a merry schismatic christmas (part 7)

a lot has happened since i first started this little series. i began it to explore the tensions that often form between family and friends who have different religious and/or political views. i wanted to more deeply understand what perceptions about key philosophical and theological ideas under girded my view of God, humans, this world, jesus, heaven & hell, salvation, and the purpose of being a christian as opposed to those of family and friends. my hope was that i could pinpoint the differences in order to better and more simply explain my views and understanding.

the purpose of doing this is communication. the different perceptions at the root of these tensions do indeed incite the, sometimes ugly, squabbles families and friends may get into over the topics of religion and politics. but many times the real source of the most bitter arguments come from of a lack in effectively communicating ideas. in identifying key areas of disagreement i believe i can better communicate my views and create constructive dialogue rather than frustrating debates. thus, here is my list, a progression if you will, of the philosophical and theological differences that i believe fuel the tension between the christianity i practice and the christianity of my family and friends:

-a dualistic versus holistic understanding of the sacred and secular-->
-an intrinsically evil creation versus and intrinsically good creation-->
-a God who will ultimately scrap his creation for a new one versus a God who will ultimately restore and reconcile his creation he loves-->
-a future/post-mortem focus versus a here and now focus-->
-being a christian is primarily about escaping earth/going to heaven when one dies versus being a christian is about bringing the kingdom of God to earth through one's life (i.e. thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth...)

i understand that this is only part of the solution, and i would also point out that none of my above points violates any historic orthodox christian doctrines. so outside of these differing perspectives, there is much room for agreement. but the other part involves time.

when i first began spending time with my wife's family, i would have never made an attempt to discuss any of this with them, and not because i was afraid. one reason was because of what i outlined above. i didn't have a clear understanding of what we would be disagreeing over. however, the other is this: it is much easier to reject the ideas of someone you do not know, or barely know than someone you've come to know and love. i can reject all atheists as morons until i unknowingly befriend one who i find to be brilliant, loving, sincere and compassionate. once that bond is made it becomes more difficult to simply reject one's deeply held beliefs. you want to understand them. you don't want to simply toss that person aside. that atheist, conservative, democrat, buddhist, muslim or catholic becomes a person.

in the year since i started this series my wife has been lectured by a family member about our attending mars hill, and how we need to "be careful." the label of "emergent" finally came out when my wife was told by a different family member there are things she doesn't agree with us on because we're emergent. my high school best friend and i had a huge debate/discussion about the rapture and the end times. this political season brought about many awkward moments, most notably my aunt being heartbroken that i was voting for "that other guy." out of my wife's family though i have had the most fruitful conversations with her brother whom i find to be a kindred spirit. i have also had good casual discussions with my mom who reads this blog. she agrees that you just can't figure God out, and that you can't cram him into a box, which is the first step to all-out emergent heresy ;). we'll see what this christmas will bring. i'm most eager to see if people on my wife's side will finally just come out and confront me. we shall see. and i hope to continue to re-work and expand on some of my previous installments.

tongue-talking, charasmatic, universalists. oh, and don't forget the gays!

i think this story is fascinating to say the least. i would love to hear thoughts.

love wins?

i originally was going to post on how i recently struggled to define the simple yet complex phrase "love wins" to a friend after church one day. but instead i want to ask a question.

my wife got into a discussion with family about christians disagreeing on political issues and the love of God. during the discussion a family member said things that amounted to "God doesn't love everyone, because then who would go to hell?" and basically that love just doesn't win. these statements are just so mind-numbingly frustrating for me to the point where i just become angry. for God SO LOVED THE WORLD; God IS love, and i could go on and on and on, because the bible is filled with verses about God's infinite love. what this person is doing is painting God in his/her own image, which we all do to a certain extent, but here's my question: how much can we underestimate the love of God to the point where we're worshipping a false God? to the point of blaspheme? to the point of heresy? i'm serious. usually heresy is reserved for denying the virgin birth, or the trinity or some other theological factoid. we don't usually charge people with heresy who deny God's love despite the fact that love is the very core nature of God.

this is me

the results from this test describe me with incredible accuracy to the point where it answers questions about my learning style that i've wondered about for some time now.

chris, you show a slight right-hemisphere dominance with a moderate preference for auditory processing, an unusual and somewhat paradoxical combination of characteristics.

You are drawn to a random and sometimes nonchalant synthesis of material. You learn as it seems important to a specific situation, and might even develop a resentment of others who attempt to direct your learning down a specific channel.

Your right-hemispheric dominance provides a structure that is only loosely organized and one which processes entire swatches of reality, overlooking details. You are emotional in your reactions and perceptual more than logical in your approach, although you can impose structure and a language base when necessary.

Your auditory preference, on the other hand, implies that you process information sequentially and unidimensionally. This combination of right-brain and auditory modes creates conflict, as you want to process data more rapidly than your natural processes allow.

Your tendency to be creative and free-flowing is accompanied by sufficient ability to organize and be logical, allowing you a reasonable degree of success in a number of different endeavors. You take in information methodically and systematically which can then be synthesized rapidly. In this manner, you manage to function consistently well, although certainly less efficiently than you desire.

You prefer the abstract and are a theoretician at heart while retaining the ability to be practical. You find the symbolism in a great deal of what you encounter and are something of a "mystic."

With regards to your lifestyle, you have the mentality which would be good as a philosopher, writer, journalist, or instructor, or possibly as a systems designer or social worker. Perhaps most important is your ability to "listen to your inner voice" as a mode of skipping over unnecessary steps to achieve your goals.

ht joe

a merry schismatic christmas (part 6)- slightly re-worked

to anyone who may have read this earlier: i've tried to re-work some of this because i know i didn't communicate my thoughts very well. sometimes this stuff is hard to blog about without being lengthy, so i'm sorry if any of it is confusing.

this past new years, we hung out with some old friends. at one point i was talking to one of them about how i would be interested in adopting some day. he looked at me and told me flat out that i didn't want to do that. he said that he knew people who adopted, and that it was a big risk. i was kind of taken a back. he went on to say that when you adopt you bring all of that child's problems into your home, and that child can infect your family. now, to be fair, he has had experience knowing people who take in troubled children, and he didn't realize i was talking about adopting an infant, not an abused child. but this still struck me. "infect." as if a child is a virus or bacteria.

jesus came to call israel to repentance, and begin a community who is the true, renewed israel ushering in God's kingdom. jesus came to establish God's kingdom here and we are to continue his work. the christianity most american evangelicals follow doesn't teach this. as i've already pointed out in previous posts, it teaches that the church is about gathering people onto a big cosmic life raft before God destroys the ship (earth) or sends people to hell.

the idea of acquiring a get-out-of-hell free pass, and just living one's own life fit's american culture nicely. think about it, what does the stereotypical american evangelical family look like? usually they look just like a stereotypical american family, only they go to church, don't swear, shop at family christian stores and might be involved in a ministry. to many christians, after they've gotten their free pass, it becomes all about an image, and i would argue that it's more about caesar's image than Christ's. christianity and america have become emeshed. this emeshedness is obvious when we see images of the flag and the cross paired together, but christian theology has been influenced by america in profound ways as well. the focus is getting out of hell rather than ridding the world of hell. and this is why my friends, who are the poster family for american evangelical christianity, can compare the least of these to a bacteria or virus. because getting involved with the messy parts of the world, the parts jesus and the apostles got involved with, isn't part of living the nice, shiny, suburban life (christian) americans strive to live. it's just not part of the image.

what did i say to this friend, whom i love dearly, but who represents a completely different understanding of what it means to be a christian? well, there wasn't much i could say because what he thinks christ came to do is so radically different than from what i think, it's a herculean task to carry on that discussion. and this is what always happens: nothing; just a change in the subject. the theological differences have created walls that i'm still trying to learn how to tear down. there are enormous pre-suppositions that have to be tackled first, but i do think there's hope.

rethinking forgiveness and repentance

not too long ago i wrote that i do not believe the bible teaches a transactional relationship between forgiveness and repentance. instead, the bible teaches that forgiveness should be freely given and repentance is an act of forsaking a previous way of living for a new one. they are two different issues. thus, God doesn't forgive only if one repents, as if we have to buy God's forgiveness with our repentance; God just forgives. i backed this up by referring to places where the bible teaches us to simply forgive, as well as, jesus' words on the cross, "father, forgive them for they know not what they do." after all, how can there be repentance if someone knows not what he or she does?

joe and i have- at a leisurely pace- been going through the book of acts together. weeks ago we went through chapter three. in verse 19 it says: repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out... "crap!" i thought. this seemed to throw a wrench in what i had been thinking. so i went on biblegateway did a search on "forgive." once again, i found a whole slew of verses that seemed to say there are conditions to forgiveness.

this is frustrating and confusing for me, because while i tell people the bible isn't so cut and dry, and black and white there are times where i fall into that same way of thinking. in the story of the prodigal son, for example, isn't the God character's ( the father) posture toward the prodigal son a posture of unconditional forgiveness? i know that the son represents israel in the story, but can't we also place ourselves in the story? and therefore, isn't God's forgiveness given with condition of repentance? maybe not. i don't know. maybe it's not an either/or issue of transaction versus no transaction, but something else. turning from sin means living in right relationship with God, others and creation. it means giving up our own and this world's agenda, and taking up God's. josephus tells the story of how he and some romans came upon some jewish revolutionaries. josephus, working for rome, tells the revolutionaries to "repent and believe." by repent and believe josephus didn't mean for the revolutionaries to drop to their knees and beg for forgiveness, but to give up their agenda of revolt and join rome. in doing so, rome would accept them, and let them live.

i believe that this story from josephus which i've read from n.t. wright is a much better picture of forgiveness and repentance than a transaction. the idea is that God is waiting for us to join his kingdom which is currently being established. all we have to do is give up our agenda. it's not so much of a transaction, but a change of allegiance from the losing side to the winning side. the two do have a relationship; they are not separate issues.

maybe i'm just getting all worked up over metaphors and semantics, but i thought i would just clear that up.

interpretting the creation story

this is good, good, good, stuff. john ortberg spoke at our church this past sunday. if you're someone who has trouble understanding how one can believe in evolution and also believe the creation story is true, then you need to go here and watch.

my encounter with a professional critic

this past friday i had the honor of being in my brother in law's wedding. he used to lived in california and wisconsin where he was part of a pretty militant group of pro-life demonstrators/street preachers. some of these guys were in his wedding. this made me a bit tense. i'm really not a big fan of getting into heated discussions about religion and politics with complete strangers, but i knew that if i even made small talk with any of them, that was bound to happen. i was right.

i was standing there when the person, who is pretty much their leader, approached me and started asking me basic getting-to-know-you questions. where ya from? watcha do? are you a christian? when did you become one? where ya go to church?.....
...
...
uh... mars hill....
oh...... rob bell huh?......
yup...

so that was how it started. then he told me he saw a video with rob called bullhorn. for those who don't know, bullhorn is a video where rob kind of portrays ultra-extreme street preachers in a less than positive way. this conversation ended up getting into the value of street preaching and how rob is wrong in saying that God love's and accepts everyone. well, his problem wasn't so much with the love part as the accept part. to him, saying God accepts everyone just as they are mean's they will not face God's wrath and judgment, which basically means hell.

we went in circles for a while, and i actually agreed with almost everything he said. it just came down to our understanding of acceptance and the nature of forgiveness and repentance.

to him, God's forgiveness is available to everyone IF they repent (which basically means apologize). so when someone repents then they are accepted. but this just isn't biblical. jesus forgives the people who put him on the cross even though they know not what they do. God tells us that we must forgive everyone. he doesn't say they need to apologize first.

so to him, forgiveness and repentance is a transaction, while i see them as two separate things. repentance means to turn. it means to start living a new life. it means to be reborn. sure there is lamenting the things you have done in the past. birth is painful, and so is rebirth. but the idea isn't to attain God's forgiveness, but realize that one is already forgiven, and he or she can live a new life in a restored relationship with God, and begin having restored relationships with others. it's realizing that you are already accepted.

we discussed other related topics as well. for instance, the gospel is offensive, so that means we have to confront people with their sin so they'll repent of it. i mentioned that most people probably know they're pretty screwed up, and someone telling another how bad one is, isn't offensive because one thinks it's not true. it's offensive because a perfect stranger judging you is...well... offensive.

and really that is what bullhorn is all about. most people know their F'ed up, and someone shouting at them about it just isn't good news. but hearing how much their loved in spite of their faults and imperfections is.

on being a skeptical believer : complexity

reality is complex. there are different levels, and layers to everything. for example, there is the layer of reality that i can experience with my five senses, and there are multiple other layers that i can't e.g. the micro level. right now, there are sounds all around me from all over the world being carried by radio waves, that i can only experience with a radio. and like the fact that there is only so much i can experience, measure and test with my five senses, science is, ultimately, limited. so there are levels of reality that science is not ever able to test.

thinking about this has brought me to conclude that maybe the guy in the legion story was schizophrenic, and being controlled by a demon. recently, a guest teacher at my church mentioned that research has been done in the psycho-social field concerning the psychological damage caused by oppressive regimes. this adds another layer to this example. a person could be affected psychologically by sociological factors. all this to say that i think beings who operate on scientifically unmeasurable levels use natural phenomena to interact with this level of reality.

the ancients, with their apocalyptic worldview, simply cut to the chase.

wotm? wtf??

i'm not a fan, by any means, of way of the master. for the uninitiated, wotm is a "ministry" that kirk cameron is a part of that takes to the street trying to convince people to become christians. not too long ago, they made asses of themselves debating an atheist group, who also made asses of themselves, on network television. i first heard of them through anne, because her brother used to be into them. recently, i was thinking about their methods.

they start by asking random people on the street, "do you think you're a good person"? most people say, "yes" so they then ask if the person has ever broken one of the ten commandments. of course, everyone says, "yes" so the follow-up question is, "then are you really a good person"? i'm probably leaving something out, but that's the gist of it. the idea is to convict the person, and make their conscience get to them. now, this can work all well and good if, in fact, the person believes in the bible. but if he or she doesn't, then it's pretty much an exercise in futility. i have enormous problems with their method, and them as a ministry, for a plethora of reasons which is a whole other series in and of itself. but, at the same time, i think they could have something with this. the problem, however, is with the ten commandments. my question is: if jesus is the fulfillment of the law, then wouldn't living like him be a much more powerful tool of conviction? after all, the entire law is summed up in just two commands, and the sermon on the mount is maybe the most radical way to live ever. so why try and bring conviction with the ten commandments?

now, i'm not about to say that i'm this person who acts like jesus all the time, convicting others, and causing them to want to follow jesus with me. i'm not. recently i got a low score for professionalism at work because this past year there has sucked, and sometimes i have a hard time keeping my cool. but not too long ago i was talking with a coworker. all this guy ever does is complain and run others down. so he was doing this, as we were talking, and i was acting as visibly disinterested as i possibly could. after he got done with his shpeel, he could tell i didn't want to hear it, and said, "i'm sorry but this place just needs to change... well... or maybe i'm the one who needs to change."

of course, he didn't drop to he knees and start confessing his sins or anything like that, but i like to hope that, in that moment, my actions brought some conviction and in my own way, i got to be jesus. and all without asking him if he's a good person.

alone?

jumping off my last post about having an ever-present awareness of the divine, i just got done watching the movie into the wild.

quick movie review:
go watch it. it's amazing.
review over.

so i'm watching the beginning, and there's this scene where the lead character is out in the middle of the alaskan wilderness and he shouts at the top of his lungs, "is there anybody there?" he then answers himself, "guess not!" this got me thinking: but we really aren't alone, right? there is always someone there. that's what it's all about. what does a spirituality look like where we never feel alone?

then something occured to me: the Lord God said, "it is not good for the man to be alone. i will make a helper suitable for him."

random thoughts & updates

lately, i've been struggling not to hate my job. i don't really want to be doing what i do, and doing something you're not really into for 3 years starts to take a toll. days like this, when i can think of a huge amount of things i'd like to do or be doing, make going into work that much harder. i really like what i'm studying at school. for fun, i have been reading my western civ. text book to brush up on my knowledge of WWI and WWII and i love it. the chapters are pretty big, but i just fly right through them. i've been doing some serious yard work lately. i think i'm being bitten by the home improvement bug, as i've dropped almost 100 dollars at home depot in the past couple days. i'm exited about finishing our upstairs so we can finally have our huge master suite, and more room.

this past weekend i got to catch up with some old friends. we went to a food festival in skee town, and then hit up this nice little bar. i don't get to go out like that often anymore, or with those people, so it was even more of a good time. house church was also a good time, we actually had a discussion where everyone chimed in. we talked about prayer. my after-thoughts on it are this: i said that my ideal "prayer life" is that i would have an ever-present awareness that God is at work, and be in constant communication with Him. Meaning that since we believe God is always present and is our friend and father, that we should always be listening and looking for Him, and always in a state of constant communication. going further, ancient people looked at the gods as over them, always ready to strike if they weren't happy, and people were to always be in a posture where they were trying to please the gods. christianity, however, raises the person up to God's eye-level, so to speak, into a relationship posture. it's interesting then, that our prayer is often much more ritualized, and formal looking -- more like the ancient understanding of god than the biblical one. lately, i've been noticing that how i talk to God-- the way i speak-- is so much different than how i talk to friends and family.

anyways, i'm just trying to be thankful that i have a job, since so many in our economy don't. i'm also exited about the number of opportunities we are getting with our business, and all the days off i have coming up in the near future.

on being a skeptical believer : doubts

last year, i wrote a post called "on being a skeptical believer." in it, i talked about my struggle with believing some of the more supernatural and mythical stuff in the bible. i also talked about my evolving faith. i think it's time for an update. i was going to post this all in one entry, but there is just too much to say, so i'm going to start by laying out reasons i struggle with doubt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

in the year 2000 i had my first really big faith crisis. i started going online and reading all sorts of atheist websites, and was faced with arguments and ideas that i had never heard before. it was the beginning of a journey that led me away from the pre-packaged christianity i had been handed as a child and toward developing my own personal faith. according to fowler's stages of faith, i had entered stage four. this first faith crisis scared me and made me wonder how long i would remain a christian. however, since the beginning of this journey, i have learned that faith crises are part of it, and i now have them quite regularly.

my recent faith crisis was sparked by a comment that joe left on my other blog, asking me about my take on satan and demons. he asked me this because i mentioned that, while i struggle with my understanding of satan and demons, greg boyd is encouraging to me because he is an ivy league trained theologian and scholar who views them as literal beings. as i thought about how or if i would respond to joe, i decided to pick up greg boyd's book, letters from a skeptic which is, basically, a series of letters between him and his agnostic father. there's a part in the book where boyd discusses his view that there are evil cosmic forces at work in the world and points out that most of reality is made up of things we can't see. he also says that the world is, essentially, a cosmic battlefield. also, boyd points out that we-- modern people-- are the weird ones, because everyone else throughout the ages have believed in gods and evil spirits.

i agree, that it is entirely possible that there are evil spirits, and i also agree that the naturalist/materialist worldview that westerners hold is just that, another worldview, and we make the assumption that there isn't other forces or beings that exist. but isn't that the point? ancient people, and people ignorant of science, explain things they don't understand with supernatural explanations. for example, blessing someone after she sneezes comes from the belief that the act of sneezing was the release of an evil spirit. the belief in micro-organisms was once controversial because it contradicted the belief that sickness was caused by spiritual forces. so imagine a schizophrenic person living in, say, 50 B.C. how would schizophrenia be understood? as a mental illness? of course not. if you lived back then and you heard voices, people wouldn't believe there was something wrong with your brain, there would be a supernatural explanation. the universe is an incredibly amazing place, and the brain is arguably the most complex structure in it. is the reason everyone has believed in the supernatural up until the age of science because there was no other explanation?

another argument boyd puts forth is the argument for the existence of God from morality. this is also how c.s. lewis begins mere christianity. the gist of the argument is that because we intuitively know that murder or stealing is wrong, then there must be an ultimate source for that morality, namely God. but here's my problem. isn't much of our basic moral ideals rooted in self-preservation and our own happiness? we all agree not to murder because we, ourselves, don't want to be murdered. we essentially say, "ok, i'll allow you to live, if you allow me to live." the same goes for stealing. we make an agreement to allow each other to keep our own stuff. if someone breaks that agreement, then we get pissed. we then assign religious meaning to these rules and agreements to reinforce them

to close, i'll go back to the original topic of demons, which sparked all of this. i'm not sure that scripture itself views demons as literal beings. my prime example is the story of jesus casting out the demons collectively named "legion." this story is loaded with symbolism. first, the name legion is what an army of roman soldiers were called. second, jesus casts "legion" into a herd of pigs which were considered unclean according to jews. third, the pigs then drown in the sea, which immediately would conjure up images of the egyptian soldiers drowning in the red sea. so, is this a literal, just-telling-the-facts, recounting of actual events; or is the story saying that jesus is the messiah who will ultimately do away with the roman empire? or, was there really an exorcism, but the author took artistic liberty and added the symbolism?

crazy...

glad yesterday was my day off...

ignorance

there are some days when i feel like i don't know shit. yesterday was one of those days. i went over to my friend paul's house to hang out. we ended up talking about politics, like always, and had a great discussion about unions. he is a history and english double major, and is like two classes away from graduating. one of the reasons why he still hasn't graduated is because he's also a staff sergent in the army and got deployed to iraq a couple years ago. he's an incredibly intelligent person and can give you a lecture on the entire history of the world at the drop of a hat. at one point, he had a girlfriend, who was thai, so he studied thai history so he could better relate to her. so having a friend like this, there are many times where i just sit and pick his brain. i love getting his take on the war, since he was in it and was his unit's historian. currently, he's employed at UPS and will be a driver within three years. working there, he is part of the teamster's union, so yesterday i just played devil's advocate and grilled him on all the anti-union arguments i hear.

after i left paul's, i went to barnes and noble. i started wandering through the social science, current affairs and history sections. i couldn't find anything to read; i was just so overwhelmed. i picked up one book called conservative comebacks to liberal lies. i started thumbing through it. it's pretty much an encyclopedia of conservative arguments against common liberal claims. it just amazed me, because it made claims that were completely contradictory to things i learned in school. i do plan on buying this book, at some point, because i really want to listen to the arguments and research them.

i just wish i could stop time, and spend two years in barnes and noble. there is just so much information. i cannot wait till i'm done with my BSW, so i can take a couple years off and just read. i sometimes wonder if phd's feel this way. i wonder if there are points where they say, "i might have a phd, but i really feel like i don't know anything." in the end, however, i suppose feeling this way is good, as the most ignorant people out there tend to think they know it all.

a merry schismatic... uh, where was i? oh, yeah (part 5)

so, since i discussed my views concerning the idea of "going to heaven" and the ultimate point of christianity (i.e. God's kingdom invading earth), i guess it's fitting to discuss the other side of the coin. i've already discussed my issues with what the bible says concerning hell here, and, honestly, i would be all for striking the word "hell" from the christian lexicon. hell, as most christians think of it, borrows heavily from dante and mythology. nowhere, in the scriptures, does the idea of hell, as we commonly think of it, appear. and the word "hell" actually comes from the norse goddess of the underworld (ht clothman).

so, what is hell? i've been pondering this question for years now, and i can't say that i have a solid answer, nor do i think i need one. instead, i look at it from a few different perspectives and conclude that it's probably a sum of all of them. a perspective that's been very helpful comes from my pastor rob bell. in his book sex god, he opens the first chapter with his understanding of hell. basically, he believes, like i do, that heaven is invading earth and that heaven is anywhere where God's rule is lived out, which is why we're taught to pray "on earth as it is in heaven." rob says: "when we say something was a "living hell," we mean that it was void of any love or peace or beauty or meaning. it was absent of the will and desire of God." so when things are going as God intends, heaven is being lived at the moment, and hell is the opposite of that. i watch the show intervention. it's a documentary portraying addicts facing interventions. i just watched one about a lesbian meth addict from a conservative christian family. at one point, her sister says something like "i'm not concerned about what happens to her here, i'm concerned about her going to hell." my immediate reaction was, "going? she's already there."

in his book speaking my mind, tony campolo goes over several different perspectives on hell. he alludes that he believes hell is separation from God, but that people can still turn to christ even after death. he also makes note that the one time where jesus clearly tells a story about people being judged, that they aren't judged by whether or not they had a conversion experience; they are judged by how they treated the least of those among them. of course, one could argue that how one treats the least of these is the fruit of said conversion experience. but then the obvious question is: what about those who aren't christians who live like christians, better than most christains? this has always been an interesting question for me.

the other day, i attended a lecture at work about the increasing resistance to anti-microbial drugs of certain stds. after the lecture, i was talking with the pharmD who spoke, about the vaccine gardasil. we discussed how those in the bible-belt were opposing its use because it might encourage girls to have sex. my thought was that fear should not be the driving force behind celibacy. growing up, i was terrified of going to hell. for most of my childhood and early teens i believed that, in spite of the salvation prayers i prayed, i wasn't good enough to actually be a real christian. hell was and is a very powerful tool to win converts. my old church actually put on plays portraying people being thrown into hell in order to scare people into becoming christians. a common line of thinking in the church is that if there is no hell, then we can just live the way we want. so my question to those that espouse that idea is: so do you live the way you do, and believe what you believe, simply out of fear? is the avoidance of hell what american christianity boils down to?

to tie this in with christmas, i'll offer a final perspective. one of the gifts i received this past year was a cd by a band i love called thrice, and on this cd is a song called the arsonist. the song describes a city that has become corrupted by all sorts of evil, and an arsonist who plans on burning it down to rebuild it. in other words, he plans on cleansing it by fire and his motive for doing so isn't anger, but love. here are some of the lyrics:

There are still good shepherds scattered, but they're far between and few.
And the sheep's skin that the wolves all wear is so thin I see right through.
And I think maybe all that's needed is some gas and open flame,
because I don't think that any one of them believes that fire can erase their names.
But I will see this city burn.
I said I will see this city burn.
We will burn it down and build it again,what was buried in flame.
Burn it down and build it again from the bricks that remain.
I love this city, but I've set and numbered its days.
I love this city, enough that I'll set it ABLAZE.

(cyn)icism

you know you're getting old when you don't do anything on your saturday off but watch movies, and you feel guilty because you didn't get anything accomplished. that's what i did today. i knocked out casino royal and children of men. both movies were great and intense, and both were so different that there's no way i could say i liked one better than the other. among their differences, i noticed that casino royal was, overall, pretty cynical in its message, while children of men had a message of hope. in casino royal, the new bond film, james bond learns the hard way that you can trust no one. children of men was about a child born into a world plagued by 18 years of infertility and war.

the other day, anne and i were riding behind a car that was plastered with bumper stickers. they were on the bumper, the trunk and the back window. anne spotted one bumper sticker that said "ca(sin)o." now, i don't agree that all gambling is wrong, but, whatever, everyone has a right to their opinion and to put corny bumper stickers on their car; so i didn't think much of it. later on, however, something occurred to me.

other stickers on this car had, not surprisingly, religious messages. what occurred to me is that many of the christians i know are incredibly cynical people. recently, my cousin erica made a comment that "there just aren't very many honest people anymore these days." in class, not too long ago, we were discussing whether things had gotten better in our country concerning racism. i argued that it has, but another classmate commented, "i just don't think things are going to get better." now, i know what these two people think concerning the fate of the world, so these remarks don't surprise me. but it's still bothersome to me that the only hope these people have for the future is that a sliver of humanity will be spared before locusts the size of ponies swoop down and devour some 1/3 of the planet. they would actually believe that the world was a better place a long time ago, when all it takes is a quick glimpse at history for one to discover that things have gotten better and not worse.

here's my point in all this. i think maybe the greatest, most ground-breaking, turn-all-of-reality-on-its-head, thing the bible has to say is that God is love. that in some unexplainable way, the very core of reality is love. now, there are many things to be cynical about: pop music, buffets and right-wing politics :) just to name a few. but for me, i have hope that all of this isn't just waiting for a cosmic wrecking ball to tear it down. and if God is indeed love, maybe cynicism is one of the greatest heresies of all.

on my neglected series and my lack of blogging

as of late, i have been taking a writing class. due to the nature of this class, i am constantly working on a paper, which, for some reason, makes me not want to blog. i've been debating on how to continue my series. i originally was writing it as an examination of how i interact with people in my life of the more conservative evangelical persuation. however, i've quickly realized that i don't have much to say on that because my interaction typically constitutes no interaction, because there are just too many obsticals created by differing perceptions on different theological concepts. so, instead, i thought it would be good to work through those differing perceptions. my intent isn't to create a theological treatise, but to examine the disconnect between christians like myself of the emergent persuation and christians like my family and anne's who typify mainstream conservative evangelicals.

so that's where i'm going with all this. meanwhile, i'll also continue to write insightful observations about my life and shortcomings :).

judging the judgers: lessons i learned studying fundies and rednecks

lately, there's been controversy surrounding a wedding anne is supposed to be in. the controversy revolves around the attire that the bridal party are must wear. due to the flavor of christianity the officiating pastor subscribes to, the bridal party must wear dresses that go to the floor, are long sleeved, and cover the collar bones. there must be no dancing. and all the music must be pre-approved by said pastor. as expected, many of the people involved in this wedding are pissed. honestly, i think it's kind of funny. do i think this pastor is a legalistic, judgmental, ignorant person? yes. do i think that the flavor of christianity that he and his church follows has anything to do with jesus or anything jesus came to do? probably very little at best. does it drive me crazy that people buy into this stuff? yes. the charge i keep hearing thrown around is that they (the pastor's church) are just so concerned with appearance. they just care about what's on the surface. but in the midst of the idiocy, hilarity, the anger and mind-numbing frustration i have to ask: am i guilty of the same thing?

we went bowling yesterday. the bowling alley is an interesting place to do some people watching. well, it is but it isn't. at first it's fun gawking at the uber-mullets, nascar jackets, and bud light t-shirts, but after a while you get used to it because everyone just looks the same. as i'm there i almost start feeling bad for these people. there's more to life than deer-hunting, nascar, camouflage, country music and bowling. at the same time i start getting frustrated because i'm judging and stereotyping. i know it's wrong to assume everyone at this bowling alley lives this stereotypical redneck, white trash life; that they're all that shallow; and for that matter, that my way of life is superior to theirs. but isn't it though? i mean for gosh sakes, try some other kind of beer!!! you don't know what you're missing!! expand your horizons! the very fact that you think budweiser is a good beer shows that i'm superior! these are the thoughts that go through my mind. there must be some sort of objective way to judge cultural superiority. trying new foods, trying new wines, listening to new music, watching documentaries, reading books, watching cable news other than fox-- these things must show that i'm superior.

i really didn't know how to process all this. i kept thinking, "what am i missing?" Then these two guys came over to bowl in the lane beside ours. one had an incredible mullet; just stunning. it looked like the mullets professional wrestlers wore in the 80's. the other just had short hair with a baseball cap. they both had beer guts and t-shirts with sports teams on them. they were like all the others; just an average pair of working-class guys. but there was something about them, however, that was far superior to myself. they were kick-ass bowlers. in fact almost everyone there was. they had the perfect form and the wicked curves. they had their own balls, shoes and towels. and when they started bowling i started feeling pretty inferior. the guy with the short hair would line his toes up on the dots, run up, bring his arm back and around over his head, back down and release. the ball would start going straight for the gutter, but then, just as it was about to go in, make this dramatic curve and crash right into the strike pocket.

my theory for bowling is much simpler. i don't give a damn about form. i come at the alley from the right with my arm in line with the gutter throwing the ball on an angle toward the center. the only thing i care about is hitting the strike pocket. if i can throw the ball and get a strike then i don't care what it looks like. if it works, then that's what i'm doing. form is completely irrelevant.

anytime i go out to eat with my friend joe, he always asks our server, "in x amount of years you're 100, how do you know that you won in life?" last week in church a woman shared her story about how she came out of a life of drugs, alcoholism, stripping and total hopelessness and met christ in such a way it permanently changed her. today our pastor said that after one of the services where she shared her story a woman came forward to say that she had been contemplating suicide and that she was dealing with those same demons. whenever i hear something like this emotion swells up inside my chest because somehow, mysteriously, the God who is love and who from all things exist became incarnate. and in the midst of the most tragic circumstances and hopeless existences, this incarnation continues. in the end, culture is nothing more than a mask and behind that mask the fundies, the rednecks and myself are all just human beings that need love, grace, peace and hope. and i'm sure that that has much more to do with winning at life, because, after all, form is meaningless.

one helluva post (UPDATED)

***after reading an article on hell, i learned i was incorrect in saying gehenna is thrown into the lake of fire in revelation 20.***

my prolific blogger homey joe wrote a post that inspired me to post this. it's a post that has been sitting in my drafts bin for a while. enjoy!

my theological beliefs about heaven, hell, creation and salvation are in a constant state of evolution. i don't claim to have all the answers on these issues. yes the bible talks about all of these, but i'm still learning what the bible means, how to interpret it, and what other scholars who know way more than me about the bible, history, the culture of the people who wrote the bible etc. have to say. i think it's dangerous and ignorant to come to a point where you say, "ah, i'm all done learning and seeking. i have all the answers now, and now i can go convince others. and if they don't agree with me, then that means they're rejecting the truth and going to hell." i know i'm painting a caricature and i don't mean to put words in other people's mouths, but this is the overall message i get. it seems that every time i think i have it figured out i learn something new that changes everything.

i love it when people say, "well, the bible clearly teaches..." or, "the bible plainly says..." i want to say, "plainly to you!?" for instance, the topic of hell. some christians will say that the bible plainly teaches that hell is a place of fire and brimstone. it's a place of eternal torment for those who don't believe in jesus. here's the problem with this. the two words that mean, "hell" in the NT are, "gehenna" and "hades." gehenna was and is a real place. in jesus' day it was the town dump. they put their garbage and their dead there, and to get rid of the trash they lit it on fire. it was called a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, the place where the worm never dies etc... so when jesus talks about being thrown into gehenna, he's referring to a real live place. it would then be fair to say he's using this term metaphorically unless one believes the unsaved currently reside in the ancient jewish town dump.

the other word, "hades" translates to the hebrew, "sheol." sheol was simply the grave, or death, or being put into the ground. when you get into the book of revelation, you find death and hell (sheol/hades) being thrown into a lake of fire. it then says the lake of fire is the second death. if you're reading this with no presuppositions it looks as if the lake of fire is symbolic and it symbolizes the end of death and hell-- the annihilation of those things and not a literal lake of fire. after all, the book of revelation is a hugely symbolic book, and death and hell are not people. saying they're, "thrown into the lake of fire" as if they're actual beings is a picture of a greater truth. it's not literal. it then says that those whose names aren't written in the book of life are thrown into the lake of fire.

so here's a recap: the book of revelation is highly symbolic. death is not a literal person. hell, in this verse, is hades-- a greek translation of the word sheol. these two things, for lack of a better term, are thrown into a lake of fire. then people whose names aren't written in a book of life are thrown in too. here's a question: if death and sheol aren't literal beings that can be thrown into something and revelation is a highly symbolic book to begin with, then why is the lake of fire and book of life treated as actual literal objects?? as if God really needs a book to remember who goes to heaven! and this doesn't even get into the symbolism relevant to the ancient world of fire and sulfur (brimstone). can you see why i don't know if i, "literally" believe people who don't believe in jesus are thrown into a lake of fire and brimstone for eternity? i say all this not to argue for a specific understanding of hell, but to point out that the bible-- once you seriously begin studying it-- isn't as, "plain and clear" as many christians believe.

a merry schismatic christmas (part 4)

for much of my life i thought it was sinful to enjoy living on earth and to desire that life here wouldn't end. there were times in life where the idea of heaven just wasn't appealing compared to life here. there was always this dichotomy between the "spiritual" and the "worldly" or "fleshly." the goal of the christian was to become more spiritual and less worldly, and to long for the day when we could leave this place. this jumps right into where i left off, because to me, the gospel and salvation was always about getting to a place. we were saved so that we could go to heaven some day. everything was about going to place A or place B. and our ultimate mission was to get as many people possible to go to place A. the ideas of getting to a place and the emphasis on the spiritual versus the worldly are some of the perceptions i've been referring to.

the christmas before last-- the one where i said i was a little nervous because we bought our mom's mars hill's worship cd-- i went anne's family's prepared. at the time, i was reading a book by grand rapids theological seminary professor michael wittmer called heaven is a place on earth: why everything you do matters to God. i brought this book because it corrects many of the misperceptions i mentioned above, and wittmer, being a professor of systematic theology at a highly respected christian university, wouldn't be viewed as some off-the-wall heretic spouting off "questionable" teachings. i never needed to break it out, but part of me kind of wishes i had. in it, wittmer describes how creation, under the weight and damage of sin is, at it's core, still good; and that God hasn't given up, but is restoring it:

"like a stone tossed into a pond, the corrosive curse of sin rippled out to destroy the entire world: human society, the animal kingdom, and even the ground itself began groaning beneath the weight of sin. life on earth degenerated to quickly that within a few generations God ordered a great flood to wipe out everything, save only pairs of every animal and handful of people.
now place yourself in God's shoes. what is your next move? I doubt you would scrap the world, admitting that it is broken beyond repair. if you did, wouldn't you be conceding victory to satan? you would be admitting that satan had won, for the sin he introduced has overpower your good creation, making it irretrievably evil. no, if you are God, you will never concede that. instead, you will forcefully strike back at Satan with you plan of redemption (Genesis 12-Revelation 22). not content to merely snatch a few souls from this mess and leave everything else to the devil, you will not rest until you have redeemed every last corner of your good creation from evil's grasp. (heaven is a place on earth pg. 187-188)"

wittmer goes on to cite acts 3:21 where peter say christ must remain in heaven until the time has come for God to restore everything, or when paul says christ is reconciling all things whether on earth or in heaven to himself. what i really brought the book for, however, was for the part where wittmer explains 2 peter 3:10-13 which says:

"10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid
bare. 11Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness."

wittmer explains that in the 16th and 17th centuries: "the best available greek manuscripts of 2 peter 3:10 read that "the earth and all of its works will be burned up." this is how every translation of that period, including the KJV rendered this verse. it is easy to see how whole generations of christians learned from their bibles to expect a future fire that would annihilate the entire world." (heaven is a place on earth pg. 202)

once again, the issue of perception springs up, in that, centuries of misinterpretation have lead to a misperception concerning the fate of earth. wittmer goes on, "however, scholars have since discovered older, more reliable greek manuscripts, and these texts say that rather than burning up, "the earth and all of its works will be found." instead of being destroyed, this term "found" implies that the quality of our works will be "laid bare," discovered for all to see. Much like gold passing through a smelting furnace, the good that we do will be purified while our less noble efforts will slough off. read this way, peter's vision of a coming conflagration seems to be a purging rather than annihilating fire. (heaven is a place on earth pg. 202)" wittmer then discusses the comparison of this judgement by fire to the noahic judgement by water which is mentioned in 2 peter 3:6-7. this comparison is important because the flood did not destroy the entire earth, but instead, destroyed the evil that had upon it accumulated.

so creation remains good, but evil is real and has disfigured it. that, i believe, is the biblical view and is one key misunderstanding of many american evangelicals. the second misperception i want to hit is the emphasis on "the spiritual" versus "the physical." whenever i go to anne's parent's house i always notice, "sky angel." sky angel is kind of like christian cable tv only it's a dish. like, "christian music" and "christian movies" and "christian dietary supplements" sky angel is part of the vast christian subculture market. this split of secular and christian, or even the idea of one's "spiritual life" is a further misperception that obstructs conversation. and like the misperception that creation is evil and is waiting for coming destruction, this too is unbiblical...



but why and how did this split occur? recently, the eminent scholar n.t. wright was interviewed by TIME concerning his new book surprised by hope. the interview is on the unbiblical idea that the goal of the christian life is to die and go to heaven. wright corrects that by explaining that heaven is an intermediary state and that the ultimate goal is the resurrection of the dead for life on the restored earth. in this interview wright also explains how the influence of platonic thought has created the dualistic way american christians view reality. this is a great interview which i'm thankful that wright did so that i don't have to attempt to explain these ideas myself. here's a few quotes:

Wright: "There are several important respects in which it's (going to heaven when you die) unsupported by the New Testament. First, the timing. In the Bible we are told that you die, and enter an intermediate state. St. Paul is very clear that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead already, but that nobody else has yet. Secondly, our physical state. The New Testament says that when Christ does return, the dead will experience a whole new life: not just our soul, but our bodies. And finally, the location. At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation. "

"Our culture is very interested in life after death, but the New Testament is much more interested in what I've called the life after life after death — in the ultimate resurrection into the new heavens and the new Earth. Jesus' resurrection marks the beginning of a restoration that he will complete upon his return. Part of this will be the resurrection of all the dead, who will "awake," be embodied and participate in the renewal. John Polkinghorne, a physicist and a priest, has put it this way: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves." That gets to two things nicely: that the period after death is a period when we are in God's presence but not active in our own bodies, and also that the more important transformation will be when we are again embodied and administering Christ's kingdom."

"The New Testament is deeply, deeply Jewish, and the Jews had for some time been intuiting a final, physical resurrection. They believed that the world of space and time and matter is messed up, but remains basically good, and God will eventually sort it out and put it right again. Belief in that goodness is absolutely essential to Christianity, both theologically and morally. But Greek-speaking Christians influenced by Plato saw our cosmos as shabby and misshapen and full of lies, and the idea was not to make it right, but to escape it and leave behind our material bodies. The church at its best has always come back toward the Hebrew view, but there have been times when the Greek view was very influential."

the whole interview is great, not that long and explains a lot. for so many years i struggled to make sense of the point in taking care of the earth and desiring for things to change in spite of the belief that everything was going south anyways and God was just going to destroy it all. i struggled with the separation of the sacred and the secular. much of it seemed so arbitrary and didn't make a lot of sense. i wondered if there was this big piece i was missing and, in fact, there was; and now that i've found it things have never been more clearer. but, unfortunately, i'm learning that what's clear for me isn't clear for others.

jesus in the ER

this morning i read romans chapter 3. i admit that there are verses that i just don't like. romans 3:10 particularly stands out: "there is no one righteous, not even one." what a downer. humanity sucks. and because we suck so much and we can never achieve God's righteousness we're condemned to hell. another thing that i must admit is that i'm not particularly a fan of the word, "righteousness." when i hear that word all i can think of are people like john macarthur or charles spurgeon or john calvin. in fact, isn't that central to calvinism, that humanity sucks? not only do the associations i make with that word make me want to cringe, but what the hell does, "righteousness" even mean? i hear it get thrown around a lot but, honestly, i wonder if the people who love to use that word so much could really unpack it. and i'm not just talking about giving the textbook definition.

last night i had to make a trip to the ER for something that turned out to be nothing. the ER on a late saturday night is an interesting place indeed. it's kind of a cross between a half-way house and a prison. when we got there i overheard a nurse mention that there was a trauma, and that somebody had been shot. i wondered if it was a robbery or just some macho idiots acting like morons at a dance club. we (anne and i) were there for four hours. while we were there, there was a drunk guy laying on a gurney in the hallway about 15 feet from our door. the entire time, he kept yelling, swearing and complaining, and at one point he called his nurse a, "fat fucking slut" and told her to, "suck his cock." during one of his tirades he started complaining that he had to pee. i just looked at anne and said, "if i were his nurse i think i would be like, ok, sure, pull down your pants so i can cath you." at another point he started calling out asking for some water, which, why, after what he called his nurse, does he think she'd give him some water? he was also spitting on people; he was just a mess.

at 4 am when we finally left we were heading for the door when we got stuck behind a large group of loud, cocky, kids who were probably in their late teens and early twenties. one of them was the patient and he had his arm in a sling. his friends were laughing and joking about his injury and one of them said something to the effect of, "it's no big deal, you're a soldier (as in a gangsta/thug. not a literal military soldier)." i started wondering if he was the trauma.

the entire time i was there i had this brewing hatred for that drunk and then those kids as we were leaving. i would have loved to get in that drunk's face and tell him what a miserable, piece of shit that he is, as evidenced by him being there in the first place; and that he deserves to go thirsty and he should just piss on himself. i wanted to walk up to those kids and tell them that, in spite of their arrogance, they are worthless pieces of shit, who are a stain and burden on our city, and that it would take all my strength to conjure up any sense of tragedy if they were all gunned down that night. what's more, i think it would be a safe bet that if i did that and people were around they would applaud me, or at least, secretly be cheering me on. by societies standards i am a good person. i am hard-working, faithfully married, law-abiding, church-going and if i said those things it would be true in the minds of people who share those same characteristics. but there is no one righteous, not even one.

i wonder what jesus would have done in that ER. would he have gotten the drunk some water? what would he say, or how would he interact with those kids? jesus forgave the very people who put him to death. he washed the feet of the person who betrayed him. i wonder if, when he said "when i was thirsty you gave me something to drink," there were any stipulations about whether the thirsty person was nice or drunk and angry? i tend to think of righteousness as following all the right rules. to me, it's always been a very legalistic term. but if by looking at jesus we see the righteousness of God on display, then righteousness means being gracious, sacrificial, serving, patient, slow to anger, full of hope and joy, humble and giving. and, yes, i have to concede that compared to those standards, humanity does kind of suck and God's righteousness is, indeed, beautiful.

i confess...

• when i'm at work and it's really busy, i get mad at the patients. sometimes i get mad when they're demanding morphine thinking to myself: in the civil war days all people had was a shot of whiskey and a stick to bite down on as the doctor was sawing their limbs off. other times i'm mad at a patient for being alergic to a popular drug, making me have to go out of my way to get a drug that we barely ever use and, therefore, is in some random god-forsaken place, or worse, we have to get it from another hospital. but most of all i get mad when i have to fill a patient's order for an insane amount of drugs that no human being should be allowed to consume in one day only to have to credit all those drugs back to that patient's account the next day because, well, as it turns out no one can consume that amount of drugs in one day. i know it's wrong on a number levels that i actually get mad at people for being sick or injured. i know it isn't their fault, but i need to project my frusteration onto something and they're just such easy targets. weak and injured people usually are.

• i just got done reading the book of acts and i'm on to romans. i admit that when i read paul i hear him speaking with charleton heston's voice in the ten commandments. i try my best to picture him as a short dark-skinned jewish man speaking in greek, but it just doesn't work.

• i'm really into the band vampire weekend. and i discovered them from watching MTV, which i find incredibly disturbing.

• i start spring arbor tonight. i secretly hope i'm going to find it to be very easy. i also hope it doesn't cut into my blogging like it did last semester. we'll see.

happy valentine's day anne

last night anne got home and placed a valentine's day gift on the coffee table. it sat there for god knows how long and i never saw it. i sat on the couch with it sitting right in front of me. anne just kept laughing and i couldn't understand why. i started getting frusterated, and she finally had to inform me that there was something in the room i wasn't seeing. she bought me a new bag of starbucks and two cd's. it was extremely thoughtful, and i felt horrible because i didn't get her anything because i thought our coming weekend in chicago was how we were celebrating v-day. so i just wanted to post a quick message expressing how thankful i am for her and how much i love her.

a merry schismatic christmas (part 3)

to talk about what the gospel is is tricky, because one's understanding of the gospel is directly linked to their eschatology. so to argue about what the gospel and salvation are one has to get into what they think "the end" will look like. the gospel that focuses on a get-out-of-hell-free ticket is often dubbed the "fire insurance" gospel. it is a gospel that pictures the world as a sinking ship and the job of the church to get people onto lifeboats before the ship goes down. this view of salvation and the gospel tends to be pre-occupied with death and the future. it tends to have a negative view of creation and is generally resistant to a gospel that focuses on, "changing the world." this is the dominant view of the gospel/salvation/eschatology among conservative american evangelicals, and is the view of the our (anne and i) families.

last year for christmas we bought our mom's mars hill's (our church) worship cd. this made me a little nervous. our church takes a very different view of the gospel/salvation/eschatology than the view of our families, and many of the songs and readings on this worship cd express this view. our church believes in "holistic" salvation, and the term "holistic" tends to creep most american christians out, conjuring up new age images. we put emphasis on changing the world, and therefore, our church also takes a here and now perspective to salvation and the gospel rather than being focused on the future or post-mortem existence.

we also take a different view of the ship. rather than the ship going down, we believe that God is invading and redeeming the ship, and that some day God will completely restore the ship and take command. we believe that when God created the ship he said that is was good, and good it remains even though it is distorted by evil, chaos, destruction and injustice. so rather than having a doomsday focus on the world and current events, we see God's kingdom expanding and invading this reality. God's intentions aren't to destroy his creation, but destroy the evil, chaos and injustice that it is mired in. God is restoring and renewing, culminating in a merging of Gods kingdom and earth (rev. 21:2-4). for most of my life i didn't perceive the gospel this way. i shared the same perceptions as my family, and sometimes it's difficult for me to remember what that was like.

these two perspectives-- the ship going down versus the ship being restored-- not only color how we read certain passages of scripture, but influence how we see the world and live our lives. for instance, one has a much easier time bypassing the recycle bin if they believe that this place is destined to go up in flames. if one is fixed on escaping this world via death or rapture, then it's easy to slip into a mentality that believes it's ok to just enjoy one's suburban lifestyle whilst others strive to make ends meat or starve, because, in the end, the only things that matter are "spiritual things." outside of creating an opportunity for a miniscule number of people to pray the sinner's prayer this world and life aren't worth much. in fact you'd think the sooner it's destroyed the better, because as of right now billions of people are being churned out whose destiny is kindling for the flames of hell.

a merry schismatic christmas (part 2.5) -more thoughts on perceptions

these perceptions create huge roadblocks to conversation. because they're so complex and people are often so entrenched in them, it's exhausting to even begin to peel back the layers. we were out to eat one time and my dad flat out asked me why i don't think the end times are near. how do you even begin to answer a question like that? it's a question that gets not only into eschatology, but what the kingdom of God is, historical context, hermeneutics, and the essence of God's relationship with humanity and his creation. it's quite an intense conversation to have over an hour or so dinner. likewise, these perceptions about who jesus is, what a christian is, and a christian's role in the world are covered in cultural, historical, political and sociological layers. compound that with the fact that these beliefs, opinions, values and sentiments are embedded into our being, and if anyone dares question them they are not just questioning an idea or belief they are questioning us. for all of us, our beliefs are connected to who we are. some of us are better at separating ourselves from them than others, but at some level all of us will abandon defending the veracity of our beliefs and begin defending ourselves.

7 random facts

1. i am a pharmacy technician.
2. i will begin attending spring arbor university.
3. i wish i had more time to blog.
4. i have an amazing wife who i love dearly.
5. i wish i kept in better touch with some of my friends.
6. i am exited about starting a new business with my wife.
7. one of my dreams is to see the world.

i am tagging no one because all the people i know in the blogosphere have already been tagged. i am finally getting somewhere with the next installment in my series, so that will be up soon. i also have another series i'm working on, but i plan on finishing it before i begin posting, so stay tuned!

a merry schismatic christmas (part 2)

of course, when i say that i feel like i'm following a different jesus than the one anne's and my family follows i don't literally mean there is more than one jesus. instead, i mean that we are following a different perception of who we think jesus is. our perceptions come from all different sources: sunday school flannel graph stories, our pastor(s), christian authors, evangelists, medieval and contemporary art, our family, our friends and the gospels themselves. i would argue, however, that what we read in the gospels is largely colored by the other influences i listed. that's kind of a scary thought for most christians because most christians would believe the jesus they are following is the authentic jesus of the bible, and not a composite of the many perceptions of others that they have encountered. many christians would be downright offended if one pointed out that they might be subconsciously assigning definitions to certain terms jesus uses and certain attributes jesus has that was not intended by the authors, but is the result of a compilation of misinterpretations over the centuries. for example, when people hear the terms, "gospel," "repent," "salvation," "hell," and, "kingdom of God," they think of very specific definitions. many christians become extremely defensive if anyone dares challenge those assumptions.

this christmas morning we opened presents with anne's family and somebody got a dvd that i thought was interesting. the dvd was called more than dreams. this film is about a phenomena that has allegedly been happening in the muslim world for some time now. muslims, sometimes radical extremists, claim they have been visited in dreams by jesus. these muslims have been so convinced that their dreams were authentic visions of christ, that they left islam and converted to christianity. the giver of this dvd wondrously exclaimed, "this is how jesus is getting the gospel to the muslim world right now." now, i know nothing about this dvd so i'm not going to speculate as to whether or not these visions are authentic. what i am interested in is what the giver of this dvd meant when that person said, "the gospel." the gospel this person was referring to was creating converts, and that, apparently, jesus is now bypassing the church and going straight to muslims and personally witnessing to them.

i really don't mean to sound harsh, and the person who said this is a wonderful person who i would never want to hurt in any way, but with many christians this is what the gospel boils down to. salvation boils down to saying a prayer and being saved from an eternity in hell or being raptured before God destroys the earth. repenting essentially means apologizing to God so he'll forgive you. and tragically of all, the kingdom of God equates to heaven. this is THE purpose and message of jesus: to die and resurrect so that all we have to do is say a prayer to get out of hell or be raptured. following jesus means getting others to believe these theological beliefs so that they too can get out of hell. everything else is just window dressing.

a merry schismatic christmas (part 1)

**if you're reading this and you feel i'm writing about you, please don't take any offense. this isn't a rant. this is me attempting to analyze how relationships are affected by intense disagreement, and how i deal with it. if you have something to say, please feel free to comment or ask questions.**

christmas is the time for family and to celebrate jesus' birth. it's a time where, as christians, jesus should bring us together. well, jesus should always bring us together, but many times he doesn't. i suppose you could argue that he never claimed he would. in one passage he says something to the effect that he will divide families. but i have a feeling there are issues pertinent to that specific time and circumstance as to why jesus said that, because the overall idea of the church is people united in christ bringing about the kingdom of God. some act as the feet, some the hands but all are part of the body. division and schism doesn't seem to be the goal.

of course, among many christians, it isn't like this. recently, the pastor of my parent's church has come down on the pastor of my church and others who are associated with him. in fact, this isn't anything new, as my pastor has been attracting criticism for some time. recently, he went on a speaking tour called the gods aren't angry. when my wife mentioned this tour to my cousin, whose church also isn't a fan, my cousin said something to the effect of, "the gods? there's only one God." the criticism has indeed gotten out of control. in fact it's devolved into gossip, and libel.

i get quite nervous about bringing people together whom i know have very divergent political or religious views. at times, i dreaded bringing my liberal ex-girlfriend out to eat with my parents because of the fear my father would spout off an opinion about his politics. one time we were waiting for a seat at a restaurant and my dad started a conversation with some random person standing near us, which is completely normal for him. some how he started talking about the war and how we need to just go bomb the entire region and get it over with. i literally almost ran outside to leave, but remembered i had ridden with my mom.

the reason i feel this way isn't because i don't like discussing politics or religion, but because i feel as though there needs to be-- among most people at least-- some sort of bond that is formed first. a bond where both parties like one another enough to where they can disagree about big issues without it affecting the way they view one another as people. i think that i've reached this point with my wife's family, but i'm still not so sure i want to act on it. i still have this fear that if i come out and say, "i believe in evolution," or "i can't stand george bush," or, "i don't care if a presidential candidate is pro-life," or, "i don't really care if gay people get married" they might think less of me, or think they need to start praying for me to see the light.

i know, i know, who cares if they think less of you; that's their problem. so what? the problem is, is that i do care, and this creates tension when i am with these people because i know that they probably know i don't agree with all of their conservative republican christian views. it creates tension with the cousin i spoke about above. i've even sensed tension with my high school best friend, though not to the same effect as the others. the truth is there are times when i think we are following a completely different jesus.

oh, all right...

01. One book that changed your life
i haven't been a serious reader for that long so this is hard. i don't know if i can say that a book, except the bible has, changed my life. but, off the top of my head i would say the book, the problem of pain by c.s. lewis was the first book to really get me to think about God and theology in a new way.
02. One book that you’ve read more than once
mere christianity by c.s. lewis
03. One book you’d want on a desert island
i'll have to steal from joe's idea a bit and say a book on surviving on a desert island.
04. Two books that made you laugh
the complete collection of the far side
05. One book that made you cry
can't think of any
06. One book that you wish had been written
i'd be willing to bet that any book i can think of has probably been written.
07. One book that you wish had never been written
any book that has inspired someone to do violence to others.
08. Two books you're currently reading
searching for god knows what by donald miller
democracy matters by cornel west
09. One book you’ve been meaning to read
the great gatsby and a million others

i tag angela rudd

some thoughts on competition

i'm reading searching for god knows what by donald miller, and i'm on a chapter titled,"how the fall makes you feel." in it miller is working through the premise that the fall of man created a world where people are always comparing themselves to one another. he gives the examples of sports: why do thousands of people gather to see who's team is better. he gives the example of reality television: the bachelor, fear factor, survivor. he says that our obsession with comparing ourselves to one another drives all plots and story lines. it got me thinking about how, in one of my classes, we learned how competition drives prejudice concluding that capitalism-- because it's based on competition-- is a major source of prejudice. i think there is a lot of truth to this. my brain was racing as i was reading this chapter and then miller, talking about the popularity contest of middle school, writes this: "And here is what is terrible: There will be a sort of punishment being dealt to those at the end of the line, each person dealing out castigation as a way of dissociation from the geeks, driven by the fear associating with somebody at the end of the line might cost them position, as if the two might be averaged, landing each of them in the space between. And so, in this way, students are constantly looking to associate themselves with those higher in line, and dissociate from those of low position. Great lengths will be taken to associate with those at the front of the line. Students will kiss up, drop names, lie about friendships, and so on. Many will hate the most popular, and yet subject themselves to their approval as though they were small gods. But the great crime, the great tragedy, is not in the attempts to associate but rather the efforts to dissociate. If a person feels his space in the hierarchy is threatened, that he might lose position, the vehemence he feels toward the lesser person is nearly malevolent."- searching for god knows what pg.97

Immediately after reading this is had this thought: Prejudice is rooted in competition. Maybe the ultimate source of competition is the competition to gain approval/love. We gravitate towards products/images/lifestyles to gain the acceptance and praise from society. This is ultimately what drives the market: the space in our hearts reserved for the unconditional acceptance and love of God.