It Has Been Awhile.

Well here I am. I realize that it has been almost two years or it might actually be over two years now that I think about it. But, I am back. I am not sure what that actually means. I did go to the Saturday night group that kind of started this whole thing. It was good. We watched a short video clip from Rob Bell about how despite whatever shame we feel or whatever we have done wrong that God will not stop loving us.

While I enjoyed the time with the group and I, as usual, wished the conversation could have gone on for two hours. The conversation was excellent and the ideas bouncing of off each other I just love that kind of thing. It doesn't matter to me if I agree or disagree but that I was able to hear a different viewpoint and that kind of thing always get me going.

So I just wanted to step into the blog and mention that I really enjoyed myself this evening and I hope I can keep going to the group and continue to enjoy myself as I did before. I am glad they are still doing it. It felt good and it felt correct for me to be there. I know that this process is baby steps for me and that the new Broadway building is a bit of a mixed bag for some people but for me it is actually a place where I feel comfortable and it is a place that I can make new memories in. Not a place that has the very large ghosts of old relationships hanging like a shroud over everything around me when I go into the building.

It is nice when I go there because I am just a customer there. A few of the barista's know me there by name and I like that. But I like that because they know me as Lance the guy that like Hairbender and sometimes will order a pour over. Who comes in on Mondays and drinks coffee and has a scone and looks for a job. It is a comfortable place for me and I am not tied up with memories that bring me pain. I like that about it. I hope it lasts a long time and I hope that I continue to feel comfortable there.

CH 2 Beyond Victimhood

In chapter 2 of Richard Rohrs Hope Against Darkness he touches on the concept of victimhood as it relates to us in the postmodern world of today. I feel like he makes some very valid points concerning church and spirituality and what the purpose is of both.

He writes that "spirituality in its best sense is about what you do with your pain." Rohr believes that we do not know what to do with our pain. We have moved away from the image of God as the taker of our pain. He writes "When a people no longer knows that God is, God is good, God can be trusted and God is on your side, we frankly have a very serious problem." Now I like that sentence and I like both what it says right out front but I also like its deeper meaning. When I read it my first thought is that the reason people feel this way isn't Gods fault. It is the churchs fault for all of their failings. What I find most interesting is that as I read further into CH 2 I begin to understand that I am doing just what Rohr is talking about as it relates to Victimhood.

I am taking the percieved slights that I have experienced at church and using that to give me a reason to move away from God. It isn't that God has failed me or really that the church has failed me. But, being an institution that so often has man at its core as opposed to God it really has no choice but to be inconsistant and to fail. Failure is the single thing that man does well. God is consistent, God is there, God does love us. I think the problem begins when we put our faith in the church and not in God. When we put our faith in the rules of each particular denomination as opposed to focusing on what God and by extension Jesus, or the other way around , wants from us.

Back to Rohr and Victimhood before I get to far afield and become entranced by the sound of my own voice. Rohr notes that in todays world people are using being a victim to gain some sort of moral high ground. Often to achieve sypathy from others one only has to claim that so and so's great-grandmother did something to hurt their great-grandmother and then the cycle of recriminations begins. I think he again is making a very valid point here.

He writes "Playing the victim is an effective way of getting moral high ground without doing any moral development whatsoever. You don't have to grow up, you don't have to let go, you don't have to forgive, you don't have to surrender----all the things that great religion deemed necessary. Now you just have accuse somebody else of being worse then are, or of being a member of a race or group that is worse then yours, and that makes you feel like you're good, moral, or superior."

I see this everyday. Not only in my own life as it relates to how I think about church or politics or the world in general but also all around us. Today I read a blog that was condemming Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll and his use of language when he preaches. Now I am not a fan of Mark Driscoll and I have commented on him in the past. But what I find most interesting is that what this blogger is using as the beginning point for his attack on Driscoll is that his wife was listening to the radio and a sermon of Driscolls came on and he used some words that were objectionable to both the blogger and his wife and both were concerned that their young children were subjected to these terms. I think that is a reasonable concern and that is something that most parents are concerned about. But the blogger takes the position of being a victim of Driscolls language and now he must stand up and fight against this great evil.

I think that if Jesus were to play the victim card we would have never been saved. We must forgive and if we continually play the victim card then we will never reach the point of being able to forgive. There is much more in the chapter but to me the inherited victimhood passage really stood out to me. It spoke to me about the need to move beyond my being a victim and to be able to forgive those who have hurt me.

Rohr closes the chapter with this " the cross calls all of us to a mystery of transformation. On the cross none of us is in charge, none of us is in control, none of us can possibly understand, just like Jesus himself. On the cross someone else is in control. Someone else is in charge. Someone else understands. Someone else is obviously a much more patient lover then we are."

That is something to think about.

Reading and Thinking

I am currently reading a book by Richard Rohr called Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an age of Anxiety. My friend Marcy who comments now and then upon my posts recommended it to me because she did not have time to read it herself. She heard Father Rohr speak at a conference that she attended.

I am hoping to work through the book chapter by chapter as I read it and I hope we can have some interesting and meaningful dialogue along the way. The book is broken into three parts and part one is titled The Current Dilemma and chapter one is titled The Postmodern Opportunity.

To start right off I found the title of the chapter intriguing because I feel that most of the evangelical community the mainline evangelical community would rather think of this as "The Postmodern Problem". Now I may be putting words into the mouths of some evangelicals out there but I think that the majority do not grasp the Emergent Church and Postmodernism. But I believe we will address that as we move further into the book.

One of the first things that Rohr does in chapter one is address why we should look at Saint Francis and use him as a guide for further study and growth. Rohr writes

"...Francis stepped into a Church that seems to have been largely out of touch with the masses. But he trusted a deeper voice and a bigger truth. He sought one clear center and moved out from there. The one clear centerpiece was the Incarnate Jesus. He understood everything else from a personalized reference point. ...Francis found his one firm spot on which to stand and from which he could move his world. He did this in at least three clear ways. First, he walked into the prayer-depths of his own traditon, as opposed to mere religious repetitions of old formulas. Second, he sought direction in the mirror of creation itself, as opposed to mental and fabricated ideas or ideals. And, most radically, he looked to the undesirable of his society... for an understanding of how God transforms us."

I found this passage most interesting as Rohr highlights how Saint Francis found his center in Jesus not in the Church that seemed out of touch with society anyway. This is a substantial point for me because I find myself fighting against the Church and spending most of my time complaining that they are to controlled by the orthodoxy and rules that control all that they do. So I opted to step back out of Church and while I continue to meet with friends on a regular basis for fellowship and discussion I have not been part of an organized congregation for a long time now. The writings in this book have made me wonder if perhaps I have made the wrong choice and perhaps I would have been better off staying within the Church and focusing myself on Jesus and letting that fill me as opposed to breaking away. The food for thought in this book is meaty and I am looking forward to chewing off more and trying to digest it. I hope some good conversation can come of it.

Thoughts!!

I read this on another blog that I read in the comments section. It was written by a fellow named Warren.

"once we have figured out that (some kind of) God must exist, and put aside what C. S. Lewis called "boys' philosophies" (materialism, atheism, etc), then we are led to the next stage of enquiry: namely, has this God revealed himself to us? Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism all claim divine revelation (I would not include Buddhism on this list) - are any of them right? All of them? Some of them? None of them? And how would we decide that a genuine divine revelation has occurred? What criteria could we possibly use for that?"

I found this really fascinating because it puts into words what it is that I have been thinking and what I find myself wrestling with on a regular basis. Many philosophers and thinkers feel that without Divine inspiration philosophy would have ground to a halt rather then move forward into Theology.

So for me this is the interesting point. While the majority of Christians will argue that only their God exists. The Jews, Muslims, and Hindus will argue the exact same thing. In the quote above the author does not put Buddhism on this list. I am not so sure I would think that the original Buddha may himself have experienced Divine revelation but chose to (freely chose) express that in a different way then the other religions.

So, the first question, if all of these separate religions claim Divine inspiration then which one is right? The traditional Christian will argue that this is a slippery slope to begin with. If I even acknowledge the possible origins of these other religions to have begun with Divine inspiration then I have begun to doubt the very origins of the Christian faith. But, I would argue that if I do not ask these questions I am not being honest with myself and am not using the brain that God gave me.

If I claim that God is not powerful or big enough to survive my questions then why believe in him in the first place. In fact, I would argue that this need to think of God as exclusive to my particular place of origin is a result of us being human. Perhaps, God knows this and chose to show himself in such a way that his message would be the most effective for the differing peoples that he was revealing himself to.

The, other question, how could I decide that a genuine revelation had occurred? That to me is the key, because this is exactly what people are saying and doing when they declare other religions off limits. To me, when one looks back at the origins of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity it is obvious that they are coming out of the same beginnings. The changes begin with the birth of Jesus and when man got involved. But, despite my feelings about the origins of these religions. I am hesitant to declare these three the ones and only. The biggest reason being that since I am not Divine (in any way) how in the world am I qualified to make this claim.

I would further argue that it would go against the teachings of God to automatically declare these other religions worthless. I think I need to worry more about my faith and how I live my personal life when it comes to honoring others and just showing them love. It will not be up to me to decide who is right or wrong. And, if I insist on behaving like I it is up to me then I may be in for a real surprise. But, I don't know and for me that is the most freeing thing. I do not know and I am not supposed to know.

It is freeing for me to separate my faith from my origins, separate it from my politics, and finally separate it from my failings as a human and to believe that God is big enough to handle all of that.

God of the Moon and Stars (Kees Kraayenoord)

I found this video and it blew my mind the artist is named above and I know nothing about him. I urge you to watch and listen to this video because it really affected me and really made me think.



It is rare for me to find things that make me want to pray. But, this did just that. I was left weeping and hopeful at the same time. Please tell me what you thought.

Divine Foreknowledge/Freewill

I have just been reading Boethius's CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY and if you are at all into philosophy I highly recommend it. But on to the issue at hand. Do we in fact have free will? The deeper question is this one if God knows all that we do and all decisions we make is that truly free will. Boethius argues that we do have free will. He says that God resides outside of time and that for God he sees all possible choices we might make. The thought being that since God is outside of time there is no past or present or future. That for God all these happen at the same time. I would argue that his defense is flawed in that I believe that if we feel that God's knowledge is divine and that he can not make a mistake. Well then if God were to see us do something and then we do something else it brings into question the divinity of God or whether or not he can make a mistake. I think that is the flaw in Boethius's reasoning. I am not sure if I feel one way or the other on this issue. I lean toward the no freewill side of the argument but I feel that while Boethius's defense of it makes some sense. I feel that he makes that one fatal flaw. Thoughts?

Food For Thought?

I have been reading Peter Abelard's Ethical Writings : Ethics and Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian So far this has been a very interesting book and I wanted to address some points he made and see what people thought about them. Abelard first a little background was born in 1079 at Brittany and chose to pursue logic and philosophy as areas of study. In 1113 he appeared in Paris and began to study theology. He ultimatly became a monk and a lecturer and has left behind an impressive number of philosophical and theological writings. Abelard writes

Fore he who says, "Do not pursue your lusts, and turn away from your will," commanded us not to satisfy our lusts, but not to do without them altogether. For satisfying them is wicked, but going without them is impossible in our feeble state. And so it isn't the lusting after a woman but the consenting to the lust that is the sin. It isn't the will to have sex with her that is damnable but the will's consent.

I find this makes for an interesting viewpoint it appears that Abelard is saying that since we are fallen and weak and we can not control our thoughts that lusting isn't a sin. So in effect thinking anything isn't a sin it is just taking action on those thoughts that is the sin. Any thought?

UPDATE

So after discussions with my philosophy instructor my understanding of what Abelard is trying to say has changed. It seems that Abelard is saying that the sin comes in consenting to the thought within the mind. So the action of doing the sin doesn't change the impact one way or the other but when you first think the thought and then you consent to doing it you have sinned whether or not the action takes place. By just consenting to the idea then the sin has taken place.

BIBLE ACCURACY

Bible Accuracy - P. Wesley Edwards
(updated 4-Sept-2004)

The question of Bible accuracy is important in many debates, particularly those regarding creationism and certain defenses of Christianity. Creationism is, in fact, an attempt to make science compatible with the fundamentalist requirement of Biblical literalism and infallibility. Christian theism typically defends its claim to truth by appealing to supposedly fulfilled Bible prophesies. Before tackling these issues, we need to understand the context.

A Brief History of the Bible:
The Bible descends from what was an ever-changing and expanding body of written and oral traditions dating from as early as the 12th Century B.C. The reformulations and additions continued from then all the way up until the 4th Century A.D. when, out of a large collection of candidate books, some were selected to be part of what we now call the Bible. It is important to remember that literally none of the original manuscripts of either the Old or New Testaments has survived. The Bible was passed down by individual manual copying and translation right up to the discovery of printing in the 15th Century A.D. The oldest manuscript copies date from sometime during the first 3 Centuries A.D.

The original language of the Old Testament was Hebrew followed by Aramaic translations appearing in the period following the Exile and then Greek translations following Alexander the Great. It was not until around the 2nd Century, A.D. that the contents of the Old Testament had become fixed.

The original language of the New Testament was Greek. As with the OT, no originals now exist, and the oldest of the manuscript copies dates from the 2nd Century, A.D. Before the NT was "canonized" into its current form, each of the early Christian communities apparently had a gospel of its own, in some ways redundant, in some ways in direct conflict, with the gospels of other communities. Some of these included the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Hebrews, the Gospel of the Ebionites, a Gospel of the Egyptians, an Apocalypse of Peter, an Apocalypse of Paul, and the Epistle of Barnabas, to name just a few.

What the Christians used as an "infallible" Bible was different depending on which Christian community you talked to, at least until the year A.D. 325. In that year, Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea, which not only did the picking and choosing of the books, but also ended a power struggle in Christian circles as to the nature of Jesus. As Roman Emperor, Constantine decreed that the Trinitarian view would become Christian dogma (which is remarkable considering how weak his Christian credentials were), and this decree silenced the large Christian segment that said Jesus was only a man.

Of course, the history doesn't end there. As the Bible was translated into Latin, Augustine ultimately complained of the "infinite variety" of Bible translations. Under the direction of Pope Damascus, Jerome attempted to standardize the Latin Bible. Drawing on Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, he completed the "Vulgate" by sometime around A.D. 405, which was ultimately recognized as the Standard Bible of the Roman Church (1546).

The first English Bible was completed in the late 1300's by John Wyclif, an Oxford instructor in religion and philosophy. Condemned by the church, it lasted in the underground for some 150 years. Then, around 1524, William Tyndale, an Oxford and Cambridge educated linguist, who was influenced by Erasmus and Martin Luther, published a New Testament translation based on medieval Greek copies. Then Mike Coverdale's Bible appeared (~1535) based on his translation of German and Greek translations, as well as drawing from Tyndale's work. John Rogers and Richard Taverner also published their particular translations (~1539) drawing from and adding to each other and to Tyndale's work. All of this was eventually edited by Coverdale into the Great Bible, which the King approved. Separately, the Roman Catholic church created its first English Bible, the Douay version, which was based directly on the Latin Vulgate (~1609).

In 1604, King James I wanted a fresh start, and pulled together Oxford and Cambridge scholars, as well as Puritan and Episcopal priests. This large group used the Catholic Douay, Luther's German translation, the available Hebrew and Greek copies, and to a very large extent Tyndale's work, and created the King James Version (~1611). Language, of course, is a fluid thing. Just how fluid can be seen in just a few examples: In 1611 "allege" meant "prove," "prevent" meant "precede," and "reprove" meant "decide." To cope with this, the English Revised Version came out by 1885, followed shortly by the American Standard Version.

Clarifying Infallibility:
One thing this long history over the last few thousand years tells us is that the infallibility of the oldest manuscript copy (let alone a remotely descended English Bible) would require divine inspiration all along the very, very long line of manual copying and translating (remember, this is all occurring before the advent of the printing press). However, once one puts the stake the ground and says "The King James Version is infallible," then one eliminates any appeal to "mistranslation" from the Hebrew or Greek. On the other hand, if only the original, autograph manuscripts are infallible (none of which exist), while all subsequent copies and translations are vulnerable to transcription or translation errors, then the whole line of copies from the oldest manuscript copies (like the Dead Sea Scrolls) to all of today's descendent versions of the Bible are not infallible.

It is important to understand in which sense your opponent believes the Bible to be infallible. In the first sense, contradictions and factual / scientific errors are all one needs to falsify the claim of Biblical infallibility. In the second sense, the notion of infallibility is simply irrelevant to both the Bible and the oldest sources we have available today, and so amounts to little more than an empty claim.

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