This is the motto of dysfunction. It’s also the motto for a little thing we used to call “sin”.
I was reading today about some significant things happening over at 100 Huntley Street. For those reading from outside of the Christian universe or those Christians reading from outside of the Great White North, 100 Huntley Street is our 700 Club. A little more mom and pop and a little less political – sort of like the rest of Canada – than the U.S. show but otherwise some strong similarities. read more…
The Church Must Not Add To Jesus
One of the challenges that the Church has always faced is our tendency to “sanctify” our cultural baggage.
For the Jews in the first century it was fine that Gentiles decided to follow Jesus but, they reckoned, they needed to come in the right way and get circumcised first. (ie. stop being Gentiles and become Jews and then follow Jesus.) Paul wrote, among other things, a “strongly worded letter” to the churches in the region of Galatia. The letter was meant to convince them that they didn’t need to be circumcised, they just needed Jesus. It wasn’t as much about legalism as about adding anything to a relationship with Jesus.
In SCREWTAPE, C.S. Lewis lets us eavesdrop on the advice of a senior demon to his nephew, an up and coming demon in his own right. Screwtape’s nephew asks for advice on how to best keep his subject from continuing to follow Jesus (“the enemy”). The setting is WW2 and the question is, would it be best to encourage him to be a pacifist or a patriot.
“Whichever he adopts, your main task will be the same. Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the ‘Cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war effort or of pacifism.”
Paul’s message to the Galatians was basically this: Adding anything to a relationship with Jesus makes the good news the wrong news. read more…
I’m sitting here listening to the wind roar around outside, I’m sipping coffee, enjoying a day of “down time”. I was right in the middle of a movie this a.m. when it occurred to me that lately rather than leading a life I’ve been getting pushed around by it. It would probably be more true to say that I’ve been letting it push me around. 60 seconds before that revelation if you’d walked in the room and told me that, I would’ve argued with you. read more…
The Church Should Not Be Bored With Jesus
Lately I’ve been pouring over Paul’s letter to the Galatians. I’ve read it before, did talks based on the text of it before, I’ve even been graded on what I thought about it (or what I remembered from what I was told I should think about it). One of the questions that keeps popping up for me is this, “How do we get bored with Jesus?” Boredom wasn’t the critical issue for the Galatians but in applying the truth of Paul’s letter to my life it seems to be one of the issues that continue to beg for attention like my Golden Retriever.
As I look around at the state of Christianity in North America in these days we live in it seems to me that we’re so bored with Jesus that we’ll try every kind of “plug in” available to keep our interest up. read more…
Today (May 25, 2009) is the anniversary of the Edict of Worms that declared Martin Luther a heretic. Since I’ve been posting my own 95 Theses I thought a word should be said about Martin and his work.
“Emperor Charles V opened the imperial Diet of Worms on January 22, 1521. Luther was summoned to renounce or reaffirm his views. When he appeared before the assembly on April 16, Johann Eck, an assistant of the Archbishop of Trier , acted as spokesman for the emperor. He presented Luther with a table filled with copies of his writings. Eck asked Luther if the books were his and if he still believed what these works taught. Luther requested time to consider his answer. It was granted.
Luther prayed, consulted with friends and mediators and presented himself before the Diet the next day. When the counselor put the same questions to Luther, he said: “They are all mine, but as for the second question, they are not all of one sort.” Luther went on to categorize the writings into three categories: read more…
One of the few teachers that made a lasting impression on me was my band teacher, Tony Mazzara. I wrote about him here at CV. He was one of those teachers that give you lessons on the “assigned subject” as well as even more important lessons about life. When he was going through a difficult time in his family with one of his own adult children he shared some of the struggle with us. At the time I caught a lesson about how teachers are human too, years later I remembered the story and caught the deeper lesson on the persistent, unconditional love of a parent.
I remember a lesson he gave us one morning during band class. He asked a simple question about an old proverb. “Does practice really make perfect?” We all felt pretty sure we knew this one but intimidated to speak up. Finally someone (probably from the clarinet section) said, “Yes!”
“No!” Maz yelled back, “If you practice imperfectly you’ll only reinforce your bad habits!” Doing it wrong over and over doesn’t make it right.
I’m trying to apply that truth to the system of “doing church”. read more…
When the elusive Donna and I moved into our fourth place to live in 2 years of being married, I felt the need for a pet. The cockroaches that visited us by night, and sometimes by day, didn’t cut it for me so I persuaded the elusive one that we needed an aquarium. She kindly indulged my impulse and we hit Wal-Mart for a 10 gallon kit with everything in the world you’d ever need for keeping pet fish except for the water and the fish themselves.
We took the box home, settled on where it would go and I began the process of setting up the tank. Under-gravel filter, gravel, fake plants, ceramic log, water, heater, lid with light and thermometer bar stuck to the outside of the glass. Then I “conditioned” the water. That meant waiting for the fish. I’m not good at waiting. When my oldest was born I went out and bought an electric race track and a Nintendo game system. By the time he was actually old enough to play, you couldn’t give a Nintendo game system away. But for the fish I waited.
Finally the day came when we could put in some fish and have confidence they’d survive in water that had bad stuff subtracted and good stuff added. I searched from store to store for just the right kind of fish. I decided I’d start with angel fish and build my little aquatic world around them. I chose one that was black with white stripes, one white with black stripes. Ying and Yang. Plop. Plop. I have to say they took to their new world right away and seemed deliriously happy. I can only imagine the relief a fish might feel when he gets to escape the invisible walls of a plastic bag that made the future seem very limited. I also assume that, based on brain size, by the time they pass the full length of the aquarium they’ve already forgotten where they came from the and return trip is a fresh discovery for them. read more…
“If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.” – Asaph
Part one. Part two. Part three.
The line above comes from this guy, Asaph, who wrote some poetry or songs that made it through the final cut for the Bible. He’s talking out loud to God about some doubts he has about whether following God and doing things his way is really the smartest way to go.
Of course it’s an ironic line since he not only speaks it but it makes it into the Hebrew common book of prayer (also called “Psalms”) to be read or sung by the community on a regular basis.
Peter Kreeft once wrote, “Dullness, not doubt, is the strongest enemy of faith, just as indifference, not hate, is the strongest enemy of love.” Mostly we think Peter Kreeft is wrong. Doubt is the enemy we fear most of all. Doubt is what keeps us from getting our prayers answered. Doubt keeps us sick instead of being instantly healed by faith. Doubt, it would seem, hurts God’s feelings in a big way.
Or maybe not. read more…
“If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.” – Asaph
If you haven’t been hanging out in a monastery or a cave you’ve heard about the brouhaha that started with a question at the recent Miss America pageant. People have gone nuts over Miss California’s answer – her opinion – to a question asked by Perez Hilton. Whether you agree with what she said or not we’ve all got to be nervous about waking up in a world where people who don’t like the answer to your questions won’t rest until they’ve tried to erase your answer by digging in your closet for all the skeletons they can find there.
Outrage would seem more fitting, in this case, if it had gone something like this… read more…
“If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.” – Asaph
I heard a story once about Amelia Earhart. According to the storyteller, Earhart and her husband would, on their anniversary, have a frank discussion about the state of their marriage. It was an annual opportunity to decide of each was going to “re-up” for another year by talking through how things were really going.
The idea of “re-upping” doesn’t fly in a small group of evangelical Christians. I know this one. “Marriage is for life.” “God hates divorce.” And I’m pretty sure he hates a crap marriage as well. I’m pretty sure that marriage, like “leader” was intended by God to describe how we live, not a title or social contract. My point isn’t really about marriage though, it’s about conversation, communication and dialogue. We aren’t allowed to talk about some of these things – at least with some people – even most people. There are certain topics for each of us, I imagine, that our personal baggage makes taboo. read more…
