Friday, November 05, 2010
Incarnational Truth for Ancient peoples = Accomodation
This is where I want to go with my writing concerning contextualization in the Old Testament! Enjoy!
Theological Debates as Fear Factories?
"we have been taught that the only way to protect the Bible is to protect its literalistic reading and interpretation. Enns notes that the ongoing debates are primarily motivated by fear—not flawed theology." - Peter Enns
Check out more vids @ http://www.youtube.com/biologosfoundation#p/a/u/2/7AkiQq5fN_s
or http://biologos.org/
Check out more vids @ http://www.youtube.com/biologosfoundation#p/a/u/2/7AkiQq5fN_s
or http://biologos.org/
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Meaning Miners satisfy themselves with the "Caverns" they've dug
"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light." – Stanley Kubrick in Playboy magazine, 1968
http://teapartyjesus.tumblr.com/
"...in the earliest period of Christian history...salvation consisted essentially in a particular mode and quality of life, not in consciousness of some special connectedness with Jesus.” - Gordon Kaufman
(Found on Frank Viola's blog)
(Found on Frank Viola's blog)
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Monday, November 01, 2010
Change - don't settle the score!
Change the score or face fire
I'm your salvation never more dire
we've been here too long for all this crap
come with me and escape well laid trap
I've got a peace that will tear you down
it's filled and full and ready to pounce
Pacify the naked rage, place latch upon moral cage
then clothe with words of sage
of justice and your own self stage
Seeing through the dirt more darkly,
where love draws fits of fabled malarkey
let's bow the knee to love's pure voice
so when we hear it we don't pass it
on a street filled with our own noise
Our justice is shared not yours to bear
Fill up the wrath of glory
hand it off please - it's just not your story
I've famed the fallen and lost my leisure
put gold on a nail driven by Caesar
but we dear friend are to be driven up towards
not away from our body just away from the cords
Finales are to me what settles the score
I'll meet you there - arm in arm with a whore
Carry your cross and I guess I'll do mine
I just can't do it again for you, once more this time
I finish my phrase with a heart split in two
one side angry, the other melded to you
so hear a word as I write of pure but bland courage
I do so need you but not the fodder to burn such incorrige.
Yet anger is an elephant, and wrath a pure vida
for us who can't let go, it's hell in a cheetah
so without further adieu on behalf of this pure whore
I plead don't count or settle, just change the frickin score
I'm your salvation never more dire
we've been here too long for all this crap
come with me and escape well laid trap
I've got a peace that will tear you down
it's filled and full and ready to pounce
Pacify the naked rage, place latch upon moral cage
then clothe with words of sage
of justice and your own self stage
Seeing through the dirt more darkly,
where love draws fits of fabled malarkey
let's bow the knee to love's pure voice
so when we hear it we don't pass it
on a street filled with our own noise
Our justice is shared not yours to bear
Fill up the wrath of glory
hand it off please - it's just not your story
I've famed the fallen and lost my leisure
put gold on a nail driven by Caesar
but we dear friend are to be driven up towards
not away from our body just away from the cords
Finales are to me what settles the score
I'll meet you there - arm in arm with a whore
Carry your cross and I guess I'll do mine
I just can't do it again for you, once more this time
I finish my phrase with a heart split in two
one side angry, the other melded to you
so hear a word as I write of pure but bland courage
I do so need you but not the fodder to burn such incorrige.
Yet anger is an elephant, and wrath a pure vida
for us who can't let go, it's hell in a cheetah
so without further adieu on behalf of this pure whore
I plead don't count or settle, just change the frickin score
$115 Million dollar Church Building Project!
"Today First Baptist Dallas begins the largest church building program in modern history as we create a $115 million spiritual oasis in the heart of downtown Dallas."
hmmm thoughts?
hmmm thoughts?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Formation - Desire vs. Discipline or both - a conversation with James K.A. Smith
One of my favorite authors, James K.A. Smith talks freely surrounding the new theme of his book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Cultural Liturgies) A Fantastic primer and discussion guide for how our appetites, desire, or the things that we love do more to shape us than we could ever realize or know. Enjoy! I need to listen to it over and over again to remember the gems!
Defining "The Good Life" - Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.
Defining "The Good Life" - Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Understand dependence when you know the Maker's plan
On a tree my leaves would grow, but bitter torrents have stripped the sew and I'm pissed off at the High Street now for taking down their signage just because of a roue.
Come out your stores and feed us fat, licentious nests of dying streeter cats. Why hold onto what's gone in the morning, if night is night then life to be lived is strife without warning
I've held onto what scorched my soul, my hands softer than ever before. I can wake and hear the distant guilt but really it was worth the manifold wilt.
I could believe my own if it weren't such a stench, to know I'm a flower that's rotting on a fence - while the bitter cold sweeps round about me, seed or not sown, my life is but just bounty
So speak this word of words long lost, tell me a spell that burns the frost - I want more than my soul can share to burst wide open free from the tare.
I was meant to write so much softer - my hope that this death and guilt tarry less and less ofter. Hope - a four letter phrase that fills my mouth but rots like mais, ever darker but never dismayed
So have your cult and eat it too on altars built by soft hands only a few, a soul that scorched others refrain and led the slaughter towards an oncoming train
I 'll have what's lost, it's better than yorn - a life so full of roue and scorn. Judgement makes my life a little bit easier, an enemy who's a saint - wrapped in blood as salvation gets queasier
I'd like remove my continuous flare but life is night and without out it - I'd be over there
Come out your stores and feed us fat, licentious nests of dying streeter cats. Why hold onto what's gone in the morning, if night is night then life to be lived is strife without warning
I've held onto what scorched my soul, my hands softer than ever before. I can wake and hear the distant guilt but really it was worth the manifold wilt.
I could believe my own if it weren't such a stench, to know I'm a flower that's rotting on a fence - while the bitter cold sweeps round about me, seed or not sown, my life is but just bounty
So speak this word of words long lost, tell me a spell that burns the frost - I want more than my soul can share to burst wide open free from the tare.
I was meant to write so much softer - my hope that this death and guilt tarry less and less ofter. Hope - a four letter phrase that fills my mouth but rots like mais, ever darker but never dismayed
So have your cult and eat it too on altars built by soft hands only a few, a soul that scorched others refrain and led the slaughter towards an oncoming train
I 'll have what's lost, it's better than yorn - a life so full of roue and scorn. Judgement makes my life a little bit easier, an enemy who's a saint - wrapped in blood as salvation gets queasier
I'd like remove my continuous flare but life is night and without out it - I'd be over there
Monday, October 25, 2010
Could it be that music Messiah is come?
Longing for a tune that reduces me to tears, for a song that gives back just a few years, and then for a cup of tea that tastes like a few stout beers.
I used to like wheat beer - twas smooth and kind to my bitter fear - now I taste for an IPA, too long awaited and too much fricking day. Bring the evening, for that pint of mine, though alcoholic some say, it really just means sublime.
Once I heard a tune, and it was fair, yet these young lads sang and now I stand upwards in my chair to belt above your blasted noise and bring this riddle of pure rejoice. Please listen and weep for days of thunder that stole through noise of this pure melodic wonder.
Have fun and listen responsibly eh
I used to like wheat beer - twas smooth and kind to my bitter fear - now I taste for an IPA, too long awaited and too much fricking day. Bring the evening, for that pint of mine, though alcoholic some say, it really just means sublime.
Once I heard a tune, and it was fair, yet these young lads sang and now I stand upwards in my chair to belt above your blasted noise and bring this riddle of pure rejoice. Please listen and weep for days of thunder that stole through noise of this pure melodic wonder.
Have fun and listen responsibly eh
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Dr. Al Mohler, Please Reconsider your comments!
Dr. Al Mohler, President of the Souther Baptist Theological Seminary recently participated in a three part conversation about the New Calvinism. It was an interesting conversation with good dialogue until about the 7 minute mark. I felt it necessary to write in response to his remark and so here it goes.
DeYoung, Duncan, Mohler: What's New About the New Calvinism from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.
In this clip, Al Mohler asks, "Where else are they going to go? What options are there? If you are a theologically minded, deeply convictional young evangelical, if you're committed to the Gospel, and you want to see the nations rejoice in the name of Christ, if you want to see Gospel built and structured and committed churches, your theology is just going to end basically being Reformed, basically being something like this New Calvinism, ugh or you're going to have to invent some other label for what's just going to be the same thing.
There just are not options out there and that's something that I think frustrates people...ugh but what I'm asking about the New Calvinism is basically, Where else are they going to go? Who else is going to answer their questions? Where else are they going to find the resources they're going to need and where else are they going to connect? This is a generation that understands, they want to say the same thing Paul said, they want to stand with the Apostles, they want to stand with old dead people, and they know they are going to have to if they are going to preach and teach the truth."
Whoa! Well, I have to disagree based upon the fact that there are other options and good ones at that. The list of characteristics that he described seem to fit where I am at along with many others that I know but we actually have found other options. Is my only option the New Calvinism? I wasn't aware that we would all end up bowing the knee and confessing with our tongue that the New Calvinism was the truth to preach and teach.
The Reformation was a great time in history and has offered us so much that is good and right and true, but what about 1500 years of Christianity that preceded it, what about the global church and the untapped self-theologizing of the Majority World? Will they all figure out once they self-theologize that they too are part of the New Calvinism? Will African theology agree with the New Calvinism? Will Chinese theology be a fan? Will South America allow this Western Reformation tradition to direct how they do theology? What about Native North America? Will they also bow the knee to the New Calvinism? An audacious claim such as this only breeds contempt and is typical of much of our Western dominated theological vision. It only feeds our narcissism and top-down evaluation of the rest of the world's input at the table of theological dialogue.
Paul Hiebert, the late and well-respected anthropologist/missiologist, talks about how global theology, where in each culture has input on the interpretation of Scripture and reality, is more like a blueprint than a map. It seems that Dr. Mohler would have us believe that our history in theology and self-theologizing is more like a map that we are slowly plotting and discovering and we only have to look back at what was initially discovered and laid out as we plod on to new ground, though there is little to discover that is of much importance.
Paul Hiebert sees it much differently. Our Western tradition only represents certain sheets of the blueprint of the narrative of Scripture, the truth about God and the message of the Gospel. We are limited in our understanding of the entire blueprint because God has only given the Western tradition so much of the blueprint to work on and help others see. But as the Gospel is established in the Majority world, we will see many nuances and major insights about Scripture that we have never seen before as they are discovered by people in contexts that we have never visited or even known about before. They offer the rest of the church another page of the blueprint and though the Western tradition of theology has helped tremendously with our pages of the blueprint, now it's time to hear from others and allow their pages to be held up, seen and appreciated and at times for them to critique our over-emphasis on our pages of the blueprint. Altogether, we will be able to see God's vision for his church built if we allow for the entire blueprint to be accessed and referred to. As long as the Western tradition thinks that our pages are the only pages or the most important ones, then we deny the rest of the church access to the grand vision of God's work in history and as such should be ashamed.
Statements like Dr. Mohler's only encourage that agenda and as such need to be checked, rebutted and dealt with swiftly but gently. My guess is that gentleness may not work in this case, though it is the way of God.
"Dr. Mohler, you're a good man, but your evaluation of this New Calvinism movement and the tradition of Calvinism as you define it is far to myopic for the more robust and grander vision that still awaits us and that lead up to the Reformation. Please don't ignore the rest of the world or and their coming voice, or the 1500 years of church history and tradition leading up to the Reformation. We do not all want to be Calvinists. We do read Paul, we do stand with the Apostles, we do respect the voices of many dead saints from history, but we also read and dwell in the living words of a living Savior who is not dead. We have convictions, we love Jesus, we rejoice in the name of Jesus being lifted high in the nations and we want to see the glory of the Lord fill the earth but do not want to be Reformed or become Calvinists and there are going to be many more like us. We have good places to go and we don't have to end up at your door necessarily. That kind of hegemony has never been good for any society and I hope that you would retract your statement and honor the nations, the coming theologies, all of church history and those who think radically different than you do but still love Jesus wholeheartedly because they are your brothers and your sisters and you have disrespected them. Please reconsider and join the community of the globe in our desire to honor Christ in spite of our differences in theological trajectories and visions. Thank you for your hard work and commitment and blessings on your journey!
-Nathan Smith
DeYoung, Duncan, Mohler: What's New About the New Calvinism from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.
In this clip, Al Mohler asks, "Where else are they going to go? What options are there? If you are a theologically minded, deeply convictional young evangelical, if you're committed to the Gospel, and you want to see the nations rejoice in the name of Christ, if you want to see Gospel built and structured and committed churches, your theology is just going to end basically being Reformed, basically being something like this New Calvinism, ugh or you're going to have to invent some other label for what's just going to be the same thing.
There just are not options out there and that's something that I think frustrates people...ugh but what I'm asking about the New Calvinism is basically, Where else are they going to go? Who else is going to answer their questions? Where else are they going to find the resources they're going to need and where else are they going to connect? This is a generation that understands, they want to say the same thing Paul said, they want to stand with the Apostles, they want to stand with old dead people, and they know they are going to have to if they are going to preach and teach the truth."
Whoa! Well, I have to disagree based upon the fact that there are other options and good ones at that. The list of characteristics that he described seem to fit where I am at along with many others that I know but we actually have found other options. Is my only option the New Calvinism? I wasn't aware that we would all end up bowing the knee and confessing with our tongue that the New Calvinism was the truth to preach and teach.
The Reformation was a great time in history and has offered us so much that is good and right and true, but what about 1500 years of Christianity that preceded it, what about the global church and the untapped self-theologizing of the Majority World? Will they all figure out once they self-theologize that they too are part of the New Calvinism? Will African theology agree with the New Calvinism? Will Chinese theology be a fan? Will South America allow this Western Reformation tradition to direct how they do theology? What about Native North America? Will they also bow the knee to the New Calvinism? An audacious claim such as this only breeds contempt and is typical of much of our Western dominated theological vision. It only feeds our narcissism and top-down evaluation of the rest of the world's input at the table of theological dialogue.
Paul Hiebert, the late and well-respected anthropologist/missiologist, talks about how global theology, where in each culture has input on the interpretation of Scripture and reality, is more like a blueprint than a map. It seems that Dr. Mohler would have us believe that our history in theology and self-theologizing is more like a map that we are slowly plotting and discovering and we only have to look back at what was initially discovered and laid out as we plod on to new ground, though there is little to discover that is of much importance.
Paul Hiebert sees it much differently. Our Western tradition only represents certain sheets of the blueprint of the narrative of Scripture, the truth about God and the message of the Gospel. We are limited in our understanding of the entire blueprint because God has only given the Western tradition so much of the blueprint to work on and help others see. But as the Gospel is established in the Majority world, we will see many nuances and major insights about Scripture that we have never seen before as they are discovered by people in contexts that we have never visited or even known about before. They offer the rest of the church another page of the blueprint and though the Western tradition of theology has helped tremendously with our pages of the blueprint, now it's time to hear from others and allow their pages to be held up, seen and appreciated and at times for them to critique our over-emphasis on our pages of the blueprint. Altogether, we will be able to see God's vision for his church built if we allow for the entire blueprint to be accessed and referred to. As long as the Western tradition thinks that our pages are the only pages or the most important ones, then we deny the rest of the church access to the grand vision of God's work in history and as such should be ashamed.
Statements like Dr. Mohler's only encourage that agenda and as such need to be checked, rebutted and dealt with swiftly but gently. My guess is that gentleness may not work in this case, though it is the way of God.
"Dr. Mohler, you're a good man, but your evaluation of this New Calvinism movement and the tradition of Calvinism as you define it is far to myopic for the more robust and grander vision that still awaits us and that lead up to the Reformation. Please don't ignore the rest of the world or and their coming voice, or the 1500 years of church history and tradition leading up to the Reformation. We do not all want to be Calvinists. We do read Paul, we do stand with the Apostles, we do respect the voices of many dead saints from history, but we also read and dwell in the living words of a living Savior who is not dead. We have convictions, we love Jesus, we rejoice in the name of Jesus being lifted high in the nations and we want to see the glory of the Lord fill the earth but do not want to be Reformed or become Calvinists and there are going to be many more like us. We have good places to go and we don't have to end up at your door necessarily. That kind of hegemony has never been good for any society and I hope that you would retract your statement and honor the nations, the coming theologies, all of church history and those who think radically different than you do but still love Jesus wholeheartedly because they are your brothers and your sisters and you have disrespected them. Please reconsider and join the community of the globe in our desire to honor Christ in spite of our differences in theological trajectories and visions. Thank you for your hard work and commitment and blessings on your journey!
-Nathan Smith
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