Whatever your political views are, may our dreams, imaginations, and actions be about the Kingdom coming.
”They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” -Isaiah the prophet, 700 B.C.E.
I have a few half formed thoughts I want to throw out there and see what others think.
I have been thinking about new and competing movements within the church today and throughout history. A large part of my thinking comes from the church history class I am currently taking. The essence of my theory is this, that change within the church often comes from two directions and often they are hard to distinguish at first. One, a return to the scriptures, the person of Jesus, and the methods of the early church. Two, influence by the ‘spirit of the age’ or predominating worldview of the time.
A few examples in the first category might be the desert fathers and mothers, St. Francis of Assisi, Luther, Calvin, many of the Anabaptists, the Moravian Brethren, John Wesley, Carey, etc…
When I think of the second category I think of the gnostic movement within the early church. Here we had Christian theology mixing and accommodating with Platonic thought in a radical way. Christianity was made to fit within one of the predominant philosophical worldviews of the day.
A second example would be as Christianity made its way into the Germanic tribes. Jesus simply replaced their tribal warlords and the saints replaced their lesser gods. They did not understand God as the triune God, the rightful ruler of the universe, but rather Jesus and the saints as a continuation of their old pagan belief system.
A third example would be in the Enlightenment. During this time, reason was raised as the highest value and science began to explain the universe in increasingly mechanistic terms. As a result, the miracles of Jesus were disbelieved and God became the watchmaker who wound up the mechanical universe but then stepped away and let run itself. This type of theology was called Deism.
This brings me up to our current time. I wonder what the current movements in the church are driven by. I think of our shift in understanding of the physical universe. Einstein said everything was relative, and that even space and time are malleable. Quantum physics says that you cannot observe a quantum event without affecting the event. In quantum physics there is no neutral observer. I look then to theology and see the development of open theism, the idea that God changes, makes mistakes, he is not objectively apart from the system but within the system and therefore affected by it. I see parallels between the current understanding of the universe and open theism and the Newtonian understanding of the universe and Deism.
I also wonder about the larger emerging church movement today. I wonder what aspects of it are being directed by the ‘spirit of the age’ (tolerance, relativism, lack of absolutes, questioning of language) and what aspects of it are being driven by a return to the scriptures, the person of Jesus and the ways of his first followers (a think the emphasis on church as mission, social justice as an outgrowth of relationship with Jesus, caring for the environment as an outgrowth of relationship with Jesus might be a few areas).
Am I way off in seeing many of the changes within the church through history as being driven by one of these two forces? If seeing reform this way is even partly true, what does that say about the church today? The emerging church movement (conversation =) )? The ministries I help lead? (ouch, why do I do that to myself?)
And you, I forgot your name, so your off the hook for now…
So the nation of Israel was meant, originally, to be a theocracy. God brought the Israelites out from slavery in Egypt into the promised land and desired for the people to be ruled by him. Well, they looked around at the nations nearby, and what they saw was that everybody had a king except for them. Ignoring the fact that God considered himself their king, the people demanded a human king to rule over them. So the people go to a leader named Samuel and asked him to give them their king. Samuel finds and annoints the new king, a man named Saul. Then Samuel calls the people of Israel together to introduce the new king. With great drama Samuel uses the Urim and Thummim (basically a casting of lots directed by God) and it is revealed that the new king will come from the tribe of Benjamin, the clan of Matri, and finally, that it would be Saul son of Kish. And we pick up the story…
“But when they looked for him, he was not to be found. So they inquired further of the Lord, ‘Has the man come here yet?’
And the Lord said, ‘Yes, he has hidden himself amoung the baggage.’”
And so begins the ever entertaining monarchy of ancient Israel.
Check out Newsweek this week to see their cover story on politics and religion in America. There are several articles in the magaizine on the subject and by far I most appreciated the article entitled “A New Social Gospel.”
By the way, what do you make of the United States cover reading “Jesus and politics,” versus the international covers reading “America’s God Complex?”
But I had tickets to the Super Bowl! Thanks Vintage 21!
I finished and turned in my first major research paper in 4 years today. I can’t say I really missed those.
The topic of my paper was Jesus’ ethic for Kingdom subjects. I enjoyed writing it, being convicted by Jesus’ way of life, not as much fun. A lot of people (actually only one person, my mom. Hi mom!) said they’d like to read it when I finished.
So here it is: jesus-kingdom-ethics.doc
If you like it let me know and I’ll get you my professor’s email address.
Check out the recent Time article “God vs. Science.” It’s a thought provoking article including a discussion between Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion,” and Francis Collins, a christian and head of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Collins comes off as intelligent, respectful, and true to his faith.
Here is a quote from the article that I found… honestly, scary.
COLLINS: For you to argue that our noblest acts are a misfiring of Darwinian behavior does not do justice to the sense we all have about the absolutes that are involved here of good and evil. Evolution may explain some features of the moral law, but it can’t explain why it should have any real significance. If it is solely an evolutionary convenience, there is really no such thing as good or evil. But for me, it is much more than that. The moral law is a reason to think of God as plausible–not just a God who sets the universe in motion but a God who cares about human beings, because we seem uniquely amongst creatures on the planet to have this far-developed sense of morality. What you’ve said implies that outside of the human mind, tuned by evolutionary processes, good and evil have no meaning. Do you agree with that?
DAWKINS: Even the question you’re asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil–I don’t believe that there is hanging out there, anywhere, something called good and something called evil. I think that there are good things that happen and bad things that happen. (italics mine)
I have forgotten much of what my History of Philosophy professor in college taught me, but I clearly recall him repeating this:
Ideas have consequences.
I just got back from a Nepalese dinner at The Gathering this Sunday night. We had dal bhat, listened to Nepalese folk music, and got to listen to my good friend Calvin talk about his time living and serving in Nepal.
It reminded me again of the great need in Nepal for those willing to pray and financially support the efforts there to care for the powerless. An excellent means of supporting those in Nepal is through Tiny Hands International. They have a helpline in Kathmandu to help kids on the street, have two homes for orphans, do work in children’s education, job training for women, and patrol the Nepal/India borders to prevent Nepalese girls from being taken to brothels in India.
You can support Tiny Hands by selling/giving cashmere scarves this Christmas. They sell 10 cashmere scarves for $200. At $20 a scarf they can be sold to friends or given as gifts, the profits go entirely to Tiny Hands International supporting this work in Nepal. Go to the “How to Help” page on their website and get involved!
I often find myself thinking about my generation’s attitude towards the church. I wonder if we speak with the voice of love or the voice of condemnation? I wonder if we speak as prophets or as critics? The image of the church I see the writers in of the New Testament use is that of the bride of Christ whom he gave his life for, whom he loves immensely, desires to see clean, holy, beautiful, and one day will be united with and have a wedding feast like none we can imagine.
I want to love the church as Jesus loves the church.
Hildegard of Bingen, a woman mystic, who lived in the 1100′s, recorded several books consisting of visionary images and their theological interpretations. To interpret her vision of the church in the last days as a woman with various scaly blemishes, she wrote the following. ”This is to say that… before the time in which the son of perdition will try to perfect the trick he played on the first woman, the Church will be harshly reproached for many vices, fornication, and murder and rapine. How? Because those who should love her will violently persecute her…”
Those who should love her… do I love her?
A little embarassing for the authorities…
The apostles were meeting regluarly at the Temple teaching, preaching, and healing.
Provoked mightily by all this, the Chief Priest and those on his side, mainly the sect of Sadducees, went into action, arrested the apostles, and put them in the town jail. But during the night an angel of God opened the jailhouse door and led them out. He said, “Go to the Temple and take your stand. Tell the people everything there is to say about this Life.” Promptly obedient, they entered the Temple at daybreak and went on with their teaching. Meanwhile, the Chief Priest and his cronies convened the High Council, Israel’s senate, and sent to the jail to have the prisoners brought in. When the police got there, they couldn’t find them anywhere in the jail. They went back and reported, “We found the jail locked tight as a drum and the guards posted at the doors, but when we went inside we didn’t find a soul.”The chief of the Temple police and the high priests were puzzled. “What’s going on here anyway?”
Just then someone showed up and said, “Did you know that the men you put in jail are back in the Temple teaching the people?”
God describing to Job how he created the ostrich with no good sense…
”She lays her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense.”
Jesus said, “If anyone wants to sue you for your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” Most Jews of the day wore two articles of clothing, an inner tunic and a outer cloak. Imagine someone getting sued and responding by saying, “you want my clothes? Here is my cloak and tunic!” and standing their buck naked holding out their clothing. “No, no, please keep your tunic, oh my virgin eyes.”
So I enjoy these Jesus videos that Vintage 21 put together. They make me laugh. I posted the first one below and I will post the others in the near future. But it brings up a question in my mind? Did Jesus tell jokes? Now, my understanding of God says that he invented humor and joy and must love to laugh and tell jokes. And since Jesus was God I imagine him brimming with life and stories and jokes. He liked parties and people wanted to be around him. But are there any scriptures that demonstrate Jesus’ sense of humor?
I have seen this too many times and it still makes me smile. Thanks Vintage 21.
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