Wednesday, December 31, 2008

A new year

Well, it is official, now I have neglected the post. It has been over two months since a post. I have been busy puttin in work as they used to say. School is on hold right now for the season and I have been puttin in quality time with the family. I am trying to get refreshed for the new quarter.

The meditation for this post: Renewing our relations with the Lord of all lords, the Christ.

This year is a year to step it up especially with us in the US. It sounds funny to say step it up concerning a relationship, but it is true. This is the year where we need to take the things that we say seriously when we talk about our relations with Christ. In my church (a methodist church) we just went through a covenant renewal ceremony, where we declared that the liturgy we were doing was a serious matter and to be taken with that seriousness. It was most appropriate.

Accordingly, when we say things like King of kings and Lord of lords, what does that mean or what are we really trying to say? Are we trying to use different words to say that He is lord of our souls? Or do we really take that socio-political language seriously? What does it mean? And why is the secular object that is used to compare what the church does a "business model?" Do businesses have kings? Do they produce a "body" in the way that John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and the Apostle Paul use the word? I no longer understand how it happens that the biblical narrative says so much about taking care of the poor and the widow and the fatherless and so much about justice and righteous-ness that it gets relagated into the internal private realm. The relationship with Christ is not private. The biblical narrative does not call us out to be essentially individuals but to commune with each other. It calls us out from ourselves and makes us servants which is not a private thing. Everybody should know who the servant is when one walks into the room, everyone should know who takes the orders. Servants are not hidden people for the most part but the ones waiting for the next order. That is who we should be.

Our relations need to become most real. Our allegience to Christ should really out do all others. If he is the King of all kings then our relationship with that King should be like we are in a relationship with the most powerful person the cosmos has ever seen! The relationship should not be treated like God is my little genie or my little soda machine dispenser where I put in my 50 cents (a prayer) and the product (answer to the prayer) comes out, but that we really become servants wholly to God. Live or die, all for Christ.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Topics

Oh man have I been neglecting the blog. I have been so busy with work, school and church that I let this go. So I will give some topics that I have been pondering and that God willing, I will address in the future.

I have been thinking about open/closed communion and regarding the reasons for practiciing each.

I have been thinking about the "other" or the "stranger" and when he or she enters the church doors, say an example would be a poor, homeless person: and such aspects concerning this person as what do we do to extend hospitality without extending violence.

I have been pondering theodicy, and some philosophical arguments concerning the real-ness of God. This also includes theology proper, or in other words, the aspects and attributes of God and how we should and do describe them. I also have been thinking of how I would confront the argument of theodicy.

I have been pondering worship and some aspects like the "space" in which we worship.

These are just a few of the more concrete ideas that role in my head. I have many more that are too misty to put in any concrete fashion.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

A brief pause

There has been a brief pause in my writing in this blog as well as in my personal journal. I have been slowing myself down, trying to get my hours in line with my pursuits along with some deeper soul searching. The summer is over and I am about to embark on my second year of seminary training. To say it shortly, I have been going through some changes.

Change is good essentially, not too much though. I want to have a slower life style that is more producer oriented than consumer oriented. There has got to be a different way for our lives then to just work and chase novelty.

I think I am going to write some blogs concerning the Church. I am not sure yet.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

a Sadness

Today, some 63 years ago . . . the world seen a true moral difficiency, all in the name of "winning."



May today and the 9th be symbolic to our moral incapacitation, towards our losing the will and the resources to resist vast evil.



Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. Have mercy upon me, a sinner.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Our society and our formation

When it comes to democracy and our formation, it is obvious that there is not a state-payed person who comes to me and tells me how to raise my children. It is my argument that the formation comes in a great many subtler, quieter forms. American society is a liberal, capitalistic, democracy. "Freedom" could be said to be the catch phrase. Yet, as Mr. Will was addressing in his book, it forms it's citizens.

The formation is so strong that democracy saturates itself in all aspects of life because all of life is immersed within democracy, therefore making it near impossible for the citizen to see the formation happen. I will not go into a rich description here, for who wants to read long posts, but I will speak on this situation briefly.

The formation happens because every aspect of the life of an american is based upon 1.) self-interest and 2.) consent.

1.) Self-interest in the ways of expressing one's self and his or her identity, making money, spending money, voting, and things of that nature. Society is built around this idea that we have about who we are, that is "a free individual." Most writers have described a free individual in a liberal democracy as an "autonomous" individual which means free from external control or restraint.
2.) Consent in the fact that the people are supposedly in control because the people content to be governed by the government, which whom they vote for. Which strengthens this idea of individuality that the liberal democracy puts forth.

What this means is that one cannot help but become what the democracy produces of it's citizens, which is a self-interested individual with as many outside restraints as possible cut-loose in order to create a story-less individual whom has the opportunity to make his or her own story of herself while holding a high regard for monetary worth that says the the private sector or the open market has the ability to solve the worlds ills, especially if the market is left alone to follow it's laws through. What else this means is that formation has little to do with what sort of "making-a-living" one will pursue but more with the deeper foundational-type views such as humanity, loyalty, and virtue.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree?

Friday, July 11, 2008

Statecraft as Soulcraft!?!

I finished reading George Will's Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983). It was an interesting read I suppose. What I think his major claim is to reorient people's thinking what government does. He says that people and politicians act as if government has a low-view in the public's eyes especially according to conservatives (less government is a better government) and that government's concern is with the material, natural, and monetary. What he claims is that the government, hence the political theory (liberal, capitalist democracy) produces citizens. Therefore, the government should take more seriously what kind of citizen that it produces. I think that he does a fair job at describing what liberal, capitalist, democracy is, although I think his claims to what government should be will not work in america, and since the book was written 25 years ago and I do not really see his views being lived or spoken about, I think I figured right.

At least it helps me at least ask myself what I think government is doing or what it's purpose is. I sometimes suppose that americans just simply assume that liberal, capitalist democracy is good. I am not saying that it is bad. I may be saying that people should look at our politics with a little more imagination. It is as if the whole world would adopt democracy, then there would be world peace. Yet as I look within the united states, there is still violence, crime, poverty, evil.

From the white house website concerning the middle east: Today, Israelis and Palestinians each understand that the only way to realize their own goals is by helping one another. An independent, viable, democratic, and peaceful Palestinian state is more than the aspiration of Palestinians. It is also the best guarantee of peace for all its neighbors – and the Israelis understand this.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Simplicity

Life is like the movie "Man on fire"

You are either trained;

or you are un-trained.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

a random thought

Here is a quote from a philosopher named Richard Rorty that I pulled out of Stanley Hauerwas' book After Christendom? :

Accommodation and tolerance must stop short of a willingness to work within any vocabulary which one's interlocutor wishes to use, to take seriously any topic which he puts forward for discussion. To take this view is of a piece with dropping the idea that a single moral vocabulary and a single set of moral beliefs are appropriate for every human community everywhere, and to grant that historical developments may lead us to simply drop questions, and the vocabulary in which those questions are posed. Just as Jefferson refused to let the Christian Scriptures set the terms in which to discuss alternative political institutions, so we must either refuse to answer the question "what sort of human being are you hoping to produce?" or at least, must not let our answer to this question dictate our answer to the question "Is justice primary?" It is no more evident that democratic institution are to be measured by the sort of person they create than that they are to be measured against divine commands. . . . Even if the typical character-type of liberal democracies are bland, calculating, petty and unheroic, the prevalence of such people may nevertheless be a reasonable price to pay for political freedom. (pp. 32-33) "Page 78 of Hauerwas"

Do Americans ever think about what kind of people our democracy produces? Or do we start to think that politics is only about the distribution of our taxes towards the municipalities? I believe that I follow Hauerwas in thinking that politics is about producing people, to be brief about it. I also think that George Will was saying this in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does.

What kind of people does our consumer/capitalist liberal democracy produce? Are we bland, calculating, petty and unheroic?

Even more pressing, are "citizens" of the United States, whose very nation is very young and yet obviously not Utopia nor anything near Utopia, whose beginnings could be called "the great experiment" able to again look into the future and gaze at what could be or are they stuck in the idea that it needs to produce as it has?

Saturday, June 7, 2008

I wonder . . .

Oppression is an interesting thing. According to Wikipedia oppression is the act of using power to enpower one group while marginalizing another group, then makes a note that this could happen on individual levels. Wikipedia also states that the term derives from the idea of being weighted down.

I wonder about oppression often. I wonder if there is such a thing as justifiable oppression. Is the actions that are used by businesses to not hire felons a justifiable oppression, simply oppression, or a just act that all felons need to get used to.

If a stat can be said that 95% of felons commit another felony, does that mean that there is something inherint within their dna that will automatically cause them to commit crimes, are they unable to not commit crimes, are they unable to live life within the means of the law? Or does it have something to do with the just act of not being able to find meaningful employment?

I believe that it is a form of oppression. I believe that this oppression can happen on individual levels as well as to a group. I would also add that the legal system and consequences happen differently to different people, that no two people are really treated the same according the ways that the world works.

Some people make it big while others fall. Some peoples dreams are realized while other peoples nightmares are realized. The wicked and deceitful prosper while the righteous are persecuted and are impoverished.

What I am saying to any who read the post, there is oppression in America. And that you should never judge or make judgement on someone's life because of what you may think works for everybody. There is such a thing as the extraordinary.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

A day of mourning

A few minutes ago I listened to the local Minnesota sports radio broadcast channel and heard the Wild hockey team lose the series in the first round. I am very saddened by that and decided that it needed a post.

If you faithful readers are going to help me find communion then I better share my deepest feelings . . . And tomorrow will be a day of mourning. I will wake up and when 11:30 comes around, I will watch the game of the week on NBC (I think, or at least it is channel 5 on my TV) and it will not be the same because my team lost, as if it was not enough for me to move to a state that seemingly does not have a state high school hockey tournament nor do they show their professional NHL team (who is a member of the original 5) on local broadcast ever. The season is truely over.

Spring has arrived, my beautiful winter has gone.

Well. . .

Maybe the Twins can do something.
sniffle, sniffle

Friday, March 21, 2008

Justice

As I stopped my last post, I left with speaking about individual justice. I must say, a good read on this subject is Stanley Hauerwas "A Community of Character." Within the first chapter, he uses the adult novel, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams as a story to help illustrate and illuminate his thesis therefore I recommend that novel as well, it was really good.

To then move on to the theme of justice, within Christianity, we have lost our sense of community therefore we lost the ability to practice justice. Justice has become programs that the local church does while staying out of the daily life of the congregation. Example: the church hands out free diapers to needy moms every Thursday for so many hours at a local parking lot. What does this do? It helps moms out for a short period of time, giving them that financial relief. what else? does it solve the problem? Should it be the church's responsibility to find out solutions to the economic problem of single mothers or just simply needy families? Or is the the state governments problem while the church is just supposed to minister to the soul?

Or picture it this way. How is it that there can be churches that have the business owners and managers that are well-to-do while in the same congregation there are people that go without? Is that community? Is that what we are all about?

I think that we do not know how to live/be Christian, that we have lost our sense of community or our ability for community. Therefore we are not able to perform justice. How can it when it is just a bunch of individuals gathering together for a couple of days to sing? There is no power in the individual outside the individual. What we need is community where we are a part of one another, live around and with one another, share the burdens of and with one another. Not just sing together. Or maybe that is just my individual thought?

what do you think?

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Power in the word

I have heard that there is power in words. I can agree with this statement for i believe that there is power in words but I will only go so far with this. This idea has been in the back of my mind for sometime now and has been revived by recent conversations I have had.
I believe there is a certain power in what I speak, for instance, I can come home everyday and speak to my wife in a derogatory way and call her by bad names and the results of this abuse will be bad. She will leave me or her self view or esteem will be eventually destroyed. The same can go for my children, I can give them love with my words or give them death and destruction with my words. I believe this.
But now, I have heard about some idea of "speaking it into existence." My basic understanding of this is, for example, I have the power to speak things into existence. This idea also involves my beliefs about the things, whatever the the things are. Therefore, if I am poor, it is because I believe and talk like I am poor and I have the power to lift myself out of this situation through proper belief that I am not poor and speak my new found debt-free life into existence by talking like I am not poor. I do not think that this power necessarily exists. If I try to speak my un-poorness into existence, that does not make me un-poor. Nor does this constitute faith in God about him lifting me out of my poorness. This is like thinking that I could pray about my poorness and then speak as if He already worked and that it then happens that way.
A different angle, I think that the little girl who is being molested by her father cannot lift herself out of that situation or exhibit faith in God by speaking like it is not happening, or however she should speak that liberation/justice into existence. This makes the words have some sort of magical property.
Then, let me say for the sake of argument, is it only the spoken word or do the written words have magic too? I have read many works about non-violence and ending the war, but the war is still in existence and there is still violence. Maybe these authors should stop writting and start speaking.
Therefore, I do not think that this notion of "speaking it into existence" actually happens the way it has been introduced to me, even when it concerns faith in God. Otherwise, my faith is found wanting. I guess I should talk as if i can afford to pay my child support and give her the extra money she needs while still being able to afford to travel there and magically the funds will appear, or else God will finally see that i have the proper faith in his power and will grant me my wish.
Or else, maybe I can keep praying that I have needs and keep trying to get a real job, understanding that simply speaking it into existence does not work but patience, faith, and perseverence will help me grow and last through this situation.
The way i see it, Jesus Christ did not come and work his life and make disciples in the world to bring justice into the world by individuals "speaking it into existence." I think that there is a reason that he established a community of believers or in other words, the Church which is the body of Christ. The body of Christ is where justice is brought to the world, by all the things that the New Testament talks about. The church becomes a "community of Character" as Stanely Hauerwas wrote about.
I will post about this justice next time because, "speaking it into existence" i believe, is basically about justice but on an individualistic level.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

a purpose?

I am going to lay out an opinion, and it is an opinion because i have not much real knowledge of the issues but i readily feel the effects of the issues everyday. The Church in america is in a particular situation!



What i see is that the television is a major part of life here in america. I have seen numerous news broadcasts that would be talking about lifestyles and during the show, the broadcaster, or whoever, could use a phrase to illustrate a "poor" or "bad" lifestyle by stating that they, he, or she could not even have or watch a TV. TV is stated like it is a necessity. I mean, for the love of Pete, the TV has made it, generally, into every household in america. (Yet, oddly enough i have been in many places that have had no TV)



I bring this up because it is very influential. I go to work and the daily talk is about what was on last night on the various television shows. Various sports can be watched in the comfort of one's home due to the TV. Ambitious politicians have virtual access to more homes and families then most governments have ever dreamed of. The media also has a unique way of presenting the news because the video camera has it's own interpretation as opposed to a text in a newspaper. In small words, it is very influential.



I, then, think that a large portion of the influence towards people of the idea of what Christianity is about comes from the TV. This comes from the stations such as TBN or some of the interviews on CNN or news channels/shows or whatever else of that nature. What then happens is that there becomes a silent consensus that relates better to, or is aligned with what this idea that is presented on TV. Therefore, there becomes churches that become better aligned with or related to the idea presented on the TV.



I protest the idea of Christianity that is largely presented on TV. I really think that the ideas that are more generally presented across the air waves is not Christianity. When people can say that a Joel Olsteen represents Christianity, we should know that we are not doing well. I cannot quote but i did hear Olsteen say on CNN that he was not preaching but motivating or uplifting or something of that nature, yet he has a pulpit and a large stage and a larger church. Likewise, what about the preachers on TBN? If i listened to the preachers on that channel, then i would become broke and poor simply by giving to those who seemingly do not need the money. It seems like every one of those preachers is asking for a "gift or seed."

Yet, i think that they are missing some key issues on being church. That is . . . being the body of Christ and doing justice. It is hard to be a body of Christ when the majority of the congregation does not know each other (especially when it is due to the majority that is watching the program on tv in the comfort of their private homes). I think that the unity, commitment and relationships are vital to everything that it means to be Christian. This is also where justice comes to play, because it is hard to be just or to help those who you do not know. I mean, why should i give my money to mike murdock when i have people close to me that are starving?



I will admit that i feel like i am not well off monetarily. I could use help every now and again, but at least i have a roof (someone's floor) over my head for now. How much better could i be? I try. I have thought about what i could do if the pastor/board members lessened the symphony at the "Crystal Cathedral" to help out my family and our bills, or sold that gold cross for that matter.



I am just venting.

Monday, February 18, 2008

church worship

I have been rolling around my head for the last week about Church. Why to some is it called a "service?" Are we providing a service like my auto mechanic or our banker or our mail persons? IF we are then what is the service?

And on top of this, what are church models? I have heard that there are some church models like the traditional model that so-called "fundamentalists" would like, a seeker, program loaded model after some felt needs or a missional model that is for urban settings or a godcentered model that might resemble the first christians, among others I imagine.

I do not understand this. Why is there a model or why is the model about a service? I say that we should start to understand this differently or think about this differently. I have been a part of many congregations of brothers and sisters of Christ that have been concerned with things other than the kingdom of God. I want people to come to church, sure, but for what? For spirtual food? what is that? For a good worship and fellowship? Do they have to be a part of the in-crowd then? To hear a good sermon? I have never heard a perfect sermon, yet.

I do not know, i am confused about this. I have seen and read about the certain aspects of order and criteria so to speak, given in the pastoral letters of the new testament but i do not understand that necessarily to be about church models. Maybe the models are a good way and reason for not accepting a certain church or people, or their message. You know, something like, "oh you only live in simplicity because you participate in a missional congregation. We have programs that reach thousands." or "our church is here to focus on providing for the missionaries that we sent to afganistan. We also have great fellowship on sundays."

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Today

Today NIU was shot up.

That makes me very sad. We pray . . . Hope to God that He can save us. . .

Please pray for NIU and the victims of this . . .

It brings to mind the very topic that i preached on last suday. I have begun to understand that we as a people and a humanity have been created by God for communion. And i mean true community. Not the cheesy, neighbors but strangers that we get (to my experience) in america, but honest to goodness and God communion that the Church is supposed to be (although in my opinion, has been lacking). Oh . . but no .. . Not us americans, we are free to be individuals. we are a community of individuals. And now we have people carrying burdens that were not meant to be carried.

I am not saying that this is the necessary reason for all the violence i have seen lately or even in this specific instance, but i do understand this to be a major malfunction in our society.

any thoughts?

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Thesis Statement

Since this is my first blog, i will begin with stating what i want to accomplish. Basically, i want to let my mind wonder over the things and ideas (i imagine mostly theological) that i do not get a chance to express while chasing my children all over the house.

Therefore, with that said . . .

I will post my first real blog later.