Thoughts and Ruminations

For those interested in this thing called “emerging church,” wherever you might be coming from, here’s a good video as an introduction for you.  Here’s the link to the video.

I encourage you, even if you find this stuff stupid drivel, meaningless chatter, or an unwise discussion for the church to be having, listen to these panel members. Tony Jones, especially in this panel discussion, has his finger on the pulse of why the “emerging conversation” matters for the church and for the world we live in.

Tony is already talking about it on his blog at Beliefnet, and I’ve posted my initial reflections in the conversation there.   After you watch the video (and only IF you DO watch), I’d encourage you to join in the conversation.    While I don’t agree with some significant theological positions Tony has developed, I was extremely impressed by his integrity, passion, and commitment in this panel. And Scot McKnight as well, though McKnight kept using the word “orthodox” in unwise, overly confident ways.

Panelist Kevin DeYoung, on the other hand, should be ashamed of himself and should publicly repent for his ill-advised book  “Why we’re not Emergent” and perpetuating in his public persona the oversimplistic, demonized image of the emerging church conversation that evangelicals carry.   I don’t expect him to, though, because he’s getting plenty of backslaps in the conservative evangelical community for it.  A community, I should add, that loves drawing huge generalizations and massive stereotypes of people unlike them.   In other words, a community perpetuating unwise distinctions that lead to masses of evangelicals being unwise stereotypers. And when they engage in that sort of behavior, that lack of wisdom obscures some of their solid, Biblical teachings that our culture needs to hear and see lived out.

Nate

for the next two weeks.  We’ll talk on February 2nd.

Nate

Here’s a pic of Bethany and I outside the Mill Street Grill in Staunton after a great meal.  Thanks Kevin and Sonya!  

“The Way we Live Now:  Why Bother?”  
by Michael Pollan
for the New York Times

An excerpt from the article:

“Thirty years ago, Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer and writer, put forward a blunt analysis of precisely this mentality. He argued that the environmental crisis of the 1970s — an era innocent of climate change; what we would give to have back that environmental crisis! — was at its heart a crisis of character and would have to be addressed first at that level: at home, as it were. He was impatient with people who wrote checks to environmental organizations while thoughtlessly squandering fossil fuel in their everyday lives — the 1970s equivalent of people buying carbon offsets to atone for their Tahoes and Durangos. Nothing was likely to change until we healed the “split between what we think and what we do.” For Berry, the “why bother” question came down to a moral imperative: “Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.”

    Shane Claiborne is convinced that most of the evil perpetrated in the world today in the name of Christ and Christianity is not the result of malicious people, but rather of bad theology. His suggestion for how to represent hope, then, is one that should encourage us to engage with significant depth the very Scriptures that are intended to shape the life of the church in Christ-like ways.  As he says, “rather than distancing ourselves from religious language and biblical study we (should) dive into the Scriptures together, meeting bad theology with good theology.”[1] In keeping with that challenge, I’d like to spend some time in the Scriptures to guide some of my reflections here.

    In the midst of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he chose to share a story that we would call “fiction” today to illustrate a deep truth for his audience about the ordering of human affairs.  This story, known today as the story of “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” had several intentional parallels that Jesus drew for the sake of challenging his audience to think in different ways about what is “true” and “normal”; paralleling most centrally issues of rich/poor and blessing/cursing.  In so doing, Jesus challenged the folk (read: human-shaped) religion of his day that claimed to be faithful to the LORD yet provided a much different perspective.  As the story reads,

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen who lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.  Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”[2]

    At this point in the story, Jesus’ words may have stimulated some thoughts in folks, especially when it is considered that most saw wealth and comfort as a sign of God’s blessing and poverty and unhealthy as a sign of God’s curse.  Was Jesus setting this story up to show how this beggar had sinned and what he needed to do to enter back into God’s good graces?  The story continues;

“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.  The rich man also died and was buried.  In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.  So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’  But Abraham replied, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”[3]

    “Wait, what!?” may have been the thoughts of those in Jesus’ audience.  Jesus raised some significant questions in the span of about 45 seconds or so in this story, and already managed to turn the contemporary folk religion with its easy categories and distinctions on its head. Along the way, Jesus asked and answered an implied question: How did this wealthy man end up in Hades? It doesn’t seem like he was a wicked man by most pious marks of righteousness; he wasn’t a drunkard, a womanizer, or a gossip. In fact, judging from his clothing, may have been a religious leader (he was at least a political leader), and so may have been considered religiously blameless. How then did he come into “the place of torment?”

to this fine (and by fine, I mean both senses of the word;  like, she’s fine as in a really amazing person, and fine as in “dude, that girl is fiiiiiiiiiiine!) young lady.

After tomorrow, it’s Nathan Douglas Myers and Bethany Kriegshauser Myers (and yes, it is ironic that I, a non-resistant disciple of Jesus, am marrying a young woman whose maiden name literally means “house of war” in German).  Ha ha!

It’s obvious to me that the Tampa Bay Rays are in first place in the AL East this year because they’re being blessed by God for dropping “Devil” from their name.  They’re in God’s will.

Sike.

Things you can do when a friend fails to log out of his blog administration page when he borrows your laptop:

1.  Blog under his (or her, this is just hypothetical) name, confusing the rss subscribers, causing them to make statements like, “That Nate guy is off base; inconsistent to say the least.” (Assuming the blogger’s name is Nate.)

2.  Make derogatory statements about the Baltimore Orioles, in particular Brian Roberts.

3.  Announce a March Madness party at the blogger’s house with free beer and pizza.

4.  Confess that all along the blogger has wished he could be a Mennonite.

5.  Just be glad the blogger stopped thinking it was funny to change my screen saver daily, putting the word “poop” in the scrolling message.

 I posted this at 5:38 on Thursday.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes Nate to notice.

Peace,

KG

What separates this;

from this?

Does it matter at all that the man who died was a human being? Did he “deserve” it?

…one of the best examples I can think of a follower of Jesus who really got the picture of commitment in relationship with others.  He happened to be a humble fellow born in the year 275 A.D. in the eastern side of the Roman Empire on the Mediterranean sea coast.  His wealthy parents, who raised him to be a devout Christian, died in an epidemic of disease while he was still young. Radically obeying Jesus’ words to the rich young ruler to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” he used his whole inheritance the rest of his life to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God, and because of his radical commitment to Christ was made Bishop of the church in his town of Myra while still a young man. He became known throughout his homeland for his humility, his generosity to those in need, his love for children, his defense of justice, and his caring for seafarers and prisoners. One of the oldest recorded episodes from the life of this man is his saving three condemned innocents in Andriaki from the Roman Emperor’s executioner. He is also known for intervening on the behalf of the unjustly jailed.

Another story of this man’s life tells of a poor man with three daughters. In those days a young woman’s father had to offer prospective husbands something of value—a dowry.  The larger the dowry, the better the chance that a young woman would find a good husband. Without a dowry, a woman was unlikely to marry. This poor man’s daughters, without dowries, were therefore destined to be sold into slavery. Mysteriously, on three different occasions, a bag of gold appeared in their home-providing the needed dowries. The bags of gold, tossed through an open window, are said to have landed in stockings or shoes left before the fire to dry.

He did many kind and generous deeds in secret, expecting nothing in return. Within a century of his death he was celebrated as a saint. If you cared to look him up today, you might find him known by the name Saint Nicholas.

With such a popularity, his legends inevitably became intertwined with others. In Germanic countries, the stories of Nicholas became interwoven with the local pagan belief in a god named Woden, who rode his (black) horse across the sky as the leader of the Wild Hunt. As the story evolved, it involved Nicholas riding a white horse instead of Woden on his black, then the story morphed into more than one horse, with the horses managing to pull along a sleigh behind them. Somewhere along the line, probably tied to the original gold-giving story, people began giving presents in his name on his feast day.

As the legend moved westward and northward into the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas’ eve became the primary occasion for gift-giving. In the days leading up to December 5 (starting when Saint Nicholas has arrived in The Netherlands by steamboat), young children put their shoes in front of the chimneys and sing special ‘Sinterklaas-songs’. Often the shoe is filled with a carrot or some hay for the horse of St. Nicholas (called Amerigo). On the next morning they will find a small present in their shoe, ranging from a bag of chocolate coins to a bag of marbles or some other small toy.

On the evening of December 5th, Sinterklaas brings presents to every child that has been good in the past year (in practice to all children). This is often done by placing a sack with presents outside the house or living room, after which a neighbour or parent bangs the door or window, pretending to be Sinterklaas’ assistant. In pictures, Sinterklaas wears a red bishop’s tunic and rides a white horse over the rooftops

In modern-day Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot, called Nikolaus-Stiefel, outside the front door on the night of December 5 to December 6. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good. If they were not, they will have a tree branch in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they “have been good” (sometimes ostensibly checking a book for their record), handing out presents on a per-behaviour basis.

I wonder how this story evolved when it came to the United States as Europeans migrated?  Sinterklaas sounds an awful lot like….waiiiiiit a minute!  Is it possible that Captain Consumerism (aka Santa Claus) himself is in fact an devolutionary twisting of an amazing example of a heroic man?  Of course that’s not possible, capitalism isn’t capable of such an atrocity…it’s the pinnacle of civilization.