Toothface

Continuing the Fun!

2010-11-23T11:30:00.001-05:00

so the post below this is truly the final--this post is just to give you the heads up on two things.

first, i have another blog. you can find it here. it's about my journey as an associate pastor who thinks associatively.

second, Shutterfly is the coolest! Right now there is a Shutterfly’s Holiday Card promotion were bloggers can get 50 free cards from Shutterfly by talking about it on your blog, and selling your blogger soul a little bit. But we've really been happy with Shutterfly and order all sorts of things from them, so it's not too much of a stretch to sing their praises.

We have used Shutterfly the last 5 years to send out our holiday cards and they have been high quality and low cost. I highly recommend them. Not only do they have great stationery for your cards, but they also have invitations you can use to send out to your holiday parties. great designs and witty phrasings! Each year my in-laws also create a calendar of the year's past events. it's great to have a calendar with people you know on it and a reminder of what you were doing this time last year. So dump Kodak, Snapfish, and whatever service you're using. With Shutterfly, you can't go wrong!

The Final

2010-06-16T12:38:00.000-04:00

lots of exciting things going on here. the search process is heating up and odds are, i will have a call by the end of the summer. that is one reason this post is late.

another reason is because i really don't know what to put. it's been about 6 years since i started blogging here, 8 total years as this blog was spun off of Politik7, a political blog a few (6 to be exact) of my friends and i started back in 2002. i spun this off of P7 to have my own space. P7 went idle and then we decided to delete it, although I do have a word file of all the posts. it is interesting reading those, because where i am now is so far from where i was back then. so i guess i can talk a little about that journey and what i have gained from blogging.

when i started i was hopelessly liberal. Al Franken and i were best buds and we hung out with Mikey Moore and toilet papered Ann Coulter's house ever weekend. i was purely motivated by the injustices of the Bush Administration and had a blind hatred of all things Republican which included Christianity. so i turned Buddhist. a lazy buddhist, a buddhist without a community, a faith gleened from books like "An Idiot's Guide to Buddhism" and "Living Buddha, Living Christ." i described myself as "Spiritual but not religious."

that was during college... i married Kate and we moved away from our protective bubble that surrounds Athens Ohio, and into the DC area. we found we needed a community, so we tried the various churches around and even the Buddhist temple. the temple didn't fit because we, namely I, wasn't Buddhist. i was Christian. and before I could move on to become a Buddhist, i MUST heal my wounds from Christianity which i felt were legion.

the pain of growing up Catholic with a priest who thought my single mom was going to hell.
the slash and burn style of many Christians
the hypocrisy and materialism of "pop" Christianity
and many others... fill in your own...

we found Emmaus and we were at home. and healing had begun. Emmaus was progressive, Open and Affirming, and liberal in thought... however, i came to realize that the wounds i felt i was healing FROM i also happened to be inflicting as well. i was just as closed-minded as the conservatives i was railing against. nor do i think it is healthy to have a theology based over and against something.

seminary has brought a whole new set of considerations as well as a new way of articulating my thoughts. what i have learned in seminary that being "spiritual but not religious" is a cop-out. being spiritual means i can customize any faith tradition to fit my needs. this can result in an extremely misunderstood and colonialist thought system which goes against the original intent of the doctrines, creeds, and ideas i'm smashing together. religion demands something of you. it causes you to change and consider things you would rather not.

so now i find myself religious and spiritual. spiritual and religious. i may fly off on speculative flights of fancy, but i am grounded by my community, my denomination and it's history, and by the wider Christian history. i now think that there is no way one can fully understand US history without considering the church movements. we gotta know this stuff, it has effected us in ways we don't know. example: if your frig is Amada and your silverware Onieda, congrats! you just bought something from a Christian Utopian Movement from the Second Great Awakening! it permeates our culture in ways we can't begin to comprehend.

now you may say "well Luke, that's fine and well and good, but i think you're biased. and what about the separation of church and state?" well, first the separation of church and state deals only with funding meaning that there will be no state-sponsored church. it does not mean prayer should be kept from the public forum. however, if Christians want to keep public prayer public, then they had best get more inclusive and think about their theology inherent in their prayer before spouting off at the next city council meeting. and i am biased. absolutely. i like history. i like knowing why California and Texas and Florida have Spanish style Churches... or why Lancaster PA has a 60% inner-city Puerto Rican Population and what considerations and changes that causes on the wider community.

history leaves marks, scars that never fade.

i've found that while i still lean left, i can communicate much better with those who think different from me. i would now call myself "progressive" which is neither left nor right but forward. i would also say i'm an aspiring "Neo-Orthodox" guy, but still young. still likely to fall back on liberal things, but that's not a good nor bad thing, but a product of who i am and how i came to be.

i am a student of history and have learned to affirm my own.

i've learned i have a slap-dash style of blogging that needs tightening up.

i ain't got the best grammar or speeling, and i never capitalize much. the capitalization is on purpose as i try my best to be humble on here as a reminder not to spout off too much at those i think are crazy.

and i've had my fair share of crazy traffic.

without this blog i would have not known of the gnostic revival thanks to Yuergen, thelema practice, that Marcionites are still around thanks to Beowulf, that Anglicans are the true church, but yet the Jews are still the chosen ones, and that Atheists could have a spiritual side. so a big thanks to many of the crazies who stuck with me and became my good blogging buddies. This goes out to the Anglican Family, Sabio, Cody, Jacq, the canon of Yael, Doug, John T, and Jay Bird, and those 30 some ppl who visit the site but never comment.

thanks for your time and considerations.

thanks for keeping me humble.

thanks for offering your two cents.

thanks for all that you have said and done and please forgive me for anything i have said or done or have not said or done.

if you want to keep in touch, drop me a line at omega[UNDERSCORE]raven AT yahoo DOT com. the part in brackets is this "_" which was done to keep spammers away. i will blog again but in a different setting and under much stricter rules... it won't be done here again. this blog needs retired. i will leave it up for another two weeks and then it will go private.

thanks again and i hope that you find life good and enjoyable. may you feel blessed in however you understand that term. may you serve something bigger than yourself, may you treat others how you wish to be treated. until we meet again... RAWK!!!!!!

Favorites

2010-06-08T10:31:00.000-04:00

I will try to keep my list of favorites brief. I have really enjoyed blogging over the years and I must say that I'm pleasantly surprised to what this blog has turned into. it started off as a place to keep funny links and stupid thoughts i've had while running around the DC metro area. when I decided to go to seminary, the nature of the blog changed. I have tried to report some of what i was learning and considering in seminary and the discussions have been rich. so here are just a few posts that i have enjoyed over the years.

here is the first announcement: the post entitled Get'n My Robe On.

i've posted many poems, but my favorite by far is the Objective Walk. when i read it, i'm immediately transported to those late night walks i took with Sonny as a break from writing whatever paper for whatever class. it is amazing what insights and clarity can be gained by walking your dog.

on an academic, purly theoretical side, i really liked Created Reality. it shows largely how i view the world and what meaning i make out of it. there was a good discussion that followed it. good use of science, TED Talks (yay) and post-modern philosophy and theology.

my favorite journaly-personal happenings style posts, i liked a pair of posts about when my favorite flower pot was stolen. later, i found that a friend down the street took it because she thought it would be funny while she was really drunk. Life Lessons in a Flower Pot is a study in how to look for God in daily life and nonattachment. Water Board Your Friends for Fun and Profit is the follow up post for when the flower pot was returned. it is a funny and ironic rant that is political and theological at the same time... i wish i wrote more posts like it.

two posts that show how others view me and that i read when i'm feeling inadequate are my lay committee evalutation from my time spent as an intern at TRUCC and the letter from Prof. Dr Peter Schmiechen it's good to have those type of things to return to when you feel confused... or in my case, more confused than usual.

finally a reflection on fatherhood entitled How Low is the Bar Set? was pretty cool. i was going to put the debate i had with a conservative christian from Confessions of a Seminarian about "Biblical Masculinity" but i feel that this post does everything that post did without the polemics.

that is just a sampling, short and sweet. do you have any favorites? i could have put a lot more with Eve in there, but i'm attempting to be modest and not too sappy. ;-)

and a small announcement, the next and final post will be next Tuesday. lots going on and i want time to really reflect and say something coherent.

The Faith

2010-06-03T06:46:00.000-04:00

over the course of seminary, i sure have changed, but i've stayed the same in many ways too.here's what i know:

i am still dismayed at the actions of my more conservative brothers and sisters in the faith. the far-right bothers me to no end and i don't know how to reach them.

the far left, i've discovered, is no better. they are equally closed-minded and intolerant. however, if i had to pick between the two, i'd head left because they wouldn't blow anything up or kill anyone. they would just brow-beat you into submission, albeit very politely.

i've found that Church History is very important and has contributed much to science, ethics, and sociology. it's very important to know religious history in the US, IMHO. we're in the midst of it right now as we speak, and history has been shaped by the two Great Awakenings that happened in this country. the conservative Neo-Evangelical movement currently going on is but a re-hashing of these two movements in a variety of ways.

liberal Christianity gets no press and that's a shame. and if liberal Christianity gets no press, the progressive form is getting even less... progressive is the "emergent" label, one could say, that it is neither right nor left but forward. those like Johnny Baker, Rob Bell, Peter Rollins, Brian McLaren, and Phillis Tickle are great reads and speak to all sides of the theological spectrum.

i realized just how much of a pastor i really am, thanks to CPE and my internship at a local church.

i found out that i'm really a Christian... well i'm becoming one any how. it's a process that's continual and unfinished. but i really can't answer the question to why.... is it because i was raised in the culture? because i find similar themes in my personal narrative as in the gospel narratives? because i'm inherently tribal and want to fit in? further more, how am i to judge what is a Christian and what isn't? who sets the standard?

what works for me maybe totally insufficient for someone else. the overwhelming experience i've had may leave another totally cold and unconvinced. so there is really no rational argument i can construct that would be all telling and universal. i can only answer as Jurgen Moltmann did in his book, Experiences of God and state that I am a Christian for Christ's sake.

i feel that the basis of my faith (defined as the "substance of things hoped for") is liberation for the oppressed, a wake up call to those asleep, and love of neighbor as ourselves as well as a love of a "higher ideal" that is beyond us and cannot be put to utilitarian purposes. it is good in and of itself. i call this higher ideal God and feel that it's more than a human construct. you can disagree. but i hope we can find a shared meaning and purpose to our lives regardless of belief.

The Fall

2010-06-01T12:20:00.000-04:00

The Fall has been a sticking point for me in Christian thought. I never really got it. How the fall was explained to me growing up, is that we are all punished for the disobedience shown by Adam and Eve in the garden of eden from eating the fruit (usually depicted as an apple) from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I rejected this outright saying that it was, bluntly, stupid and of no use.

however, during seminary i had an existential crisis around spring semester. how it happened is not important, but what it showed me was my painful transition from how i used to think to how i think now. i used to think people were fundamentally good and if we just gave them the right tools, the right education, they would improve and the world would be a better place. i no longer believe that. i think people are mixed bag (best articulated in my elevator version post).

then in August, i wrote A Fallen Letter which came from reading Irenaeus of Lyons writing on the subject. that was helpful. Now i'm reading "Moral Man and Immoral Society" by Reinhold Niebuhr and I like his take. It lines up with my own.

To Reinhold Niebuhr, the myth of the Fall expresses or discloses this situation of ourselves and of all other humans: in each the fault of all, in all the fault of each. Thus this story is “true” but not “literally true.” as it’s not an actual historical event. it discloses, but it does not explain, our situation.

I’m on board with this after much struggling to understand the doctrine of the fall. i denied it, i hated it, but after 3 years of seminary, i’ve lived it. you think if anyone could get it right and live in community, it’d be seminarians. that’s not the case, we’re just as bad as everyone else and subject to the same faults.

so i now view humanity a little differently than i did 3 years ago. i think we're largely an unfinished as a species. we have poor instincts and we have to be taught a great deal more than other animal species. also, unlike other species, we have great imaginations that can create worlds unto themselves even while dying. we have the capacity for great good as well as great evil. it is my hope, and the hope of all Christians, that we all become more Christ-like: radically welcoming the outsider, conscious and humble of our own sins, living to serve others.

that's where i'm at now.

The Final Four

2010-05-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

Gearing up for the last four posts which will happen over these next two weeks.here's what the posts will be about:

The Fall- where i talk my struggle with the Christian doctrine that has confused me the most over the years and what i think of it now.

The Faith- where i was and where I am now.

The Favorites- some favorite posts over the years

The Final- where i write something awesome and touching and you cry at you computer.... or maybe not...

stay tuned dear readers!

LOST

2010-05-26T12:12:00.000-04:00

i love the tv show LOST. my buddy Jason got me hooked on it around at the beginning of the third season and it's been one of our favorite shows ever. between that and the new Battlestar Galactica, we were in tv heaven.
i've resisted posting too much on it until now, so if you don't want to read any spoilers, read no further.

seriously.

don't read if you think you'll watch the show....

you sure?

okay... here we go...

wait, really? you're not going to watch it? or have you already... okay, i'll quit stalling...

i love the whole narrative of LOST, it has something for everyone. it is very post-modern this way as it largely could be experience in a variety of ways. if you like drama, it had it. action, tons! mystery, how 'bout a big freak'n smoke monster, Egyptian statues, a 1800's ship thousands of yards inland, and strange science stations littered around the island protected by a mysterious group of "natives." but largely, the narrative was character driven, so however you watched it, it had to be done with the characters and their connections and relationships in mind.

LOST can't be categorized either. it had everything. " 'Lost' is in a class by itself," ABC's programming chief, Jeff Bader, said this week in this WashingtonPost article. "It is the most successful cult show ever." so what the hell was it about?

I think the show was offering us a big ol' allegory, for everything! The primary one is on how life should be lived. Namely an ongoing effort to understand each other and ourselves and this can only happen to it's fullest when undertaken with a community of people. a plane crashes, people meet up and figure out how the live together. their motto is "live together, die alone." and that was initially in reference to, "live with us and behave, or go out and get killed by a polar bear, the smoke monster, or the Others." but i understand that differently now.

we live together, we are defined by our relationships. yet no one can tell us who we are, we make our own narrative. yet we don't do this alone, we intersect and get feedback and such. we come into the narrative, the conversation, and it's already going on, and it will continue long after we're gone. who started it? not important. what is it about? about life itself. about what's real and what's worth paying attention to, how we should live and what "this" is all about. when we have listened long enough, we may enter in and vigorously discuss. but everyone does, articulately or un, explicitly or implicitly, live in relationship to the conversation. and after all our striving and figuring out, and trying to understand this existence comes to a close, we die alone.

yet not alone. we are surrounded by our memories of those who have come before us, and maybe, just maybe, we may find that the exact same people we lived with, already there, waiting on us. at least, that is my hope, some don't believe this, but Lost puts it in there and i like it.

the show was an awesome riff on Apokatastasis as everyone is together and reconsiled at the end. what we know is that there was a plane crash, people survived and lived together for a time. there is also a "side-ways universe" where they meet again and remember the island and everything that happened on it. it turns out that this place of meeting is an after-life, a place to reconnect and remember. and they move on from there.

this story gets us to ask many questions, and the questions we ask about "the island" are the exact questions we ask ourselves today. the main three at 1. what is the island? 2. why are they on it? 3. what happens when they leave? this can be translated to 1. what is existence? 2. why are we here? 3. what happens when we die? these are important questions... much like the ones Al raises on his most recent post.

i loved the "inclusio" in the finale. Lost started with an extreme close-up of Jack opening his eye and ended with him closing it. that was a bit of poetry and really stuck with me. great narrative move by the writers.

I like how this EWonline Article summed it up:

Lost is asking ''what if?'' What if our actions on this planet counted against some eternal reckoning? How does that possibility change things for you? If that possibility does inspire you to live a better life, then... how? And even before then, what is a ''better life''? Is it doing ''good''? But what is ''good''? Lost doesn't have answers for these questions and the others that they raise — it's just demanding that we ask them and discuss them. Together. Are we? Are you? Am I? Do you even have a choice?

There is a lot to chew on. There are also many questions left unanswered, some of which aren't really all that important. what is important is the relationships formed during the time these people were alive. they were with each other on the journey, and still are. and they may forever be as far as we know.

More Orthodox than I look... Thoughts on Marcion

2010-05-24T16:30:00.001-04:00

I recently posted a paper on the Old Testament and was visited by Beowulf, who identifies as a Marcionite. He had some interesting things to say and after researching my books (Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, Justo Gonzalez's The Story of Chrsitianity, and Bart Ehrman's The New Testament) as well as looking at his site and claims, I am finding that I'm much more orthodox than i look. Here's how:

I affirm and intersect with the following historians, all who wrote against Marcion in one way or another:

Irenaeus of Lyons thought that the crown of creation is humanity, and is a free and responsible being. The purpose of our lives is to enjoy an ever-growing communion with our creator, but on the other hand, the human creature is not made from the beginning in is final perfection. Instead, we are guided by God to become the perfect human which is found in Jesus Christ. God's purpose is to make us ever more like the divine, and thus Genesis was no the goal of creation, just it's beginning. so for Irenaeus, there is a fall, but it is a fall upwards.

Clement of Alexandria steps up and mixes the Jewish Law with Gentile Philosophy. he is convinced that there is only one truth since God is one and thus would be the truth and the classical philosophers and prophets were one in the same and were pointing to the ultimate truth of God. the texts have more than one meaning and the literal sense, while important, isn't the only way as the meanings beyond the texts that the truly wise must discover. God cannot be described in human words, only in metaphor and in negative terms, and human language can do no more than point to a reality that is beyond its grasp. pretty post-modern for a dude living around 215 CE huh?

Then up steps Tertullian of Carthage, the heretic hunter and bane of Marcion. he's legalistic and rigid and sets up inflexible doctrines. Anglican Boy would really get a thrill out of this guy's writing cause he's a lawyer, and a really good one at that. so much so that Tertullian despises speculation as he states:

Seek until you find, but once you find, you are to believe. Thereafter, all you have to do is hold to what you have believed. Besides this, you are to believe that there is nothing further to be believed, nor anything else to be sought.

Tertullian and i would not have gotten along. however, he's overwhelming in his case the incarnation stating how a suffering God is one unique to the Judeo-Christian scriptures. we are to seek what God as done and not speculate on what God could do or has in store and we can only do this through the use of the Gospel's and what the Gospels rest on, namely the prophets and the OT. he writes that Jesus and the God of Israel are not only one and the same, but the Christian God is the Jewish God and then resorts to saying how Christians now "own" the OT. i don't like that step, but i do like how informed and knowledgeable Tertullian is of midrash, the Talmud, and the rabbinic literature; not something i see too many church father's having, Marcion included.

In writing against Marcion he askes what good is Marcion's god. The God of the church and the OT made the entire world and all its wonders, whereas Marcion's god has not created a single vegetable.what was Marcion's god doing before the last revelation? Is this love just a quick affair?

thus it is with this type of inflexible logic and mordant irony that Tertullian writes against Marcion, Praxeas, and Demetritus and becomes the "champion of orthodoxy."

then up steps Origen of Alexandria who notes that there are more than one creation story in the bible. he focuses specifically on the two in Genesis, which wasn't really a big deal because the Jewish scholars were writing about this long before Origen gets around to it. the spin he puts on it was that the first creation was purely spiritual, and the second physical. Origen found a God who wants us to return to our spiritual home but yet know the pain and joy of a physical life. in the end, we'll all be reunited in universal reconciliation, since God is love. he even goes as far as to state that even Satan will be saved. there will be judgment, but more in the fact that we must admit that we haven't lived up to our higher ideals, that our potential wasn't fully reached. afterall, Jesus' first call was for us to "repent and believe the kingdom was close at hand." he expounds beautifully on that, where as Marcion had no judgment at all in his theology.

whereas Marcion had a profound dislike towards both Judaism and the material world and thus developed an understanding of Christianity that was both anti-Jewish and anti-material (Gonzalez 61). Jesus had some hidden knowledge or revelation that showed that his God was a God of love whereas the Jewish God was a God of Justice-and arbitrary justice at that. He sought to establish a benevolent God where no acts of genocide, war, or choosing one group over another are attributed to him. just as the fundamentalists decry today, you can't pick and choose, and thus the OT was the word of an inferior god and should not be read nor used as the basis for Christian instruction. Paul and Luke became the core message of Jesus' life; yet even then Marcion rejected or radically reinterpreted the doctrines of creation, incarnation and resurrection; namely Jesus appeared as a grown man during the reign of Tiberius, there is no judgement in his message, and God is absolutely loving and offers free grace. sounds an awful lot like J. Denny Weaver, James Allison, and other adherents to nonviolent atonement.

Marcion may have been onto something, but questions of theodicy are never so easily solved. he seems to miss the "more-than-literal" readings that both Origen and Clement spoke about. he dismisses the incarnation with a docetic model. he is anti-semetic (not that Tertullian or many of the church fathers weren't) but worse, he's anti-material. no love of human emotions or urges has he, he makes Augustine look like a hedonist.

what i read in Beo's writings as well as other "reconstructionist" movements like the Toltec, Gnostic, and Hellenistic writings is a desire to do away with the bad parts of history, and pick out only the good. to say "that wasn't me" and not allow oneself to be implicated in history. but you are. like it or not, if you're white in the US, you're condemned for slavery. if you're male, sexism. if Christian, crusades and "slash-and-burn" fundamentalism. we're not pure. not ever.

it's no secret that people use all sorts of crap to justify their bad behavior or exploitive practices. God and reason, religion and science are all co-opted to betray our best intentions.

this is humanity. it's flawed. we're strange and dangerous and we hurt each other. but this is our doing. the desire to hide the nakedness of our greed and our natures in "polite" society on serves to veil the brutal facts of human life from itself. the inevitable hypocrisy which is associated with all collective activities of the human race, springs chiefly from this source: that individuals have a moral code which makes the actions of collective humanity an outrage to their conscience.

i think it's in the OT that we get the best insights into the outrage of the human character as well as our surprising redemptive and altruistic intentions. we get stories of resistance and subversive communal living within the limitations of all that it means to be human. of which, Jesus is grounded in and exemplifies. one without the other doesn't work, IMO.

World Religions Final Part Three

2010-05-20T11:59:00.000-04:00

Ethics
Can we claim which paths are rabbit trails or authentic? This seems to be the primary concern of the mega-church. A quick test is to look at the measure of love of God, neighbor or self. But how could we really with any integrity? It would be like a climber speaking with authority about paths on the other side of the mountain that he has never been on. The climber may read about these paths in books or have talked to another climber on that particular side. This then, would prove to the climber that all paths seem to be heading to the same place. But any serious climber knows that only those who have climbed the path can speak with authority about where it leads and how it gets there. Once again, to say that there are "other mountains" is a poly-mountain idea and I'm only talking in a mono-mountain context. Nor is it good to assume that all are going up. Taoism seems to state that we should be content with where we are an interact naturally and non-utilitarian with our contexts and those we find in it. The Abrahamic faiths are the ones that seem most concerned about getting to the top and pondering what’s up there. The point being, we should listen to one another and hear what they have to say about their journey.

If people of other faiths want to swap faithful stories of their path and journey up the mountain, then great! In fact, I get a better handle on my faith when I hear these stories. If people of other faiths with whom we are in dialog decide to convert to our path as a result of this sharing, fine! However, conversion is not the ultimate purpose here of interfaith dialogue, sharing the joy and wisdom gleaned from our climbing experience is.

All We Have Is Metaphor
Religions are like art, poetry, not science. It is after spiritual truths and seeking the best way to live, one that is in tune with a wider and more transcendent reality. I don’t know what to call this, so throughout this paper I have called it God, even though I recognize that other religions don’t have this concept. All we really have is metaphor to describe this experience. Hell, that’s all we have to describe anything! The word apple isn’t the essence of the little red/green/gold thing that grows on trees.

I'm reminded on a Joseph Campbell story about a tribe in Australia whose social order was maintained with the aid of bullroarers which are long flat boards with a couple of slits cut in them and a rope tied at one end. They are swung around over one's head and the low humming sound is other worldly. When the gods were angry the men of the tribe would sound the bullroarers in the woods at night. No one in the tribe knew this of course. The males of the tribe would explain why the gods were angry and what behavior had to change. In the initiation rite of young men into manhood in the tribe is very violent and bloody. Its culmination is the revelation to the boy by the chief priest of "We make the noises."

I believe we do. The noises we make are us trying to attach meaning to the experience of living. Most noises are self-generated and self-interpreted in this model and it seems to be about control. I have no interest in this. My future ministry will be about trying to get behind the buzz of the bullroars and experience the true sounds of the world. Sometimes God is in the thunderstorm, or earthquake, but often God is in the nothing. Just a still small voice in the wilderness. My ministry will be trying to get behind the feedback and attach some meaning to the shared existence of the community I will serve based on the tradition we come out of, namely Christianity. I also naturally tend to look at the similarities between not only my denomination and act ecumenically, but also bring in interfaith dialog. I base this on the shear fact that I share this existence on this planet and it could have been otherwise.

We are made of stardust and tied to the universe. Life on earth is very linked and interconnected. Authoritative claims take away this connection and the church has been a large part of this. So this leads me to think that there's something behind it all... some higher order behind the chaos. I call this something God. Which leads me to a different take on the incarnation: What if we are the incarnated universe trying to figure itself out?

So with that in mind we're called to wrestle and figure it out not make super vague claims like "Jesus is the answer PERIOD" like the mega-church would say. Nor say "There is no god, objective empiricism is the only way to go" like the stalwart atheists do. We are not objective, and while we may have some access to the facts, our brains can’t connect them all as we are very limited. There is an emotional and spiritual side that must be accounted for and atheists often miss this or don’t put enough emphasis on it.

We humans are making noises to try to understand the infinite. We are putting up boundaries on something that cannot be bound and what we place there should only be looked through into the grand divine. I too will look for wisdom where I find it whether in Taoist, Buddhist, Islamic, or one of the other of the world’s great religions. The way I see it, Jesus taught from somewhere between 1 and 3 years. The records we have are spotty at best and completely spun or even fabricated toward a particular editorial slant at worst. Jesus didn’t and couldn’t have taught a comprehensive view and this becomes apparent when Christianity is compared to the vast teachings of the Buddha’s 40 year career.

What I do know is that religion can make all the dogmas and doctrines it wants, the divine won't be contained. It's knocking over fences, crossing property lines. I am compelled to follow.

World Religions Final Part Two

2010-05-19T11:58:00.001-04:00

Views of God
What I now see this dispute boiling down to is a fundamental disagreement on the nature of God. There are at least two different concepts for thinking about God, and both are found in the Bible and the Christian tradition. The first conceptualizes God as a supernatural being “out there” and separate from the world. This being created the world a long time ago and who may from time to time intervene within it, but largely is absent. This doesn’t keep God from demanding conformity and adherence to the Law passed down in the holy writ. In important sense this God is far and distant from our shores, is unchanging and can be fully known and experienced directly but only if the belief is correct and mediated by some hierarchy or holy writ or tradition. This is the God of Supernatural Theism. It is widespread within the Christian tradition and found also in Judaism and Islam, and could it be the majority thought of those who think about God (both believers and non). Some accept the existence of such a being, and some reject it but it is the notion of God as a supernatural being “out there” that is being accepted or rejected. I think that this first notion of God is nice, and served us well but belief in this style of God must be done away with as it cannot serve and only brings harm. It is Biblical yes, but not all of the Bible presents this vision of God. This idea of God is what I hear when conservatives speak. Deconverts from the faith, atheists and agnostics, who I’ve talked to state this model as the type of God they don’t believe in… and neither to I.

The second concept of God in the Christian tradition is quite different. God is the encompassing’ Spirit: we and everything’ that is be in God. God is not “out there” separate from the universe but rather; God is a nonmaterial layer or level or dimension of reality all around us. God is more than the universe yet the universe is in God. This is the concept of God called “panentheism.” God’s self-revelation is given and received in an earthly, worldly, human way. God is never directly present to us in self-revelation, and no one ever had a direct, personal relationship with God. God comes to us and we can know God only indirectly. It is in this indirect way that we come to know and enter into a personal relationship with God. God’s being is so different from our humanity, yet God is in us and through us, so all that we see and all that we are all parts of God yet God is bigger than the sum of all. We also know that people yearn to see God’s face and have some irrefutable evidence, like Moses and even the disciples of Christ, but “No one can see My face and live” God says to Moses and Jesus says “If you have seen me, you have seen my Father.”

Panentheism implies that God is not just close, but in and through everything. We are a part of God, yet God is still separate. God is with us and daily bears our burdens and yet is transcendent. God is with us and in us, in our midst when we pray alone with the doors shut or when two or more are gathered. There is no line between sacred and secular just like at the end of the Gospel of Mark where the curtain is torn in the temple, signifying a God which can’t be boxed, can’t be contained, and in and through all of creation. Therefore I affirm the omnipresence of God, but not the omnipotence of God. I think omnipotence of God was a bad move made in the 14th century by medieval theologians. This raises all sorts of pointless questions like “Can God create a rock so big God can’t lift it?” Instead, I prefer to view God as “omnipotentiality.” This view can be found in Exodus 3:14, right when Moses asks God for God’s name and gets the reply of “YHWH.” This has many possible meanings and for me, they are all true. YHWH could mean “I AM HE WHO IS", “HE WHO CAUSES TO BE,”"I AM WHO AM" or "I AM WHAT I AM" or “I will be what I will become.”

In Exodus 31, Moses asks to see the face of God. God tells Moses to crawl into a cave and God will put ‘his’ hand over the opening and Moses will be able to “See my behind.” This is a literal translation of the Hebrew. A deeper translation would be, “you will see where I was.” Not even Moses could see God in the present. This is a God we get only glimpses of. These highly personal encounters are still filled with mystery and, although we may experience God’s love, justice, spirit, or forgiveness directly, we should never take it for the totality of God.

Communities of God
Community is a big deal in both Testaments and in all of the world religions we studied this semester. Religions seek to answer the question “how then shall we live?” and each comes up with a different answer as they also define a different problem that spawns that question. Christianity sees that humans have fallen out of relationship with God and need to change it while Buddhism sees the problem as suffering caused by desire from grasping at a world that isn’t there. Taoists see people who are out of tune with their own natures and Islam sees humanity as not being in submission with the will of God. All of these are plausible answers, and depending on how one’s community views life and the problems associated with it, they will use different language to articulate this. I note how each religion never comes out and states that the fundamental problem with the world is that everyone is not like us. It is nowhere in the founding documents or speeches of various religious movements. Islam comes the closest with talk of putting infidels to the sword but they have grace with the “people of the book.” There is a difference between missional and imperial. But what happens when people don’t adopt your faith? What happens when religions come into conflict?

Many Christians, like the mega-church, seek to save people from the fires of hell and feel they do so out of love. However, many of their actions are imperial, which is the very notion I view Jesus as fighting against. Jesus fought against the imperial actions of the Roman Empire as well as a more localized system which dehumanized its own members, namely the Temple System. What I view Jesus teaching primarily, is that there is no such thing as a personal relationship with God without a personal relationship with our fellow human beings.

The driving force behind Christian colonialism is John 14:6. This verse is interpreted as: "I am the (only) way, the (only) truth, and the (only) life, no one (absolutely no one) comes to the Father/God, except through me (by believing specific beliefs that are Christian ).” I liked what we learned in class, that through a panentheistic and Trinitarian view, this verse becomes:
"God is the way, the truth and the life, no one gets to God except through God."

Jesus isn't calling for these sheep to change shepherds; he is trying to get us to recognize that the human family is one flock, with one shepherd. What he is NOT saying is "different strokes for different folks" nor is he saying "anyone can worship the god of one's choice, it's all good, no matter what." Which faiths? They aren't identified. We may surmise that faiths that truly follow the one Shepherd actively promote the love of God, neighbor, and self as Jesus did. Jesus also states that people shouldn't worry about what path others are on. He demonstrates time and time again throughout the Gospels for his disciples to concentrate on walking their own path and offering hospitality to those they meet on along the way. The Good Samaritan parable is the core here image here with answering the question of “who is my neighbor?” with a big and surprising “EVERYONE!”

So given this, it is naive for a practitioner of any faith to claim that theirs is the only "true" path. Religions do this to garner power over those too fearful to think in this way. Now there is a difference between best path for a person to take, so long as this claim is on an individual level or at the very most a tribal level. Becoming deeply rooted in the tradition of the tribe, one is then able to act in a more universal way, as they have a strong sense of identity and are not threatened by other beliefs outside their experience. It is also my hope that these people investigate other religions and not just for the sake of putting their own faith above it or gathering apologetic fodder. There's no shame in this and in fact it leads to a better understanding of our fellow persons. My childhood priest was a Jesuit and stated that one of the best ways you can know your faith is to encounter another. We can see how our faith takes a unique approach to problems and how these intersect, conflict with, or can even be informed by another faith.

World Religions Final

2010-05-18T07:54:00.002-04:00

this paper was written this year but explores two old posts on the blog. the first being

Can there be one way to God? and the second To Clarify the Mountain here is my updated take on it, posted over three days. please check back!

World Religions Final

I am writing this paper on how I will use what I learned in the world religions class in my future ministry. I will have to get creative here as I have always planned on using world religions in my future ministry, specifically Buddhism. The purpose of this paper is to explore how my views of world religions have changed. This paper will be a conversation with my past-self, based on two blog posts I wrote at the beginning of seminary.

The blog post was written on 12/11/07 after reading about how Christianity is the best religion and how ONLY Christianity has the truth. It was written by the pastor of a mega-church my sister was attending. My sister asked me for my thoughts and I responded. It is a rather long post, so I will just hit the highlights in this paper and then see how I relate to it today, after taking my world religion’s class. I will then conclude by how I intend to use world religions in my future ministry.

The Mountain Metaphor
The mega-church attacked the “mountain metaphor.” The metaphor states that major world religions are like hikers climbing up different sides of a mountain. Each tradition has discovered a unique route for reaching the top. In the case of Christianity and others, they have found a new route off of another (Judaism) established way up the mountain. Now while these hikers are climbing, they cannot necessarily see one another. Individuals within the climbing parties may not even be aware that others are ascending the mountain as they may think they are making the ascent alone. Yet when they reach the top, the climbers are surprised to find one another. Each party has reached the same goal by a different route. I added the caveat to the metaphor that each path adds its own boundaries which define the path, thus taking a deontological ethical view of the groups and stating that all unethical routes cannot reach the top.
The mega-church claimed that this was religious relativism and that not all paths were seeking the top nor defining the top in any way that could be widely agreed upon so, they concluded, it obviously meant that there are different mountains. It is the Christian mountain that is of the most importance as the other mountains were false or didn’t reach as high. I argued back on the basis of relativism is a scientific fact, but now I see the metaphor differently. I still view relativism as an important factor but that was not the basis I should have argued on. I should have argued on the basis of what the mountain represents. In my understanding, the mountain symbolizes earth. All of the different faiths are all on the same mountain and they must learn to get along or the mountain will quickly become an unhappy place. There is an assumption that there is only one mountain since if things were not going well, people could simply find another mountain to be on; one free of the group that troubles them. I would love to find a mountain free of religious fundamentalists; however, this is not the case. Seeing as all the hikers are on the same mountain it presupposes that there is only one context in that the metaphor can operate. We can’t go to another planet; we are forced to figure out how to peacefully coexist with other faiths.

The mega-church countered that the roads are on different mountains as they lead in fundamentally different directions and end on completely different summits. They went so far as to state the summits are different (false) gods. I found it ironic that a Christian church would try this route as this argument by its very nature is polytheistic. There is no accounting for anthropological and theological evolution and history. The argument doesn't take into effect agnostic or “atheistic” faiths like Buddhism or Taoism which do indeed have many deities, but no overarching “creator” of the ultimate. The church also didn’t take into account the gods that came before the Jewish God was ever thought of. By that same argument, we then would still be on the losing side of the argument as our Christian God is actually the Jewish God in three parts which somehow equal one.

I asked in the post as to whether God would allow for different routes, each with its own integrity. A Buddhist may find a way to the top through withdrawal from the world, while a Christian may find it through immersion into the world on behalf of justice. Wouldn't God be in both places if God is everywhere and created everything? The church stated no, there can be only one right way, and that way is the “narrow way” of Jesus. I countered that the routes up the mountain engage different terrain, with different obstacles and challenges, different vistas, and different places of rest. This fact illustrates that God's plan for the world is larger than our human minds can comprehend. Despite significant differences of approach to God, we are all included in God's love, which exceeds beyond our wildest imagination.

My view then and now accounts that God would only speak to people in a language that they would understand, using images pulled from their natural context. In that sense, God is relative. It would make no sense if Jesus came and talked about germ theory or the placebo effect while he was healing people as it would make no sense to them. He, taking the view that Jesus is indeed divine somehow, would have to talk about disease-as-demonic-possession as that is how people in the context understood disease. Maybe he did talk about germ theory and such but because the eye-witnesses had no idea what he was talking about and so it didn’t make it to the Gospels but that is my speculation.

GRADUATION!

2010-05-15T00:50:00.001-04:00

After three years, today is the day!

An Old Find: What does the Old Testament have to offer the Church/Individual

2010-05-13T08:42:00.000-04:00

written May 5, 2008, from my second semester. I thought it would be cool to post something from the end of my first year here to see how i match up with it at the end of my last year. surprisingly, i still agree! enjoy!

Discussion Paper: What does the Old Testament have to offer the Church/Individual?

The Old Testament has much to offer the church and humanity in general. This paper will first define what the Old Testament is, make a modern parallel and then explain what it has to offer the modern reader.

The Old Testament is a collection of theological myths and stories from the Israelite nation. These are historical books but not histories. The writers of these stories are reflecting on their history and trying to find both reasons and God’s role in their events. What then could we compare this to? Surely nothing in our modern context would be like this as we’re concerned with facts, not myths!

But we are. I think my first book will be called, The Bible of America; Holy Myths and Fiction of American History. From George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, to the life of a cowboy, we are steeped in myth and urban legends. Stories like Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley are American myths. These characters are told to us in our childhood and teach us about what our country holds dear. These stories do have a historical basis, but the myths and folklore add to that basis and bring out what is true about America. We even have myths about our founding fathers! Stories of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams abound, even though we have their original letters that dispel many of these myths. The Old Testament does this same thing for the nation of the Israelites.

The stories we hold tell a lot about us. The fact that we hold stories shows that we’re not too far removed from our ancient brothers and sisters. We try to make sense of the world through stories. Reading the Old Testament this year has shown me that we have some very similar concerns and reactions to our day to day living. The concerns are the same: how to raise a family, how to live “right”, what concerns are worth having, what cultural identity means, will our culture be over run by another and such like. The expressions of those concerns are what separate us from our ancient brothers and sisters. There is also word choice (Bible is patriarchic and largely misogynist), context (we have the internet and are not farmers, etc), history (we Americans were the underdog but now are the empire, Israeli’s were largely the underdog), and other such matters that separate us as well, but the similarities are still amazing to behold.

Some look at the Old Testament and say it only supports the New. I can see the argument here but remind those supporters that the New was written with the Old in mind, not the other way around. Some look at it and see a culture rife with violence and sexism. Turning on American TV, I see the same thing. Our culture is just as violent as theirs, if not more so. Others would say that these people are barbaric and legalistic. I would counter that the complexities of our laws vastly out-weigh the TANAK’s "legalism." We are just as much victims of circumstance as they are. Some look at it and see a bunch of stories with no facts. I would say that the facts don’t always hold the truth. When we see the connection between our ancestors and our modern context, we are engaged in a holy activity. We recognize our connection to the past in hopes of figuring out our future. We are then able to see God’s work in both.

LTS Senior Skit

2010-05-11T07:42:00.000-04:00

here is our senior skit, i'm in there a few times. it was written by my good friend KT (the narrator) and really gives a flavor of our seminary. lots of inside jokes, but still some good stuff. enjoy!

I dunno, but it has something to to with race.

2010-05-05T07:17:00.000-04:00

I was walking my Sonny and Eve just the other day and something strange happened. i'm used to it. i get into strange conversations all the time and have random encounters walking around Lancaster. It's really quite fun and interesting! this recent encounter was not fun but it is interesting. first, some set up:

my dog Sonny is a 75lb greyhound who is really friendly. often when we're walking around he does this little side-to-side dance and pulls up his teeth in a "friendly smile." many people are put off by this as Sonny forgets that 2" fangs aren't endearing to humans. he's frightened many people on our walks so i try to avoid this as much as possible on our walks.

which brings me to our story for today: i was walking down the street and saw an African-American woman on her cell-phone sitting on some steps to my right. I notice Sonny start into his little "YAY! PEOPLE!" greeting dance and decide to push him over so he's walking on the curb, well away from the woman who is chatting away, facing the opposite direction. the last thing i wanted was her to turn around into a giant, gapping dawg maw. i mean do you really wanna turn and see THIS?! -->

so i pass the woman and hear her say something, but figure it's to the person who she's on the phone with. I walk a few more steps and she says, "I'm TALKING to you!" I glance back over my shoulder and she's staring right at me. I'm a bit shocked. so i say, "I'm sorry, I thought you were on the phone, you were talking to me?"

she states into her phone, "I'm gonna have to call you back." then to me, "Yeah. I SAID you too good to share the sidewalk with a black person?!"

i'm befuddled. i'm confused. i'm shocked. i don't get it. so i said, "Umm... no. I just didn't want him to startle you, you were on the phone after al..."

She cuts in "WELL YOU THINK ALL BLACK PEOPLE ARE AFRAID OF DOGS?"

"?" my face says as I'm literally too stunned for words.... "I...."

"That is a stereotype you know." she states.

"Well... every black person I know has a dog save for one family, but they just moved in. That doesn't make any sense..." i reply.

"MMMM-HMMM.." She states with a head-wiggle and an angry look on her face.

i pause, she still looks pissed, i feel my flight-response kick in and i say, "well, i'm sorry for the offense. I didn't mean anything. you take care now." and i walk away.

She gets up and walks across the street, dialing on her cell phone.

i have no idea what happened here, but i'm pretty sure it has something to do with race. in hindsight i could have said, "Oh sorry, would you like to pet him?" or just launch into funny things about him and his stats like "he was a racer in Daytona Beach FL, rescued from Greyhound Welfare, he's 8 and really likes people. he also does this funny "roach" thing where i think he's beaming up the mother ship. This is my daughter Eve, she's 13 months, and what's your name?"

i read in YES! magazine how one youth program that focuses on race actually had to teach the youth the stereotypes so that they could then teach them how to overcome them. i thought this was really stupid and backwards, but after this encounter i think they might be right.

how would you responded? what was going on here? any insights? helpful responses?

The Christology of John 10:11-15

2010-05-04T06:58:00.000-04:00

recently i posted Christological Categories and now i would like to show how these would go together while reading the bible. This is taken from my paper for class, i hope it shows how to use these categories as a means of interpretation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the Christology in the passage of John 10: 11-15. I will explain how I will be reading this passage, what the basic image of Jesus is in the passage and how it makes me feel. I will then determine what doctrines of the atonement and person of Christ that would be compatible with this image.

Method

The method of exploring this scripture is a new one for me since coming to seminary. I will be operating on a purely subjective methodology that will focus solely on the image presented and my reactions to it. This means no looking into the literary analysis or putting the text through the critical method. I will be operating on a purely subjective methodology that will focus solely on the image presented and my reactions to it. This is to help focus my thoughts and feelings in a Lectio Divina style meditation on this passages and what associations it brings up to the readings that were assigned for class.

Thoughts and Feelings

On my first reading of the passage, I felt secure, taken care of. I would hope to be in this flock and that I would be protected by this shepherd. Then I started thinking “What the hell kind of shepherd is this?! I don’t want the shepherd to die for the sheep; I want him to beat the snot out of the wolf with his crooked stick! Where was he during the wolf attack? Does he not interview well if the hired help runs away? Doesn’t seem like a good shepherd to me!” Then I started noticing the details of the story and image.

Jesus is not just a shepherd but a “good” one. There is a hired hand there but he had no ownership of the sheep and ran away when trouble started. Jesus not only owns the sheep but cares for them as well. This suggests that Jesus is more than “just” a shepherd but THE shepherd, as this is a popular description of God and God’ relationship with Israel. The flock is scattered and a wolf has attacked, apparently not while the “good shepherd” was around but instead when the hired hand was around, who allowed the attack to happen and ran off to save his own hide. Unlike that hired hand, the good shepherd will lay down his life, meaning he may lose, but he will fight to the death. It doesn’t say that the shepherd will win against the wolf or that the flock will be brought together, but there is a sense of commitment and relationship between the sheep and shepherd.

Jesus criticizes the Pharisees just before this passage for not being good leaders and bringing great harm to the people. Jesus condemns them as bad shepherds – shepherds who hurt the flock. The Pharisees then, according the author of John, were these cowardly shepherds who wanted the wage but were unwilling to pay the price. I am taking ministerial ethics and this reminds me about spiritual abuse and how to cope with the damage spiritual leaders can leave. These abuses come from self-serving pastors with bad boundaries, or boundaries that only serve themselves. A spiritual leader who’s looking out for him or herself will not make sacrifices because it costs them something. It would be akin to a pastor getting rave reviews and having the people feel that they are cared for, but at the first sign of an external threat, like a financial crisis the pastor splits. Jesus isn’t looking out for himself, he’s looking out for us and so he makes sacrifices that cost him everything.

When I understand the phrase in that context with those considerations, I am more open to it. I feel safe or at least safer in comparison to the hired hand. A tragedy has befallen the flock, a traditional metaphor for Israel and the leadership that was around at the time was not enough and proved to be self-serving. The owner is now gathering the flock and repairing the harmed caused. I imagine Christ as a shepherd knowing each of his sheep by name, checking each sheep at the end of the day, inspecting and bandaging all the places where they are wounded. He remembers that and comes back to check and mend as often as they need it. This image is one of total care and protection.

Atonement and Christological Implications

John 10 is a sacrificial model. It is pretty straight forward as it is said twice that the “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (15:11,15). To whom or to what and why is uncertain. Presumably to the wolf or maybe the whole life is spent tending to the sheep, and therefore that is what is meant by laying down one’s life. It could be said that pastors lay down their life for the wider church as that is what they will spend most of their life doing. In this understanding, postal carriers would lay down their lives for the delivery of mail to use another example. This would be akin to someone who would dedicate their life (give up in a sense) to a cause, like Saving Private Ryan, for example. I do not think that is what the passage is directly point to, although it is part of it.

The problem is not that humanity needs to be bought back from someone nor that victory will be gained over the wolf. The sheep are the victims in the story as those who were hired to watch over the flock did not. The model fits with the “Classical” model (Barrett para 2). In this model Jesus’ death on the cross atones for human sinfulness. I initially thought that the Latin view the atonement would be made for the sins of the leadership/hired hand for letting the wolf attack the flock and scatter them and Jesus, like God, desires to maintain order and works to take away the sin that has happened (Barrett para 2). However, the hirelings run and are never mentioned again. It is purely for the sheep's sake (with no mention of the sheep's sin) that is the focus and the feeling is one of fighting evil forces, no reparations for sin. The sheep are known and wanted by their owner and this is a “compelling affirmation of belonging” (McGrath 8). The security is total while there has been an acknowledgement that tragedy has happened; the image given is one of dedication and security. Much like the picture On the Lawn by Amedeo Bocchi as described by Alister McGrath:

What is the broader context? Where exactly is the lawn? What lies beyond the picture’s margins? We have no idea. The threat of war may loom. Troops may be on the move. Economic recession may have gripped the nation. Yet here, frozen by the artist, is an image of personal security and acceptance. Whatever the context may be, this child is enfolded and protected. She is loved, accepted and wanted (9).

This is the same feeling I get from the passage. The people are experiencing their religious leaders as out for themselves, they feel taken advantage of, scattered and divided and used. Yet here is Jesus saying that they are wanted and that they belong to his flock and harm will not befall them again as he will lay it all on the line. In fact, Jesus is the ideal shepherd much like the images of God that can be found in Ezekiel as well as many Psalms (most notably Psalm 23). This would seem to point to the atonement theory of Anselm.

In Anselm’s theory, a new relationship is forged between God and the world and it is God who acts as both the reconciler and the reconciled (Aulen 30). In this image, Jesus is not just the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) but the Shepherd and therefore the fighter, the victor over the wolf, however, there is no mention of whether the wolf would be defeated or not, thus the metaphor isn't completely Classical, but more on this later.

In John's understanding, God has come down and seeks to put together what humankind has torn apart. Jesus as the Shepherd, namely God, points to either an Antiochen or Alexandrian view of Christ. With Jesus using shepherd imagery and that image being closely linked to God, I believe rules out Ebionism. The reference to Jesus dying for the flock rules out Docetism as a bodily death must happen. Given that God tends the flock and would be an ideal shepherd, I believe this points more to an Alexandrian understanding than an Antiochen as the divinity of Christ would be the governing principle. The Antiochen model divides up the actions of humanity and divinity, so speaking about being a shepherd would be very human, but the long tradition of God as shepherd leads me to regard the divinity dominating the humanity of Jesus in this statement.

Another Consideration

The image in John is one of safety and security. It is one of gathering and reconciliation out of the love God has for his sheep. Jesus seeks to do what the religious authorities could not do (and what the Zealot, Essene, and Rabbinic movements also claimed). However, the image doesn't fully get the job done. So I do have another interpretation of this image if I take into account that the wolf could be a symbol for Rome.

In the myth of Romulus and Remus, a she-wolf suckles the boys who go on to found Rome. In this understanding, Jesus is protecting the flock, namely the simple agrarian farmers of the Galilee from the Romans since the Temple authorities could not protect from oppression and invasion. Jesus will give up his life for the flock while the hired hands run away. There is no concept or reference of the resurrection in this statement, although given the rest of John’s gospel it is implied in the narrative arch. This understanding is plausible as well yet changes the atonement model from sacrificial to the empathic model, where Jesus provides a powerfully moving manifestation of the extent and depth of God’s love for humanity (Barrett para 4). The Christology remains Alexandrian in terms, as the image of God as Shepherd is too strong to be ignored.

Conclusion

I have explored two possible meanings for the image presented in John 10. I am normally drawn to Jesus as political revolutionary but challenged myself to explore another mode of interpretation. I find that both fit in this instance. While I prefer the political revolutionary, I see how the Christus Victor model cannot be avoided here due to the Gospel of John’s view that everything Jesus says or does is somehow related to his death. The laying down of the life can be interpreted as Jesus willing to go and fight and sacrifice himself for the good of the flock or due to the fact that he knows that Rome will kill him for his words and desire to unite the flock against the imperial colonizers. Reading with both images in mind help provide a fuller understanding of how people can approach the same text and come away with different thoughts and feelings. This paper was fun to write and was a useful exercise. It has helped me respect the different Christologies.

Works Cited

Aulen, Gustaf. Christus Victor: A Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement. Eugene Oregon: WIPF & Stock, 1931.

Barrett, Lee. "Theories of Atonement (The Work of Christ)." Class Handout (March 22, 2010).

McGrath, Alister. Redemption. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.

What We Could Be...

2010-05-01T08:25:00.000-04:00

why we're not:

What Should We Do About that Moon? by Hafiz

A wine bottle fell from a wagon and broke open in a field.

that night one hundred beetles and all their cousins gathered.

and did some serious binge drinking.

They even found some seed husks nearby
and began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.

Then the "night candle" rose into the sky
and one drunk creature, laying down his instrument,
said to his friend--for no apparent reason,

"What should we do about that moon?"

Seems to Hafiz
most everyone has laid aside the music

tackling such profoundly useless questions.

Some Thoughts
let's take today and just be silly. try not to be offended, laugh instead. crank the radio before dinner and have a dance party and invite others to dance with you. friend and family will think you have lost your mind, but they will soon join in and remember the taste of what it means to be alive and outside of expected routine.

don't worry, the world won't fall apart while you're doing this.

there will still be bigots, racists, fundamentalists, and they won't take over while your guard is down.

there will still be flowers, trees, coo'n babies, and other good things too, they won't go away during this time.

so dance! dance and be silly and enjoy the absurdity of life and it's preciousness. who knows? maybe this time will make it more so.

The Tao Te Ching and God: THE MUSICAL!

2010-04-29T07:22:00.000-04:00

Tao Te Ching, Ron Hogan Translations:

#4 How much Tao is there?
More than you'll ever need.
Use as much as you want,
there's plenty more where that came from.

You can't see Tao, but it's there.
Damned if I know where it came from.
It's just always been around.

#14: You can't see Tao, no matter how hard you look.
You can't hear Tao, no matter how hard you listen.
You can't hold on to Tao, no matter how hard you grab.

But it's there.

It's in you,
and it's all around you.

Remember that.

#25: Something perfect has existed forever,
even longer than the universe.
It's a vast, unchanging void.
There's nothing else like it.
It goes on forever and never stops.
Everything else came from it.

I don't know what else to call it
So I'll call it Tao.
What's it like?
I can tell you this much: it's great.

Something that great lasts.
Something that lasts goes a long way.
And something that goes a long way
always comes back to the beginning.

Tao's great.
Heaven's great.
Earth's great.
And someone who's in touch with Tao is great, too.
Those are the four greatest things in the universe
and a Master is one of them.

Someone who's in touch with Tao
is in touch with the earth.
The earth is in touch with heaven.
Heaven's in touch with Tao.
Tao's in touch with the way things are.

So why did I have all those up there? for me they describe God. it has given me the words i have been searching for awhile now to talk about how i view God. just replace the word Tao with the word God, and you get what i have spent this whole blog trying to do.

for me, the word "God" is an exploder when it comes to descriptions. ex: God is LIKE a father, only no body, outside of time and space, you can’t see him, he’s not married to your mom, he’s not really actually a he and in fact, not like a father at all. If you take a concept that we know and multiply it times infinity, it becomes meaningless; it's exploded. So if both God and the Tao are eternal and outside of space and time then neither cannot be described at all with our words as they are bound by references to time and space. Therefore God and Tao can only be experienced, yet never fully at one time. What our brains can handle, what we can experience, is but a fraction of the fullness of Tao/God.

it would be like saying "I expect something from you... but it has no due date and it can't be located in this dimension." Many would stop here and say "well, then it's worthless, serves us no earthly good, and i can't believe it." that's a fair option. prolly the more sane one. but that doesn't keep out this strange mystical state i find myself in oft times. have you ever had stuff line up so perfectly that it could go no other way? we laugh and call them co-incidences in our limited knowledge, but they aren't.

we want to search for these moments, to capture them with language or art... but we can't. not really, not fully. all theological language really conveys no information at all... none that can't be logically reasoned, only experienced. so all that stuff in the bible should NEVER be taken literally. God can't be contained in factual language. all those words should make you feel something, some experience should be triggered.

we really can't say what the reference is; we can only speak to experience. all we have is metaphor:

yup.. that's the musical part of it ;-D

so clever.

anywho, where is this in the Bible? everywhere! but the two places to point to would be: Exodus 31, Moses asks to see the face of God. God tells Moses to crawl into a cave and God will put ‘his’ hand over the opening and Moses will be able to “See my behind.” This is a literal translation of the Hebrew. A deeper translation would be, “you will see where I was.” Not even Moses could see God in the present. This is a God we get only glimpses of. These highly personal encounters are still filled with mystery and, although we may experience God’s love, justice, spirit, or forgiveness directly, we should never take it for the totality of God.

and in John 14:8: Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?"

Philip is asking for a Theophany, seeming to forget his Jewish heritage and the fact that no one can see the face of God and live... largely, because God doesn't have a face. if God does, it prolly looks a lot like your neighbor's... or your enemy's. your mom's (no, YOUR mom), and maybe, to someone else, yours, given the right moment.

just my random thoughts tonight... now it's time for this fool to go to bed.

Christological Categories

2010-04-27T08:53:00.001-04:00

I was talking with the Pirate in an email conversation and was telling him about the various things I'm learning in Christology class. I love this class! So here's the chart he posted on his site, that i emailed him... so i'm taking it back. stupid stealing pirate! Here are super-condensed versions of three categories demarcated by color and font I think are really helpful:

This first category is marked Doctrines of the Incarnation

Ebionism-An offshoot of the Jewish form of Christianity that solves the Christological problem by denying the divinity of Christ altogether. This does not mean that Jesus is regarded as just another human being or a good rabbi. For the Ebionites, Jesus was the Messiah chosen by God, sent by God, and predestined by God to return in majesty to rule the Kingdom of God. Ebionism simply claims that in order to be Messiah and Risen Lord, Jesus did not need to be God.

Docetism-The Docetists did the opposite of the Ebionites and eliminated Jesus’ humanity. Jesus was really God and was only pretending to be a human being. His sufferings and death were appearances only.

Antiochenism- The Antiochenes affirmed both the full humanity and divinity of Jesus but tended to regard the two as capable of operating separately. Sometimes Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia (two major league Antiochenes) speak of “two sons” a Son of God and Son of Man. They attributed the miracles to Jesus the Son of God and the sufferings to the Son of Man. They wanted to insure that the divinity of Christ would in no way interfere with his humanity. The humanity has its own independent principle of growth and action. In its most radical form, Nestorianism, the Antiochenes even spoke of “two persons” in Jesus, leaving it unclear how the two are held together. Sometimes they spoke of the two being “married” to one another.

Alexandrianism- The Alexandrians also affirmed the humanity and divinity of Jesus but their stress fell on the unity of the two rather than the difference. Beginning with Clement and Origen (the two heavy weight Alexandrians), the tendency was to regard the divinity as dominating the humanity, even deifying it. The son of God is the governing principle of everything Jesus does.

The second category is related to the first, namely HOW the incarnation is understood. this could be called Models of the Incarnation and could be understood within any of the four categories up top.

Ontological Model- states that Jesus is made of different stuff that the rest of us. These are founded on the virgin births in Luke and Matthew and state that while Jesus does have our biology, if one were to do a biopsy one would find something different that is inherent in Jesus' make-up.

Psychological Model- based on the adoption of Jesus by God in Mark and John's gospels. This theory states that while Jesus is human just like the rest of us, he somehow had the mind of God and was concerned with what God was concerned with. This doesn't mean that he knew all things that God did as an infinite consciousness can't fit into a finite one, but that Jesus was prayerfully connected 100% of the time, where we are, at best, are connected 10% of the time and usually only when we're in prayer (and that'd be 10% of the time we're even in prayer too).

Agency Model- This model states that Jesus did the things that God would do and that his teaching or biology are of no importance, it is what he DID that was important. To have faith in Christ is to have loyalty to his methods and do what he did. This is largely taken from Paul's letters and understanding of Jesus.

The final four (so to speak) are the condensed versions of the atonement. these would be called Theories of Atonement:

Classical- (aka Greek, Patristic, Eastern): Jesus' resurrection enacts and manifests God's triumph over all the powers and principalities which hold humanity captive and oppressed. These powers could be cosmic (devil, death and demons) or psycho-social (addictions, compulsions, and all the -isms). Jesus is the conquering hero who vanquishes humanity's enemies and the crucifixion is the final (or at the very least decisive) showdown with these powers. It is "objective" even if no one believes it.

Latin- (aka Western, Anselmic): Jesus' death on the cross somehow atones for human sinfulness. Jesus satisfies the twin requirements of God's justice and mercy. Jesus is the sacrifice who takes away the sins of the world. This is also "objective" in that the relationship with God to humanity has been transformed by Jesus.

Subjective #1- (aka role model, example): Jesus provides an inspirational example of true human being. By internalizing the picture of Jesus, we can develop Jesus-like qualities. This is "subjective" in that Jesus' work has no impact if it does not inspire the transformation of individual's inner and outer lives.

Subjective #2- (aka empathic): Jesus is a powerfully moving manifestation of the extent and depth of God's love for humanity. This potent demonstration has the capacity to elicit a loving response in the human heart. This is "subjective" view where Jesus' work is only successful if people are moved by this demonstration of God's love.

for example, i find myself being a psychological modeled Alexandrian that is a Classic Subjectivist #1 & 2. meaning, Jesus had the mind of God, was very human and yet the divinity shown through both through natural Charisma and presence as well as in hindsight. Thus the incarnation is projected by his followers back onto Jesus. I explained my atonement idea in this post and i talked about how i intersect many. for me, it boils down to the idea that if you aren't affected and experience Jesus then no biggie, you're still good. when told "Jesus loves you" many don't care... but i think the best response is to love him back. thus is one reason why i'm a Christian. hope that example helps.

any questions?

Two Articles of Note

2010-04-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

a local minister goes full-out in this article. she's a little bit of awesome, gotta love those alums! i think i may follow her example.

the blog post "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" by Tim Wise has been getting a lot of attention on my facebook threads, so i thought i'd post it here too. where the hell were these people 7 years ago? hell, how about 3? whatever. it sorta reminds me of this ol' cartoon about Huxley getting it right vs. Orwell.

okay.. that was hyper-link-tastic!

this weekend i hung out in Allentown and preached at my best bud's church, doing the whole Eeyore goes to Tehran. got a great shoo-fly pie too. excellent! came back here and went to TRUCC and listened to a group of awesome and strong women talk about their trip to Mercy Home in Kenya. too much awesomeness to put into words about how good we have it here. these girls are stronger at 5 then a WWE wrestler. walking 2 miles for water every morning at 4 a.m. with a 5 gallon bucket on your head is freak'n strong. it was great to hear their stories. it is also great to be in a church that supports such a great mission without asking anything in return.

still trying to think up another blog name for wordpress, "considerations" or something might work. or i may drop blogging altogether unless my future church thinks it would be a good idea. just getting frustrated with the level of discourse i fail to live up to. also sick of polemics and homophobia and generally the lamenting and anger at people being human and not living up to their standards... you know, the same standards they themselves can't live up to. bull-hockey i tell you. bullocks and durn it all to tarnation!

or maybe i should just stick to the fine peeps on my side list ( these ones here---> )and not worry about the rest of the world.

Resist and Create

2010-04-22T07:48:00.000-04:00

I sat in a lecture by Monica A. Coleman, a post-modern womanist process author, here at LTS and it was great! She stated that while she's a constructionist (vs. a theological deconstructionist where many post-moderns go) she thought that Karl Barth had a good idea. Barth is known for his massive theological works, around 12 volumes, but when asked what was at the core, he replied "Jesus loves me, this I know." Monica stated that to get to this "core" ppl ask themselves what keeps them up at night and how do they go about solving this? this should help boil your thought process down to something. Monica's was "break the silence" as silence does not serve nor help ppl who are subject to oppression.

that made me try to figure my own core out.

i know i like inclusion, humanity, science, art, religions, and seeing how each one connects and feeds another. i get really angry with "slash and burn" style of thinking whether it be Christian or Atheist. "well it has nothing to do with XX*, so it's worthless" *this can be filled with Jesus, the facts, the Bible, science or whatever depending on who is speaking. that seems rather dualistic, taking only a "right and wrong" scenario and tossing out all the grey. so initially i thought my core was "Resist and Destroy" as i resist this type of thinking and see it everywhere i look in my context, both online and offline. i think this is what compelled me into ministry, seeing that things can be different, that the fundies don't have the last word on Christianity, that the atheists aren't right, that there is a middle ground and the two extremes must be destroyed. funny and ironic thing is, both fundies and atheists (of the slash-and-burn style) do have some good things going for them and destroying them would go against my inclusive nature and de-humanize them.

so instead, i think my core is "Resist and Create."

i could get all bent out of shape on how ppl view God, or how they have stupid theologies like The Rapture and how they often miss Jesus in their midst because that incarnation of Jesus at the time happens to be a non-Christian, forgetting that Jesus was Jewish in the first place! or that my more empirical brothers and sisters rule out anything that can't be verified through the scientific method and thus become "science literalists" stating that sciences PROVES so much... forgetting that science doesn't PROVE anything. as Einstein stated (paraphrased by me) science sets up helpful models and theories that help us make sense of things that are going on out there, all it takes is for one experiment, and those theories are out the window. as this is a short blogpost, i'll move on from there, knowing that both of these aren't sufficient and are characterizations. i know that, but this is my blog and i'm the creator here ;-)

i want to create a new way of creating my faith. i want to resist things like de-humanizing, colonialization, literalism, and create something new. i claim being a Christian because it's important to me. i recently talked with Sabio as to why and i want further that discussion as i am often met with the phrase "Well you don't SOUND Christian." both by atheists and believers alike.

it is my view that everything that happens is a product of the past, we are to deal with what's possible, and we are what we do with those things. i'm a product of a white, Roman Catholic, single mom in south-east Ohio. my context, i'm blue collar, under-exposed to diversity, Christian for as long as my geneology goes, and some what of a naturalist,scientist, and mechanic thanks to my mom's interests in nature and career as car mechanic. what i have done with those things is create something new and rather bold... i'm no longer Catholic, i will soon have two degrees, i've committed myself to diversity, studied other faiths, and kept the interests in science and such.

i must create! whether it be blog posts like this one, or this one from my Art Series at the end of my first semester, or my poems, or even my crappy cartoons over at Unidactyl. Check out that site please, i have a cartoon every 4 days from now until June! i like hanging around ppl who create and i'm even more honored to be around those who can create new directions for the traditions they find themselves in.

so there it is. pretty slick right? maybe? ok, no... but here are two good buddies of mine that are creating some pretty awesome stuff. my best friend growing up has a band called LifeLine and he's the lead singer! i can proudly say that i attempted to play in a band with that guy! now he's on tour with TANTRIC. here's a slick song of his:

here's another dude in a band... he is also the lead singer here and went to seminary before he landed a dream job as a sound mixer for a local recording studio. since then he has formed The Hititz and has been playing locally here and i love how poppy this stuff is. it's audio crack! Eve loves it too.

which one do you like?

Jesus Needs New PR

2010-04-20T00:37:00.003-04:00

searching around on the internetz and i found this from a pastor reviewing Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis book:

Living the “Jesus life” is not the essence of Christianity and neither is obeying the commands of Jesus (as important as that is). The essence of Christianity centers upon the work of Christ on behalf of sinners (i.e. substitutionary atonement). This is the matter of first importance (1 Corinthians 15:3 ) that was the prioritized message of Jesus’ apostles (e.g. 1 Corinthians 2:2 )

followed by other 'yeah-that's-right-you-tell'ems" such as:

I’ve read some of Crossan’s books and they are very, very troubling. They are attempting to turn Christianity into a crossless religion. The Cross brings offense and always will. I say “let them alone. They are the blind leading the blind.”

oy! adventures in missing the point! i love how people put Paul over Jesus. Paul DOES NOT talk about Jesus. Paul is largely not concerned with talking about who Jesus is. Instead Paul is a church conflict manager, he is concerned with POWER and AUTHORITY in church and that is why he spends so much time putting himself on par with the other apostles and giving out unsolicited advice to church communities.

here are two thoughts for readers of this blog and Christians in general: If living the life of Jesus isn't the point, you're wrong. if the eschatology isn't a participatory one, you're wrong. no if's, and's, or but's about it.

I like Crossan and Borg and they don't lead people away from the cross, they help people understand what got Jesus there, namely HIS LIFE! When Jesus said TAKE UP YOUR CROSS AND FOLLOW ME, he's asking ppl to live a life like his that will ultimately lead to your death, literally or metaphorically (dying to yourself and such like). Christianity at its root (Jesus) is non-violent and anti-empire (due to the simple fact that all empires endorse violence). The early church was also non-violent and anti-empire...and that tradition has been carried on by some, though not all, Christians. while the cross does bring offense, Crossan doesn't do away with it, he does away of the literal resurrection: cross is still prominent.

I'm against people taking an anti-empire, anti-conventional wisdom and dumbing it down to "be a good citizen, believe what we teach you, and tithe." Doctrines and tradition are important, being a good citizen is responsible and a good fulfillment of the social contract, but don't think for a minute that these make one a Christian.

All this to say I'm sick of slash-and-burn Christianity, I'm sick of other Christians calling other Christians NOT Christian (unChristian yes, fair game, we can act unChristian many a times). I'm sick of anti-science, anti-intellectual, and anti-liberal/critical method Christianity. When i read crap like that, i feel as though i'm an outsider in my own faith; a thinker surrounded by over-emotional feelers. i know i'm not alone and i'm on a mission to find such people that are dying to hear people like Borg, Crossan, and Bell, and give Jesus some new PR.

image found at SINFEST where the copyright is held: copyright 2008 by Tatsuya Ishida/Museworks used here for the intended purpose to get all you jerks to go to that site and check it out!

Pure Religion

2010-04-19T00:22:00.000-04:00

There is no such thing as a “categorically pure” religion. It is simply a myth and a potentially dangerous one.

Many streams of my own faith state that they are either the first and true church (Roman Catholics and all the various Orthodox claim this) or a return to the true faith of Christ (which is everyone else). Jesus’ faith was based on a Jewish worldview at a time of oppression. Jesus’ followers went global after his death and what resulted was their own interpretation of who Jesus was coming into conflict with Greco-Roman philosophies (hence the strong Aristotelian and Platonic emphasis) or North African faiths and philosophies (Origen, Augustine, Tertullian, and ecstatic prayer/worship practices). So Christianity wasn’t pure from the on-set! Paul’s letters really expose the diversity of Christian thought and practice as he wrote so much about how one can be Gentile and uncircumcised over against those who disagreed (aka the Super Apostles), and against the Gnostics. So it is my basic assumption that religions adapt, change, and cross-pollinate.

We see this in all major religions, divergent belief systems as the faiths grow and change and meet new contexts.

This changing and adaptation is nature and should be embraced. What doesn’t change in nature soon goes extinct. There are some notable exceptions like the horseshoe crab and alligators and crocodiles that haven’t really changed since they were hanging out with the dinosaurs, but for the most part everything is influx and adapting to new situations. Thus all religions reflect a lived reality. The best and most popular religions are ones that are both pragmatic and metaphoric. These religions seem to give people words for their experience of the world, and the ritual and theology that follow these stories work in the believer’s every day context.

Eve is One!

2010-04-15T06:04:00.002-04:00

happy kid! a real bodhisattva! she is a joyful soul. Happy First Birthday Eve!

Here's the video from her "early birthday" shot at the Flying ~E~

here was your first look this time last year.

My Thoughts on Atonement and Christus Victor

2010-04-14T07:37:00.001-04:00

before we talk about atonement, we must first talk about who Jesus is and how i view him. to use Marcus Borg's idea, there is two Jesi, the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus.

The pre-Easter would be the historical dude that you could have videotaped. He was Jewish mystic, healer, wisdom teacher, and prophet of the kingdom of God; he proclaimed the immediacy of access to God and God's kingdom; he challenged the domination systems of his time, was executed by the authorities, and then vindicated by God (Borg, 303).

In the decades after Easter, his followers spoke of his significance with the most exalted language they knew: son of God, Messiah, Lord, Light of the world, ect. This is the community's language about him. I, like Borg, do not think that these two need to be separated, and in fact, you can't separate them as they are inherent in the gospel narratives. the gospels are both testimony and memory; history as well as parabolic language (language of parable, metaphoric language). Thus the real Jesus is one who lived 2,000 years ago and was a Galilean peasant-teacher and the one who has shaped the lives of millions of people, many of whom claim to have met him and have a personal relationship with.

Both matter, both are true.

This would be the Alexandrian view of Jesus where he is both human and divine, but the divine overrides the humanity, just as it did in the gospels and in the historical community that called themselves Christian.

with that straight, i then head to atonement. As stated before, i used to throw people under the bus who subscribed to sacrificial atonement. i still think it's bad theology and bad history as it elevates one understanding and way of viewing Jesus over the rest. the substitutionary atonement i still have no room for as i think it's Vampire Christianity; interested in Jesus' blood and little else. I don't like sacrificial as it is often understood as God demanding death and thus having it be a part of God's plan for the salvation of everyone else. this misses the humanity of Jesus as well as the life he was willing to sacrifice for his beliefs, his passion which drove him to say the things he said and get him killed by the authorities of his time. they don't crucify people for no reason, they were enemies of the state, politically dangerous!

The substitutionary atonement model i understand now more than i did. i think becoming a parent has helped with this view. yet i don't see Jesus as a doormat or coward. He was akin to the archetype of the forceful, yet nonviolent, organizer. A grass-roots agitator calling for equity and fairness for all. The type that gets the gentry all riled up and the rich nervous. A force that needs removing or one we need to co-opt and normalize.

I also disagree with Christus Victor because i do not have angels or demons in my metaphysic. I have God with no devil. we do the job of temptation very well on our own with our own biological framework to have a dude in a red suit running around. Humans are inescapably subject to the temptation of evil. We get into trouble when we de-humanize or de-prioritize others and put ourselves first.

When we deny that we are captive, we conjure notions of social progress, romantic optimism, manifest destiny, all forms of human pride that overlook our fragility and limitation. yet on the other extreme, which Christians have been labeled more often than not, we capitulate to the tragic and doomed outlook on life. We lose hope.

The resurrection, whether understood metaphorically or literally, is resistance to the powers of death, a refusal to allow death to have the final word, which is where I connect to the Christus Victor model. The power of the cross subverts it's own nature as an instrument of death, harmful and oppressive, and instead becomes an intellectual, spiritual, and communal resource for radical change. God's presence is then with those who suffer, telling them that they aren't to be afraid anymore. No worries about death, that isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. The cross and resurrection are a two fold attack to the masochism of submissive suffering and the pride of unchecked triumphalism. it boldly reclaims common humanity, in this rubric there is no room for the other.

In this way, I'm Christus Victor. Death cannot defeat life, life will always carry on in some form. yet it always changes, it is impermanent. life adapts, grows, and leaves us behind, yet our children will go on and their children after them. that's why it is good to plan to the 7th generation in your actions. yet when we do act, we do so not fearing death yet understanding our limitations. In Jesus, the powerful tried to kill him and it didn't work. the worst evil could do was try to kill us and it never can kill us all. even when we die and we finally know what lies beyond, i believe we will all be welcomed in. this is where apokatastasis comes in. because i see God through Jesus, i see that even the forsaken, those outcasted and assured a place in hell are welcomed. the cross overturns all of our conventions. this is what it means when the gospels read "he died for the sins of the world" or "his life was ransom for many" (paraphrases from john and mark). as to what heaven looks like, that's as far as my metaphysic goes. heaven, yes, hell if we chose it and be it of our own making.

the problem then becomes when the church seeks cultural convention and prejudice over the radical message Jesus so passionately died for. this doesn't mean that i'm not patriotic, i'm just not nationalistic. i'm a Christian not because i'm after a ticket to heaven, or need to meet requirements for salvation. no, i'm after a community that seeks transformation of themselves into Jesus. I'm after a better world. a more just world, a more equitable world.

we are building up the new world. resistance is victory, defeat is impossible.

Bibliography

Bond, Susan. The Trouble with Jesus.

Borg, Marcus. Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary.

Weaver, J. Denny. The Nonviolent Atonement

Sacrifice and Christus Victor

2010-04-13T07:46:00.000-04:00

I find that seminary has three parts to it. 1st you come in with your own ideas and are able to defend them, they are clear and boundaries are demarcated through experience in and of your local church. then you start considering other parts (this would be part two) and you start hearing the logic and views of your classmates. meanwhile you're in another setting with other ways of doing and view the Christian Tradition. This leads to confusion and boundaries start to bleed. the third stage is just before you graduate you realize what you used to believe and claim it again, only this time, more loosely as you're able to consider other points of view.

applying this to my understanding of atonement, it would look like this:

1. i came in thinking that these two models at hand (Jesus as sacrifice and victor) were awful and bad theology.In the words of James Allison, i thought that these atonement theories set up "God and his Son in some sort of consensual form of S&M- one needing the abasement of the other in order to be satisfied, and the other loving the cruel will of the Father." I would have claimed, as Allison does that these theories "have done more to contribute to atheism among ordinary people than any number of clerical scandals, and that if being a believer means believing this, then it is better to be among the non-believers."

2. I have examined these more closely and tried to consider their Christology and historical import as seen in the previous post on the matter.

3. Where I'm at now sees how others view and i even see a place where we intersect. an email conversation with DPS proved quite fruitful in coming to this conclusion. he suggested two books, Susan Bond's The Trouble with Jesus and J. Denny Weaver's The Nonviolent Atonement. DPS claimed that you can't be a universalist without being in the Christus Victor model, or believe apokatastasis without it in some form. it's just what form that is important. in the next few posts, i'll talk about my interactions with Bond and Weaver and where i stand. hope you'll stick around!

Taking it on Faith

2010-04-12T11:23:00.000-04:00

thanks to Pastor Bocock for the find! i am a math atheist! ;-)

happy monday everyone, hope your week is off to a good start!

My Westernized Mandala

2010-04-08T11:13:00.000-04:00

For class the other day, we designed and then made sand mandalas. We are studying Tibetan Buddhism and did research papers on the tantric practice of the sand mandala and it's meaning. Based on this study we were to do our own mandala for a variety of reasons: 1. to learn the lesson of impermanence. 2. to see how hard it actually is. 3. to see how art has layers upon layers of meaning.

here is my mandala sketch and explanation followed by the final version:

The Meaning

Unlike the Tibetan concept of Mandala as palace and home of deity, I am choosing to represent a God that can’t be boxed. In fact, the symbols of the various religions are trying to act as walls for the divine yet the divine is in and through everything. This is to represent my panentheistic view of God.

In the center, I have chosen the traditional Christian symbol of Alpha and Omega to represent the divine. However, I modified it a little and placed two question marks and centered it in a labyrinth to show the ineffability of the divine. The boxes that hold the various symbols of the world religions demonstrate how each is a human-constructed view of the divine and the fire labyrinth that encircles the boxes show how each has a little bit of the fiery divine wisdom within each. The symbols read clockwise spell out “COEXIST” and end with a human skull to symbolize secular humanism, atheism, and those without a particular tradition yet still hold philosophical wisdom. These are placed on the 8 cardinal directions.

The labyrinth shows how humanity wonders and wanders around searching for the divine and yet wanders and wonders completely surrounded by it. I take this meaning from the wisdom literature that “all of this has happened before and shall happen again” which is a pseudo-Buddhist view of time. The pathway also shows how we are largely in the same state that we started in and will end up close to where we began on our journey.

The symbol of the male and female figures is to show divine blessing on all of humanity and how we are charged with dominion over the world. It is good to note that dominion in my mind, from Genesis, suggests a stewardship and care for the planet, not the excess and exploitation that can be associated with this idea. It is also good to note that this view can be seen as hetero-centric but I do not intend it as such. This does not show how the man and woman are partnered with one another but shows both genders and represent how all of us got here, namely through that union. It is not intended to rule out homosexual partnerships.

The Experience

man, you have no idea how much concentration it takes to get sand to go where you want it to! Your breathing, hand control, and body position all must be accounted for. we used straws, brushes, and toothpicks to apply the sand and one little move or absent minded breath would send your whole work scattering. the concentration though was extremely focusing, i have a very technical and small-scale mandala and i'm normally more of a "chaos" artist... meaning i will slop things on there and intuitively follow where my mistakes lead me. this however, required a plan with mathematical precision planning and extreme skill to pull off. i rarely have these qualities, so it was quite a change from the normal way of doing things. I found the initial start-up frustrating, but once i got the hang of how the sand fell and what techniques to use, it became easier and i found i grew more quite, focused, and prayerful.

The Result

When planning the mandala, i was so focused on the measurements and alignment that I forgot about scale. so i came with a smaller mandala than everyone else and thus a more technical one. the application of the sand blurred on the COEXIST spelling and only about two came out legible. i am pretty proud of the labyrinth and the color scheme. This is from my buddy's camera on his cell phone... but you can see it's a little blurry. I love the 3D aspect of it, how you could texture and raise things in the sand or flatten or do a brush pattern. i hope to do another mandala in the future that will be bigger and will account for such things.

So if you had to do a mandala, what symbols would you have on it? What would it represent? If you have the time, I'd love to see a design or something... to my fellow classmates, I will put up your mandala on this site if you're willing to email it to me. RAWK!

The Flying ~E~ and a small announcement.

2010-04-06T12:39:00.001-04:00

Just returned from a nice vacation with family out at the Flying E Ranch in Wickenburg, Arizona. If you're looking for good food, riding, and desert scenery, look no further!

I used this vacation to get centered, to do some reading, and largely not to think a whole heck of a lot. The latter part, I failed, but some good things came of it. I am reading Marcus Borg's Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary and it really has helped me come to an understanding. I came in very progressive and was labeled "fierce" by my advising committee. Some of that edge has come off, and the passion has subsided for a while, but I feel it coming back, and that is an excellent thing! Borg's book has helped with that, and I'll provide a review later on.

Another thing to note is that I will be ending this blog in June 2010. I will leave this blog up for posterity's sake, but this blog is about my journey to and through seminary. That journey ends on May 15, 2010. So i have about a month left and need to focus on all of that. I'll be wrapping this blog up and providing some insights and some favorite posts over the years. I will continue blogging, but in another guise. I am taking the good advice of Sabio and my wife. See, an atheist and a pastor's wife do have something in common! :-) i'll be anonymous but i think y'all know who i'll be. i'm not too subtle. So keep your eyes peeled in the near future.

I look forward to catching up on the bloggings that have happened since I left, and i will leave you with reflection and prayer I gave on Easter morning in the desert at the Flying ~E~ but updated for this audience and format:

What is this Sunday about?

Well, if you're a naturalist, you see that the desert is starting to bloom. The hedgehog cacti are just starting to sprout their purple flowers, the ocatillo their orange flowers, and all sorts of little ones like the Chia are sprouting up. For those of us who go back east soon, we'll find that the dogwoods are out, the tulips and crocuses are out and spring has sprung, once again reminding us that the life of spring has triumphed over the death of winter. New life has come.

If you're Jewish, you are celebrating your week long Passover. This is a reminder that your ancestors threw off the bondage of their old life and took on a new one of being free. This life involved a lot of uncertainties, and Moses didn't even live to see the Promised Land--he only glimpsed it, but it was worth it. The new life of freedom is remembered and celebrated.

If you're Christian, well, have we got a story to tell you. This is where new life has triumphed over sin and death. Christians do not have to be afraid of dying anymore but can live a life of service and radical love, free from the fear of death and dying. New life is ours to have if we are bold enough to take it.

With this in mind, let us pray:

God, we thank you for the gift of new life. We thank you for the many chances we get, the opportunities to grow and change, to learn and re-learn. We look forward to your insights as they come to us or as we figure them out after long hard hours of studying. Guide us in our conversations, help our words reflect our intent and our meaning, may they be met with grace and love. Above all, we thank you for new life, and we ask for the courage and strength to take it and live it to the fullest, to the benefit of all we meet. In your many names we pray, Amen.

Out for a Few Days!

2010-03-29T06:55:00.007-04:00

hope ya have a nice Easter/Passover/Spring Solstice, I am going to take a few days to rest up and collect with the family.

To set the mood, Sin Nombre by The Refreshments (one of the greatest bands of all time) always seems to be on my lips as i walk around. maybe because it holds the hope that i do in the line "You know the best that we can hope for is to be laughin' when we finally hit the ground"

RAWK!

Christ as Sacrifice, Christ as Victor

2010-03-25T06:48:00.001-04:00

In my previous post where i revealed how big of a heretic i am, i stated later that i would clean up some inaccuracies on my part. This is that later. This post will divide up the sacrificial model of Anselm and posit the real Christus Victor model. both models have their pros and cons, and i will cover both.

The image of Christ as sacrifice is super old, prolly one of the oldest. the images pop up many times in the New Testament, featured heavily in Hebrews but also in the synoptics. it is also in the early church liturgy yet notably absent in the Didache, which i find really interesting... but i digress.

while the Pirate tried his best to offer up helpful metaphors for me, my prof did one better and offered up a section of the movie Dead Man Walking.

there is a part towards the end where the convict confesses to the nun. he starts off with some bravado he has had the whole movie yet acknowledges that he was a coward and thus was a victim by this other bully. however, the nun gently presses him and he finally admits guilt and responsibility for his actions. the nun forgives and the convict seeks forgiveness and notes that while his life was no good, maybe it will finally be of some good as his victim's family may take some comfort in his death. it hurts the nun to forgive as she finds a connection with a soon to be dead guy and it will hurt to see him die. it hurts the convict as it completely deconstructs his carefully held and constructed identity as a tough guy.

here's the kicker: in the view of sacrifice, God would be both the nun and the convict. the cross is the symbol of the connection between human guilt and divine perfection, love and empathy and repentance. Jesus as both divine and human becomes the rep of humans who need forgiveness as sinners and God who needs to forgive the wrongs done. Hurts humanity and God and the anguish on the cross symbolizes that.

this metaphor i can support more so than before. it gets strange when we ascribe Jesus as a substitute for us, as that gets legally strange, but to see Jesus as symbol of humanity, a representative of us, then that i can buy into. this requires a notion of a corporate self which Anselm and the early church would be operating with, yet we here in the Western 21st century might not get... but maybe, there are some connections for us.

just think of it like the government or sports team. if the government declares war on our behalf, then we are at war as a whole, whether we agree or not. if you listen closely to sports fans, they'll say strange things like "We WON!" but they weren't even on the team! They id. so closely that the team becomes the symbol for the city and everyone in it.

what does this say about God? the incarnation is a must in this theory. many divergent theologians come together here and state that this doesn't make God angry or any such thing, but those like Paul, Karl Barth, and even Paul Tillich (with his uber-abstract God) states that God is loving and merciful.

so in this instance the cross = the fact that love hurts. pain is the price of being in relationship and we are called to participate in this love and grace NOT thank God we got a substitute and we're off the hook and we can just believe and be fine (and buy Hummers, screw over the poor, and benefit from other's hard work, while giving those outside our faith a really hard time). i like this because i am in pain often due to my relationships... i'm always screwing something up or saying the wrong thing. even on this blog, i take pains to speak to others both inside and outside my faith tradition. there's a lot of forgiving and reconciling that goes on at a regular basis around here. this process involves sacrifice on both parts... of time to write responses, of giving up or questioning long held assumptions... so i understand this better now than the other...

the other view being, Gustaf Aulen in Christus Victor states that Christ as sacrifice is completely wrong! Aulen is Lutheran and so he went back to Luther and found that Luther too, didn't like this view held by Anselm. while this view is also scriptural and early "creedal" church Aulen was the first to give it a name.

Christus Victor = Christ victorious over sin and death and the devil. that is the "package" plaguing humanity and we need liberation from. this is heavily dependent on the Fall, original sin, and the idea of an objective and personified evil. the whole problem with the world is that we are at war, life is conflict, a battle between good and evil, angels and demons. Everyone else is pushed around by evil until Jesus comes and conquers it.

the best film to convey this idea is Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. take note of this "garden" scene. I've never watched the movie and doubt i will, and if you haven't all you need to do is watch this:

this is the whole movie in miniature. Jesus in agony, the devil being creepy, and humans behaving badly (either chickening out like the disciples or being corrupt like Judas and the Sadducees, or violent like the Romans). God needs to win back humanity as we are powerless to do it ourselves. So God disguises Godself and is "born to die" and the devil, being smart in all other things in the domination of the world, doesn't recognize God in human form. So when the devil goes to claim another tasty soul, BAM! it's God who kicks some ass, liberates humanity and rules supreme.

this is Jesus as the Trojan Horse. Jesus as the fish hook, humanity is the bait, and when the devil latches on, it's curtains for him. the fishhook is an ancient symbol for Christ. so is Christ the boxer or Christ the gladiator.

here evil is an external presences where in Dead Man Walking, evil was internal. and isn't that the case, that laws and systems can be corrupt and unjust and thus catch people up in the cogs? aren't there things in society that you rail against stating "this isn't the way it's supposed to be!" but are powerless to change?

well that's me playing the advocate for this theory. i still have more problems with this one than with the sacrificial model.

critics of Aulen raised objections stating that he is just a failed manacheist or Zoroastrian, which his dueling Good-God/Bad God. this would make him a polytheist! plus what kind of creator lets evil sneak into the world? that's rather incompetent. and doesn't God take God's sweet time in making the correction? why didn't God just nuke evil from the start? and if Christ conquers sin/death/devil then why do we still have crappiness/death/and evil?

Aulen wasn't dumb, not by any means. if good comes from some cosmic "font of goodness" then why can't the bad come from a similar font? what would it mean if it came from the same font? entropy exists much like the south did after Gettysburg. They couldn't win, yet they still fought. same with many isolated islands on the Japanese side in WWII. They knew they lost yet fought into the mid-50s anyway.

so Aulen states that Good Friday shouldn't be the focus (like in those sacrificial folk), Saturday shouldn't either because that's when Jesus is turning over hell, but Easter is the true V-day. Worship them should be a victory celebration and proclamation until the cosmos and humanity catch onto this fact.

i don't like the spiritual warfare motif. i think Aulen had to have written this before the 20s because after he saw the Nazi conspiring with the Lutheran church, i don't think he would have held that view. the church is just an agent of institutional evil as anything else out there and with the European Catholic scandal going on, i really don't feel the need to argue this point.

i don't like the idea of God tricking or deceiving nor the idea of God being indebted to evil or Satan or some how accidentally letting evil into the world. i really don't think there is a perfected shalomic state we were supposed to be in from the start, i think we're supposed to grow and constantly work toward that goal.

and then insert the objections i had in the last post to this one... although i find myself more at peace with the sacrificial model now than i have been in a long, long time. once penal substitution is ruled out, i'm cool with it. Christus Victor, however, is a super-hero story transposed onto the scriptures. God the good defeats the evil Satan, evil genius and ruler of this world. i don't remember reading anywhere in the scriptures about how the devil came into being. that is more Catholic oral tradition than anything else. i wonder where that stuff came from.

Where I'm At: I'm more of a Trinitarian than i thought. I like the play of internal and external evil, but i'm not choosing one over the other. i think both are problems we gotta deal with both individually and corporately. i'm not a dualist (or duelist in this case) and see how good people do bad things and bad people do good things and how good can come out of bad and vice versa. so i see how both models can't cover everything, but what system or theory can?

Lee Barrett and Soren Kierkegaard

2010-03-23T07:34:00.000-04:00

My Professor of Theology, Lee Barrett, wrote a book about Kierkegaard that is really good! Here's a review I wrote for class.

“To want to study Kierkegaard,” said Lee Barrett. “is really odd. He didn’t travel all that much, staying in and around Copenhagen, never really even making it to the Danish mainland save for two or three travels to Berlin. He wasn’t popular in his lifetime. He is not an easy read as he starts a story, interrupts it with a short unrelated novelette, and then keeps going. He does not stick to one genre, instead using many different types sometimes within the same story. He didn’t really do anything except write has he never had a job. He didn’t marry and although he fell deeply in love with a woman and told her that he couldn’t marry her because she would make him too happy, which he tried to explain to her. He’s simultaneously orthodox Lutheran yet a strong critic of the state Lutheran church. He is so difficult to figure out that his name is used as a synonym for obscure, mystifying reflections.”

This seems like an odd thing for someone to say after writing a book about Kierkegaard.

I recently attended a book signing and conversation with Lee Barrett in celebration of his new book, Kierkegaard. An Abingdom Pillars of Theology Book. Barrett explains that the reason to study Kierkegaard is that he is sort of like a Christian Socrates. He perseveres in destabilizing our comfortable lives, exposing the shallowness of our piety and unmasking our self-deceptions. He makes our life more difficult but also more honest and responsible. He may even get a few of his readers to be more faithful and loving, which Barrett states is what the entire corpus of Kierkegaard’s writing is meant to do.

Barrett found Kierkegaard while in undergrad which should not be surprising as after World War II the US had discovered Kierkegaard and had embraced him; as evidenced by the beat generation. Since then, Barrett has lived through 2 announcements that the “Kierkegaard Craze” was over and dead, yet Soren keeps popping up. “There is a fascination with Kierkegaard because we can’t figure him out. He has been claimed by the deconstructionists, Neo-Orthodoxy, existentialists, and post-modernists.” Barrett stated. Yet Barrett doesn’t seek to categorize Kierkegaard in any of these movements in his book. His book’s purpose is to coach people on how to make sense of Kierkegaard and invite the reader to read Kierkegaard’s work for themselves. “I can’t sneeze for you, I can’t blink for you, nor will I read Kierkegaard for you. All I want to do is coach you on how to read Kierkegaard for theological insight.” Barrett stated.

What Barrett finds in Kierkegaard is a theology full of paradox and tension. Christianity as interpreted by Kierkegaard is simultaneously attractive and repulsive. At the core of Kierkegaard’s thought is an emphasis on radical, self-sacrificial love. This is love without boundaries and such a completely love of other than it’s a self-forgetting love. This is a love that will get you killed and it is what Jesus calls us into. “Picking up the cross isn’t going to be fun.” Barrett said. The criticism of the church of Kierkegaard’s time is that they equated this radical love into just being a good citizen and paying your taxes. The church dumbed it down and made it more palpable to the masses just as many in the faith do today. Faith always has an element of doubt for Kierkegaard that he found lacking in the state church. “Do we really want to love our neighbor as ourselves? Not really. And definitely not our enemies. In fact we’d rather draw lines between us in the church and them out there and fight over things,” Barrett stated. “Yet that’s what we’re called to do.” This should produce some guilt, some fear, some emotion into our piety and awaken the sleeper; which is what all of Kierkegaard’s shifty writing and genre changes sought to do to his readers.

Kierkegaard also critiqued the rise of mass transit and modern thought. He feared that soon popular opinion would determine matters of religious truth. The yearning to be contemporary and fit in is actually an evasion of responsible existence and a capitulation to cultural necessity. Modern people do not really choose anything for themselves; they take no risks, and therefore have no deep passions. This undermines the individual’s struggle to determine what is good, true, and beautiful, and eradicates the moral tension from human life and therefore erodes the pathos that Christianity requires.

It is no secret that I like both Lee Barrett and Kierkegaard. I really enjoyed listening to Barrett talk about Kierkegaard and then Chuck Melchert talking about how Barrett talks about Kierkegaard. It was a great learning experience all around. I learned that I too find Christianity repulsive and attractive at the same time. I have been taught that good pastors have strong boundaries yet wrestle with the Gospel and Jesus’ example. I find many streams of Christianity almost devoid of self-critique and largely impotent in its ability to challenge and confront the larger culture. It seems that the mainline denominations often sell out to intellectualism and forget the passionate part and the conservative churches do the opposite. A balance needs to be struck to bridge the space between head and heart. While doing so, the church can’t sell out for cultural values or a certain brand of political power. We are challenged to live in the tension.

The Party of NO!

2010-03-21T22:51:00.000-04:00

some thoughts from the good ol' unidactyl

with added commentary from a classmate who thought it was really funny... this is what you get when you're bored in class, do drawings, and then leave said notebook open to said drawing during break. ;-)

Good News, old post, and other such things...

2010-03-19T11:03:00.001-04:00

GOOD NEWS! This past Tuesday I went down and had a good meeting with my conference peeps and had a discussion on my ordination paper. Today, i received the news that:

Last night the Board affirmed our recommendation that Lucas be approved for an Ecclesiastical Council for Ordination Pending Call.

(Lucas is my "official" name)

So that's pretty freak'n sweet! The Ecc. Council will be sometime in June. Ordination pending call means that when I find a "call" or a church position, that is when I'll be ordained. exciting times!

Old Post: I did more reading on Christus Victor and have discovered my popular post of the same title is actually mislabeled. I talked about the satisfaction theory posited by Anselm while Christus Victor posited by Gustaf Aulen is in opposition to the satisfaction theory. I will do a new post soon about the differences and usually the two are mixed in Christian circles. I need to flesh both out and have done a little preliminary work in the old post as I have gone back and edited the old post. Going for accuracy as per Sabio's example.

Other Such Things: My Ohio Bobcats knocked off Georgetown in the first round! AWESOME!!!

The rule of Three: Book: John Dominic Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography

Movie: Kundun is a fantastic film about the Dali Lama's life. Great music and atmosphere and directed by Martin Scorsese. pretty awesome stuff.

Music: Getting in an Arizona state of mind, here's one song on heavy rotation aside from all the country-western stuff like "i'm an old cowhand"

Soda, Sacrifice, and Salvation

2010-03-17T08:08:00.000-04:00

This Lent i gave up soda. or to put it another way, i am taking on the spiritual discipline of sacrificing soda from my diet.

"who cares?" you say. "it's just soda. not that big a deal."

part of the practice is to give up something you like. like for instance, if i gave up white chocolate, who cares? i rarely eat that and would leave me open to eating milk or dark chocolate. i LOVE soda! it's so GOOD and sugary and readily available! oh to feel those bubbles again, to taste the delicious chemical elixir... oh, where was i? since giving it up, i find it much harder to get through my readings or not to take a nap in the afternoon without my caffeine infusion. soda goes well with almost any meal as well, and if you want to eat at 5 Guys, Panera Bread, or Subway, soda is largely your option for beverage. and the sweetness goes so well with the saltiness of french fries. water or tea just don't have the same knock-out combo that soda has.

so it has been hard. not in a this is the end of my life kinda deal, not begging for daily bread, and definitely not triathlon hard, but i do feel like i have a little insight into what some people go through when they give up smoking as i do get cravings... esp. when i see a Mountain Dew machine, bottle, or mental image... *drool* Moooouuntaiiin Deeeewwww... i would like to do the Dew, right now even, having that green can of goodness sitting next to me as i reflect on this practice would.... okay.. onto what i've learned.

i've learned that water is pretty tasty. that there are some exciting things going on in the world of juices, like Acia and Pom drinks. i've also learned about the nasty effects that soda, even just one a day, does to your body.

Too much phosphorus in your body leads to a reduction in calcium and magnesium, which are vital for a normal heart rate, nerve and muscle function,blood clotting, good bones and teeth. It can lead to tooth loss, damage your gums, cause osteoarthritis in adults and bone fractures in adolescents
Caffeine is also found in soda and is another easy way to lose calcium. Caffeine can also really mess with your sleep cycle and many researchers say that it is more addictive than heroin.
Sugar in soda often comes in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is suspected to have a multitude of deleterious effects on the body. I have also found HFCS in many surprising things like Arizona Teas, Mott's Applesauce, Lemonade, Orange Juice, ground coffee, pulled-pork, BBQ sauce, and bread. HFCS are in many of the things we eat, and while i've been really looking at the labels to try to avoid this stuff, it's in nearly everything we buy.

my wife is also joining me in this spiritual exercise and in fact she's upped the practice. not only are we refraining from soda until Easter we are also refraining from eating at our fave. burger joint, 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. We eat there at least once a week and while the food is really really good, we are finding that it's not as good as we used to think it was when we ate there once a month or less. so in an effort to keep the mystique of 5 Guys, we're abstaining from it as well. maybe when we return we will find that we actually like a less greasy and soda-free diet.or maybe it'll be like eating there again for the first time. and maybe i can knock down my soda intake to a soda a week or so once i get through the withdrawal period. either way, i don't see a downside to this.

"okay, tooth-head," you say. "You've covered the soda and the sacrifice part, what's up with the salvation? do you think that this little exercise somehow saves you or makes you better than me cause you're doing it and i'm not? that either reinforces my view of egotistical Christians or makes me feel guilty about my own lack of spiritual discipline (because i don't know if i'm religious or not)."

this small exercise has helped me live a little bit more intentional. didn't Socrates state that the unexamined life isn't worth living? well, i would have never thought to have looked at soda because i love it and would rather not examine it. what i found wasn't so much new and shocking as i know soda is unhealthy, but what was shocking was HOW unhealthy and the extent of the problems that can be caused were. it caused me to change up how, where, and what i eat. i have just a little wider awareness now. isn't that on the road to salvation?

i mean the greatest stuff can come if people just stop and reflect on their actions for just a second. some republicans may see that they really aren't adding anything helpful to the political discourse by just saying no all the time.

Tea-Partyer's would see that they were awfully silent during the Bush years and that their silence caused us to get where we are at now and maybe they might discover that they are anti-intellectual and possibly racist in many of their assumptions.

Liberals would see that they have lost touch with their base of blue-collar workers and would work on connecting to others.

Christians would see that this discipline is hard and how comfortable they live here in the States. they may see how they have been acting elites and tribal and not like the servants they are called to be. they would see the use of these ancient Liturgical practices that our rich tradition offers and see that their faith has gotten too escapist. they would stop using faith as an escape from fear for when we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope. and hope is a good thing to have.

or maybe nothing will change cause people don't change so why bother trying to change through this stupid exercise? well, that sounds hopeless. and i gave up hopelessness a few Lents ago.

The Prodigal Problem

2010-03-14T10:30:00.000-04:00

The parable of the prodigal son is quite possibly one of Jesus’ greatest hits. I think it shows Jesus’ true genius as a story teller as we all can relate to either the prodigal son or the older brother. It could easily have been called the “tale of two brothers.” But what does this story really mean? What does it tell us about the kingdom of heaven that it is supposed to be describing?

Let’s start with the first son, the younger son known as the prodigal.

We are not told why he decides to leave, but he demands his share of the inheritance and leaves. Kenneth Bailey, a scholar of Middle Eastern Culture, states that this idea would make a first century audience outraged. To demand an inheritance is pretty much wishing the father were dead! Jesus’ audience would have been immediately hostile to this character. The father would be perfectly justified in banishing this brat forever with no inheritance. However, the son gets the money and leaves with no trouble from his dad.

Maybe some of us can relate to this character. We feel like we can take over the world, that we are independent and need no one’s help and if it were offered we’d prolly resent it. We can achieve our own goals and destinies thank you very much and as soon as the world notices me, I’m going to be a rock star, or a movie star, or even someone like Paris Hilton who is famous and everyone knows her but we’re not sure why we know her.

But things don’t work out like that. The son fritters away the inheritance and has to eke out an existence as a swineherder. Even the pigs seem to manage better than he does. It is likely that Jesus’ audience wouldn’t have felt the least bit sorry for him. Serves him right, they’d think. That’ll teach him. Yet the son has a change of heart, in a beautiful bit of poetry, the author of Luke writes in Greek “The son came to himself.” He remembered who he was and decided that if he was going to tend pigs for the rest of his life and live in humiliation, he would rather do it at home with people he knew. So he came back.

Here is where many Christians really connect to the story. They talk about their born again experience. Some even remembering the exact time and date that they came back to the family. When I was a chaplain in the hospital this past fall I heard a few of these stories. One man was in for a knee replacement and stated that while he was in a lot of pain, it was nowhere close to the amount of pain he caused his family. You see he was a drug addict and had been in and out of rehab many times. He had many siblings and had been staying at his sister’s for a few weeks and everything was going great. He knew he had to get it right this time because this was prolly the last sibling that would take him in.

One day the sister gives her brother $50 to go get groceries as she couldn’t get to the store with all her kid’s events going on, you know soccer practice, dance recitals and such. So the guy goes out with his list and is feeling pretty good as he knows he’s trusted and has responsibility to feed the family. He’s feeling so good that he thinks that it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a little six pack on the way to the store. Just to celebrate. What harm could it do? Needless to say he never made it to the grocery store. He spends three days drunk and walking the streets. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t really eat, he just drinks. It is when he’s in an adult-video store with a bag of heroin that he “comes to himself.” He told me, laying there in his hospital bed, that as he looked up to the ceiling right before putting the needle in his veins that he saw blood on the ceiling. Little dots and splatters right over his head on the ceiling.

He said the blood spots meant that other people had come here before and shot heroin into their veins like he was about to. He said it was at that moment that he could no longer deny the reality of his situation. He had failed himself, his sister and her family, and all of his siblings and parents. He had learned that he lacked the wisdom, the strength, and the resources to fend for himself and to fight the addiction, just like those who had made the blood spots before him. It was right there where he said yes to Jesus, spent 6 months in rehab, and came out clean. He has been an evangelical Christian now for 10 years and has been clean ever since. He has reunited with his family and makes a ritual of bringing some bread or snacks over to his sister’s house at least once a week so he won’t forget what he did.

In evangelical cultures, we often hear of these dramatic conversions, but we also hear about them at Trinity. Why, don’t we say every week that “No matter where you’ve been, no matter where you’re going, right now, during this hour you’re home?” That appeals to the born-agains in the crowd, the prodigals who left and then came back. Maybe we didn’t listen in Sunday school and found we needed some guidance after college. Maybe many of us were just bored with church until a friend brought us along to this one that’s not like anything we thought church could be! This place is fun! People laugh in service! Sing great songs, clap! And most of all people care about one another and what’s going on in the world.

The prodigal’s father does the unexpected here, just as Trinity does to many people, maybe even did to us. When the father saw the return of the son, he runs out and hugs and kisses him. He welcomes him home without asking where he has been. He offers a hug and not a lecture. Here the son’s journey was not simply geographical, it was relational. There is a spiritual homecoming in this moment and it’s very powerful.

Well….That’s all fine well and good but what about those of us who have been in church our whole lives? It’s nice that people realize that they need God in their lives but what about those of us who never left? Who have always believed in God? Those of us in the “once born crowd?”

What about those of us who identify with the older brother?

I sure can relate to the older brother. I would be mad too, seeing my wayward brother come home after wishing my beloved father dead. He deserved everything he got and more! Where’s the justice?! This line of reasoning, applied to the hospital story sounds like this: Well, I didn’t have to shoot up heroin to know it’s a bad idea. I never had to leave church to find out how cool it is. I never had this silly “born again” experience and frankly I think that these people are making it up for attention. How are we to know if they are serious and if they will stick around this time?

It’s kinda like that relative who always shows up late if they show up at all. This person could be a sibling, aunt, uncle, cousin, whoever, that when you throw a party, your parents and grandparents seem to have their eye on the door the whole time before this person shows up. It’s almost like you’re not even in the room. When this prodigal person shows up, they are the center of attention. After the party, none of the remarks are made about the prep that went into the food, the decorations, the great guest list, and let’s not forget the amazing iTunes playlist you spent hours on. All that is said about the party is how nice that prodigal Patty or Paul showed up.

WOW.. now that I think about it, this all sounds really bitter, resentful, and angry. So maybe both sons were lost… The first went to look for freedom and happiness in a distant country and got lost doing so but the older one who stayed home also became a lost man. On the outside he did all the things a good son is supposed to do, but inside, he wandered away from his father. He did his duty, worked hard every day, and fulfilled his obligations but became increasingly unhappy and unfree.

I am an oldest child. Oldest kids, psychologically speaking, often feel like they have to be the role-model. They seek to please and are obedient and dutiful, so says the Bowen Family Systems profile, but there are exceptions. Their biggest fear is that they will be a disappointment to their parents. They develop a certain envy toward their younger brothers and sisters who seem to be less concerned about pleasing and much freer to do their own thing. I confess this as my own nature, as I have a fascination for those who buck the rules. I never had the courage to simply run away. In some ways, I envy the prodigals.

How do I know the prodigal’s brother thought this? Where do I read in the text that all this was going through the older brother’s head and heart? It’s right at the moment when he is confronted by the father’s joy at the return of his younger brother, an anger erupts and boils to the surface. In that moment, when he leaves the party and heads outside it becomes glaringly obvious that a resentful, proud, unkind person; one that had remained deeply hidden comes out. The older brother represents the Pharisees and Scribes in this story, those convinced of their righteousness while Jesus was hanging out with sinners.

Why is there so much resentment among the just and the righteous? There is so much judgment, condemnation, and prejudice among the saints. There is so much frozen anger among we who are concerned about avoiding sin. We have the mindset and the ethical knowledge to act as guides and help people, but instead we point fingers. We get on our soap boxes instead of down in the trenches.

Who are you in the story? The repenting prodigal or the bitter older brother? Reminder, there is no happy ending to this story, we don’t know if the prodigal cleaned up his act or if the older brother came back to the party. Well, maybe that points to a third option, being the father.

This whole story started in response to Pharisees and scribes complaint that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” They had to face the facts and choose how they would respond to God’s love for the sinners. So the third option is being the father. Whether we are the younger son or the older, Jesus is calling us to become the father. The father offers grace and forgiveness. He understands both of his sons and calls them both home, into a relationship with one another. Just as Jesus did to those sinners and saints in his world, leper and Pharisee, tax collectors and scribes, Gentiles and Jews all ate at one table.

Maybe, if you’re an older child, you're worried that Jesus is giving people permission to go out and do all kinds of terrible things as long as they walk in afterward and take the free gift of God's forgiveness. I don’t think it works like that. Once prodigals experience this type of love, you don’t forget. Jesus has the father say only one thing to the older brother: "Cut that out! We're not playing good boys and bad boys anymore. Your brother was dead and he's alive again. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping.”

That’s the name of the game from here on out, resurrection. That’s good news! Now we can say, No Matter where you’ve been, no matter where you’re going, right now, because of this hour, we can throw aside our judgment and become the father, and welcome each other home. AMEN.

Bibliography

Capon, Robert. Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace. Grand Rapids, MI : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1997.

McGrath, Alister. Redemption. Minneapolis. Fortress Press, 2006.

Nouwen, Henri. The Return of the Prodigal Son: A story of homecoming. New York: Double Day, 1992.

Satisfaction Theory and Christus Victor

2010-03-08T07:48:00.001-05:00

In this post i will reveal how big of a heretic i am, but before i do i would like to focus on a little picture i found at CollegeHumor.com as a preface.

The Satisfaction Theory along with Christus Victor are considered the prime view of the atonement. The Satisfaction Theory is called the "classic view" by Aulen and it was best articulated by Anselm of Canterbury in the 1100s. It is the one i have the most trouble with and I've always pushed against it. Even in Catholic school where I pretty much accepted everything the teacher said, when it came to this view of atonement and even the doctrine of original sin, i questioned pushed and just couldn't accept it. One or two times a letter went home with my mom, but I always got A's in religion. so i kinda feel like the kid who the teacher is writing about who is bucking authority. so this post seeks showcase the "classic view" briefly and put in my two cents on where i have trouble with it. the purpose of this post is to seek understanding of this view and have someone address the plot holes within this theory. i'm open, but skeptical.

Aulen states that the subject of the atonement is absolutely central in Christian theology and it is directly related to the nature of God (page 12). Indeed, i think this is correct because every religion sets up a problem for the world and then provides the solution. in the 'classic view' the problem is that humankind is sinful and sin affects the order of the universe. God needs satisfaction for this but humans can't provide it, because God and sin are supposedly infinite and humans are finite. So God in Christ reconciles the world by becoming human and satisfying the justice needed.

Christus Victor however, states that humanity is in bondage to sin/death/devil and the solution is for God/Jesus or God in Jesus to come down and destroy sin/death and free captive humanity from sin/death/devil. I do the slashes as this is the whole package facing mankind and has some important nuances within it. that being said, i'll lay out where Aulen gets this idea.

Irenaeus is the first dude to really tackle this problem. granted the images of atonement are indeed found within the gospels (specifically John) and the epistles (specifically Paul, Hebrews, and Peter) and the early hymns and liturgies of the church. why? well, it is my prof Lee Barrett's idea that theology is parasitic on religious life. the life, hymns and songs, happen first, the emotional/subjective experience; and then along comes theology to figure out what it all means. kinda like science (WARNING WARNING: science analogy about to be used! ;-)) where events occur naturally and the scientist comes along later to establish the how's and why's; the purpose of the subjective action.

Irenaeus was the first to articulate that the early church looked at Christ's death and resurrection and said "hey, i kinda feel forgiven. let's sing about it!" Irenaeus picks up on the Pauline and Johannine writings and sees there's some direct connection with the thought of Christ as victor over sin and death. The devil has some objective existence, lord of sin and death, and having deceived mankind in the garden has gained dominion over them. God being perfectly just, somehow honors this pact and seeks to free humanity from it. Since God finds mankind under the condemnation of the Law, God delivers mankind from the powers of evil and reconciled the world to Himself [sic] and God becomes both the reconciler and the reconciled.

Aulen traces the thoughts of Irenaeus through the patristic traditions and through Protestant thought as well. adding to this idea through fancy nuances like God attains his purpose by internal, not external means, he overcomes evil not by an almighty fiat but by putting something of his own through a divine self-oblation (Great Catechism ch. 26). all of these thoughts rest on the doctrine of the fall and a dualistic understanding of the world where "darkness cannot endure when the light shines nor can death remain in being where Life is active."

there is the start of my problems.

1. if the fall is not in the Jewish understanding of the story of Genesis, then how can this stand? if Genesis is just a story, then how can it have any genetic binding on the souls of people?

2. how did this concept of the devil come into being? where in scripture is the fall of Satan? where can i find this story in rabbinic thought? Islam has a cool story of Ibis and how in parts Ibis/Satan is a jinn or jealous of God's love for humanity or even working on behalf of God to tempt the faithful and test them (like in some strains of Judaism). is the devil co-equal with God? is this some Zoroastrian version of Christianity?

3. I don't agree with the dualistic idea that darkness can't be around light. aren't they not connected? isn't it the shadows that define light? aren't life and death two aspects of a spectrum and while we live we are yet actively dying, subjecting to the natural law of entropy?

so those are just the start of my questions. i have other concerns too, like the idea of how we were ransomed by God yet many weren't aware of the fact we were in bondage in the first place! shouldn't a memo have been sent to all the other religions?

Dear Pagans, Buddhists, Hindus, Shitos, Taoists, and Gentile-masses,

Hi, this is God. Not god or gods, but the great beyond that all of your avatars point to. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but y'all are in bondage. But don't worry! I'm coming down there and atoning for your sins and freeing you from Satan, who got a little too attached to his work. This will both be really cool, cause I'll give you things like the beattitudes and some parables, as well as get to fire Satan (which will be great cause now it'll give another angel a chance to win the office's March Maddness Bracket, Gabriel is really excited at this). Oh, one caveat, you have to believe both that you're in bondage and that this guy Yeshua of Nazareth is me (which he'll never come out and say directly, cause you know, I'm freaky mysterious like that).

Eternal Love,

-G.

In class we're going to discuss this and hopefully i can get some clarity and some help connecting the dots. Aulen didn't help here. in fact, he made it worse. too many assumptions going into this theory for it to hold up in light of science and what we know about the world today. it is too reliant on tradition and an outdated metaphysic of angels, demons, and heavenly hosty sorta stuff.

i can affirm the basic concept of a Divine Love which cannot be imprisoned in categories of merit and of justice and thus breaks them into pieces. THAT i get! that is what i feel these images and metaphors point to but fear that they are hopelessly outdated and bear really bad fruit. Just read the Proverbs of Ashes to see what the model of self-sacrificial love can do... esp. in terms of sexism! but that subject is a whole other post. i think that's enough ranting for now.

Evangelism

2010-03-04T07:47:00.000-05:00

"I am here to recruit you" -Harvey Milk

We recently discussed evangelism and it's role in the church in class. I thought it was a full discussion and really cool. we used William Abraham's book "The Logic of Evangelism" as a starting point.

The book was written in ’89 and 20 years later, it’s still really relevant and brings up some great questions and problems with certain models and definitions of evangelism.

The most common definition is Evangelism as pure proclamation. the pro's of this style is that it is not results based and allows the work of God to happen. namely that if people don't listen, the evangelical would just knock the dust off his or her shoes and continue on just as in Matt 10:1-16. however, the problems here out weigh the pros as it dismisses the idea of the MAKE disciples of all nations command that implies a bit of formation. there is a disconnect between the ideas of preaching and teaching and tends to emphasize preaching as in "crazy street corner guy" like Brother Jed.

The Pirate did a great job on articulating the difference between Evangelism and Proselytizing in this post.

Another definition of Evangelism is using certain techniques or methods of church growth. This approach is cool cause it values insights of Social Sciences and looks to what people are doing in context. There's an emphasis to the here and now and not to the 'great beyond' and a practical approach. however, the downside is that many church growth leaders, namely the mega-church pastors, have become pretentious concerning what they have achieved. Growth has led to some questionable things including: Harvest theology, theological disarray, shallowness and indifference.

Yet Abraham proposes that evangelism is an initiation into the Kingdom of God. It's actively seeking participation that is communal, intellectual, moral, experiential, operational, and disciplinary. It does not seek to simplify complex things so that they are easily handled. it involves formation and communal action and individual responsibility.

I enjoyed our reading of this book and the in class discussion. so often Christians throw around Evangelism without thought to what it means. it was helpful and i would like to put my own two cents in here.

At Trinity, there is a sign that hangs in Nancy’s office that says “Preach the gospel at all times, if necessary use words.” Like Harvey Milk stated at the top, I'm here to recruit you. Like an apple tree, my purpose here isn't to produce apples, it's to produce another apple tree.

wait, wait... did I just recently write on Sabio's blog that i'm not here to convert anyone? right! well, isn't that contradictory to what you just wrote in the paragraph above? no, let me explain:

An apple tree drops a ton of apples in the hopes that they will be eaten and the seed will be spread around. I have a diverse set of readers here and they are reading my dribble and considering it and responding to it both negatively and positively. each discussion helps both people sharpen their own views and become a better person within their own tradition. if a reader meets another person who has similar thoughts that are expressed here, it is my hope to be networked with. i want to change the image of a monolithic Christianity. i want ppl to get the idea that there are other types of Christians out there than the pop-understanding.

if these words jive with someone, it is my hope to be a resource in their journey. but it's not an active conversion experience, it's a passive one. much different than the "by the sword" or "slash and burn" method used by active evangelists. it's organic, based in love, and on the principles of Natural Church Development.

I hope to steer away from the modernist viruses in the church which resulted in conquest and control models, mechanism, analytic reductionism, individualism, organizationalism, and consumerism. i find myself in the "wide-stream" the generous orthodoxy of Christianity and i love it. yet i see the faults certain traditions have. like a river, parts can be too deep, too muddy, too shallow, and some are filled with garbage. should there be some determining ethos to say "this image of Jesus should be in bounds, while this Neo-Nazi Jesus is unacceptable" yes. how can we do that? well, aren't we called to judge a tree by it's fruits. if a particular image causes people to hate their neighbor, why isn't that image out of bounds?

in conclusion to this long rant based on a great class, i would like to say that i'm not here to convert you. i'm here to recruit you to the idea that there are other Christians out there. that maybe you'd like to be a friend to these type of Christians, that there is value to a community like this, that service is a good thing regardless of the grounds for it, and history and tradition is important for followers of various principles, systems, and philosophies. I hope to sprout some new apple trees yet will not be discourage that they aren't Lindon Apples and that's it's okay if there are some Gala, Fuji, Golden Delicious, Granny Smiths, Sabio's, Jay Bird, John T, Yael, and other types of apple trees out there... or even if they are orange trees. or whatever.

Otterbein is a Cool Dude

2010-03-02T08:38:00.000-05:00

The UCC for me is the first Denomination that is post-denominational. When you take four unlike streams and combine them into a movement that has been going 50 years strong, there must me something special behind it. There must a great history of doing this. This Generous Orthodoxy that the UCC represents can be traced all the way back to the 1700s in the man Philip William Otterbein.

Philip William Otterbein was born on June 3, 1726 with a fraternal twin, in the town of Dillenberg, Germany. He attended seminary in Germany. He was trained in “Federal Theology” which was in contrast to the predestination theology of John Calvin. Otterbein believed that human beings can make faith decisions that emphasize free will. "What God offers and what Christians need is an interiorly experienced faith relation which permits God to release his power in the continuing transformation of the believer's life."

He went to America landing in NY in 1752 and began ministry in Lancaster, PA. Otterbein and his missionary colleagues faced a period of decline in the religious commitment of the diverse population. During the struggle for American independence and the Revolutionary War, "only about five percent (one in twenty) of the colonial population openly professed religious faith or admitted church relationship." We too are facing a period of decline after being the “Church on the Green” for so long in the 1950s to the 1970s. In a time of closing and fracturing churches, we’d do well to learn from Otterbein’s example.

Otterbein left the Lancaster Church in 1758, apparently disillusioned that the congregation did not achieve the spiritual growth he had envisioned. Otterbein accepted a call to the church in York in 1765. In 1774, Otterbein received a call to the German Reformed Church in Baltimore, a church deeply troubled with division. The church eventually split and there were two churches. One was German Reformed while the other eventually became United Brethren. The biggest emphasis in the new church was on the personal experience of salvation but Otterbein, however; tried to remain faithful to both churches. He found ways to respond in innovative ways to the spiritual needs of both congregations.

Although he was a charismatic leader of an evangelical movement that became a separate denomination, remained a minister of the German Reformed Church until his death. Even now, he is claimed with esteem by both the German Reformed Church and its successor, the United Church of Christ, and by the United Brethren, those continuing as a separate denomination and those who, as part of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, came into the United Methodist Church. It was his "scholarly pietism" wish to maintain "a double relation" with both congregations that is most notable.

Otterbein's concern for vital Christianity within the local church did not cause Otterbein to ignore the larger bond of unity among Christians. He invited everyone to “commune with us at the Lord's Table, although they have not been members of our church, shall be admitted by consent of the Vestry, provided that nothing can be alleged against their walk of life; and more especially, when it is known that they are seeking their salvation.” These words do not represent an indifference to matters of polity, but a subordination of diverse polities to the higher value of common life in Jesus Christ. They are consistent with Otterbein's view of classes in the local church and denominations in the larger church, as ecclesiolae in ecclesia, or little churches within the ecumenical church. In his preaching at the great meetings he often said, "I ask you not to leave your church; I only ask you to forsake your sins."

Otterbein was a moderate in doctrinal disputes. Even his disagreement with Calvin on predestination was expressed with humility and sensitivity. He explained to the synod in Holland: “To tell the truth I cannot side with Calvin in this case. I believe that God is love and that he desires the welfare of all his creatures. I may be permitted to explain myself more clearly. I believe in election, but cannot persuade myself that God has absolutely and without condition predestined some to perdition.” Otterbein's view of the relation of the gospel to social issues was liberal for his time. Personal faith was judged meaningless if it did not bear the fruits of righteousness in daily life. Otterbein thought that cognitive Christianity was deficient. He declared: The question is not whether one has heard or learned something about Christ and his death, or whether one can talk about it, but whether one has experienced the death of Jesus Christ in the putting to death and riddance of the old man [woman]. . . Consequently, if these things are yet strange to you, then your Christianity is merely appearance, imagination, shadow tricks.”

We are awash in apathy, doctrinal disputes, and theological pissing contests. We lose sight that we fight our own fellow Christians. Otterbein would remind us that we are united in Christ, and any division we make is a false one. He would also remind us that we can’t reach salvation by our works, but we can show our salvation by our good works.

Step One Done!

2010-03-01T13:07:00.000-05:00

I am on step closer to ordination. My local congregation graciously accepted my call and asked really great questions about the ordination paper... through which i had a bad bout of seminarian's disease and had long, complex answers for things that should have been shorter. that being said, they agreed to forward me onto the committee on ministry, meeting set for March 16th at 11 a.m.

so yay!

i've been reading a lot of Christology and Islam books for class. more Steinke and such... and also listening to The Silversun Pickups

and watching movies like Zombieland, The Hangover, and The Hurt Locker. I enjoyed all of them!

so there's your update, what are y'all watching, reading, and listening to?

FANTASTIC: A Lenten Failbook

2010-02-27T14:53:00.001-05:00

see more funny facebook stuff!

finally, someone gets the concept of lent!

Newtonian Relationships vs Quantum Ones: isolated and alone or interactive and interdependent?

2010-02-25T07:07:00.000-05:00

My ministerial ethics class is shaping up to be a really good one. when i was going into seminary, my pastor said that if i could find anything else that i could do as an occupation, i should do it. being a minister is the hardest job in the world. why? certainly a rocket scientist's job is much harder... or a construction worker... or a dude on the deadliest catch.. what's up with ministry that makes it so hard?

well, you see people at their worst. grieving, dying, and on committees being anxious and completely irrational. granted you see them at their best too, like weddings, baptisms, and such.

i've been studying human emotion for some time now. the most recent two finds is the PBS Series This Emotional Life. It's a 3 part series, most of which is online, dealing with the science behind emotions. The second source is Peter Steinke's Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times.

I've already experienced Steinke's work in another class and found him fascinating. This book covers Bowen Theory which is an understanding of what happens when people come together and interact, how the mutually influence each other's behaviors, how change in one person affects another, and how they create something larger than themselves. I like this view as it isn't a Newtonian understanding of people and their interactions.

Newton's atoms were like billiard balls, separate, compacted masses always operating to ironclad laws. This was extended into thinking about society, namely that the individuals were the atoms of society; isolated and impenetrable (unknowable). Freud might state "to myself, i am a self. to others, i am an object. to me, others are the objects."

Quantum changed all that. Quantum states that there is no world of composed, solid, individual parts unaffected by and unrelated to one another. in fact the quantum world goes so far that it boils down particles to subatomic particles that are so small that there are no small particles---only relationships. there can be no subatomic particles without the presence of other particles. such it is with humans. the genius then, as Steinke puts it, is that life is built of small, discrete things that are connected and interactive. everything is connected to everything else. all parts dependent on one another and mutually affect each other.

Humans are responsive, relational creatures. Leaders then are the chief stewards who are willing to be accountable for the welfare of the thing/system/culture/thing-people-create-when-they-get-together/congregation. Leaders set the tone, invite collaboration, make decisions, map direction, establish boundaries, encourage self-expression and reflection, and maintain the integrity of the whole

a tall order.. one i hope to do well and get the message out that we're all in this together. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Rationalist, Newtonian, Quantumian (?), Pre-, Modern, Post-, Post-Post, Fundamentalist, Agnostic, Atheist, Martian, Pens and Pencils.

LAST SEMESTER! The Class Schedule

2010-02-22T07:05:00.000-05:00

This last semester, I'm taking World Religions, Christology, and Ministerial Ethics.

World Religions won't be all of the world's religions, which is a shame... but we will study Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism (specifically Tibetan Buddhism).

Christology has a great reading list and one of my fave professors. Books by Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Katheryn Tanner, and Rudolf Bultmann. Already some of my fave authors/theologians. looking forward to exploring the many thoughts out there about who Jesus is.

Ministerial Ethics is more about how to be an effective administrator and ethically do budgets and such. seems like a continuation of Pastoral Ethics... which largely focused on how to be a good sounding board and pastoral councilor.

i'll keep you posted on how the classes are going and maybe post some insights and such about them.

the real focus of this semester is getting ready to find a call. This Wednesday i head to my home church to discuss my ordination paper. in brief: they read the paper, ask questions about it, and decide if they will recommend me to Church and Ministry. C&M reads and asks me about the paper and then decides whether to recommends status to potomac board of directors. After i'm recommended twice, i am then labeled "authorized to enter the search and call process" meaning "able to circulate his profile to find a church that will have him as their minister." it's an exciting time! i'll keep you posted on that.

keep me in your thoughts and prayers for this Wednesday. i'm expecting no surprises here and am looking forward to being in my home church again and having a conversation about my theological positions and sense of call.

Metaphor, Doctrine, and Model: A helpful rubric in Christological studies

2010-02-20T10:55:00.001-05:00

Posted recently in response to ER's Do Creeds Have Cred? i think this is a helpful rubric when discussing differing views of Christ. i think this helps in discussions like the one between Sabio, Anglican Gurl, and myself on Sabio's Charts and why Christians can still be called Christians even though their images and creeds are completely different and even non-complimentary.

i'm taking a Christology class and found a helpful rubric. the early church was like a metaphor machine, churning out images for Christ: Christ is like a vine, bread, living water, shepherd, Moses, Elijah, God, Messiah, etc. etc.

metaphors emote something, causes you to transfer feelings from something you know to something you don't know.

then came doctrines which tell you how to feel and think. Christ is bread and here's how. Christ is two natures, one in being with the Father, and here's how. here is the dividing line, you're either with us or against us.

then come models, which when doctrines fail and cramp your brain, models are what you use to massage it out. two natures?! how does that work! well, it's like peanut butter and jelly, you can't separate the two, yet they are two distinct substances... problem with that model is you can distinguish between the two and that leads to modalism. so it goes.

so creeds serve a group in a particular time and place. helpful to obtain a communal identity. not so much if you want to be open. creeds are exclusive where Jesus, at least how i read him, was inclusive.

The question then becomes, what images are permanent? Can you legislate metaphors? Would it be insane to say "Well, we're the bread people, you vine people are apostate!"? Where do you draw the line?

Ponder the Problems with Providence

2010-02-18T06:32:00.002-05:00

Sabio recently posted "Everything Happens for a Reason" where he explores the idea of Providence that was brought on by a Drew Brees interview. This subject has been near and dear to my heart for awhile now, but really came to the front during CPE. I posted a little bit on Free Will in April 2009 and later that spring with my Existential Crisis and again that fall with the post "There's no Such thing as Secular" but I never tackled the issue head on.. and I think it's time to do so.

Providence is defined as divine guidance or care: God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny. The word derives from the Latin noun providentia meaning "foresight, forethought" and is related to providere, "to provide for, take precautions for or against" something. Secularly used, it is the belief that there is a benevolent ordering principle governed the universe and human history and that nothing happens solely by chance or is merely haphazardly, but rather there is some guiding principle ordering things toward an end.

If you listen closely enough, you'll hear all sorts of people make this claim, atheists included. For some like Richard Dawkins, the ordering principle is the biological process which ends in death and existence is largely accidental and while can be understood through the ordering principle, we are largely at the mercy of our genes and the entropic process and we all will live and die in a meaningless and godless life. For other atheists, the guiding principle is Math as math as upheld as the universal language of a passive yet ordered universe. we all have our rubrics to interpret this irrationally full existence with... some Christians have a "big daddy in the sky" rubric like Drew Brees.

The Pirate had a recent post (that he stole from Marcus Borg's book:The God We Never Knew) that described the problem with this view as opposed to a panenthestic approach. Yet this still doesn't deal with the problem of Providence. This notion taken optimistically can lead to the prosperity gospel or pessimistically of determinism or fatalism. One posits that all one has to do is believe and sometimes act a certain way and things come to you if you choose it while the other is marked by a passive sense of human resignation before the whimsy of uncontrollable fates. take your pick really.

but is there a middle way? what does the bible say of God's providence?

Starting off in Genesis, we are shown how God's providence starts in Creation, keeps through Abraham and Joseph, extends into the Exodus, is reinforced by the Dueteronomistic tradition (Josh through Judges), and then in statements like those in Proverbs 2. yet these aren't totally solid. God does not always provide.. well, at least provide what the people where hoping for. There's the multiple invasions by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans... there are the parts where God seemingly abandons God's people or behave punitively towards them (2 Sam 12:16-23, Job, Psalm 22:1,2 Luke 13:1-5, 2 Thess 1:9) and then there's the theological watershed of the Holocaust.

This problem has been around way before the Holocaust, way before modernism and the rather new debate as to where Evolution Leaves God and the problem is found within the Bible itself. Specifically the wisdom literature books such as Job and Ecclesiastes, both of which challenge the conventional understanding of God' unwavering providence.

Job and Ecclesiastes both acknowledge the randomness of life's vicissitudes. They claim that there is no moral order of the universe, the wicked go unpunished and the good get trampled. The conclusion of both books is that we are not to assume anything personal about the providence of God according to one's life situation (Ecc 9:11-12). by personal we mean God caring about us personally, God rewarding and punishing us personally, God forgiving our sins personally, God hearing our prayers and responding personally.

Then there's Jesus. Jesus claims that God is not only active in the world but more intimately personal than we have imagined!

God knows the number of hairs on our heads (Matt 10:29)
Not a bird falls from the sky outside of God's will (Matt 10:29)
A friend helps another friend and we have much more assurance that God will rise and help us (Luke 11:5)
A corrupt judge gives justice to a persistent widow, how much more assurance do we have that God will grant our petitions? (Luke 18:2)
Ask and it will be given, seek and we will find, knock and the door will be opened (Matt 7:7)

yet we also must acknowledge:

God may have numbered our hairs but God neither prevents them from falling out or turning grey.
Why is it God's will that a bird dies? I would have prefered "Knowledge" instead of will, what the heck does that mean?!
If God is inclined to rise when we need help, he do so many children go to bed hungry and die before morning?
How much time does it take for God to respond to our petitions?
If we ask, seek, and knock and don't like the results, or can't interpret God's answering, why doesn't God prevent us from getting disappointed in God and turning from faith and community? (just check out any one of the stories from the De-Cons for evidence.)

I've been reading a lot of Paul Tillich lately. In his sermon "The Meaning of Providence" Tillich states what providence is not. Providence is not a vague promise that everything will turn out for the best (it didn't for Jesus, Peter, or Paul). Providence is not being hopeful in every situation as some situations are hopeless. Providence is not the anticipation of happiness and goodness will come to humanity. Tillich concludes that all things work together for good, for the ULTIMATE good, the eternal love and the kingdom of God. Tillich states that the one constant in the world is suffering and that Faith is an active defiance of this. Through trusting that everything will turn out well, that God is in control despite the fact that we may meet an awful death is what counts. the obedience to a God we cannot understand nor even count on personally is the key.

i wonder if Jesus would agree with Tillich on Good Friday?

this leads me to believe what i thought before hand... that my thoughts, the various testimonies like Drew Brees and other believers and former believers, that even the testimony of scripture are not harmonious and even contradictory. all i have is a belief. all i have is how i interpret the world.

and isn't that what we all have? interpretations of our subjective experience? in this instance, i don't believe that we have any measurable way or objective data to find an answer to this question. for some to believe that things work out for the good, or at the very least that submission to the will of God (as found in Islam, Judaism and Christianity) or even just to the "natural way of things" (like Taoism or Buddhism) result in an interpretive framework for our experiences. this can lead to some questionable notions like spiritual elitism, spiritual warfare against other believers and nonbelievers, and an institutionalization more caught up in temporal power than spiritual insights. Sabio is right in his questioning of the results of this style of thinking (see his first chart in his post).

yet, i have witnessed the power of this time and time again in the ER and in the families of dying patients. the hope that this life isn't it.. that we shall meet again and be returned to the Spirit from which all things come. so once again, i am caught! I am living within the tension of a caring God who has brought me thus far yet doesn't protect me from bad things happening. Maybe the problem lies not within the idea of providence but within my own interpretive framework. Death isn't the enemy but the natural conclusion to life. it sucks when it is cut short, but we must face our own mortality.

not being afraid to die, isn't that a person we would want to keep alive? Someone who strives for justice in the face of oppression, unafraid of the consequences. Someone willing to question the conventional wisdom despite the consequences of their thoughts... people like Sabio and Ian who are atheists in a culture of theists. people like CoffeePastor and RJ and Jason and John who are various shades of Theists who seek and probe and challenge. people like Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and my more conservative brethren who risk stating that we aren't in control of our lives, that a bigger force is operating and left in human hands, we'd just screw it up.

Yet i find myself having little patience with those who think they already have the answer and are at the extreme ends of this scale. Pat Robertson who can say God is punishing poor people from his rich mansion and TV studio. People like Richard Dawkins on the other side saying that believers are stupid, self-deluded people. they can't enter the conversation because they can't see the limits of their own interpretive frameworks. both are assured of their correctness and will damn anyone who disagrees.

that isn't grace. that isn't loving thy neighbor.

i know i stand leaning toward providence yet recognizing that God is God and I am not... thank God for that! if i had my druthers, Green Bay and Cleveland would win every Super Bowl, we'd have avatars telling us what to do like in Battlestar Galactica (where everything did work out for the better) and the world would be so simple it'd be boring. i much prefer this ambiguous life filled with such wonderful people... and even the not so wonderful. they help me learn what not to do.

Why do I side with providence? Because it is part of my life, i've experienced it and feel that there is no way i could have gotten to where i'm at today without some higher power guiding me through, putting people into my life, and speaking to me in a "Still Small Voice." this voice doesn't say i'm great, in fact, it often says "serve." or something else that i don't want to do. could be my super-ego talking, could be something else. maybe another way to look at it is that we hold onto our past and when similar situations arise we are able to draw from the past experience and make it work out better "this time around." it's all about how you picture time, some picture it linear, for me it's more of a spiral... things cycle in and out... all of this has happened before and will happen again. my job is to pay attention in the present moment and not have historical amnesia. look for the connections. could be called Providence, could be called being a student of history... either way works in my mind (because i'm simple and tend to combine things that maybe shouldn't be ;-))

okay.. ramble over... thanks for reading if you got this far.

Lent

2010-02-17T07:58:00.000-05:00

It's Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent.

as always, here's my group's instillation of an art project depicting Lent:

this year i'm giving up Soda. well, soda made with High Fructose Corn Syrup. i'll struggle to read the labels and avoid the extra calories and try to eat more healthy, more local, and without corn, which is pretty much in everything including all aspects of your happy meal, your applesauce, your soda (unless you go with Pepsi and Mt Dew throwback), your beef (corn fed ones, not grass fed) your chicken (grain fed not free range). but it's good to note that Lent isn't about giving something up, although that is a good practice, it's about taking something on. I'm taking on trying to be careful and mindful of what i eat. fast a little more, stop overeating like most Americans do.

are you going to give anything up? What areas in your life need improvement? What can you do better or can you focus on something you're already doing to promote justice for these 40 days?

Sabio's Charts

2010-02-16T07:58:00.002-05:00

My blogging buddy Sabio made some pretty fancy charts. Here is my chart based on his "Christian: Declare Thyself!"

My Denomination: United Church of Christ

God’s Nature: The Ground of Being/The sum total of Existence and more

Christology: I am taking a Christology class this semester, hope it solidifies, right now I swing between high and low.

Theology of Scripture: Inspired

Soteriology 1: Universalist

Soteriology 2: Monism

Atonement Theology: Each one provides a unique view; that being said I can't get behind the substitutionary atonement theory. Rene Girard is helpful here with his Mimetic theory.

Literal Bodily Resurrection: I interpret metaphorically, but leave room for literal. Like Christology, I still swing but not as much.

Cosmology: Evolutionist

View on State of Israel: Israel-Neutral

Missionology: You were saved, and thus called into service

Eschatology: No Millenialist

View on Science: Science = AWESOME

Women can be priest or minister: Yes

Homosexuality can be valid life style: Yes

LHe also made this chart for atheists under his post: Atheist: Declare Thyself!

Level of Certainty: Strong Theist

Openness: Open, but cautious

Degree of Outreach: Evangelical

Present Religious Participation: Often

Stance toward Categorically Rejecting Religion: Sympathetic

Degree of Enchantment Enchanted

Mystical Perceptions: Partially Mystical

Theory of Religion: inherent in human genetic and neurological paths, excellent for building up community and self and locating both community and self in history and connecting to it.

Non-theistic Leanings: there is an awful lot of chaos in the world. not sure how providential my thinking is.

Secular Superstitious or Irrational Habits: can't think of any.

View of Reason: Reason is helpful but humans aren't rational creatures, just rational in hindsight.

Faith Items: Theist!

Past Belief History: Christian: from literal to progressive in a few denominations.

Past Orthopraxy History: I am a fan of the Lectio Divina, the Book of Hours, Labrythn walking, keeping the Sabbath: life long.

Past Sect History: Roman Catholic -> United Methodist -> "Christian Buddhist" -> United Church of Christ.

And he also has one for Philosophy with Philosopher: Declare Thyself!... now if he just adds one for Politics, we'll be set!

School of Philosophy:	Continental

Ontology:	unsure

Science:	has limits

Theory of Time:	B-Theory

Theology:	Panentheist

Politics:	Egalitarianism

Language:	unsure

Mind:	Anti-physicalism

Mental Content:	unsure

Abstract Objects:	unsure

Knowledge:	Relational

Personal Identity:	Psychological View

Free Will:	Compatibilism

Normative Ethics:	Deontology

Meta-Ethics:	unsure

Feel free to fill out your own! Check Sabio's site for links to the definitions and categories.

Kirkegaard's Ducks

2010-02-11T08:10:00.002-05:00

The Danish philosopher Soren Kirkegaard wrote a story of a little town of ducks. Every Sunday the ducks waddle out of their houses and waddle down Main Street to their church. They waddle into the sanctuary and sit in their proper pews. The duck choir waddles in and takes it place, then the duck minister comes forward and opens the duck Bible (Ducks, like all other creatures on earth, seem to have their own special version of the Scriptures.) He reads to them: “Ducks! God has given you wings! With wings you can fly! With wings you can mount up and soar like eagles.” Well the ducks start going nuts and quacking “AMEN!” and “PREACH! PREACH!”

The Duck pastor continues “No walls can confine you! No fences can hold you! You have wings. God has given you wings and you can fly like birds!” All ducks are beside themselves and are in a frenzy. After the service, the told the duck pastor how this was the best sermon ever… And then they all waddled home.

Family Systems Theory in Action: who is my father and who am i?

2010-02-09T08:37:00.002-05:00

Identity is a funny thing. many people get it from their parents. i have just had the honor of knowing my mom. my dad, Loren, remains a mystery as we left him when i was 3. last time i saw him i was six... i don't have too many memories of him. i gained some insights about him from meeting my half-brother Key back in 2005. Key took a job as a truck driver and contact with him has been spotty. Well, he recently got laid off and re-connected with my sister Val. this spawned a new round of revelations and such about Loren. my sister has been doing some sleuthing on the internet and found this post by someone who lives close to Loren:

LOREN LINDON-Freind of the family(50 Blackfoot Indian)To be open minded and non judgmental. Treat everyone with fairness. Taught me that there is no difference between race, religion, color, or creed. Whether we are black,white, yellow, green or purple we all have the same souls. Although we may be different on the outside we all bleed the same. To see a person for who they are Not WHAT THEY ARE. Sympathize those who are down and out. (SYMPATHIZE THE FALLEN) Be able to put yourself in that persons shoes. To be proud of your heritage. CHEROKEE AND IRISH MAN

how strange it is that while i have never met the man, we share a similar outlook. my outlook, however; includes a track about parenting the kids you father. i was struck by this reflection on the father i never knew. like he's a member of the Blackfoot nation?! hard to tell. could be. i was raised thinking i was part-Cherokee and then i met my older half-sister Bobbie-Jo who claimed we were Cree. now Key and this guy claims that Loren claims Blackfoot. i'm a little confused here.

for being proud of heritage? i guess so. i never knew my father, i caught my gpa cheating on my gma when i was 15 and they divorced. my family has been fractured twice. my religious views have as well. but instead of becoming a victim; of letting these circumstances become an excuse to act irresponsibly; i have been able to use this weird and unique upbringing to my advantage. my mom was an excellent model for this, being a mechanic in a small rural town. she valued education and liberation in a place that demands conformity and she used both the Bible and science as tools of liberation. her example and this history has been excellent for me in preparing for ministry.

in CPE it helped me hold complex family situations with grace instead of freaking out that this family didn't fit my ideal concept of one. as a minister it has helped me find ways to empower people and to hold their short-comings lightly and not get to hung up on them. personally, it has helped me deal with chaos with a laid back style. i'm a passionate dude but i think i hold that in balance and don't over-react in crisis situations. i used to seek order and deal only in black-and-whites and get really stressed out when things didn't fit my rubric or broke my categories. i was sort of a jerk in high school because of this. but now... not so much. i'm okay existing in the questions, in the mystery, in a place where i'm caught between order and chaos.

my father is an enigma and i'm okay with that. he's a paradox of this high-idealistic prose and the reality of the history of my life. both sinner and saint... and aren't we all?

the best part of all this is how my past and experience of this man has informed how i will parent. i want to be an active and engaged father and i work everyday on it. i want Eve and any siblings that are to follow that they are loved. it's not about me, as it seems to be with Loren, it's about them. like how Drew Brees only had eyes for his son at the end of the Super Bowl. that's the type of dad i want to be.

STAY IN YOUR BOX CHRISTIAN!

2010-02-04T06:08:00.003-05:00

In 2004, CBS rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ, saying its message of inclusivity was "too controversial." Now CBS is planning to run a pro-life ad sponsored by Focus on the Family during the Super Bowl.

there's also this one too:

here i think we have the big ol' fallacy of "No True Scotsman." The UCC can't be Christian because we all know Christians are exclusive. They all are pro-life, conservative, and believe the same thing. WRONG!

Why then do some expressions of Christianity get more access than others? I keep coming up against the same objections to my theology time and time again, namely that it doesn't sound too "Christian." when pressed further, most ppl will articulate that i don't match up to the conservative Christian stance, since that is the percieved majority.

Funny thing is, the Pew Forum ran a survey that found

"the spiritual roots of the religious right and left to two broader faith communities. On the right, white evangelical Christians comprise 24% of the population and form a distinct group whose members share core religious beliefs as well as crystallized and consistently conservative political attitudes.

On the left, a larger share of the public (32%) identifies as "liberal or progressive Christians." But unlike evangelicals, progressive Christians come from different religious traditions and disagree almost as often as they agree on a number of key political and social issues."

Whoa?! Progressives outnumber evangelicals? Well, that doesn't make sense! Well, we know that every Christian believes the bible is the Word of God and reads it literally.

On matters of faith, fully 62% of white evangelicals say the Bible is the actual word of God, to be taken literally. In contrast, only 35% of the public including just 24% of Catholics and 17% of white mainline Protestants share this literal view of the scriptures, with most believing that although the Bible is God's word, not everything in it is literally true. (from the same survey)

Well butter my butt and call me biscut! The majority believes what I do, that the bible isn't COMPLETELY the word of God but contains it. As Karl Barth put it "when we read the bible we aren't reading THE word of God, we're reading FOR it." This is what it means when ppl answer that the Bible is the "Living Word of God." Much different than a static literal "Word of God." stance. This view has also been backed up last year as I and others in my class had to do church surveys for our "Church and the Human Sciences" class. Some took theological inventories as part of this survey, and they too found that churches largely view the bible like this... this comes from an American Baptist, two UCCers and a Methodist. My inlaws church also did a survey like this and they posted the results!

Well, we know all Christians are dogmatic and completely tribal, excluding all other faiths. The Pew Forum also found that"Many Americans Not Dogmatic About Religion" crap! They even found that Most Mainline Protestants Say Society Should Accept Homosexuality and that they believe "Other Faiths Can Lead to Eternal Life."

So why then, with all this "objective evidence" (HI SABIO ;-)) do these stereotypes still exist? Well, because of access to media thanks to morons like those at CBS who only want a pre-packaged "Pop" understanding of Christianity. Also because the more conservative segment of the religion would rather call the liberals "not Christian at all" as evidenced by this post by Shane Vander Hart. That argument makes me very very sad yet I hear it time and time again from the right seeking to pull the rug out from under their own brethren.

There is not just one view on Christianity, but multiple streams, theologies, views, denominations, and debates that have been going on since the founding of this religion. I like what a character in Defiance states about Judaism and what they traditionally do on Passover: "We will sit around and argue just has we have been doing for thousands of years." I like this idea! If you look closely enough, you'll find that every religion is doing this. That's one claim I can stand by. Even Islam, which claims that the Koran is the indisputible word of God has denominations, namely the Sunni and the Shi'ite. We can throw in the Sufi's as well, crazy mystics are always muddy'n the religious waters ;-)

I fit directly into a particular sense of what it means to be Christian. I'm a Mainline Protestant who used to be Catholic (largely Jesuit trained!). Science as always been held in high regard, the Bible has always contained stories... even though I once thought Jonah was literally swallowed by the whale. Now that I'm older I can use form criticism and see what is myth and what is not. I don't fit into a conservative understanding of Christianity nor do i have to, as it is not the only understanding out there.... so please stop acting like it is.

Objectively Subjective? Subjectively Objective? The Confusing State of Myth, Fact, and Truth in General

2010-02-02T07:50:00.003-05:00

I've been discussing Metaphorical vs. Literal Truth on Sabio's blog. It's been quite a discussion! These are the types of conversations that I live for! They are heated yet generous, loaded with concepts yet open to new views, and most of all, you leave wanting a drink and some advil only to go at it again! These are the hard questions I love asking and exploring.

Sabio states that "sure, a made-up story obviously can have subjective truth — gee, that sounds like a truism." My question then would be... can a story also have an objective truth? Something that can't be expressed any other way? What about Sociology? Can there be a zeitgeist event where a subjective truth some how become objective in a sense? Or at least in a given group, say like Gen-Xers and the Millennials?

What this conversation is about is trying to answer what humans have been trying to do since we developed the frontal lobe; namely to answer the question: "What is true?" I like trying to get at an answer to this question through multiple means. The Socratic method, though, is my favorite and which is what we on Sabio's blog are engaged in now. I will attempt to further that dialog now.

Ian mentioned two types of truth, a subjective and objective: 1. Objective truth – ‘facts’ as Alice called them.
2. Subjective truth – things that ‘chime with’ or ’speak to’ an individual.This is very helpful as it is part of the method. Even the most universally recognized and used concept, like Truth for example when subjected to scrutiny, might reveal not only that there is NOT universal agreement but that every single person has a somewhat different take on each and every concept under the sun. i don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

I have really tried to tackle this question time and time again in the labels "Truth NOT Fact" the biggest discussion being found in "Absolute Truth." Largely i find myself holding to the main thesis put forth by Parker Palmer in To Know as We are Known is that truth is relational. Parker makes the case that education is at it’s best when it reflects this model. The quest for truth, by this definition, is a quest for self and for community with each other, with all creation. We cannot be removed from the equation and viewed as entities observing truth. We must be a part of it and be willing to be transformed by it. This way of life is only as secure as your relationships, and relationships are a lot of work. Parker’s truth is not to be found in our various doctrines or theologies (as these are partial, impersonal), but in the quality of our relationships. There can be groups of people who just want the easy, impersonal relationships. I see these in extreme fundamentalist religions and even atheist stances. These are a threat to community as a rigid adherence to doctrine takes an objectivist stance that reduces everyone to mere objects for conversion. Just holding things in binary tension and thinking things like: "it is either this way, or it isn't" is too simplistic for my blood.

going back to how myths can have objective truths, i present my fave tv show Battlestar Galactica as an example. There's a whole book written about the philosophy found within the show. i like it as it presents questions and situations, as does philosophy and theology, that won't pop up on a dradis screen or will be observable through Dr. Baltar's microscope.

things like "heroic figures have personal failings" or that some people "have overpowering egos and split personalities yet their selfish actions may lead to the salvation of many." In myth of a rag-tag fleet of survivors on the run we find objective truths about our post-9/11 reality. things like "we don't know who is with us or for us" our enemy is within our midst. stuff like that. we see how technology can both be a great compliment to our society and our downfall.

all of this to say that we need to be IN RELATION to the variety of ways to get to Truth (whatever that is). the objective and the subjective are in operation simultaneously and one should not be focused on to the detriment of the other. i may find some objective claim but my subjective feelings may color how i explain it to others. what we are left with in this quest for truth are not answers, but more questions and questions within questions. there are many methods and a great method is the Scientific one. it is ordered and rational and repeatable. yet when turned on humans, there is little that science can really tell us about personality or how a person will react in any given situation. sure it can tell us wonderful things about our mechanics (chemistry, biology, anatomical construction) but in terms of psychology or sociology, we can only lay out suggestions and points of reference that we must hold in tention with other contradictory points of reference (all of which can exist inside one single person).

Ordination Paper Update

2010-02-01T15:01:00.000-05:00

IT IS DONE! Thank you all for your help! I was able to keep my goal of having the paper done by 1/31!

I had to completely re-write part one as many emails were sent saying "Hey, all this is nice, but it says what you're against, not what you're for." So i re-wrote that. I had some great "tweeks" on parts 2 and 3. i could repost it in it's new form, but feel a little burnt out on it. maybe you do too.

now i can say that i'm done and awaiting my interview by my home church. It looks to be schedule for 2/28/10. I'll keep y'all posted.

thanks for your help!

The Trinity

2010-01-28T07:45:00.002-05:00

Jason is not a trinitarian and had some interesting thoughts on the Nicene Creed. While I won't go through the Nicene Creed line by line, as Jason did, I would like to talk about the Trinitarian ideal that is asserted within the creed.

The Trinity is at the core of Christianity and found in the early doctrines of the church. This mystery is central to our faith; but for many in our time, it is embarrassing, hard to explain, and even offensive. I interpret the doctrine as a response by the early Christian church to differentiate from how it perceived Jewish and pagan theologies.

“Classic theology” is the view that God is far away, that there is a gulf between the divine and human and never the twain shall meet. The writers of the Gospels believed that Temple authorities held this view. This idea is also active in some Christian streams today. The early Christians picked up on this and held to the notion that God the creator was not distant, but personal and immediate; not only transcendent.

Many pagan theology takes the view that the gods were completely immediate and could be manipulated by various rituals. The gods depicted in many stories have an adversarial relationship with humanity. The early Christians wanted to say that God was indeed with them, but also wanted to stand the idea that God can be manipulated or bargained with through the use of ritual and idol. Christians believed that God is with us and for us, so much so that God would send God’s only begotten son to live with and die for humanity’s sake.This leads to the culmination of the embodied divine in Christ.

The incarnation for me brings both views of classic theism and paganism into “panentheism” which is central to Christianity. Panentheism implies that God is not just close, but in and through everything. We are a part of God, yet God is still separate. God is with us and daily bears our burdens and yet is transcendent. God is with us and in us, in our midst when we pray alone with the doors shut or when two or more are gathered. There is no line between sacred and secular just like at the end of the Gospel of Mark where the curtain is torn in the temple, and this signifies a God which can’t be boxed, can’t be contained, and in and through all of creation.

Where we often get stuck is on "How can God be human?" We have no problem with God as Spirit but we have a HUGE problem with God as human, namely Jesus. While I can't explain how Jesus is both human and divine, I can say that I best meet God through Jesus. Maybe the ol' creeds are right and Jesus was God... or maybe it's more like Matthew Fox's idea that Jesus was the Christ and it was not Jesus who was God but the Christ aspect. "In whom God was pleased to dwell" and all that... that there is a Cosmic Christ that comes through the ages, that the mind of God can be in a human body, yet not have the rest of the human's functions compromised. I dunno.. those are the extremes, i exist in the middle.

What i can say is that we should never divide up the Trinity into an economical view like God creates, the Son redeems, and the Spirit guides and sustains. God is one and the works of the Trinity are indivisible. So when I stated that I experience God’s love, justice, and forgiveness; I am also experiencing Jesus/Christ and the Holy Spirit’s as well. I picture it as if I were to cut out a triangle from paper to represent the Trinity, lay it on a flat surface and spin it. That is how God, the Spirit, and Christ work.

Part III: My Journey to Ordination

2010-01-26T10:45:00.000-05:00

Part III: My Journey Toward Ordination in the UCC
(Part three of the ordination paper is intended to be an integrating statement that invites the
person to relate the faith & practice of the Church to his own pilgrimage of faith and understandings of and intentions for his ministry as a person ordained by the United Church of Christ.)

When asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I answered “Priest” up through the 4th grade in my Catholic elementary school. When I learned in 5th grade that priests could not marry I had to choose between women (marriage) or God (ordination) since I wanted to “collect” all seven sacraments. I picked marriage as women were more tangible, and I could not conceive of being alone. After 5th grade I answered “teacher” or “psychologist” when asked that question, but the same sense of these being the correct answer was missing.

My whole life I have felt different—not different as in better or worse than other people, but just different. I sometimes see and connect things more quickly and naturally than others. I seem to have some esoteric understanding of the universe, a poet’s mind and an artist’s eye. I also have a pragmatic ideal that was taught to me by my blue collar upbringing. I cannot create anything that is just art for art’s sake—it must help and do something. To paraphrase John Dewey, action without thinking is thoughtless and thought without action is meaningless.

I met my wife Kate when I was 17. I was struggling to hold onto my faith in the Catholic Church. It was not working. Kate was a United Methodist, and she invited me to her church. I had never been to a Protestant service before, and I had no idea what to expect. The pastor preached and referenced movies, books and philosophers (that particular day was Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and nonviolent resistance, which I was studying in school). I had no idea church could be this way! I was not used to this method in my Catholic church. I much preferred the Methodist church to the Catholic one, so I started going there.

At Ohio University I explored the world religions, especially Buddhism, which I still study to this day. I even surprised myself in accepting leadership roles in various clubs and working as a Resident Assistant. During this time, I had a falling out with what I understood as Protestant Christianity. I tried to join Campus Crusade for Christ to further learn about the Protestant tradition. Instead I found a rather limited view of Christianity: they were certain that they were correct and saved and all others were going to hell. It was their job to save all the unbelievers and misguided Christians, which included Catholics and liberal Christians. In discussions with people from Campus Crusade, I heard distorted views of Catholic dogma and church history that I tried to correct. During this time, I still had a strong presence of God and a relationship with Christ but I was not so sure about Christians.

Kate and I married in January 2004 after I graduated college. We moved to Virginia that month, where I began selling building supplies. I was happy and the money was good, but for the first time in my life something felt off. It was as if I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing. Something was amiss. I wanted to pursue the American dream and get the car and clothes and material things. Kate was not as into that and wanted to find a church.

We found Emmaus United Church of Christ and became involved very quickly. We felt at home at Emmaus because of its openness and willingness to learn about the world instead of shy away from it: the willingness to love humanity and not label and condemn it. Emmaus is one of the few churches I have encountered that truly preaches grace. Years later Reverend Federici stated that upon seeing me, he and Reverend Memrie Cook both thought that I would be a minister. I did not believe him at the time, but deep down I knew he was right. Into the second year of living in the D.C. area, I found that I was not happy in my job, and I met with Reverend Federici to explore my gifts. He brought up the “minister thing” again and asked me to really consider it. When he asked what my favorite job in the past was, he was not surprised when I answered “Resident Assistant in college,” as it was the closest I had been to being a minister. I was floored and had to work out what it means to be ordained.

I thought ordination meant that pastors serve more of a priestly role and have some special mark on them. This would mean that they are straddling the dimensions with one foot in this world and the other in the next. They are God’s mediators who are in line with the apostles and ordination passes on this apostolic descent and gives the pastor Christ-like powers to confer upon and administer the sacraments. I did not feel I fit that model. I believe in the “priesthood of all believers” and that we do not need mediators. God is Immanuel! With us! As a result of being in seminary though, I have realized that this is not the only model of ministry and I even believe some of it.

Historically in the UCC there have been two major models of ordained ministry. The first would be the Reformed idea stated above that pastors have one foot in this world and the other in the next. They make church a “home” that is filled with mystery and symbol, and the pastor embodies the divine. The second model is found in the Congregationalist idea of the pastor. Namely a pastor is someone who comes out of the community and acts as a motivator who fires people up and sends them out into the world to do God’s work of social justice. Church is not a home but a recharging station and the pastor’s primary role is empowerment. I feel that I am a hybrid of these two models of empowerment and embodiment.

I am part of the embodiment model because I feel as though God has guided me. God has given me the gifts of writing, love of learning and interest in others that a good minister needs. God’s spirit permeates my life. I easily fall into discussions about God with co-workers, family, friends and strangers on the street. People can embody other professions as well, like my brother-in-law and his job in sales or my sister-in-law and her job as a community art coordinator. Others are gifted doctors and lawyers. After much searching, I find that I am a minister at heart. I feel that I cannot be anything but a minister and that if I do something else, it just will not feel right.

I exemplify the Congregationalist empowerment model as well because I do not feel that I am above the congregation but come out of it. I have never seen myself as a leader, but rather more of a guide. I have never been comfortable with the word “leader” because it infers hierarchy. In my mind the only thing that separates people is willingness. I see myself as an enthusiastic guide who infects other people with a willingness to change or learn. I am steeped in the ways of the church and have studied scripture, and I can use both to teach others to use these two for practical, everyday use. Given my gift of being able to see the big picture, this makes me sort of a rallying point, a focus, and a witness to the life of the congregation.

Ordination then becomes a community event where people of a certain congregation see the gifts in a person for this position. The candidate has prayerfully examined his or her call and has had that call examined by others “concerning his or her fitness for ministry.” Constitutional Provision #24 states “An Ordained Minister of the UCC is one of its members who has been called by God and ordained to preach and teach the gospel, to administer the sacraments and rites of the church, and to exercise pastoral care and leadership.” This means that the call comes from outside the would-be pastor and not from his or her own ego. By “prayerful examination” the would-be pastor has trained and studied. He or she has formed a working theory of how to preach and teach the gospel, to administer the sacraments and rites of the church, and to exercise pastoral care and leadership.

This does not mean that God transmits some magical powers upon me during ordination. I do not and cannot believe that only ordained people can administer the sacraments. I can believe that only ordained people can teach and administer the sacraments most clearly as they have spent the most time thinking about their meaning and implication. They are able to make visible and tangible the intangible and invisible grace of God. They would be able to best connect the practicing church to the historic church that has gone before. Pastors are able to reinterpret tradition for today’s world.

There are many ways to ordain someone. One way to be ordained is to simply log onto the Internet and pay for ordination. That is not ordination as no one is affirming your call from God within a community—it is just a convenient way to serve the same role that a justice of the peace could serve, or, at worst, a joke. Another way is the apprenticeship model where a pastor takes a potential pastor under his or her wing and teaches through experience and example. While this may be a Biblically referenced model, it has some holes in it as well. This style gives a potential pastor only one example of ministry with all the biases and world view of one person.

The specific path through academia that is proscribed by the UCC is the ordination route that I find the best. In the academic model, a seminarian is flooded with information. While this is initially overwhelming, it opens the seminarian up to a broader view of God’s work in the world. This enables the pastor to be a non-anxious presence as they have a broad frame of reference from church history, ethics, polity, clinical pastoral education (mine was at Lancaster General Hospital), a cross cultural experience (mine was in Egypt), and many other lenses. They are more able to meet their congregation where they are both corporately and as individuals.

In short, a pastor hears God’s call, studies and focuses on this call for years in an academic setting, and then enters into conversation with his or her congregation to see how it all fits together. Ordination then becomes a communal and visible symbol of the invisible gifts that a person has to offer the community. It is a confirmation that the individual does embody Christ as best he or she is able and that others are inspired and empowered to follow their own calls.

Signs on the Journey

2010-01-24T08:10:00.004-05:00

Given at Emmaus UCC, in Vienna, VA, January 17, 2010

I can't believe it's been three years since we moved! When we were preparing to leave for Lancaster, Rev Bill said, "See you in three years, visit when you can!" So here's your visit, three years later! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Luke Lindon, and I am in my last year at Lancaster Theological Seminary. My wife and I joined here in 2004. We thank you for your support, your gifts when Eve was born, and for still sending us the Happenings newsletter. Thank you for keeping me in care, and allowing me to speak today.

I want to start today by quoting that old song… "Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs." For a large part of my life I've been looking for signs. Now I'm training to be a minister and interpret them for a living. All sorts of signs; spiritual, cultural, and more.

The wedding at Cana where Jesus turning water into wine is one of the 7 miracle stories found in John, and it is unique only to John. Before seminary I would have said, it never happened. I would have led with "How did Jesus turn that water into wine?" and then spent the whole sermon talking about how it can't be done. I love science. I like to think of myself as rational. Or what our fellow UCCer Rienhold Niebuhr coined, a "Christian Realist."

That would mean that all miracle stories are just metaphors for something else. Like the calming of the sea and walking on water is just showing how a non-anxious presence can calm people down and how purity of purpose guides a group. Nothing more. I mean, the bible was written by a pre-scientific people. Sure they had their own science and technology, but not like ours. They didn't have germ theory –they thought disease was caused by "demons." They didn't have any concept of gravity or a round earth, or that we orbit the sun and not vice versa. Let's be rational here… right?

So what's the meaning of this story then? Did Jesus spike the punch to appease his nagging mother? Or was Jesus a party animal? Or did he pull a fast one and actually serve water to people who had been drinking for three days… I mean… after all, weddings back in the day were a community event lasting 3 to 5 days. The whole town came out and celebrated and if you ran out of food or drink then you lost status with the community. So what Jesus helping them save face? What type of image of Jesus does this present?

All of this doesn't seem to satisfy. It is missing something. The image of Jesus we get is at best something out of the movie Talladega Nights where a character states that he likes "to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-Shirt because it says I want to be formal, but I'm here to party."

Now, I'm not so much concerned with "how" Jesus did what he did. I'm more interested in "why?" Asking how questions miss the story, obscure the story. The HOW question look for the nugget of truth in the form of facts and verifiable data … this analytical approach loses the story by focusing on the bits and pieces and the narrative disappears.

Let's start with what we're given. There was a wedding, Mary asks Jesus to help out, he states his time has not yet come, Mary gathers up some servants and says "Just do whatever he tells you to" and Jesus tells them to collect water in six stone jars and when tasted by the party planner, he claims that it's the best wine yet. Only a few people know what Jesus did, his disciples and those who got the water. It's also good to note that the word Miracle isn't used for this story… "signs" is.

Signs are what the author of John calls them. Signs… We moderate and progressive Christians tend to shy away from the term miracles. It's too subjective… not rational enough… they are just random and meaningless supernatural violations of the laws of nature. But, the word "miracle" can be reclaimed in terms of our experiences of God's transforming presence in our lives. These unexpected quantum leaps of divine energy can change our bodies, minds, spirits, and even natural processes. Signs can change a life...

Take for example how Kate and I even arrived at Emmaus.

We had moved to VA in the winter of 2004 after I had graduated college early. Kate was working in Gaithersburg, I was in Springfield and we were living by the Capitol One building, about halfway between both. My company had a location here in Vienna as well and I passed Emmaus countless of times. I always noticed the sign. It had messages that were funny… relevant… memorable. But I never stopped in.

It was Kate who had the idea to start going to church. I was content just reading about the various world religions and learning how to sell, emphasis on the sell stuff. I really wanted nothing to do with church because we all know that Christians are anti-evolution, homophobic, "global-warming-is-a-myth" nut jobs. Yet I trudged along checking out various churches, you name it, we tried it. I knew deep-down, we needed a community. A local community to volunteer with and make friends in, and get to know this area better. None of these churches seemed right, something was off at each one.

I was somewhat relieved at this, it confirmed what I thought I knew about church. But Kate is persistent. She somehow found "Flock Finder.com" and we both answered a survey and it suggested to come here… We took it as a sign that we should visit the church with the Sign. We visited on children's Sunday and they did my favorite parable at the time, the parable of the sower. At the end, we got ice cream sandwiches. They weren't too pushy and seemed happy to have us. On our way out the door, like in every other church we had gone to, someone presumably pressing for membership stopped us. Skip Wolfe asked how we liked the children's play and said that not all Sundays were like this. We thanked him for the ice cream and said we'd enjoyed ourselves, and then we braced for the part where Skip would guilt us into returning or put us in charge of something so we would have to come back. Skip said simply, "We hope you come back. Finding a church is like a relationship, you'll just know when it's right." Then he walked away. We were floored. In the car on the way home Kate said, "That's exactly what my church would say." And we've returned as much as possible after joining in the summer of 2004. We've been hooked ever since.

At that moment, Skip unknowingly performed a sign. He transformed me into a church goer. Emmaus, over the course of the next 3 years performed another sign. You transformed for me what it means to be Christian. You transformed me from a church goer to a church minister who wants to further this type of church. I want to plant other Emmauses.

The signs we saw at Emmaus were like the sign Jesus performed at Cana. It was very low profile. Very few people knew about it. It was at the wedding, in very insignificant town, in front of the servants. Jesus welcomes the outcast, the insignificant. Just as Emmaus welcomed us, newcomers, entry-level folk, people likely to leave the area in 3 to 5 years as is common around these parts. Yet we were welcomed here.

You have renewed my faith and taught me that there are other types of Christians out there. You have taught me that the Christian life is about following this radical spirit-filled person, this Jesus of Nazareth. We now follow with great joy this subversive sage who draws people into an inclusive community where compassion is the key component, not reason, not purity, not entertainment. Compassion is beautiful and you can find it in the poems of Hafiz, Rumi, Mary Oliver, or in the Tibetan Singing bowl, or Jazz music, or in pop culture, or at Starbucks or an Airport waiting line.

While we cannot describe the mechanics of Jesus' transforming water into wine, just as I can't fully articulate what Emmaus has done to and for me and my family. We can, however, let our imaginations wander as we imagine an interdependent world of lively and creative energies. Our task as Christians then is to be "living signs" that enable other people to experience the miracle of their giftedness and empower them to "let their light shine" in blessing the world.

Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs! Can't you read the signs?

The Liberation of Story Truth: Form Criticism When Applied to Genesis 1-11

2010-01-22T11:08:00.001-05:00

in a recent conversation, i realized that many readers out there never understand what i mean when i say "truth does not depend on fact. truth and fact are separate things." nor have they heard of Form Criticism and thus they make the mistake of thinking that all Christians read the bible literally. here is a paper on Form Criticism written in my first year of seminary, enjoy!

My favorite nonfiction book of all time never factually happened. The Things They Carried is a book about the Vietnam War written by Tim O’Brien who served as a foot soldier from 1969 to 1970. He states that all the stories are true, even if they are not entirely factual. O’Brien intentionally labels the book as “fiction” for that reason despite the book being about his experiences (O’Brien preface). O’Brien explains this in the chapter “How to Tell a True War Story.” He suggests a second meaning be applied to the readers and listeners of stories: that readers and listeners can discern stories that hold a truth, regardless of whether the events of the story actually occurred. The common denominator for O’Brien is “a gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (O’Brien 84-91).This gut instinct is true of every story, not just war stories, as all stories have grains of truth. Humans are a story driven species. We spend ridiculous amounts of money and time on books, movies, and other story media. We yearn for good stories to laugh, cry, and ponder over because above all we want to learn from them.

Story truth is powerful, and one does not need facts to teach it. This argument is front and center in The Things They Carried. The book is not factual but shows the truth of the frailty of humanity. In fact, the greatest teachers of human history all taught through non-factual stories. Socrates, Plato, Buddha, The Brothers Grimm, Jesus and many others all used the power of stories to teach truths. Does the parable of the Good Samaritan have to be factual to show that we should show mercy to all those in need? Do Buddhist or Native American stories with talking animals have to be factual to convey those messages of mindfulness? Do we need people in a cave looking at shadows to discern Plato’s meaning? If this is true of all stories, then why can’t it be true of the Bible?

Just a factual reading of the Bible misses the story truth. The best method to discover and analyze these truths is through form criticism. Frank Frick defines the goal of form criticism as seeking to clarify the form, function, and social setting of small units of the Bible that make up the larger stories (31). Thus, form criticism is a means of analyzing the typical features of texts, especially their conventional forms or structures, in order to relate them to their sociological context. Detecting the literary types or genres used in a particular story and relating them to the “when and where” of the audience will help us find the clearest truth of the story.

The best example of the benefits of form criticism is seen in the controversial stories of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. This is the main battleground in the religion versus science debate. This debate has two extremist points of view. On one side, creationists, who read these chapters literally, argue against science by claiming that all we need is the factual truth of Genesis and nothing more (Abramson). The other group, I will call “science” although this is not the most accurate term as there are many religious scientists. By calling it “science” I am using the vocabulary of creationists to define the group they are fighting against. These “scientists” state that there is no God, and creation is here through a random process of natural selection. Therefore, the Bible is nonsense (Dawkins 1, Gassien 4). Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, cites Genesis as his main reason for not believing in the rest of the Bible (31).

I use the extremes of these two groups to prove the point that neither group’s reading of Genesis does any justice to the story truth. This debate is unnecessary and would not exist if these stories were read using form criticism and not literally. I am not saying that the use of form criticism would wipe out atheism or the tension between science and religion; I am claiming that the first 11 chapters of Genesis would not be the primary battleground if form criticism were used.

The story truths of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Babel dispersion are truths for religious traditions because they prove that God created the world and has an active role in reality. The truths of these stories would have been significant to the early audience who had no modern scientific means to answer some very important questions. The first 11 chapters of Genesis deal with universals (Frick 139). These stories are simply about everyone and how the world came to be as it is. This general idea is then focused through the rest of Genesis down to the creation of the nation of Israel. By recognizing these stories as myth, we are able to recognize the unique spirit of Israel at work (Gunkel 45). Through form criticism, we are able to see these myths in other cultures that were Israel’s neighbors and how they impacted the Israelites. The Babylonian flood story and traces of other cultures’ myths have made their way into the Torah. The Israelites, influenced by the other cultures, made these myths their own mainly by putting them into a monotheistic context (Gunkel 44). Gunkel claims “that precisely these stories, with their unique combination of sophistication and child-like simplicity, have had the greatest impact among all the stories of the Bible on all biblical peoples” (45). These stories, so vital to the Israeli community, still serve us today.

The Creation myth, for example, shows that God is behind the creation of the cosmos and that humans are created in the image of God. This is important in explaining the difference between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom. Science can explain the creation of the cosmos in terms of chemistry, carbon dating, and various other methods. It does not attempt to explain the mystery of what or who first brought the raw materials into existence. The Bible holds the truth, but not the facts, while science holds the facts, but not the truth. Science can explain humanity and our evolution to our current state, but it cannot explain how and why we think and act the way we do. Religion fills in the science’s holes and vice versa. Religion adds the story truth to science and gives a glimpse of the identity of humanity and its purpose. Form criticism melds these two concepts together and shows there is actually no debate when Genesis is read as a myth as it allows us the freedom of getting at the story truth. Frick states, “If we try to extract factual historical information from these chapters, we will be very disappointed (unless we read into them)” (Frick 116). Form criticism can derive the story truth through exegesis and answer the questions of causation and structure that a literal reading simply cannot do.

Form criticism is an excellent tool to help meld science and religion. Form criticism helps humanity as a whole get what Erhard S. Gerstenberger described as “the frame of reference from established genres” to help our communal interaction (99). Form criticism calls us to consider both story truths and factual truths to help us read the world as a whole. I can understand why creationists want to hold onto these stories, as they are powerful and show us the nature of God and humanity. I can also understand why science so easily dismisses these stories as they are not in anyway factual if read literally. The debate between science and religion reminds me of my grandma and grandpa arguing about what they had for dinner the night before. After a few minutes of arguing, my grandpa would say, “The point is we had dinner, let’s not let the facts get in the way.” This sums up what form criticism accomplishes when applied to Genesis 1-11.

Works Cited

Abramson, Paul. "A Defense of Creationism." Creationism.org. 1998. 18 Oct 2007 .

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion . 1st ed. London: Bantam Books, 2006: 1-31.

Frick, Frank. A Journey Through the Hebrew Scriptures. 2nd ed.. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2003.

Gassien, Blair."Reasons for Atheism."The Atheist Agenda in Blog 25, MAY 2005, 18 OCT 2007 .

Gerstenberger, Erhard S. “Social Sciences and Form-Criticism: Towards the Generative Force of Life-Settings” Relating to the Text. Ed. Timothy J. Sandoval and Carleen Mandolfo. New York, T&T Clark International; 1st ed. 2003: 99.

Gunkel, Hermann. "The Literature Of Ancient Israel." Relating to the Text. Ed. Timothy J. Sandoval and Carleen Mandolfo. Trans. Armin Siedlecki. New York, T&T Clark International; 1st ed. 2003: 44-45.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1990: preface,84-91.

Part II: The UCC Polity

2010-01-21T07:15:00.004-05:00

Part II: UCC Polity

(Part two of the ordination paper is intended to provide an opportunity for the student to demonstrate her knowledge and understanding of the history, theological roots, polity, and practice of the United Church of Christ.)

The purpose of this paper is to explore my relationship and thoughts about the UCC’s paragraph two in the Preamble to the Constitution. IThe purpose of this section is to explore my relationship and thoughts about the UCC’s paragraph two in the Preamble to the Constitution. I feel this is the theological “meat” of the UCC. I am a cross-pollinated member of the UCC as I find myself affirming parts of all four of the streams of the UCC as well as the many hidden histories that make the UCC what it is today. The preamble is a document rich in history, full of theology, and pregnant with opportunities for a wide variety of interpretations. I love it for not only what it says but for what it does not say.

The United Church of Christ acknowledges as its sole head, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior. It acknowledges as kindred in Christ all who share in this confession.

These first two sentences specifically come from the Christian tradition and its goal of uniting all Christianity without need for denominational strife and division. I like this idea as it also comes out of my Catholic tradition. Obviously, I am no longer Catholic as I did not find them very affirming of the first sentence, although I still acknowledge them as kin. It is easy to place a person or tangible thing, like the pope, a charismatic pastor or even the Bible in place of an invisible presence. This can lead to rigid hierarchies, cults, and a generalized idolatry. I like the ecumenical vision this casts that harkens back to Paul’s thought that, “We are all one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28). It frees up the denomination to follow the Spirit and Christ as they interpret it. It acknowledges the priesthood of all believers, yet alludes to the central idea of autonomy and covenant that is central to the UCC.

I would like to speak briefly of autonomy and convent as I feel they are extremely important in my understanding of UCC polity. Here I write what is in my Autonomy and Covenant Post

It looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in the world.

Karl Barth stated that when we read the Bible we aren’t reading the word of God, we’re reading for the word of God. This view of the Bible I can really affirm. It resists making an idol out of the Bible and takes into account the modern critical methods. It affirms that God, not the Bible, is the one in charge that sparks the transformation and redeems the world. This means that we read about God’s work in history through the view of a particular people with all the limitations of culture and contexts.

The ancient theologian Origen taught that every text in the Bible could be read at three levels: the literal, the moral and the spiritual level. The spiritual level was discovered by means of allegory and was the most important. He has been severely criticized for this view, but I affirm it. With the modern criticisms we are able to understand context, language, and form. With hermeneutics we are able to access some practical meaning for our lives. By means of allegory, we can draw out particular instances in our lives to further make the point. We are to risk an interpretation by walking as far as reason and experience will take us, and then to live it out having faith that the Holy Spirit will guide and redeem us. This statement in the preamble does not limit the work of the Spirit nor try to remove the church or God from the world as it states “…work in the world.” There is no direct notion of a sacred/secular divide, and that is very important to me.

It claims as its own the faith of the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.

I just cited Origen in the last section, and I do not think I could do that in too many other denominations. I like this as it affirms the historical track the ancestors of the UCC have taken. We are Protestant in historical tradition and action. This part of the preamble affirms how informed people in the 14th century took responsibility and forged a new vision of church and worship. They did so boldly and creatively. That is the key concept of the preamble for me as it shows what we deeply value in the UCC. We value the ability of each generation to make the faith “its own.” We cannot rest on the laurels of those who have gone before us. We may look back to the 14th or even 18th century in our tradition, but we are not supposed to stay there. We must speak to our context and circumstance that we find ourselves in. We must pay attention to history and be guided by it yet not bound to it. That view does not label Catholics as somehow deficient, just different. We have parted honestly in our expressions of piety and faith. However, I feel an openness in the UCC to Catholicism and those who moved beyond the Protestant reformers our tradition claims (like the Brethren, Hussite, and other “radical reformation” movements), as we see in the examples of Mercersburg theology and Reverend Phillip William Otterbein.

In accordance with the teaching of our Lord and the practice prevailing among evangelical Christians, it recognizes two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion.

This can only come from a “sola scriptura” ethic for which Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli argued. The preamble affirms the Protestant view of the sacraments yet it does not outline them. It points to the two sacraments that Jesus specifically started yet does not feel the need to outline them here. I think this is a wise move, as it allows for a variety of interpretations of the sacraments. It starts where the reformers all agreed and builds from there. The spectrum from Zwingli’s “it’s just a symbol” to Calvin’s middle road of “it’s a symbol and more than” to Luther’s “consubstantiation.” I like this as it affirms the history and yet remains open to diverse views of the sacraments.

I affirm the UCC’s preamble in full. It is rare for me to state that, especially in writing, as I often have problems with creeds and religious statements. I usually edit the Nicene Creed to leave out the parts with which I do not agree (the virgin birth, for example). I find I can fully embrace this statement and will attempt to live it out. I view it more as a basis from which the UCC can launch. It is a foundation that each of the streams, hidden histories, and combinations thereof can come back to during times of controversy and conflict. It is good to recognize this affirmation within the preamble to the constitution as it sets up the rest of the document. It is also good to view it as an internal document, meaning it only deals with those within the UCC. It does not mention or refer to atheists, agnostics, or non-Christians, nor should it. It is a great touchstone for our denomination and a reminder of the history and principles upon which we are founded.

Part I: Sacraments and the Good News

2010-01-19T07:13:00.002-05:00

Sacramentology

I have no use for dual natures of things. I have no knowledge of how God is present in the elements at communion or baptism, nor should I know. That is part of the Divine Mystery. What I do know is that the church marks time for its people while reminding them of the Gospel. Baptism is a symbol of being loved even though we are powerless to do anything to earn this love. Communion is the joy and celebration of gathered friends and family with recognition that the table will change and people will die and yet we hope to one day share the table again with them. There could be more sacraments similar to the Catholic sacramental model, but I affirm the Protestant argument for two sacraments. I do, however, see the need for the church to observe other “markers” of an individual’s passage through a community and life. Events like confirmation (passage into young adulthood), blessing of vocation (an “ordination” if you will), marriage, blessing of the sick, and funeral rites should all be observed and marked for the good of the individual and the community. All things we do in remembrance of the Triune God.

Good News for Today

The early church’s radical inclusivity broke with the social conventions and traditional spirituality of its era but struck a responsive chord within the souls of people who had been marginalized and minimized by the in crowd. The vision and words of Christ are always attractive: Come unto me all ye who are tired and heavy laden; Come to me all who feel burned out on religion, and I will give you rest in the unforced rhythms of grace.

That means that our words have to look like Jesus: a mother nursing her babes, a father holding the hand of his loved ones and whispering real encouragement, a servant who steps down so that there is room for another to step up. Like Christ, the church should not be judge and jury, gatekeeper or the morals police but rather the incarnated Christ of its age, for without him there is only the stink of arrogance in the room.

Every church has to face challenges and deal with them with clarity and conviction. We know that we will never get it totally right all the time because we are only human. But we cannot pretend that the church’s actions do not cripple us sometimes and violate our best intentions as disciples. And unless we are practicing and proclaiming a Word that lifts the burdens of others with our music, our worship, our liturgy, our organization, and the way we share information as well as in acts of living compassion, then we are living under the judgment of Christ as exposed in scripture.

With this doctrine of the church, the church can do away with its competitive nature and live in celebration of diversity. The church can do away with the fear of change and live in the assurance of God’s grace through Christ as sustained to us by the Holy Spirit. This view honors the vision of Christ that the community brings good news to the economically and spiritually poor, sets captives free, and proclaims the Jubilee that is grace (Luke 4:18-21). This view honors the past traditions and spiritual practices, but does not hold one above the other. Each denomination adds a part to the full understanding of the Gospel. Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, and the other reformers are honored and their spirit of reform is followed, as the church cannot rest upon their answers but adapt their model to time and context.

Most of all the church should be about articulation and interpretation of grace. It is the proclaimer and not the source of grace. The church is a gift from God to the world, but it is not the conduit from which grace comes. What history has taught us about this view is that the church gets power hungry and corrupts the Gospel through dividing people in its definitions, doctrines, and creeds. As Justo L. Gonzalez wrote, “And because we believe, we commit ourselves: to believe for those who do not believe, to love for those who do not love, to dream for those who do not dream, until the day when hope becomes a reality. ” The church can no longer afford to divide people—it must bring them together. The church must honor that many colors and ideas are needed to paint a single landscape. The church will then have many generations with many income levels. The church will affirm diversity and cultivate a “Generous Orthodoxy” that includes all races, sexual preferences, and abilities. It will know its history and have a communal memory and vision not just a pastoral or consistory’s view. It will be a place of divine guidance.

Part I: Sin and Salvation

2010-01-14T08:11:00.002-05:00

Sin and Salvation

It is this simple. We are saved through Christ’s life and subsequent death on the cross. Jesus did not die for us—anyone can die for something, but to LIVE for something: WOW! That in and of itself is divine. The death is only meaningful if the life was worth knowing about! There is suffering and evil in the world, and the church should not try to explain how they were created. Suffering and evil just exist, and we must deal with them. We can provide new insights, we can remind people of philosophical and moral ideals, but pastors should not be in the absolute answer business but rather in the questions and insight business.

“The church is not in the morals business. The world is in the morals business… and it has done a fine job of it, all things considered. The history of the world's moral codes is a monument to the labors of many philosophers, and it is a monument of striking unity and beauty. She is not in the business of telling the world what's right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil. She is in the business of offering, to a world which knows all about that tiresome subject, forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice…But the minute she even hints that morals, and not forgiveness, is the name of her game, she instantly corrupts the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense. Then the church becomes, not Ms. Forgiven Sinner, but Ms. Right and Christianity becomes the good guys in here versus the bad guys out there. Which, of course, is pure garbage for the church is nothing but the world under the sign of baptism.” (Capon, Hunting the Divine Fox 132-133).

If grace is true and to be trusted, we must have faith in it. We cannot worry that this will lead to all sorts of permissiveness and such open minds that our collective brains will fall out. We are to take the example of the parable of the prodigal son. Jesus tells us that the son gets a kiss instead of a lecture, a party instead of probation. By bringing in the elder brother at the end of the story and having him raise objections Jesus gives a great example to the church. The brother is angry about the party. He complains that his father is lowering standards and ignoring virtue—that music, dancing, and a fattened calf are, in effect, just so many permissions to break the law. And to that, Jesus has the father say only one thing: “Cut that out! We’re not playing good boys and bad boys anymore. Your brother was dead and he’s alive again. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping.”

This view renders all saved through Christ period. I view all need for justification as largely a human need of reassurance. The church provides this but keeps this in check by saying to the concerned parishioner “Yes, you’re saved in Christ and given the grace of God, just like everyone else.” The church is to make no distinction or try to step into God’s role and come up with formulas as to figure out who is in heaven and who isn’t. As far as the church is concerned, everyone is getting into heaven because of Christ’s saving life and this is the Good News to be preached to the world. The church is at its best when it’s in a Universalist mindset. What God has done through the incarnation and the death and resurrection of Jesus conquers and saves all (NO Limited Atonement!). However, there is still room for a hell, which would be a disbelief and self-exile from God’s grace. Jesus came for the sick, not for the healthy (Mark 2:17), so it is a mistake to think that everyone will come through the doors of the church. That doesn’t mean the church should keep quiet, but instead proclaim without anxiety and with confidence.

Part I: Historical Church

2010-01-13T07:09:00.000-05:00

Part I: THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

(The purpose of part I of the ordination paper is to provide a way for the student to share his present grasp and understanding of the teaching and traditions of the Christian Church down through the ages and to relate this to his own theological perspective.)

I always try to go with the simplest answer. When Asked what The Greek word used for “church” in the New Testament, “ekklēsia” just means “assembly, congregation, council.” In other words, a church is a group of people, a community. This entails everything it means to be human—being sinners and yet a little lower than angels. The church, like humanity, is a living paradox, limited and sinful yet hopeful and the continued incarnation of Christ on earth.

I have no need of Nestorian ecclesiology, which is the error dividing the church into two distinct things or states of being: namely the heavenly and invisible and the earthly and temporal. I instead favor a unified view that it is in the church’s best interest to focus on the here and now knowing that grace flows from God and everyone makes it to “the Pearly Gates.”

For too long the church has had no purpose and has been content to rest on its old answers. It felt that if it challenged too much, it would alienate people, lose its members, and die. It has done the opposite, and this has alienated people, lost the children and grandchildren of its members, and started the downfall of the church. The institution as it is cannot stand, and it must be resurrected into something new. The church should become a new institution that is localized and flexible. The church should be controlled by its members and guided by its pastor. This model is a side by side model, not a top down nor a pastor leading and people following. If someone stumbles, the best position to be in to help is at the person’s side. A top down model is not the model Jesus used. He never brandished his power, he led by serving. It has been shown that the pastor out front will focus on the supposed destination and will not check to see if anyone is following his or her lead.

This church I have in mind is not a religious institution. "I want you to set aside the notion of the Christian religion, because it's a contradiction in terms. You won't learn anything positive about religion from Christianity, and if you look for Christianity in religion, you'll never find it. To be sure, Christianity uses the forms of religion, and, to be dismally honest, too many of its adherents act as if it were a religion; but it isn't one, and that's that. The church is not in the religion business; it is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. And the gospel is the good news that all man's fuss and feathers over his relationship with God is unnecessary because God, in the mystery of the Word who is Jesus, has gone and fixed it up Himself. So let that pass" (Capon, Between Noon and Three: Romance, Law, and the Outrage of Grace 163). Instead it is a practical institution. It does not spend time on high theological language and theories because Christ talked in everyday language and images. “When Jesus told his parables to the people, his disciples asked, ‘Why do you talk to them in riddles?’ And his answer was: ‘So they won’t catch on. Because anything they could catch on to would be the wrong thing. As Isaiah said, seeing they don't see and hearing they don't hear, neither do they understand [Matthew 13:10-17]. That’s why I talk to them like this: because I don’t want them to have little lights go on in their heads. I want to put out all the lights they’ve got, so that in the darkness they can listen to me.’” (Capon, Hunting the Divine Fox 78-79).

Above all, the church needs to be relevant and simplistic, giving a new and unexpected light to the world that is both warm and inviting as it is bright and blinding. The church should be practical and full of purpose. Its purpose should not be to prevent people from sinning or to tell people what to do. God in Jesus did not prevent sinners from sinning. He went around forgiving them right and left. If the church wants to represent him, it should not misrepresent his methods. Instead the church should focus on forgiveness and healing.

The church should not rest. It should always seek answers to questions it knows will never be solved completely. The church should know where it comes from but be “theologica reformata et simper reformanda”—reformed and always reforming. It should not seek the answers as much as the correct question for any given situation.

The church should take joy in the gift of the scriptures. It should not place claims that the Bible itself does not claim nor that our Jewish brothers and sisters make (as they have had the TaNaK longer). Thus the scriptures are not inerrant, infallible, or to be taken literally. Gifts are to be loved, celebrated, and used responsibly and with great care.

The church should not be an enclave of refugees from the world; it is the sacrament of God's presence in the world by the mystery of the incarnation. It looks just like the world but with a slant and twist that turn everything upside down. It is at once totally familiar but totally disorienting. The church should exemplify what H. Richard Niebuhr labeled “Christ Transforming Culture.”

The church should not await a “second coming of Christ.” Christ has already come again. He was born into this world (the first time) and then again at Easter (the second time). Christ comes again every time a stranger is fed, a prisoner is visited, and the least of these being cared for (Matthew 25:31-46). The Gospel of Thomas states, “His disciples said to him, ‘When will the rest for the dead take place, and when will the new world come?’ He said to them, ‘What you are looking forward to has come, but you don’t know it.’” (Gospel of Thomas #34). Nor are we waiting for the kingdom of God, for Jesus said, “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father'’) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you” (Gospel of Thomas #3). We are awaiting the completion of the kingdom of God, which God will finish, but we must seek to do God’s will and do our part.

The ideal plan for the church is best laid out in Matthew 7: 6-12 as reframed in the Message: “Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege. Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better? Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.” This view gives a whole new spin on sin and salvation and the sacraments.

Intro Re-Write

2010-01-12T07:06:00.000-05:00

I do not know what exactly I believe but I can say that it starts with and is inspired by the life of Jesus Christ. My personal theology, as all theologies, has been shaped by contexts, experiences, and relationships which make up my very identity. As these are all constantly in flux, so is my theology. It is not a static, fixed system but more contextual, adaptable, and fluid. It centers on loving God and my neighbor as myself.

My theology is shaped by my interests, interpretations, gifts and limitations. It is based on a particular style, much like a painting, which is my community, the United Church of Christ. I use my theology, like art, to convey meaning to others. There are many styles in which to paint in the Christian tradition and I am a mix of many. I was raised Catholic. I react against Fundamentalist theologies. I want to be a Liberal Christian as I came to be a Protestant and was trained in seminary in this tradition but find myself more and more thinking and speaking in Neo-Orthodox terms. It has elements of all these streams put together in a new way. My theological style is more interested in imagination, beauty, and mystery; focusing more on questions than answers.

In this paper I hope to explain the areas of my theology. I will start by describing my understanding of the historical Christian Church. I will then describe my view of my denomination and how I intersect with it. I will then describe my faith journey and sense of call. It won’t be in a linear fashion but more integrated as each plays into the other. I will try to separate them as best I am able. I will first speak of my interpretation of the Historical Christian Church.

Re-Structuring

2010-01-07T07:07:00.001-05:00

how do you write a paper when you have a fluid theology? it's like nailing jello to the wall. i find myself writing too systematically. but Sabio had a good idea and has helped me re-order the paper, more on that later.

when presented with the opportunity to talk about God, Jesus, Humanity and the state of the world, i could type a book that would rival war and peace. i love talking about theological implications, talking about probabilities and exceptions, exploring all aspects and outcomes of a given topic. but i can't do that here... i gotta boil it down and keep it simple as this will be lay people reading the paper. not saying that these people are stupid or anything, but i know i wouldn't wanna read something that wasn't engaging. i don't wanna bore 'em with my ranting and rambling.

so i looked online for tips, and i found this ordination paper by Lynne A. Burmeister McQuown that is absolutely inspired. i just wanna put my name on it and print it out and hand it in.. but that'd be bad... so i'll have to steal from it.. after all, "good artists borrow, great artists steal," ~~Picasso~~ I said that. also looking around for how to explain God, i found Faithful Progressives note on Paul Tillich and the God of the new atheists. fantastic!

What i wanna do is just put:

I dunno what exactly i believe but i can say that it starts with and is inspired by the life of Jesus Christ. I dunno if Jesus was God but I can say that I best meet God through the example of Christ. Grace-filled, compassionate at the core and joyful of existence while noting that there is suffering in the world. Loving thy neighbor as yourself sets up an inclusive ethos that doesn't set aside or supercede other religions but places Christians as servants to others regardless of race, creed, or nationality.

and then i would play them these two songs to explain how i view the UCC:

So what i've decided to do is re-structure under the rubric that Sabio suggested where in his suggestion of the "art paragraph" collapsed community and tradition together. so part one will be my view of transcendent truth (God, as presented by Jesus, in my case) part two will be Community, specifically the UCC and the third will be my personal journey experience. this will streamline the whole paper and won't make it so cumbersome to write. thank God that i have my atheist friend Sabio ;-) this is why i blog. dialogue and relationships are important, in fact vital to existence.

it takes all of us.

i'll post more this coming Tuesday. until then.... thanks for your comments and keep 'em coming!