Baggas' Blog

Stumbled across these videos this evening. Bill Hybels of WIllow Creek interviewing Bono. The third one is Hybels’ call to inspire churches to action on the AIDS and poverty crises. Excellent and necessary challenge.

“Stop asking God to bless what you are doing. Find out what God is already doing, cause it’s already blessed.”

Discovered this great video on Vicky Beeching’s blog. My favourite theologian, N T Wright gives his advice to the next generation of leaders. It’s about as succinct as you’ll ever hear from Tom, but it’s top stuff.

Tom Wright: message to the next generation from krish kandiah on Vimeo.

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In chapters 3-6 of this book Brian McLaren looks at the Biblical narrative. He suggests that the way in which much of Christianity views the  story and the Bible and constructs it’s theology, is profoundly influenced by a dualistic Greco-Roman philosophical lens. This rigid lens and it’s associated narrative timeline results in a number of disturbing questions when one looks at the logic of the story. Our view of Jesus is coloured by the successive influences of people like Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Wesley and whomever our recent leader of choice is (giving the examples of Billy Graham, Pope Benedict and Jerry Falwell). McLaren suggests that we try and step out from this kind of looking back theologizing and try an approach of looking forwards towards Jesus being the culmination of a series of figures from Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah etc… Although I’m not convinced the Greco-Roman framework is as pervasive as McLaren makes out (and he himself falls into a bit of unhealthy dualism here in that Greco-Roman=bad and Jewish=good), he raises some good points and good questions.

The following 2 chapters are where McLaren sketches the alternative to the Greco-Roman framework, which he casts as an authentic Jewish way of reading the Bible, beginning with the creation narratives and moving on. He sketches the narrative of the Old Testament in 3 broad sweeps. Firstly the book of Genesis sets the foundation an serves as a kind of prequel (McLaren likens it to Star Wars Episode I or The Hobbit – good analogies!) to the main story which begins in Exodus. Genesis is a story of sacred creation and reconciliation where humanity begins a journey of maturation within God’s good creation but with each stage of “human progress” new opportunities for evil and injustice arise. He talks of a simultaneous ascent of humans from hunter/gatherers – nomads – city dwellers – empire builders while at the same time there is a descent away from innocence into new depths of depravity. Throughout this process, in the stories of Adam, Cain, Noah, Babel, Abraham, Joseph etc God is active. This is great stuff. One of the clearest expositions of this narrative theology I have seen. Here’s a few bits I underlined :

“In this world there is not one isolated moment of ontological shift from state to story: it’s all story from beginning to end, and likely before and after as well. God doesn’t respond to a loss of perfect status with a furious promise of eternal condemnation, damnation and destructions. God doesn’t pronounce the perfect state ruined and the planet destined for geocide. The experiment is not a failure.” (p48-49)

“This is a classic coming-of-age story, filled with ambivalence – a childhood lost, an adulthood gained. So the human journey can be equally seen as a tragic descent into evil, in increasing complexity and severity. Each step of socioeconomic and technological ascent thus makes possible new depths of moral evil and social injustice.” (p51)

“God refuses to let evil go unchallenged, then then God acts with surprising Mercy”. (p52)

“Finally, after eleven chapters, this repeated pattern of human stupidity and divine fidelity opens into something new: God calls Abraham and Sarah an imues them with a new identity as the father and mother of a nation  who will be blessed in order to bring blessing to all nations. It is absolutely essential to notice what God is doing: not damning and rejecting all nations and exempting one from damnation, not hating all nations and loving one, not privileging one superior nation to conquer and rule all others, but blessing all nations through one, choosing one to bring benefit to all.” (p53)

“God is faithful to Joseph, and through Joseph God is gracious to Egypt, and through Joseph God is even gracious to Joseph’s wicked, Cain-like brothers. Joseph is blessed not to the exclusion of anyone, but for the blessing of everyone. Blessing triumphs. Goodness triumphs. God triumphs.” (p54)

In the following chapter McLaren then looks at how the narrative develops through Exodus – God challenging evil in it’s systemic and personal dimensions, and providing liberation. The third element in the narrative is the hope of the “peaceable kingdom” – a dream of peace and justice which flowers briefly in the united kingdom of David and Solomon, and later is expressed in the longing hope of the prophets. McLaren is careful to emphasize that this hope is not simply one of a distant future, but one relevant to the here and now :

“If we are people who live in the Genesis narrative of creation and reconciliation and the Exodus narrative of liberation and formation, what if we were to receive these images as a vision of the kind of future toward which God is inviting us in history? What if we saw them less as an eternal destination beyond history and more as a guiding star within it, less as a literal description and prediction and more as a poetic promise and hope, less as a doctrine to be debated and more as an unquenchable dream that inspires us to unceasing constructive action? What if we saw them as a good future unfolding in time, not a perfect state beyond time?” (p62)

Great stuff, and McLaren continues with more about the hope that is held out in the Old Testament. I could quote plenty more brilliant passages that stood out to me if I had the time. So far, McLaren’s portrayal of the Biblical narrative of God and his people is compelling and inspiring, but it lacks one key ingredient : Jesus. I’m sure he will get to that later in his book and I’ll be interested to see the place McLaren gives to Jesus Christ in the schema. And that will be one of the key features which determines whether or not McLaren is jumping the shark, but thus far he remains on pretty solid ground as far as I’m concerned.

Has Brian McLaren finally jumped the shark?

I’ll admit Brian McLaren has been somewhat of a hero of mine. Reading his books earlier this decade was very illuminating and inspiring. Here was a guy who was willing to think intelligently through issues, ask difficult questions and not simply respond with pat answers. Often he responded with no answers at all, just further questions. This was a guy who was generous in his orthodoxy (to steal from the title of one of his better books) – he was willing to embrace the good in all the varied versions of Christianity out there whilst still retaining  solid orthodox beliefs at the core of his faith. It was through Brian that I have been introduced to others who have become key influences of mine  - people like Scot McKnight, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, Bruce Cockburn, and especially N T Wright. His “A New Kind of Christian” trilogy of ‘fiction’ I still rate very highly. I enjoyed listening to his sermon podcasts from Cedar Ridge Church a few years back.

But since the early 2000′s, especially since he left Pastoral ministry, Brian’s writings have left me less inspired and more disturbed. He seems to be getting less “generous” in his attitude to run-of-the-mill evangelical Christianity, more and more condescending towards the majority of Christians, and more and more embracing of alternative faiths. And while I generally don’t disagree with him on  many of these issues, and resonate with his politics and his critiques (especially of the more right wing fundamentalist wing of American evangelicalism), I have found myself more and more irritated with his negative tone towards Christians and his excessive fawning towards other faiths.

SO now comes a moment of truth as I’ve started reading McLaren’s latest book “A New Kind of Christianity.” This is a book that has attracted quite a lot of criticism from what I’ve seen on the net, even from some who have previously been in Brian’s camp. Reading this book will tell me if McLaren has finally jumped the shark or not….

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One of the great things this year at Warnbro is we’ve been much more pro-active at introducing new songs. I’ve been trying to bring at least one new song each month, and I believe that’s a big part of why we are starting to see a resurgence in the worship..

Psalm 33:3 is a bit of a motto of our team… (in fact the whole of Psalm 33 is pretty cool)

Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.

So here’s a sneak preview of a song that a few of us are getting into at the moment, which may be one of the next cabs off the rank…

This was a story on Channel 7′s Sunday Night program this evening. Probably the most balanced media coverage of Hillsong Church I have seen to date. Honest interview with Brian Houston in which he discusses the history of the church, his father’s failings, and other things including answering questions about his income (which was around $300,000 – I thought that was surprisingly less than what I would have guessed and completely reasonable for someone in his position). Definitely worth watching. Best line : “God has truly blessed, the life of Brian.”

Tim Keller is a pastor of a big church in NYC who has written some excellent books. In this article attempting to reconcile religion and science he posits a third way between fundamentalist creationists and militant atheists for which evolution becomes a world-view rather than just science. He provides some useful answers to some key questions often faced by those who want to be faithful to God and the Bible yet not blindly reject the vast body of scientific evidence supporting evolutionary biology. Well worth reading.

Super hot day here today – 39 degrees (thats 102F). So hot in church that the best place to be was the baptism pool. Certainly on stage under the lights was a bit unpleasant – and I blame the heat for the number of mistakes I made – of which the worst was definitely when I mangled the lyric of ‘Salvation is here’ to sing “I don’t care that the world will know your name.” Not sure if anyone else noticed but I apologise – I’m definitely not so indifferent that I would sing about it.

Anyway, before I got jump in the pool it’s time for another pedal board update. Non guitarists can tune out now… I’ve made a couple of alterations – adding in an EQ pedal so I can shape or boost my tone when necessary. The other is the addition of the Digitech Jam-man looper, with another Boss volume pedal to control the volume. I currently have this running completely separate to the rest of my chain, with an output going into the direct line-in on the amp. The reason I’m running this separate loop is because I’m using some of Karl’s ambient guitar pads (see here for more info) to provide backing for some of the songs. They sound awesome and free the keyboard player to do some different stuff. We’ve had some nice ambient jams through communion.

So there it is. Click on the photo for a bigger version. I’d write more but this laptop is starting to burn a hole in my lap… (did I mention it’s crazy hot here today?) Cheers.

Super hot day here today – 39 degrees (thats 102F). So hot in church that the best place to be was the baptism pool. Certainly on stage under the lights was a bit unpleasant – and I blame the heat for the number of mistakes I made – of which the worst was definitely when I mangled the lyric of ‘Salvation is here’ to sing “I don’t care that the world will know your name.” Not sure if anyone else noticed but I apologise – I’m definitely not so indifferent that I would sing about it.

Anyway, before I got jump in the pool it’s time for another pedal board update. Non guitarists can tune out now… I’ve made a couple of alterations – adding in an EQ pedal so I can shape or boost my tone when necessary. The other is the addition of the Digitech Jam-man looper, with another Boss volume pedal to control the volume. I currently have this running completely separate to the rest of my chain, with an output going into the direct line-in on the amp. The reason I’m running this separate loop is because I’m using some of Karl’s ambient guitar pads (see here for more info) to provide backing for some of the songs. They sound awesome and free the keyboard player to do some different stuff. We’ve had some nice ambient jams through communion.

So there it is. Click on the photo for a bigger version. I’d write more but this laptop is starting to burn a hole in my lap… (did I mention it’s crazy hot here today?) Cheers.

Discovered an interesting new blog site today on the topic of science and religion – Science and the Sacred from the BioLogos Foundation. It features a number of well-respected authors in this field and the general gist is to attempt to reconcile the findings of science (particularly biological) with the disciplines of theology and biblical studies to construct a more integrated worldview on issues of creation and science. Too often this discussion is polarized and driven by extremists like the militant atheist Richard Dawkins on one side and fundamentalist whackos like Ken Ham on the other side. Belief in God and belief in science don’t need to be mutually exclusive. This is a site I will be following with interest…

A little bit of post-modern, post-emergent, post-whatever religious angst here so feel free to ignore this one if you are so inclined.

One of the difficult things about Christianity, in particular the Protestant branch, is that there are so many different versions of it, which differ in so many ways in their interpretations of the Bible.  We’ve heard recently in our church about William Tyndale, the medieval saint who fought to bring an English translation of the Bible to the common man, setting in process a train of events that led through Henry VII and then King James right through to the abundance to different translations we have at our disposal today. This is a good thing. But, the inevitable and unavoidable side effect of this, along with Protestantism’s rejection of the Roman Catholic doctrines of Tradition (capital T) and the magisterium, are that we left with such a divergent range of interpretations of what the Bible actually means.

How are we to negotiate this mine-field to actually get some idea of what might be the actual truth underneath it all? Here’s a few thoughts :

1. Be aware of the issue. It seems that some many Christians think that there is just one simple way to understand the Bible and assume that everyone must think the same way about things. For example some people have a vague idea of ‘the rapture’ and seem to accept that this is a standard part of Christian belief, blissfully unaware that the majority of Christians throughout history haven’t subscribed to this doctrine. And that’s just one example. It may be unsettling for people, but becoming aware that there are alternative views on a huge range of issues and admitting that it is not always easy to determine who’s right and who’s wrong is important. Naivety is not a healthy aspect of Christian character.

2. Be suspicious – not in a nasty, paranoid way but in a healthy way. Ask questions? If you are reading a book or listening to a speaker try and find out where they are coming from – what is their denominational background and/or doctrinal view? For example it helps to know if an author is Reformed or Pentecostal or Anglican or Catholic. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read or listen to someone who’s outside your particular tradition or chosen viewpoint (on the contrary, this is a very good thing to do) but it is very important to appreciate how their beliefs influence what they are saying. Beware of the author without a Bio, and even more of the one who presents their views with an arrogant certainty of “this is just how it is” or who doesn’t seem to have an appreciation that others may differ (see point 1).

3. Following on from this – we need to cultivate a humility of knowledge. We don’t want to be just floating aimlessly – it is good that we do decide what we believe on topics, guided by sources we trust, our own knowledge and study (whether limited or broad), and to some extent by our feelings. But we should be humble about these opinions – conceeding that we may actually be wrong and that we won’t know anything for sure until the next life. And while the less knowledge or education we have on a subject the more humble we should be, no amount of education will obviate the need for some humility. I like what N T Wright says  along the lines of  “of what I’m saying I’m probably wrong on at least a quarter of it – the problem is I don’t know which quarter”

4. Develop an idea of what constitutes basic Christian orthodoxy and what are the elements that Christians legitimately differ on. Start with the Apostles and Nicene creeds to get a good idea of what pretty much all Christians agree on. For example the Trinity, virgin birth, and physical ressurection are pretty important central doctrines. The fact that Jesus is coming back to judge and set things right is important but the details about the “end-times” are more arguable and less important. God as creator is important – whether he did it in 6 days or 13 billion years is less critical. Be certain about the central points and humble about the less central ones… the problem is that different groups disagree on what the essential central core points are! I’d suggest making this core as narrow as possible – once again, start with the creeds.

5. Be guided by people you trust – people who are educated, knowledgeable, and also humble about their own beliefs. Usually this will be pastors, church leaders, reputable Christian authors etc. But remember it is still your choice and judgement to trust them, so still maintain the humility that you and they may not have everything completely right.

6. Respect other traditions and learn from them. Even those we disagree with and strongly (but humbly!) feel are incorrect about some things, still undoubtedly have other positive characteristics we can learn from. We all get some things right and we all get some things wrong – no one is 100% right about everything. non-Pentecostals can learn from Pentecostals about vibrant heartfelt spirituality and faith in the miraculous; and non-Catholics can learn from Catholics about reverence and devotion and tradition. Don’t write anyone off completely – try to see the positives and where that might spotlight the areas where we might fall short.

6. Trust God. He created our world, planned our salvation, and gave us the Bible. We have to trust that he is in control, has a plan, and that somehow all this disagreement and confusion and denominations are something that he will ultimately use to bring his plans to fruition. Whatever we believe about the details, we can all agree that the good news about Jesus is something the whole world needs to hear..

One of my guilty pleasures in life is that I really like country music. Don’t know why that feels like something to be ashamed of but it does – maybe because Perth is decidedly not a country music city (although it sometimes feels like a big country town but that’s another issue..) I never was much into it until 2007 when we visited our friends over in Nashville in the USA. As Nashville is the Mecca of country music I decided to acquire a taste for it – started listening to Keith Urban, Alison Krauss and a heap of others and discovered I loved it. I think if you set your mind to it you can acquire a taste for just about anything – for example this year I decided to acquire a taste for beer. I’ve never been a beer drinker my whole life but decided to give it a try – so while spending a couple of weeks in Queensland for Uni with nothing else to do except lie on the beach and skip classes I made a concerted effort to learn to like beer and was successful… but I like country music more. In addition to the above artists another one of my favourites is Brad Paisley – that guy writes some great songs and is an amazing guitarist!

One of the other things I am into (aside from country music and beer) is playing worship guitar in our band at church, but I’ve never found a way to combine the two (country and worship that is – hard to combine beer and worship…) until now…

Wash Away is a recently released album from a guy called Don Poythress who is a top songwriter in the Nashville scene, having written for quite a few big names in country music. He is also a worship leader at his church.  I really like this album for a number of reasons, and not just because it has a strong country flavour.

Firstly the songs are interesting. Often with worship CDs lately I find there’s 3 or 4 songs that grab my attention and then a lot of more mediocre, less memorable ones. On this CD almost every song has something interesting about it, even the songs I am less keen on still hold my attention. There is a creativity in the music that grabs me – partly it’s the lyrics, partly the song structure, and partly the instrumentation. Every song is different. They don’t all sound the same. There is plenty of musical space – but also plenty of moments of musical virtuosity (for want of a better word) that inspires me as a musician. For example the mandolin introduction on “The Faiithful Love of Jesus” is exquisite – I really must pick up my mando more and put more effort into learning it. And there’s plenty of nice slide guitar, acoustic, and of course distorted Telecaster licks on the album also.

Lyrically the album is good also. I think it’s probably hard to be original as a worship songwriter but Poythress does a good job of creating some fresh and inspiring songs which range from up-tempo country rock to more hymn like songs. Some of the ones I like best are Expectation, Fill Me Up (greater slow song – powerful lyrics), and A Thousand Generations (up tempo but interesting lyrical theme…) The title track is really good as well.

If you haven’t yet acquired a taste for country music, try not to let that put you off this CD. The songs could easily be reworked to de-countrify them for any sort of worship setting. I’m glad I thought outside the box of the usual suspects for worship music, and I would encourage you to get on your boots and do the same – it’s well worth the ride…

Greetings from sunny tropical Queensland, where aside from missing my wife and kids I am suffering from serious guitar withdrawals. I can’t find any station on my TV where I am staying except ‘Max’ and have had the radio in my hire car alternating between my iPod, some new CDs I got, and the local country FM station (Kix – the Best Country in the World!) – why doesn’t Perth have a country music station?? seriously one of the worst things about Perth… anyway I digress… so yeh, I’m listening to lots of interesting music but have no guitar to play – very frustrating!

I seriously think that the airlines should allow guitarists to take one guitar in addition to their usual baggage allowance.. would make for a much happier, more melodic travel experience. How bout it, QANTAS?

When I got my first Fender from Nashville I flew with it half way back around the world to Perth, but at that point I was able to just count it as one of the kid’s pieces of baggage. Sadly I have no kid with me this time so no baggage allowance to co-opt. I shall have to think of some cunning plan to bring a guitar for my next 2 week trip here…

I did visit one of the local ACC churches here on Sunday : here’s my ‘mystery worshipper’ review. Smallish church but the music was good. Lots of energy courtesy of the excellent young guy who was worship leading and the youth who were moshing in the first couple of rows. The band was simple – they didn’t play any super complicated licks (except the bass solo in Salvation is here), but they were really tight and it was a nice mix (my only complaint would have been I couldn’t hear the girl plying lead guitar). Overall I took out of it that you can have a really quality sound without doing anything too complicated if you have a tight band who knows the songs, a good mix, and a dynamic worship leader who can really take the music in the right direction. I liked that they also (in a couple of songs) left space for people to worship freely, although even that was fairly brief and the worship leader had his finger on the pulse and the band followed him diligently. So nice to have a great worship experience away from home. I think it is valuable for us as worship leaders and musicians to visit other churches from time to time and get a feel for what others are doing.

Anyway I should turn out the lights… getting late here in Qld and I have another day of biostatistics awaiting me tomorrow (actually make it today now… zero hours). Just one last plug if you want to listen to some classic music – I just watched the movie ‘The Boat that Rocked’ – not bad for a laugh.. think Austin Powers meets Titanic and you’ll be on the right track. I can’t say I can recommend it as a good wholesome Christian movie (don’t say I didn’t warn you) but if you want a fun movie with some awesome old 60′s music… check it out.

And on that note I’m signing off. Keep on rockin’

I continue to not be too active here in this blog due to study/family/ministry/work/facebook etc, although have been a little more involved in our worship team’s blog here : http://wccworship.wordpress.com/

In the process I’ve recently discovered a few brilliant worship guitar blogs that have really got me inspired. Here’s a few of them :

• Guitar for Worship
• Guitar Praise
• Worship Guitar Guy
• Les Paul Player Doctor

They are all now fixtures in my newsreader and all are excellent, but I’d recommend the first one especially. This dude has a mountain of good material, loves U2, and is pretty damn funny too. So if you’re into that sort of thing, check it out. In the meantime I’ll be off hiding out in facebook as usual.

Always a sucker for a good quiz, Christianity Today have put up a Church & Politics Quiz. Many of the questions are very specifically geared at the USA and are fortunately issues we don’t seem to ever encounter here in Australia (like having national flags in the sanctuary and the notion of our nation as being somehow “chosen by God”) but it’s still very interesting and worth doing.

For the record my scores were :

• Part 1 Politically Engaged or Disengaged : 29 – You scored between 10 and 32, which indicates that you believe the church ought to be Politically Engaged
• Part 2 Chaplain or Prophet : 27 – You scored between 10 and 32, which indicates that you believe the church should take a prophetic posture toward the government.

This all puts me close to the centre of their grid, but within the “Quiet Critic” quadrant, which I suppose is fair enough. Not the most precise quiz of this sort I’ve ever seen but still worth a look. The Out of Ur blog is hosting a discussion of people’s results but there’s not much there as yet.

The focus of the world is on sport over the next fortnight, and the best international sport not being featured in Beijing would have to be cricket. I’m not a huge sports fan but I have always been a lover of cricket. Cricket is huge in Australia, and heroes like the great Don Bradman are honoured like saints… but perhaps cricket is even more saintly than we imagined…

According to an ancient Armenian manuscript, Jesus may have played a form of cricket as a child on the shores of the sea of Galilee. Check out this fascinating story from The Age. It seems Jesus had an unfair advantage in this form of beach cricket though, with his ability to walk on water! Cool.

The Global Ambition of Rick Warren

this is a great article from Time about Saddleback megachurch pastor Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life. Warren cops a bit of flack on the Christian web, both from conservative dogmatic types and from some emerging types, for being a bit of a lightweight, too compromising, not conservative enough, not liberal enough etc etc – but perhaps this is part of his success. He has managed to present the gospel message in a way that connects with the average person in a real and meaningful way. Although a very smart guy, he keeps his message simple and direct so as not to overwhelm people.

So I’ve always kinda liked Warren, but his story gets better. Not content with having a massive church and being a best selling writer (who gives away most of his earnings though), Warren is now moving more into the political sphere. Fortunately he’s not just becoming yet another of the divisive, condemnatory Religious Right – rather he seeks a more conciliatory, unifying approach to Christian involvement in politics. He seems to see the role of the church as being a force for good, making positive changes in the world, rather than just a defense against bad.

He says he is more interested in questions that he feels are “uniting,” such as “poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate change and human rights”

Interesting article about Warren, his global PEACE plan for Christian mobilization, and his upcoming political forum where he will have both Obama and McCain together for one of the first times this campaign.

What’s your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Neo orthodox

You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the central issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God’s most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.

Along similar lines to my last entry about wild west cowboys to be blamed for legalism in 20th century evangelical/fundamentalist churches, one of my favourite bloggers Fred the slacktivist weighs in with his take on C.S. Lewis’ book Prince Caspian :

I haven’t seen Prince Caspian yet, but since it was the “No. 1 Movie” this weekend, let’s revisit what that wonderful little book was about:

Prince Caspian is about beer.

He then goes on to quote Lewis from Mere Christianity discussing this very issue of legalism, especially relating to alcohol. And Lewis, as you may or may not know, enjoyed his beer. Fred’s interpretation of Prince Caspian is that the bad guys (Telmarines) represent excessively legalistic “anti-beer Christians” and the mission of the Pevensie children is to help Caspian and Aslan restore joy and wildness to the land.

It’s a long long time since I’ve read the book, and I’m also yet to see the movie (not sure when it comes out here in Australia) but it’s an interesting take on a classic children’s book. I’ll have to try and revisit it sometime soon.

You can read Fred’s post here.

You know the old taboos that used to abound in Christian circles (and still do in some ultra-conservative or fundamentalist groups) – like no playing cards, no dancing, no alcohol at all, no going to movies etc? Well according to the following quote from a book I’m currently reading, this sort of thing might be directly attributable to the excesses of the American Wild West! Who would have thought that all that stuff we know so well from old cowboy movies could have such a big impact on the 20th century church?

The origins of the dos and don’ts in American evangelicalism go back to the revivals in the frontier days of the nineteenth century. All of us have seen the western movies and the depiction of life in the western spread of the American frontier. The center of town is a bar with it’s heavy drinking, gambling, card playing, and lewd women. As Christianity spread west in the revival tradition, it was imperative for Christians to distinguish themselves from the crude, boisterous, drinking, smoking, dancing, card playing, gambling, and lascivious crowd. Christians, therefore, swung the pendulum to the other side and insisted on a cleaned-up life as a demonstration of a converted life and a spiritual walk with God. In time these outward expressions of a cleaned-up life turned from sin became the external marks of the spiritual life.  While abstinence from wordly practices was a genuine choice of an original generation of Christians, the dos and don’ts became for the second and especially the third generation of Christians an imposed structure of spirituality. The inner convictions that generated the original choice to refrain from wordly practices was lost. In it’s place now stood a legalistic ethos, that is, restraint from wordly practice became the sum and the substance of the spiritual life.

Unfortunately these dos and don’ts oten get in the way of seeing the real ethics of Christian spirituality such as the growth of character, the concern for justice, and the care of the poor and needy.

~ Robert E. Webber – “The Divine Embrace” p81

Great article from Huffington Post (who also have one of the best iPhone news apps, though very US-centric). Although the author, Mike Lux, seems to have walked away from orthodox Christianity, he still seems to have a very good grasp of scripture. In this he challenges the extreme political conservatism of many American Christians in the face of the pervasive Biblical emphases to the contrary. Well worth a read, and in my opinion, he’s pretty much on the money for most of it.

I don’t think Australian Christians suffer as much from quite the same narrow political focus as our American cousins, however there is the potential for us to head in that direction. It will be interesting to see what transpires on June 21 when Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott address Australian churches via webcast (see Australiavotes.org) I sincerely hope the focus of the discussion is broadened beyond the traditional favourite issues of conservative American evangelicalism (ie. anti-gay and pro-life) to include more pressing global issues of poverty and injustice. For example, will the government be held accountable for their budget which, in an act of tricky accounting, reduced our foreign aid obligations by over $1 billion over the next 4 years? This webcast is run by Jim Wallace (not to be confused with the excellent left-leaning American author of God’s Politics, Jim Wallis) and the Australian Christian Lobby. I’m not always 100% on the same page as them, but I do think thus far they usually keep their agenda relatively broad and not overtly partisan. Will be interesting to watch…

In the meantime here’s some of the meat of Mike Lux’s article that I referenced above :

Read the rest of this entry »

Worship Guitar Guy – cool blog this. well presented with some useful posts. Just wish he would update it a little more consistently than he does. But for church guitarists, it’s definitely one worth checking out.

Doctor Who to boost church popularity – yet another news story about how a church is trying to tap into modern culture to boost flagging attendance among the ‘youth’ – these stories always make the church leaders seem like out of touch old fuddy duddies sitting in a room somewhere.

Interesting choice though – I haven’t seen much of the recent Dr Who (although I used to love it as a kid) but it strikes me as being one of the least spiritual/theistic sci-fi series out there. Apparently (according to the comments) Richard Dawkins will be featuring on the series soon so that says a lot. Better to use Star Wars, or Star Trek, or the new Battlestar Galactica  – which is deeply infused with religious elements, and is a brilliantly conceived and produced show.

Out of Ur : The Passion of the Heist

Lot of buzz at the moment about the newly released video game Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV), which looks like it will be the biggest game release of all time, and probably one of the biggest media releases ever, with sales in the same league as the takings of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. And the reviews of the game have been extremely positive, some even going as far as to compare it favourably with The Godfather. And I’m not immune to this – I must confess I’ve been tempted to get the game for my Xbox360 and give it a go myself, despite never being much of a hard core gamer and definitely not having the time to do so.

Now those two words “confess” and “tempted” should be read in a biblical sense, well at least if according to this article and some of the comments. In it, the writer confesses his previous forays into the GTA series playing the GTA : Vice City game :

I had no problem preaching on Sunday morning (in real life, of course) and selling drugs from the back of an ice cream truck (in Vice City, of course) on Sunday afternoon.

It’s all reasonably tongue in cheek but he does try and raise the question seriously as to whether playing these sort of games is an appropriate activity for Christians, and whether the church should respond in some kind of fashion similar to the response to the Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter, both of which have spawned a panopoly of Christian books (in my opinion a massively overblown response). He also raises the question as to whether all this virtual killing and vice is a sin in the same way that Jesus equates having anger or lust in your mind with the real thing in Matthew 5:21-30.

Interesting questions, which I guess parallel in some ways the broader argument in society about whether violent video games lead to violent behaviours (an argument I’ve never found especially convincing). The replies in the blog comments are also quite fascinating. Several commenters conclude that playing games like this is most definitely a serious sin, and one even suggests we should pray for those who play GTA IV. But another commenter makes a cutting remark about Christians making a fuss about a violent video game whilst being unconcerned about a war in Iraq which has killed over 500, 000 real people (particularly aimed at the American church I think).

As for me I’m still in limbo on the subject. Is this sort of thing a sin? maybe. But I don’t think killing pretend people in a computer game is a direct equivalent of Jesus’ comments in Matthew 5 :

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgement. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement. ” Matt 5:21-22 (ESV) [+/-]ERROR: Please add &action=doPassageQuery or &doReadingPlanQuery or &getQueryInfo or &getVerse or &getDailyVerse or &doQuery or &getReadingPlanInfo to your request URL.
.

Maybe this partly applies here, but I think the main issue in Jesus’ comment here is the breaking of relationships – being angry with your brother (whether a literal family member or a fellow Christian or simply a fellow human). Pretending to kill a purely fictional character in a computer game is much less serious – actually if that’s a sin then deriving pleasure from a violent movie or book is possibly worse, since these have depictions of actual people rather than virtual ones.

I’d be interested to hear what others think. But in my mind at least the jury is still out. Will I play the game? maybe… But I’ll confess it’s not a feeling of guilt or conscience stopping me, but simply my lack of time and having too many other priorities.

Excellent ‘blogalogue’ series here at Beliefnet, between skeptical religious scholar Bart Ehrman and Anglican Bishop N T Wright on the problem of pain and suffering and it’s relationship to the claims of Christianity. Ehrman describes how his struggles with this issue ultimately wrecked his Christian faith. He comes from a Christian background, he knows his stuff, and he raises questions that we should take very seriously indeed. Pat answers just won’t do.

EHRMAN : Suffering increasingly became a problem for me and my faith. How can one explain all the pain and misery in the world if God—the creator and redeemer of all—is sovereign over it, exercising his will both on the grand scheme and in the daily workings of our lives? Why, I asked, is there such rampant starvation in the world? … If God is concerned to answer my little prayers about my daily life, why didn’t he answer my and others’ big prayers when millions were being slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, when a mudslide killed 30,000 Columbians in their sleep, in a matter of minutes, when disasters of all kinds caused by humans and by nature happened in the world?

He even provides a pretty good answer to the question himself, but for him it was ultimately still not strong enough for him to retain his belief in God.

EHRMAN : God himself is deeply concerned with suffering and intimately involved with it. The Christian message, for me, at the time, was that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God to us humans, and that in Jesus we can see how God deals with the world and relates to it. He relates to it, I thought, not by conquering it but by suffering for it. Jesus was not set on a throne in Jerusalem to rule over the Kingdom of God. He was crucified by the Romans, suffering a painful, excruciating, and humiliating death for us. What is God like? He is a God who suffers. The way he deals with suffering is by suffering both for us and alongside us.

Fortunately we have one of the best theologians/scholar/pastors in the world today to try and address these questions, and Wright does a good job – although I (like Ehrman) found his first post was not entirely convincing, in his second entry Tom really starts to approach the heart of the matter :

WRIGHT : If one believes, not merely as an intellectual assent to doctrine but as a living relationship with God through Jesus Christ, then the dark mystery of suffering can be seen within the context of his suffering, and be transformed by it.

Of course, for its fullness this necessarily generates, as I said, the life of the church in and through which evil is then addressed. Part of the ‘transformation’ is that Jesus’ followers go to work as healers, reconcilers, and so on. That’s why the last two chapters of my book are a small attempt to say that the work of believing people in addressing the urgent needs of the world is actually a part of the biblical answer – if you can call it an ‘answer’ – to the problem.

The beginining of God’s answer to the problems of pain and suffering in the world is Jesus’ own sufferings and subsequent resurrection (which, as Wright points out is the climax of the OT story of Abraham and Israel). But the continuation of God’s solution is through the church – we need to be God’s means of reaching out and addressing the pain and suffering of the world.

But then Ehrman goes on to raise another tricky, and most appropriate, question. What about all the instances in the Old Testament where people’s suffering is blamed on their sin – ie. suffering as punishment? And what about all those instances where God himself, or God’s chosen people, inflict mass casualities (eg Noah’s flood, Joshua’s invasion of Caanan)? Very good questions – ones I personally would struggle to answer (and unfortunately Wright doesn’t really address this stuff in much detail in his reply). A strong come back from Ehrman, and yet again he raises a point about Jesus that I would agree with ( for an agnostic he seems to have some good theological insights, just a shame he doesn’t believe them) – The Kingdom of God is not manifest in Jesus only in his sufferings..

EHRMAN : … the Kingdom is manifest in Jesus’ life and work: in the kingdom there will be no disease, no demons, and no death. Jesus manifests this kingdom in the meantime: he heals the sick, he casts out demons, and he raises the dead. This was not a message about some vague power of God breaking in at some period thousands of years hence. It was God breaking in now

The ministry of Jesus in the gospels gives us a good example how we, as part of his Kingdom, should be working in the world – feeding the hungry, healing the sick, remembering the forgotten. Ehrman touches on this point in the following quote :

EHRMAN : Even if we cannot, in the end, know the reasons for suffering, we can at the least have appropriate responses to it. We ourselves can feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked; we can work to solve problems of poverty; we can give money to agencies finding cures for cancer and AIDS; we can volunteer more often locally; we can give more to international relief efforts. We can, in fact, fulfill the urgent demands implicit in Matthew’s account of the judgment between the sheep and the goats, for “as you have done this to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.”

But ultimately Ehrman’s view is that the Kingdom never did come, and presumably never will. Wright begs to differ, and brings it back to what is the central issue in much of his work – the resurrection.

WRIGHT : But the real dividing line, still – and you still haven’t addressed it – comes with the resurrection. I do think, and I think the early Christians thought, and I think the evangelists (yes, in their different ways) thought, that the kingdom did come through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Not ‘come’ fully, of course; but, in the usual language, it was radically inaugurated … For the early Christians, God’s new world – the world where God’s writ runs – had already begun, and they were living in it by the power of the Spirit. Things did change. The early Christians did make a difference. Yes, of course, earthquakes and tsunamis still happen. The NT writers knew that as well as we did, and they went on saying that Jesus was already Lord, not simply that he would become that one day. They weren’t mostly offering, either, an analysis of ‘why evil/suffering happens,’ but they were implementing Jesus’ kingdom-work of challenging evil/suffering in the power of God – not in a sudden all-powerful theocracy, banishing every evil at a stroke, but in their continuing work on the model of Jesus himself and his parables.

All up a great series of posts. Ehrman provides some challenging questions an Wright coming back with some excellent (although perhaps not decisive) answers. Although my heart sides with Wright, I think I’d have to call this debate a draw. If you’d like to read through the posts (and it’s well worth doing) you can start here and just click the right arrowed links at the top of the page to follow them through.

[thanks to Ben Witherington for the link to this debate]

I’m not normally a big fan of old hymns, tending to feel that singing out-dated styles of music for tradition’s sake or to appease a minority of long-time church-goers will probably do more harm than good in terms of alienating members of more recent generations who did not grow up in a church culture. I think as a general rule hymns should be consigned to the history books, although I’ll make an exception for Christmas carols and those few hymns which have some exposure in the wider community, such as Amazing Grace.

Having said that I have to admit that in general, those old hymns often have a lyrical quality and theological depth that is in the most part lacking in our modern worship anthems and ballads. The song excerpted below is a good example – it actually conveys a (perhaps neglected) biblical truth and engages both the mind and the emotions. Too often our modern songs just work on the latter. I guess the challenge here is for the next generation of worship songwriters to learn from those old hymns, not to emulate them in terms of musical style, but to aspire to that same level of deeper truth in the lyrics. Easier said than done though…

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.

Maltbie D Babcock – 1901 – click for the entire song lyrics (good), including cheesy Midi music (beware!)…

Time for a quick music recommendation. Mostly I’ve been listening to bluegrass lately (especially the brilliant young mandolinist Chris Thile) but this CD is worth a mention – Hillsong United’s latest – The I Heart Revolution Part I – With Hearts As One. I picked it up today whilst we were visiting my brother’s church for a child dedication.

Despite the convoluted title, this is a great album. Essentially it’s like a live ‘greatest hits’ package from Hillsong United, with two full discs of tracks recorded in various locations on every continent (wish our worship band could go on tour like that… lol). Although the locations vary, the album flows seamlessly between tracks (and in some cases even within tracks). For the past few years I’ve found that the majority of the good songs to come out of Hillsong have originated on the United youth albums and this album distills most of the best of those songs into the one package. The recording quality is excellent (as usual for Hillsong) but retains an authentic live feel, and it’s nice to hear some fresh versions of some familiar songs. Pleasingly for me, United’s music is very much guitar driven, and the guitars cut through here even more strongly than usual – they’ve really captured some brilliant guitar tones. These CDS will be on high rotation for me for a long time I think (along with all the bluegrass stuff of course, and Dream Theater’s Greatest Hit, which I picked up the other day). Without a doubt Hillsong United are putting out some of the best worship music on the planet.

This album is just the first part of this ‘I Heart Revolution’ project from United. I’m not clear on the details of this but it seems to involve a heavy emphasis on missions and justice issues as part of their world touring. Nice to see this sort of emphasis coming strongly out of Hillsong (you can hear it in a lot of the lyrics as well) and especially the youth. It’s only as the church gets fired up that issues of poverty and justice are going to be more effectively addressed, and I think that Christian youth will be in the vanguard of this – look forward to seeing where it all leads.

Fittingly for Easter, I’m currently reading N.T. Wright’s ‘Surprised by Hope – Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.‘ If, like me, you have enjoyed some of Wright’s other books, then this may be the one you have been waiting for him to write. Drawing heavily on his previous scholarly works (especially his magnum opus, The Resurrection of the Son of God (RSG)) he outlines what the New Testament teaches about the Christian future hope, both for us as individual Christians and for the world as a whole. In contrast to this he examines several errors which the world and the church often hold about this hope, principally that of our souls going to an eternal ‘spiritual’ heavenly abode immediately after we die rather than a final physical bodily resurrection at the return of Christ at which time the heavens and the earth will be recreated. He examines the doctrine of the second coming, and how various segments of the church have made the mistake of reading this in either an overly metaphorical (ie some ‘liberal’ Christians) or an excessively literal fashion (eg. fundamentalist dispensationalism ala Left Behind) – Wright contends that Jesus will indeed return, but not in order to rescue his followers from a doomed world, but rather to restore and renew his creation. Hence how we act on this Earth and how we treat it do matter incredibly as it is not just a sinking ship that we will eventually escape from or leave behind.

Central to this work (as indeed it seems to be to all of Wright’s theology) is the fact of Easter. Jesus did indeed physically rise from the dead, and this fact is both the firstfruits of, and the power behind, the ultimate renewal of all creation. And in the same way that Jesus was resurrected, with a transformed physical body, we Christians can look forward to being resurrected at his return. Wright reiterates his compelling arguments from RSG that a physical resurrection of Jesus is the best historical explanation for the development of the early church. For anyone who doesn’t want to tackle that massive book, this one gives a good summary of it’s main points and it’s critique of much ‘historical Jesus’ scholarship.

I still have the second half of the book to go, but already I’ve found this book incredibly enjoyable, easy to read, and stimulating. As I said this is the book that I’ve been waiting for from Wright, bringing together themese hinted at throughout his other works. I look foward to being challenged by the second half of the book where he moves on to the practical implications of this sort of biblical future hope for us as Christians and as a Church living and working in our world today. Awesome stuff.

‘Suppose brethren, a man should make a ring for his betrothed, and she should love the ring more wholeheartedly than the betrothed who made it for her … Certainly, let her love his gift: but, if she should say, “The ring is enough. I do not want to see his face again” what would we say of her? The pledge given her by the betrothed is just that, in his pledge, he himself may be loved. God, then, had given you all these things. Love Him who made them.’

~ St Augustine

Every year Christmas seems to start earlier and earlier, and although I still don’t like seeing Christmas stuff in the shops in October or even September, sooner or later I just have to give in and decide to run with it.

And it’s at this point that I rummage around my hard drive for all my Christmas MP3s. For some people it’s putting up the tree, for others it’s lights on the house or a wreath on the door – for me it’s copying my Christmas songs into iTunes that marks the beginning of the festive season. Copied off CDs or downloaded from the net, I have accumulated a lot of Christmas music over the years – I’m now over 1,500 songs. I’ve got all sorts, from Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Elvis (of course), through to Christina Aguleira and even David Hasselhoff! Christmas is the one time of year where kitsch is in, and no style of music is off limits – even Neil Diamond sounds cool when he’s doing a Christmas carol. This year I’ve been into country music all year, and so I’m working on finding a few more country Christmas songs for my collection.

All this was triggered off by music practice last night where we started to get organised for our upcoming carols concert in December. Once again, I’m not really a big fan of old hymns in church, but I’ll make an exception for Christmas carols. It was great grabbing an acoustic guitar and having a bit of a sing-along last night – even let the country influence creep in there too   It’s a great time of year…

I normally try and avoid shows like Today Tonight and A Current Affair like the plague. I invariably find myself irritated and occaisionally yelling at the TV because of the low-brow one-sided tabloid journalism. And how many times can they rehash the same stories – the neighbours/tennants from hell, petrol prices, kids out of control, miracle weight loss cures, how to feed a family for $10 etc etc etc? But sometimes I just don’t get to the TV off button in time and find myself watching part of the show. The last 2 nights I have had the misfortune of catching Today Tonight and their story on how the sinister evil cult of Hillsong church is manipulating Australian Idol. Like all their stories this was incredibly one-sided and skewed – they didn’t give Hillsong or any of their 20,000 or so memebers a chance to respond. Rather they gave time last night to a bunch of commentators who didn’t really seem to know what they were talking about, and tonight to a disgruntled seemingly defacto couple of ex-Hillsong members of fairly limited IQ. Hillsong may not be perfect, and people may have some legitimate criticisms of some aspects of their theology, however the media portrayals of them as some kind of brainwashing cult and money machine are grossly unfair and are an insult to the thousands of people who attend that church and many thousands more who are associated with them one way or another.

Specifically, the allegations related to Australian Idol are that Hillsong have deliberately infiltrated people into the competition and then (shock, horror) advised their congregation that they might want to vote for them.

To tackle the first allegation, it does seem that a disproportionate number of successful contestants on ‘Idol’ are Christian and have some kind of connection/affinity with Hillsong, however they are inaccurate when they suggest that all of these people are Hillsong plants. Most are not members at all, but attend other churches. One blatant error in their story was their claim that the original Idol winner Guy Sebastian was a Hillsong member, when in fact he went to Paradise Church in Adelaide (the home of PlanetShakers). The reason why there are so many Christians on Idol is much more straightforward – contemporary churches are an excellent nursery for musical talent. Where else in our society are so many people given an opportunity to use and develop their musical talents but in Christian worship? Even of those who work hard to form a band and persue a musical career, few would play to audiences of several hundred or more every week but this is commonplace for church musicians. And the example per-excellence of this is Hillsong church, who are at the cutting edge of innovation and excellence in Christian music in Australia, if not the world. So don’t be surprised if, in a musical competition, a disproportionate number of contestants hail from the breeding ground of Christian churches, especially those in the style of Hillsong. Churches don’t need to plant or infiltrate a competition like Australian Idol – contestants will spring up naturally from such a nuturing musical environment. For millienia the church has been the soil and the inspiration for music – why should things be any different today?

Secondly, the charges that it is somehow wrong or insidious for churches to encourage their members to consider voting for Idol contestants who hail from their congregation, their denomination or their faith in general – what is wrong with that? Imagine a member of the West Coast Eagles also happened to be a brilliant singer and at a game an announcer encouraged the crowd to “don’t forget to vote for Ben Cousins in Australian Idol tonight” – would that be considered a form of brainwashing? In the first season there was a performer called Cosima who we were encouraged to vote for just because she was from Western Australia (I believe even the Premier at the time was guilty of this) – is that part of a sinister plot? If someone from our church at Warnbro was on the show I wouldn’t consider it to be at all wrong if our pastor or one of the worship leaders encouraged us to support them? So why is it such a sin for Hillsong to do the same? Apparently they’ve shied away from such public mention of Idol candidates now, but I wouldn’t have a problem with it if they did.

I’m sorry but such illogical, biased and erroneous reporting really gets my goat. I really must make a better effort to avoid these shows from now on.

slacktivist: Prayer

In this post Fred mentions the unbelievable story of a crazy Southern Baptist Pastor who asked his congregation to pray for the deaths of two leaders of a “separation of church and state” organisation for asking the tax office to investigate him after he endorsed a political candidate on the church’s letterhead. Firstly, although I don’t agree with this kind of church supported political endorsement, I think these activists are being a bit pedantic for attacking this church over that kind of thing. But what is really insane is this pastor and his flock praying for the deaths of these guys because of it. Can you ever imagine Jesus (you know the guy who said “turn the other cheek” and “pray for those who persecute you” – Matt 5:44) praying such a thing or encouraging his disciples to do so? As Fred suggests, this sort of thing is what we have come to expect from Muslim extremist leaders and their fatwas – it should not be coming from a Christian pulpit. Only gives ammunition to the “all religions are bad” type athiests.

However, I do like the recent quote he gives from Barack Obama on the utility of prayer :

OBAMA: I believe in the power of prayer. And part of what I believe in is that, through prayer, not only can we strengthen ourselves in adversity, but that we can also find the empathy and the compassion and the will to deal with the problems that we do control. Most of the issues that we’re debating here today are ones that we have the power to change. We don’t have the power to prevent illness in all cases, but we do have the power to make sure that every child gets a regular checkup and isn’t going to the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma. We may not have the power to prevent a hurricane, but we do have the power to make sure that the levees are properly reinforced and we’ve got a sound emergency plan. And so, part of what I pray for is the strength and the wisdom to be able to act on those things that I can control. And that’s what I think has been lacking sometimes in our government. We’ve got to express those values through our government, not just through our religious institutions.

This is what real prayer involves – prayer and action. Asking for God’s help not just to miraculously change the world, but to change us and hence change the world through us. Now that’s real, sensible, Christian talk.

Bible Belt – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bible Belt is an informal term for an area in which socially conservative Christian Evangelical Protestantism is a dominant part of the culture. The term “Bible Belt” was coined by the American journalist and social commentator H.L. Mencken in the early 1920s.

In particular, in the United States it is an idiom^[1] for the region where the Southern Baptist Convention denomination is strongest (though many other denominations, such as the Church of Christ and Assemblies of God can be found there as well), usually meaning the South and nearby areas.

Much of the Bible Belt consists of the American South. Ironically, this region was originally colonized not for purposes of establishing a religious haven (as was the case in the Puritan colonies of New England), but for economic reasons – specifically, for the growing of cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, rice, and indigo. During the colonial period (1607-1776), the South was a stronghold of the Anglican church. Its transition into a conservative Protestant Bible Belt occurred gradually over the next century, as a series of religious revival movements, many associated with the Baptist denomination, gained great popularity in the region.

Thus, the region is usually contrasted with mainstream Protestants and liberal Catholics of the northeast, the religiously diverse Midwest, the Mormon Corridor in Utah and southern Idaho, and the relatively secular western United States, where the percentage of non-religious people is the highest in the nation, reaching its maximum in the northwestern state of Washington at 27%, compared to the Bible belt state of Alabama, at only 6%. [..read more..]

Here’s a parable that’s been on my mind lately :

The Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8 NIV)

 1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

 4“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’ ”

 6And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Now the first thing I want to note about this, as a bit of an aside, is that we should be wary of trying to read deep significance into every little detail or aspect of a Biblical passage. In this parable obviously the old woman represents praying believers and the judge stands for God – but he’s not a direct substitute for God. God is not a grumpy old man who only answers prayers if we nag him so we will shut up. Jesus was telling his story to make a point, and as always he would have used things which his audience would have been familiar with. Maybe there was a judge in that town just like that, and hearing the story the people might have had a bit of a chuckle, thinking “Yeh that sounds like grumpy old judge Hezekiah” Jesus may have used the details in this way to engage the audience a bit more.

But leaving aside the details, what is the lasting message of this story? Is it that the way to get answers to our prayers is to continually hound God about that same thing day and night until he finally gives in? Actually the interpretation is given in verse 1 – the disciples should always pray and not give up. It’s not a recipe for how to pray, but rather an encouragement to those who are already praying, in the midst of an unjust situation, saying keep it up – if even an unjust judge like this will finally grant justice to the petitioner, how much more so will our God, who loves us, grant justice and mercy to us? The central point of the parable is a comparison, with the same effect as this passage in Matthew 7:9-10 :

9“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

The parable paints a picture of how things are on earth, and then says how much better than that is God. And if this is the sort of God we are praying to, then we should be persistent and not give up, because he will come through for us in his time.

Prayer is a tricky subject. We pray and pray and pray for something and if we get the answer we hope for, we are immediately and correctly thankful. And if we don’t get the answer we want then we rationalise it by saying it must not be God’s will or God’s timing. What we are afraid to do is question why, to get angry with God and “argue it out” (Is 1:18  -MSG) And prayer where we don’t do that is tame prayer. Bold prayer, risking disappointment, and not being afraid to ask why, is the sort of prayer God calls us to – just look at the Psalms and prophets. These guys were not afraid to really get deep and express how they feel.

My next book is C.S. Lewis “Letters to Malcolm – chiefly on prayer” – I’ll be interested to see what insights Lewis has on the topic, and will try to post some quotes here if I get the chance amidst our travels.

Pope John XX – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There has never been a Pope John XX, because the 20th pope of this name, formerly Petrus Hispanus, decided to skip the number XX and to be counted as John XXI instead. He wanted to correct what in his time was believed to be an error in the counting of his predecessors John XV through XIX.  [..read more..]

George Barna – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Barna is the founder of The Barna Group, a market research firm specializing in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, and the intersection of faith and culture. He leads seminars for church leaders, speaks at ministry conferences, has taught at seminaries, and has been a pastor. He has also written more than three-dozen books on contemporary Christian issues, with topics ranging from children to leadership. Barna has coined several terms, including Mosaic Generation, which he uses to describe those born between 1984 and 2002; theolographics, used to describe the theological perspectives and applications of people; and spiritainment, which describes the blending of spiritality and entertainment toward influencing people’s spiritual perspectives.

Polls produced by The Barna Group are the most quoted polls within Evangelical circles. They are generally interpreted from an evangelical perspective. His research has revealed “a radical gap between what we heard Christians professing they believed and the values and the lifestyle that grew out of the values.” [..read more..]

Methodism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Methodism or the Methodist movement is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity. The Methodist movement traces its origin to the evangelistic teaching of John Wesley. It originated in 18th century Britain, and through vigorous missionary activity, spread throughout the British Empire, the United States, and beyond. Originally it appealed especially to workers, agricultural workers, and slaves. Theologically most Methodists are Arminian, emphasizing that Christ accomplished salvation for every human being, and that humans must exercise an act of the will to be saved (as opposed to the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement); and low church in liturgy (although this varies greatly in individual chapels; the Wesleys themselves greatly valued the Anglican liturgy and tradition). There are also a number of Calvinistic Methodists in Wales. In 2006 Methodism claimed some seventy-five million members worldwide.  [..read more..]

Archbishop of Uppsala – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Archbishop of Uppsala (spelled Upsala until early 20th century) has been the primate in Sweden in an unbroken succession since 1164, first during the Catholic era, and from the 1530s and onward under the Lutheran church.

There have been bishops in Uppsala from the time of Swedish King Ingold the Elder in the 11th century. They were governed by the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen until Uppsala was made an archbishopric in 1164. The archbishop in Lund (which at that time belonged to Denmark) was simultaneously declared primate of Sweden, meaning it was his right to select and ordain the Uppsala archbishop by handing him the pallium. But to gain independence, Folke Johansson Ängel in 1274 went to Rome and was ordained directly by the Pope. This practice was ever increasing, so that no Uppsala archbishop has been ordained in Lund after Olov Björnsson, in 1318. But not until 1457 was the archbishop Jöns Bengtsson (Oxenstierna) allowed to declare himself prima Suecia. [..read more.. ]

As you might infer from the lack of posts and Twitter updates over the last few days I’ve been very busy (actually you could possibly infer the opposite as well). After a frantic second half of last week at work with lots of babies born and pre-dawn hospital visits, we then had Owen’s birthday on Friday, which spilled over into Saturday. Also on Friday I finally picked up our car, which has been in the smash repair shop for 2 months after the accident in early April.

After soccer on Saturday morning we went with friends to see Shrek the Third, which was enjoyable, though perhaps not quite as good as the first two. In the afternoon on Saturday I went to pick up my new phone (which I’ll post about later) and then had our church “World Changers” missions dinner. Sunday morning started early as I was playing guitar in both services. One minute before I left home I managed to cut my left middle finger on something and hence had to play with a bandaid on. Although my lead work was a bit clumsy in places overall it wasn’t too bad and the band as a whole really fired well and we had great services with a top guest speaker Mark Wilson.

Much of the rest of the weekend was spent trying to work out how to use my new phone and installing software on it. Also the realisation has begun to hit that it is less than 4 weeks now until we head off on our big trip and we have an awful lot to do between now and then, both in terms of trip preparation and other things we have on. Also work looks like it’s going to be a very busy month as I am looking after a lot of pregnant patients for another of the doctors who is off on holidays, in addition to my own patients of whom a lot are due this month. So I really need to start getting well organised now – time to start making some lists to avoid forgetting things I have to do. I’ve already started to make good use of the Tasks function on my new phone.

And hopefully amidst all this I’ll still find the time to do blog and twitter posts… watch this space…