Tagged: theology RSS

  • Chad 3:01 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , theology,   

    Faith = Doubt 

    Without doubt, there can be no faith.

    Webster’s defines the word “Faith,” as follows:

    1a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1): fidelity to one’s promises (2): sincerity of intentions 2a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b(1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust 3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction ; especially : a system of religious beliefs

    I hadn’t looked up this definition when I started crafting this post in my head. I was hoping against hope that there would be something like the, “Firm belief in something for which there is no proof,” statement. I was immensely gratified to read it, as it props up my little thesis.

    Without doubt, there can be no faith.

    Near the very end of the last Gospel, in John chapter 20, we find the story of Doubting Thomas. Thomas was the Apostle who wasn’t buying the news that Jesus had been resurrected. He was rational, cool, and frankly, pretty well reasoned in his statements.

    “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

    Downright reasonable, if you ask me.

    A week later, Jesus shows up, and has Thomas go ahead and get a nice, long feel on those scars. Thomas falls to his knees and exclaims, ”My Lord and my God!” Jesus, being Jesus, has this awesome little zinger for him.

    “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

    I haven’t seen Jesus. I haven’t put my hands on his scars. I didn’t see Him forming the foundation of the earth. I don’t know how it will all shake out in an end times scenario. I am not certain that every Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Atheist, and Democrat will all burn in eternal damnation. I have a sneaking suspicion that God is greater and kinder than our little, offensive value judgements. I have also, in my darkest moments, been terrified that this whole Jesus thing is just a big sham, a human construct to give some meaning to our random, miniscule existence.

    But still … I believe.

    At the end of the day, I cannot shake the feeling loose that the words and teachings of this Jewish carpenter are not from this world. At the end of the day, I calculate my doubts, and I calculate the evidence, and realize that this equation will simply not balance out, and I take a deep breath, and make a choice to hold some things in a state of unresolved tension, and I simply… believe.

    Jesus of Nazareth, The Lion of Judah, the Alpha and Omega, said that I will be blessed in the presence of my fully reasonable doubts, for I am a man of faith.

     

    • Chad 3:05 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Perhaps I’ve made Baby Jesus cry with my post, as I cannot figure out why I cannot get paragraph breaks into my post.

      Perhaps Mike, the giver of every good and perfect HTML code, will fix it. I’m word-faithing here.

    • aly hawkins 4:53 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Great post, Chad. (And the fixer will have to be Mike—I took a look and couldn’t figure out how to help. I think you imported the formatting from Webster’s and it gunked up the works.)

      I think it was Anne Lamott who said, “The opposite of faith is not doubt; it is certainty.” Or it was Paul Tillich, but I’m pretty sure I get kicked off this blog if I quote Paul Tillich. Whoever it was is pretty smart.

    • Bobby 6:29 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      in HTML view get rid of those ridiculous , , , and tags (all of them in pairs) and you should be in luck.

      Also I think this post is brilliant.

    • Bobby 6:31 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      and as html is stripped out of the comments, what I am trying to say is the span, /span, div, and /div tags in pairs (brackets included).

      Mike you are welcome to delete this.

    • Chad 7:35 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Bobby, you might as well have been speaking Klingon. :)

      Thanks for your kind words, however.

    • michael lee 7:44 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Rule of thumb – don’t ever copy and paste from word.

    • Chad 7:45 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      I didn’t!

    • Chad 7:50 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Aaaaaah… blessed St. Michael.

    • michael lee 7:51 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Ninja edits completed.

      Aly, there’s nothing you could ever do to be kicked off of this blog. Even starting your own blog and putting all of your awesome writing over there doesn’t keep you from being first, last, and always a Roadie.

    • JC 8:25 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Chad: Thank you for speaking for so many of us. I am incapable of saying it that well and that succinctly, but you really captured it.

    • aly hawkins 8:50 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Aw, Michael. If Tillich can’t break us up, nothing can.

    • michael lee 11:00 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      Chad (and other person who are raising up litle tykes), how candid are you with your kids about doubts and gaps in your theology?

      I left a comment over at Aly’s blog that is pretty much on target with this:

      I’ve noticed in myself how much I want to shield my kids from my own process of doubt. Our daughter will ask things that, frankly, I used to have a ready answer for, and now no longer do. I often find myself reverting to the answers that the church has proclaimed for generations, even if it’s not where I am right at this moment.

      I guess I don’t know how to introduce young children into a faith woven through with doubt and questions. A huge part of me feels like my job is to introduce them to the “believe” part of it, and then be ready to help them walk into the “doubt” part of it when it comes into their own life later.

    • Chad 11:39 pm on 16 February 2009 Permalink

      I don’t bother them with things above their pay grade.

      Zion wants to know where God lives. That’s his new thing. We both keep telling him… “Well… He lives in Heaven, pal, but we don’t know exactly there that is!”

      That’s seemingly enough for him right now, in the given moment. I don’t think he’s really asking the question. He asks it in the same sentence as when he wants to know when his new Lightning McQueen car booster seat will arrive from the magical internet.

      We don’t know the answer to that one either. We just know that it’ll eventually show up, and we love him in the meantime.

      I refuse to make shit up… let’s put it that way.

    • Leonard 7:23 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      Thanks for the post Chad. For the record John doesn’t have 29 chapters. But then you probably know that and in your musical genius that is considered the bridge.

    • michael lee 8:04 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      He numbers the chapters using the Septuagint method, which broke John into 48 chapters, and also they called it “Ezekiel” instead of John.

      And it was about the exile instead of Jesus.

    • aly hawkins 8:06 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      Obviously, I don’t (yet?) have kids, but I’ve thought a lot about how I might talk about faith, doubt, theology, etc. to hypothetical children. One important factor in my considerations is how I was raised — what I would do differently, what was a good call. What worked and helped my faith to stick: the opportunity to put faith into practice by helping others. What I would change because it exacerbated later confusion: how Bible stories were presented. Instead of understanding that Scripture is one big Story in which all the characters are connected, I thought of it as a storybook with a bunch of isolated tales, like Grimm’s Gigantor Book of Completely Unconnected Fairy Tales. Too much of the teaching I was exposed to was based on the “and the moral of the story is…” model. Sure, individual stories from the Bible can be powerful teaching tools for character growth — but that’s not the point of Scripture.

      I actually have some ideas (surprise!) for how faith communities could do Sunday school differently. Why not structure biblical training around themes rather than individual stories? “Exodus” is a good one, as an example: God’s liberation of the Israelites from Egypt is, like, totally meta for the arc of Scripture — and very much in keeping with how Jewish families have taught and still teach their children about their Story.

    • Chad 8:14 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      Ack!

      John 20, verse 29. I’m not a math guy.

    • michael lee 8:17 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      I was very pleasantly surprised the other night when I was telling Sophia her “Brushing Story” (I tell her stories while I brush her hair at night). We talked about Moses and Aaron turning the Nile ‘red’ (yes, I do censor still). She picked up the story from there, and took Moses and his band of bitchy jews from the nile, through the Red Sea, to the law-giving, to the Battle of Jericho, and then jumped over Judges straight to David and Goliath.

      It wasn’t perfect, and parts were a little jumbled, but I was thrilled to hear her articulate something approaching your idea, Aly, of the big story, rather than the small stories. I don’t know how her mind is processing all of those things, but I hope that it is, “God is doing a big thing that involves the lives of lots of people over a long time.”

      Also, did I mention that she’s 3 1/2, and a Freeking Genius™?

    • Leonard 9:16 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      see the difference between our kids faith at that age and our faith at this age is they are not struggling with doubt.

    • Chad 9:24 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      Yeah… I’m with Leonard, with the exception of his obvious legalism when it comes to how many actual chapters there are per book of the Bible. Go back to Kansas, ya fundie!

      Ok… so not really.

      I’m with Leonard in that I don’t think it’s necessary to plant doubt. Doubt will take care of itself. I guess I just want to be able to look back and be somewhat certain that we didn’t feel the need to cover over some of the blemishes and sharper edges of a life of faith.

      I think this will be important for my kids, as well. I don’t want them going back and saying, “But you told me…” and me having to say, “Well, we really didn’t mean it, but we did it for your own good…”

      I think that sorta thing is destructive.

    • Leonard 9:39 am on 17 February 2009 Permalink

      I found when I tell it like it is true, my kids do better with the gaps than when I pass on my own uncertainty. When they were little we simply told it as though it were 100% true. Now they are teens and the gaps to not shake them.

      This does not mean hiding the gaps but simply saying …”I have no idea how this works” but I believe it does… For me doubt is an emotion and faith is an action, often times in the face of that emotion.

      On the legalism charge:I did go to LABC which became liberal when John MacArthur came on board and changed it to Masters. So as I sign out… I bless you in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son and the other guy… (don;t want to become a charismatic)

    • Chad 10:19 am on 18 February 2009 Permalink

      Editors note:

      After thinking about it, I decided to go back and correct the Scripture reference. I like my little post, so the idea of having such a silly error living on the intertubes for all eternity was eating at me.

    • michael lee 10:20 am on 18 February 2009 Permalink

      Always the authors prerogative.

    • Anthony 4:42 pm on 18 February 2009 Permalink

      My heart is warmed when I hear that parents are wrestling with how they pass on the stories of their faith.

      and… I’ll stop there before I say something that upsets the almighty Chad and his molten words of fury.

    • Chad 4:58 pm on 18 February 2009 Permalink

      No! Not gonna happen. Chad’s in a much better place now.

    • Leonard 6:43 am on 19 February 2009 Permalink

      Chad, in all seriousness I want to say thanks for caring about this stuff. Your kids are already better off to have a parent who chooses faith over doubt.

      Nothing I have ever done requires more faith than parenting does and yet nothing I do is more filled with doubt. My kids are now 13 and 15 and nothing good in their lives has happened on accident. It is what we do on purpose that causes our kids to thrive.

      One piece that has been essential in our home is affirmation. This has been used by God as the primary door to faith in our kids. But along with than that, it has been used by God to help our kids become confident, it has helped us keep open doors for the other forms of communication, it had made our home a joy to be within.

      Affirmation is simply letting other people know you are glad to be in their life and glad they are in yours touch and by telling them and showing them why. My kids have heard this phrase from me about a million times…

      I Love Being Your Dad! They believe it and that is huge in how they handle uncertainty. Not trying to get all preachy, sorry about that.

      Thanks again for the honesty you portrayed in this post. God’s best to you today.

  • Chad 5:00 pm on 7 January 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , theology   

    Signal Chain :: Thoughts on Songwriting 

    I’ve posted my second little essay on our opening tune.  This one’s all thinky and stuff.  

    I don’t know if I’ll be linking all of them from Addison, so keep checking at The Dailies website.

     

  • michael 10:56 pm on 23 September 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: cross, , , theology   

    Theology 101 

    My daughter, to me, while I brushed her hair tonight. “Daddy, why did God make Jesus die on the cross?” How do you even begin to answer that? “Well you see honey, the penal substitutional theory states that …”

     

    • James 1:15 am on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Wow… While that would be hard, what a blessing that is. Children are so curious about so many things, and will pretty much believe whatever you tell them… So for your daughter to be showing a genuine curiosity in her salvation is great. And for her to ask YOU is even more special…

      I mean come on, who else would trust YOUR account of anything involving God? :P

      But really Mike, that’s great :)

    • Chad 7:50 am on 24 September 2008 Permalink

    • michael lee 8:15 am on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Yeah, I was wondering how long until you pimped out that song on this post.

    • Chad 8:50 am on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      It took me approximately zero seconds, give or take zero seconds.

      In all seriousness…

      I am in a process of unpacking and rebuilding the faith of my childhood, which I realized I had never owned as an adult. The prospect of attempting to lead my kids from childhood faith to authentic adult faith without all the struggle that I’m having… pretty much scares the hell out of me.

    • Chad 9:45 am on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Ack, I renounce my link! I can’t listen to the unmixed tracks anymore!

    • Anthony 11:08 am on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Want a real answer?
      The first step I teach parents to take in answering BIG questions with children is figuring out why they’re asking and where they’re coming from.

      She’s probably asking you this question because she’s in the process of developing her own theology of the cross… she, most likely, already has thoughts about why Jesus died on the cross – figuring out where she’s already solid will help you speak into the areas of her child-like faith that need the most help right now and will later develop into full-blown doctrine and convictions.

      As someone who ministers to kids, I’m stoked to read that she’s going to you with those questions… how exciting! Parents are ridiculously important in developing firm foundations.

    • sharolyn 12:09 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Mike, thanks for sharing. Yesterday my daughter asked, “Did God create himself?” It’s nice to know we’re all sometimes deer-in-the-headlights together.

    • Chad 1:17 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Anthony -

      I have to ask 2 questions, I’m sorry. Do you have kids? Did you grow up in church?

      For me… I am in full blown rebellion against using felt board style education of my kids when it comes to the Bible. I’m not saying that you’re proposing that, I’m just telling you where I’m coming from.

      The reason I ask about growing up in church is this… I want to know how you, personally, transitioned from a childish (not childlike, but childish) faith into an adult faith. I’ve struggled mightily with it. I went right from APU to my first church job, and fast forward eight years, and all of a sudden I find myself asking… “Have I been believing this all along because it’s part of my social structure? What the hell do I actually believe?”

      Part of my skepticism about Christian education is that it does not encourage true questioning of Scripture, (an idea which is fundamentally unbiblical, ironically – see 1 Thessalonians 5:21) trusting that the truth will remain… ahem… true. Instead, we’re indoctrinated, forced to repeat doctrinal statements until they, quite literally, become meaningless. We are punished, subtly and insidiously, for asking real questions. Doubters and testers are marginalized within the evangelical paradigm. Don’t believe me? Try it. Raise a question about substitutionary atonement at your next staff meeting and see how it goes.

      This is not transformation of the heart, it’s mental conditioning, and social bullying, all allegedly done in Jesus’ name.

      Horseshit, I say.

      The reason I wrote that song is that I absolutely refuse to spoon-feed my kids simplistic answers about faith. Simplistic answers are for Santa Clause. I’m looking to raise adults.

      Again… I’m not intending to imply anything that you’ve said is simplistic. I guess I’m just keying off of your, “You want a real answer…” statement. Also, your picture makes you look young, (sigh… I wish I was young) and I confess openly that I may be biased because of that. I will attempt, like Paul said to Timothy, not to let myself judge you because of your youth. :)

      There’s nothing more dangerous than an ex-pastor, huh?

    • Chad 1:50 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Anthony – Just want to reiterate, again, that my comments are not meant to flame you or harass you. This happens to be a topic on which – as we can now all see – I have been really chewing on for the past 15 months, trying to sort it through.

    • Anthony 3:02 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Chad, thanks for your input.
      Here goes a reply -

      To be honest, what you wrote is making my hands shake as I type this. For years, I’ve really enjoyed your posts. I dig your music. And the stories you share have me rooting for you as a fellow traveler who wrestles with the heavy stuff instead of just putting your head in the sand.

      Now I feel like you just spit in my face and just happened to have some crazy-hot salsa in your mouth at the time.

      For clarification:

      I was asking if Mike wanted input or if he was just sharing a cool story.
      Then, I assumed he wanted input and dove in.

      I was in no way referring to anything posted in the comments above mine.
      Honestly, I jumped in without reading them.
      Sorry.

      I do have a son. And, as you noticed, the picture I have online is four years old – at least… but I like it and it’s staying.

      I often think that many of the things we do at church when it comes to “Christian education” is bull… so thanks for giving me a head’s up that I’m not alone.

      I’m simply a guy who grew up in a broken home, came to faith later in my teens, pursued a degree in theology and took on the mission of changing what I perceive to be a broken system (the church-at-large) and do my best to fix it with those in the church most willing to listen – our kids.

      I had no idea that the couple suggestions I had would be taken in the negative. I firmly believe in parents talking through issues of faith with their children. It’s a huge value of mine and of the children’s ministry department at my church.

      Again, I am sorry my comments were offensive.
      Go Dodgers! (does that help?)

    • Chad 3:12 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Dude…

      I’m so sorry. I tried to soften myself… :(

      I’m terribly jealous of people who come to faith from the outside. I wish that had been my story. I envy the perspective you have. I have no point of reference outside of “The Christian Worldview.” I have nothing to reflect on when everything seems like bullshit, thinking… “Well, at least I remember what it was like when I was walking in darkness.” This point is totally lost on most Christians.

      I’m really glad to hear what you just shared, glad to hear that you have a son. That lends all kinds of gravity to what you say, for me personally. I get really weirded out when people who don’t have kids start talking about how to teach kids. It’s perhaps an unfair prejudice, but it’s there nonetheless.

      Ack…

      Sorry again, dude. I feel badly. This topic is my own personal load of turd this year. I really feel lame for unloading it on you. Please accept my apologies.

    • Chad 3:21 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      June! Get in here and be mean, so I don’t feel so bad…

    • PortcullisChain 4:20 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Chad,
      I can just insult Mike to change the topic and make the weirdness between you and Anthony go away. I seem to have a knack for that. It can be anything from personal to something like……Angels lick sweaty Dodger jockey shorts. Let me know.
      -PC

    • michael lee 4:45 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      PC, your very presence here is an insult.

    • PortcullisChain 4:47 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Yes!!!! I have succeeded.
      -PC

    • Chad 5:01 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

    • michael lee 5:42 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      “In this city, the Dodgers will have it all.

      Except the better team.”

      I think that pretty much says it all.

    • michael lee 5:42 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      And also, there’s a thread for this, you know.

    • Leonard 7:20 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Chad, Sometimes the simple answers suck. I am one of those guys who grew up in the church but managed to figure out that I indeed had to have my own faith and my own friendship with Christ. I would love to dialog sometime about this stuff and if you hate what I say you can say… I am full of shit and I promise to not say screw you.

      My brother nearly did not make it out of the faith we had as kids and it was not until he was 30 that he found that the Jesus he spent so many years running from was different than the one we knew as kids. My sister survived it because she is a genuinely good person whose ability to trust God was not dependent upon her understanding but on her faith in spite of not understanding. Me, I think my survival came from my brokenness.

      Hit me up some time if you wish and if not, that’s okay too.
      leoskeo@comcast.net

    • june 7:26 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      Anthony,
      At least you felt bad and got scared of Chad…he can talk the pants off of anyone! I got scared and shaky and all upset by a comment from an unseen college student that I don’t even know! (And the even meaner comment from yet another unseen and unknown one. They all hate me. Mike likes that they hate me. Anything so that they don’t hate him.)

      Very cool that you took it upon yourself to study theology and work with kids at church. Very cool indeed.

      So, the Dodgers are some kind of sporting team, yes?

    • sharolyn 9:34 pm on 24 September 2008 Permalink

      I love June.

    • Christopher 5:48 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      You could be honest and tell her that according to that religion, its because that God is an evil God who use to accept human sacrafices before Jesus, that God’s son, was sent to Earth in order to be the final human sacrifice to repent for the sins of man-kind, which in all technical situations did nothing but symbolize that Yahweh/Jehovah was just tired of killing humans and in general just felt like killing one last thing, it just so happened that Jesus was the one who wanted to take up that task.

      Basically just explain to her that current religion is evil represented as good.

    • Christopher 5:58 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Wow you can tell its early in the morning because my grammar is terrible.

      Let me try that again so that it can be understood clearly.

      Basically, tell her the truth that Yahweh/Jehovah use to accept human death as a way to make up for our imperfection, which he/she/it created us to be. Then one day he got tired of accepting human sacrifices as a way to deal with how imperfect we were so he began making this plan in heaven to have a final grand death, and his son Jesus said….”I’ll do it.” and so in a nutshell Jesus gave his life to make up for both the imperfection of mankind and his father, Yahweh/Jehovah.

      Basically our God is a douchebag.

    • PortcullisChain 6:16 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      your grammar and your theology.
      -PC

    • Leonard 7:06 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Thanks Christopher, now we don’t need to read our bibles any more. Do you know how much time that will save us? On average 2-3 minutes a day. Sweet, what will I do with all that extra time. I know, I will blog.

    • Chad 8:01 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Christopher -

      Have you ever really, really tried to atone for something? I mean, really attempted to make up for your past, and make things right?

      I am closing in on 100 pounds of weight loss after about 2 1/2 years of lifestyle change. I sweat, bleed, and suffer in an attempt to rectify nearly 20 years of bad choices, laziness, and what I feel is sin.

      It may sound cheesy, but I have a whole new appreciation of what is actually required to atone for my sins. Free will means we have choices, and that we are free to make terrible choices. Our “douchebag” god allows free will and choices because He is, according to you, a complete schmuck, right?

      I, for one, have a growing and profound gratitude for the theology of Jesus’ death and resurrection, even as I make further and further strides to become righteous and deal with my own shit. If you read above, I have plenty of problems with Christianity right now, particularly the evangelical branch into which I was raised, but I gotta tell you that you sound like you have zero perspective on your own humanity.

      Wanna go to pilates with me this morning, and learn a little bit about suffering?

    • michael lee 8:25 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Behold the Chad of God, who sweateth away the sins of the world.

    • Christopher 10:51 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Free Will is an illusion, you do realize that according to every religion God is perfect, is all, is the past, is the future and writes every second of our life…being “God” means being the creator of everything. Free Will, if anything, means that it’ll take us LONGER to obtain harmony which is the balance of everything….the co-existance of all beings and all attitudes being Good, Evil or Neutral.

      I have respect for religion, I do not have respect for Yahweh, other than the fact that he supposedly is the one who created the universe in 7 days (which translates into 7 stages but can be seen as days in the eyes of a creator God that does not live on Earth and thus measures times differently) I have a TON of respect for Jesus, forgive and forget are two of the easiest way to co-exist. I even have respect for Lucifer because he is the one that technically showed us free will because according to the book of Genesis when we knew nothing about Good and Evil we simply were slaves to anything and everything that God presented to us. It was when Satan had a conversation with Eve and in turn Eve having a conversation with Adam that we gained this “Free Will.” I just am not ignorant to the facts that are before our eyes.

      All of my statements are based off of my disagreement with the Catholic religion because those are the ones who hold the most sway in the world, in a world for that matter which is disgusting. I am looking for the right religion, because ours has led us to judgment, stereotyping, to materialistic attitudes, to “holy war”, to Sarah Palin saying God sent us to Iraq and the list can go on and on.

      If you want to know suffering, have the best intent in the world and be ignored by the world. Emotional Pain hurts a lot more than Physical Pain because you realize that no one truly cares and that the world continues to get worse because those who control all of this shit spread it out over such a longer period of time you can only focus on the now.

    • michael lee 11:12 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      So, is free will an illusion, or is it something real that was taught to us by Lucifer? Is it an illusion, or do we have the capacity to choose to forgive a past wrong? It can’t be both.

      Also, isn’t this like the 12th time this month that we’ve gone round and round with someone on the issue of free-will? Since when did Addison Road become a hotbed of ant-determinist radicalism?

    • Daniel Semsen 11:59 am on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Wow.

      I love this place.

      Oh! and June–the Dodgers ARE a sporting team. I know because I’ve been to their sporting arena thingy…but only once…aaaaaand I don’t really think I’ll ever need to go back. I mean, you’ve seen one basketball game, you’ve seen ‘em all, right??!!?!

    • Chad 12:08 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Christopher -

      First of all, I am no Catholic apologist, except in perhaps the case of.. ahem.. sweeping and unsubstantiated generalizations.

      Second of all, your last paragraph speaks to a terribly bleak worldview. I’m very sorry if you really believe this is the case. I know a lot of people, of all stripes, who genuinely care for one another, and for strangers. I know people who went down and adopted families from New Orleans after Katrina, bringing strangers into their homes, providing shelter and money for people with whom they shared no common history. I know a group of guys who are using their training for the Iron Man to raise money to build a hospital in a remote section of Uganda.

      Nihilism swiftly implodes in the face of unexplainable, unjustified grace and goodness.

      You totally ignored my question, by the way, which is when was the last time you actually made an attempt to atone for something that you identified as wrong in your own life? Not something that The Man did to you. Not something that “All The People who Control This Shit,” did to you, but something you did to yourself. When was the last time you addressed the contents of your own soul and took a serious and fearless moral inventory? I’m not doing the typical Christian horseshit, here. I’m asking when you, according to your own internal values, actually took a look at yourself and tried to measure where you are vs. where you’d like to be?

      Or, since we have no free will, are you unaccountable for the contents of your own soul? Is that what you’re suggesting? If that’s the case, our conversation is over. If no one’s accountable, even to themselves, then what’s the point?

    • Chad 12:11 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Oh, and if you think that physical and emotional suffering are two different things, wholly disconnected from one another, then we’re really off the rez, pal.

    • Chad 12:23 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Sorry… I have to say one more thing:

      “I even have respect for Lucifer because he is the one that technically showed us free will because according to the book of Genesis when we knew nothing about Good and Evil we simply were slaves to anything and everything that God presented to us.”

      Now, I get in trouble with Christians sometimes, as I have a sneaking suspicion that the first 12 chapters of Genesis are poetical renderings of God’s truth, but I have to push back on this one.

      There is no foundation for the idea that Adam and Eve were slaves, at least according to Genesis. I’d very much like for you to point to the passage you are talking about. If Adam and Eve were mindless slaves, then they would have been incapable of identifying temptation in the first place. There’s a difference between wide-eyed innocence and slavery.

      My children are young, and they are under my authority, but I guaran-damn-tee you that they are not my slaves. They are innocent, and not yet fully informed about the world. My 2 year old son still asks me, “Why Daddy,” when I insist that he look both ways before entering a parking lot, because in his 30 month old brain, the connection has not yet been made that getting hit by a 3,000 pound automobile traveling at 25-30 miles per hour would not go well for him.

      That doesn’t make him stupid, or a slave, it just makes him a toddler.

    • michael lee 12:33 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      I’ll hit that same point – it wasn’t Lucifer who informed Adam and Eve of their free will. The tree is called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil not because eating the fruit conferred that knowledge. The mere existence of the tree established the possibility of sin, the possibility of choosing the other. When it was created, and when God instructed Adam and Eve not to eat from it, that was the moment at which they gained the knowledge of good and evil, when they became aware of their own freedom to choose.

      Free will is God’s gift to humanity: he breathed it into us in imitation of his own image, he made us aware of it with the planting of the tree, he tutored us in the right use of it when he gave the law, he redeemed our abuse it with the death of his son, and he sealed our eternal possession of it with the resurrection.

    • Chad 12:33 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Aaaack…

      Christopher, I’m sorry that I sound so hostile. I really like this debate, and I hope you’ll forgive me for my intensity, and BTW thanks Anthony for your kind email.

      I apologize if my comments sound like personal attacks. I choose to use my free will to repent and tell you that I value your thoughts. You seem like someone who’s really wrestling with the big stuff, and I’m way into that. I owe you a beer, k?

    • Christopher 12:34 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Michael you’re right, I did contradict myself and won’t get into the subject of Free-Will since its been discussed lately.

      To answer your question, Chad, I would like to think that I look inward everyday and that is where many of these points of view of what God is, what virtue is and where the stories of the bible meet the realty of our everyday life. However, I atone through what I believe is Karma, the way the universe chooses to treat me in return for being a person with good will intentions to find a way to make up for our current everyday social mistakes as a whole.

      My arguments have been off of my point of view of the bible and how i’ve seen it in correlation to how things are done now a days.

      This just showed me to keep my mouth shut on religion because too many people base a lot of their values off of it while I am a person who was raised without religion and find that life can be explained as well as lived virtuously without the presence and worship of a God but rather the belief in a higher power and the hope for a friendship with that power.

    • Chad 12:46 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Christopher -

      I hope you’ll keep your mouth wide open. We need, I need, to be challenged, and provoked. A frightening number of Christians I know strike me as horrifyingly complacent, content in their “Correctness,” and are unable to answer anything resembling a difficult question. I’ve learned more from folks like you in the past few years, and sharpened my own thinking because of it, then I have from most pastors I know.

      And… damn… do I know a lot of pastors.

    • Anthony 2:29 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Chris,
      Though he may seem like a fire-breathing dragon, Chad usually has good intentions when he pushes back on ideas.
      Unless you like WALL-E… in which case Chad will roast you.

      Keep asking questions.
      The church is nothing if it can’t learn to listen.

    • Daniel Semsen 3:08 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Ooo! New topic for this thread:

      Wall-E sucks.

    • Chad 3:15 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Well…

      Like 4 minutes of Wall-E sucked. The rest was pretty unbelievable. The Angels… now they suck.

    • sharolyn 4:25 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Wow, Mike. I have to read that a few more times. You just described predestination (God planning the tree), free will (God planting the tree, for Adam and Eve/humanity), and the Gospel (the next several chapters about the tree) in two paragraphs.

    • michael lee 5:03 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Well, if thousands of hours of graduate work in theology can’t help me answer my daughter, at least it can help me make pithy internet blog comments!

    • Leonard 5:27 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Chad, sorry for the brand of pastors you have met. I know several like you describe but most of the ones I know now are as real as it gets. Christopher, not trying to pile on but so many of your theories on how God is and how life works fall apart when you to some place like India where the stench of death coming from Hinduism and Islam make what is seen in Christianity pale.

      I just returned from India Friday night, my second trip there and the “spiritual darkness” that hovers over the whole country is enough to make a person cry. If the world as we know it is counting on Karma, the world as we know it is screwed.

    • Christopher 9:03 pm on 25 September 2008 Permalink

      Eh i’m not really scared or worried about what anyone says, in fact its the lack of fear now to express how i’m feeling that will develop the truth that I look for.

      Honestly Michael I feel that the best thing you could tell her is that he died on the cross to make her world better because no matter if it was to repent for sins, appease a God through human sacrifice or just to remove a threat of a man who was willing to stand up for truth and always forgive and forget it still remains the same….he was killed for her, for you and for all of us. I am not a Christian, but I do believe in Heaven, Hell, Jesus, Lucifer, Satan and the whole nine…in fact I believe everything that can be thought exists in its own universe, planet, brain cell or whatever and that no matter if it is tangible its message is there for a reason.

      Everything happens for a reason.

    • Mabel 6:30 pm on 26 September 2008 Permalink

      Mike….maybe she was just asking, “Why did God MAKE Jesus die on the cross?” The simple answer is of course, he didn’t make him, he let him, or Jesus wanted to. Give short, true answers that leave her free to ask the next question–not long tedious ones that make her sorry she asked.. She may have been questioning relationship boudaries (how powerful are fathers?), or just ordering the information in her mind.
      “I know this, this, this, why this? then this, this, this.”
      Answer the direct question from the child, not the thesis–she will remember the moment more than the answer.

      I really like all of you, but sometimes….sometimes I wonder.
      Do I dare say, JOY first, theory second?

    • Eric 2:10 pm on 30 September 2008 Permalink

      Chad,

      I just want to thank you for your comments on atonement. I came to my faith (again) from the inside, and I’m still wrestling. Probably always will.

      Eric

  • michael 10:43 am on 8 December 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , exegesis, , , , , mark, theology   

    The Christmas Stories: Mark 

    From Rome, 20 years or so after the ascension of Christ, Mark set ink to paper and began to write down the stories of Jesus’ life, as told and retold by the apostles and evangelists. Relying on the conversations that he had with Peter, as well as on some already existing written and oral records of Christ’s years of ministry, Mark’s gospel holds the distinction of being the first written (… probably).

    Mark leaves things out of his gospel that we would expect to see in there. It’s the shortest of the canonical gospels, and reading it leaves you with the sense that it’s more like a companion book than an exhaustive biography.p52 For example, in the most reliable manuscripts, the resurrection account in Mark gets 8 verses, and we see only the angel announcing his resurrection to three of the women among Jesus’ disciples. Huge portions of what we would think of as essential teaching material get left out.

    The church that Mark is writing to is a story-telling group. Most of the local gatherings in cities throughout the empire have direct connections to one of the apostles, and would have received their knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus directly from the stories told by the men and women who walked with him. Mark seems to be writing his gospel as a supplement to this tradition of story-telling, as if to say, “You know the stories about Jesus and what he taught us, but here are some of the details that you may not have heard.” In particular, Mark seems to be interested in providing some of the political context for Jesus’ crucifixion.

    In keeping with the character of the rest of his book, Mark’s Christmas story is brief. He doesn’t talk about the virgin birth, or Bethlehem, shepherds, or wise men. For Mark, the Advent is a much older story. His gospel is simply this, “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came as the Messianic heir of the God’s covenant with Israel”. Here’s how he writes it:

    “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

    ‘Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his pathway straight.”’”

    Setting aside the theological weight of the gospels for just a second, I am frequently struck by how good these guy were as authors, as word-smiths. Mark does two things in the opening of his gospel that are just plain good writing.

    First, Mark uses a very cool turn of phrase in the first line. The closest parallel might be the famous JFK line, “Ask not what your country can do for you.” In JFK’s speech, the word “not” hangs in our ear, because it’s a swinging modifier. It might belong to “ask”, or it might belong to “what”.

    ask_not.mp3

    In Mark’s opening, the phrase “gospel of Jesus Christ” places both the words “gospel” and “Jesus Christ” in genitive, a case in Greek that is kind of like our possessive apostrophe “s”, but not quite. So, the result is a phrase where both “gospel” and “Jesus Christ” are swinging modifiers, and the reader isn’t sure if the phrase is “This is the gospel that Jesus brings”, or “This is the gospel about Jesus.” Mark probably intends both (called a plenary genitive), something we don’t have good tools to do in English. We might read it as something like this, “This is the good news that Jesus told us about himself.”

    It’s clunky in English, but in the Greek it’s elegant, it’s poetic, and it’s deeply theological. For Mark, Jesus is both the source, and the demonstration, of the new truth of God’s covenant with his people.

    The second literary technique that Mark uses is this: he sets up a massive historical parallel. The angel of God prepares the way for the nation of Israel to come out of Egypt, travel under the waters of the Red Sea, through the desert, into the covenant kingdom (the Old Testament quotes). John the Baptist prepares the way for the people of Israel to, again, leave their old country behind, be baptized in the Jordan, brought through the desert, and into … and then Mark introduces Jesus. All of the weight of the Old Testament covenant language, that Mark is dredging up with his quotes, comes to rest on the appearance of Jesus in the story.

    Mark’s Christmas story, his Advent, is the coming of the hero into the old, old story.

     

    • Gretchen 11:04 pm on 8 December 2006 Permalink

      And you thought you’d never use your Theology degree…

      Thanks for this lesson Mike. It’s good to visit “old” passages and stories with new insight, especially at this time of year, when our attitude can easily turn to “yeah, been there, heard that before, so what’s new”.

      I think music can do this for us too, hearing a new perspective on a known idea or story, and being awakened to its truth again.

  • michael 10:20 pm on 10 September 2006 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ajax, , , ebible, , , , theology,   

    ebible 

    I’ve been poking around ebible.com for a while now as a beta user. Now, it has finally gone live. Highly recommended!

    picture-2.png

     

    • aly hawkins 10:37 pm on 10 September 2006 Permalink

      I like eBible, but I’m still stuck on Biblegateway for some weird reason. Old habits die hard. (But I also find the tab “use the Bible” mildly disturbing, even tho I of course do use the Bible.)

    • Zack 11:49 pm on 10 September 2006 Permalink

      I totally thought that said “Edible”. And because I’m totally starving right now, I am kinda pissed that it says “Ebible”.

      Just so you know.

    • Morphea 8:20 am on 11 September 2006 Permalink

      I know – I was reading “Edible” and wondering what in hell those Japanese techs had gotten up to this time.

      Cerise

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