from culture to the kingdom

I mentioned earlier my view that the Bible as counter cultural; kt is concerned with the kingdom of God as opposed to our human kingdoms and cultures, whatever those may be.  The Bible can be, and should be, an incredibly challenging document and we should be humble enough to open ourselves to its counter to our personal cultural affinities.
Yet as counter cultural as the Bible is, it is still incredibly cultured.  It is a document that comes from humans and from human culture, not out of the sky and not merely through human penmanship  Because of the "humanness" of Scripture its counter culturalness must often be found as it is not always often seen.

Why not Momma God?

The language we use when referring to God is symbolic.  It gets at an idea, but because it is human language, our language, it cannot grasp the fullness of God beyond the idea.  Feuerbach got at this a little bit, but went too far in my opinion.  The humanness of our language and symbols does not mean, as Feuerbach says, that God is nothing but the idealistic idea of humanity, a notion created and developed over time (though some would argue that).  Likewise, it is difficult to move our understanding of God beyond our immediate systems and symbolism, because they are deeply rooted in us.  And they, like our language, are human creations and therefore cannot fully grasp and contain the infinite, atemporal and immaterial.  What this means is that any way I or we envision God is influenced, impacted and dependent on the language we use.  Thus, our view of God is often going to be limited to the power and structures held in the symbolism of the words. 
For instance the image to the right is from the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.  It shows God creating the sun and moon, and evidently God is an old man, probably Italian, who sports a long beard and unkempt hair.  God of course doesn't look like this, nor is God Italian. God is depicted as temporal and material, both of which God is, wholly, not.  There's Jesus, then again Jesus is not all of God, but one of three.  Further, God is a man and God isn't a man, nor a woman.  God is God.

stupid Jesus

This quote resonated with me:

"I had stopped saying the word “Jesus.”  95% of the time, I only spoke of “God.”  Or if I had to speak of him, I referred to God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, the Logos…names that sounded intellectual and sophisticated.  If I had to speak of the Son incarnate, then I spoke of Christ, or the God-man.  Never Jesus Christ, and certainly never just Jesus.  Loving Jesus, following Jesus, seeking Jesus — these were the province of fundamentalists, Bible thumpers, Jesus Freaks, crude Christians who wore WWJD bracelets and listened to Michael W. Smith and read Max Lucado instead of Jurgen Moltmann."
If you want you can read the whole blog whole blog here.

Oddly enough, but not really, I have had a similar experience.

the monument vs. the mission

My desire as it stands now is to be the pastor of a church.  Considering that that church will probably be a United Methodist church, that is if the conference accepts me, will make for an interesting pastorate.  The United Methodist Church is not unique, and I know the problems that it is experiencing are hardly unknown elsewhere.  However, the challenge will be unique for a guy like me who doesn't hold allegiance to any particular faction within the church, and the allegiances I do hold are to dead guys or ideas and ideals.  It will also be unique because I have experienced church outside of the Methodist church and know that not only is it not all that bad, it is in fact quite desirable. 

This creates a problem.

organic and cruelty free: God help me.

I wrote a blog post sometime ago on a book I had to read for my Old Testament class, and I'm not going to lie it changed my life... Well let me rephrase that, it continued the process of change that the love of my life started.  This way my wife gets all of the credit and I score points with her!

You can view that blog post here: christians should be organic and further thoughts on it here: further thoughts on agrarian

The process has been quite a challenging one.  It's just a preference for me that I want simply because it sounds nice... its far more theological for me, I guess you could say its more of a conviction that I think I, as Christian, should eat organic.  It's more than just nicer and cleaner, it's also more "right."  That is, I think Scripture points towards a more ethical, not economic, treatment of the earth and Creation.  (notice the globe... it means my view is holistic and cares for the earth... you know, typical)

New York and The Church of England

What do those two things have in common?
Honestly, the only thing I know of right now is they have both been in the news lately on issues relating to gays.
You can read about it here:
Rowan Williams Backs Gay Bishops
and here:
New law clears way for gay marriage in New York
of the two I'm sure the one most widely known is the latter.
Gay marriage is one of those issues that I think have been wrestling with since college.  Mainly because in the 2000 and 2004 elections the Republicans (or at least this is how I feel) made it in issue in order to mobilize the Religious Right to vote and keep Bush in office.  I've gone through two phases I would say... one is the theological aspect, the other is the political aspect.  I would say that now after, at least, 7 years of wrestling with the issue, I have come to some conclusions.

Lady Gaga: 1 Christians: 0

I read this article:
Lady Gaga and Self Acceptance

It struck a chord in me.  I mean here is a good way to view and love others; the whole "little monsters" thing is part gimmicky, but more so its very much a reality.
Lady Gaga has not only picked up on the monster part, but also the acceptance part.
Both I think Christians have gotten seriously wrong.

love. Osama.

I’ll admit that, as of late, I am confused by those around me who are confused over whether or not they should be joyful over the death of Osama bin Laden or remorseful. 

First I’d like to point out that in being remorseful one is saying that it is better for a man to live on encouraging actions of ungodly hate.

Second I feel like such a view is pushing beyond Christians' call to love.  It is through Christ we are able to fully love God as well as fully love man.  However, when something happens, such as killing Osama, are we to mourn over it?  We are saying that what has happened should not have happened; that is saying what is better for the world is another type of world.