An Entertaining Theology

I absolutely LOVE Barry Taylor's "Entertainment Theology: New-Edge Spirituality in a Digital Democracy." I love it so much that I'm thinking of just submitting this book when it comes to putting in my ordination papers... but i don't think that will fly with my future committee.

here are some great quotes that Barry uses to introduce his chapters that I will use to speak about this wonderful book:

"...At the very cry from the cross: the cry which confesses that God was forsaken by God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods... they will not find another god who has himself been in revolt... They will find only one religion which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist." -G.K. Chesterson: Orthodoxy

Taylor talks about a re-encoding of the message. Taking artistic license, risking and endeavoring to take new routes with stories that have so long been closed to new meanings. No longer can the theological connection point for Christianity be "You are a sinner who will die in your sins unless you repent. You must be born again." Taylor asks "Is it really the only connection with God through the Jesus story? I think not, though I think it is A connection to Christianity and has been the dominant mode of connection in the church post-Reformation." (page 198).

This approach means no pre-packaged dogmas, doctrines, or resting on old answers. Nor is it throwing out all the dogmas, doctrines or old answers. It is a wide net that Taylor is casting... or actually, asking others to cast. It is a multi-disciplinary approach to life that seeks to encapsulate and make room for people "at the foot of the cross... even atheists." It is keeping Christus Victor right alongside all the other forms of atonement and inventing new ones or not having atonement at all! All of these are possibilities depending on context.

"Poetry will reach a superior dignity, it will become in the end what it was in the beginning---- the teacher of humanity." Friedrich Schelling, Philosophy of Mythology

Taylor constantly uses pop culture to talk about his spiritual outlook. He is quite wise to point out the difference between the movies Stigmata and the Exorcist. He then uses movies and art and poetry to classify 4 movements and expressions of spirituality in the world: 1. Zen Culture 2. The Next Enlightenment 3. Retrolution and 4. Resistant Communities. here are some brief descriptions:

Zen Culture: a "westernized Asian Thought" is being seen through the growing popularity of Anime, ancient wisdom, and use of imagery in movies. Think THE MATRIX here, where it is a blend of Christianity, Gnostic, and Mystic western thought mixed with Tao, Buddhist, Zen, and Kung-Fu eastern notions. Much like the music that's produced by Washington D.C.'s own Thievery Corporation:



Next Enlightenment: Rational Mystics Taylor terms them. Books like The Celestine Prophecy and the Golden Compass are about finding ways to connect to the divine and trusting one's self to do that without the traditional support structures of formalized religion. This approach is all about the WHOLE PROCESS of things and emphasizes community, relationality, and level playing field... there is a "serious concern for their inner lives with a strong penchant for social activism, including a commitment to a sustainable future." but Taylor notes that it's equally important to see their dislikes and those are "social inequality, intolerance, and the Religious Right." U2 would be the biggest band in the strain, but then you get Springsteen, Saves the Day, and the Flobots here as well. Here's one of my fave songs by Switchfoot:



Retrolution: Postmodern Gothic, a blend of ancient and modern.. like what we find in The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter, and Donnie Darko. These stories "explore the old and a little under the surface deal with the new; past literary forms and present concerns exist side by side." The is also an element of mystery and shock value and no guarantee for happy endings. Think spirituality ala Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. can't count the amount of social and religious imagery found in my fave Manson video (not to mention the cheerleader like chant within it, i LOVE this song!):




Resistant Communities: the religious right, street preachers, and the like. Jerry Falwell style, that is directly engaged and obsessed with "the other". This community has a desire which is commoditized and the motivating factor is fear. The Left Behind Series would be an example here. Of course my bias is showing here... not Taylors.. because i'm rather sick of these communities and i deal with them all the time. they want to rest of "old answers" yet ignore that the answers they're coming up with are new permutations of old things... there is many positive aspects to these communities, it's not all bad.. and there's even some good music coming out of it... well it's been awhile, but here's what I remember being "cool" when i listened to "Christian Music":



I highly recommend this book! I'm all about it! I feel that it perfectly articulates many of the crazy thoughts zooming around in my head. I hope you'll check it out!

In the Midst of Enemies

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together:

"Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. In the end all his disciples abandoned him. on the cross he was all alone, surrounded by criminals and jeering crowds. he had come for the express purpose of bringing peace to the enemies of God. So christians too belong not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the midst of enemies. there they find their mission, their work."

i don't understand the idea of Christian music, movies, etc etc. i can find a christian message in pulp fiction or fight club or marilyn manson. is this so hard?! the "secular" movie and music makers don't hide their struggles with their faith. they don't try to separate their faith and their life. too many christians just visit their faith on sunday and leave it in the hands of their pastor and then they get on the beltway and act like a jerk for the rest of the week. i don't understand this separation. it is to me a false separation. people of faith are never separated from it, albiet they sometimes let their emotions get the better of them.

Befriend your enemy, be nice to those who wish you harm.. this is a hard lesson to learn. but just as soon as one learns this, one finds that one has no enemies. if you are constantly turning the other cheek, the enemies cannot harm you. as soon as you love your enemy, that enemy is no longer, but is now a friend.

get out of your confort zones. life awaits you there. this is why kate and i loved the jaycees so much, you're never in your comfortzone. always doing something different and always meeting new people. these people could be your enemies! they could judge you! you're just putting yourself out there for a let down! sure they could be, but they're not.

kate always says, "Dance! Everyone else is too concerned with themselves! Get down!" and she's right. everyone is too nervous about themselves but when someone breaks out of their own self-consciousness and gives themselves the right to have fun, that's when the party begins. so too with faith and all things good. sin is thinking that you're not allowed, that you're not good enough. God loves you, get over yourself and spread the message! volunteer! dance! dress up like leprochuans and run down the street! live like you have no enemies and you won't.

A Compassionate Anger

Today’s Scripture lesson is Mark 1:40-45 as found in The Message Bible.

A leper came to him, begging on his knees, "If you want to, you can cleanse me."

Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, "I want to. Be clean." Then and there the leprosy was gone, his skin smooth and healthy. Jesus dismissed him with strict orders: "Say nothing to anyone. Take the offering for cleansing that Moses prescribed and present yourself to the priest. This will validate your healing to the people." But as soon as the man was out of earshot, he told everyone he met what had happened, spreading the news all over town. So Jesus kept to out-of-the-way places, no longer able to move freely in and out of the city. But people found him, and came from all over.

We’re in high school forever. We’ve all had to endure the strange, awkward teenage years and go through this experience. As one person put it, High School is the mouse race that prepares you for the rat race. In fact, every ten years we gather in survivor groups and try to figure out what the heck it was all about!! I will use this shared experience--some of you are still going through this time--to talk about today’s gospel lesson.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us (aside from a lucky few) were literally a sack of hormones and confused emotions. We see in the gospel TEXTS that Jesus had some confused emotions. I say TEXTS with an S, plural, meaning MORE THAN ONE TEXT. If you gather up all the ancient texts of Mark 1:40-45, you’ll discover that they say Jesus had three different reactions to the leper. The text we heard this morning says that Jesus was “moved with compassion”. I would imagine that would sound like this… “Yeah I choose..”

Another text says Jesus was moved with pity. Here I picture Jesus looking at the man, with tears welling up in his eyes saying “Yeah…… I choose.” And the third reaction is Jesus was moved with ANGER. ANGER? “OHHH Yeah… I CHOOSE!” That’s quite a variety of mixed emotions! So which is it? Compassion, pity or anger? What’s at stake?

There was A LOT at stake, not only for Jesus, but esp. for the leper. You see, people were scared to death of leprosy. And in Jesus’ time, Leprosy just meant Skin Disease. Imagine that, if you had bad acne, warts, goiters, or even what we know as leprosy, you were made into an instant outsider. The law in Leviticus was clear: “The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ And he shall live alone, his dwelling shall be outside the camp.” (Lev. 13:45-46)

So if you had leprosy you lost everything — job, family, place in the community — everything. The leper who approaches Jesus shows his desperation by breaking the law, by coming into the city, and getting close enough to Jesus that he could talk to him. He’s lucky he wasn’t stoned. I picture that Jesus is just surrounded by people and this leper shows up and the people just part away from him… they can’t believe their eyes! I’m thankful we here in the modern world don’t have any lepers… if someone like that showed up here, right now, we’d all jump up to help them, wouldn’t we? I don’t think we would… and I’m reminded of a similar story from my high school experience.

There are always groups in high school. There are the jocks, the smart kids, the in-crowd who were all beautiful and talented and everyone wanted to be like. I know most of you here were in the in-crowd, right?… lucky dawgs. I wasn’t so special... I was in the class of kids who were the ‘tweeners, those people who were somewhat tolerated by the cool kids, but there was just enough weirdness to keep us in our own separate group. Then there was the untouchable class in high school. Those are the modern day lepers of the high school culture. There was one kid in particular at my high school, his name was Bob.

Bob was from a really poor family. He was working part-time jobs all the time, so his grades suffered. He always had a worn and dirty look. I remember his ears sometimes would just be caked with dirt. He was really asocial. One day Bob is walking the halls with his books in his distracted manner and he trips and spills, books flying out. To make matters worse, it’s in front of the prettiest girl in high school, Katie.

Now Kate (my wife) didn't go to my school, so we had to play the hand we were dealt, and the queen in our deck was Katie.

Katie is surrounded by her friends who upon seeing who is lying at their feet immediately scatter and screech “EEEWW!!” An untouchable is in their midst. But Katie doesn’t flinch. She bends down and starts to collect Bob’s books. He looks around… everyone is watching the situation unfold and everyone is just as shocked as he is. He collects himself and stands up just in time to accept his stack of books from Katie. Just as Katie hands the books to Bob, she reaches out and squeezes his arm and says “It’s gonna be alright Bob.” Then she walks on and a heated discussion follows with Katie yelling at her friends and asking them why they didn’t help her. Bob goes about his day, but I noticed a little spring in his step. Now I wish I could say that there was a great change in Bob’s life from that day forward but this is a true story… and ideal endings are few and far between. Bob ended up going to the public school mid-semester, and I haven’t been in touch.



This is the modern story of what’s going on in our gospel text. Katie felt all of those emotions, I’m sure, Compassion, Pity, and Anger. Compassion at the outcast lying at her feet, pity at his helpless situation and that no one was helping him, and that filled her with anger and she acted! This too must have been Jesus’ feelings… it’s shown in his response.

Jesus’ immediate response—to touch the man and then declare his choice to heal him—reflects his belief of wholeness, embodied in his ministry of good news, hospitality, and inclusion. Jesus’ mission, as noted in John’s gospel, “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly” is an explicit challenge to all people who think sickness of mind, body, and spirit results from God’s will and divine punishment. Jesus NEVER blamed the victim for her or his ailment. Illness was an opportunity for healing rather than judgment, guilt, or blame.

Jesus was fully human, he could feel the exact range of complex emotions we do. Jesus felt a compassionate anger. Jesus wasn’t mad at the man or at his request. Maybe he was angry at the social situation the man found himself in. Both anger and compassion are related emotions: both arise from a strong sense of connection with or on behalf of others. Our care for others can inspire righteous anger toward unjust social systems and the ongoing practices of racism, sexism, and all the other –isms. This holy, compassionate anger, can inspire us to imagine and, then, enact alternatives to what’s currently unjust and harmful, whether in a family, congregation, community, or nation.

So if you ever hear or think that someone is suffering because of something they’ve done, or you think that about yourself, I’m here to say that Jesus would disagree with you. You are included as a child of God regardless of the social stigma. The stigmas of sick, poor, widow, orphan, uneducated, or whatever so-called disgrace you or others put upon you has been lifted. Jesus welcomes us all into a new community, smashing down barriers that divide. Let us, as the community of Christ, follow his radical example.

If you see injustice… whether it is starvation, mistreatment on the basis of race, gender, or ANY OTHER DESIGNATION, stand up! In God’s kingdom there are no lepers! If you’re black, white, Hispanic, native, Jew or gentile, you’re welcomed into community! Jesus doesn’t care how the authorities tell you how to act, or how the authorities divide us up. You. Are. Welcomed.

What social laws are dividing us up today? What is keeping us apart? What is holding us back? Let’s get a compassionate anger at these injustices in the world… and let’s do what Jesus would do! Let us take the example of the leper and tell the world! AMEN!



Resources

Anchor Bible Commentary, C.S. Mann “Mark” page 219.

Bruce Epperly’s commentary found at http://www.processandfaith.org/lectionary/YearB/2008-2009/2009-02-15.shtml

Dr Jeffery K London’s sermon “The Laughter Barrel” found at http://www.lectionary.org/Sermons/London/OT/2Kings_5_Laughter.htm

Thoughts on Biblical Masculinity

Confessions had a few posts on Bibilical Masculinity and Why Men Aren't in Church that pretty much confused me.

Despite their well-intended post, I can't get over the fact that they continue to reinforce out-moded gender roles. Their ideas that men are protectors and the supposed "head of the house" and women have feminized the church to irrelevence I can't handle. It's this Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus crap that we really need to transcend.

So what do i have to offer to this besides criticism? Well two things, Carl Jung and Tao philosophies.

Jung states that the process of socialization has distorted all of us into incomplete beings. He claims all psychological maladies are in some form or another related to this distortion. He argues that men are socialized to suppress those dimensions of their humanity that our culture assigns to women (and vice versa).

The ancient Tao philosophy of Ying and Yang adds to this. Yin is akin to the feminine traits and Yang are masculine. We can achieve holistic health when yin and yang are in perfect balance with each other.

Tony Campolo uses these Jungian gender theory and Yin/Yang philosophy to illustrate Perfect Balance Illustration in John 8:1-11: The Pharisees drag out an adulterus woman before Jesus and remind him that Moses' law would have the woman stoned to death for her sins. The Pharisees were testing Jesus to see how literal he took the scriptures or if compassion would win out.

Jesus stoops down and writes something in the dirt and says "Let one who is without sin throw the first stone." We have no idea what he could have written, but many scholars have suggested that it could be the names of those in the crowd who were guilty of the same sin (Campolo, Anderson, Trible). The group disperses and Jesus tells the stunned woman "Go and sin no more."

In this story Jesus perfectly balances the masculine yang concern of "Theology and abstract thinking" with the feminine yin concern of "social justice and defending the downtrodden."

So this scraps the idea of men at the head of the household in terms of a more democractic team. If I told my wife that I was the head, she'd laugh and then she'd prolly let me try to prove it and we'd be in debt in a month (love you babe! no need to prove it!).

Where in scripture can i support this since 1 Tim. 2:11-12 says for women to shut up and submit to men. First I'd throw out the standard Gal. 3:28 passages saying that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female as all are one in Christ Jesus." Then i would state that in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came down on all and that 1 Tim was written to a group of women that were drunk with their new found power to speak to a group and they were prolly airing dirty laundry about their husbands. Paul wants to remind them that ALL learners must remain silent in the ancient Jewish world and this rule still applies.

Tony states in his book "Speaking my Mind" states that those who want to lead are to be the servants (Mark 9:35) and Eph. 5:22-25 makes the ideal Christian marriage then looks like this: Wife to Husband, "Honey, my dreams and aspirations are not as important as yours. I'm willing to sacrifice all that I am to help you live out your dreams and full-fill God's calling in your life."

Husband to Wife, "Oh, no! It's the other way around!"

Thus they have their first fight. Wouldn't that be lovely? Tony rules! Get the book and balance your yin and yang!

Recovering Catholics: Modern Implications Part IV

A Full Recovery?

My sister left a comment on the myspace version of this blog that she remembers

the craziest thing that happened in Mass one day that started my rebellious catapult out of religion all together.... remember when Fr. Engle said that people who got divorced were going straight to Hell? That was when you and I walked out of Mass. I was in 4th grade, so you would've been in 7th. I think I still get cold chills when I think about that...

The thing that surprised me is that I DON'T REMEMBER THIS! At least, not in detail nor without some prompting. I guess it could be that I was already starting to drift from the church, after all, my initial drift can be dated circa 5th grade. So this got me to thinking, have I made a full recovery?

You see, when I first heard the term “Recovering Catholic” seems a clever title for those who believed they had been scarred in some psychological, physical, or worse, some sexual way by nuns and/or priests. Or one could have just been really annoyed by the precepts of a restrictive dogma and/or structured society. The label was an allusion to the Twelve-Step movements whose adherents are committed to live free of destructive addictions one day at a time.

But the Catholic way of life is not a destructive addiction, well, not for me at least.

The term now strikes me as sort of smug, self-pitying kind of whine that arises from our society's current canonization of self-proclaimed victims. Too many of us too often blame a range of factors, including substances, parents, and/or institutions (in this case the Catholic Church), for our own bad behavior, irresponsibility, and dissatisfaction with life.

Perhaps it's time to declare a moratorium on the excuse of self-anointed victimhood and get on with life, as there is nothing more dangerous than a self-made victim. Let's leave that for those who deserve it. I am not a victim, I made myself one. My soul wasn't crushed, just restricted in unnatural ways; I was constantly reminded that no matter how hard i tried, i never fit perfectly into the Catholic box or the structured society. I was not welcomed, just tolerated. I'm free of this now and transcended my old annoyances and i'm starting to be able to enjoy the highlights of my old faith.

As we’ve seen here, that Catholics are just ONE way of doing things, and we have our own. And in the process, let's withhold judgment of the genuine faith of others, whether such faith is to our own liking or not.

So let us again be the full body of Christ and live out our “c”atholic faith and our UCC motto “That they all may be one”.

We are in Love with WAR

We Americans have a tragic facination and love of war. Anytime someone learns that I'm against war people ask me about WWII. This has been a sticking point for many Americans as they feel we were justified completely in ending this war against a facist tyrannical and genocidal institution. It's our favorite war. Many have fallen in love with this war and try to make all other American war actions equal or somehow related to this war.

I know what war does to people who fought in it. I've seen what it did to my Grandfather's psyche and the effects it has caused on our family. It is tragic that such a young man had to suffer and spend the rest of his life the way he did. Yes, there are acts of heroism and yes it was good of us to stop a massacre. But that's not why we went into that war. We didn't fight in that war to protect other people or to restore peace. We fought that war (and all wars in my opinion) for economic purposes. A recent WIRED article, found by Rachael, states that most reasons for fighting are clouded by our the subconscious mechanism of self-preservation that causes us to grossly overestimate the danger of highly unlikely threats (West Nile virus, terrorist attacks, abduction, plane crashes, shark attacks) and underestimate far more serious, if mundane, threats (car accidents). The fact of the holocaust should have been enough to enter in and fight, but this fact didn't become known until way after the war. So then WWII isn't as neat and clean or valliant as we Americans would like to believe.

Here is my over-simplified way of thinking: Before I'm an American, I'm a Christian. Before I'm a Christian, I'm a human, like everyone else. War is the practice of prioritizing unneeded things over humanity. This practice is wrong every single time.War is never good. War can never be justified. Peace is not A way, it is the ONLY way.

This is not anti-military. You may notice that when i say hi, i salute (a proper one at that), and in this gesture i'm honoring my grandfather, my uncles, and many friends in the military. I am a patriot, not a nationalist. I love my country but fear my government.


thanks to Nick for the video find!

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check out a related post over at Sam's blog, Opossum's Creed:Our Final Undeclared War.

Religionless Christianity

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers:
"The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience-and that means the time of religion in general... Even those who honestly describe themselves as religious do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by religious. How can Christ become the Lord of the religionless as well? Are there religionless Christians? If religion is only a garment of Christianity-and even this garment has looked very different at different times-then what is a religionless christianity?"

this is what i'm after. like john lennon says in Imagine, "imagine there's no heaven, and no religion too." then we're forced to deal with one another right where we're at. religion is only the framework, not the means. we've confused this.

i'm after a type of christianity that doesn't worry about labels. christians originally never worried about labels.. there was a stigma on the sick in the ancient days, the christians went in and helped. there was a stigma on the poor and homeless and starving, like the gods have cursed them.. the christians fed them and took them in... we must return to this!!! we must be the type of christians that help the jewish, atheist, homosexual, black, homeless, sick, martian, dinosaur neighbors... that is our calling.

there will come a point where "being a christian" drops and one actually becomes one (i know i'm not there yet, but i want to be!). at this point one sees the world as though everyone is a Christian and helps without consideration of how they will benefit from this help, how closer they'll get to heaven because of their action. Grace allows us to act without hesitation.

What Is Emerging?

The New Religious Landscape:



this is from the blog over there in the bar called Emergent Village, a great source. Tony is a great source and expert on all the different types of "emerging." I really enjoyed this. Tony asks his own stunning (rhetorical) question: “What do we do with the robots when they show up at the church doors?!

I consider myself a emergent. Get the context and then dialog with others about. Gather around the tribal fire and tell stories and try to figure out one another's lives. Great video! Check it out!

Importance of Context

Postcolonialism is one of those university words... it deals with cultural identity in colonised societies: the dilemmas of developing a national identity after colonial rule; the ways in which writers articulate and celebrate that identity (often reclaiming it from and maintaining strong connections with the coloniser); the ways in which the knowledge of the colonised (subordinated) people has been generated and used to serve the coloniser's interests; and the ways in which the coloniser's literature has justified colonialism via images of the colonised as a perpetually inferior people, society and culture.

I am a postcolonialist. The short of this translates to: i'm trying to renounce my white priviledge. "Hi i'm luke! what's your favorite color?! i see your skin is different than mine, do you identify primarily through this medium or do you prefer i deal with you on an individual level?" There are no inferior people, just people in different contexts. The point is to dialog about those context and see the similarities! imagine what we could learn! imagine the different ways of viewing the world that we could learn and in turn use these to help solve problems in our own contexts! awesome huh?

the opposite of this view is colonialist. no one will identify as this, but i see a TON of this popping up recently. a colonialists believes that their country is the greatest and all other countries must measure up to their standard. for example, US colonialism would hold that white, male, middle to upper-class capitalist that is religiously nondenominational Prostestant is the standard to be measured by.

the biggest instance in current events is the whole blow up on the Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright's 2001 comments where he stated "God damn America!" people are jumping up and down about this.. people are asking me what my thoughts are.. here they are:

someone claimed that Obama is “as a man and member of the Elite social-economic class Senator Obama has no sense of what working class men or women suffer, survive, and live through daily”

he’s not. please read his background. he's actually quite poor compared to every other politician out there...

as for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.. please listen to his whole speech in context and read what Black Liberation Theology means. it mainly means that it is Afro-centric but not Afro-supremists. Why don't we have White Liberation Theology? Because we don't need it in this country! The majority of theology in America is white. What would we be liberated from? Keep that in mind while you view the whole speech! enjoy!



Do you see the postcolonialist message in here?

This whole mess is started because a man, Obama, was raised by a white mother and self-identifed as a black man and went to a progressive black church. this is what it is. what we’re dealing with is race issues on both sides and white priviledge is being confronted. white people don't like having to remember the fact that they were generally shitty to people of color despite the fact they had "All Men are Created EQUAL" in the bill of rights since the late 1700s and still haven't lived up to it yet (although there have been some improvements).

now that you have the context... what do you think?

The Art Guild

I'm creating a new group here at the seminary... the LTS Artist Guild! You can find the blog here...

Here's the Manifesto:

In the spirit of the TH320, Christianity and the Visual Arts we seek to continue to use art as a medium to communicate the transcendent. We seek to awaken the mummified visual circuitry of the Protestant Tradition. Here is how we'll seek to do it:

Each month a theme will be given out and the members of this guild will compose an art work based on this theme. This artwork can be done in any medium and style. At the end of each month the art shall be posted here and discussed.

Pretty cool huh? Very excited to get it up and running!

In The Name of Love

There once was a man who said, "Let's judge people not by the color of their skin but on the content of their character."

This man also wanted people with white skin and people with black skin to live together in peace, love, and justice.

They killed this man.

But how can you kill a dream?

And so it goes.

The Subversive Gospels

Let's transcend labels. Labels are useful but we too often confuse labels with the actual complex entities our labels describe. This is what i'm getting after rereading much of the Gospels. The Gospels are very shocking and subversive, and Jesus is asking us to get over our preconceived notions.

Here's an updated parable:
A Bible believing pastor of the largest church in the area meets with a confused teenage male. The pastor starts by saying "Dear Lord, thank you for this chance to witness to this young man. Thank you for helping me make up his mind."

The young man begins his own prayer, "Dear Lord, I don't know if i believe in virgin birth, bodily resurrection, or even if you exist as a personal being, but I thank you for the brain I have so that I can keep on searching for you." God heard the teenager's prayer!

This is a loose metaphor for what the Gospels are saying everytime Jesus talks to a Pharisee. The Pharisees were not the bad guys, as we think of them today, they were the ardent, honest scholars who faithfully believed. The Gospels are SHOCKING! Met to shake us out of our notions, overturn what we think is going to happen. Jesus upset the normal order! Jesus was like the teenager.

People who believe that they're already at their destination haven't even started yet. People who are humble enough to admit that they are searching are closer than they realize to the truth. Gospels original intention is to shock and overturn belief, not to reinforce it. The God of Jesus is the God of EVERYONE.

Further Reading:

The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus by Peter Gomes

Rule of Three:
Watching: 300
Reading: The Apocraphal Gospels
Listening: Jimmy Eat World: Futures

What I learned my First Semester

Now that I’ve had a chance to process everything, I feel that I can truly reflect on this first semester. Like everything else in my life, I relate things to other things. In many cases, I relate things back to stories. Here I will relate my first semester with the movie The Matrix.

The film describes a future in which reality perceived by humans is actually the Matrix, a simulated reality created by sentient machines in order to pacify and subdue the human population while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Upon learning this, computer programmer "Neo" is drawn into a rebellion against the machines.

To get out of the Matrix and into the “real world,” Neo has to choose weather to take the red pill or the blue pill. Morpheus says, “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown 'real' truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand everyone you love and everything that you have built you life upon. On the other the promise only of truth. This first semester is this same invitation. We can take the blue pill and believe whatever we want to about faith, religion, and the Bible. Or we can take the red pill and wake up. Waking up presents a whole new realm of questions. We see the complexities of faith, religion, and the Bible. The red pill helps us wake up and realize that we’re in a matrix ourselves. We realize that we are in complex relationships and networks of beliefs. We are not an island, but plugged into culture and personal history. This realization is startling.

It is like the part in the movie where Morpheus says to Neo, “It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. The truth is that you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”

We can become trapped in our assumptions about the world and react violently when they are challenged. We often make the assumption that our way is the best and only way. Seminary is causing us to look at these assumptions and realize that we filter things. We tend to hear what we want to and not necessarily what’s presented. Why take the red pill? Why then enter seminary?

The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking 'what if?' or 'why?' Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice. Do you continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.

So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, "ignorance is bliss" Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about? By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to 'fit in', which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favorably on those who question the system. Morpheus says to Neo "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it." The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a questioning person.

So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard? In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear. To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are."

Seminary is teaching me to think in new ways. Sometimes I’m frustrated by the fact that others seem unwilling to do the same. I realize then that many people do not take joy in questions. They would rather be placated by answers, even if it were a false security. These blue pill takers may wish to seek the truth in a different way, or in a less mind jarring set of circumstances. They can choose the blue pill and not deny their consciousness, but to stop seeking the truth entirely would be to deny their consciousness.

As conscious minds we will always seek the truth. However, the choice over the red or blue pills is not solely a choice between whether to question or not, it is a personal choice on the method of discovering the truth. The question for me then is how to speak to the blue pill people from my position? How can I get people to understand that they are all plugged into a belief system, a culture, and a history? How best can I deal with my own and resist being realigned into another matrix?
These questions will drive my years here at seminary, and possibly the rest of my life.

I feel that Jesus is the Morpheus character calling us to transcend our limitations. Jesus wants to free our minds. His method is through loving God, neighbor and self. I really respond well with this message and hope to be a Neo in the cause.

To Clarify the Mountain

i want to be completely honest with you... The last post was loooong and i mentioned a group who I don't entirely know. I don't want to come across as targeting this particular group, i was just citing an example of the opposite of my thinking and this is what i found. Events in my life have called me to take a stance on this issue and it was by no means an all out attack on Xenos... merely they had something in writing that others were verbally saying in my immediate environment. On a reread, I think i came down hard on this particular church that is doing a great good for a large amount of people in the c-bus area, one that my sister gets a lot of joy out of... i hope this clarifies why i don't share their view.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a veitnamese buddhist, wrote the last post in a much shorter and better phrased way.

"Truth has no boundaries. Most of the boundaries we have created are artificial. Our differences may be mostly differences in emphasis.

You are born into your tradition, and naturally you become a Buddhist or Christian. Buddhism or Christianity is part of your culture and civilization.You are familiar with your culture and appreciate the good things in it. You may not be aware that in other cultures and civilizations there are values that people are attached to. If you are open enough, you will understand that your tadition does not contain all truths and values. It is easy to get caught in the idea that salvation is not possible outside your tradition. A deep and correct practice of your tradition may release you from that dangerous belief."

from Living Buddha, Living Christ pages 154-155.

My good buddy Ron emailed me that to show more of the relativity of mathmatics. He states, "I did however want to let you know that 1+1 is not always 2 in mathematics. Sometimes 1+1=0 in mathematics. How you ask? It's binary addition. It's what makes the switches and electronic stuff in your house work. Thought you might like that little bit of that inside information to blow your mind some more."

how cool is that?! yeah, not only do i have a reader, but he blew my mind! that is why the world is sooo cool to me. there's so many different ways of looking at something, why can't we rejoice in it? the world is not static and boring and is proof that a divine genius placed such an abundance before us. we should never be bored with our explorations. if i have other readers that don't share this view, feel free to comment! i'm open to all trains of thought.


i shall now end with Selections From The Bahai Writings on Peace that sound pretty close to my own Christian tradition:
“…Dedicate the precious days of your lives to the betterment of the world.”

"With the joyful tidings of light I hail thee: rejoice! To the court of holiness I summon thee; abide therein that thou mayest live in peace for evermore."

“The fundamental truth of the Manifestations is peace. This underlies all religion, all justice.”

Can there be one way to God?

Sorry y'all.. you're getting two angry long posts right in a row. my last one was pretty firey and this one i fear is even worse. i never said that i would be happy ALL the time now did i? and seminary is hard and it makes my brain explode with ideas. i have trouble getting to sleep with all the thoughts my three brain cells are volley'n back and forth like some sad three way tennis match. but here it is in all it's glory! with lots of help in phrasing from a great book called The Phoenix Affirmations by Eric Elnes. it's a GREAT book and i've used most of what i remember about it here to help phrase the argument and terms...

I'm tired of being a "Christian But". Notice there is only one T in BUT. A "Christian But" is someone who says "I'm a Christian, BUT i belive homosexuals aren't evil, women are equal to men, i'm concerned with social justiceand global issues, (and the big one for me) i don't think that people who believe different from me are going to hell."

My idea is that there HAS to be more than one way to God. If God was so simple to have only one path to God, then this is a simple, black and white, and ultimately small god. This type of god is not one i'm willing to follow. To me, God is BIG! God made the earth and heavens and everything in it. God made every cell in my body as well as the stuff on Saturn or Pluto. God is universal. My belief in this is simple... it's commonly refered to as the MOUNTAIN VIEW of God. Here's the metaphor:

The 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 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. They think they alone are making the ascent. 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. Here is where my deontology kicks in and says that all ethical routes reach the same moral end! the top of the mountain! all unethical routes cannot then reach the top (teleogy).

now people will try to accuse me of religious relativism. as stated in an article by a conservative columbus mega-church,
"Religious relativism is the belief that all religions are simply different perceptions of the same ultimate reality, or 'Many faiths are but different paths leading to one reality, God.' (DIFFERENT MOUNTAIN ROADS WHICH ALL LEAD TO SUMMIT)." this is found at www.xenos.org/teachings/topical/objections/oneway.htm

i really can't stand this. sure i have a bit of relativism in me... Einstein's theory of relativity generalises Galileo's principle of relativity — that all uniform motion was relative, and that there is no absolute and well-defined state of rest (no privileged reference frames) — from mechanics to all the laws of physics, including electrodynamics. To stress this point, Einstein not only widened the postulate of relativity, but added the second postulate that all observers will always measure the speed of light to be the same no matter what their state of uniform linear motion.

Okay.. even if you didn't get any of that, what it states is that where you are affects how you see things, HOWEVER, there is a truth or a constant by which to measure by. So i guess i could say that i'm a Religious Relativist through the school of Einstein. my constant then would be God.

the xenos website states: "The former (and biblical) definition of 'tolerance' made a distinction between people and their religious beliefs. It meant that people should have the legal freedom to practice the religion of their choice, and that you should personally respect and love them, even if you conclude that their beliefs are false. Today's 'tolerance' has removed the distinction between persons and their beliefs. It means that you must never call others' beliefs false or untrue, or you are an arrogant, intolerant bigot...No engineer says '8 + 32 = 40 or 8 + 32 = 53. Both answers are fine with me.' Would you want to trust a bridge this engineer built?"

I love this because it's a complete logical fallacy. they talk about what relativism is but then use strawmen and red herring tactics to defeat relativism without dealing directly, but that is another topic i could spend most of my life destroying. but let's keep to task here! A bigot, by its very definition, is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own. So yes, if you think someone else is untrue or wrong, then you are a bigot. Now you may see the double-speak here of "bigots are wrong because they call others wrong." Let me then add if one does not prove it logically invalid, then yes, a person is a bigot.

the website goes on to prove relativism is ignorant of logic by stating this funny math problem... i certainly would say that an answer is right and one is wrong due to the logic of mathematics.. now if we were talking about another situation, then i would have to look at the findings. what's the difference? well, in mathematics 1+1 is always 2. In other situations, say having a family, 1+1=3. or sometimes 1+1=2 or 3, and even 6! Depends on how many babies those two people produce, this is a question of genetics and fitness. and in Jesus' birth, these same people that shoot down relativism state that 0+1=2! seems like these people are selectively relative themselves.

now let's get on to the main bigoted statement against other faiths other than Christian from the website: "Therefore, the 'DIFFERENT MOUNTAIN ROADS WHICH ALL LEAD TO SUMMIT' analogy is simply untrue. The roads are on different mountains, they lead in fundamentally different directions and they end on completely different summits!"

last time i checked, Christianity was a monotheistic religion. meaning there is ONE God. Some people would state that there is just ONE TRUE GOD, the others are just idols. i would argue no, this argument by its very nature is polytheistic. it doesn't take into effect the gods that came before the Jewish god was ever thought of. so are those ideas of God wrong? No, our idea of God has evolved over time, due to our location and technology at hand. By this 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. So who's right here? The Jewish one god of Yahweh, or the Chrisitian three-in-one God revealed through Jesus?

Could it be that God may allow for different routes, each with its own integrity? A Hindu may find a way to the top through withdrawl 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? Now a pure relativist will state "they're all just saying the same things. they're really no different." well no, they are REALLY different! The routes up the mountain engage different terrain, with different obstacles and challenges, different vistas, and different places of rest.

This illustates the fact 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. Jesus states this in the bible as well.

JOHN 10:4-16 "I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."

Some believe this is for the conversion of other faiths to Christianity... but let's look at what Jesus is and is not saying. He refers to other adherents of other faiths (other sheep...) who ALREADY belong to him (I have...) and therefore when he calls them they will listen. 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 Shephred 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. Who is my neighbor? 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. i would hope that these travelers up the mountain investigated other paths before choosing to climb.. there's no shame in this.

Can we claim which paths are rabbit trails or authentic? 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 the other 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.. i'm only talking in a mono-mountain context.

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 dialogue 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.

Happy Climbing!

For the Bible Tells Me So

A 5th grade understanding of God is okay... if you're in the 5th grade!



We had an LGBT week here at LTS! I'm excited and glad to be at a place that is both welcoming and affirming. I would point to an exciting transcript of Mark Jordan's speech entitled "The Witness of LGBT Christians."

The last post was a crazy angry one.. but this is part of the deal! it's hard and lots of ideas to process. i'm still making sense of things as well.. but i'm slowly coming to a systematic theology, that is getting the vocabulary to express my belief system. that will come in time.. and a big part of the base of the belief will come next week! so i'll hope you'll stick around for that! hope all is well out there! keep rawk'n!

What Do We Call This?!: Thoughts on renaming the Hebrew and Christian scriptures

This is a paper i wrote from my OT112 class. I have since edited it and clarified some spots... hope you enjoy!

There are too many Bibles in the world. If we look at just the arrangement of the books there are at least four different Bibles. The Jewish Canon, the Roman Catholic Canon, the Orthodox Canon, and the Protestant Canon all include books arranged differently to further certain agendas. There are also translation issues that multiply these four canons to an uncountable number of Bibles.

There are as many Bible translations as there are languages. There are also specific translations in these Bibles as to the exact wording, Kings James or New International Bible or Everett Fox translations for example. In all of these translations the Bible never gives itself a name (Williamson 106).

Other book collections do not have this problem. One would simply title their work “The Collected Works of So-and-So,” or one could logically put the overarching theme as the title. The problem is that no two groups can agree on what exactly the Bible’s theme is. To the Jews, everything points toward the Torah. For Christians, everything points to the cross. These two groups are theologically at odds with each other. To make matters worse, the Christian faith groups cannot agree on a theme, hence the various denominations of Catholic and Protestant.

People attach a great deal of political and emotional weight to these books. We cannot just name the first collection the “Great Escape,” nor can we name the second one “The Empire Strikes Back.” There is too much religious sentiment riding on the Bible, so using a catchy title will not do for this sacred text.

So how can we pick a title that everyone will agree on? How can we pick a title that people do not judge? How can these groups with different agendas co-exist with the same texts? Christian struggle internally with these questions to come to terms with the role of the Jews and Judaism in Christian theology (Schramm par. 4).
Christians must work to avoid the theology of adversus Judaeos. In the book Has God Rejected His People?, Clark M. Williamson states that “against the Jews’ theology is an apologetic argument in the support of the claim that Christianity has superseded Judaism” (90). Against the Jews’ theology is defined in two ways:

1. Rejection/Election theology—Gods reject Jews and therefore “elects” Christians as the new people of the covenant
2. Inferiority/Fulfillment theology—Jews are inferior to God’s plan and through Jesus, Christians fulfill God’s plan (90).

Jews are very aware of the “New Testament.” This book is Christianity’s claim that the ritual demands of the Scripture are abolished (Schramm par. 8). Christianity’s founding fathers have cited the New Testament many times to attack Judaic theology (Williamson 90). With the way that Christians have arranged both testaments, the New Testament is dependent on the Hebrew Scriptures. William Johnson Everett states in his article “Renaming scripture - Old Testament or Hebrew Bible?” that “Judaism can no longer be understood apart from Christianity, not only because Christian oppression so deeply shaped the development of Judaism, but because through the expansion of Christianity the whole world has come to know the peculiar witness of the people of the ‘Old Testament’” (73).

The traditions are so intertwined it is impossible to separate the two without harming the other. Judaic and Christian theologies are like conjoined twins who violently disagree on many issues. One twin argues that there are three major parts of the body: the Torah, Nevi’im, and the Ketubim (and the latter supports the former). The other twin not only disagrees but suffers from schizophrenia and reorders the first’s order of organs while adding a few other organs. So in the end there is one big confused mess. We have one schizo twin that is dragging the other half around claiming the same origins. But the situation is not as hopeless as it seems. I feel that acknowledging the individual twins’ agendas and motivations would be defining factors as to what to call the Scriptures.

My solution would be to give each separate grouping of a particular religion’s Scriptures a name. The overall name for both Jewish and Christian Bibles simply would be The Bible or more politically correct, The Scriptures. The Jews could call their Scriptures the TaNaK or Jewish Bible or something similar. The Christians will then acknowledge their own rearrangement of the Jewish order of the books, since they are indeed arranged to fit a certain agenda. The name I would use for the Protestant Old Testament would be the Protestant Agenda Scriptures or P.A.S., and the New Testament would be the Protestant Agenda Testament or P.A.T. The Catholics in turn have C.A.S. and C.A.T. and the Orthodox O.A.S. and O.A.T. This fulfills the Christian embrace of acronyms and manages to pay proper respect to the Judaic tradition without belittling it. To argue for the Protestant names specifically, pas in Spanish means peace and to pat someone is usually a sign of respect and to show affection. It is perfect for my Protestant tradition because peace is love and love brings peace.

Realistically this would never work. For religions to gain members they must argue that it is God’s agenda they are following and promoting, not their own. Some might also say that this phrasing paints Christianity in a bad light compared to Judaism. The reality here is that we cannot afford to continue the use of “Old” and “New” Testaments due to the history of Judaic abuse at the hands of Christians. These types of characterizations of the testaments have led to many abuses like supersessionism and claims of inferiority that were manifested in the Holocaust (Williamson 105). We do not have the vocabulary yet to get across the ideas and histories that these Scriptures contain, but we must work to get it.

We must be accurate and give each separate Bible a different name. We must recognize that there is not one from of Christianity and that even our selection of Bibles differ. We also must recognize Christianity's dependence and history of disreguard for the Jewish religion. We must strive for a vocabulary that can do all of this and I know i'm not the one to do it.

Works Cited

Everett, William Johnson "Renaming scripture - Old Testament or Hebrew Bible? - Column". Christian Century. Oct 29, 1997. FindArticles.com. 02 Oct. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n30_v114/ai_20013860

Schramm, Brooks. “Uncertain Terms: the Title of the First Volume of the Christian Bible”. Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies, Autum 2000. Moodle. Lancaster Theological Seminary, Philip Schaff Lib. 2, Oct. 2007. http://online.lancasterseminary.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=6

Williamson, Clark M. Has God Rejected His People? Anti-Judaism in the Christian Church. Nashville, Tennisee: Abington Press, 1982; 89-105

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

I feel like i didn't go far enough with explaining the Bible and it's formation. The whole point is that the formation is very complicated. So much so that some things will seem alien or counter to what we've been traditionally taught.

let's name my primary assumption. the Bible is worth reading and investigating it's origin. This collection of works has been cited throughout history. some would say it is the backbone of western culture, so i would say it's pretty influential. so what is the bible?

it is not a history book as it doesn't match up with other histories in the areas directly. it doesn't mention a lot of heavy hitters that influenced it... like alexander the great! he's sort of a big deal in the history of the region, but the bible does not mention him although most of the prose in it is a direct greek immitation.

it is more than a hallmark of literature. most like the entire cultures of Jewish, Christian, and Muslims would agree that it's God's dealing with people over the ages. this is the world viewed theologically.

the Bible is very fuild. some books were already written and being copied and distributed while others were being written. it was not circulated between two covers but as individual scrolls. communities had differing stories. even though some had the same stories, there were differences between those! some scrolls were widely distributed early and then died off and vice versa.

for example the Christian Testament pretty much had the 4 gospels and 10 Pauline letters widely distributed. James, 2&3 Peter, and Revelations struggled early but made it into the final canon. Barnabus and the Apocalypse of Peter started early but didn't make it to the canon. however the ideas stayed around and Dante's Inferno was written based on the Apocalypse of Peter.

The Bible started to stabilize for both Christians and Jews in the 4th century. Cananizations not up to a small group but it was rather inclusive. large segment of communities that already held scrolls to be central, holy, or authoritative. there was also a typical Middle Eastern process that puts differing and contradictory traditions into a single book. Just ready Numbers and then Deuteronomy or Paul and James and you'll know that there's a lot of stuff that doesn't stack up easily in the Bible. This is a huge problem for fundies who read the Bible 100% literally. This fact makes a literal interpretation of the Bible impossible because it's not build on linear thinking. it's built on Jewish non-linear thought. It is built so that different groups can form their own canons out of the Canon.

the dead sea scrolls confirm this whole process. the dead sea scrolls are pretty much the entire TaNaK (what we would call the "old" testament, but more on this later) with the exception of Esther. There are also more additions to certain books like Daniel and Numbers. This really is the most important find in the 20th century for biblical studies and has lead to the revision of the Bible many times.... and yes... the BIBLE is being CHANGED! even today!

so in conclusion, i'll restate my stance on the Bible. THe Bible is complex in it's reading and in it's formation. The Bible, I would argue, is not without errors. There are a ton of questionable translations since Hebrew is a pun-based sometimes vowel-less language. the copying of this book isn't perfect and any bible scholar worth their salt will admit this. I do believe the bible to be infallable. i do believe there there is enough in the Bible that it will never let you down if you're looking for an answer. this is also the reason people can be pro-choice or pro-life and be scriptually supported for either stance.

keep it tuned! up next: What to call the Old Testament!

Found on Youtube and Copied here

It Could Happen Here...
Schools Back In Session. And They Don't Make 'em Like This Anymore! Despotism (1946): Tyrannical Government, What We Are Supposed To Be Fighting Against! We, the People, are (were) a Republic, NOT a Democracy! Lutheran Germany WAS a Republic, WHAT HAPPENED ?
Watch This Film, Rate Your Goverment....



Reflect:

"Every step...towards...democracy is an advance towards destruction... Liberty has never yet lasted long in a democracy; nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism." - Fisher Ames (1758-1808; Congressman from Massachusetts ; Statement made in 1801)

"There was not one man among the Founding Fathers who wanted a democracy. Thus, when we are told by our government that the American form of government is a democracy, that statement is not true." - John W. Chalfant (Author of the book Abandonment Theology: The Clergy and the Decline of American Christianity)

America's liberty is perishing beneath the constant growth of government power. Federal, state, and local governments are confiscating citizens' property, trampling their rights, and decimating their opportunities more than ever before." - James Bovard (Author of Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty )

"The powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States , may be RESUMED by them, whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty , and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." -- The Declaration of Independence

"Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants." - Benjamin Franklin

Here's an example of LIE'N tyrants. We are still a democracy. we need to unite and get these lying sheep out of the higher offices of government!