Please welcome Karen Marie Knapp to my blogroll. And a recent happy blogday to you! "From the Anchor Hold" is a great addition. You want to meet some really great Christian women, there's no place like the blogosphere.
The wordsmiths among you will know that the title of my post doesn't refer to the Christian sect of which I am an elder, but to the condition of my eyes. Beware! It'll happen eventually to you young'uns -- if you live long enough.
This is my way of saying I just took possession of my first pair of "bifocals," except that they're the line-less progressive lenses, so everyone thinks you're still 30 (hahahaha!) I love them, love them, love them! In my job I go from looking at the computer screen to reading small-print charts, oh, about 543 times a day. That used to mean I'd take my glasses off so I could read up-close, or push them down on my nose. What a PITA. Not any more! I'm free. Oh, I can't wait to see how much better it will be to sing in choir and not have to choose between seeing the music or the director clearly. O frabjous day! Calloo callay!
If you have never visited the site of Real Live Preacher, by all means do so now -- do not pass go, do not collect $200 -- and read this post. It's a story about a couple who ask the Preacher to perform their wedding. (Mine is a beautiful historic church and we often have requests by non-members to be married there. I wonder if any of the couples have been like this one.) And be sure to read the comments too. Some of the gems: "People cling to the forms because they've lost track of the meanings." And "At least atheists lend value to my belief, the apathetic do not even do that." And the Preacher's reply: "They made a small move toward me and I was willing to move toward them."
The Committee on Health Issues for the General Assembly PC(USA) reached a compromise on the late-term abortion issue. While not going so far as to remove incest and rape from the list of morally acceptable reasons for the procedure, the committee included a provision that when a late-term abortion is “deemed necessary … to protect the mother’s life or health in the later months of pregnancy … a procedure should be considered which gives both the mother and the child the opportunity to live.”
The words are carefully chosen here on purpose. Not “fetus” but “child.” Previous statements have focused more on the life of the mother. This one gives more emphasis to the life of the child. It may not be perfect, but it’s an encouraging sign.
In other signs that my denomination has not totally gotten off track, the GA approved a resolution “that the church is called to present the claims of Jesus Christ, leading persons to repent of sin, to accept Jesus as the only Savior and Lord of the whole world, and to pursue a new life as his disciple.”
I know this seems like a no-brainer to my more conservative Christian readers, but in light of some recent statements by leaders of PC (USA), clearly the “folks in the pews” want to affirm the foundations of the faith.
I’m not so pure that I could claim there isn’t some ego gratification in it … but it’s way more than that. With the handful of readers I have, it’s not like I’m going to become famous! Even though I was encouraged to get my own blog by other bloggers, I prayed about it for a couple of months, counting the cost. (Do I have anything to say? Will it take time away from my real-life commitments?) I’m a tech know-nothing, and this was the first Web page template I ever laid eyes on. Getting started wasn’t that easy.
So here are my reasons for starting this blog, and why I’m still here after three months:
· To make connections with other Christians around the world. To participate in the “iron sharpens iron” that I saw going on at other blogs.
· To use my spiritual gifts of teaching, wisdom (applying God’s word to everyday situations) and encouragement. So yeah, I want to share.
· To be creative, a need that is not met by my day job, even though I am a professional writer. My work is technical, and when the finished product arrives, it’s not really mine; I’m just part of the team. But I’m not a “wanna-be writer;” I make quite a good living at it.
· I have journaled for hrummph many years, since high school. These ideas keep pouring out. What else am I supposed to do with them?
My readers are mostly my husband, blog friends, church friends and even a few former classmates. Not all of them are Christians. Maybe by getting to know me a little better, they can see authentic Christianity lived out by one ordinary, beset, bewildered, middle-aged woman.
Rachel Cunliffe has done some great detective work via Google and compiled a collage of different blogger's photos. See if you can guess who's who today, then tomorrow Rachel will make the photos link to the blog. Can you guess which one is me?
The decision goes to a vote of the GA, and if it is approved there, to a vote of the 173 presbyteries. We just went through this in 2001 and it was soundly rejected. Why do we keep having to vote on this every couple of years?
I’m so naïve, when I read the disputed clause shortly after I became an elder, I assumed it was directed toward heterosexuals. It reads, "Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness." I assumed it precluded adulterers or those living together without being married from being ordained. That seemed scriptural to me, given Paul’s advice in 1 Timothy 3:1-13. Someone who is living openly in unrepentant sin shouldn’t be leading the church. Do you want a pastor who is openly cheating on his wife?
Which opens the whole debate of whether practicing homosexuality is sin. But despite liberal interpretations of key passages, I believe Scripture is clear on that count, which leaves the gay person with celibacy as the only option to practice purity. Scripture is also clear that heterosexual people are held to the standard of monogamy in marriage or chaste singleness. Both are "against nature." My natural inclination as a heterosexual is not to be monogamous; I require the power of the Holy Spirit to be faithful in a lifetime marriage commitment. Likewise, it requires the power of the Spirit for the homosexual to be celibate.
These are hard questions, with passionate emotions on both sides of the issue. However, I believe that as a church PCUSA should be careful to remember God’s holiness as well as his love as they make decisions on these matters. If we do not, we risk losing our "saltiness" in a world where there are no moral absolutes.
In light of some recent events with my daughter’s friends, I can’t get this discussion at Josh’s blog out of my mind. I feel a rant coming on.
In the comments section, I wrote, "They (teens) just don’t realize that every time you treat sex as just another entertaining activity, something inside them dies." Another commenter replied:
You must be kidding. If you (and others here) want to think that there's something "wonderful and beautiful and special and amazing, etc. etc. etc." about sex, obviously that's your right. But that doesn't make it true or even sensible. Clue: It's a bodily function. And if some (or most) people want to treat it as entertainment, that's their right. Including (reasonably mature) teens.
That’s wrong-headed on so many levels, I hardly know where to begin. Teens – and adults for that matter -- may have a "right" to treat sex as entertainment. But that doesn’t make it true. To say that sex is a bodily function (as if it were nothing more than that) is the worst sort of reductionism. It puts human beings on the same level as machines, biological machines built of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and electrical impulses.
Sex is just a bodily function, eh? So is eating. But say I have dinner one night at the restaurant I frequent often enough to be known by name, and the next night decide to eat somewhere new, the restaurant owner isn’t going to feel hurt or betrayed. If I decide I want to stop eating out for a while, the restaurant owner won’t feel abandoned. His trust in me hasn’t been broken. He’s not going to threaten to kill himself. He’s not going to start cutting himself to relieve the pain and feel better.
I’m not talking about some theoretical kids. I’m thinking of real kids, kids I know, kids my daughter hangs out with – not some survey statistic. Now maybe this boy’s reaction to his breakup with his girlfriend would have been just as serious even if they had not been sexually involved, but somehow I doubt it. Probably he already had this habit of self-abuse, but the sexual aspect intensifies the relationship. When we tell our kids that sex is just another bodily function, they wonder why it hurts so bad when you lose someone you were intimate with. They know it’s a lie and we know it’s a lie. We say it, we don’t believe it, and we can’t really live that way and be true to what we are inside.
What I see among so many of the kids my daughter’s age is a need for love that is not being met by parents, so they seek it in sexual relationships. I see parents who either think their job is finished by the time the kids are 15, or they are so wrapped up in their own personal problems that there is nothing left for the children. I see parents who give their teens a curfew, then they aren’t home when the kid comes home on time – without a word about where they’ve gone and without leaving a key or an unlocked door. I see parents who look the other way or think they’re being cool to let their kids have a party where everyone is drinking and/or getting high. And they scratch their heads and wonder why their kids are having sex. Please. Can someone buy these people a clue?
I wish I could buy the biggest old house in my town and take in all the teen-agers whose parents don’t give a fig about them … but my husband said it wouldn’t be big enough. And he’s right. No house would be big enough.
I've been away from the computer for the last couple of days. Yesterday was a day of visitation for my father-in-law at the funeral home. I enjoyed meeting and visiting with some of my husband's relatives. Too bad that we only seem to get together for things like funerals.
Today was the funeral itself. The minister gave a nice message with some outstanding Scripture passages. Especially John 12:23-25 -- " ... unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." And also 2 Timothy 4:6-8 -- "... I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
It is difficult enough for me sometimes to write good messages ... I can't imagine the difficulty of writing a good funeral message, something with comfort and just the right personal touch. And there is such a difference when you know that the person who died knew Christ as their Lord and Savior and when they did not.
I was delighted that our pastor Roy made the 2-hour trip to be there for the funeral. I know it meant a lot to me and Ken -- and was an eloquent testimony to the family of the support our church family provides. I hope that they were able to see something of the love of God in that gesture. I feel really blessed.
Gary Peterson of Country Keepers points out a totally unbiblical church sign he spotted recently. Which got me to thinking about the church signs I see on my travels out and about.
This one is just awful:
“Tithe if you love God. Anyone can honk”
With signs like that outside a church, is it any wonder the unchurched are turned off by talk of money, money, money? Is it any wonder that more than one of the non-churchgoing Christians whom Rachel Cunliffe interviews cited an obsession with money as one of the reasons they left organized religion?
Is it any wonder that Barna Research turned up these recent findings:
The proportion of adults who tithe has dropped by 62% in the past year.
Only 6% of born-again households tithed to their church in 2002.
The group that had the highest proportion of people tithing was evangelicals.
Charles Colson really nails it in this column about the Jayson Blair scandal. Many thanks to Joe Fuhrmann of Right Left Whatever for linking to this. Here's my favorite line from the article:
"It may be fashionable to dismiss moral truth claims, but the absence of truth leads to chaos, and we find we can’t live with it."
Last night in Detroit, Aretha Franklin organized a candelight prayer vigil for her friend Luther Vandross, who is comatose following a stroke several weeks ago. Naturally she called on a few of her Motown friends to join, and sing a few tunes while they were at it.
They could have held a benefit concert. But they called on the power of prayer, and the 5,000 people -- ordinary Detroit folks and celebrities alike -- who showed up couldn’t have mistaken the message.
"Luther's body is a little broken, and we need to ask the manufacturer to fix this gift," (Little Rock Baptist Church pastor Rev. Jim Holley) said, to a roar from the crowd. "I don't know where you come from, but where I come from, Jesus gets the last word."
Yesterday my father-in-law died, a mere seven months after losing his wife, partner and lover of 60 years. They may say it was a heart attack, but I believe it was a broken heart.
In the months since Mom’s death, Dad seemed increasingly unable to accept that she was gone. He would talk about her as if she were still alive, as if she were just in another part of the house taking a nap. He felt her presence, heard her, searched for her. In our concern, the family discussed with Dad about moving to an assisted-living center. He said to me, “In a place like that, would there be someone who could take care of her?”
Do the spirits of the dead return to visit their loved ones? In a post about the passing of June Carter Cash, Bobby says, “The power of a lost loved one to call the other home can be strong indeed.”
Yeah.
“I’ll be waiting on the far side bank of Jordan
I’ll be waiting, drawing pictures in the sand
And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout
And come running through the shallow water
Reaching for your hand.”
“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.” (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)
Although he didn’t cite this verse directly, my pastor told a story in his Sunday sermon that brought it to mind. He became a Christian as a young adult, after a long struggle and lots of questioning and searching. But the Spirit was relentless in his pursuit of Roy, and everywhere he turned, he found more reasons to believe, more evidence that he should trust Christ as his Savior. It got to the point where Roy angrily accused his youth group leader of harassing him about it: “Back off! Just leave me alone!” But it wasn’t anything that the guy said … it was his close walk with the Lord that the Spirit used in Roy’s life to convict him of sin, righteousness and judgment.
Is my walk with God an aroma to those around me? Is it the sweet fragrance of life to fellow believers? Is it a conduit for the Spirit to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment? Do I smell like death to non-believers? Or am I just a nice person who’s really into church? Father, I hope that’s not what they see.
Ari Fleischer is stepping down as President Bush's press secretary. He's doing it now, before the White House moves into full re-election campaign mode. And because he'd like a little more time with his wife of 6 months. Makes sense to me. Godspeed, Ari.
Branching off the discussion below about church membership, Josh Claybourn points out a recent report on the decline in mainline Protestant church membership. In the comments, Davie D. asks what Barna Research has discovered. I turned up this little gem. Looks to me as if church membership in general has been stagnant for the last decade. People are “church-hopping” and looking for more meaningful worship experiences, but overall church membership is roughly flat.
Here is an excerpt from Barna’s findings that demonstrate my point:
“Even denominational affiliation has remained essentially unchanged in the past decade. While there has been a substantial degree of church switching during that period, the net outcomes show surprisingly little change. … Mainline Protestant denominations have experienced the most significant slide, dropping from about one out of five adults a decade ago to one out of eight today (13%). Surprisingly, there has been no discernible growth among non-denominational Christian churches. A decade ago they drew about 4% of the nation’s population. Today, that number is statistically identical (5%).”
Josh points out that many people who have left mainline Protestant churches for the evangelical church do so because they prefer the emphasis on Bible-based teaching and a personal relationship with Christ. I agree with him. Although I will say that not all mainline Protestant congregations are as liberal as their denomination’s leaders. My own PCUSA church is an example. From the pulpit, in Sunday School and in small-group Bible study, a personal relationship with Christ is emphasized.
Josh mentions the Methodist Church’s debates over gay ministers as an example of issues that have sidetracked mainline churches from the primary mission of “making disciples of all nations.” PCUSA has had its own ugly internecine fights over ordaining gays as ministers, elders and deacons. It’s also had some divisive debates over one leader’s ill-advised comments at a religious diversity conference some years ago.
But many people in mainline churches soldier on, holding to more orthodox Christianity than many of the denomination’s leaders. I remember when we had just called our new pastors, a husband-and-wife team. Jan had just finished seminary and had to be approved by the presbytery before she could be ordained and installed as our pastor. Several members of our congregation were present at that presbytery meeting. They fumed in silence as some presbyters grilled Jan about her Statement of Faith, especially the basic issue of Jesus being the only way to salvation. “What about the Jews?” she was asked. “Aren’t you condemning people to hell?” Jan held her ground and insisted on the scriptural basis for her beliefs, while conceding that God in His mercy and wisdom might choose to save anyone He wished. That pathetic episode left a bitter taste for many lifelong Presbyterians who hated to see how Presbytery had lost its way.
People’s needs haven’t changed. They still hunger for a real, authentic spiritual experience. If our churches lose sight of the uniqueness of Christianity — the answers Scripture gives to man’s deepest questions and a personal relationship with our Creator — then they really have nothing more to offer the world than a health club or a book discussion group. If we aren’t giving the world those answers, then it comes as no surprise that non-believers aren’t being won to Christ.
I’ve refrained from joining in the discussion of the Jayson Blair scandal over at the New York Times. Other bloggers, like Susanna Cornett have covered it better than I could. But this latest news (thanks to Ben Domenech for the link) really takes the cake. The unmitigated gall of someone who played loose and fast with the truth while writing for the Times is now thumbing his nose at the whole system by working out book and TV movie deals. That guy doesn’t deserve to make a dime from the fraud he perpetrated.
"He's not Jessica Lynch being rescued from the Iraqis," said a high-level Hollywood agent who specializes in TV movies. "It's for more of a sophisticated audience, where one could explore the psychology of why an individual would embark on such a self-destructive path."
Oh, give me a (expletive deleted) break.
I spent the first 16 years of my working life in newspapers, large and small. It’s not just the sloppiness and outright lies of Blair’s reporting that anger and mystify me. It’s the failure of the Times’ editors to catch him and stop him. Editors from the highest levels down to the lowliest copy editor are trained to question everything. Why didn’t this happen in Blair’s case? Why didn’t the management listen to the city editor’s complaint about Blair’s consistently high error rate?
I’m inclined to agree with those who say it is because of affirmative action. Promoting a minority and looking the other way when he just didn’t measure up. It does a terrible disservice to those it would help by lowering expectations. Apparently it also creates deep cynicism, in which someone who learned well how to play the game is now trying to play the victim.
Blair needs to spend about five years working at a small-town daily, under an editor who will put him directly on the phone with every irate city official and pissed-off PTA mom whose story he gets wrong. Maybe then he’ll understand there are real people behind the news.
In a comment to my “Matrix Reloaded” post, Josh asks what are my favorite movies. He would ask that. It’s not an easy question to answer. I love different movies for different reasons. But here’s a Top Ten list of sorts:
“To Kill a Mockingbird” — outstanding performances all around, especially Gregory Peck and the children. The innocence of childhood, summertime in the South and the ugliness of racism perfectly captured in black and white
“Gone With the Wind” — Clark Gable’s rakish smile, Vivien Leigh’s arched eyebrow, too many memorable scenes to count
“Rear Window” — wonderful suspense, Jimmy Stewart’s limpid blue eyes, Grace Kelly’s glorious clothes
“Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion” — a neat little fable about true friendship. It always makes me laugh: “I never get tired of making fun of ‘Pretty Woman.’”
“Manhattan” — my all-time favorite Woody Allen. It made me fall in love with New York and George Gershwin’s music
“Much Ado About Nothing” — humorous and truly romantic at the same time. It makes me want to visit Tuscany. Between this and “Henry V,” I became smitten with Kenneth Branagh
“Shawshank Redemption” — Tim Robbins’s politics may suck, but he is terrific in this movie. Morgan Freeman, too.
“Little Women” — oh gosh, here’s Robbins’ other half, Susan Sarandon! But she hits all the right notes as Marmie, as does Winona Ryder as Jo.
“Sense and Sensibility” — a really fine screen adaptation of one of my favorite authors, Jane Austen. Everybody in the cast is wonderful, but I especially love Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon. Who would have thought that Professor Snape could do “lovestruck older man” so well?
“Now, Voyager” — Bette Davis does an incredible transformation from a repressed spinster to a confident woman of the world
“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” — Elizabeth Taylor never looked better. And Paul Newman at the height of his acting powers
I wonder if “Reloaded” will fall victim to the same ailment that hurt “MIB II.” The Been There, Done That Jaded Audience Syndrome. We’ve seen the special effects … super slo-mo bullets, Keanu Reeves walking up walls, dodging bullets, stopping them in mid-air. And while I won’t attempt to argue the perennial appeal of Carrie-Ann Moss in a leather cat suit … well, we’ve seen that before too.
It’s too bad that the innovative quickly becomes the old. But filmmakers seem to find it easier to riff off their old successes by making sequels (and in hopes of duplicating the financial success of the original). But think about it. Would you ever want to see a “Casablanca Revisited” or “It’s Another Wonderful Life?”
They are my favorite waste of time. My husband can’t understand why I would enjoy what seems to him an exercise in frustration … but I love them, and he watches me indulge with a mixture of amazement and amusement. The daily and Sunday New York Times are my favorites. The day just isn’t complete until I’ve finished the NYT puzzle. But it doesn’t stop there. I discovered online crosswords. A few of my very favorites:
On Mother's Day morning, Amy greeted me with a sleepy hug and a "Happy Mother's Day, Mom." And then ... nothing. After church, I barely saw her for the rest of the day.
I tried hard not to be hurt, but I felt a little bit overlooked. And I felt guilty about it. I felt guilty because Amy was doing something incredibly kind for someone else. Her best friend lost her mom when Alyssa was only 4 or 5. Her father passed away a couple of years ago. So Amy and Alyssa's boyfriend planned a surprise for Mother's Day. They took Alyssa to a flower shop and then to her mother's grave. How can I complain?
My Mother's Day present appeared yesterday. My favorite candy -- chocolate-covered cherries. And a card -- not a Mother's Day card, because those had been cleared off the racks. But this one is perfect for Amy and me. On the front is a picture of one little girl whispering something in the ear of another little girl. Inside it reads, "I can't imagine a time when I won't have a million things to tell you." I am truly blessed.
Whether you attend church or not, this is an important discussion. My own feelings are similar to Mark’s. I would not be able to maintain a consistent Christian walk if it were not for my church. But the small group I attend and sometimes lead has become a huge part of how I am ministered to personally and how I am able to minister to others. Can Christians do that outside a church setting? Sure. But I would think such a situation would be rare and difficult to find. For me, to seek out the kind of fellowship, teaching and ministry opportunities I need to keep my walk with God fresh and sharp, would be almost impossible. Like-minded people with whom we could “bear one another’s burdens”? Sound doctrinal teaching? Worship?
I guess I was brought up in the faith with the belief that “many logs together burn brightly.” Small group is wonderful for Bible study, prayer, accountability and encouragement on a deeply personal level. But I love corporate worship, traditional and contemporary, which I don’t get in small group. The music lifts me up, and I am blessed by the many different talents of singers and instrumentalists. I benefit from the pastors’ instruction and challenges. And the Lord’s Supper — in a small group it’s one kind of bonding experience, but in a larger body, it’s that mystic tie to the church universal. Having both enriches my life as a believer. Those times in my life when I stopped attending church were the times when I was coldest and farthest from God.
As Mark points out, some churches don't offer the kind of community that makes Christianity thrive. Some small groups do, as do house churches. But I think they have their drawbacks as well.
Suicide car bombing attacks on a housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has been attributed to Al-Qaida. This continues to prove that we cannot afford to let up on the search for potential terrorists and thwarting attacks. Typical of Al-Qaida, these attackers targeted civilians, not the military. Apparently, it’s not just the troops protecting Islamic holy cities that riles up militant Islamic terrorists, but the presence of any Westerners. After all, the U.S. is beginning to withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, now that the threat of Saddam has been removed.
This incident also points up the need to repair our relations with allies. We can’t afford to have France, for example, supporting these groups on the sly, as it supplied Iraq with intel before the war began.
Josh Claybourn has a good discussion over at his site about the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Like Josh, I agree that the war was justly fought to liberate Iraq and to stabilize the region. However, in the prelude to war, the Bush administration laid out its rationale that Saddam had WMD in violation of the U.N. resolutions. WMD were the subject of Bush’s and Powell’s speeches urging U.N. support for military action against Iraq. Like Josh, if no evidence of WMD is found, I will feel betrayed by a president whose integrity I trusted.
However, it hasn’t been that long since the Saddam regime was brought down. If those opposed to the war were so willing to give U.N. inspections an indefinite length of time, then why the impatience now? They act as if the U.S. military should be able to waltz in and find conclusive evidence — oh, yes, and at the same time restore water and electricity, facilitate the distribution of food and medicine, establish civil order, guard the museums and get the oil production going again. Get real. It’s going to take some time.
I Miss You, Mom Randy McRoberts and locdog (sorry the permalink doesn’t seem to be working) both have touching posts up about their moms.
This is a day late (part of my Sabbath rest is staying away from the computer), but I want to honor my mother, too. She died in 1995, at age 80, and a day doesn’t go by but I think of her in some way.
She was an old-school Croatian Catholic, and she made sure I was brought up in the church. She saw me through five years of Catholic school, took me to Mass every Sunday, and bought me a Latin-English missal so I could understand what was going on. She didn’t quite understand it, but she loved me anyway — when I left the Catholic Church and began worshipping in a non-denominational evangelical Bible church. She didn’t realize it — and I didn’t know enough then to tell her — but her faithfulness in teaching me laid the groundwork for my coming to faith on my own.
Her service was a model for me. Even in her later years, before a stroke robbed her of the ability to do everything she loved, she served in the Altar Society of her parish and helped the nuns sort and distribute canned goods, diapers and other supplies for the church’s food pantry.
When I got sick with kidney disease, she must have been terrified. But she kept most of those fears to herself and encouraged me to believe that I would get well and everything would work out OK. She worried when I told her I was expecting a baby, but found some of the greatest joy in her life with the only grandchild she would ever have.
Mom loved to work with her hands, sewing and making crafts. She taught me how to make my own clothes. She taught herself tole painting, decoupage, knitting and crocheting. She made so many little dresses and sweaters when Amy was small. Her dad and I have kept them all for the day when she has children of her own. When she ran out of stuff to make for Amy, she made things to sell at her church’s rummage sale. Mom also loved crossword puzzles, especially the daily New York Times (an addiction that I have inherited).
Mom wouldn’t have had a lot of patience for the long theological discussions that I love. Her faith was in her hands and her heart. Serving or worshipping, faith was always active. I could do much worse than imitate her.
Macker from Pray Naked Experience wants someone to e-mail him when they have this postmodern stuff all figured out. The best way to understand it is to read people who are involved, folks like Jordon Cooper, Darren Rowse and John Campea.
I stumbled over this article while exploring The Shelter, a Francis Schaeffer site. Written by musician and teacher John Fischer, it has some insights into the differences between the world Schaeffer was speaking to in works like “Escape from Reason” and the world we live in today. Here are some excerpts and my comments.
“The God Who Is There” assumes that people care enough to do something about God should it prove to be a rational thing to believe in Him. … Would that truth meant enough for people to lament its absence.
The point being that people today consider truth and knowledge to be relative, and so rational thought has been completely discounted as a way to approach God or to understand the universals.
“The God Who Is There” is about as relevant to today’s thought processes as Francis Schaeffer’s knickers. Not that the truth is no longer true, it is just that the postmodern mind does not possess the thought-forms necessary to grasp truth as absolute.
Schaeffer would dispute this. Postmodern or modern, man is still man, made in the image of God, which includes a rational mind. Denying the rational, postmodern man has become even more alienated from the way God made him to be. He denies the rational, and yet he is denying a part of himself that he cannot truly escape. He may claim that there are no absolutes, but that is not the way he really lives. For example, when he says that something is beautiful and another thing is ugly, he is comparing it to some absolute or ideal of beauty in his mind.
We keep hearing how the postmodern mind cannot grasp the idea of absolutes. Well then, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the postmodern mind is incapable of grasping the idea of God.
Actually, I don’t think any finite mind, modern or postmodern can grasp the infinite.
People, in order to grow in their understanding and relationship with God, are going to have to somehow graduate from a God they once met on one level, to a God who demands they stretch their minds in order to meet him in ways they have never thought of before.
We all do this as we mature in Christianity. I think it’s called sanctification.
Will Christians still love God when they find he can also be irrelevant and old and sometimes difficult to follow?
Difficult to follow? Yeah. Irrelevant and old? No way. Not possible for the Alpha and the Omega.
If people no longer have the thought-forms to grasp absolute truth, then we have to teach and challenge them until God forms in them a new mind.
Yep, sanctification. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind …” (Rom. 12:2)
He is the absolute we will all eventually bump into, regardless of our ability or inability to conceive of him.
We can’t dress up the Gospel or change who God is just to appeal to people. That’s what false prophets do. But the difference is how we offer this Gospel to people. A rational argument based on philosophy or science doesn’t cut it. But when non-believers see real people grappling with life’s problems and putting into practice what we say we believe, that demonstrates the truth of the God Who Is There.
Writing for slate.com, Daniel Gross advocates getting rid of the JOA (Joint Operating Agreement) arrangements that became legal in 1970 via the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. Amen. Detroit, where I live, has had a JOA between the Free Press and the News since the late 1980s. As Gross mentions in the article, circulation for both papers has plummeted since the days before the JOA.
But the JOA isn't the only reason circulation for the papers is in the tank. A bitterly divisive strike in 1995 hurt both papers badly, as Detroit is a fiercely loyal union town and subscribers who were union members canceled subscriptions to the papers in droves. But, strengthened by the JOA, Gannett and Knight Ridder were able to break the strike, replacing striking workers (including yours truly) and causing many of the top reporters to find other work in other cities. Many readers feel the quality of the papers hasn't been the same since. And circulation has never really recovered. This paragraph in the slate piece is most telling:
If the newspapers in JOAs had to compete financially—instead of just editorially—presumably advertising rates would be lower, or subscriptions would be cheaper. Or editors and publishers would try to make the newspapers so good that one would attract a larger audience and people would pay a premium for the product, and to advertise in it. And then everybody would benefit.
Rachel Cunliffe has posted an extraordinary interview with one of her friends who is Christian but has decided not to attend church meetings. The answers to Rachel's questions may surprise you, or not. They may make you angry, or hopeful, or sad. But you will learn something. It's so easy in our churches to use the next fad formula for increasing membership and/or attendance. And we forget the simple, but difficult, things that started the Church in Jerusalem some 2000 years ago. Check out this interview. And may God take the scales from our eyes.
It's going to be a big day, musically, at church on Sunday. The teen choir is singing "Down in the River to Pray" from the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack. Daughter Amy has the opening solo and I couldn't be prouder. She'll sing it for you now if you ask, anytime, anywhere. I'll be holding up my end in the soprano section of Chancel Choir as we do "Lord of the Dance" (arranged by John Rutter) for the anthem. Rehearsal tonight. I need it.
One of my favorite bloggers, Bible Geek, is back to his own blog, Cruciform Chronicle. He's been posting over at The Gutless Pacifist too. Now that he's back to his old stomping grounds, guess I'll have to add him to my blogroll. Check him out.
Another blogroll addition is Clutter from the Desk of Telford Work. (Yes, that's his real name and you can read about it over at his Web site.) I have been reading him for months, so this addition is long overdue. I am in awe of his clear thinking, wisdom and writing ability.
Over at Martin Roth's place, he's posted his new novel "Prophets and Loss," a Christian thriller. I know the first two paragraphs he's posted on his home page make me want to read more!
Update: Thanks to Alicia the Midwife for the nudge -- we've got more than one new novelist among the Christian bloggers. Kathryn Lively recently posted her new mystery, "Saints Preserve Us," on her site. Go take a look.
According to research by Barna Research, nine out of 10 parents under age 13 believe they have the primary responsibility to teach their children about spiritual matters and religious faith. And two-thirds of the parents surveyed attend church at least once a month, and take their kids with them. However, the majority of parents don’t spend any time during the week talking with their kids about spiritual matters. They leave it all up to the church — which has their kids, maybe, an hour a week. Here’s a depressing statistic:
“Of the 51 million children under the age of 18 who live in the United States, more than 40 million of them do not know Jesus Christ as their savior, which suggests that there are some basic unmet spiritual needs that parents are overlooking.”
The survey results point up the huge need for churches to offer training for parents, as well as teaching children in Sunday School. Our churches need to offer help for parents in communicating their faith to their kids. Not just parenting classes, but basic discipleship for adults so that we can teach our children the how’s and why’s of our faith. Many times, the parents themselves don’t have a very solid grounding in their faith. As Barna said:
“When it comes to raising children to be spiritually mature, the old adage, ‘you can’t give what you don’t have,’ is pertinent for millions of families.”
If I want to be a disciple of Jesus so that I can disciple others, what better place to start than with my own child?
The New Testament sees the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:20 — “For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.” Paul is talking about sexual immorality in this context, but the overriding principle is to use our bodies to glorify God. By justly compensating a donor for their organ, am I violating that principle? Am I forcing them to dishonor God? Am I misusing the gift of the body? The same God who created the body also gifted the surgeon with the knowledge and ability to perform transplants. I do not think it is dishonoring God.
The Third World donor is voluntarily offering the organ for sale. Or does the donor’s very poverty itself exert coercion? Is it coercion to offer to pay someone for something they are freely offering for sale? The choice begins with the donor’s decision, not the recipient.
Does it violate the law of love? True, people can be given food; they don’t have to sell body parts. But by receiving this person’s organ, and paying them for it, I am forever connected to this donor. It gives me a personal opportunity to make other positive contributions to this person’s life, to have a relationship with him or her. Something that few charities can do.
Is it better, or more moral, to allow end-stage renal disease patients to live indefinitely on machines or home dialysis? Those options aren’t pretty, they aren’t cheap and they don’t give the patient much quality of life. Approximately 52,000 people in the United States are waiting for kidney transplants. Currently in the U.S., Medicare (Health Care Financing Administration) pays for a portion of the patient’s expenses for dialysis and transplants.
One RazorMouth commenter offered that the sixth commandment against murder also includes doing any physical harm to another person. And that putting a donor through the risk of surgery and living with only one functioning kidney (as kidney transplant patients do), violates that commandment.
But the risk of donation is decreasing all the time. According to the NYU School of Medicine, the most common problems associated with living donor surgery include pain related to the surgery, bleeding and infection. There are risks associated with any surgery. The main risks include pneumonia, blood clots to the lung, deep vein thrombosis, and side effects from anesthesia and infection. The risk of death from the surgery is estimated to be less than 1/100 of 1%.
New laparoscopic surgical procedures make the donor’s surgery much less invasive than previously. The surgery requires four small incisions, resulting in reduced recovery time, less pain and a shorter hospital stay. Many transplant center have been doing laparoscoping surgery for living donors since 1998; approximately half of living donor surgeries are done this way.
Living donors also worry about whether they can get by on only one kidney. A healthy person can live a completely normal life with only one kidney, indeed, some people are born with only one kidney. If a kidney is removed, the remaining kidney increases slightly in size and capacity and can carry on the function of the two. Lifestyle is not affected and normal work can continue.
And then there’s this: In 1998, Johns Hopkins Hospital performed its first "altruistic stranger" donor kidney transplant. The donor was an organ procurement nurse. She hoped, by her example, to demonstrate that being a live kidney donor was a safe and rewarding way to help the thousands of patients who wait for a kidney. Since her donation, there have been over 100 individuals who have expressed interest in donating their kidney to a stranger and four additional altruistic stranger donor transplants have taken place. These altruistic donors are deemed extraordinarily generous.
Is it more moral for the living donor to be an altruistic stranger? Does the exchange of money make the donor a victim or a beneficiary? Does it make the recipient a benefactor or an exploiter? Why is the paid donor a victim rather than “extraordinarily generous”?
Alicia the Midwife at Fructus Ventris shares an e-mail she received ... 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter) paraphrased for moms. I share it because I shouldn't be the only person sitting at my desk this morning with tears streaming down my face. Permalinks don't seem to be working, so look for today's first post.
I've added a list of Christian web magazines to the blogroll on the left. Some of my favorites. A couple of them, like Relevant and Boundless are written for a college-age audience (but I still feel like I'm 20 -- does that count?
It's storming here and the thunder and lighting has freaked out Gidget the Kitty. Typing with a cat on my lap is a challenge.
An interesting discussion over at RazorMouth began with an article about the morality of buying organs from Third World donors. The article prompted some comments that organ transplants themselves are immoral, based on proscriptions in the Bible against ingesting blood.
This hits close to home for me. I received a kidney transplant more than 22 years ago, from an unrelated donor. I was only 24 and one sick young woman. Would it have been better for me to have died rather than lived these last 22 years? Ask my 15-year-old daughter, whose birth would not have been possible without it. Ask my husband. You can’t ask my parents, who would have lost their only surviving child after losing their son in Vietnam. I buried my dad in 1986 and mom went to be with the Lord in 1995.
Here’s the New Testament reference against ingesting blood — Acts 15:29. It’s in the letter from the Council of Jerusalem to Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. “You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.” In the Old Testament law, Leviticus 3:17 says, “This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.” And Lev. 7:26 — “And wherever you live you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal.” You get the picture. No fat, no blood. They belonged to the Lord under the OT sacrificial system. If Christians are supposed to abstain from animal fat, look out McDonald’s.
I don’t see anything in either of these Scriptures that considers blood transfusions or organ transplants to be unbiblical today. “Nothing that goes into a man defiles a man,” Jesus said. The injunctions in Acts relate to certain Gentile practices that would give offense to the Jewish brethren. The Gentile believers were asked to abstain from blood and strangled animals to avoid giving offense.
I would like to address the issue originally posed in the article — is it moral to buy organs from people in Third World countries? — in a post later this week after I have some time to research and think about it. It is not an easy question.
Pen writes, “There are some jobs a Christian should not do. An executioner would be one of those.” He and I disagreed on whether a Christian can be a soldier; in some ways, it is the same — both the soldier and the executioner are agents of the established government. Both of them are carrying out justice in the name of the state, which God has granted the authority to punish wrongdoers. Seems like we’re still talking about the issues of Romans 13:1-7.
Capital punishment raises some of the same questions as war — when is it just, if ever, in this fallen world? Can anyone but God judge someone’s guilt or innocence? Is the death penalty justice, or vengeance?
Human beings are finite, not all-knowing as God is. Yet he has given us the responsibility to exercise his justice in this world. There is not a crime so vile that the mercy of the cross cannot cover it. But crimes (sins too) carry temporal consequences. (Telling a lie may cost you a friendship. Adultery may cost you your marriage. In some churches, it may cost you your membership.) The death penalty is justified in the vilest of crimes because it is a natural consequence.
As I pointed out in a comment over at Pen’s site, as children of God, we are to be zealous for God’s holiness and love. Crime is an outrage against God’s character even more than it is an outrage against society. Justice and mercy combine that zealousness for God’s holiness and his love.
With a sometimes-heated debate going on over the faith of prominent Catholics like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, Amy Welborn weighs in with a post (April 30) that puts it all in its proper perspective. Whether we are Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, we would all do well to take her words to heart.
Mark Byron’s post today continues the postmodernism discussion. (Permalinks are goofy — look for the April 30 post titled “Pomos, Moonies and Bears, Oh My!”
From my reading, I am convinced that the postmodern movement does not want to toss out sound biblical doctrine; it is founded on the same Reformed principles found in the creeds. Learning sound doctrine from the preaching and teaching of the Word, and personally experiencing the presence of God in worship and community are not mutually exclusive. They are inextricably linked in the Christian’s walk.
I cannot possibly hope to embody agape love and Christian community unless I am empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. While my personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not mechanical, there are some practices a young believer needs to know as a foundation for his moment-by-moment walk, the process the theologians call sanctification.
As a new believer, I needed to understand that Christ’s death on the cross was a completed work, once for all, for my sins and the world’s for all time. When I sin as a Christian (and I did, mightily, and still do) I need to know that I can bring that sin under the blood of Jesus and know that I am forgiven. I need to know that I can once again bow before my Creator and accept his grace, and continue to walk in the Spirit. This is true, no matter how I feel — emotionally I may feel a burden lifted, or I may feel no different.
I need to know that the basis of my forgiveness is not a matter of opinion. I need to know that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose bodily from the dead (as Schaeffer would say, in space and time history) to give me new life. As Mark writes, “I'm not sure how you can inculcate a respect for the Bible as the Christian's constitution in people who are raised to reject absolutes.”
