faith as inimical modern democracy. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State defended this statement as a resolution in a debate which took place at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs. “We have seen a religious saturated presidential primary...The only question about religion that is relevant is will your religious beliefs trump your constitutional duties?” The question seems to come down to common discourse and the role of authority. If a transcendent faith value contradicts the constitution, what would one do? JFK, jr. said that if his conscience in faith led him to a stance that meant he could not uphold the constitution he would resign. In the end, the fact is that faith always has a role in politics. “Human beings are irresitabliy religious” stated Chuck Colson in the debate. Our transcendent values will play a role. Dunn's emphasis on the image of God in all people leads one to hold these values with humility, aware that other's values from faith may contradict our own and that to coerce others through the government in matters of conscience is destructive to religious liberty.

we talked about the big book today. I wanted to read a passage from it to the class but I had to ask melissa because I could not read it with out crying. 

I could I not blog the day that Obama is made president elect!

I cried a little. I was almost the last to believe it could happen.

I am so excited.

too short...oh well.

God bless those who did not vote for obama, and for those who fear him, may they learn to respect him...we need to get along.

This post is hopefully the first of many. I used to think a blog had to be great, and my friend tripp the grand overachiever he is (having done more at that age of 25 than I had done by the age of 35) has such a thoughtful theological blog that I kind of was holding out until thought I could post such musings...or like zach, be very meditative and zen. But I take my cue from Martin Luther. Martin was not the smartest, but he was the most polemically succesful writer. In martin I think I have found my forte. I want to be the founder of the non-violent, non-coercive polemic. not really. I have found out recently on facebook that the more well thought out, nuanced, and reconciling my posts are, the more I am accused of "fancy talk, "you were a great debater even back in high school", just like a liberal to throw out facts and figures (not making that up)....

anyway, it is 1:42 am. I am doing my favorite thing to do at this hour, which is fucking around on the interent drinking diet coke. But I plan on being in bed real soon.

anyway, the point of this post was to post.

I am assuming
a) I currently have no following
b) only my dad and tripp will ever read this blog
c) if that ever changes, this will be labeled my crappiest post.

but it is significant, hopefully, in that it is the start of new burst of blogging.

in the spirit of something worthwhile...

www.matthew25.org

I like this website.

great quote:

Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, across the sea of years
With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear


led zeppelin!!!


and read the following song lyrics and guess which band they are from. seriously, unless you know the song, you will guess so wrong....
Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death do you lose your breath or
do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope
do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light and I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our days

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
that God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes! I think it's too late.


petra? mwsmith?

nope...

BLACK SABBATH!!!

LIFE CANON

I would say that I do not have a "life canon" at this point. Things are too deconstructed. I have a canon in development. here is 10ish.

1) NIN Downward Spiral.
2) More Human than Human...by Rob Zombie
3) The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder
4) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkein
5) The Crow (film mostly)
6) Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (which I have a tattoo of)
7) Jesus The Liberator byJon Sobrino
8) The Feeling Good Handbook (Paperback) by David D. Burns
9) Rich Mullin's Songs: While the Nations Rage,Bound to Come Some Trouble , and The Love of God
10) Brother Sun, Sister Moon (movie and soundtrack)

I was looking through Carol Wimber's book, "John Wimber: The Way it Was" and came across the account below (pages 104-105), which happened when he was working for Fuller:

John was often gone half the week but he would call me daily and report what he had seen and learned that day about the diversity of the church. One phone call in particular will always stay fresh in my memory because of the foundational effect it had in the Vineyard and our philosophy concerning the ministry to the poor.

John had been part of a huge multi-regional meeting of the Church of God, somewhere in the south. The old evangelist had long since blown out his vocal cords as he called the people back to their commitment to the poor.

He was pleading with the people to remember their roots, that they were called to feed the hungry and that's where they began. They were to clothe the naked and bathe the babies and go visit the sick and bring them food. But they had left their call, their first love, and now they were driving fancy cars and dressing up like the world, building fine monuments to themselves, while all the time the poor, whom they'd been called to, were left destitute.

It wasn't the eloquence of the evangelist - John said that his message was extremely simple and his voice so hoarse, he was hard to hear - it was the power of the Holy Spirit.

John described how the people would bend with that power and moan with the weight of the conviction of sin, as the evangelist continued on, unrelenting, they would sway in the opposite direction, all together as one person - like wind over a field of wheat.

John said it was the most powerful thing he had ever been part of, and as he was telling me about it, he was weeping. 'Carol, if God ever has me pastor a church again, I pray we will devote ourselves to the poor.' As he wept and described the meeting to me, I felt as though I had been there with him.

He had been up all night reading Isaiah 58, the true fast, and he was under heavy conviction in respect to the poor. As he was telling me about it, he just started praying right then on the phone, committing himself to God's heart for the poor, and weeping the whole time.

That is why the poor have had such a primary place in our understanding of ministry. It started with whatever God did to John in that tent with those people who had begun as poor simple farmers that served Jesus by helping even the poorer among them, but had now lost their way and left their call as God had prospered them.

I loved that about John; he never got sophisticated. He was never self-conscious. He was never ashamed to let his simple love for Jesus show, to me or to anyone else."

On my grandmother's 89th birthday (July 25, 1995), we asked her if she had any words of wisdom. After some thought she said:

"GOD IS GOOD. HE NEVER MAKES MISTAKES. HE PROVIDES FOR OUR NEED."