“I want to know more than God loves me”

I teach a course titled Christian Traditions at a nearby college. One of the texts for the course is The Life Application Bible. The words “life application” says it all about this edition. One of the students came up to me after class (most of the students do not have an evangelical church background) and commented that he wished we used a study bible that had more to say than “God loves you” in the study notes.

I was amazingly refreshed by his comment. He gets it – God loves me. Now lets fill in the details. Makes me think of church. A lot of church is “God loves you – he really, really loves you,” a la Sally Fields. I wonder where this leads.  I think it ends up with bored adults who never are challenged to take on adult responsibilities in the life of faith. From one angle, you can’t say this enough. From another angle, you need to say it with wisdom and a commitment to lead believers to an adult experience of God. As the Apostle Paul writes, “in understanding be men.”

Real Christians fight battles. Real Christians take risks. Real Christians bleed from wounds. Real Christians fail and fall and get up again. Real Christians learn to live with regrets and face future uncertainties. Real Christians don’t always have to hear comforting words but also rebuking, admonishing and inspiring words. Real Christians don’t have to be handled with kids gloves but can take a punch. Real Christians die in foxholes, not abandoning their assignment.

It’s not always about me failing and God loving me anyway. Sometimes it’s about me waking up and getting to the front lines because God loves me.

Leno on the economic crisis

Hey, before we begin, I want to warn people in Nigeria who might be watching our show. If you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it’s a scam.
As you know, the bailout was voted down, and people are stunned. Nancy Pelosi was so shocked, if she could have made a facial expression, she would have.
I guess the big problem was the plan came in two parts and they couldn’t agree on which part to implement first, the smoke or the mirrors.
Today at CNBC, they said without a bailout, consumers wouldn’t be able to get credit cards at favorable rates. Oh, that takes some getting used to, huh? You mean they’ve been spoiling us with that low 30% interest?
And once again, you know, President Bush, God bless him, nice man, but I don’t think he understands the gravity of this situation. Like when someone told him WaMu went under, he said, “Well, that’s O.K, he’s a whale.”
This crisis has actually affected the way children play. Like when kids play Monopoly now, the dumbest kid is the banker.
I’ll give you an idea how bad the economy is. I wrote a $5 check over the weekend. The check was good, the bank bounced.
I’ll give you an idea of how bad the dollar is. Went to buy gold. They said, “You can only buy it with gold.”
In fact, the guy in the Rolls-Royce with the Grey Poupon had to switch to French’s mustard.

Today’s Quote 10/20/08

Before his troops went into battle, Stonewall Jackson would say to them after prayer, “The battle is ours, the outcome is God’s.”

Sarah Palin doesn’t deserve all this cattiness

Here is a column by Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald that wonders why the claws against Sarah Palin. People like Maureen Dowd and Marjorie Eagan can’t write or talk about much else than Palin. You would think it was a junior high after-school cat fight. They are all for women being at the front of the line -their kind of woman. And if she isn’t their kind of woman, she is worse than a man. The word misogyny comes to mind when I think of Dowd and Eagan. There is some kind of strain of self-loathing there.

Joe Fitzgerald quotes Jimmy Cannon: “One look at the dames picketing the Miss America pageant explains their rage at pretty girls.” Maybe Palin isn’t what Dowd and Eagan are – girls who like to gossip and pick. Palin is an adult. She lives in an adult world and doesn’t write gossip columns. She had the audacity to grow up and be more than pretty.

The Porn-Again Christian

Mark Driscoll is releasing an online book chapter-by-chapter for Christian men who are finding that their sexuality is running away with them. It’s worth the reading, but it is typical Driscoll, papal.  Lots of brow beating and guilt, Puritan legalism. But the issue needs to be on the front-burner and Driscoll does that.

AC/DC makes the music about them

Like Garth Brooks, AC/DC makes the music about them. See here. If I want just one of their songs, I have to buy the album. They are artists, you know!!!! Convenience for listeners? Who do you think you are to ruin their art? Yeh, we’ll buy the cd. But we won’t forget that you’re a jerk about it.

“Real Reading” – some time with James Fenimore Cooper

I have decided to take the time to do “real reading.” I read a lot, I mean a lot!!! It’s what I do. One of my delights in being a pastor is the life of the mind. And though I don’t recommend it as a motivation, going into the pastorate is worth it if just for this opportunity alone. Thank you, Coastal Church, for giving to me this life I have.

But in all the reading there is a feeling of sameness. Yes, there are books better written than others, but I think most of them seem to be publisher initiated, as in, “this topic is hot-will you quickly write a book on it?” I don’t think many are written for the love of the art.

I have decided to take the time “for the love of the art.” I am now reading The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. After this I will read one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works. Some of the delights of this reading – the complexity of the sentence structure, the cadence of expression, the attention to word choice, the ability to slow down and focus without being obssessed by action alone, the development of characters so that you know them and miss them when the book is not opened.

Could such a book be sold today if it were newly published? I don’t think so.

It makes me want to read the King James Version of the Bible. There is a flatness to modern day Bible translations that, while making the Bible more readable, at the same time makes it less memorable. Of course, we don’t get the choice to decide what kind of literature the Bible should be. But the aim of translators to keep the Bible at a 7th or 8th grade reading level does affect things. I wonder what we gain by making it easier to read but therefore easier to forget. CS Lewis commented on the danger of the beauty of the KJV where the beauty of expression can overtake the urgency and practicality of its message.

Anyway, I think I will be carving out some time to do more “real reading.” Winter time in New England and a wood stove seem like the right mix to help me take the time.