Caption Contest 2011.14

The Reformation Polka

In celebration of Reformation Sunday! (A repost from 2009)

A Prayer for Reformation Sunday

Lord God of hosts, the Refuge of every sinner and the Strength of all who put their trust in you, we praise you for having made us partakers of the blessings of the Reformation. Without any merit on our part, you have sent your Holy Spirit into our hearts and brought us to faith in your dear Son, Jesus Christ. You have made known to us the worthlessness of our own good deeds and the perfect merit of Christ. You have directed our faith away from the commandments of men and cause us to rest our hope only and solely on the exceedingly great and precious promises of your Gospel. You have revealed the beauty of your grace, which rescued us from a just condemnation and assured us of certain salvation in Christ. Grant us your grace that we may receive your forgiveness with thanksgiving and reflect your mercy in thanks-living. Use us as your witnesses in bringing the message of pardon in Christ to our fellow men everywhere. Open our eyes to a better understanding of your Word and a deeper appreciation of your grace that our faith in Christ Jesus may grow and flourish with the fruits of righteous living. Grant purity of doctrine and practice to you. Amen.

May Our Children Show Us Mercy

Yes, indeed... considering that some refuse to cut defense spending and others refuse to entertain entitlement reform and others who support endless "wars" and others who desire to send deficit spending through the roof for health care "reform," while all we want is more spending for US so we can pass a massive deficit on to THEM... our children will need to show us mercy since they are now footing the bill for the current generations and there may very well be nothing left for them when they retire. Shame on US and may THEY show us mercy.

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

Dan Pezet: Nine Suggestions for Cultivating Volunteers

Shane Raynor: Self-Control

Greg Hazelrig: Thought of the Day

Jody Neufeld: Life Isn't Fair!

Bishop J. Michael Lowry: Loss and Opportunity

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction 2011.15: Apparently Eight Foot LEGO Men Can Swim

By Mike Krumboltz, Yahoo! Buzz Log

We've heard of people finding messages in bottles on the beach, but how about an 8-foot-tall LEGO figure?

We first saw the news over at BoingBoing. Apparently a man was out walking on the beach near lovely Siesta Key in Florida, when he came across "something" laying in the surf a ways away. He went to investigate, and what do you know -- it was a giant LEGO man. On its torso was a message, reading "No Real Than You Are." Yeah, we don't get it either.

Nobody (at least nobody official) is sure why the plastic figure showed up on the shore. We spoke to Amanda Santoro, Assistant Brand Relations Manager at LEGO. She declined comment but did say that the "stunt" was "in no way endorsed or sponsored by the LEGO Group or its affiliates."

OK, so does that mean somebody stole a giant LEGO figure and planted it on the beach? Well, maybe. Believe it or not, this sort of thing has happened before. Several years back, a giant LEGO man washed up in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort. That same figure (or perhaps a twin) also appeared at a Brighton beach in the U.K.

Is this the same LEGO man? Did it really cross the ocean by itself? Or was it placed there by a jokester? No way to know. For now, though, check out the video below of people marveling at the discovery. Staged or not, it must have been an odd way to start the morning.

Video: Eight Foot LEGO Man Washes Ashore!

McDonald's McRib Sandwich, the Barbecue Police, and Preference Driven Churches

The McRib sandwich is back at McDonald's for a limited time. Over the years this combination of pork pieces fashioned in the shape of four ribs, slathered with barbecue sauce, topped with onions and pickles on an elongated bun has developed a real cult following. There's even a website tracking where the McRib can be currently purchased across the USA and Canada. McDonald's has brilliantly marketed this sandwich over the years in not making it available all the time so that McRib devotees will get their fill while the sandwich is available.

Now anyone who knows real barbecue knows that the McRib is not barbecue in the true sense. Barbecue is cooked slowly and then there's the whole debate over whether beef or pork make for better barbecue. What I find fascinating is not only the large number of McRib faithful out there, but also the many McRib detractors. I'm not talking about the people who have eaten the McRib and don't care for the taste; I'm referring to the ones who think some great evil has been done in the creation of the sandwich itself. One person started a blog entitled "Retire the McRib" where he states, "Banish the McRib forever. It's is sacrilege against the real barbecue deities and authentic, slow-smoked, flavorful racks of ribs. Real ribs have bones not patty formations designed to emulate them." Of course, this blogger hasn't posted in about a year, so I suppose there's only so much that can be said about the McRib as an abomination of desolation. Catherine Hamm writes in a recent editorial for the LA Times, "McDonald's McRib is to barbecue as Hannibal Lecter is to psychiatry. This piece of pork smeared with some abomination of sauce has achieved a cult following for reasons I can't understand."

What Is Heresy? #5

Is There An "Essence" of Heresy?

We return to our series on heresy drawing from Alister McGrath's book, Heresy: A History of Defending the Truth. In chapter 5, McGrath deals with the question, Is there an "essence" of heresy?

Having already argued that heresy is something that arises from within the church, rather than as something that comes from the outside, McGrath takes issue with those scholars, such as Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels, who suggest that heresies were the first orthodoxies that were supplanted by ecclesiastical authorities because "orthodoxies" challenged the power of those authorities. McGrath rightly points out that such a perspective is difficult to maintain historically. McGrath argues that heresies are marginalized not because they threaten the powers that be, but rather that such marginalization is the result  of an "emerging consensus within the church that they are inadequate" (p. 82). Heresy is heretical because its ideas, its doctrines, threaten to destroy the essential character of Christianity.

It should be stated, at this point, that the Christians who promoted their doctrines that would ultimately be declared as heretical were not attempting to destroy the Christian faith. Indeed, they often believed they were offering an orthodox vision that was superior to the current orthodox position. So, this was not a matter of good vs. evil or orthodox saints in conflict with heretical sinners. The orthodox/heresy question centers around what is true and what promotes the faith as once for all delivered to the saints, as opposed to what ideas will ultimately destroy that faith. It must be said again that we would not know orthodoxy had some not promoted what would become heresy.

A Prayer for Worship

Almighty God, your Son has shown us how to love one another. May our love for you overflow into joyous service and be a healing witness to our neighbors through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let's Deck the Halls!-- in February...

... that's what Ike Brannon and Tristan Brady suggest, and for a reason in keeping with the original date of the celebration itself-- mission.

They note that the current date on which we celebrate Christmas (December 25) was chosen simply to "co-opt the pagan Europeans" for whom the Winter Solstice was a high holy day. By celebrating the birth of the Son of God on the same day in which pagans observed the birth of the sun, an opportunity for evangelism was... pardon the pun... born. And moving the date would do no harm to what we have in the biblical record since no specific date for Jesus' birth is given. Some scholars have even suggested that from what we read in the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, Jesus may have been born in early spring.

But why should we move the yuletide celebration to early February? Well, it's all very simple-- the Chinese New Year is in February.

There's No Such Thing as Kingdom Work Outside the Church

From an interview with Scot McKnight published in the Associated Baptist Press:

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"In our country, the younger generation is becoming obsessed with social justice," including through government opportunities, politics and voting, said McKnight, author of The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others. "What it's doing is leading young Christians out of the church and into the public sector to do what they call ‘kingdom work."

"I want to raise a red flag here: There is no such thing as kingdom work outside the church — and I don't mean the building. The kingdom is about King Jesus and King Jesus' people and King Jesus' ethics for King Jesus' people.

"Social justice outside the church is not biblical justice or kingdom work. It is social work. Fine, that's a good thing. But let's not call this kingdom work."

Instead, he called on listeners to make the church "a beachhead of justice and peace and love" for those in need in the church. Then, "let that kind of church and kingdom and justice work spill over into the walls of your community."

Scot then goes on to write on his blog:

On Living Heretically: Some Wisdom for the Church

This article from the Harvard Business Review contains much wisdom for the church. I have suggested in my book, The Politics of Witness that materialism is all but killing the mission of the church. The church lacks resources for mission, not because things are tight, but because Christians spend money in much the same way as any old atheist. The lifestyles of most Christians are no different from non-Christians in the pursuit of more. The only difference is that in the church we are the hypocrites because we condemn materialism while wallowing in it up to our armpits, justifying our way of life by pointing our fingers at the person who has more than we do. The materialists are always those who make more money and have more expensive things than we do. Thus we can make our prophetic pronouncements directed at someone else and continue to live as if nothing has changed.

Here is a portion of Umair Haque's reflections. Thanks to Michael Kruse for linking to the article.

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Work harder, feel emptier, buy more, grow poorer...work harder. Sound familiar? That's the conventional wisdom of the omnipresent church of more, bigger, faster, cheaper, nastier, now. The problem is that the conventional wisdom isn't just wrong. If we want real human prosperity, the ability to live a live that not merely glitters, but that matters — well, then it was never right.

It's So Easy to Be an Armchair Quarterback

My state of Ohio has made the news this week when a man in Zanesville, who owned exotic animals (tiger, bears, monkeys, lions, et al) released them from their cages to roam freely before he committed suicide. Close to fifty animals were released. Most of them were shot and killed. The sheriff in Muskingum County has been criticized by animal rights groups for his decision to kill the animals instead of tranquilizing them. Apparently, persons from the Columbus Zoo were able to tranquilize six animals, but from what I have read, tranquilizing a free animal for the purpose of immobilizing it can be a difficult thing and presents its own kind of danger. Nationally known Director Emeritus of the Columbus Zoo, Jack Hanna, supported the sheriff's decision. He rightfully noted that killing these animals was indeed a great tragedy, but also stated that having tigers, in particular, wandering neighborhoods would have led to great carnage. Thus, he supported Sheriff Lutz' decision. Hanna also noted that he has received threatening phone calls from animal rights groups for his position. (Defending the rights of animals by threatening to take away the life of a human being... the irony of it all.)

This event in Zanesville is one more reminder to us that playing the position of armchair quarterback is real easy. One can sit there in her or his easy chair watching the news while pontificating on what should be done. Of course, the person pronouncing judgment doesn't have to live with the consequences of her or his decision, if the people on the front lines decide to take their advice. What a great job to have! Being an expert in all things without the responsibility that goes along with the decision made.

What happened in Zanesville was indeed tragic. Those animals would be alive today if their owner had not released them before he did himself in. Indeed, how is it that private citizens are permitted to own exotic animals in the first place? But Sheriff Lutz did not have the luxury of strategizing from the comfort of his living room. He was on the front line of a difficult situation in which his primary responsibility was to protect the public. Jack Hanna, who no doubt is quite distressed knowing that 40+ animals, part of God's creation, had to be put down, nevertheless understands that it had to be done. There are times in life when the best solution is still not a good solution. Armchair quarterbacks can often forget that sad reality.

On Being Spiritual, Religious, and Secular

It's been difficult to get blogging time in the past few days, so today I will recommend to you a deeply insightful post on the growing trend of embracing amorphous spirituality that the writer, Paul Vanderklay, says is directly connected to the society's growing secularism. Paul quotes John Suk:

I personally became aware of this trend when I was in graduate school and realized that all of my fellow PhD students could define what Aristotle’s concept of "epideictic oratory" was all about, and could explain the importance of social networks for corporate communication, because reason and theories mattered to these people. But the number and variety of faith choices that surrounded me was astonishing. There was a Wiccan, a Muslim or two, atheistic Marxists, and one or two New Age believers in Mother Earth and Gaea. After class was over and I would speak with them about their beliefs, they bristled when I suggested that ultimately only one of the many religions represented could ultimately be correct, or that their version of whatever faith they belonged to wasn't the orthodox version. The kind of rational thinking they brought to their rhetorical studies seemed to have no standing in their spiritual lives. When it came to faith, as far as these PhD candidates were concerned, rationality just didn't matter.

Then Vanderklay himself writes,

One of the most significant causalities in all of this is of course the project of religion itself. Religion is a communal project through which groups of people attempt to come to answer foundational questions about existence. Religion is supposed to put us in better touch with what is real and the task is so important and so large that it requires us to work in community and in all seriousness. This is of course lost in the spiritual salad bar in in the private corner of our agnostic context. There can be no community in spirituality beyond the most superficial and haphazard. It is rude to suggest that one individual's spiritual path might be drawing them away from ultimate reality and once you exert a common experience and an objective reality you entertain the possibility that someone will tell you that you are wrong which for many people is too much of an un-spiritual experience for their tastes.

Demonstration? Look at Oprah, our cultural high priestess. She's famous for being the spiritual pusher to millions in our culture but did you ever notice that her list of gurus never narrows? Religion, which requires community, order, communal discipline and doctrine (yes, all religions have it) will emerge from spiritual conversations once they come out into the light of day. At that point the word we all learned to hate as toddlers gets aired: "no". Once "no" is asserted, you either break community and maintain your "spirituality" or you have religion.

Paul's entire post is worth a read.

The Politics of Witness: Another Review

I thank Peter Kirk for his review of my latest book. My custom is never to respond directly to the substance of a review in appreciation for the time the reviewer took to read and write on something I've written. I think it is appropriate for this author to let her or his comments stand alone. The fact that Peter has disagreements with me allows for further discussion down the road. I am sure we will be engaging each other on these matters in the future, which is what I want. As I stated in the book, I do not assume that my words are the last and definitive words on the subject. I wrote it to open up important discussion on what I think is something which should be of paramount importance for the church-- its character in the world and how it bears witness to the gospel.

Thanks, Peter.

Caption Contest 2011.13... And the Winner Is...

Kevin Baker: From the cat's perspective - "rethinking the pounce."

Would Jesus Love Football?

Rodney Clapp, who always has something interesting to say, turns his attention to Jesus and football. It turns out that both of us have two things in common. We love Jesus and football. Rodney writes,

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The only good thing about the end of summer is that it's the beginning of the college foot­ball season. Once more college football is delivering thrills and surprises, with the rankings changing dramatically on a weekly basis, teams appearing out of nowhere to vie for the no. 1 ranking, and under­dogs ceremoniously (college football is nothing if not ceremonious) knocking off highly favored teams. I love just about everything about the game, from the on-field heroics to the off-field pageantry.

But I make the qualification: just about everything about the game. I don't love everything. There's plenty to be cynical about when ostensibly amateur players get recruited as if they were professionals. Even a straight arrow like Ohio State coach Jim Tressel turns out to have run a fairly smarmy program. Yet it's not primarily the financially shady elements that make me ambivalent about my favorite sport. It's the sometimes dangerous levels of violence.

Paul's Adam: Jesus the Faithful Israelite

Is the Soterian Gospel the Gospel?

My friend, Scot McKnight has just published his latest book, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. In the book he asks the question, "What is gospel?" His answer is different from the traditional soterian model. In a post on his blog yesterday he writes:

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There's a big discussion about "what is the gospel?" And a lot of people who talk about this, think their gospel is the real gospel. The reason I wrote my new book is because I think many people who think they understand the gospel really don't understand the gospel. I’m calling their gospel the "soterian" gospel (see below).

In fact, some who are reading The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited are convinced they can "tweak" their soterian gospel by adding "story" to their gospel. I’m not entirely sure how they think they are going to do this, but it appears to me they want the "story" to be the creation-fall-redemption story, and just like that they've escaped the "soterian" net.

Not so. The creation-fall-redemption story, even if it adds "consummation" to it, remains a soterian and individual-shaped gospel. This won't do.

As Tom Wright made clear in the preface to my book when he said the proposals here are "massive," what King Jesus Gospel is proposing is not about tweaking our already-existing (soterian) gospel or just tweaking our already existing (soterian) evangelism or adding story to the soterian gospel. Folks, everything's affected when the gospel shifts from the soterian approach to the Story approach. Again, here's the chart I posted the other day.

Caption Contest 2011.13

Good Enough Is Not Good Enough

With the death of Apple founder, Steve Jobs last week, there has been much in the way of commentary on his life and his impact. Much has been said about his innovative abilities, his leadership, his marketing abilities, etc. I confess that I am not an Apple user. I am one of those contrarians who has a PC and an Android. I do have an iPod which I like, but I have never been swept up in the Apple craze (which some of my friends simply do not understand). There is no particular reason for this. It's just the way it is.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Steve Jobs has changed the world in reference to technology, information, and how we go about our day. One thing that has always impressed me about the man was his dissatisfaction with his products as they were. For Jobs, good enough was never good enough. If you were satisfied with your current iPhone, Jobs wasn't satisfied with your satisfaction. It needed to be better.

For Christians, good enough should never be good enough. We must continue to evaluate our ministries, the ways we are doing things as individuals and as a community of faith. No matter how much everyone may love our Sunday worship, it can always be better. No matter how much people rave about Sunday school, there is more that can be done. We must pursue excellence in all things. We should pursue holiness to perfection, mission to more than completion, discipleship to the image of Christ, and love to the suffering of the cross. We must do whatever it takes to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Mediocrity is not an option.

For Christians, good enough should never be good enough.

A Failed Missionary Strategy: Staying Put

It has been noticed by many that in the Book of Acts the Apostle Paul had an obvious missionary strategy-- start house churches in major cities that exist on major travel and trade routes, either roads or seaports. Then disciple and commission those churches to take the gospel to the surrounding countryside and establish house churches there. As those communities of faith were discipled they too went out and established more Christian communities.

The strategy here should be obvious: establish communities in places with population, ease of travel, and resources, and then move out to the hinterlands to found new churches. If someone in today's world were to do some kind of complicated sociological analysis of how to go about such a mission, the person doing the study would conclude that Paul's strategy was indeed the best and most effective one available. In other words, the strategy is to preach and live the gospel for conversion, found new communities of faith, disciple those communities, and then send them out to preach and live the gospel in order to establish new churches. This strategy makes such perfect sense it is hard to quibble with it.

A Prayer for Sunday Worship

Loving God, Joy of the universe, we cannot bring you even one tiny item of perfect praise. Your love is too great for words or deeds, your holiness is beyond all music and song. But we can bring you our sincere love, the very cream of our heart. You have made us for love, and we yearn to love you more and more until earth and heaven become one complete circle of joy. Through Christ Jesus, our Brother and Lord. Amen!

--Bruce Prewer

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:

G. Kevin Baker: Externally Focused Prayer

Brian Vinson: Isolation vs. Connection

Kim Fabricius: What is the opposite of faith?

Ken Carter: why congregations need denominations

Dan Dick: Christi-ianity

Andy Stoddard: On a Mission

Jody Neufeld: Speak? Or Be Silent.

Quantum Leap: The Legacy of John Polkinghorne

Biologos is currently posting a series called "Quantum Leap." the latest posting (part 6) continues the discussion of one of my heroes, John Polkinghorne.

Polkinghorne is a physicist and Anglican priest who has written on the relationship between science and religion. He has made a great impact in both those spheres (at Cambridge University) believing that they are not incompatible.

Dean Nelson writes of Polkinghorne,

Without intending to be, Polkinghorne himself is a spiritual director to countless scientists, priests, students and parishioners around the world. Through his teaching, writing, speaking and friendships, he assists those who lack certainty – which is most of us – to test everything, and hold fast to what is true.

He has certainly been a spiritual director of sorts to me. I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy reading his stuff. If you are interesting in delving into the mind of this great and deep thinker, I would recommend you start with his book, Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity: Questions to Science and Religion.

And check out the entire series of posts on Quantum Leap at Biologos. There you will learn more about John Polkinghorne.

Steve Jobs Is Not Finished Yet

Now on Kindle!

Only $2.99!

The Politics of Witness

Areopagus Critical Christian Issues

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me...

...because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners (Luke 4:18).

HT on picture: Sally Coleman

Could Jesus Have Died for the Klingons Too?

Claire Moskowitz, senior writer at space.com, ponders the question that many others have reflected upon of late: if alien life were discovered in the galaxy, would that change religion, and in particular, for our interests on this blog, Christianity?

Moskowitz suggests that of all the major world religions, Christianity may have the most difficult time dealing with the possibility if it turns out to be fact because of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation-- God becoming flesh in Jesus Christ. She writes,

"Did Jesus die for Klingons too?" as philosophy professor Christian Weidemann of Germany's Ruhr-University Bochum titled his talk at a panel on the philosophical and religious considerations of visiting other worlds.

"According to Christianity, an historic event some 2,000 years ago was supposed to save the whole of creation," Weidemann said. "You can grasp the conflict."

Here's how the debate goes: If the whole of creation includes 125 billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each, as astronomers think, then what if some of these stars have planets with advanced civilizations, too? Why would Jesus Christ have come to Earth, of all the inhabited planets in the universe, to save Earthlings and abandon the rest of God's creatures?

HHS’s Infringement on Catholic Moral Values

The following selected portions are from an editorial written by John Garvey, the president of The Catholic University of America, and published on September 30th by the Washington Post. I offer some personal commentary at the end.

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The Department of Health and Human Services proposed some regulations a few weeks ago to implement a part of the 2010 health-care law, and it asked concerned parties to file comments on the regulations by Friday. In a section of the Affordable Care Act that didn't get much public attention during the debates last year, Congress asked HHS to prescribe a list of "preventive services for women" that health-care plans across the country would have to provide to subscribers at no additional cost.

The regulations that HHS unveiled in August will require Catholic University to offer its students sterilization procedures and prescription contraceptives, including pills that act after fertilization to induce abortions. If we comply, as the law requires, we will be helping our students do things that we teach them, in our classes and in our sacraments, are sinful — sometimes gravely so. It seems to us that a proper respect for religious liberty would warrant an exemption for our university and other institutions like it.

These regulations are more wide-ranging than what I have described. They apply not only to student health plans but also to employee health plans, group health plans and health insurance issuers. And they apply to hundreds of Catholic institutions outside the field of higher education — elementary and secondary schools, hospitals, social service organizations such as Catholic Charities, and so on. The rules direct that we provide all contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration, sterilization procedures, "and patient education and counseling" at no additional cost to plan members.

What Is Heresy? #4

The Development of Doctrine and the Place of Heresy in that Development

Doctrine does develop. There is no denying that. Those who refuse to acknowledge this are in denial over the reality of the church's continued "process of self-criticism and self-evaluation" (p. 69). As Alister McGrath rightfully notes, "Doctrinal development is the inevitable and proper outcome of the theological watchfulness demanded by the church" (p. 70). At the same time, there must be a consistency in the development from beginning to the present moment. "...Christian orthodoxy is something that is made as succeeding generations inherit ways of speaking about God and Christ that they rightly respect yet equally rightly wish to subject to examination" (p. 70).

One of the earliest theologians to recognize the need for doctrinal development was Athanasius who believed that such development was necessary for orthodoxy. If the integrity of the Christian faith was to be preserved "doctrinal innovation" was required. If doctrine were to be reduced to unimaginative repetition of formulae, it would seriously undermine God's self-revelation as it became increasingly clear to the church.

To suggest that doctrine develops is not "necessarily a cause for theological concern" (p. 68). It was John Henry Newman (1801-1890) who suggested that a distinction be drawn between "new truths" and "further insights." Doctrinal development is not about new truths coming like a bolt of lightning out of the clear, blue sky, but more about further insights that grow out of what has already been planted and nurtured.

The Ecclesiological Implications of Social Media

A Prayer for World Communion Sunday

Today, God, we confess fumblings and failures in accomplishing unity, as we set aside yet another day to remind ourselves of the task. On this World Communion Sunday, give us eyes to recognize your reflection in the eyes of Christians everywhere. Give us a mind to accept and celebrate our differences. Give us a heart big enough to love your children everywhere. We thank you for setting a table with space enough for us all! Amen.

 

Safiyah Fosua, Africana Worship Book, Year B

Book of the Month: The Character of Our Discontent

Thanks to World Prayr for choosing my book, The Character of Our Discontent as their Book of the Month.

The Methodist Blogs Weekly Links of Note

This week's noteworthy posts from the Methoblogosphere:
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Mike Teston: nu·ance   [noo-ahns, nyoo-, noo-ahns, nyoo-; Fr. ny-ahns]
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Dan Dick: Take Time to Be Holy

Cathy Turner: The Other Side

G. Kevin Baker: Oh no, it's communion Sunday

Ken Carter: on the way to the sermon: the ten commandments (exodus 20)

Sally Coleman: on contentment....