Fri 29 Dec 2006
I know that I said I wasn’t going to post until next week, but I couldn’t help but wish you a Happy New Year on behalf of Tortilla Face (my oldest son) and my entire family.
It’s been a great year and I’m looking forward to what God has in store for the next one. May the Lord make your paths straight this coming year.
Happy New Year.
Sun 24 Dec 2006
Have a very Merry Christmas.
I’ll be taking the week off from blogging which means no posts. I’m planning on spending some great time with my family. Go spend some time with family and friends, but most of all, praise God for the most precious gift of all.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:11-12).
See you next year! Lord willing, we’ll begin the year with a quick look back at your thoughts on the best that 2006 had to offer (I’m also contemplating a site re-design, but we’ll see), then we’ll plow right along, solving all of life’s problems. Well, maybe not, but we’ll give it a try.
Fri 22 Dec 2006
Each Friday I like to dedicate a post to celebrating creativity. I’m a firm believer that Christians ought to be at the forefront of the arts, expressing the glory of God in every area of life. Sometimes the featured creative pursuits will be expressly “Christian” while other times they will not. The bottom line is that I want to help us pursue creativity. To that end, I link to the photography of Steve McCoy, Joe Thorn, Will Turner, Joe Kennedy and the Friday Flickr group in which they participate. I also hightlight a particular poet, featuring at least one poem. Last, but not least, I feature a musical artist who has made at least one track available for free and legal download.
This week’s featured poet is T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). Eliot is often considered one of the most influential poets of the 20th century. He was born into an influential Missouri family and grew up by the Mississippi, which he later admitted heavily influenced his poetry. Today’s featured poem is simply titled: The Hippopotamus:
The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is weak and frail, Susceptible to nervous shock; While the True Church can never fail For it is based upon a rock. The hippo’s feeble steps may err In compassing material ends, While the True Church need never stir To gather in its dividends. The ‘potamus can never reach The mango on the mango-tree; But fruits of pomegranate and peach Refresh the Church from over sea. At mating time the hippo’s voice Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd, But every week we hear rejoice The Church, at being one with God. The hippopotamus’s day Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts; God works in a mysterious way— The Church can sleep and feed at once. I saw the ‘potamus take wing Ascending from the damp savannas, And quiring angels round him sing The praise of God, in loud hosannas. Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean And him shall heavenly arms enfold, Among the saints he shall be seen Performing on a harp of gold. He shall be washed as white as snow, By all the martyr’d virgins kist, While the True Church remains below Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
This week’s musical artist is a project known as Cherohala. This is the recording name of fellow blogger David Cimino. David has agreed to have his files hosted here for your downloading pleasure. Featured today is music from two EPs: Winter Solace and Emily’s Song. Both are nice examples of relaxing, acoustic instrumental pieces. Thanks David!
Fri 22 Dec 2006
So, this is the day and this is the place where dreams are made. Well, maybe that’s a bit hyperbolic. OK, it’s very hyperbolic. This is just when and where I share some links of possible interest. At least I think they’re interesting:
Read this piece which claims that the Left Behind video games promotes religious violence against non-Christians.
Read Al Mohler’s piece about the doctrine of the virgin birth being under attack . . . again.
Read Matthew Hall’s piece about suffering and rationality.
Read a Bristish article that found that children believe that celebrities are more important than God.
Congratulations! You’re Time’s “Person of the Year!”
Read the Independent’s article wondering about the pop culture significance of the penguin.
Read about Rolling Stone taking issue with Pitchfork’s tracks of the year, particularly Joanna Newsom.
Browse the New York Sun’s recap of the year in music.
Browse PopMatters‘ list of the best music of 2006.
Browse this list of gift ideas for the music lover.
Browse Pitchfork’s annual list of the year’s top 50 albums.
Do you say “Merry Christmas” out of spite?
Read about NPR’s recent piece about the “Charge of the Atheist Brigade.”
Join in “Me Worship” (Maybe this one should be placed next to you being the Person of the Year?)
Browse Barna’s list of “12 Most Significant Religious Findings From 2006 Surveys.”
Read about the stewardess who has been banned from bringing a Bible on flights.
Read about the recent study which claims that 9 out of 10 Americans have had premarital sex, regardless of religious affiliation.
Read Michelle Malkin’s piece in which she ponders the year of outrage at the “religion of peace” has had.
Read PopMatters‘ take on the most successful jazz album ever, Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack to the Charlie Brown Christmas special.
Browse NPR’s list of the 11 most overlooked albums of 2006.
Browse this list of bests from PopMatters.
Watch as Justin Taylor offers the Amazing Grace movie trailer.
Read about Hillary wanting to be “mother president.”
Read about the German government cracking down on homeschool families.
Read about the uproar in Italy surrounding the “gay nativity.”
Read about Rosie O’Donnell’s continued push for gay marriage.
Thu 21 Dec 2006
One last reminder for you to be thinking about your year-end list. What particularly impressed you this year, and what did not? Particularly, I want you to be thinking about how the Gospel has come to bear on all of the choices you make (hopefully it has!). I’m looking forward to browsing your lists! The response has been light this year, so I’m looking at giving everyone who responds their own “guest” day where they can present their list with any additional comments.
The guidelines are simple:
Please submit responses for as many categories as you’d like, but don’t feel the need to answer for all the categories. For example, if you really don’t watch many movies, then don’t feel pressed to include selections for that category. Again, please try to include a short bit about why you made the selection you did; give us some insight as to why you think this is the year’s best.
The Categories (In no particular order):
Music:
Movies:
Reading:
Pop Culture:
Faith:
Misc.:
Please e-mail submissions to me at kpita@yahoo.com no later than Saturday, December 23, 2006.
Thu 21 Dec 2006
Sorry, I was very ill yesterday, which accounts for the lack of post. As you surely know by know, I’m reading Ronald J. Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? Sider asserts that modern evangelicalism is in the midst of a crisis: many, if not most professing Christians live no differently than the rest of the world. It’s interesting that one of the primary causes of this crisis (coupled with a minimized if not faulty understanding of the Gospel) is the radical individualism that not only permeates our culture but many of our churches.
But the issue lies deeper than just a shift from a sense of community to focus on individuals. There has also been a shift from a sense of self-sacrifice to one of self-fulfillment. While we must be careful of idealizing the past, repeated conversations with grandparents and others have led me to believe that there was a day when people adopted an overall approach of self-sacrifice. People helped their neighbors (they knew their neighbors to start with), they worked hard to acheive goals and often sacrificed for others. Perhaps even deeper, there was a sense of commitment that seems to have diminished.
This understanding has greatly disappeared from our own culture. We’re led to believe that our own personal happiness is the pursuit of the American life, which, after all, is about “life, liberty and my own happiness,” right? We quit school when it becomes difficult. We change jobs when it doesn’t “feel” right. When our spouse doesn’t meet our needs, we’ll find one who does. Churches become dispensible and leaving is an option for everything from song style to the color of the carpet. The self has become the epitome of decision making for many. Sider quotes Peter Gillquist as saying:
“We have become such a nation of self-lovers. Nothing is to sacred to leave - if we feel like it. We leave school if it gets boring or difficult; we leave home and parents if we’re displeased; we leave our jobs, our marriages and our churches.”
Yet, even a cursory glance at Scripture would seem to indicate that such self-centeredness is not acceptable for Christians. I say “seem to indicate,” because even though it is clearly on the pages of Scripture, so many simply ignore such principles. Scripture repeatedly refers to believers as “the people of God,” “the body of Christ,” and by other such names that are communal in nature. The Bible does not leave room for the “Lone Ranger” Christian, yet that is exactly what so many have come to believe they can become.
Believers must strive to overcome these tendencies and reverse the trend, moving from self-fulfillment to self-sacrifice. We must strive to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), “exhort one another” (Hebrews 3:13), so that, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Notice that the author implies that when we are left to our own devices, we are much more prone to be decieved by sin. It is when we know and love one another as we ought that we can resist sin’s deceitfulness. In many counselors there is both safety and victory (Proverbs 11:14 and 24:6).
Scripture’s call to the believer stands in direct opposition to this mantra of self-fulfillment. While our society tells us that our individual needs are our utmost consideration, Scripture tells us to look out for the interests of others, actually considering them as more important than ourselves (Philippians 2:3-4). While some say that the Gospel may be summarized as self-esteem, Christ says that it is more in line with self-sacrifice. After all, we are called to follow in Christ’s footsteps who laid down His very life for others.
Our churches must regain this sense of community that is to mark the biblical Church. While we are saved as individuals, we are called to live out that salvation in the context of not only a community, but a family. The Church must lovingly, humbly, but boldly stand against the tides of our culture, remember that our lives are powerful apologetics. But communities (and families) are built on self-sacrifice rather than self-fulfillment.When churches begin to live as loving, sacrificial communities, truly bearing one another’s burdens, caring for one another, the world will see something not only different but attractive.
Tue 19 Dec 2006
As I’ve noted (here and here), I’ve been reading Ronald J. Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? Sider argues that there is a crisis in modern evangelicalism in that most professing Christians live no differently than the rest of the world. Sider argues that part of the problem is that the idea of salvation has been reduced merely to the individual’s sins being forgiven. Many modern understandings of the Gospel lack the idea of repentance, of a changed life and a community of new, changed people. The result is that many professing believers simply don’t believe that their lives must change because, after all, their sins have been forgiven!
But this individualistic perception of men and women existing primarily as souls has ramifications for many areas of life, some of which we might not immediately expect. For example, at least in America, churches remain some of the most highly segregated institutions. The seclusion exists on both sides of the divide with few extended hands coming from either side. But the problem is not just segregation, it is often outright racism. Sider notes a Gallup poll which argues that at “17 percent, Baptists and evangelicals were among the most likely groups to object to black neighbors, and 20 percent of Southern Baptists objected to black neighbors.” Sider laments:
Evangelicals may have some good biblical theology about the body of Christ, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor black nor white. But if they do not work out this theology in practice, such that white evangelicals welcome black neighbors and work to end racist structures, then … the whole thing stinks.”
Why is this? How can the one instution that can truly claim to have society’s barriers smashed still live behind this wall of excusion, fear and hatred? Sider claims that the problem still persists, at least in part, because so many of us have adopted such an individualistic approach to salvation. The most common evangelical approach to ending racism is change at the individual level: “getting to know people of another race.” Sider cites a recent study in which this was the response of 89 percent chose this option, while only 38 percent chose integrating neighborhoods. Sider notes that in “the years 1994-1998, twenty stories in Christianity Today advocated overcoming racism by getting to know a person of another race,” while “only two talked of racially integrated neighborhoods.”
Perhaps the most well-known advocate of the “hug another race” approach has been the men’s movement, Promise Keepers. Sider quotes the organization’s chairman as saying: “God moves in one heart at a time. The only way to change men [is] to change their hearts.” The organization has also argued that “racisim is overcome not by legislation but by relationships.”
Yet, evangelicals certainly pursue legislation and structural changes for issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Our solution has not been to merely befriend gay and lesbians. We have sought to make abortion-on-demand illegal and we have sought to protect legal barriers to the definition of marriage. These “structural” and legislative approaches certainly challenge our own notion that we change society “one person at a time.” William Wilberforce and other evangelical abolitionists certainly took a broad approach to ending slavery. They didn’t argue that the only way was to convert all of the slave owners, they worked for new laws that would change the very structures involved.
I don’t pretend to understand why the individualistic approach has prevailed with racism yet not with issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. However, I do understand that believers on both sides of the divide must do more as institutions to change institutions. We have to be willing to admit that we have not done enough and what we have done, for the most part, hasn’t worked. We must be willing to take the same public, united stand against racism that we have against abortion (though there is much more that could and should be done on that issue as well). We must stand, united, living as though we believe that, in Christ, the barriers have truly been broken (Galatians 3:28, etc.).
