News Flash…
Just in case anyone else was wondering, my disconnection from Facebook has not been prompted by any of you 
I decided to drop it after several years of going back and forth about whether or not it was something I really needed/wanted. I think its been a drag on little bits and corners of time that I have many other ways that I should be spending in far more beneficial ways. Moreover, I told myself a long time ago I wanted to trash it after graduating, since, no judgement offered on anyone who has it now, it seemed (to me) like a very highschool/college student kinda fad. And as mature as I am (*cough*) I decided I didn’t want it around afterwards. And why not start now? So I ditched it for all those reasons, and I tried to do it quickly to avoid wrestling with it in my head more than would be good for me.
And let me tell you its been a huge relief. Its cleared up a lot more time than I would have thought! Its been weird not having my trusty old friend facebook along each day so far, and its been an adjustment to try to place the time once invested there in something worthwhile. But it feels really good to know its gone. I dunno why exactly, but I’m happy to now have time to actually be forced to use my time at least a little more wisely. Maybe, maybe you can expect to see me more on here now though… I might not count on it though
So long live Facebookers, just without me. Peace all!
A[nother] New Day
Don’t want to let the historic event pass without a little commentary. I am excited to live in a day and age when the inauguration of a black man to the presidency of the United States has been realized. I am a huge fan of Martin Luther King Jr. and the vision that he projected on our nation and the non-violent way in which he worked to progress that dream towards reality. To be alive during a time when such a dream has been partially fulfilled is something else. I do not think, unlike many of the news commentators, that this signals the end of racism or prejudice in this nation. I believe if anything, it showed how far we may have yet to go to be reconciled to one another and to judge a person “[not] by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I think what this event shows is that we are taking the battle of public racism off the table in a sense and it now becomes much more of a personal battle, to break individuals of their prejudices and hatred of others, which is not something we can do by legislation. However, The inauguration of President Barack Obama shows that we are moving forward to where, at least corporately, we are willing to say as a nation that racism is not acceptable. This is a historic time to be sure and I am glad to have witnessed it.
I was asked at one point, “how does a Christian anarchist view this day.” It was asked in jest, but I think it is a serious question to evaluate, seeing as how I still think a somewhat unconventional form of anarchy is what I lean towards.
I think that I view a day like February 20th, 2009 with an appreciation of the historicity of such an event and with hope for the future as far as racial reconciliation. It still does not, however, give me hope for a better government. I do like much of what Obama has declared as his platform for his presidency, and I wish him the best in the sincerest way, in hopes that I am wrong about government and its seeming ability to corrupt and its many shortcomings to provide for what its citizens need. I am excited to see where the Obama administration takes the nation and how things change, for better or worse. However, I do not believe that Obama or anyone else, regardless of their skin color, will be able to change the course of the world for the better or provide our nation what we really need over the course of a presidency.
And what do we really need? The same things I don’t think that “simply” putting a black man in office will accomplish: A genuine love for our neighbor, a caring spirit to those in need, and MOST importantly, the name of Jesus to be proclaimed. These are things that need to be changed on an individual level, with the Church of God leading the way in showing love, in caring for the hurting, and in spreading news that Jesus, not Obama, saves.
So pray for our nation, our new President, our Church, and ourselves, that we would turn from our wicked ways, seek the Lord’s face and that he would turn and heal our land.
What Would Nietzsche Do? by Christopher Benson
Was a big fan of this article from one of my frequent sites of insight (no pun) Mars Hill Grad School’s: The Other Journal
A very insightful look at the Christian ideals at stake in the political process, specifically voting, a process/privilege/right/duty I think we take way too seriously. Favorite quote to point this out is out of the opening of the article:
In the 2004 senatorial race for Illinois, Republican candidate Allen Keyes claimed, “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, because Barack has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”1 Keyes specifically had in mind Obama’s refusal to support a bill that would protect infants who are born alive after botched abortions. While I am confident that Jesus would not support abortion-on-demand, I am less confident that his followers should make pronouncements about how Jesus would vote. In fact, it is quite possible that Jesus would not vote at all. Not every situation lends an answer to the evangelical question “What would Jesus do?”
I am increasingly convinced that to live as Jesus did in regards to the government is an attitude of disregard wherever it is possible. Not in the sense that we don’t pay taxes or don’t obey its laws, as long as it does not defy the law of holiness, but rather that we avoid entanglement with the power that so easily corrupts and and to do so:
in order to listen again to the voice of the One in whose name we speak. By extending our roots more deeply into our theological soil, we can prepare ourselves to present in truth and in unity the hope that the gospel brings to existing social structures.
Call that what you will.
You Have Been Pre-Qualified to Win. Please Hold While We Transfer You.
Great set of Scriptures outta Colossians tonight. Reminds me of telemarketers
May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Act now, and you too can have forgiveness of sins. But don’t wait, Time is running out. Supplies not limited.
This offer brought to you courtesy of Christmas.
Shalom to you and yours this year.
Changed…
This is the article that made me want to teach. I’ve mentioned it before, but I don’t ever think I posted it here. Just found it again today.
Music Weekly
Forgotten to do this for a while.
Since Finals week started, here’s been my listening trends:
Top Artists |
Count |
Count per Day |
Time |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Radiohead | |||
| 2 | Bon Iver | |||
| 3 | Lovedrug | |||
| 4 | Emery | |||
| 5 | Peter Adams | |||
| 6 | Sufjan Stevens | |||
| 7 | White Gold and the Calcium Twins | |||
| 8 | Fleet Foxes | |||
| 8 | Spoon | |||
| 10 | The Beatles | |||
Top Albums |
Count |
Time |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | For Emma, Forever Ago – Bon Iver | ||
| 2 | The Question – Emery | ||
| 3 | The Best I Can Give Is 2% – White Gold and the Calcium Twins | ||
| 4 | In Rainbows [2CD] – Radiohead | ||
| 5 | I Woke With Planets In My Face – Peter Adams | ||
| 6 | The Sucker Punch Show – Lovedrug | ||
| 7 | The Spiral Eyes – Peter Adams | ||
| 8 | Songs For Christmas [7 CD] – Sufjan Stevens | ||
| 9 | The Weak’s End – Emery | ||
| 10 | A Sun Came – Sufjan Stevens | ||
| 11 | Catch For Us The Foxes – mewithoutYou | ||
Top Hours |
Count |
Time |
|---|---|---|
| 0000 | ||
| 0100 | ||
| 0200 | ||
| 0300 | ||
| 0400 | ||
| 0500 | ||
| 0600 | ||
| 0700 | ||
| 0800 | ||
| 0900 | ||
| 1000 | ||
| 1100 | ||
| 1200 | ||
| 1300 | ||
| 1400 | ||
| 1500 | ||
| 1600 | ||
| 1700 | ||
| 1800 | ||
| 1900 | ||
| 2000 | ||
| 2100 | ||
| 2200 | ||
| 2300 |
Anarchist Imperatives and Fundamental Change
Great historical definition and look at anarchy as well as a dialog on American politics. Read the whole article. Please. Even though I quote what I think is the best of it here, there is much more Van Dyke says that is really solid, especially the last two paragraphs.
[...] the belief that Christianity and Enlightenment institutions are reconcilable has been essential to maintaining a rough degree of political consensus in America over the last two hundred years. Americans may disagree about how political institutions should be managed, but we do not use our faith perspectives to question their basic legitimacy. And this is just how the founders wanted it. They hoped to create a system that would be durable because of its ability to accommodate differences in opinion. However, this flexibility was also meant to keep those differences of opinion from escalating into conflicts that challenged the basic framework itself. The potential for matters of religion to become overheated made it especially necessary for spiritual issues to be privatized and subsumed under the overall governing principles that had been derived from the Enlightenment and concretized in America’s institutions. In other words, religious dissenters, though protected by the Enlightenment notion of tolerance, would be overreaching if they worked to undermine the dominant institutions that secured their “spiritual freedom,” even if their private spiritual opinions led them to question the fundamental structures. And so, American Christians on both the Right and the Left have generally supported the implicit limit to their political activities that is inscribed into the dominant systems, and they have tended to work toward a more righteous use of the ruling systems instead of questioning the systems themselves. [Emphasis mine]
[...]
To clarify, people who have aligned themselves with the anarchist critique have historically arrayed themselves against the militarized state, capitalist means of production, organized religion, and the legal structures that uphold these entities. Anarchists have opposed these systems and institutions because, according to anarchists, each takes advantage (for their own benefit) of basic existential anxieties that are shared by all people; these systems exercise a determinative role in shaping of society, and individuals are pressured in all sorts of ways to implicitly accept that these systems provide the only means of organizing and securing their social existence. However, the anarchist critique contends that individuals have the means to organize themselves apart from such institutions, and that it is not necessary to relinquish basic liberties and social potentialities that the state, private property, and organized religion foreclose. [Emphasis mine] Furthermore, anarchism calls for a politics (or method of organizing society) that does not depend on the ultimate use of violence or propaganda. It is based on the belief that people can cooperate socially apart from coercion, and it also suggests that individuals find identities that contain the greatest amount of meaning and purpose only within the freely organized social body.
[...]
On the Right, there seems to be a withdrawal into a type of Christian nationalism that verges on paganism and that deploys words like freedomin ways that have nothing to do with Locke and Rousseau. I am using the word paganism here to refer to this basic reversion to pre-Enlightenment impulses as well as to Slavoj Žižek’s description of paganism, in his bookThe Fragile Absolute, as an allegiance to an “ethnic” group (or “community of the same”) that puts the imperatives of the group above the universalizing command to love one’s neighbor.1
On the other hand, the Left’s general secularism has cut it off from one of the primary rejuvenating forces in American politics, the Christian nationalistic viewpoint that America has an essential and divine role to play in the world. Its absolute severing of this relationship between religion and politics has caused it to retreat into solipsistic theorizing that is often very interesting but that doesn’t offer much in terms of practical day-to-day politics.
[...]
To give just one example of this natural alignment, both Christians and anarchists believe that ultimate authority is not to be found in any human system and that human organizations have a Babel-like tendency to become anxiously invested in their own perpetuation and to react violently toward those who threaten them. Therefore, both Christians and anarchists should never foreclose the possibility of fundamentally changing those systems if they threaten important values. From a Christian perspective, systems based on greed and fear are faithless; from the anarchist perspective, such systems are inegalitarian and a threat to individual liberties. A Christian anarchism that combines the two perspectives would thus act politically in ways that would resist and undermine systems of control based on anxiety, greed, and fear rather than on faith, hope, and love.
[...]
Furthermore, a Christian embrace of anarchy would require a re-emphasis on the practical and communal nature of faith—on how it is an all-encompassing orientation toward the kingdom of God that never uses evil means to produce righteousness, an orientation that has no ultimate concern for self-perpetuation. [yes yes yes!!] [Emphasis mine]
[...]
And finally, in order to break the fateful compromise that has hindered Christians from judging their governing systems too harshly, there needs to be a repudiation of the duality between private goodness and publicfunction. American Christians will need to realize there are no separate systems of morality for private and institutional life—at least of the type that enable institutions, governmental powers, or bureaucracies to deny moral culpability for actions that private individuals could never get away with. The claims for such discrepancies are based on moral obfuscation and bad theology. The Bible might at times seem like it is giving rulers the right to kill, steal, and destroy on the public’s behalf, but the greater weight of scripture tells us that leaders will, if anything, be held to an even higher moral standard because of the responsibility they have for society as a whole.
[...]
Ideally, it might open things up to a whole new political imagination derived from the insight of that old Catholic anarchist, Kenneth Rexroth, who often liked to say that the present American society would crumble immediately if the tenets of the Sermon of the Mount were suddenly put into practice on a wide scale.2 I don’t know whether that is true, but it might be worthwhile to consider what it would mean if it were true, since it was, well, Jesus who gave the message.
I’d forgotten just how good Mars Hill’s The Other Journal can be.
A.J. Jacobs’ year of living biblically | Video on TED.com
This is an incredibly interesting look at looking at what the Bible says and how we interpret it. Definitely not a Christian point of view, but a very insightful look. Its almost 18min, but definitely worth it. His book sounds really interesting as well: My Year of Living Biblically. Watch it if you have a chance.
[From A.J. Jacobs' year of living biblically | Video on TED.com]
Humbled by Grace
I’m an incredibly prideful person. Most of the time I don’t even realize it. I get humbled in unique ways, ways that highlight my pride even more. And its usually in the light of incredible grace, which shows me just how prideful and sinful I can be.
My girlfriend, Katie, likes to run in the mornings. I do to… when its with her But it also so happens that I pretty much fail at remembering to set good alarms the night before. I missed once, and felt horrible for doing so. I told myself I’d never do it again, always try to be early to things, set better alarms, etc. So then I forget again yesterday morning and wake up almost an hour after I was supposed to meet her. Yikes… so now I feel even worse, and its the second time it happened, AND I am going to be seeing her for church in but a few minutes. Mmm… so I know I’m going to have to try to practice meekness and humility because I screwed up again. Something I don’t get a lot of practice with.
Its the worst to mess up in front of people you know you want to make a good impression on. Which girlfriends usually are…
So I walk up to campus, feeling really badly. Get the van, get ready to pick people up for church. And then she comes in and acts like I didn’t leave her out in the cold, tells me its alright, checks to make sure I’m okay, of all things, and then moves right past my failing, as if she meant what she said when she said it was okay… Who does that? And I spent most of the rest of the morning, wondering how she could do that. I was a lot harder on myself than she was, and she was the one who had every right to.
A few of thoughts come out of this.
1) Only, what, two weeks of dating this young woman? and I’m finding she’s one of the most gracious and loving people I have ever met. In these two instances, she’s shown me a lot of grace, in the purest sense of that word. She’s let go several opportunities she could have been really angry with me over, and rightly so. As I have been told by several people who know her better than I, this is a quality woman of God.
2) I feel a lot worse at failing her than I often do when I fail God. God has had to show me infinitely more grace because of that. She has been a very tangible and somewhat painful but much needed reminder of Him lately, for which I can only give Him praise both for his grace towards me, and for Katie and her grace towards me.
3) My pride is a lot bigger than I thought. I had a harder time letting go of my failings than she did, and I know even that was because of my pride. I don’t like being humbled, and somehow its even easier to make myself feel bad for doing something wrong, rather than accepting the forgiveness given.
Relationships, I find, are some of the most wonderful things, not necessarily because of the emotional highs they can bring or the great people you can get to know, but simply because of how much God can do to humble you before another person. Its easy to cruise along in life, feeling like you’re doing fine, even like you are serving God well and wholeheartedly. You can even fake perfection around close friends, giving off the appearance of “having it together.” But somehow, when you run up against someone whom you are spending specific, intentional time to get to know for the purpose of considering and building a long-term relationship, God seems to do some unique things to make you humble before them and Him, and to make you realize how far you are from where you thought you were. I have such a long way to go…
Praise God for His grace and patience with me. And thank God for Katie, who has been His messenger of that same grace and patience.
