No Chains on Me…

Short post time.

Saw an interesting comment somewhere along the way of my usual reading and interacting with the world. As one of my earlier posts indicated, I’ve been reading up on a lot of the former Nobel Peace Prize winners and what they have accomplished. There have been some really fantastic people and causes around the world, Christ followers and not alike. There has been a lot of discussion, here and elsewhere, that my generation is the one that is super-concerned with social justice and seeking to improve the quality of life around the world. What is interesting, though, is that most of these “kids” are still in college, are still subsisting off of their parents income, are not yet being placed into a position to have to give up some of their own income or potential quality of life for the sake of others. Some are, most are perhaps not. I have no stats to back this up, but in general, most of the people in college who are yelling the loudest about social change, are those with the least ability to be able to do it, at least as far as resources go. My advisor, Dr. Gallagher has told me more than once that age will cure my irreconcilable “liberal” outlook on life. I laugh, but at the same time, I wonder, when its my turn to foot the bill for social change and justice, will I sacrifice of myself and what I have for others or will I continue to look to others to be those supporting the commune (which is why “commune”-ism fails).

So the big question is: Will I and my peers continue to seek change when it is our turn to be the change-makers? Only God and time will tell.

Interesting passage in contradictory terms.

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

How is this possible? To get the desires of our heart in this case? If our delight, and thus arguably desire, is for the Lord, how then do we get the desires of our heart? Unless I suppose that he is what he gives us…

I suppose this is where I struggle. There are a lot of things that I desire. A job. Katie. Stuff, tangible and intangible from an affordable apartment to peace and joy. All of those things I can/would take delight in as well. Is it an either/or/only situation?

But how do those desires tie into my delight first (or even only) for the Lord? Hmm… thoughts anyone?

Feedback comes few and far between these days. Thats what I get for leaving and coming back for months at a time

Lets try a series on for size. This one promises to be scattered due to the fact that it is 2:30 in the morning and I have a lot that I want to lay as base-work for this series.  

I like the idea of communism at the basic level. This is not to say that I have a good grasp of the ideology of it as a whole, I’m going to be researching some of that for this series. However, the idea that all work together for the common good, which then in turn will benefit you, is a very, oddly enough, Christian idea. All should pitch in to make a better living for all. Community.

Capitalism, on the other hand and again oddly enough, is built upon a very non-Christian idea: Work for the good of yourself, which in turn should benefit society. Self-centered vs. others-centered. Here in America, it is well known that we hail capitalism and the free-market system as the solution to the worlds problems. But is it a system worthy of the followers of Christ?

Capitalism works, or has worked very well in the past for one reason in my opinion: It is a system designed to work on the principal that man is selfish. Its the perfect system for a world of sinful, selfish people.

After an entire night of talking over a wide variety of very interesting subjects with my new housemate, James, I have thought through something else as well. Only one thing was necessary for a Biblically historical account of a “Fall” to make sense: the entrance of selfishness into Man’s desires. A change from desiring the good for either someone else or for all others before one’s self, to a desiring of the betterment of one’s self above all others. This single change in perspective, in my opinion, can account for all sin or evil in the world, aside from things like natural disaster and the like, which, even so, may be attributable to man’s poor management and use of the earth. Another topic for another time.

Back to the topic at hand, communism has failed historically because ultimately, someone, somewhere gets the idea that this system is exploitable for his/her own good. Because of this, the people who are then taken advantage of, suffer miserably under the hand of tyranny. Then dissent leads to revolution and the downfall of a system. All stemming, again only in my opinion, from selfishness.

So what is the solution? Not so fast, we’ve barely begun! And its getting near 3. But the answer is anarchy…. Not yet More to follow.

Meanwhile, you can all read Animal Farm, a decent, semi-humorous novel/commentary on communism in what most resembles the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Its a shorter read, although it is a book. See you all soon.

The brief, semi-satirical letter below is a great take on the new proposition coming off the line from a government that doesn’t know how to control its spending habits. In so many interviews about the major economic crash that happened a week ago now, the question continues to come up: Who’s fault is this? If we are looking at a problem of too much money being given to people who can’t pay it back (as it seems the issue continually brought up is outrageous mortgage programs carried on by many of our national banks), we need look no farther than our government. The amount that our spending and debt has grown over the past eight years has been stagering. What is interesting is that the last time our national debt, decreased was during the Clinton administration (even though it wasn’t a whole lot). Bush’s administration has increased the debt by a massive increase in spending while at the same time the GDP has dropped through the floor. Some quick stats:

That said, the letter following is not actually as funny as it sounds. In fact, this proposal HAS been made by Sec. Paulson, to use $700 BILLION dollars (coming from where?) to help out our financial system that is already in ruins. What is so incredibly scary about this, is that Paulson and those seeking to enact this measure are asking for the money with no strings, no questions, and no accountability. You think I’m joking? You can read the proposal for yourself if you like. Some highlights are:

Necessary Actions.–The Secretary [Paulson] is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

…

(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

…

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Does that make sense to ANYONE? Is anyone even a little suspicious of the need for that non-reviewable clause? Paulson and others, from what I gather claim that it is for the expediency of action needed to correct the financial disaster we are currently undergoing.

photo by Tim Davis

Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship
with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country
has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of
US$800 billion. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be
most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you
may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation
movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the
funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds
in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under
surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a
reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the
funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund
account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission
for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond
with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to
protect the funds.

Regards
Mr. Paulson
_

Check out Tim Davis’ excellent series, My Life in Politics.

[From Spam of the Day. Or Not.]

Since several here are wondering my thoughts on Friday night’s gathering to hear about “The Emergent Mystics” and “Today’s Church is Going to Hell because of the Music it Uses” I figured I’d put down my initial thoughts here and allow conversations to flow from here, since I always do better at writing out thoughts, and am, in fact, able to actually get my thoughts out in one pass. Please call me out if you think I’m totally off-base and I’m willing to rethink.

My first thoughts, as you might guess, are not very friendly. But that said, I don’t want to come here to bash anyone or tear them down. For one, I am continually being convicted of the need not to throw condemnation at other people, even if they are doing the same. Which is hard. Hypocrisy is really tough to deviate from. So I’m trying to be kind. Both men probably did a better job of presenting their ideas in their books, and I should read them first before giving an opinion. But I haven’t the time (or really the desire now). So I’m probably going to fail at kindness. I’m sure both men are equally passionate and attempting to be helpful to the body of Christ. I just happen to disagree with the way they did it and why.

The authors of the two books about which they were speaking, were really quite generous to come to speak to the small group as was gathered there. To give time like that to a small group of homeschooling families in the middle of Kentucky was very kind of them. Another presence was not quite as welcome however (not to say anything about the people themselves). Two, possibly three individuals from a “ministry” known as lighthousetrailsresearch.com were also present to document the proceedings of the meeting that night. While this may not mean much to many people here, (I don’t know how widely they are known) to almost anyone well connected with the Cedarville scene, Lighthouse Trails has become public enemy number one (maaaybe not quite that bad, but at one time, as possibly still, yes). And what saddens me most is that a “Christian” University’s enemy is a “Christian” organization. Sorry for so many quotes. I suppose I question those titles for all of these groups… So seeing them (see pic 2) here was somewhat shocking (my jaw hit the floor when I found out…) Interestingly enough (although perhaps not so surprising), the authors ate up the fact that a little bit “bigger” media was there, the first dude especially. So that whole thing was a bit of an adrenaline rush. At least to see them in person for once than be blasted publicly from remote, underground locations.

Anyways, the first speaker was an older, sour-faced gentleman with a fiery passion for his topic, which can make for a good sermons. Unfortunately, I also disagreed with almost all of what he said. The gentleman was speaking (and had written) on the topic of music in the church, which has been a big topic for me in the past, but I’m not as driven to speak on as much anymore, partly because I’ve been working on expanding what worship is to me, and I’m pretty sure its a lot deeper and more serious than what this guy focused on, as I think he’d agree. But I don’t think that was his point… I don’t think… it was hard to tell. The guy came off very strongly against seeker-sensitive churches, which was mostly driven by his

focus on aesthetics, namely of music. Now, I agree to a large degree with his rant about the need not to put away the message of God for the sake of trying to draw people in with entertainment. However, to blatantly call the seeker-sensitive church (with big-name churches thrown in there) the anti-church or to say they are ALL geared towards arousing feelings and have become adulterers from God’s true mission, while the small gatherings (as we had that night) are “as close to the NT church as you will ever see here on earth” seems a bit overdramatic and presumptuous. For one, I don’t think his personal preferences, or mine, or anyone’s for that matter, defines what is acceptable and worshipful to God. I do think a lot of contemporary worship does a poor job of directing worship to the one worthy of it. However, calling anything that doesn’t align with our own beliefs about what church worship should be not glorifying to God, seems pretty arrogant (Quote: “Did you know rock music is the music of SEX?!?” ‘Cause we all know sex is from the pit of hell… It connects to voodoo too apparently. Meanwhile Mr. Mysticism-Speaker is nodding emphatically).

He seemed to also be saying that we need to drive out the churches who are not like us or more, I suppose, those that are seeker sensitive. What is the Christian’s seeming need to combat, in a sense “persecute” the seeker-sensitive churches or those who are trying to be appealing? When is the persecutee given the liberty to become the persecutor? Why do we have to try forcing everything into submission when it is not like us? Why is the body of Christ not supposed to be diverse? What’s more, is this man is making broad statements about everything he spoke about. Not only that, but he failed to give any examples of what he was so broadly describing. I’m sure he means well and is trying to get a point across very vividly, but I think he needs some help in the public speaking department. There was a lot of playing on single words from his passages, not looking at what surrounds the meaning behind the full text. Blah blah blah… all more just minor points I won’t hold against him.

But…

What really pissed me off about this guy, to be honest, was during a very short piece of his rant when first, he said music itself cannot bear witness to God, and is therefore worthless. Something I have argued against for a while now, so I won’t go into that. The second, and far more repulsive was when he said, quote: “Liturgy is repetitive and boring: and is in fact MEANINGLESS!!” Some of you more than others know my love of and thoughts towards liturgy. That killed anything else for me that he had to say. To hear something that echos scripture so deeply, that speaks to my heart so strongly about who God is and how we are to worship him, spoken so ill of, for so few reasons? Yeah, so though I agree with him on the underlying point, his means of going about speaking of worship felt really off base and much more like a personal vendetta against anything that didn’t measure up to his standard. Which I’m fine with, IF you label it as that, and not as the standard for ALL CHURCHES EVERYWHERE AND SEEKER SENSITIVE CHURCHES ARE THE ANTI-CHURCH. My summary of his thesis

Also, I must speak very highly of all the rest of the people at this meeting otherwise. They are amiable bunch, who do things like remember your name, cook good food, and engage in more than small talk quickly and with style. I enjoy spending time around these people, so I can’t fill in the blank in the title as “complete waste” of time.

Okay, so second guy. Mostly what I can say about him is he needs better time management skillz. He didn’t make it to the main point of what I was at this thing to hear in the first place… which was completive prayer and the emergent church. He went of on a loooooooooong tangent about spiritualism and those engaged in it, arguably to build his point (which he didn’t get to) about what spiritualism/mysticism actually is in connection with the emergent church. I suppose he was going to get to that stuff… somewhere along the road… Most of these arguments, however came with: “here’s who wrote something about it, here’s how they furthered contemplative prayer and spiritualism; here’s how they’re connected to this person, here’s how they wrote and expanded and are connected with… and on it went for an hour and forty-five minutes… I can haz point plz? My focused consciousness trailed off eventually, just out of a lack of attention and interest on my part.

Now, thats not to say that what he was talking about wasn’t important. New Age stuff is scary stuff. I don’t really want to tangle with it from what I know about what it involves. But some of his dichotomies seemed off, namely the one that he made that people are not to be messing with the spiritual world, but rather to be based in this world only (mainly in the pursuit of Bible study only). To me we are all still called to be aware of the spiritual things around us, consciousness that we are apart of two worlds that mix somehow supernaturally, that the supernatural does exist and that we are somehow mixed in that. Jesus told the woman at the well that God’s true worshipers have to worship in spirit and truth. There is some mystical mixing of the two worlds in human beings. There’s dangers there, because of the “powers of darkness” around us. But there is a union of body and soul in this world. Its a strange and mysterious thing…

Side note: Which, by the way, brings up another point: I think we’ve made too much of the Bible sometimes, honestly… This will be another post soon. What was hilarious, however, is that towards the end of this spiel, someone (him or another pastor) spoke on the need to not rely on the teachings of men, but the Bible alone… wait, and we’re here listening to you teach on this… why then? I laughed about that for a while. Church people are funny. We like the word “only” too much…

ANYways.

There was seemingly a drive (I’m guessing because of the family-centric environment) to demonstrate the need to separate one’s self from people who are involved with this kind of thing. That seems to me, a very bad idea… Explain to me why, when all these people are making such leaps and bounds in creating a following, are purportedly sucking the life out of our churches and destroying the spiritual scene around the world, we are supposed to remove ourselves from the presence of these people? I think its important to teach our kids about these things, yes, and to guard against evil in our personal lives and families. But to cut ones-self off from these people, who arguably need Christ as much as the “common” sinner? Somethings seems deeply wrong with that picture.

And this brings me to my main beef with these authors. Not once did I hear a call to reach out to these people who are becoming so influential in the “spiritual realm” in order to present or live out Christ to them. I very rarely heard a call for us to be lights IN this darkening culture. Rather, I heard the rallying cry to “retreat to the fort and hold it as long as you can against all comers! Keep out anyone who gets close and shoot the wounded so we don’t all get infected!” All this sounds opposite of what Christ did and called us to. Anyone recall what Jesus got in trouble for? Getting too close to those people. And while I hear a lot of talk about the Pharisees among the emergents and other “liberal” groups, I see a lot more of it within those calling names. And the names of those connected with those names. And the names of… so on and so forth

Because he didn’t get to his main point, I can’t critique him on it, so I won’t try to do so on that. What he did mention about the emergent church in what time he had, he did so far too broadly, and defined the whole bunch of them as dabbling in mysticism, which is a mischaracterization of the movement as a whole. He also spoke of it as redefining the church, which is how emergents have defined themselves as well, and I honestly think its an excellent goal. Those who say they think it is a bad thing to do so forget that reformed theology and practice is all part of a redefinition as well. Perspective is vital and is well worth remembering. We are always moving. We are not part of a static faith, because we continue to find out something new about God. While he may be unchanging, our understanding of him evolves.

What was interesting is that early on, he also characterized catholic AND protestant churches as having very deep issues with mysticism. So I fail to see the problem being an emergent-only thang. Sooo… yeah. What was the point of this again? Oh right, to somehow justify ourselves and discount everybody else. Cool…

So on the whole, it was, to fill in the blank, a “disappointing use” of time. Not that it wasn’t expected to be so, but I did come hoping for better. No Q&A time either, which I was really looking forward to getting involved in, as I think others were as well. At least the Lighthouse Trails people got their voice out… And I was surprised there?

–

A few closing thoughts, mostly thoughts that came as I listened to the speakers:

I felt as though they were speaking of these things as though these changes are huge transitions in the church and our culture RIGHT NOW, as though nothing of this scale or hostility has ever faced the church before. Some of it is melodramatics I’m sure, coming from the desire to feel as though we are on the forefront of some combat against a new darkness. But I’m pretty sure that most of this has been going on for a long, long time. Calm down people. You keep telling me God is sovereign and then panicking about the Coming and Unstoppable Chaos in the same sentence. You can’t have both…

Much talk about the redefining of God/Jesus. What I wonder is how we get off deciding that we are the ones making the “right” definition of who God is? WE obviously defined him at some point too if we are saying the re-definition is wrong… hmm….

It’s interesting how both sides observe and interpret the verse about hating mother/father/brother/sister to follow Christ.

This is a difficult thing to listen to, mostly because all the knowledge we have is coming through men very hostile to these ideas. They are channeling what knowledge we are receiving.

Can we not have discussions like this without hating people? Without calling names? Without pointing at others to somehow justify ourselves to God as “better than them”? Can we not say truth in love? Are we incapable of love at all? The devil has hit us where it hurts us most: our very identifying mark as Christians, our love, is being stripped away by people who write and speak in this fashion. I don’t doubt these men’s salvation, but I think they and all the rest of us could do so much better.

–

And for those of you who know or follow Twitter, here’s what my Twitter feed would have looked like had I had internet access during this time (I actually wrote this in the Word doc I was keeping):

- Lighthouse trail people (all ladies) here!!!!

- Oh frik, they just gave him the laser ptr…. totally unnecessary.

- Thomas Merton: real badass J

- Rob Bell is a crazy mofo

- I wonder if Rick Warren can use a single paragraph with out including the phrase “purpose driven”….

Been going through Malachi of late as part of a study that stems from the Crazy Love book. This is a book that has been kinda scary of late. And here’s why.

First of all, take some time to read through Malachi. Its a short book, only 5 chapters long. Pay special attention to the condemnation God pronounces on the people of Israel and the priesthood at the time. He’s scolding them, incredibly sternly, because of their lack of worship, lack of respect, lack of obedience to Him. He says that he would rather have nothing from them, rather than half-hearted, leftover gifts from his people.

Now, one could say, that was God’s judgement on a people under the law, even quoting: “There is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus” from Romans 8:1. Now, I’d think that verse is true… The problem I have with it is knowing what it means to be in Christ Jesus. Francis Chan put it well when referring to the parable of the different kinds of soil. He says: “Do not assume you are the good soil.” Thats a scary thought… What’s more, one of the most frightening passages I’ve ever read is the one in Matt 25:31-46 (sorry, I don’t have time to edit out all the extra stuff):

31^(A) “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him,^(B)then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him^(C) will be gathered^(D) all the nations, and^(E) he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates^(F) the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then^(G) the King will say to^(H) those on his right, ‘Come, you^(I) who are blessed by my Father,^(J) inherit^(K) the kingdom^(L) prepared for you^(M) from the foundation of the world. 35For^(N) I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you^(O) gave me drink,^(P) I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36^(Q) I was naked and you clothed me,^(R) I was sick and you^(S)visited me,^(T) I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’40And^(U) the King will answer them,^(V) ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these^(W) my brothers,^[a] you did it to me.’

41“Then he will say to those on his left,^(X) ‘Depart from me, you^(Y) cursed, into^(Z)the eternal fire prepared for^(AA) the devil and his angels. 42For^(AB) I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’44Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these,^(AC) you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away^(AD) into eternal punishment, but the righteous^(AE) into eternal life.”

God says there are those who claim him as savior, perhaps even “confess Jesus as Lord” but in the end, he still turns them away… What is the difference between the two? And this is what makes me curious about the whole divine tension of faith and works. Romans has much to say about salvation by grace. But sprinkled in are verses like 2:6 “He will render to each one according to his works.” Best read in context of course, but verses like that are still there without saying anything about how one believes. I’m not sure what the mix is between these verses. And yes, I still think salvation is a gift of God, that it isn’t something we earn. But somehow, it also seems to hang upon how we live in regard to the God we claim as Lord… God has no tolerance, it seems, for those in half-hearted kingdom living. He asks for all or nothing, kinda like he did from the lukewarm church of Laodicea, saying middle ground was not an option.

Tying it back to Malachi, we have been called “a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5). So we are charged with up-keeping the same purpose that the old priesthood held. That, I think, is this: to honor and keep the Lord’s name pure. To serve the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. Otherwise, I wonder if the same judgement that fell upon the priesthood of old will not fall upon us as well. More thoughts on this later…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7489296.stm

I hear stories like this, things the world is doing to help those in very desperate situations and succeeding (to a degree) and I think the body of Christ can and is doing much on the same scale as this, not something that will be as globally recognized as the UN or as in the news as things like Mission Sanitation. I think it would be incredible if groups of young Christian entrepreneurial college kids could start something to bring hope, life, dignity to those around the world who have nothing. I think there are a bunch of people already doing this among groups like Kiva, World Hope Intl. I dunno how one would start something like this… I’ve been interesting in working some job that would provide enough for me, those around and those I might be able to help worldwide, but what if combined, a few people could do more? could reach more? Is anyone interested??

But then, I’m just a young’n full of crazy ideas…

Show Me The Money -

Mac was down for a few days while trying to clear out the frequent kernel panics. Quick reinstall of Leopard and we should be all good…. maybe

So thoughts on the brain tonight… Time is a funny thing. Lots of people are willing to pay large amounts of money for it. Others have a lot of it and are willing to trade it to the people who are willing to pay for it. The time spent earns the resources to spend the time not spent earning resources comfortably and enjoyably. Often times in excess.

There are those who have chosen to give much of that time-bought money to those who are not capable of earning enough to survive on or to those who are depending on others to provide resources for sustenance. I think this is an excellent thing; something I have tried to advocate here. But the next question, kinda following thoughts from the last longer post, is there a balance needed between how much time is spent spending time to earn money to spend on others and time spent spending that time on others? I brought up the idea that perhaps just giving money away is disconnecting ourselves from people, and while not useless in anyway, is not fully realizing what we are meant to be as Christians. Shane Clayborne points out that it becomes a “drop-off point”, where we can drop off resources and then leave, never having made contact with those in need. It keeps us feeling satisfied, having done our “Christian duty”, while never having had to get dirty doing it! Its brilliant!

The problem is, I haven’t seen much of Jesus or almost any of his early followers (namely in the Gospels and Acts, an amazing story of faith, works, and all the blood, sweat and tears that stuck the two together) spending time earning money, even for the sake of giving it away. I see them in the middle of communities, working with people, selling even what their

resources have allowed them to acquire to give that away too! They seemed overcome with the desire to be embedded in a community of people, where they were dependent on each other and God alone. And somehow, in doing that, money became unimportant, an lost its hold on them altogether.

We are told that the love of money is the root of evil. And whenever I hear that phrase, someone always says “love of money” must be the key, and that money itself must still be okay. And perhaps it is… But whenever that time-earned resource is turned into something else, be it entertainment, food, even

this laptop I am using now, and it removes our focus from God and the people around us, causing us to forget and fail to invest the ever-precious resource of time in them rather than pointless pursuits, perhaps money still has its teeth in us yet…

And I again wonder: Is it possible to live apart from this world? I sure as hell don’t make it look like it is. Christian atheism is hard to escape… Can I give up more time at work and the paychecks that time brings to invest it in my relationship with God and the people around me? How can I live in community and seek to provide for those around me through more than just money? What is the perfection we are to seek?

Two final things. Great satirical piece on the Jesus Manifesto site about emergents. I’m trying not to be this way, even though I have been, am and will be. A warning to us all, even the non-emergent types Humility and love is required of us all unequivocally. And yes, I spelled unequivocally right without spellchecker the first try.

And second, two excellent questions posed by a guy speaking as part the Conversational Evangelism conference from 2007, I believe. I managed to get a hold of a bunch of recordings of the sessions from somewhere, and I’m wishing I could find more of them, since I don’t have but about half of them. I’ll let you know if I find more. Anyways, the questions are:

Is it more important to follow what Christ taught, or to let the world know that you’re a Christian?

Is it more important to live by what the Bible says, or to show people that you have the Bible?

Much love to you all.

Actually the title only indicates that my two topics for the night are completely unrelated.

First of all, my Worldview Integration class with Dr. Carl Smith has been incredible. So many issues brought to light and questions asked and lines of thought pursued. Its definitely made me think critically about how I think or what I believe, which is a really good thing! Anyways lets get some input on the latest PCA we’ve had to do:

Is plastic surgery okay? Is it permissible for cosmetic reasons? Is it okay when its more reconstructive. I’m especially interested to hear from any of those who label themselves ‘Calvinists’ on the second question. Is reconstructive surgery okay if God is in control of all things and indeed caused you to become disfigured or be born with a disabling disfigurement, that could be fixed? Sorry to pick on you Calvinists… but it was a thought I ran into and I’m just curious!

Check this out for some good thoughts about it: PCA Group 5

Second thought for the night is this:

Tonight I ran into one of the guys in my WVI class (who was actually a part of my PCA group) and he apologized to me making a joke about my stand on pacifism during the PCA we did on war this past Monday. I can honestly say that the joke was taken as just that when he made it and I thought nothing of it, but to hear him make that effort to seek restoration and remembering five days later to apologize (very earnestly, honestly, and humbly) to apologize for something he felt he did wrong blew me away. First of all, his effort to not just blow off his guilt and move on, but rather to seek me out and apologize are rare. Second, seeking forgiveness means something huge to me (even though I suck at doing it), mostly because it shows to me God’s heart as the God of restoration of all things. The renewed fellowship of believers that occurs as the forgiveness we seek and give to one another is such an incredible representation of God’s seeking and restoring us to Himself. Forgiveness is something we should all do more often. Also, I respect this guy a heck of a lot more now than I did before.

Those are my thoughts for the night. Have a good Sunday all!

As War’s Costs Rise, Congress Demands That Iraq Pay Larger Share

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ERIC LIPTON

Published: April 19, 2008

WASHINGTON — As Congress gears up to debate President Bush’s latest request for $108 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, lawmakers in both parties are pointing to record-high oil prices and demanding that Iraq pay a larger share of the costs, especially for reconstruction efforts.

[From As War’s Costs Rise, Congress Demands That Iraq Pay Larger Share - New York Times]

This seems outrageous to me. Not only is the United States in a country not its own with questionable intentions and seemingly very little plan for the future (besides trying to figure out how/if/when to pull out), it is now asking the country it has been waging war within to help pay to fix the destruction we have caused so that potentially, we can continue to occupy and wage war within it! It makes me sad that we could even think of telling a country to pay us to occupy their nation. Our nation is digging itself in a hole of debt because of a war that is costing us:

“$5,000 a second, $434 million every day. Seven days a week, no weekends off, no vacations. $12 billion every month.”

[From As War’s Costs Rise, Congress Demands That Iraq Pay Larger Share - New York Times]

and now we need to find someone else to pay for it. Why not the people we are helping? And at last, the Iraqi people will have a bit of money coming from their oil industry, and now we want a share of that money. We may not be in Iraq for oil, but we want our share of the money from that oil… We’ve worked hard for it after all! What?! Why is congress suddenly interested in having Iraq pay for our war? Shouldn’t this money be used for the people of Iraq? Shouldn’t the Iraqis be allowed to decide what is done with this new source of income, especially if we claim we’re setting up a democracy there? If we’re going to keep this war going, we should at least have the responsibility and dignity to pay for our own mess. If we’re not willing to do that, there’s a more respectable solution: end the war/occupation that is costing us so much. It seems very wrong to me to lay another burden upon the Iraqi people… Thoughts?