Author: fatherneo

So I don’t watch a whole lot of TV.  Too much stuff to keep away from the kids.  But that 24 is just so danged addicting!

My wife and I watched 5 seasons in two months to catch up with season 6 in the Fall of ’07 (now we’re in season seven) and are back in the saddle, writers strike notwithstanding.

Anyone else in this place?

By now you can kind of guess what happens next–that every agency is ‘compromised’ and that Jack is the only one who can save the world–but man I can hardly wait till next Monday.

Best line from last week:

‘Following the rules makes us better than them [the terrorists],’ to which Jack replies,

“Not today.”

OK. after much prodding, I finally read The Shack.  There were some theologically weak and amusing moments (I think Young’s model for God was the ‘Oracle’ from the Matrix), but overall I would say it was a good read.  It was even powerful at times and brought me to tears once or twice.  (I am not one to give in to the dark side of senitmentalism, by the way).

What I found compelling about the book, was it cut to the heart of the human problem of pain and did a decent job of weaving God right in without giving in to Calvinist determinism or willy nilly process thought.  For anyone who has little girls, it is especially moving and troubling (the basis of plot and weekend with ‘God’ is brought about by the death of a young girl), and is probably why it was so gripping for me.  Read it, with discerment and an open heart!

Dallas Willard writes, “Some time ago, I came to realize that I did not love the people next door.  They were, by any standards, dangerous and unpleasant people…As I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation, the Lord helped me see that I really had no love from them at all…I realized how little I trule cared for nearly all the people I dealt with through the day…I had to admit that I had never earnestly sought to be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus.”

I watch my denomination fall apart and some of those reasons are understandable.  Some of those reasons even transcend the current direction the of unscriptural path we have been on for the last few decades.

It begs the question, ‘what would Jesus do?’  Stand up for truth?  Pronounce Woe?  The most difficult fights are those that occur within the same household.

If it is diffcult to love our neighbor, how much more difficult it is to love your brother or sister who sins against you.  What would it look like in times of conflict to ‘be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus’ when times of conflict are the only real tests of God’s love anyway.  I don’t mean squishy feelings but a love that washes feet and goes to the cross; a love that transcends fuzziness but is a reflection of God’s very heart.

Our gaunt patron of sailors has become an overweight, jolly fellow created by Montgomery Wards.  Our ‘nativity Lent’ has been preceded by ‘Black Friday’ which is supposed to help fix our economic woes (they are in the black while shoppers bleed more red).

I suppose it is a good thing that Advent coexists with the ‘holiday season.’  It is quite fitting and quite humbling to see our worst in print, advertising, billboards and everywhere else one may care to look.  The season of Scrooge belongs right next to the (second and first) coming of Jesus, and the dusty prophet who paved Jesus’ way–that way our need of transformation and repentence is right there on the table.  Kyrie Eleison!

While I’ll never tell my dear readers who I voted for, I was inspired by Obama’s speech and by his story.  The guy’s got game.

I have a Facebook, as do many of the folks I know.  I (jokingly) asked, ‘what is simulacra, and what is not?’  In other words, there are parts in our lives where we interact with actual people, places and things; yet there are parts of our lives that are neither.

We have lost, in our world, the ‘front porch’ of everyday life.  Those ‘third places’ in our everyday that are neither home nor work.  Perhaps the coffee shop or the barbershop is that for some, that place to relate with others on more than surface levels but not our most intimate levels.

That begs the question, what is a blog or Facebook–or more significanlty where is a blog or Facebook? Is virtual reality a ‘place’ where something actually occurs?  Or is it a ‘non-place?’

I’ve tried hard to ignore the way Francis moves my heart.  I love Benedict and the Cappadocians.  John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila move me.  But I can’t get away from Francis.

It has been said that Francis is the only Christian the world has ever known.  That, of course, is an overstatement, but who can resist the little friar of Assisi for his ‘strong tenderness?’  While the crusaders were trying to stem the tide of Islam through military action, Francis was preaching in Muslim lands.   While the church was in bed with materialism, Francis began in ministry ‘fleeing’ to the forest naked.  While Christianity was tempted by power, Francis loved the lepers and the other ‘least of these.’

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Here’s what a NY Times article posted on Palin:

In the address at the Assembly of God Church here [in Alaska], Ms. Palin’s ease in talking about the intersection of faith and public life was clear. Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.”

She also told the group that her eldest child, Track, would soon be deployed by the Army to Iraq, and that they should pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”  See the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/us/politics/06church.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Many cite Romans 13 as a text that says the rulers and authorities have a seat of authority because God put them there.  Is Palin off base?  Can we speak of a war in the name of the state as a ‘Christian war’ that is ‘God’s will’ (regardless of its ‘just’ or unjust nature)?

I’m not talking about the ‘wall of separation’ as much as the nature of the Christian faith and its compatibility with war (any war) and politics.  I am fascinated with Christians on both sides of the aisle who insist that the other side is so utterly non-Christian.

I long for a day when the church will take the lead in values, peace, stopping abortion, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting prisoners, providing health care, and stop waiting for the secular powers to do it for us.

Despite McCain’s strategic choice of VP–Sarah Polin, was Obama’s speech combined with 84,000 onlookers the perfect storm? Oprah cried her eyelashes out and many others followed. What is the ‘it’ that Obama has?

 

Jerry Jenkins and Tim Lahaye write as their picture of the end times:

”Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and a yawning chasm opened in the earth, stretching far and wide enough to swallow all of them. They tumbled in, howling and screeching, but their wailing was soon quashed and all was silent when the earth closed itself again.”

There is, as an interpretation of apocalyptic texts in Scripture, a common view that the Jesus of the gospels is different from the Jesus who comes at the end of the world.  The ‘end times’ Jesus is, as Brian McLaren says, is the ‘Jihad Jesus,’ who ‘holds mankind like a spider over the mouth of hell’ to paraphrase Jonathan Edwards, and the Jesus of the gospels is kind of a meek, incomplete picture of God.

I think our discussion below has marks of this supposed dichotomy.  So, is the ‘sermon on the mount’ Jesus different from the book of Revelation Jesus?