talmidim

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060808/ap_on_re_us/hiv_ads_pulled

 Who does this? Seriously. Who creates an ad with a black guy pictured in the cross-hairs of what viewers can only assume to be a gun?

So I used to post stuff on the blog myspace gives you but then i realized blogging on myspace is rather foolish because the only people who read are your friends or people who respond like this: "like, omg!!!! that was like, the best blog ever!!!!"

That said, I'm still happy with some of what was written, so here's one of those archived blogs:

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"A shame for justice"

That was the quote from a UN official on the death of Slobodon Milosovich. Or something along those lines. The idea was it was a travesty of justice that Milosovich died of a heart attack rather than being killed by lethal injection (or, to re-humanize the word, poisoned to death).

Sometimes I think that maybe Europe has it right, if we just remove God completely from politics maybe things will get better. After all, it's hard to deny that ever since the religious right became a strong voice in the USA, the reputation of Christians, and America, has nose-dived. Here we are, this supposedly Christian nation, and we're torturing prisoners in Gitmo and lying about everything from Iraq to Katrina. Meanwhile North Korea and Iran continue to work on their nuclear weapons programs. But what does the Republican controlled congress focus on? Flag burning and same-sex marriage. And that's the picture so many people get of Christians, power-hungry, agenda-driven people who don't care about anyone who doesn't agree with them on everything. 

But then I read quotes like the one above and I'm reminded of why Christianity is so essential.

It's not essential to give us a false sense of security that "our values" are being protected (has anyone ever asked themselves at what cost we are protecting our values?). But it is essential to give us something to live for. Christianity takes us to places mere human goodness never can.

When non-Christians pursue diversity, Christians must pursue unity.

When non-Christians pursue justice-by-death, Christians should pursue Grace.

When non-Christians pursue tolerance, Christians should pursue Love.

One of the most troubling issues in America today is this; the Right is pro-active for all the wrong things and the Left simply mocks the Right. We have one group affirming certain things, some of which aren't even worth taking the time to affirm (and others which aren't worth taking as much time to affirm). So what does the left do? Do they suggest viable alternatives to Guantanomo, or Abu Ghraib, or Iraq or how to define marriage? No. They mock and engage in hyperbole.

This is where Christians should step in. Here we should step forward, speaking up for the value of every human being, American, Iraqi, Palestinian, Israeli, all are valuable to God. We should be providing viable alternatives to the cruelty of Abu Ghraib and to the injustice at Guantanomo, but where are those voices? That's the problem, all the voices that should be speaking up for Christ are speaking up for conservatism.

Christians need to see that there is a third way, it is not found in cold conservatism or flippant leftism, rather it is found in love and grace. It's not found in saying that the premature death of a man- no matter how bad he was- is "a shame for justice." Milosovich's death wasn't a shame for justice, the hardness of that official's heart toward Milosovich is a shame for justice. And that is precisely the reason Christians must speak up. There is no one else who will speak up for Grace and unconditional love. Of all the world religious and ideas about life that exist, Christianity is the only one based on grace, if we don't speak up, no one will. So what do you choose? The cold-hearted conservatism of Bill O'Reilly and the religious right? The flippant leftism of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert? Or do you dare to dream that there just might be a third way?

Thinking of starting a bit of a series on here called "Great prayers of old dead guys (and girls)."

My reasoning is fairly simple- I think liturgy can be a beautiful thing. I'm not an especially big fan of responsive reading, it often sounds like a bunch of robots repeating something they were programmed to say, but I do think liturgy rightly used is one of the greatest gifts that past Christians can give to the church today.

C.S. Lewis often spoke of the value of reading old books, one of those being that the errors in the thought of the 1600 are not the same as the errors of thought in 2006, and as a result we are less susceptible to making the same mistakes as the men writing in 1600. Furthermore, much is to be gained in reaping from their wisdom b/c their understanding of the world is so radically different from our own. It seems that, and perhaps I'm just being nostalgic for the past, but it seems that many the Christian world-view found in many saints of the past was much more God-centered than the world-view of Christians today. The value of reading their prayers then is that it enables us to further see and appreciate the god-centeredness of the saint as well as our own need to make our lives more centered on who God is.

That said, here is part 1 of the series, this is a prayer of Ignatius of Loyola, a Catholic saint from the time of the Reformers.

“Take, Lord, and receive all my freedom, my memory, my intelligence and my will-all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given those things to me. I now give them back to you, Lord. All belongs to you. Dispose of those gifts according to your will. I ask only for your love and your grace, for they are enough for me.”

I will either try to post a small mini-biography of him in the next few days or, if I lack the time to write one, I will provide a link to one.

There's been something amazing about the last few days, I've been reading a bunch of random Piper articles as well as Augustine's Confessions and i'm blown away by it. The whole concept of knowing God and desiring him above everything else in the world just floors me. I can't imagine having a relationship with God on the level of Piper's or Augustine's, and yet I'm sure they both would say the same thing in regards to one of their heroes.

There is just something incredible about having the privilege of 1) existing in an intimate, beautiful relationship with the ground of all being and 2) following in the footsteps of giants of the past as you exist in that intimate relationship. The only thought that amazes me more than following in the footsteps of Piper, Augustine, Edwards, or Lewis is the thought of what it is I'm following.

Last night I watched Crash.

I loved it, it starts out, "In LA no one touches each other anymore... they just crash into each other." Brilliant. It's said to be about racism, but it's about so much more than that. It's about living in a broken, seemingly-hopeless world. As you watch you can't help but begin to despair of there being any possible solution to fixing such a jacked up world.

That's where it enters the conversation. "It" is the divine conspiracy, God's wonderful dream of undermining all the evil in the world with pure, unadulterated goodness. Defeating hatred with love, anger with kindness, war with peace, pride with humility, that's the divine conspiracy.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday he entered from the east on a donkey. Meanwhile, sometime that same day Pilate entered from the west, with his full entourage. A Roman Eagle standard led the way, followed by cavalry and foot soldiers of all kinds and at the back was Pilate astride his horse. Why did he do this? It was the week of Passover, a week when 200,000 Jews filled Jerusalem to celebrate that their God is the God of the oppressed and beaten down by remembering a time when God freed them from an oppressor.

Needless to say, if you're Pilate you don't like this idea. You ride with your full entourage into Jerusalem for only one reason- to send a message.

Don't even think about it.

And if you're a Jew watching Pilate enter, you won't.

Meanwhile, Jesus enters from the east on a donkey. The minds of every Jew- all of whom know the Old Testament intimately- immediately go to the prophet Zechariah who in Zecharian 9:9-10 said the following:

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. [This is generally where the Christian reader stops, but keep going to v. 10] And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem;and the bow of war will be cut off. And he will speak peace to the nations; and his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the Earth."

In Jerusalem on Palm Sunday we see two ways. Two ways to enter a city, two ways to spread a message. But this lesson extends beyond that. There are two ways to approach relationships, the way of riding into to conquer, looking for what you can take from it. Or the way of peace, of looking to see what you can give to it. Two ways of living in a broken, cursed world, the way of war and the way of peace.

We're given a choice. We can choose Pilate's way, the way that yells when yelled at, that becomes bitter when wronged, that looks out for number one.

Or we can become a member of the divine conspiracy. We can show love in the face of great hatred. We can spread peace where all around us is war. We can look out for others before ourselves.

Two ways, which will you choose?

(The above is borrowing heavily from Rob Bell's Palm Sunday sermon as well as Dallas Willard's excellent book, The Divine Conspiracy. A link to purchase Willard's book is to the right, one of Bell's nooma films is also featured and here is the link to his church's website where his sermons can be found.)

do you ever just feel completely overwhelmed?

Sometimes life seems so big, i don't know what i've gotten myself into. Is it safe to believe in things so strongly in such a wild, chaotic place? As i thought about the White/Caner mess, I kept feeling like there's no point in even saying anything. I'll make posts like the one i spent an hour typing last night at 1 in the morning, and will anything change? Will the Caners stop acting so immaturely (frankly, the fact that Dr. Ergun Caner is dean of the seminary at Liberty is appaling- no one in his position should behave as poorly as he has throughout the entire conversation) and actually answer any of Dr. White's questions? Will Dr. White be a bit more gracious in his handling of the whole ordeal? I can't criticize that much- having read the Caner's e-mails, I can't say I'd be any different from Dr. White who has probably been far more gracious than they deserve- yet should I even have this information? Why did Dr. White publish it? I know he felt it neccesary, but what good has come of it? If the Caner's are as ignorant of the issues as they seem to be, then that will become clear this fall in their debate. And what good comes from showing the world how immaturely they've behaved? I suppose it helps us understand Dr. White's frustrations, but is Dr. White's goal to help us understand why he's frustrated or to bring clarity to a complex theological issue? If it's the latter, then how does publishing the e-mails work toward accomplishing that?

Lately I find myself constantly saying, "I don't know," or "I don't understand."

I hate it. I want to understand everything, and yet there is so much that is simply incomprehensible to me. I just spent a month seeing a bunch of people living in community, learning to love each other. So why do we waste so much breath being so stupid and immature?

If you're Arminian and you want to talk about election, I'm up for it. If you believe in limited atonement and want to discuss that, I'm in. If you're a Dispensationalist, and you want to talk about end times, I'm ready. But let's have a conversation about it, let's not get caught up in name-calling, thoughtless misunderstandings, and arrogant know-it-allism.

And if you have no idea what any of those things are, God bless you, you have no idea how lucky you are. Eventually, becaues we live in a broken, divided world and a broken, divided church you'll probably have to learn about them, but enjoy your time of freedom from these endless debates.

We're in such an ugly mess right now, strong opinions and big ideas are what make life worth living. Ugly, unity-destroying arguments are what make life frustrating. But can we have the former without the latter? Is it possible for two people with strong opinions to respectfully, civily discuss their disagreements? Or are we so bound by our pride and arrogance that any sort of thoughtful debate invariably turns to immaturity, failure to listen, and know-it-allism.

A great man in the early 1900s found a way of discussing big issues without acting like an ass (if the language offends, suggest a better term and I'll use it, but I can't think of one).  He debated in public forums the leading intellectuals of his day, but these intellectuals were not only opponents of his, they were his friends, friends he routinely criticized in his books, but whose character he praised whenever opportunity presented itself. Christians today could learn a lot from him. His name was G.K. Chesterton.

But when fundamentalists actually listen to and learn from a Catholic, our problem will be solved. In fact, one could almost call this whole problem, The Problem of G.K. Chesterton because the whole problem is seen so clearly when one looks at GKC. The man who has a cure to know-it-allism simply becomes another one of it's many victims.

The other day I was browsing through some blogs and I came across an interesting story. Ergun Caner, author of a number of books covering everything from Islam to church history to the church's role in politics, and James White, a well-known Christian apologist, don't seem to be getting along. It's a basic doctrinal disagreement, Caner is a hardcore Arminian (I don't want to take the time to define these terms so here's a link) and I'd even say pretty staunch anti-Calvinist. White, however, is a firm Calvinist (definition here).

Here's how it happened. A post is made on a major Southern Baptist blog (you'll need to scroll down quite a way to find Dr. Caner's comments, his younger brother, Emir, also comments. The whole debate is interesting but if you're short of time do an edit-search "Ergun Caner" and start there) about who will be the next SBC president. Baptists are a bit of a unique denomination because, unlike Methodists (decidely Arminian) or Presbyterians (decidedly Calvinist) they have a mixture of both groups. Men like John Piper fall in the Reformed Baptist camp. Others, like Jerry Falwell, are Arminian. So, in the discussion on this blog, the issue of Calvinism vs. Arminianism came up repeatedly. This is where Dr. Caner stepped in. If you're familiar with Dr. Caner at all you know a few things about him; 1) generally, a pretty well-spoken individual. 2) extremely, extremely opinionated. 3) very passionate about said opinions. Picture a typical southern baptist preacher getting really fired up as he teaches, and you have a good picture of Dr. Caner. It should also be added that Dr. Caner is currently the Dean of the Seminary at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's university located in Lynchburg, VA. So, Dr. Caner stepped in and in vintage Dr. Caner style, made his strong opinions known in blunt fashion. This led to a bit of a debate (I use the term loosely) on the blog and, soon, Dr. Caner and a leading Reformed apologist, James White are exchanging e-mails. I'd encourage you to read the exchange before you continue reading here because this is where I stop being a reporter and become a commentator.

I was deeply saddened by the whole thing. Saddened by the immaturity and ineptness of Dr. Caner, who clearly doesn't understand Reformed theology, saddened by the pugnacious tone of both in their e-mails (I greatly respect Dr. White for many, many reasons, but was saddened at how he at times seems to be doing little more than trying to put down his opponents in a clever way. Was Dr. Caner asking for trouble when he claimed to be an, "Armenian"? Yes, of course, however, as funny as White's response was, did that humorous remark do anything to help the discussion? No, it most likely made Dr. Caner feel stupid- which is never the job of a Christian with anyone, much less a brother in Christ- and alienated any Arminian readers of the exchange. But what saddened me most was the realization that we as a church clearly have no clue what Jesus is getting at when he calls us to unity.

John 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another."

John 17:20-21 "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send me."

Did you read the last phrase? "That the world may believe that You sent me." Dr. Francis Schaeffer has unpacked this verse in much greater detail than I will in his book, The Mark of a Christian, but the basic idea Christ is getting at is clear. The world will know that God the Father sent Jesus into the world on the basis of our love for each other as followers of Christ.

Yet, have we ever displayed the kind of unity Jesus is getting at in John 17? Caner and White will fight about Calvinism, but they could work together, I'm sure, in attacking Brian McLaren, the well-known leader within the Emergent community. Or Dr. White could argue with another Calvinist who might only affirm 4 of the 5 main points of Calvinism (see the above article). And Dr. Caner could then go argue with a fellow Arminian, like C.S. Lewis, about theories on how we are made right with God. But then someone like Anne Lamott comes along and Drs. White and Caner aren't even sure where to begin with her because they disagree on so much.

Do you see what I'm getting at? Arminians argue with Calvinists, who argue amongst themselves about how many points to affirm, but all sides can probably join in condemning a fringe figure like McLaren or Lamott, or in attacking a group like Roman Catholics who receive an obscene amount of unfair attacks from Evangelicals. Oh, and they could probably argue about end times theology if they got bored and needed something new to disagree about. 

I don't want to suggest these disagreements aren't important, or that all Christians should believe the exact same thing. We need different opinions in the Church, it forces us to keep thinking, and re-thinking, and re-re-thinking what we believe and why believe it, and that's a wonderful thing.

But what I am suggesting is that everyone of these disagreements should be voiced in a way that acknowledges our own limitations as human beings (IE the possibility that I just might be wrong) and the vital importance of unity between Christians. We have to take John 17 seriously, and I don't think we do. If we did would we argue with such angry, ugly language? If we took Dr. White, Dr. Caner, and a non-Christian and put them all in the same room and we told White and Caner that this man's salvation hinged on his seeing Christians loving each other, would they still fight?

Of course not, say what you will about both, they have a tremendous burden to see others become Christians. Yet, is the situation that we are in any different from the scenario I described above? Christ seems pretty clear in both passages, men will know we are Christians and that Christianity is true by our love for each other. But do we show it?

We have to ask ourselves these questions too, if I were locked in a room with Pat Robertson and a non-Christian in the above scenario, would I get along with him? Think of whatever Christian really tweaks you, if you're a fundamentalist, think of a Roman Catholic or an Emergent writer, if you're a big McLaren fan, think of Jerry Falwell, if you're Reformed, think of a man like Dr. Caner.

Could you get along with him/her? More to the point, could you learn to love them?

let's get to the point right now.

i know what you're thinking, "another blog? who is this guy?"

good question, i'm not always sure myself, there aren't many things i'm sure of, but here are a few basic ideas that guide me:
1) the god in whom we live, and move, and have our being really does exist and we matter to him.
2) the best thing i can do with my life is to try to get to know this being the best i can.

that's it, that's why this blog is here. i'm one of the millions of religious blogs, i know, but if i thought this was a waste of time, i wouldn't post here. i think getting to know god is a community activity and if mine can be one more voice in the community, then this will not be a waste of time. maybe i'm just another brush trying to repaint old truths in a new way, but i'm alright with that.

so welcome to talmidim, enjoy your stay, make a comment or two,
~jake