tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49756044810724709032024-03-07T01:41:36.493-06:00Bloodspawn-7KOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-17160530958584374072010-01-29T06:10:00.003-06:002010-01-29T06:19:43.200-06:00Divided We Stand<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PcCqHq74CORAm954EZhigmXQL-B3XR2zmQxv_K8c3PWV0AOo_6dAnJ03kp1Ji3qngdXLtlWjPq7QivzGnO3VuUvwv6eLC1qjRpvi-ybVdlnnNITP_NJy2p2UXmAg9FEiXG9we1PVTP8/s1600-h/union.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5432133306770098994" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PcCqHq74CORAm954EZhigmXQL-B3XR2zmQxv_K8c3PWV0AOo_6dAnJ03kp1Ji3qngdXLtlWjPq7QivzGnO3VuUvwv6eLC1qjRpvi-ybVdlnnNITP_NJy2p2UXmAg9FEiXG9we1PVTP8/s400/union.jpg" /></a><br /><div><br />Just some musing this morning:<br /><br />When we talk about "ideology" in politics, we are mostly talking about two poles of thinking: conservative and progressive. In our thinking about these ideologies, we may find ourselves anywhere between the two extremes of these divergent opinions.<br /><br />To "conserve" something is to try to preserve it, save it, keep it intact. It looks backward, always. It tries to hold onto something "valuable" in the past and keep it alive.<br /><br />To "progress" is to move forward. The eye is now fixed on some goal, and is looking to tweak or fix something so that it works better in the future.<br /><br />Which idea is correct?<br /><br />In Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address, the body language of Congress was conspicuous. Basically, both sides were expressing their agenda. Conservatives lost big-time in 2008, so they are in the bunker until next year when, if they get the numbers they think they will, they will be able to resurrect the legacy of the Bush years, or something like it. So their mentality is to put things off and do nothing if necessary since there is no way they can agree with anybody across the aisle. So they rarely applaud and, when Obama speaks, they look like they are eating lemon skins.<br /><br />Progressives were enthusiastic, even though many of them are mad at Obama. He reached out to those rascal pinheads across the aisle and see what he got. Who does he think he is? The Great Physician? Come on, Obama. You were hired to lead. Get with the program (or programs, as the case may be).<br /><br />As I look at this comic/tragedy, I am thinking, "Why aren't they all seated together - mixed?"<br /><br />Our nation's been polarized for at least two decades. Both elections, George Bush barely squeaked by. I even called it a "miracle" when he was elected the first time, by a "hanging chad." The analysis on TV always shows the red and blue states at loggerheads.<br /><br />Now the two parties and Congress are fairly unpopular with an electorate that is "fed up." Fed up with what? Mostly with a stagnant economy that went sour. They woke up one morning in 2007 or 2008 and the sky was falling, houses were foreclosing and 401Ks were being read the last rites. So folks are "mad as hell." And so is Congress. The folks on the other side of the aisle are the problem...of course.<br /><br />But what is this mass of voters out there thinking? Are they hearkening to the baleful songs of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin? Are they ready to pounce on Pelosi and pound her into political hamburger? And what of the young who don't often yet have entrenched political positions? What are they thinking about a government that is handing them a debt to pay when they have no work? It's a frickin' mess.<br /><br />But the conservatives and the progressives each hold the absolute answer and the twain shall not meet. Obviously. No matter how skilled the rhetoric of bipartisanship that streams from Obama's silver tongue.<br /><br />Are the two parties a relic of another age - the passing modern age of absolutes and polarization? Is there any way to reconcile the desires of those who want to hold on to the "secure" monuments of the past and those who are willing to risk creating a new future?<br /><br />I think there is - at least to a point. There'll always be tension between these two poles. But part of the chasm between them is an endless class war that translates, in philosophy, to the capitalist vs. the socialist (or, in Marx-speak, the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat - the rich guy versus the poor guy). In history, the rich guy always oppresses until the poor guy rises up and overthrows the machine. The barbarian arrives at the gates.<br /><br />Democracy is more civil. It works out the kinks in the fabric of society through tedious and patient ironing. We have a system that allows all voices to speak, be heard, and have a voice. This results in a rather noisy cacaphony.<br /><br />In the Hegelian ping-pong that results, the hopeful movement is always progressive while retaining a healthy conservatism. Checks and balances. Why can't it happen now? It is. But it's messy. But it's the best we have until we find something better. We'll get through this. </div><div> </div><div>I tend to think, these days, that the two great political philosophies of the modern age - liberalism and conservatism - can find common ground. I think the twin theories of the industrial age now doing a segue into the digital age - capitalism and socialism - can link arms without destroying either ideal or its benefits. Am I Pollyanna?</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-68948371024338004442009-12-29T08:21:00.004-06:002009-12-29T08:36:45.497-06:00The Disclosure of Christ<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXbW5wCDclrP9WS4EoTKsGBx_sAMe6rftY2_bDHLvA2KyWBTX-I8hCApCm_hha22eN5C801VsJ2Ud0Kav3L2x3E6rdpmWwlbo5Vg7fqNRiLwe_-66QwzgeOXUphm44MuQUdJXmVcJyfA/s1600-h/cubist_jesus.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 234px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420666348315788082" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXbW5wCDclrP9WS4EoTKsGBx_sAMe6rftY2_bDHLvA2KyWBTX-I8hCApCm_hha22eN5C801VsJ2Ud0Kav3L2x3E6rdpmWwlbo5Vg7fqNRiLwe_-66QwzgeOXUphm44MuQUdJXmVcJyfA/s320/cubist_jesus.jpg" /></a><br /><div><br />Below are 15 of the 24 verses in the NT that use the Greek word "parousia," which, in our modern translations, are usually rendered "coming." That use may have been a theological conclusion rather than an exact rendering, which might more clearly be "revelation" or even "presence." I inserted the word "disclosure" below as it is another synonym for revelation. When read, with this word inserted instead of "coming," with that word's theological implications, I see these verses taking on a different character. </div><div> </div><div>In the first Matt. 24 verse I also inserted the word "Jewish" in parentheses adjoined to the word "age." A futurist would place the word "church" here; but a preterist reads this as Jewish. That is, Jesus's disclosure to the world replaces God's Jewish emphasis. The disclosure of Jesus renders the old age as past, if not obsolete.<br /><br />Futurists would see this disclosure of Christ as a future event, which I don't think is totally invalidated by the preterist view. In that case, the full disclosure doesn't occur until the end of this present "church age," instead of the Jewish age. That's why I'm also exploring an added, logical concept suggested here: <em>the parousia is ongoing, or progressive in nature</em>. That is, Jesus was disclosed in the ruination of Jerusalem and in the subsequent history of the church, culminating in the full disclosure at some future date, when all of mankind will actually see him at the resurrection.<br /><br />. Matt. 24:3 - "And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia), and of the end of the (Jewish) age?"<br />2. Matt. 24:27, 37, 39 - Jesus repeatedly said, "So shall the <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia) of the Son of Man be."<br />3. 1 Cor. 15:23-25 - "But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are at Christ's at His <strong>disclosure</strong>(parousia), then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet."<br />4. 1 Thes. 2:19 - "For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation? Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord at His <strong>disclosure </strong>(parousia)?"<br />5. 1 Thes. 3:13 - "So that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the <strong>disclosure</strong>(parousia) of our Lord with all His saints."<br />6. 1 Thes. 4:15-17 - "For we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the <strong>disclosure</strong>(parousia) of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord."<br />7. 1 Thes. 5:23 - "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ."<br />8. 2 Thes. 2:1 - "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to Him."<br />9. 2 Thes. 2:8 - "And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His <strong>disclosure </strong>(parousia)."<br />10. James 5:7 - "Be patient, therefore, brethren until the <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia) of the Lord."<br />11. James 5:8 - "You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia) of the Lord is at hand."<br />12. 2 Peter 1:16 - "For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and <strong>disclosure</strong>(parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty."<br />13. 2 Peter 3:4 - "And saying, "where is the promise of His <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia)? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."<br />14. 2 Peter 3:12 - "Looking for and hastening the <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia) of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat!"<br />15. 1 John 2:28 - "And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His <strong>disclosure</strong> (parousia)." </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-75508492812534208712009-03-14T08:11:00.002-05:002009-03-14T08:18:12.599-05:00Dogma Blender<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilEjSAz3xHlMxmS7pMinaeomw3f0nMH-Glr5_GECkG7Tp-I-vvMH3Sxykgee3zMnI-gdJUjEJrC9a8Pm8d6xgxVtQVSdGG1B7cdZbQV5Y3Rh56BX5iWifPsV1omVaKARhSJC_z6x971lo/s1600-h/blender.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313030551943468466" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 295px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 295px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilEjSAz3xHlMxmS7pMinaeomw3f0nMH-Glr5_GECkG7Tp-I-vvMH3Sxykgee3zMnI-gdJUjEJrC9a8Pm8d6xgxVtQVSdGG1B7cdZbQV5Y3Rh56BX5iWifPsV1omVaKARhSJC_z6x971lo/s320/blender.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#006600;">2 Peter 1:19-21 (New King James Version)<br />19 And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; 20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.<br /></span></strong><br />Verse 20, above, is rendered in the NIV this way:<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#006600;">20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation.<br /><br /></span></strong>As I meditated on this, I was thinking about the problems of interpretation down through history and to the present day. Our own -- or our "private" -- interpretations often become dogma.<br /><br />Here is the <a href="http://dictionary.com/" target="_blank"><strong>dictionary.com</strong></a> explanation of dogma:<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">1. a system of principles or tenets, as of a church.<br />2. a specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down, as by a church: the dogma of the Assumption.<br />3. prescribed doctrine: political dogma.<br />4. a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.<br /><br /></span></strong>Above, the NIV translation makes the most sense, that Peter is trying to say that the Word of God is not man-made. But I also like the King James rendering because it suggests that prophecy and biblical mystery is enigmatic and not subject to human interpretation -- that is, it does not or should not yield intractable dogmas.<br /><br />The history of the church is one of trying to establish reliable dogma:<br />There were the early arguments over the identity and deity of Christ that led to the establishment of the Trinity doctrine; there was the huge split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox; there was the later Protestant Reformation that led to schisms of all kinds and establishment of new dogmas; the ideas that became dogmas like Arminius' and Calvin's teachings; and the rise of dogmatic movements within Pentecostalism, Fundamentalism, and even Evangelicalism -- including the prophecy dialogs that rose from John Nelson Darby. The list of the establishment of competing dogmas is enormous.<br /><br />In the Wiki article, it says of dogma: The term derives from <a title="Greek language" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Greek</a> δόγμα "that which seems to one, opinion or belief" and that from δοκέω (dokeo), "to think, to suppose, to imagine"<br /><br />Basically, dogma is our suppositions raised to absolutes. These become organization-foundations that are more immovable than God Himself.<br /><br />But the church is moving into a new milieu ahead: a world of disintegration and reintegration. <br /><br />I thought of this illustration: If you take a blender and put in various ingredients, then turn it on slowly, the pieces begin to disintegrate before they reintegrate into something else. At the close of the Modern Age, the blender was beginning to be ratcheted up and absolutes began disintegrating. The future -- what we now call <em><strong>post-Modern</strong></em> because we don't know what it will be -- looks to be a reintegrating into a new concoction.<br /><br />With regard to church dogmas, this pressure places them under intense examination and a resulting disintegration into something else. These dogmata may have institutions behind them, but the dogmas themselves are breaking down. What will emerge is not a new dogma, but an integration of what the faith is, what it really means. It doesn't mean the dissolution of what was past, but a reconstitution that points to what it really is.<br /><br />We have interpreted scripture until we are blue in the face, so to speak. We have strained it through various grids, tweaking as we went, and even going to war over it. In fact, often, our goal was to establish the complete credibility of our suppositions about the message of Jesus Christ. That would make us secure, and security is not actually faith. What we need more now is the ability to adapt.<br /><br />The Modern Age was about nationalism and nation-states: the post-Modern world is about globalism. The mindset of the Modern Age was redux and "we-they" thinking: but the new world is "both-and". The blender is a-stirrin'.<br /><br /> </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-57524157078650997092009-02-05T05:53:00.002-06:002009-02-05T06:06:48.145-06:00Idiot Winds<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN374zxfKSz6pm4KTtmMCVLKUSSWMyRlBDY0uSy41XkVpiEJKzN5-JGlO7rd0_Z-jLT94fQel_1jG1W3hLCDxxeKaBxrH-iKJvfbh2vmRP-Q-bqEQdu0SG3KpUV4Yb4HyHsP9ZgNGXQ3I/s1600-h/Idiot.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299280839512770354" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN374zxfKSz6pm4KTtmMCVLKUSSWMyRlBDY0uSy41XkVpiEJKzN5-JGlO7rd0_Z-jLT94fQel_1jG1W3hLCDxxeKaBxrH-iKJvfbh2vmRP-Q-bqEQdu0SG3KpUV4Yb4HyHsP9ZgNGXQ3I/s320/Idiot.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br />The<a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/168398/%22Abject-Failure%22-Madoff-Whistleblower-Slams-SEC?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,%5EIXIC,SPY,DIA,QQQQ,XLF" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> <strong><span style="color:#009900;">tale of Markopolos vs. Madoff</span></strong> </a>doesn't bode well for<br />future regulation of financial industries, but it may yield<br />clues as to how to make the SEC (and others like it) more<br />effective. Larry Kudlow thinks this guy should head the<br />SEC -- and I say why not? That would be a very Lincoln-<br />like thing to do. Here, SEC, is your new boss, your former<br />biggest nightmare. He is the Eliot Ness of the New<br />Untouchables.<br /><br />That said, the dude could become just as frustrated as the<br />head of such an organization because, though Madoff<br />should have been obvious, nobody flat cared that much.<br />He seemed to be making green. He was impregnable.<br />Still, yes, whoever appoints such people, I'd say Markopolos<br />is your man.<br /><br />Where's the Madoff money? At present, 950 million has been<br />found. That should ease the gobs of investors who used<br />Madoff a bit. Also, the total lost may be more like 25B, not<br />the 50B he told his sons.<br /><br />Markopolos, though, is saying there are 14 more Madoffs out<br />hiding in the weeds in Europe. Be careful, scammers, there<br />are also terrorists in them thar hills. Financial terrorists and<br />human bombs hiding out together -- now that's a potential<br />threat.<br /><br />Meanwhile, we're finding out that some of our legislators<br />are above the law and are exempt from paying the taxes<br />they exact from us. Shades of Rome in decline!<br /><br />Apparently, the only thing anybody can agree on in this<br />new stimulus is to tackle the infrastructure. Then do it!<br />Get it started. You don't have to start big, especially if it's<br />all fluff -- a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying<br />nothing.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#990000;">Idiot Wind</span></strong> -- Dylan<br /><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Someones got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Whoever it is I wish theyd cut it out quick, but when they will I can only guess.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">They say I shot a man named gray and took his wife to Italy,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I cant help it if I'm lucky.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I couldnt believe after all these years, you didnt know me any better than that</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Sweet lady.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Blowing down the backroads headin south.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Youre an idiot, babe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Its a wonder that you still know how to breathe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">that might strike</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I haven't known peace and quiet for so long</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;"> I cant remember what its like.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Theres a lone soldier on the cross, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">smoke pourin out of a boxcar door,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">You didnt know it, you didnt think it could be done, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">in the final end he won the wars</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">After losin every battle.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I woke up on the roadside, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">daydreaming bout the way things sometimes are</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">and are makin me see stars.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">You hurt the ones that I love best </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">and cover up the truth with lies.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">One day youll be in the ditch, flies buzzin around your eyes,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Blood on your saddle.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Blowing through the curtains in your room.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">You're an idiot, babe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Its a wonder that you still know how to breathe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">which broke us apart</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">You tamed the lion in my cage </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">but it just wasnt enough to change my heart.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Now everythings a little upside down, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Whats good is bad, whats bad is good, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">you'll find out when you reach the top</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Youre on the bottom.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">had finally made you blind</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I cant remember your face anymore, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">your mouth has changed, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">your eyesDont look into mine.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">The priest wore black on the seventh day </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">and sat stone-faced while the building burned.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I waited for you on the running boards, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">near the cypress trees, while the springtime</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Turned slowly into autumn.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">From the Grand Coulee dam to the capitol.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">You're an idiot, babe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Its a wonder that you still know how to breathe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I cant feel you anymore, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I can't even touch the books you've read</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Every time I crawl past your door, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I been wishin I was somebody else instead.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Down the highway, down the tracks, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">down the road to ecstasy,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I followed you beneath the stars, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">hounded by your memory</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">And all your raging glory.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I been double-crossed now for the very last time </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">and now I'm finally free,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">I kissed goodbye the howling beast </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">on the borderline which separated you from me.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Youll never know the hurt I suffered </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">nor the pain I rise above,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">And Ill never know the same about you, </span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">your holiness or your kind of love,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">And it makes me feel so sorry.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Blowing through the letters that we wrote.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">We're idiots, babe.</span></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><span style="color:#666600;"><span style="color:#003300;">Its a wonder we can even feed ourselves.<br /></span><br /></span></em><span style="color:#333300;">BTW</span>, the best version of this song, by far, was </strong><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZvP7T3B30" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><strong>the live</strong></a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDZvP7T3B30" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><strong>performance by Dylan with the Rolling Thunder Review</strong></a></div><div>(click on the purple)<br /><strong>on the album "Hard Rain". </strong></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-72435608921866702722008-12-24T06:52:00.001-06:002008-12-24T06:57:39.930-06:00Christophobes vs. Homophobes<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiosL9BauoSlK0ZdHIGsW1oJDMmuyWkSBt7DrV1eQVh9fPFvisPA1mULQV__wZLe3qGzNTHuEm34IpI-pcMFMUDaTzaqzHYx2a1IO4YgVXYOnI3zZNUqfYsFGZftbp67MFEjhhyfLPCRGo/s1600-h/warren2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5283338843382478786" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 270px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiosL9BauoSlK0ZdHIGsW1oJDMmuyWkSBt7DrV1eQVh9fPFvisPA1mULQV__wZLe3qGzNTHuEm34IpI-pcMFMUDaTzaqzHYx2a1IO4YgVXYOnI3zZNUqfYsFGZftbp67MFEjhhyfLPCRGo/s320/warren2.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div>You might want to view this <strong><span style="color:#330099;">video of Rick Warren (click here)</span></strong> for some clarification of his views on the sanctity of heterosexual monogamy. Of course, I agree with him. I also agree that he has the freedom of speech to state his beliefs. What is glaringly absent here (and in much of the heat coming from gays and liberals) is a discussion of the real issue, civil rights. Warren says he loves gays, so his problem is not "homophobia." It is a civil problem. The pressing issue is the question: Do gays have the right to the same civil protections and advantages governing and given to monogamous hetero couples?<br /><br />Most evangelicals say no, because they are afraid we are redefining marriage and giving state sanction to it, thus offending God. But no state can redefine what God has set in place. The problem we have here is our concept of equality under the law. "Equality" doesn't favor Christians or anybody else, in the civil sense. If people are law-abiding and commit no obvious crimes, they can do what they want under constitutional protection, and should enjoy the rights given them in our secular, pluralist society. That's where the real debate is here. It is not theological, it is political and social.<br /><br />I don't know if Rick Warren has thoroughly vetted this angle of the debate. It wouldn't seem so. I think many evangelicals entertain the myth that we live in a Christianized society and all laws should be dictated by theological principles. Warren says he loves everybody. I'm sure he does. But actions speak louder than words, and, in this case, the problem is about justice more than biblical morality. Can you have true justice in this world when you create a legally mandated caste system of preferred people and pariahs? Aren't you saying, "I love them, but I don't want to give them any rights?" Isn't that an Old Testament system of sequestering people? Maybe God says, "I don't agree with this, but under the present systems, treat one another with fairness." Is the way to lead gays to Christ to persecute them and place them in leper colonies?<br /><br />The other problem here is the evidence of science. Christians have branded homosexuality as purely a behavioral problem (free will). Science seems to be finding that they tend to be born that way (predestination). The argument then is resolved, for many, by saying you are genetically predispositioned to have gay preferences and can't help it. Thus, you are a minority that enjoys all civil rights afforded anyone in a democratic/pluralistic society. Theology, in our society, generally fails to trump science, since science is objective (hopefully) and theology is more subjective. We can believe something, but we can't force that belief on everyone else. We Christians need to "deal with it" and focus our attentions on doing the business we are commissioned to do: love our neighbor as ourself. </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-34121616108561272832008-08-10T19:07:00.002-05:002008-08-10T19:15:50.315-05:00Thy Will Is Complex<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUp132Dqd6H386ufdGeN_ZGvDynjSeggarxVLINiK2ur5k4DM949ohTNP0z4s23onyvfxoeY9Z9UUKAc9CFWpVhJfSMgPP1cDEcJMXOj8Mh1xMh4qrekNQqrf1GLJzYtw8SH1cnRG788s/s1600-h/Cohen.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5233045176623936194" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUp132Dqd6H386ufdGeN_ZGvDynjSeggarxVLINiK2ur5k4DM949ohTNP0z4s23onyvfxoeY9Z9UUKAc9CFWpVhJfSMgPP1cDEcJMXOj8Mh1xMh4qrekNQqrf1GLJzYtw8SH1cnRG788s/s400/Cohen.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong><span style="color:#333399;">If It Be Your Will by L. Cohen</span></strong><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">That I speak no more</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">And my voice be still</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">As it was before</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">I will speak no more</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">I shall abide until</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">I am spoken for</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;"></span></strong> </div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">That a voice be true</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">From this broken hill</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">I will sing to you</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">From this broken hill</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">All your praises they shall ring</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">To let me sing</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;"></span></strong> </div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If there is a choice</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">Let the rivers fill</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">Let the hills rejoice</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">Let your mercy spill</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">On all these burning hearts in hell</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;"></span></strong> </div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">To make us well</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">And draw us near</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">And bind us tight</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">All your children here</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">In their rags of light</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">In our rags of light</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">All dressed to kill</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">And end this night</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#339999;">If it be your will.</span></strong></div><div><br />Comment: No question, Leonard Cohen was one of the great singer-<br />songwriter poets. He often wrote, actually, scathing commentaries on<br />religious belief, particularly Christian. This one seems to plumb the<br />depths of the problem of predestination. Paul said, "Who has resisted<br />His will?"<br /><br /><strong>Romans 9:<br /><span style="color:#003300;">18 So God does what he wants to do. He shows mercy to one person and makes another stubborn.<br /> 19 One of you will say to me, "Then why does God still blame us? Who can oppose what he wants to do?" 20 But you are a mere man. So who are you to talk back to God? Scripture says, "Can what is made say to the one who made it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "—(Isaiah 29:16; 45:9)</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#003300;"><br /></span></strong>So even a skeptic like Cohen can see the problem. </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-84323458503280103372008-07-30T07:19:00.002-05:002008-07-30T07:28:47.466-05:00Saving Little Richard<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDrhILnZEEqJrZZFma5DyVDkR_bGCtD08bYtdrTf75KiAG80uEA9uf-jMBpKp-vxTEGbrMci4fFwNz_BYsEyD-wIaSfYXA1d1rxDSmlegqiOvEz97FSUnUOV-3msrTujB_txORwuqEN8/s1600-h/Little+R.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5228781542796858978" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDrhILnZEEqJrZZFma5DyVDkR_bGCtD08bYtdrTf75KiAG80uEA9uf-jMBpKp-vxTEGbrMci4fFwNz_BYsEyD-wIaSfYXA1d1rxDSmlegqiOvEz97FSUnUOV-3msrTujB_txORwuqEN8/s400/Little+R.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#3366ff;"><strong>"If God can save an old homosexual like me, He can save anybody."<br /></strong></span> ~ Little Richard<br /><br /><br />No doubt what Little Richard is saying here means a lot to him. He is kind of saying, "I've been one bad dude, folks, and God has saved me."<br /><br />The question that bugged me for a long time was, "What exactly do we mean by the word <em>saved</em>?" I began to notice that what people meant by "being saved" was in the eye of the beholder. The line between the "saved" and the "unsaved" was not easy to find. In the eyes of some, there are not many saved at all. In their eyes, often, the vast majority of the human race is headed for everlasting hellfire and brimstone, and that would likely include poor Little Richard here who has deluded himself. In other words, it was hard for me to pin down what exactly <em>being saved</em> meant.<br /><br />I finally reconciled this, in my own mind, by observing that, according to scripture, salvation comes by faith and it is a gift of God. But the actual arbiter of this condition was confession: "No man can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." That is, our confession is what identifies that we are followers of Jesus no matter what anybody ~ including other Jesus followers ~ thinks of us. I am not judged by you. My confession, like Little Richard's, is that Jesus has saved me.<br /><br />But that doesn't go far enough. We've seen the signs in our lifetime that say "Jesus saves." And we saw the graffiti that said He saves green stamps (which nobody saves any more.) The point is, to say "Jesus saves" is an open-ended question: <strong><em>what does He save</em></strong>?<br /><br />The answer is, He saves or is saving the world. He is in the process of saving this whole thing that has been, like Little Richard, polluted and destroyed. But Christians have tended to deny this. We sift this good news through a screen that says, "Only the righteous will be saved." Yet, there is none righteous, no, not one. That includes you and me and Little Richard too.<br /><br />So is Jesus saving a part or the whole? And if He is the savior of the whole shebang, what difference does it make if we follow Him? Because, in following Him, we are way ahead of the curve and we are in on a secret. But it is not to remain a secret. The truth is, "Jesus saves it all." We were ruined and Jesus is the savior: that's the good news (or the gospel, if you will.)<br /><br />The salvation issue becomes uncomplicated and not up to the arbitrary criteria that various persons and leaders might construct from their "private interpretations." This also frees us, as believers, to love our neighbors, our fellow human beings. We are no longer bringing a message of condemnation to the world, condemning everyone who doesn't fit our worldview. What we are really saying is, "Do you see this world? It is passing away. God is replacing it, through Jesus Christ, with a far superior system."<br /><br />This is fabulous, and hard for many to grasp. In fact, for many it sounds like heresy (a belief that offends God.) I wasn't comfortable with it either. But now I can say to Little Richard: "You're right, bro. God can save anyone. In fact, He has."<br /><br />I have long said that it was not the birth of Christ but the cross that was the crux of history. Whatever happened before, it all changed when Christ died and rose again. How radically did it change? We don't see it all yet. But, like Paul said, "Every knee shall bow." Wow.<a href="http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9G_bF_iW5BIU0wBKBmJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBxY250Z3VqBHBvcwMxMQRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANJMDAxXzcw/SIG=1hskhinrg/EXP=1217506658/**http%3A//images.search.yahoo.com/images/view%3Fback=http%253A%252F%252Fimages.search.yahoo.com%252Fsearch%252Fimages%253Fp%253DLittle%252BRichard%2526fr%253Dfptb-%2526toggle%253D1%2526cop%253Dmss%2526ei%253DUTF-8%26w=173%26h=186%26imgurl=ultraversemusic.com%252Fpioneers%252Flittlerichard%252Flittle_richard.jpg%26rurl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.mystarlinks.com%252Fstars%252Flittlerichard.php%26size=9.7kB%26name=little_richard.jpg%26p=Little%2BRichard%26type=JPG%26oid=532a854287f90d18%26no=11%26tt=46,230%26sigr=11i5cqgkj%26sigi=11t1p0onv%26sigb=13050u3hb"></a></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-20417555699568017102008-05-13T07:31:00.001-05:002008-05-13T07:37:25.935-05:00Confessions of a Riffaholic<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ecQkdaws0dxsI22B2IlK0DFHY7846g0eACNA3A6hzRICud9_IYgybpj2KqAqRO_Yh0uiV0mdBKQ0OU6JiNXqsL7bZLnJ8OvDMzRorZA-mwuvBhlkNcseAk-b0iFy-tXIMoGuZOTnQ9Q/s1600-h/Kinks.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199839349896912482" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ecQkdaws0dxsI22B2IlK0DFHY7846g0eACNA3A6hzRICud9_IYgybpj2KqAqRO_Yh0uiV0mdBKQ0OU6JiNXqsL7bZLnJ8OvDMzRorZA-mwuvBhlkNcseAk-b0iFy-tXIMoGuZOTnQ9Q/s400/Kinks.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div>Indulge me here (or not): I was thinking about my weaknesses. It mystifies me that people can endure Swing. <em>He don't give a damn about any trumpet-playing band/ It ain't what he calls rock'n'roll...We're the Sultans/ Play Creole... ~ Dire Straits</em></div><div><em><br /></em>I don't know whether it was the Kinks or the Who that finally defined, for me, what music was. I still watch the British bands to see if anybody still gets it. I watched The Who documentary the other day about the tragedy that was their journey. But it was defined, for me, in those first four chords of "Can't Explain" or the odd two-chord riff of "You Really Got Me." It was all jellin' at that point back in '65. Even more minimal was the three-note mantra of "Satisfaction." That song was number 1 around the world for a year. It's still on the radio every other day, though it is almost mindless. But that, for me, was the definition of why God made the electric guitar. It seemed like there was no limit to what you could do, and I think Keith Richards has been proof. Even today, one of the best things going has been The White Stripes, with Meg White's monotone thud and Jack's one guitar at gutter-level distortion, working riffs under his tortured singing (Jack works with Loretta Lynn, by the way, famous friends). There is a market for this called "garage band." Jack White is very rich.<br /><br />I wanted to see it in Christian music, but never did (with the exception of X-Sinner). That kind of energy was somehow considered ungodly. God likes boring. But that approach to music still gets my head banging. It just doesn't seem to get any better.<br /><br />The other side of the coin was Bob Dylan who was really working a different field (from anybody). He single-handedly revolutionized the lyric and no-one ever topped him. He opened up a whole new world, though, and his copycats are still legion (I'm one of them). He made it possible, lyrically, to go where no man had gone before.<br /><br />Of course, concerning guitar genius, who was more influential than Hendrix? His acid-influenced blues extravaganzas launched the electric guitar into a new nirvana.<br /><br />I realize there is greatness outside of rock, but I am still stuck inside of that Mobile. I still listen for that certain something that hit us all back in '65. I didn't mention The Beatles because I think they were actually a rare chemistry that channeled it all into something quite astounding. There are umpteen big rock acts today that are still "Beatleesque" like Jet, the Foo Fighters, The Shins, Panic At The Disco, British Sea Power, and on and on. Lennon, for me, was the hinge-pin, but McCartney is the total genius as was their producer, George Martin. Lennon-McCartney was really the Rodgers and Hammerstein of the rock age.<br /><br />I don't think it is just some nostalgic yearning for my youth: it was a defining moment in musical evolution. It was an injection of creativity into the musical spectrum that I don't think was rivalled before or has been realized since. I even hear extensions of it in today's Country music. I think we now worship to it. And the anointing landed on those lads and lasses back in '65. Or, as Kiss once sang: "God gave rock 'n' roll to you..." It was amazing to have been there. Thank you, Lord.<br /><br />So, yes, I am a weak man. I got a rock-hard boogie on my finger and I can't shake it off. The other day I was in the store and I heard the opening chords to "You Really Got Me" and the Chuck Berry solo by Dave Davies and I was transported. I always think: "That's it!" So I am still on that musical quest ~ the search for the next riff exploding into a glorious train-wreck. There is probably something better up ahead somewhere, but I ain't heard it yet.<br /><br />A few weeks ago, a Kansas rock station sponsored a battle of the bands to see who Kansans thought was the best rock band ever. The laurels finally went to AC/DC. Why? Because they got it. They single-mindedly devoted themselves to THE RIFF. They never backed down. They could hear, from down in Australia, the echoes of The Who and The Kinks, and they threw themselves totally into that zone, really only producing one endless song that reverberates to the ground of the soul, the growling chord that expands into an orchestra of tone and hangs there like a sonic Aurora Borealis.<br /><br /> </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-14827335376447286742008-04-26T05:38:00.003-05:002008-04-26T05:45:47.286-05:00Historic Population Wipe-outs<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubdmu_aPLzepupn7rlUSglvBTVQnKq8VAFOoVMVdpejfNwf_bm0uJ-NQo6L8PFlExlpptlhgQFmFBfJb8_7fPXXP2JqTl8wOJJ1oV2mg1gXY6HG_yi23XXU4cdjhNs25JfgtPdExiSjE/s1600-h/Eve2.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5193501826128801762" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiubdmu_aPLzepupn7rlUSglvBTVQnKq8VAFOoVMVdpejfNwf_bm0uJ-NQo6L8PFlExlpptlhgQFmFBfJb8_7fPXXP2JqTl8wOJJ1oV2mg1gXY6HG_yi23XXU4cdjhNs25JfgtPdExiSjE/s400/Eve2.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div>"I'll be right back, Eve. I need to use the restroom."</div><div> </div><div> </div><div><br />A recent <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080424/ap_on_sc/close_call" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">AP article </a>says this:<br /><br /><span style="color:#330000;">Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.<br />Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA — which is passed down through mothers — have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.<br />The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.<br />The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa which appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.<br />The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations prior to the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.<br />Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago and the researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups which developed independently.<br />Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, commented: "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction."</span></div><div><span style="color:#330000;"></span> </div><div>My comment is this: The Genesis text does not easily jibe with these kinds of numbers. We have a biblical chronology in two ancient texts that veers considerably from this scientific speculation. Who is correct, then: ancient scribes who wrote down what they learned from oral tradition or modern scientists skrying the contents of the DNA puzzle? Neither method of dating the human prehistory would seem to be completely accurate; but the emergence of DNA information is certainly intriguing and plays with our assumptions about these things.<br /><br />What we do have here is the possibility of fluctuations in populations of the developing homo sapien. This means that there were possible near wipe-outs in that long and arduous journey of man. Further, it would be possible that a real flesh-and-blood man named Adam could have come on the scene in one of those population dearths. He would then have provided us with both a symbol of all humanity as embodied in one man and as an actual person whose existence was passed on by oral tradition.<br /><br />The rest of the story gets a bit murky back there. We can't really count on "facts" at that point, so we are left to speculate. Still, Adam need not be dismissed as a fairy tale. </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-91510175595816968942008-04-03T06:56:00.003-05:002008-04-03T07:05:20.901-05:00Old Guys Hacking It<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2UY9lrLzi-qzKk7qvI8zv9m68g8dRhLqKC-Ppj-XP-CrvCnGfCx0v9ENFEBWHpUCf2LOO2ig_Xe4w-tpqbyQtZRMKbJE7xJKz7tBq3bNYvmykuqMqRP9nvIp5dSg4E1UBpCALpv0SoA/s1600-h/moby.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5184986906173930674" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL2UY9lrLzi-qzKk7qvI8zv9m68g8dRhLqKC-Ppj-XP-CrvCnGfCx0v9ENFEBWHpUCf2LOO2ig_Xe4w-tpqbyQtZRMKbJE7xJKz7tBq3bNYvmykuqMqRP9nvIp5dSg4E1UBpCALpv0SoA/s400/moby.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br />Can old guys still hack it?<br /><br />I sampled four new releases and give my two cents worth.<br /><br />The Rolling Stones are out with a Martin Scorcese film called "Shine a Light". There were no samples, but the album <em>A Bigger Bang</em> proves that the Stones haven't gathered moss. The C. Watts back-beat, the K. Richards riff-machine and the Jagger wail are still intact, so these guys are still good for one of the best rock chemistries ever conceived. I heard "Satisfaction" the other day and still believe it was perhaps the most phenomenal single ever made in that it reigned at number 1 worldwide for a year. Still, I am only mildly interested in seeing these guys or hearing their new stuff. It is mostly just to hear what new riff Richards has cooked up in his telecaster meth-lab.<br /><br />I recognize REM as another one of those rock chemistries. They also have a new release called <em>Accelerate</em> and, while it is an intriguing bunch of songs and the same sound, it didn't sound like it accelerates enough. REM lyrics, though, are poetry. In that department they beat the Stones, but the Stones never said they were poets. However, Jagger/Richards have delivered some real poetry on occasion. REM is a great band, no doubt.<br /><br />Van Morrison is back with <em>Keep It </em>Simple, another phenomenal record, I can tell. The guy just has it, and he is an original. There is that voice like hot chocolate that never fails. It gyrates and escalates and swoons and chatters like its own instrument. Morrison is also a spiritual man with faith in Christ and his lyrics often reflect that sensitivity. But he doesn't come across as religious, ever. The fact is, though, that his jazzy, bluesy, Celtic-tinged music is always inspired and fantastic. But it was his output in the '70s that is the most mind-blowing. Age has moved him into smooth, with a bit of a Sinatra feel. And, for me, he still made the number one rock piece of all time with his band <em>Them</em>, it was that 3-chord masterpiece "Gloria." The first real punk song? I think so.<br /><br />Only one record I might conceivably buy out of this group, though, and that is Moby's new one called <em>Last Night</em>. Years ago I got a copy of his masterpiece <em>Everything Is Wrong</em> and it is, in my estimation, still a brilliant record. There is that driving industrial electronic beat, the repetitious new-age inflected synthesizer, that wailing female black voice, and often cryptic lyrics that make the best Moby stuff a delight, a kind of cerebral voyage. I found a Moby CD called <em>18</em> in a garage I was cleaning out the other day, and I had never heard it. It was a good find. Moby is a Christian who is known as a political activist, but the politic is just not obvious on the records. He doesn't come preaching at you. It is sheer artistry in the alchemy of cool disco inferno. You can exercise to this stuff, too. I am a guitar-band, garage-rock kind of guy, but Moby found a niche in my musical universe.<br /><br />I guess these guys just go to prove, if you got it you got it, and stay with your groove. That's what you are. It pays off.</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-46607986866205809832008-03-17T18:33:00.002-05:002008-03-17T18:50:33.364-05:00The Truth Hurts<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpF8Ho5YhyBpaEpgMGspIODNVYCk6JNRUbd8Qf4ubs0hqUDNTXdUePGpYxMAELR921JAESwZLLFegwRPBVaiL3z5ulJXQz4pCRZwl_cIlOF41vCx0646GoM5qi5f0ehb08yQcCsk4vuQs/s1600-h/Un.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178858085060390914" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpF8Ho5YhyBpaEpgMGspIODNVYCk6JNRUbd8Qf4ubs0hqUDNTXdUePGpYxMAELR921JAESwZLLFegwRPBVaiL3z5ulJXQz4pCRZwl_cIlOF41vCx0646GoM5qi5f0ehb08yQcCsk4vuQs/s320/Un.bmp" border="0" /></a><br />The recent book UnChristian, by the <a href="http://www.barna.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Barna</a> group, explores demographics with regard to the church. In recent years, the data has been increasingly negative, especially with regard to the young who are regarded as the hope of the church in the future. <br /><br />The focus of the studies was on "outsiders." The polling and surveying yielded a fairly consistent picture that provided the six main themes of the PR problem the church is experiencing:<br /><br />HYPOCRITICAL ~ We tend to project a morally superior attitude and an innacurate, polished image that is "unreal." We tend to think that the church is only for the virtuous and morally pure.<br /><br />TOO FOCUSED ON CONVERTING PEOPLE ~ Outsiders think we don't really care about them, that they are simply targets. Most of them have tried church and found it wanting.<br /><br />ANTIHOMOSEXUAL ~ They perceive us as bigoted. They see us as enemies bent on curing them and gaining political leverage against them.<br /><br />SHELTERED ~ We are perceived as boring, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality, preferring simplistic answers to the complexities of the world around us. We shy away from the grit and grime that is people's lives.<br /><br />TOO POLITICAL ~ We are overly motivated by political agendas, promoting only conservative interests and issues.<br /><br />JUDGMENTAL ~ We are quick to judge, hasty. We seem dishonest in our approach to others. They doubt that we really love them.<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.unchristian.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">UnChristian</a>, pgs. 29 & 30.<br /><br />My comment: This book gives teeth to the idea that the church is having a public relations problem in this generation. Some might say, "So what? Preaching the gospel is not about popularity."<br /><br />But this isn't about Christians becoming "popular." We are 2 billion strong and growing (1/3 of the world's population) so that's a fairly popular religion. What it is about is that the world is shifting and changing, and we aren't changing with it. <br /><br />I believe the Holy Spirit wants to do what He said in <strong>Habbakuk 1: 5 <span style="color:#006600;">The Lord replies, "Look at the nations. Watch them. Be totally amazed at what you see. I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe. You would not believe it even if someone told you about it. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color:#006600;"></span></strong><br /><span style="color:#000000;">It is time for the Body of Christ to examine itself to see whether it is actually walking in the faith, displaying the attitude of Christ to the world. The Barna research is a useful read in helping us discern what is wrong. And we can't fix a thing until we know what's wrong. Thanks, Barna.</span>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-86927787395796678932008-02-26T13:56:00.007-06:002008-02-26T14:31:55.017-06:00Trip Album<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLnGeF-Eey0z70NVCNlJd0A6ac8ojllhIoK97927ehC9vrAt2X6MRuTqKtBQUbf5XqK3havvNKiuEyGjTk4EnGmORcLAYLB_t49X0fO1d9WwgiNbZdzLucwg0qvMfLPaTEhNHGqEul8vo/s1600-h/TSMR3.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171382412537704674" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLnGeF-Eey0z70NVCNlJd0A6ac8ojllhIoK97927ehC9vrAt2X6MRuTqKtBQUbf5XqK3havvNKiuEyGjTk4EnGmORcLAYLB_t49X0fO1d9WwgiNbZdzLucwg0qvMfLPaTEhNHGqEul8vo/s320/TSMR3.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcZeAfwFhPZ78hLFWoSYVSjfvfqExUwFDl_VwqqZ-YRNOfIr7jIUKSxNc7nnide61D7sLcRWxo1GvjeAN7ITS2xiFO-u_y9FN0YABqtaaX-PpXMJCQDadOMi70J5aNrZT01ns7-I5TtE/s1600-h/TSMR2.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171382025990648018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhcZeAfwFhPZ78hLFWoSYVSjfvfqExUwFDl_VwqqZ-YRNOfIr7jIUKSxNc7nnide61D7sLcRWxo1GvjeAN7ITS2xiFO-u_y9FN0YABqtaaX-PpXMJCQDadOMi70J5aNrZT01ns7-I5TtE/s400/TSMR2.gif" border="0" /></a> LSD was the catalyst of a very creative moment in music history, and particularly rock history. You can read in Jack Kerouac's <em>On The Road</em> how the Beatniks liked to get stoned and listen to jazz. Pot had a way of making music sound sensational. And it could produce a kind of visionary experience, like watching a technicolor movie. </div><div> </div><div>The Beats passed their torch of counterculture exploration on to the hippies in the '60s. For the hippies, the music of choice was not instrumental jazz but rock. In about 1965 an explosion took place. The British Invasion in rock was becoming purloined with psychedelia. I remember when I first started hearing this stuff I was about 15, and I picked up an album by Bob Dylan called <em>Highway 61 Revisited.</em> This record seemed to have arrived from some other planet. </div><div> </div><div>It was the Beatles, though, that fired the shot heard round the world with a brilliant record that is still a classic: <em>Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band</em>. History has it that Dylan turned the mop-tops onto acid and the mops began to grow out. So did the music. </div><div> </div><div>What happened here? Did LSD do this? </div><div> </div><div>At the time, LSD was still a legal drug (not for long). It's dangerous properties were still not fully understood. But it was known that it could mimic psychosis. What it did was to sort of cause the synapses in the brain to misfire, creating a wondrous world in the user's brain that could either be like heaven or turn into hell. It also seemed to be a kind of catalyst for creativity.</div><div> </div><div>Dylan opened up a new kind of fantasy-fueled lyric which, when put to rock music, was tailor-made for psychedelic excursions on drugs. Along came fantasy albums of all stripes, and colors, and spots, and flowers that grew so incredibly high. These albums became the prize of hungry <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">hippy</span> kids with the mad munchies. </div><div> </div><div>I don't know if the Beatles actually created the single most amazing psychedelic album with <em>Sgt. Pepper's</em>: the Rolling Stones were not going to be left out of the phenomenon, and, with the help of eclectic pioneer Brian Jones, they produced <em>Their Satanic Majesties Request</em>. This album is still fantastic, and the most bizarre creation the Stones ever made. It was their only contribution to psychedelic rock. They went back to making the best rock they ever devised during the <em>Beggar's Banquet</em> period, saying the genre they tried, in competing with the Beatles, was just not their thing. The Beatles didn't stop the psychedelic stuff until they later split up.</div><div> </div><div><em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">TSMR</span></em> is still amazing. It is so highly textured, so original, one does not need acid to have one's mind completely dismantled and reassembled (i.e. "blown"). It holds up superbly. It should be among the best rock albums of all time, in my opinion. But I may be slightly addled.<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJU3W1ZbwUdCM990LPS5p4awkmb2FGn9tL2QLFQB379vmNf8QsDTaHiBvPxC_QjS7FqZi3DUSFP9vqPx0pTA3tQWPvDcI4CLaXCwP8zGDuobBUfs34VZuEJZv4RTTrrUE4PTh0LYszx2k/s1600-h/TSMR.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171381527774441666" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJU3W1ZbwUdCM990LPS5p4awkmb2FGn9tL2QLFQB379vmNf8QsDTaHiBvPxC_QjS7FqZi3DUSFP9vqPx0pTA3tQWPvDcI4CLaXCwP8zGDuobBUfs34VZuEJZv4RTTrrUE4PTh0LYszx2k/s320/TSMR.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMc6o_6xohzay_YPOvijvnNnWdgEwo1MkB7gT_9SiP5rkhMdokYXOpE8kamEJ0wOnTh_7xmO5zstCYovHwJRvKESK98d5tDuAJs67Ysh_rVE3NXx2Fcj4f75vHmXFCsvt52lcu6LM6Jzw/s1600-h/TSMT.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5171381175587123378" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMc6o_6xohzay_YPOvijvnNnWdgEwo1MkB7gT_9SiP5rkhMdokYXOpE8kamEJ0wOnTh_7xmO5zstCYovHwJRvKESK98d5tDuAJs67Ysh_rVE3NXx2Fcj4f75vHmXFCsvt52lcu6LM6Jzw/s400/TSMT.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO_wPZYwBh9qsL52kUuU5Ckis4D0otIMlOLUgaZBt_4UWlom35ciUoK6BSmuo8owaCGPRK2RCeps_jQ1vOrduxlFv7SfCqHaFG-jFjVBkWBUweF4Rku6_hY8KyhdO09OkQdQ6le9I9Oc0/s1600-h/TSMR.jpg"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-16323256314794763712008-02-23T11:35:00.002-06:002008-02-23T11:39:54.042-06:00Videotape by Radiohead<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ATDMpxEHOKlfgbM9npMIqIxaNWHku77fVtPckNtDcxCGgnbxMPFsyNH4eRXHfF9irEBRkhR1oJbE8fi4W3vXDyE4PCJudH0912GA1QYJrgGHD-EQpaOQrdkbN_D7zn7LT2t5mqg5f4I/s1600-h/Radiohead.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5170230725647216786" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ATDMpxEHOKlfgbM9npMIqIxaNWHku77fVtPckNtDcxCGgnbxMPFsyNH4eRXHfF9irEBRkhR1oJbE8fi4W3vXDyE4PCJudH0912GA1QYJrgGHD-EQpaOQrdkbN_D7zn7LT2t5mqg5f4I/s320/Radiohead.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">Videotape<br /></span><span style="color:#66cccc;">When I'm at the pearly gates</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">This will be on my videotape, my videotape</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;"></span></strong> </div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">Mephistopheles is just beneath</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">and he's reaching up to grab me<br />This is one for the good days</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">and i have it all here</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">In red, blue, greenRed, blue, green<br />You are my center</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">When i spin away</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">Out of control on videotape</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">On videotape</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">On videotape</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">On videotape<br /><br />This is my way of saying goodbye</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">Because I can't do it face to face</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">I'm talking to you after it's too late</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">From my videotape<br />No matter what happens now</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">You shouldn't be afraid</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#66cccc;">Because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen.<br /></span></strong><br />This <em>Radiohead</em> lyric is from the album that is right at the top of all charts as the best rock album of 2007. They also had the number one album of the '90's, <em>OK Computer</em>. The group is not only phenomenally good, but their style is unique. They actually have an approach to melody that I have never heard anywhere: a kind of haunting, ethereal, slow jazziness to it. Get the picture? You won't waste your bucks buying this album, <em>In Rainbows.</em></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-20211859868807961322008-02-11T06:47:00.000-06:002008-02-11T06:55:24.442-06:00Valentine Thinking<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1SxobW_4om9H5G97jtpFGHVvCSKAx8f6dZH6zvQCcsldhlbr1EUgMyMMH-u_OPeNoQnLGkbDF3NRvtMVIMPufR9JwOob6hlhecBJyg6FxY-KovP8hA2e1s5TrcZvb-4huTKJq1ZLywQ/s1600-h/love.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5165703851592069250" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1SxobW_4om9H5G97jtpFGHVvCSKAx8f6dZH6zvQCcsldhlbr1EUgMyMMH-u_OPeNoQnLGkbDF3NRvtMVIMPufR9JwOob6hlhecBJyg6FxY-KovP8hA2e1s5TrcZvb-4huTKJq1ZLywQ/s320/love.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">Love<br /></span><strong>Romans 12: </strong> <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">9 Love must be honest and true. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good. 10 Love each other deeply. <span style="color:#000000;">Honor others more than yourselves</span>. 11 Never let the fire in your heart go out. Keep it alive. Serve the Lord.<br /> 12 When you hope, be joyful. When you suffer, be patient. When you pray, be faithful. 13 Share with God's people who are in need. Welcome others into your homes.<br /> 14 Bless those who hurt you. Bless them, and do not call down curses on them. 15 Be joyful with those who are joyful. Be sad with those who are sad. 16 Agree with each other. Don't be proud. Be willing to be a friend of people who aren't considered important. Don't think that you are better than others.<br /> 17 Don't pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. 18 <span style="color:#000000;">If possible, live in peace with everyone. Do that as much as you can.<br /></span> 19 My friends, <span style="color:#000000;">don't try to get even.</span> Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, "I am the One who judges people. I will pay them back,"—(Deuteronomy 32:35) says the Lord. 20 Do just the opposite. Scripture says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads." —(Proverbs 25:21,22) 21 Don't let evil overcome you. <span style="color:#000000;">Overcome evil by doing good.<br /></span><br /></span></strong>A Valentine for the church, with a message of love.<br />Verse 9 says, "<em><strong>Hate what is evil</strong></em>." The problem here is that we love to hate what we think is evil, without actually identifying evil or knowing what it really is. Hate is the opposite of love and evil is the opposite of love: so we should hate hate. Osama binLaden "hates" evil, and yet employs it to please God. You can't use any kind of evil or hatred to please God. God is love.<br /><br />Hatred doesn't belong in Christianity. The minute we hate anybody we have joined sides with evil. Jesus even said we are guilty of murder. But what many Christians think is "hating evil" is really being hyper-conscious of sin. What this tends to do is cause us to focus on sin as our cause. Our cause is not exposing sin: our cause is to love as He loves, which is total. When we love, we overcome sin. Sin is dismantled by love.<br /><br />We often preach a message of strife, both in the church and to those outside. Why? Because we are focused on being right: we are trying to prove something. We are trying to "get even." But that isn't God's justice: getting even. God is patient, kind, putting up with evil in order to bring redemption to those destroyed by it. His whole operation is based on pulling people up not putting them down.<br /><br />Verse 10 says, "Love each other deeply." "Each other" is those who believe and those who don't. But this is not what we often see. We often see favoritism for those who are like us and exclusion of those who aren't. It is because we don't really understand what God is like. He doesn't have any favorites.<br /><br />We should look deep into our hearts and see what festers in there: see if we feel superior to others, see if we are peacemakers or dividers, see if we, in the name of resisting evil, actually promote it. <br /><br />Happy Valentine's Day.</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-26240553971594325852008-02-05T07:42:00.000-06:002008-02-05T07:50:52.694-06:00End Obsessions<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP3-6DeVlqEYSYgTaYOeW1E9uPuFomlS0Gay2nup7-F47kFQLGfEfjoZa6MYq7PWI1qXbo4I2s8Kcx2juLfvuv5ana2qrKUhpPgS4sfjkWZW6i9fgsozYk1G-ukMUH9IeUqR_a5TfZxFQ/s1600-h/Gojila.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5163491587595906274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP3-6DeVlqEYSYgTaYOeW1E9uPuFomlS0Gay2nup7-F47kFQLGfEfjoZa6MYq7PWI1qXbo4I2s8Kcx2juLfvuv5ana2qrKUhpPgS4sfjkWZW6i9fgsozYk1G-ukMUH9IeUqR_a5TfZxFQ/s320/Gojila.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="color:#330099;"><strong>The apocalypse is an epic tragedy, but it's also a fantasy of cleansing and regeneration wherein everything inessential and inauthentic is swept away so that we can build afresh among the ruins. It's a convenient untruth. "I've been struck by the number of New Yorkers who have actually said to me, 'God, it was so much fun watching the city fall apart like that,'" says Weisman. "There is on some level a secret longing that people have, saying 'Let's just give it up. What a mess we've made just by being alive.' We all have this footprint now. We've redefined original sin."</strong></span> <strong>TIME magazine, Jan. 17, 2008,</strong> "<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704694,00.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Apocalypse New</a>"<br /><br />There seems to be, in us, an appetite for the sum of all fears, for judgment day. I realize that I have been a bit obsessive about it through my life. Musing about it has taken up a great deal of my mental space (which is vast and empty).<br /><br />When I was six, I saw Godzilla (at the movies, not in reality) and was flooded with pleasure with the thought of a gargantuan beast tearing up the world. Also, when I went to school, we would practice "duck and cover" down in the basement, with the teacher telling us that the sirens meant the A-bomb was coming.<br /><br />We were an "apocalyptic" generation, the baby boomers. Perhaps the hippy thing was the attempt to shed the mad dash of civilization toward self-annihilation. Drop out before it's too late. Do something! Turn on! Blow your mind! Make the world anew with a new mind-set. Hail the Aquarian Age!<br /><br />Thus, when I entered the strange new world of Christianity, I found this same dynamic there: the fascinating apocalyptic clues and images of incredible cataclysm. Godzilla was alive and well in the Bible.<br /><br />I haven't seen <em>Cloverfield</em> yet, but I probably will. As the producer, Weismann (quoted above) was saying, there is something perhaps cathartic about it all. We feel helpless in the face of a psychotic universe, a world seemingly drunk on evil and injustice. We all die. The end floods our existence on every level. Life is fragile. And yet we endure, and sometimes even do good things.<br /><br />In a movie, we view the raging monster from a safe distance. The heroes in the movie generally become the masters of their situation or else the final tombstone of mankind is erected: Rest In Peace. In the end, they are all alike. How many times have we seen a Batman or Superman save the world? It is a kind of Messianic hope in all of us.<br /><br />The word "apocalypse" does not actually mean "the end of the world." <em><strong>Apokalupsis</strong></em> (Gr.) is actually more like an "epiphany" than the usual visualization of incredible holocaust. Jesus himself is the apocalypse: he is the <em>disclosure </em>of something unbelievably grand in scope. It is he that dissolves the hopelessness, the existential despair, the absurdity, and the lonely fear of a universe gone nuts. It is he that brings justice into the wild injustice of life.<br /><br />Perhaps it has been wrong for so many in the church to concentrate on the "end of the world." For one thing, the scriptures say also that this is "world without end."<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#006600;">Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, <em>world without end</em>. Amen.</span></strong> Ephesians 3: 21<br /><br />We do seem to live in a fragile world today: a world with incredible potential for a massive rupture of all things seemingly secure. Yet we cannot live with that constant sword of Damocles over our heads: the looming blade of annihilation. Jesus said, "The worst that can happen to anyone is they can die", and all of us do that sooner or later. So what if the world ended today? <br /><br />In a vibrant way, this old world ended almost 2,000 years ago at the cross. The sting of death was removed by the final offering of the Lamb of God. At that moment, all was made aright. All vengeance was satisfied. Ultimate justice was procured. Hardly the end of the world. This is only the beginning.<br /><br /> </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-47179451620644476402008-01-29T11:24:00.001-06:002008-01-29T11:35:40.760-06:00Obama's Religion<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMt06iOXqvl45UTnRrhqjmZjwcWNKWNBx1zqPhVRAYeIdBubkJFuq0tbJDOnB83Zx4zjg06akJ1XtQijz14r6EYFCeMEiRXb7RwKlzTaGRpYhcB7AE17J1PhgkSBcux1RZ_uQcULK7VME/s1600-h/Obama.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160950925461761234" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMt06iOXqvl45UTnRrhqjmZjwcWNKWNBx1zqPhVRAYeIdBubkJFuq0tbJDOnB83Zx4zjg06akJ1XtQijz14r6EYFCeMEiRXb7RwKlzTaGRpYhcB7AE17J1PhgkSBcux1RZ_uQcULK7VME/s400/Obama.bmp" border="0" /></a> <span style="color:#330099;">I'm not offering this as an endorsement of the candidate (below) but just a look into what he believes since he has been railed on in certain sectors of the Christian body. What is more interesting to me is what he is saying here (from <strong><em>Beliefnet.com</em></strong> ):</span><br /><div><br /><strong>This is a delicate subject because there's been this smear campaign against you via email, alleging that you're Muslim. But do you think the fact that you attended a majority Muslim school in Indonesia or that your biological father was raised Muslim resonate with someone in the Arab street, a Muslim there?</strong></div><strong><div><br /></strong></div>Let me just sort of be as clear as possible in terms of what that background is. You know, I was raised basically by my mother, who came from a Christian background—small town, white, Midwesterner. But, she was not particularly religious. My father, who I did not know—I spent a month of my life in his presence, otherwise he was a stranger to me—was raised in a household where his father had converted to Islam. But my father, for all practical purposes, was agnostic. <div> </div><div>My mother remarried an Indonesian and we moved to Indonesia. But for two years I went to a Catholic <a class="iAs" style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 100%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; COLOR: darkgreen; BORDER-BOTTOM: darkgreen 0.07em solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://www.beliefnet.com/story/228/story_22894_2.html#" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">school</a> in Indonesia, and then for two years went to a secular school in Indonesia. The majority of children there were Muslim. But it wasn't a religious school. So almost all the facts that have been presented in the scurrilous emails are wrong. And I've been a member of my church now for almost 20 years and have never been a person of the Muslim faith.</div><div> </div><div> Now, having said all that, I absolutely believe that having lived in a country that was majority Muslim for a time and having distant relatives in Africa who are Muslim, that I'm less likely to demonize the Muslim faith and more likely to understand that they are ordinary folks who are trying to figure out how to live their lives and raise their kids and prosper just like anybody else. And I do think that that cultural understanding is something that could be extremely valuable.</div><div> </div><div><span style="color:#330099;">I'll really be surprised if Obama makes it, but I like his understanding of Muslims. Many in the church do demonize Muslims, as if they were inferior in God's eyes. Many of these have never once explored actual Islamic teachings or are unaware of what average Muslims are like. They all become stereotyped as terrorists. We need to pray for them instead. </span></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-55555532990253330202008-01-21T12:40:00.001-06:002008-01-21T12:51:18.741-06:00The Religious Jigsaw<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB_v-Xp_OTPxoj5RHNRRe2hrzslRzRUFzaMjI7up6fnwA9452KIujwJ5dMBH71DLEIXkasKOs6WgsocBrDX4ly7WhB-4u_9RPGze7RBqdStUp7MTmkNbGqUhUblkFiOE-ixZRdHhuOKG8/s1600-h/puzzle.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5158002201864203794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB_v-Xp_OTPxoj5RHNRRe2hrzslRzRUFzaMjI7up6fnwA9452KIujwJ5dMBH71DLEIXkasKOs6WgsocBrDX4ly7WhB-4u_9RPGze7RBqdStUp7MTmkNbGqUhUblkFiOE-ixZRdHhuOKG8/s400/puzzle.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4ZaBP7gp3Tnc2VunkA8GZKQtLSbKPmoWMIHiIdlzN8E7m_F0UDyFHu68rRVJkLHQNUM2DBzd3c1XoGNkN9WkpvDEpf-iefwbSGMmsh9AYJUuEmEMWoytbjvRjScwtnVYL9Ea96VlBDM/s1600-h/puzzle.bmp"></a>A little slow on the blogs this month. Also, I am still blogging around material found in Brian McLaren's book: <em>Everything Must Change</em>, pg. 91.<br /><br />McLaren says there is a <em>conventional </em>view of Jesus and an "<em>emerging</em>" view. You have to think of this "emergence" as ongoing to get a correct perspective.<br /><br />McLaren begins the book building a case for what he calls <em><strong>the imperial narrative</strong></em>. This is the story the world around you is going by because it is enforced by a government, whatever form it takes. You live with that story. That story definitely influences you.<br /><br />He then goes on to elaborate about some forms of narrative you can adopt in reaction to the imperial narrative you're in:<br /><br />1. The<em><strong> imperial or dominant narrative</strong></em>: you work for or are in league with the dominating power (in Jesus' day that would be Rome).<br /><br />2. <em><strong>Counter or revolutionary</strong></em> narratives: you work against the dominant story.<br /><br />3. The <em><strong>dual</strong> narrative</em>: you work for the dominant party by day and another way in private.<br /><br />4. The <em><strong>withdrawal </strong>narrative</em>: you try to get away from the dominant narrative.<br /><br />Finally, McLaren cites that Jesus came with number 5: an <strong><em>alternative</em></strong> narrative that was none of the above. This alternative was the kingdom of God.<br /><br />He illustrates the difference between the conventional Jesus narrative and the emerging one by using a picture from his friend Steve Chalke, involving a jigsaw puzzle.<br /><br />The picture is of a jigsaw puzzle you are trying to use, but <em>someone has put the wrong lid on it.</em> You look at the picture and try to put the pieces together so that they resemble the picture. But it is the wrong picture. Therefore, we do different things to deal with our frustration. <br /><br />For one thing, <em>we may try to still make the pieces fit</em> our picture. This means we brush some aside and others we may alter to make them fit. And we patiently keep working even though we are greatly frustrated by how the puzzle is going. It gets more, not less, puzzling.<br /><br />Others <em>throw the whole puzzle out</em>. It is too difficult to do, so they go seek something else to do.<br /><br />Others still <em>decide that the lid is "orthodoxy</em>". They declare anybody who doesn't accept the lid as is are "heretics" and "apostate."<br /><br />But there are <em>those who notice the picture on the box doesn't match</em> the pieces in the box. So they question the lid. They assume we are using the wrong lid.<br /><br />Jesus, then, was a fifth narrative that was truly outside of the imperial narratives. The other four stories in some way relate to the imperial story: people react one way or the other. But the narrative that Jesus brought was a different picture altogether ~ it was a "new and living way."<br /><br />What we need is a right picture (a correct narrative) by which to put our pieces together. <br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#333399;">But suppose your eyes are bad. Then your whole body will be full of darkness. If the light inside you is darkness, then it is very dark!</span></strong> ~ <span style="color:#000066;"><strong>Matt. 6: 23<br /></strong></span><br /><br /><div></div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-72442976038149909762008-01-16T17:14:00.000-06:002008-01-16T17:19:26.133-06:00Upon My Father's Looming Death<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzc4wcKghfjq6wk2phMlhzJd0OkU8pVlNBMSt6Gvg3_HhtFPUuxuMKN3gYJdYEsrq4xuadJDpvi0X8EKmUfgnglVxuNHK7DzlyDuRG60zjYeEzvYqpM__YBAAe6dghoJigGsTxtyy5sc/s1600-h/DT.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156217445384220146" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBzc4wcKghfjq6wk2phMlhzJd0OkU8pVlNBMSt6Gvg3_HhtFPUuxuMKN3gYJdYEsrq4xuadJDpvi0X8EKmUfgnglVxuNHK7DzlyDuRG60zjYeEzvYqpM__YBAAe6dghoJigGsTxtyy5sc/s400/DT.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong><span style="color:#00cccc;">And death shall have no dominion</span></strong></div><div><strong><span style="color:#00cccc;"><br /></span></strong>And death shall have no dominion.<br />Dead men naked they shall be one<br />With the man in the wind and the west moon;<br />When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,<br />They shall have stars at elbow and foot;<br />Though they go mad they shall be sane,<br />Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;<br />Though lovers be lost love shall not;<br />And death shall have no dominion.<br />And death shall have no dominion.<br />Under the windings of the sea<br />They lying long shall not die windily;<br />Twisting on racks when sinews give way,<br />Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;<br />Faith in their hands shall snap in two,<br />And the unicorn evils run them through;<br />Split all ends up they shan't crack;<br />And death shall have no dominion.<br />And death shall have no dominion.<br />No more may gulls cry at their ears<br />Or waves break loud on the seashores;<br />Where blew a flower may a flower no more<br />Lift its head to the blows of the rain;<br />Though they be mad and dead as nails,<br />Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;<br />Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,<br />And death shall have no dominion. </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-37504104581414003852008-01-08T14:18:00.000-06:002008-01-08T14:26:52.215-06:00Wealth, Poverty, and the Church<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho046ZxXTeczHnBnDqUmVHiFknTrpFNRQ5L1_gJjZAHlkx6Sx8aYSWzzQ8oidC5OrTeSCZMvQYE-5I-PjsxmHEJdIORVyTnB6zXsp5D_fxuqpxlLLwf2iJ0z6o0i49uBmSs1zQivBeu-M/s1600-h/rich+poor.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5153203142846606818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho046ZxXTeczHnBnDqUmVHiFknTrpFNRQ5L1_gJjZAHlkx6Sx8aYSWzzQ8oidC5OrTeSCZMvQYE-5I-PjsxmHEJdIORVyTnB6zXsp5D_fxuqpxlLLwf2iJ0z6o0i49uBmSs1zQivBeu-M/s320/rich+poor.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><em><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#3366ff;">James 5: 1 You rich people, listen to me. Cry and sob, because you will soon be suffering.<br /> 2 Your riches have rotted. Moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver have lost their brightness. Their dullness will give witness against you. Your wanting more and more will eat your body like fire. You have stored up riches in these last days.<br /> 4 You have even failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields. Their pay is crying out against you. The cries of those who gathered the harvest have reached the ears of the Lord who rules over all.<br /> 5 You have lived an easy life on earth. You have given yourselves everything you wanted. You have made yourselves fat like cattle that will soon be butchered. 6 You have judged and murdered people who aren't guilty. And they weren't even opposing you.<br /></span></em></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:georgia;color:#3366ff;"><em>Proverbs 22: 2 The Lord made rich people and poor people. That's what they have in common.<br /></em></span></strong><br />There is a great disparity in the world between the rich and the poor, and the gap may be widening. This is even happening in the U.S. Consider some statistics:<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#666600;">1. The richest 1% of the world's population owns 40% of the world's wealth.<br /><br />2. The richest 5% owns 70%.<br /><br />3. The assets of the world's 3 richest persons exceeds the combined GDP of the world's 48 poorest countries.<br /><br />4. In 2000 the world's developed nations contributed 3% of their GDP to aid developing nations. In turn, those nations had to pay back over 6% of their GDP in debt repayment, more than twice what they received. The result was that the developed nations gained from the transaction while the developing nations lost ground.<br /><br />5. Africa is worse off than it was two decades ago.<br /><br />6. 1 billion of the earth's poor face a decline in their current living standards.<br /><br />7. The US is in the bottom 25% of all nations in terms of wealth distribution, and dead last among industrialized nations.<br /><br />8. In 1960 the average American CEO made 12 times more than the average laborer. Today he/she makes more than 300 times more.<br /><br /></span></strong>And such statistics go on and on, revealing the sad disparity in our world. And, of course, the rich are richer and getting richer because they work harder than everybody else ~ harder than the miners and the factory workers and the kids in the sweatshops and the field hands. Surely Jesus is proud of their accomplishments.<br /><br />James, the Lord's brother and apostle in Jerusalem, was tough on the rich. Why? Was he against them having money? Didn't he realize how hard they worked to get their holdings?<br /><br />I don't think it was that. He was pointing out the injustice of gross inequities, of people and nations hoarding wealth while exploiting the poor. In other parts of his epistle James says, "Isn't it the rich who throw you in jail and stack the cards against you in court?" He was telling the people of the church they were favoring the rich and dishonoring the poor in the way they treated them. He was pointing out hypocrisy and injustice, not just in the world at large, but even among the people of God.<br /><br />Greed is the source of all evil, according to Proverbs. And greed dwells at the core of our beings. By it we rationalize, create injustice, wage wars, exploit labor, neglect the poor, sequester the rich, bend laws, and ignore our neighbors be they individuals or nations.<br /><br />When empires do this for too long, the poor rise up, destroy their captors, and then repeat their mistakes. It is like a historical vicious cycle.<br /><br />In Kenya, at this writing, this is the very dynamic that is taking place. Even men of the same race and color hate each other, kill each other, and the central problem behind it all is greed. <br /><br />Jesus was the antithesis of greed. He became poor to make us all rich. He identified with the lowest and died with the malefactors with whom he had been compared. It wasn't because he was lazy or rebellious: it was because he was a lover of justice. It was because there were no rich or poor in his kingdom: no disparity between the high and mighty and the rejected and low. Jesus was outside of that whole system. <br /><br />We say sometimes, "What would Jesus do?" I guess we ask it because we really don't know. We usually think what we are doing is what he would do. He deserves a closer look. Because the church today still favors the rich and even teaches doctrines that encourage us toward greed.<br /><br />It isn't that we are to all become monastics. We need to understand justice and pursue it, though, because God is just. We need to really seek parity and equity in our churches, in our businesses, in our government, and in our world. We need to defend the downtrodden. We need to demand equality and practice fairness wherever we go. We need to seek to end the systems we create with our greed.<br /><br /><span style="color:#ffcc33;"><strong>Above statistics taken from <em>Everything Must Change</em> by Brian McLaren.<br /></strong></span></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-74940920485056724952008-01-04T04:48:00.000-06:002008-01-04T05:03:49.938-06:00The End: The 2 Competing Models<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRYFwWszK3kN-tT0HUWlFQzmHQBHEusDwaYuV9th1w8xK2LYDZtvB66y1HOqqq-vEtPHDW3bPjLElKezOnFeiwetjXTCylqbtOzPC9m2OJZAkQoNYC46K8ceMKnqv6KOD0k90LtxeDc6Q/s1600-h/eschatology.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151573387441368530" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRYFwWszK3kN-tT0HUWlFQzmHQBHEusDwaYuV9th1w8xK2LYDZtvB66y1HOqqq-vEtPHDW3bPjLElKezOnFeiwetjXTCylqbtOzPC9m2OJZAkQoNYC46K8ceMKnqv6KOD0k90LtxeDc6Q/s400/eschatology.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatQQwlygWavrNmfARZLfk_FdpNGLBorOfAgEh_SDydjRXQyb41d7BE4K5vpIeK3rGB9njJl_ZklJyFXQZKsJuII936ARFsTFNpKOGhKP0A1Cb9yX2yZSYZfhSUgO-_bSE5fk_4VIh5BI/s1600-h/eschatology.bmp"></a><div><br />The Bible speaks of the "end times." The fancy word for this is the eschaton. The study of the eschaton is called eschatology.<br /><br />In the late 1800s, there was a developing eschatology called <strong>futurism</strong>. This method of understanding scriptures about "the end" developed some widely embraced scenarios for the return of Christ.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">1. There will be a global apostasy and revival going on simultaneously.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">2. The Jewish temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">3. The dead and alive in Christ will fly up to heaven in an event called the "rapture."</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">4. There will be a man who essentially assumes power as a global monarch, who opposes God and poses as the world's savior.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">5. He will institute a financial system in which no one can buy or sell without his mark.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">6. There will be a tribulation period of seven years that includes cosmic disturbances.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">7. There will be the final war of history that will play out at the place called Har-Meggido in Israel.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">8. God will send two prophets at that time to torment the earth.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">9. Finally, Christ will appear in the clouds on a white horse with an army of resurrected saints to finish the job on earth.<br /><br /></span></strong>This is a basic scenario that is argued among futurist believers and is constructed from a literal reading of the biblical text, particularly "apocalyptic" verses sprinkled throughout the Bible, but most evident in Daniel and Revelation.<br /><br />In more recent times a method of interpretation has been under construction that is called <strong>preterism</strong>, which means it views <em>the eschaton as a done deal, a past event</em>. This method takes the same collection of scriptures and applies them to the first century world in which Judaism met its symbolic end with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. At present, this construction looks something like this:<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">1. The Jewish religion experienced apostasy and the Christian religion surged.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">2. The temple destroyed signalled the end of the Jewish age. There will be no new one constructed in the future.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">3. The event called "rapture" (from the Greek, harpazo) occurred at that time when there was a spiritual resurrection occurring in the earth through the leavening of Christ. That is still ongoing and ascending.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">4. The Antichrist (or "little horn" in Daniel) was fulfilled in Nero and his persecutions.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">5. The mark of the beast is the imagery used to describe the Emperor worship of the time.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">6. The 3 1/2 years of tribulation occurred at the time of Nero.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">7. The war symbolized by Armageddon occurred at the time of Titus sacking Israel.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">8. The two witnesses symbolize the two covenants, old and new.</span></strong></div><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#330099;">9. Christ's "appearance" is the apocalypse or his revelation in the "saints" or the believing people that would follow in his stead.<br /><br /></span></strong>The two scenarios are now the primary war that is being waged within the church over the meaning of the eschaton: did it already happen or is it still ahead of us? The resolution of this conflict is important since these ideas, particularly futurism, still influence the world even to the extent of American foreign policy.<br /><br />The above futurist scenario is what is most suspect. Is it an accurate portrayal of what the Bible says will happen, or is it another imaginary myth that is popularly believed? And popular beliefs don't go away easily.<br /><br />The real question, for me, is, What will replace it? What does the Bible really say about the future? Does it then give no clue? And are we then to expect there might be no actual physical return of Christ with a physical resurrection?<br /><br />Does history just play itself out as a script acted by the ascending church until everything ultimately comes under Christ, or do we expect a kind of futurist convulsion in which God says, "Enough is enough," and initiates a quick and final end to things?<br /><br />I don't see any air-tight conclusions to this conundrum yet. I wonder if there is truth in both scenarios; but the concept of "double-fulfillments" is hard to prove. I do see the possibility that the futurist concepts outlined above could go the way of the hula-hoop. However, the hula hoop is still around, just not as a market phenomenon. Old ideas are like oatmeal, they stick to your ribs.<br /><br /></div><div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-13299510135813617882007-12-29T12:06:00.000-06:002007-12-29T12:34:33.293-06:00KA-BOOM ~ American Military Superiority<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUvdyAe3jTYkNQkJeLsaRZzAoHhLoWYb7a20NAs-f_Ft04Vp0bbHTOWkIK4XOg-h2jByvqypdsIletZV0Xjdtl2-jYz0DHw9iPnBcPnn8B35cGQNDUrHEa9r9Ey46S9sEJV1WInEOBqks/s1600-h/WMD.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5149459116775468466" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUvdyAe3jTYkNQkJeLsaRZzAoHhLoWYb7a20NAs-f_Ft04Vp0bbHTOWkIK4XOg-h2jByvqypdsIletZV0Xjdtl2-jYz0DHw9iPnBcPnn8B35cGQNDUrHEa9r9Ey46S9sEJV1WInEOBqks/s320/WMD.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB13ZN_lywmlqtj03_i2aAeZdHFfREgs3PKMGTSrzYFfwq05ezH9xozpI2JmJxO0BTFcLbUPHtFcdMCMdA5tTOScpfQ7MEfQMk2cfsv49qICvCWRvquf0sgRNs_lyh2M-gMYP5bWM0KNc/s1600-h/end.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5149458292141747618" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB13ZN_lywmlqtj03_i2aAeZdHFfREgs3PKMGTSrzYFfwq05ezH9xozpI2JmJxO0BTFcLbUPHtFcdMCMdA5tTOScpfQ7MEfQMk2cfsv49qICvCWRvquf0sgRNs_lyh2M-gMYP5bWM0KNc/s200/end.gif" border="0" /></a> This is a picture of a 15,000 kilaton explosion. This is probably the summit of all fears. Below I will work through the data given in Brian McLaren's book <em>Everything Must Change.</em></div><div><em></em> </div><div><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#330099;">"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population.....Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity."</span></em></strong> ~ <strong><span style="color:#000000;">George Kennon, 1948, one of the American government's leading foreign policy planners of the 20th century.<br /></span></strong><br /><strong><em><span style="color:#330099;">"So in terms of the suicide machine's three mechanisms, we could say it rather baldly and boldly like this: the purpose of the US security system is to maintain the inequity of US prosperity. Or, put alternatively, to maintain and expand the American Empire."</span></em></strong> ~ Brian McLaren on the above quote from <em>Everything Must Change</em>, pg. 164.<br /><br />Let's examine what McLaren is saying in the list below:<br /><br />1. In the 2006 American military budget, our expeditures were 21 times larger than diplomacy and foreign aid combined.</div><div><br />2. The US is dead last among the most developed nations in terms of foreign aid as a percentage of gross domestic product.<br /><br />3. 10% of the US military budget reinvested in foreign aid and development could care for the needs of the entire earth's poor.<br /><br />4. 1/2 of 1% of the US military budget would cut hunger in Africa in half by 2015.<br /><br />5. The US, Russia, UK, France and China provide 86.7% of the global arms exports (sometimes to their avowed enemies).<br /><br />6. America produces 53.4 of all the world's weapons.<br /><br />7. 80% of the top buyers of our weapons are countries we have labeled as undemocratic and rejecting human rights, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.<br /><br />8. In 1999 the US supplied arms to 92% of the conflicts in progress on the planet, often supplying both sides.<br /><br />9. From 1998 to 2001, the US, Britain, and France earned more from selling arms to developing nations than they gave to those nations in aid.<br /><br />10. "Every year small arms kill more people than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. Many more people are injured, terrorized or driven from their homes by armed violence." ~ Desmond Tutu<br /><br />11. In the 20th century, 43 million military personnel were killed in war, and 62 million civilians.<br /><br />12. The US military budget in 2003 was larger than the next fifteen nations combined. By 2006 it had swelled by 49% over its 2000 levels, not including expenses for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<br /><br />13. Hidden costs not included in the figuring above have to do with the "brain drain" of using the best engineers, scientists, and thinkers developing non-productive assets.<br /><br />14. In 2004 global military expenses exceeded $1 trillion while serious international terrorist attacks rose from 175 to 655.<br /><br />15. From 1948 to 1990 the US and USSR amassed about 75,000 nuclear warheads whose combined power was 1 million times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.<br /><br />16. Since 1940 the US spent $5.48 trillion on nuclear weapons and delivery systems.<br /><br />17. In 1969 one US sub could destroy 160 Soviet cities simultaneously.<br /><br />18. At the height of MAD, the US was capable of blowing up 10 planets like earth. Even with disarmament we can still blow up several earths.<br /><br />19. The US presently spends $100 million per day to maintain these systems.<br /><br />20. Before 2001 the US annual investment in defense was more than 20% of its fiscal budget, over 1/2 trillion dollars, and over half of the national debt ($2.9 out of $5.6 trillion). Since 2001 these figures have exploded.<br /><br />21. We are now stronger militarily than the next 25 nations combined.</div><div> </div><div>Is this a sobering picture? What the fission are we doing? And what about the church? Do we think this is all a really great idea? Is this indicative of a righteous trajectory for America?<br /><br /> </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-46031700665006574462007-12-26T05:28:00.001-06:002007-12-26T05:32:35.346-06:00Inner Megalomaniac<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixETcc-m4ijweMeUDarck401-hUinvCv8hGWjdhCv0PLDwOCryCFOYzgqKeC2Z8Pc0D1DnQ2PNMIrabV7NR4Gh5RKvVyFsMVkfNHPNeF2eQc2_96jJPpIeN_1gDMLjCh4xxV7fvIv16wY/s1600-h/Megalo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5148242266641165714" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixETcc-m4ijweMeUDarck401-hUinvCv8hGWjdhCv0PLDwOCryCFOYzgqKeC2Z8Pc0D1DnQ2PNMIrabV7NR4Gh5RKvVyFsMVkfNHPNeF2eQc2_96jJPpIeN_1gDMLjCh4xxV7fvIv16wY/s200/Megalo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#663300;">"Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.'"</span></strong> ~ <strong><span style="color:#000000;">Will Smith ruminating</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#663300;">"Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet."</span></strong> ~ <strong><span style="color:#000000;">Will Smith backpedaling<br /></span></strong><br />Hello.<br /><br />First of all, has anyone ever heard of a black Nazi? It's an oxymoron.<br /><br />Hitler believed in the ridiculous concept of <em>Aryan</em> (read "white")<em> superiority</em>. Couple that concept with copious amounts of amphetamines and you have the Jewish purge. Hitler was really a religious man with a concept. And a crusade. And everybody wants to be in on a crusade at least once. Does anything else that a person can do produce such a giddy high of self-superiority?<br /><br />I think this is what Will Smith was saying. Hitler was a man on a mission, bent on fixing the world. He was a do-gooder. So how does doing good turn into a holocaust? Will Smith is presenting a paradox that apparently went over the heads of his many fans.<br /><br />"Whoa. Will Smith is a Nazi. Imagine that."<br /><br />Apparently, the one luxury celebrities don't have is the luxury of deep thought. Shame on you, Will. You are an intelligent black man. Don't betray your fans by thinking.<br /><br />So is it wrong to try to change the world? What is the difference between Hitler and Al Gore? Some people would say nothing. But does anyone believe Al Gore is a monster bent on dominating the world, with the ends justifying the means, in order to save the world? When does saving the world ~ mimicking your favorite superhero ~ become megalomania?<br /><br />Even more interesting, is there a megalomaniac within each of us that is waiting to break out if only it can find a cause worth dominating the world for? Is there any irony in the idea that we can save the world through destruction? Awareness of that irony may be the only thing that keeps our inner megalomaniacs in check.<br /><br />Bravo, Will Smith. You are a celebrity with a brain. And you seem to be keeping your inner megalomaniac in check.</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-59507750716322331372007-12-24T06:24:00.000-06:002007-12-24T06:39:53.289-06:00Religious Justice<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlM6Mg7e3LztV5EiCpYUU0qPzZXDi-nYwes86634c9Pmomd5Xh-ODOAQ8zdXTZCTMY3geE2nrGRAISlCoFSgYdqXirijzcti5Fl8d-pRO-3eVISKaPWA4L6VWOJ0qeesgm0sgh3Dm1GW8/s1600-h/Echols.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5147514780785601922" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlM6Mg7e3LztV5EiCpYUU0qPzZXDi-nYwes86634c9Pmomd5Xh-ODOAQ8zdXTZCTMY3geE2nrGRAISlCoFSgYdqXirijzcti5Fl8d-pRO-3eVISKaPWA4L6VWOJ0qeesgm0sgh3Dm1GW8/s400/Echols.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#333300;">These boys didn’t get a fair trial. They got picked for wearing black clothes and having long hair. I am fundamentally opposed to the death penalty, and as Lenny Bruce said, "In the halls of justice, all the justice is in the halls." Perhaps, a jury is composed of twelve men and women of average ignorance; and a judge is a lawyer who once knew a politician. In our system of justice, the best client for a lawyer is a scared millionaire. The worst thing in our criminal justice system is to be broke or different.<br /></span>-Tom Waits<br /><br /></strong><br />Watching the Larry King Interview of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Echols" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Damien Echols</a>, now on death row from a mob justice conviction for murdering 3 boys in Arkansas over 15 years ago, I was thinking I could see how this kind of thing could happen, that these three guys could be convicted for "Satanic crimes" they did not commit. They were outsiders in a Bible Belt microcosm that was looking for convenient scapegoats.<br /><br />Tragedies invoke traumas. Senseless murders can so traumatize the victim's loved ones that people who oppose the death penalty can suddenly become avid seekers of someone's execution, as a kind of panacea and vengeance for grief. Also, pull in local bias into the mix ~ the conviction that all kids in black clothes and long hair are Satanists ~ and you have the Salem witch trials deja vu. We should remember that Jesus Christ was executed as a Satanist.<br /><br />And who was it that plotted Jesus' death? The strictest of religious Jews, the most pious sect among them. The Pharisees wielded political power and influence. They could incite a mob. They could conspire to have their nemesis, Jesus, eradicated. They could even pervert Roman justice to achieve their devious, though outwardly "righteous", ends.<br /><br />It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens. And today, this famous case of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Memphis_3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">West Memphis 3 Murders</a>, should be reopened and retried, largely due to new DNA evidence that ties none of the three alleged murderers to the scene. It is entirely possible that the three are innocent, with two serving life sentences and one awaiting lethal injection.<br /><br />I am someone that people would categorize as "religious", because I have faith in Christ. But it makes me wonder why religion can turn people, even believers in Christ, into something other than what he so evidently was: a man committed to justice. Perhaps I too would become a rabid seeker of vengeance if I found a child close to me murdered: perhaps I would demand to be repaid. Perhaps my trauma would blind me to the fact that I had found innocent young men to pay for a crime they didn't commit in order to satisfy my emotional need for a closure that never comes. Perhaps my personal bias against some outsider would make me feel justified in having them put to death to sate my need for vengeance.<br /><br />It is really the opposite of how faith should motivate us. Faith puts the painful reality in God's hands even if human justice fails miserably: and it frequently does. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord." It is criminally selfish of us to seek scapegoats to relieve us of our personal pain. All we do is compound the misery by pulling someone else into the black hole of a heinous crime.<br /><br />As followers of Christ we should value justice, mercy, and kindness, even when seriously wronged. What good does it do to bring the legal hammer down on the innocent? It accomplishes nothing. Yet the Puritans did it. They brought a religious bias into the courtroom and became the new inquisitors, torturing and killing people Christ came to save.<br /><br />Christ himself was an outsider. And he paid dearly for it.<br /><br />He told us to clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, feed the hungry: that in so doing we were showing compassion to him. He is saying then that he identified with the outsider. The outsider is now in. He died as an outsider for the outsider. Yet it has been our lot in history to hate the outsider, round him up, put him in prison and even kill him. It makes me think we don't have a clue who Christ really was.<br /> </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-52714965767222813022007-12-21T05:19:00.000-06:002007-12-21T05:27:24.752-06:00Doing Greater Works Than Jesus<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidg0yGhayFKNbjhft07b3w9Xgy8kTIeV0_BjmXHqp9As4GLWhw__CSbP9cazWm3weGYpKmIxZel4ycJTb4L8KxaNuaKiXJKiw8svKTCJAR4ow9cZP1CCjGQw8YP4JxCcS4hugPJEHsjKA/s1600-h/miracles.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5146384482832248178" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidg0yGhayFKNbjhft07b3w9Xgy8kTIeV0_BjmXHqp9As4GLWhw__CSbP9cazWm3weGYpKmIxZel4ycJTb4L8KxaNuaKiXJKiw8svKTCJAR4ow9cZP1CCjGQw8YP4JxCcS4hugPJEHsjKA/s400/miracles.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><strong>John 14:12-14</strong> -<strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ya shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do [it].<br /></span></em></strong><br /><strong>Mat 17:20</strong> - <strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.<br /><br /></span></em>Mat 18:18</strong> - <strong><em><span style="color:#003300;">Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.<br /></span></em></strong><br />From a Tony Campolo piece on "Doing Greater Works":<br /><br /><span style="color:#000066;">I was in Haiti. I checked on our missionary work there. We run 75 small schools back in the hills of Haiti. I came to the little Holiday Inn where I always stay and shower and clean up before I board the plane to go home. I left the taxi and was walking to the entrance of the Holiday Inn when I was intercepted by three girls. I call them girls because the oldest could not have been more than 15. And the one in the middle said, "Mister, for $10 I’ll do anything you want me to do. I’ll do it all night long. Do you know what I mean?"<br />I did know what she meant. I turned to the next one and I said, "What about you, could I have you for $10?"<br />She said yes. I asked the same of the third girl. She tried to mask her contempt for me with a smile but it’s hard to look sexy when your 15 and hungry. I said, "I’m in room 210, you be up there in just 10 minutes. I have $30 and I’m going to pay for all 3 of you to be with me all night long."<br /><br />I rushed up to the room, called down to the concierge desk and I said I want every Walt Disney video that you’ve got in stock. I called down to the restaurant and said, do you still make banana splits in this town, because if you do I want banana splits with extra ice cream, extra everything. I want them delicious, I want them huge, I want four of them!<br /><br />The little girls came and the ice cream came and the videos came and we sat at the edge of the bed and we watched the videos and laughed until about one in the morning. That’s when the last of them fell asleep across the bed. And as I saw those little girls stretched out asleep on the bed, I thought to myself, nothing’s changed, nothing’s changed. Tomorrow they will be back on the streets selling their little bodies to dirty, filthy johns because there will always be dirty, filthy johns who for a few dollars will destroy little girls. Nothing’s changed. I didn’t know enough Creole to tell them about the salvation story, but the word of the spirit said this: but for one night, for one night you let them be little girls again.<br /><br />I know what you’re going to say: "You’re not going to compare that with Jesus walking on water." No, I’m not, for very obvious reasons. If Jesus was to make a decision which is the greater work, walking on water or giving one night of childhood back to 3 little girls who had it robbed from them -- giving one night of joy to 3 little girls that armies had marched over -- which do you think Jesus would consider the greater work, walking on water or ministering to those 3 little girls.<br /><br /></span>The Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Urban Studies Program at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. </div><div><br />My comment:<br />Dr. Campolo represents just one way of looking at the issue of doing greater works. There is a tension in this idea. For instance, there is a teaching that in the final days of the Gentile Age the church will again produce the miracles of Jesus, exactly as he performed them, and even greater (based largely on the scriptures above quoted).<br /><br />The word "greater" is a translation of the Greek word <strong><em>meizon</em></strong>, which basically means "higher quality." That is, Jesus is saying, "You will do <strong><em>better</em></strong> works than these."<br /><br />In John 8: 39, Jesus says, "Do the works of Abraham." Abraham did no miracles. "Works" means "deeds." <strong>Do the deeds of Abraham</strong>. Abraham's deeds were deeds of faith, like leaving the safety of Ur to obey God.<br /><br />Greater also means the "<strong>extended</strong>" work of the Spirit through the corporate Body of believers. We too participate in the work of the Father's business through the Spirit given to us. God works with us in our lives as we walk after the Spirit: sometimes miracles happen. They are interventions of all sorts.<br /><br />We can safely say that God has extended the work of Jesus through the church, and it has been a miraculous journey. We have not yet seen very many believers replicating the actual miracles of Jesus, and certainly no one doing verifiably greater or more astonishing things.<br /><br />What would happen if people did start doing those things again? Would it shake up the world? Perhaps.<br /><br />But Dr. Campolo brings up a worthy thought. Would doing those things be greater than simple acts of love, which are themselves miraculous in a world so lacking in compassion and kindness? Those girls in Haiti needed an orphanage.<br /><br />In James we read: "Pure religion...is caring for the widows and orphans...."<br /><br />Jesus was just one man, but through his Spirit he became many, a greater company called the church, extending his influence into all the world. It is the destiny of the church to love the world, just as he does.<br /> </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4975604481072470903.post-23555723039152388812007-12-19T18:14:00.000-06:002007-12-19T18:22:57.937-06:00Tweaking the Eschaton<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mmMmqs1W-BlupZoXqlTsnw4CKA7c8YzD10O3MfCjgJj7WOFvrUGfJSQi_KKxU-ww7sJa_ugJYfroDWHnHNuV02eC9BHfF8_Z6L-CgDY2E2EJOTOLwBjAbiPOzJ0P5Q2xeFJFracIMuQ/s1600-h/Brian.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145842165901716834" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9mmMmqs1W-BlupZoXqlTsnw4CKA7c8YzD10O3MfCjgJj7WOFvrUGfJSQi_KKxU-ww7sJa_ugJYfroDWHnHNuV02eC9BHfF8_Z6L-CgDY2E2EJOTOLwBjAbiPOzJ0P5Q2xeFJFracIMuQ/s320/Brian.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><strong><span style="color:#663366;">I'm just going to copy this straight out of Brian McLaren's new book Everything Must Change. This book may be the most challenging one this guy has written yet. Very thought provoking:<br /></span></strong><br /><span style="color:#330099;"><strong>"The phrase 'the second coming of Christ' never actually appears in the Bible. Whether or not the doctrine to which the phrase refers deserves rethinking, a popular abuse of it certainly needs to be named and rejected. If we believe that Jesus came in peace the first time, but that wasn't his 'real' and decisive coming ~ it was just a kind of warm-up for the real thing ~ then we envision a second coming that will be characterized by violence, killing, domination and eternal torture. This vision reflects a deconversion, a retrun to trust in the power of Pilate, refusing to fight. This eschatological understanding of</strong> <em><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">a violent second coming</span></strong></em> <strong>leads us to believe (as we've said before) that in the end, even God finds it impossible to fix the world apart from violence and coercion; no one should be surprised when those shaped by this theology behave accordingly.......<br /><br />".......This is why I believe that many of our current eschatologies, intoxicated by dubious interpretations of John's Apocalypse, are not only ignorant and wrong, but dangerous and immoral. By way of ignorance, they are oblivious to the conventions of Jewish apocalyptic literature in particular, and literature of the oppressed in general. As a result they wrongly ~ one might even say ridiculously ~ interpret obviously metaphorical language as literal."<br /></strong><em>Everything Must Change</em>, pgs. 144-145.<br /></span><br />McLaren is probably the most influential writer in what is called the "emergent" church, a term he says he hates. It is as if he has been given the task to define the direction of the post-modern church, or really the church in the now post-modern era.<br /><br />Anyone entering into the emergent conversation is in for a wild ride. This whole thing is a real shaking for the universal church which is used to certain conventions of thinking or what McLaren would call "framing narratives." A framing narrative is just a story we go by: a particular way of viewing the scriptures that defines our lives.<br /><br />I've been talking, in some of my blogs, about one of my favorite (no, obsessive) subjects,<strong>eschatology</strong> (the study of "last things" or the eschaton). I was spiritually raised in this version of Jesus he calls "ignorant and wrong." The view he is undboubtedly coming from is over in the zone we might call universalist / preterist. To Evangelical ears, this sounds radical, and to some devilish. For many it is tantamount to heresy.<br /><br />Still, I don't just like this guy, I love him. I don't know of another writer out there that upends my safe little world so much. So we'll be looking at this new book in later blogs, I'm sure.<br /><br />When I read words like those above from McLaren, I feel schizophrenic, like I have two personalities. One side of me resonates with what he's saying and the other is crying, "No, you can't take the second coming away from me." I have not a sufficient interpretational grid to process that with.<br /><br />The apocalyptic framing story McLaren is referring to is the picture inspired by Revelation of Jesus returning to earth with ten thousands of his saints to finish up the Middle East battle of Armageddon and reclaim the earth for the future kingdom of God. McLaren's framing story is the very different preterist version that says Jesus' return symbology refers to a past event and was tied in with the first Advent and the end of the age of Judaism.<br /><br />What intrigues me here is that he is saying, basically, our eschatology could use some tweaking and that we may be using these things irresponsibly. How do we then process all the biblical references to parousia, resurrection, harpazo, and the larger paradigm shift that Jesus inaugurated? Maybe we need another Nicene council: a meeting of diverse Christian minds to rethink the eschaton. </div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02203502247387203134noreply@blogger.com4