another dippy sojo comment

An Alternative to Abortion: Imagine the Story We Can Live Out

Perhaps later, I'll write a bit about the main entry here. For now, though, there's this.

The first mistake we made is to hitch our wagons to the conservative wing of the Republican Party, most of which doesn't really care about the issue (but coveted our votes). And with the increasing irrelevance of the religious right, abortion has taken even more of a back seat than it had before. My prediction: Abortion will become an issue when, and only when, the conservative movement completely collapses.

So, abortion will become an issue when...the people for abortion in all cases and for any reason are the only ones out there? When those who are against abortion have collapsed?

Wow. Screwy thinking, much?

mclaren's idea of a good question?

Q & R: Shake your hand at Wild Goose Festival, guilt/cynicism, maybe the best hell question I've received

Your hell question is, I think, among the best I've ever received.

Well, high praise indeed, I suppose, from McLaren. What, we may right ask, was this highly-praised query?

Why do you think all of those who vehemently defend eternal concious torment in the afterlife for the vast majority of humanity never live like they believe it. It seems to me that if they really believed it, they would never have kids (to spare them the large chance that they would experience ECT) and that they would spend every moment of their life screaming and frantically running around trying to rescue people. I've heard of these logically consistent people, but have never met one. Why do you think this is?

That's it? That's the question McLaren things is so good?

So, let's see--if you believe in Hell, and that it's eternal, you shouldn't have children? And you should go about like a maniac all the time, trying to rescue people?

First, upon what basis are Christians who believe in eternal punishment in Hell suppose to not have children? Upon the basis of fear? That's logical? No, this is asinine, silly, pathetic.

Children are a gift from God. Children are a blessing. They are also a responsibility. They will not raise themselves, but godly parents are to raise them to respect and love and fear God. Yes, even the aspect of their eternal destiny is a responsibility, and they are the ones who have a great say in that themselves, but Christians are commanded to live in faith in God, and not to cave in to fear and the nonsense behind this person's question.

Much the same could be said about the second part. There are many Christians who have gone to places where the Gospel has been little known or not known at all, and have presented the Gospel to those people.

But running around like a chicken with its head cut off will not work. There is a point at which we have done out duty, the Gospel has been presented, and after that, it's time to stop playing umpteen-zillion chorus during the altar call, to stop trying to manipulate. We may pray that they will respond differently later on, that perhaps God will grant them repentence, even an apostate like McLaren. But antics and theatrics on our parts will do no good.

So, I find McLaren's 'best' question to be little more than rubbish.

the dark underbelly of being a sojrone

So, a writer at Sojo is in a pickle.

The Dark Underbelly of Fundamentalist, Charismatic Christianity

Now, I do believe that there are some serious problems in charismania. Namely, they have for far too long tolerated the 'ministries' of fake-healers and people who claim to be apostles and prophets but are not.

But, those aren't the problems this Sojrone finds appalling. Here is what bugs him.

In my late-20s, I began to notice the poor track record that fundamentalist Christianity produces on a societal level. The first shocker was when I discovered that all those prayer groups I attended to “Bless Israel” in my youth and Bible college years were in fact providing theological cover to justify colonialism and oppression of Arab peoples in the Middle East. Then I started wondering why it never occurred to me that the Vietnam War was immoral, even though I had traveled there as a Bible college student and seen the gruesome pictures of what it looked like from their perspective. Then I learned that the most vehement opponents of civil rights in the 1960’s were Bible-believing fundamentalist Christians. So far, not so good

I’ve noticed that the same loving, happy people that I grew up with are the same people who think of homosexuality as if it were the moral equivalent of pedophilia. I’ve seen people very close to me — people who love Jesus and strive to live a moral life — isolated, shamed, and rejected by the same happy, loving people who believe that if gay people would just pray hard enough and forgive their earthly fathers, then they can be “cured.”

So, he doens't like it that charismatic, as a whole, are pro-Israel and think homosexuality is a sin.

In other words, two aspects of the charismatic movement that could be considered biblically informed are what this man calls the 'dark underbelly'.

I don’t want to pass homophobia along to my children. My heart tells me its wrong, though my head still has a hard time figuring out how to reconcile what my heart is telling me with the way I read Scripture.

What are we in, a Disney movie? Some shloppy Hollywood fairy tale where all is right if you "follow your heart"?

News for you, Sojrone, the Bible does not follow your "My heart tells me it's wrong" thinking. It has little good to say about the heart as a decision-makers; rather, it flatly tells us "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, more than we can know". If your heart is contradicting God's Word, your heart is wrong.

the imagined gospel

Nadia Bolz-Weber preaches the Gospel

This theooze forum entry begins with the claim that the speaker was preaching the gospel. Here's the kinds of things that person apparently transcribed.

"Once upon a time, the God of the Universe was basically fed up with being on the receiving end of all our human projections, tired of being nothing more to us than what we thought God should be: angry, show-offy, defensive, insecure, in short, the vengeance-seeking tyrant we would be if we were God. So, at that time, over 2,000 years ago, God’s Loving Desire to really be Known overflowed the heavens and was made manifest in the rapidly dividing cells within the womb of an insignificant peasant girl named Mary. And when the time came for her to give birth to God, there was no room in our expectations – no room in any impressive or spiffy or safe place.

Nice that it starts with the standard fairy-tale phrase. Would we be safe in thinking that Bolz-Weber is using that phrase to indicate that she questions the reality of the incarnation?

I don't think we can doubt she thinks something similar of the Old Testament. All it is, from this quote, is "our human projections". That nasty of god of Abraham, David, and Elijah, going around telling his people to fight and conquer, defend themselves, sacrifice a bunch of cute little animals, and so jealous he just won't allow his people to worship a golden calf or any other idol.

A while ago, I noticed that an emergent writer posited what I labeled The Incompetent God--while God wanted people to be nice little flower-power pacifists, he had to continually have them conquer and go to war. I've come to notice that, in one form or another, 'the incompetent god' is a common theme among emergents. Here, this emergent speakers uses it in a PR sense--God just didn't know how to manage his image, letting poor little people make him out to be all wrath and ire and angry.

Yet, is it not ironic, that at the very time the speaker goes on about man projecting on God, this speaker herself is doing the exact thing she accusing them of doing?

So this God was born in straw and dirt. He grew up, this Jesus of Nazareth, left his home, and found some, let’s be honest, rather unimpressive characters to follow him. Fishermen, Tax collectors, prostitutes, homeless women with no teeth, people from Commerce City, Ann Coulter and Charlie Sheen. If you think I’m kidding… read it for yourselves. These people were questionable. So, with his little band of misfits Jesus went about the countryside turning water to wine, eating with all the wrong people, angering the religious establishment and insisting that in him the kingdom of God had come near, that through him the world according to God was coming right to us. He touched the unclean and used spit and dirt to heal the blind and said crazy destabilizing things like the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and sell all you have and give it to the poor.

Well, that's interesting. Nice little spins on the reality. A little bit of truth mixed in with fabrications, not unlike the serpent when he tempted the woman in Eden.

No doubt, one can see a surface relationship to what she's saying Jesus said and did, and what is in the biblical accounts of Him. Yet, getting past the surface, how much of her Jesus is like the biblical Jesus?

Perhaps the one that is most missing is any sense of context to Jesus' actions. For example, he made water into wine at a wedding in which the wine had run out, which from what I understand would have been a bit of a problem for some people invovled in it. We get no hint that Jesus performed this miracle willy-nilly. Jesus ate with sinners, but is there any hint that Jesus was a partaker in their sins, or that He did it to validate their sins? Jesus touched a leper, and did so to heal him.

To one man, Jesus said to give away all he had. He seemed quite pleased enough when Zaccheaus gave only half. And He seemed to not at all hold it against Lazarus and his sisters that they had their own home, one large enough to allow Him and His disciples to stay in. And the statement about first being last was made in the context of the parable of the workers, where the landowner paid all who worked for him that same wage, no matter how long they worked that day. Another time, it is used in the context of those who have given up much to follow Him.

And the thing that really cooked people’s noodles wasn’t the question “is Jesus like God” it was “what if God is like Jesus”. What if God is not who we thought? What if the most reliable way to know God is not through religion, not through a sin and punishment program, but through a person. What if the most reliable way to know God is to look at how God chose to reveal God’s self in Jesus?"

Perhaps one can show me in the Bible, please, where anyone got "really cooked" by that question she says they got cooked by?

This is, simply, the tired old canard that Jesus was somehow different from God. No lie would be bigger. Jesus was not some radical departure from the God of the prophets, His message was not in contradiction to the God of the Scriptures that the people had at that time. He read from one of those prophets when He began His ministry, He quoted those Scriptures to the devil when He was tempted, He said that those Scriptures spoke of Him, He affirmed those Scriptures and God at every turn. He did not play this game that Bolz-Weber is doing, putting down the God of the Old Testament to create a jesus of her own making.

To separate Jesus from the context of the Old Testament is to create a jesus of one's own making, which Bolz-Weber does. We cannot understand Jesus' sacrifice apart from sin and redemption. The jesus of Bolz-Weber and other emergents is simply a propoganda tool.

Because that changes everything. If what we see in Jesus is God’s own self, revealed, then what we are dealing with here is a God who is ridiculously indiscriminate about choosing friends. A God who would rather die than be in the sin accounting business anymore. A God who would not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him, but went to the depths of Hell rather than be apart even from his betrayers. A God unafraid to get his hands dirty for the ones he loves. This, this is the God who rises to new life with dirt still under his nails.

Ok, did God not lift a finger to condemn those who crucified him? When Jesus cried out over Jerusalem, saying how He wanted to gather them to Him but they would not allow it, then saying that bad things were coming to them, was He not condemning them for their rejection of Him?

Would God rather die than be in the sin accounting business? In Jesus, God offers us forgiveness of sin, through His death and by His blood, but as was also said, those who do not believe are condemned already.

God has shown us His love, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. But this is no a license to continue in sin, as Bolz-Weber does in her sexual choices, nor does it mean that all are forgiven willy-nilly. It is through repentence and faith in the crucified and risen Christ, a Christ literally crucified and risn and not some kind of fictional redefinition of those things, that we find forgiveness of sin.

Bolz-Weber did not preach the gospel, contrary to what this writer claimed. She preached propoganda.

twisting

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doing some in-house work

This blog, for what it's worth, is usually devoted to issues involving the nonsense coming from emergents and progressives. It is necessary, and frankly because of time and other reason there has not been much effort to branch out from that. Anyway, there is so much material, too.

But with this one, I'm going a bit in-house, because I think this is an issue worth bringing more to light.

I am a conservative, both politically and religiously, and I write that without shame. So, in going in-house, what I'm bring up here has to do with things in conservativism, in this case both politically and religiously.

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT UNITING WITH RELIGIOUS RENEGADES

What is wrong with this picture? People from the NAR who are in the grip of evil were invited to participate in both of these events. One example is Cindy Jacobs. Jacobs is the NAR’s “lead U.S. National Apostle.” Cindy is supposedly a modern day prophet. But I beg to differ. This woman has uttered more false prophecies than Walgreen’s has pills, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that she is no more a prophet of God than Lady Gaga! The truth is, Cindy Jacobs is a false prophet.

Before I move on, I should point out that there is nothing wrong with Christians gathering together to stand up for biblical principles and fight the forces of wickedness that are destroying America. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with praying for our country and for the men and women in the armed forces who put their lives on the line so that we can live free. To say that our nation and our soldiers are in dire need of prayer is an understatement. Even though the Christian Right (CR) often shares a stage with controversial groups/persons it does not mean that they necessarily share their views; what it does mean however is that when controversial groups/persons are invited to participate in a CR event it appears that they endorse these groups/persons. It grieves me to say this—and I’ll get a lot of flak for it--but many professing Christians seem to have little or no problem partnering with false teachers and cultists, perhaps because these groups/persons are useful in furthering their political causes.

Are we to establish a Kingdom of God upon earth? Listen to what Jesus says:

My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. (John 18:36).

The article is quite long, and these are only excerpts. Please read the whole thing.

When I read works by emergents or entries at Sojourners, they often go on about The Kingdom of God, about how they are trying to establish the rule of God on Earth or some such thing. Such rhetoric always makes me a bit ill, as 1) I don't think Sojo and emergents have any business trying to speak about the God they so often malign, and 2) there is no call in the New Testament for us to try to establish some kind of government-enforced kingdom of God.

Yesterday, I was listening to a program on AFR. The hosts were in DC, and the discussion was mostly political. Much of it I probably agreed with, but there was one part that really bothered me. The hosts and guest were talking about politics and the church, and how there were some churches who were saying that Christians should have little if anything to do with politics. The guest disagreed, and his point basically was that it is the church's job to "bring Heaven to Earth".

I have no desire to live under the kind of left-wing socialist regime the Sojo and emergent types want to force on us, but I am equally put off by the dominionist rhetoric of many religious leaders who would be considered on the right. And the fact that so many on the right are making nice with false teachers like Joyner, Jacobs, and Wagner is very bothersome.

The NAR has one thing right. The ministry of the apostles continues today:

Not in the person of anyone claiming to be an apostle, but in the New Testament. Every time the Word of God in the New Testament is read and proclaimed, the apostolic ministry and office fulfills its role. The apostles of the first century live on today, in the Church, through the Word God has given us through them.

look familiar?

Take a gander of this, emphases mine.

There will be a major transition in religion. Those who have chosen this profession will have to make another choice. The choice will be rather to serve an institution or God. They will have to choose whether administering to the needs of the people takes precedence over the demands of the institution. Those who have chosen a religion will also have to make a choice. Does this religion serve Humanity or is it self-serving? Does it promote Universal Peace, Brother/Sisterly Love, Equality, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for All? Does it empower the individual to make one’s own personal God connection? Does it promote fear, unworthiness, guilt, and wrathful images separate from man and nature? Are the images lacking in omnipresence which separates man from God, his neighbor and nature? Does it honor the Creator in all creation? Does it demonize, judge and condemn others of different cultures and paths? If a man or woman knows God by another name, has a different master, saint or sage, yet offers the same basic understandings, are they welcome and listened to? One of the most misunderstood quotes which has separated Christians from other cultures is one passage attributed to Jesus when he said, “I AM the way, the truth and the light; no man shall enter heaven but through me.” Beforehand he said, “I of myself do nothing for the Father within doeth the works.” God was speaking through Jesus. Often those who do not accept Jesus the personality and the man are judged, condemned, etc.. God is the way, and that same God consciousness was reached by other saints, sages and mystics throughout the various cultures around the world. This separation and judgment must end. Jesus stood for infinite love, compassion and forgiveness, and it is time we made that our ideal. Most master teachers of all faiths transcended all religious and cultural boundaries into a universal love for all people and all life. This is where religions will need to go in the days to come because love and compassion for all people are necessary attributes for the future. It would better serve Humanity and God to focus on
Universal Peace, Brother/Sisterly Love, Equality, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for All, and a strong reverence for life in all forms. Now is the time for churches to inspire the Universal Principles and Understandings necessary for a healthy society and environment and administer to the needs of those less fortunate. Warring over names, images and doctrines in endless power struggles is a disservice to God and Humanity. It is time for everyone to come together in one great harmonic chord each singing praises each in one’s own unique way to the one Creator of all people all life. Look for the similarities not the differences and allow love to be the first and foremost priority as well as the manifesting force behind all creation.

If I were to tell you that some progressive or liberal or emergent theologian had said this, would that be a hard claim to believe? Perhaps if I were to attribute this to a McLaren book, or maybe an Emergent Village Podcast? Or maybe I came on it while reading Marcus Borg or John Caputo, the little I read of them?

But, no, none of them said this. Perhaps it would be better to say that this came, as it were, straight from the horse's mouth.

Self Mastery in the Christ Consciousness
An Andromedan, Pleiadian, Orion Alternative
These are things that people who claim to have been visited by aliens are saying that the aliens have told them.

It would be easy to dismiss them as crackpots. I'm not so sure that's wise. For my part, I have no doubt that they have been visited by...beings. One may even call them alien beings, though not as one may think from watching The X-Files (one of my all-time favorite shows, btw).

No, I think they were visited by demonic beings, disguised, if you would, by what these people would consider an angel of light. Look at how Scripture is used deceitfully in the above quote.

But the ways in which this quote resembles things said by emergents and progressives is notable, so much so that I think it is not accidental. When they begin by saying that "There will be a major transition in religion", one can hear all of the emergents going on about how we need, A New Kind of Christianity, A Christianity Worth Believing In, or Phyllis Tickle going on about rummage sales every 500 or so years. "Does it promote Universal Peace, Brother/Sisterly Love, Equality, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for All?" could be the question most important to Sojourners. "Does it empower the individual to make one’s own personal God connection?" is exactly the sort of thing progressives say we should strive for, what Christianity should be become--not to convert people to Jesus, but to see God in other religions. Faith House Manhattan would approve of this question.

I'll not deny the possibility that this communique may be entirely man-made, but I doubt it.

What does it tell us when the words of emergents and progressives sound so much like the words given to men by demons?

what reasons?

Reasons the Right is Currently Wrong

First, Valerie Elverton Dixon at Sojournersstruggles with being a Christian when it comes to what she feels is an appropriate response to Donald Trump’s obsession (read: media ploy) with Obama’s birth certificate.

It is the moments when I am most angry and most disappointed in particular people and circumstances that I find it very, very difficult to be a Christian….When commentators asked why the president had not [released his long-form birth certificate] sooner, I screamed back at my television: “Why should he have to do it at all?”

Hmm...interesting. For those who may not remember, here are some facts about this controversy.

One, back during the presidential campaign, it was the Republican candidate John McCain who had to defend his own citizenship from birth. He was born to military parents while they were stationed in Panama.

Second, it was supporters of Obama's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton who brought up the issue.

Then, as Obama marched toward the presidency, a new suggestion emerged: That he was not eligible to serve.

That theory first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obama’s citizenship.

The third fact is that, whenever I've heard attempts to bring up the issue brought up on talk radio shows, they've almost always been treated as distractions, and not supported in any way. I remember when the Hawaiian governor promised to show the birth certificate, and then claimed he couldn't find it, that Rush was saying to be careful about this, and not to take it too far.

Of course, this issue should have been put to rest well before the election. For Dixon to go like she's being persecuted is silly.

Lastly, at TikkunMichael Hogue has some stronger words about Ryan’s “courageous” plan, calling it “revoltingly immoral and unjust” and “insidiously wicked.”

There is NO religious framework or lifeway that, except through disingenuous hermeneutical backflipping, could possibly justify these principles. And if that’s the case, and if these principles (which are usually dressed up a bit in public) undergird the Ryan proposal and most other Republic sensibilities about the deficit, then there is NO way that there should be any religious support for this budget proposal. Is there anything in Christianity, or Islam, or Buddhism, or Religious Humanism, or Religious Naturalism, or Unitarian Universalism that so brazenly endorses the accumulation and concentration of wealth among a very few at the expense of the very many, and especially at the expense of the vulnerable? Absolutely not.

This rather over-the-top rhetoric is suppose to pass for reasons the right is wrong? Really?

Actually, it's little more than class warfare rhetoric. We can't have a responsible budget because, well, rich people are rich? I suppose we need to tax them to death, and give what they have to people who don't have?

What religious framework supports that?

going without a map

A few weeks ago, I had to make a bit of trip out-of-state. It was to a place I had not been before, and while I had a general idea of how to get there, I still needed some directions in order to reach the city, and even more to find the place in the city I needed to go to.

Now, let's test our imagination, shall we? Let's suppose that as I was preparing to leave for this trip, I pulled out of my driveway and simply decided to go any which way I wanted. If I cam to a turn in the road, I went whichever direction I though seemed ok, basiced on strictly subjective reasons. If I happened to make it to a highway or interstate, I got if at whatever exit I wanted. I consulted no map, disregarded all road sign, didn't care about directions.

What would be the odds that I would get to where I needed to go? Not being very exact, but I think the term "mathematically impossible" would be an accurate description of those odds.

Keeping that little fiction in mind, take a look at this.

Practice Precedes Doctrine

One thing that’s intriguing to note, and easy to lose sight of two millennia later, is that in the very earliest church, practice begat doctrine. That is, the early church didn’t convene theological conferences to debate the nature of the godhead and then spin out a practice of prayer.

Instead, it’s clear in the earliest Christian documents that the people prayed, and out of their experience of God’s nearness did they develop doctrinal beliefs regarding who God is and how God acts. That all changed, of course, by the dawn of the fourth century: as the Christian religion was afforded more freedom, church leaders rose up to fight heresies. Thereafter, the formation of doctrine seems to have had as much impact on the evolution of Christian practice as it had happened conversely in the earliest years.

Really? It's clear from those documents that this is how they did it?

Consider, for example, Peter's sermon at Pentacost. Taking Jones' words, one may be surprised to see very little about practice in that sermon. It's mostly about doctrine--Jesus fulfilled Scripture and prophecy, Jesus was crucified, God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus is the Messiah. The only action Peter tells them to do is to repent and be baptized in His name.

In other words, doctrine preceded practice. It wasn't until there was a church and believers, people who believed in certain things, that there were discussions about certain things.

Those practices did not happen in some kind of spiritual or doctrinal vacuum, which seems to be what Jones is contending.

And how could it otherwise? Putting actions first is simply pragmatism--whatever works. Questions of right and wrong are shunted aside. If the church had not begun with doctrine, with for example belief in the Scriptures that they had (the Old Testament) and faith in a crucified and risn Christ, it would have stood for nothing.

I think that, if you look at what Jones believes, you'll see why he's so eager to put practice first. If he put doctrine first, if he put the things Scripture teaches first, he would not be able to believe the things he believes.

NPR's shame

On NPR's website, they have an article from The New Republic about Common and the poetry reading a few days ago. It's one of the worst examples of irrationalism I've ever read.

New Republic: Backing Common At The White House

Furthermore, one could almost have predicted that the invited representative would be Common. He is one of the foundational "conscious" rappers who has eschewed the "gangsta" routine

So, on the one hand, this writer says Common is some kind of "conscious" rapper. But then, he goes on to say things like this.

Dig around in Common's oeuvre and you find that — get this — this black leftist bard of the black condition turns out to have some tribal affection for Black Panther sorts, despite their less-than-pristine criminal records. The Republicans' problem this time is Common's passing shout-out to Joanne Chesimard, an ex-Panther who was convicted of killing a New Jersey officer in a shoot-out and has long been under political asylum in Cuba. But this hardly means Common would warmly advise a young man to go assassinate some more cops, or that he applauds to hear of cops dying today.

Interesting that he calls it a "passing shout-out", as if that is suppose to make the just oh-so-cute and not all that important. In fact, it's a whole song called "A Song for Assata". Devoting a whole piece of music to this person adds up to a bit more than a "pasisng shout-out".

Adulation of the Panthers is hardly ideal, to be sure, based more on drama than action. But if it's wrong for the Obamas to have anyone over who sees a certain revolutionary heroism in the Black Panthers as people battling the more overt racism and police brutality of that historical period, then this would disqualify probably every second black writer or thinker in the United States, not to mention legions of ordinary citizens with Huey Newton T-shirts.

So?

One can only imagine the outrage if, for example, the President had had a poet who gave tribute to, say, an abortion clinic bomber, rare as clinic bombers are.

More than that, this comment by the NPR/NR writer is one of the most racist statements I've read. Black poets are rappers are to be held to a different (lower) standard than other artists? It's ok for them to hold up cop-killers as heroes?

It reminds of a book store I once visited. They had a section which they called something like "African-American Literature". Looking more closely at that section, about everything there was, to put it bluntly, literarly smut--covers showing women dressed seductively and revealingly, men much the same. If one were to make a section about White Literature, and fill it with things like Harlequin Romances or things harder-core, one can see how distasteful this bookstore's section was.

Interesting: I presume Rove and Palin roll their eyes at those who see racism in Southerners celebrating their Civil War military heroes. We are to be "mature," stop being so hasty and reductionist, and understand that one can cheer for Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee without being a racist. Okay — but then, we will not, either, condemn black people with a passing fellow-traveler feeling for the Panthers as advocates of murder.

I find it amusing that this argument was even made. I've seen recently on the news that one state wants to put out a license plate design that features a Confederate flag and a picture of Jefferson Davis. I think the charges of racism are already starting.

Battle lines drawn over Confederate flag plates

Critics, including the NAACP, contend that the Confederate emblem is a hurtful symbol and doesn't belong on state-issued license plates.

"On the one hand, I appreciate freedom of speech, but when we talk about government functions, we have the authority not to promote things considered offensive to the public," said Hilary Shelton, the NAACP senior vice president for advocacy and policy, and director of the Washington bureau.

Peter Carmichael, director of Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pa., said the perception of the Confederate Army as rebel underdogs appeals strongly to people's emotions; however, it's not historically accurate to completely overlook slavery as the root cause of the war.

"The flag does have different meanings. It's unfair to just characterize it as a racist banner, but it's also unfair to characterize it as just heritage and no hate," he said.

That's actually different from the one I heard about recently, but it does show the kinds of arguments made for or against. At any rate, people are not expected to timidly kowtow when these kinds of things happen, which the NPR/NR writer seems to insinuate.

At the Obamas' poetry night, rap was treated, in a high-profile venue, for what it is. That is, not something that is going to turn the Capitol upside down, but poetry — like Jay-Z's work now sold between covers.

The fact that a rapper was invited to the poetry night is not the problem. The fact that one who supports violence against the police was invited is the problem.

This writer has not dealt honestly with the subject. He has tried to spin things to make it no big deal, and say that the protestors are the ones causing the problems. It is a shameful, distasteful article, one NPR should be ashamed of showing.

and sojo is still silent

So, this day is 13 May 2011, and I'm looking at the front page of Sojo's God's Politics Blog. And for people who are supposed to be oh-so-concerned about things like racism and violence, I still see that they are remarkably silent about a recent event.

This event was when the current US President decided to have some kind of peotry night, and one person invited to participate in it was a rapper named Common, whose lyrics have been about guns and violence and killing the police.

Now, would I be wrong in assuming the Sojo and the Sojrones should be having conniptions over this? That they should be publicly decrying the honoring of someone who stands for violence like that?

And yet, so far...silence.

throwing himself under the bus

A Statement on Sojourners’ Mission and LGBTQ Issues

The main thing here is really Wallis' main article, which is really just a lot of words to give the basic message of "Do as I say, not as I do"; rather, it is the comments, because the Sojrones see right through it, and call Wallis out on it.

It's amusing, watching the lefties eat their own.

I would say that I may hold out some small, infinitesimal hope (microscopic, subatomic), that Wallis may hold firm. Not that he has much to hold firm to, but there's a bit of something there.

But I doubt it. He's already compromised so far, all the Sojrones are doing is telling him to take the next step.

the source of division

This is my theory anyway, my working assumption, let's call it a place to begin. I'm open to the fact I may have read too much into that "Lord, Save Us From Your Followers" bumper sticker, but I did have this tangible reaction to that experience. The tug in my gut felt real: this isn't how it's suppose to be and you are not suppose to sit here idly waiting for things to change.

Why Is the Gospel of Love Dividing America?

If I had to boil it down to one question that would be it. This is where the contradiction lives. If I could figure out what part of the gospel (or perhaps, how we present it) is doing the dividing--if it even is--then I'd find my answer.
Dan Merchant, Love, save us from you followers, p 29

At the risk of being flippant, I wonder how much of the New Testament and the Gospels Mr. Merchant has really read.

I wonder that because, well, how could one read the accounts of Jesus' life and how the people around Him reacted to Him, and come to think that Jesus was one who was some kind of social unifier.

Jesus had people love Him, and other people hate Him. He had some people try to throw Him off a cliff, and others try to stone Him. There were people who tried to trip Him up by asking Him trick questions. He had people adore Him, have faith in Him, come to Him for help and healing. He drove off many people who seemed to want to follow Him by talking about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. And, at the end, He had such enemies as wanted Him killed in a very public and humiliating and torturous fashion.

And that didn't really improve with His followers. They quickly made enemies, and were soon subjected to persecutions. Paul gives an extensive list of the things he had suffered, and almost all of the Apostles died in martyrdom. Among the churches Jesus addresses in Revelation, some were suffering severe persecutions, and these were the ones Jesus seemed to rebuke the least.

And finally, we have Jesus' very own words, which were not happy-happy-joy-joy. He says that He did not come to bring peace, but rather a sword, which would divide mothers from daughters, and husbands from wives--pretty much, I guess, people who should be closest to each other would be divided by Jesus. He says that those who would follow Him must hate those closest to them, or they would not be His disciples. He also talks about how the world hated Him, and how it will also hate those who follow Him.

Many of His parables spoke more of division than of unity--dividing sheep from goats, wise virgins from foolish ones, faith servants from unprofitable ones.

What part of the Gospel is doing the dividing? I'm don't think I'm exaggerating if I say that the Gospel itself is doing the dividing. Just as it divided the world that Jesus lived in, and then the Apostles and early Christians, so too it is dividing us today.

Rather than adorn himself in a silly bumper-sticker-laden suit and asking the world about the division, perhaps Mr. Merchant would be wise to look to the Christ he seems to think is some kind of social unifier, to see if his views are correct or not.

i almost agree with a sojo writer?

Say it ain't so!!!

Jane Eyre, Sucker Punch, and Feminism

First, a confession--I think I'm one of the few who saw "Sucker Punch", and thought it was a pretty good movie. Most seem to think it was rather bad.

Here's what the Sojo writer had to say about it.

The other feminist film of the moment Sucker Punch suffers from a similar response. The film itself is a brilliant exploration of the history of the struggle against patriarchy. It portrays young girls who have been betrayed by imposed fathers (stepfathers and priests) being shut away and taken advantage of because they are women. Their attempt to escape this imprisonment is depicted through dream sequences that use Jungian symbolism to show them entering worlds typically controlled by men — church, battlefields, fortresses, and technology — and conquering them in order to escape them. They had to play by the rules of these worlds and demonstrate that they could dominate in these realms in order to move past them. In the end, it is a deconstruction of these realms that leads to a better world for the girls.

Yet the film itself follows the same format. It accepts the genre of fan-boy action films and subverts it. The girls look like the typical mindless sex toy — with the costumes, lollipops, and choreographed moves expected in that genre — but don’t embody these roles. Instead, they are portrayed this way in order to enter an oppressive realm and expose it for what it is. But of course, the average movie-goer can’t get past the trappings and understand the commentary. They want it to be a straight fan-boy film full of babes with guns that they can ogle at, and therefore criticize Sucker Punch for not meeting their expectations. The message is lost on them for they came expecting the very thing the film serves to deconstruct. Who can hear the feminist message when they are upset that they weren’t titillated enough by the eye-candy?

While I'm rather please that someone else seemed to like it, too, some of her statements make me go "Huh?"

For example, "The film itself is a brilliant exploration of the history of the struggle against patriarchy. It portrays young girls who have been betrayed by imposed fathers (stepfathers and priests) being shut away and taken advantage of because they are women." The main heroine of the movie does have an abusive step-father, but he is one of the obvious villains because he is abusive. And to use him as a stand-in for patriarchy seems rather outlandish.

Also, there is a priest in only one part of the movie, in one of the imagined sequences which mirror what is happening in real life. The priest in this part stands in for the girl's step-father, so as you can imagine, he isn't a good guy. He's pretty much handing the girl over to the owner of a go-go club, again mirror the step-father handing her over to the mental institution and paying to have her labotomized so as to keep her from giving testimony to an incident that led to the shooting death of her sister.

Concerning her claim that it all leads to "a better world for the girls", of the five of them, by the end of the movie, three are dead, and one is a mental vegetable. And one is left to wonder if even the supposed happy ending for one of the girls was little more than a continuation of the dreams. While one may say that justice was being served, that the bad guys were being found out and would eventually pay for what they'd done, there is little doubt that the cost was high and could not be refunded.

Perhaps her critique of the critics is warranted, but then, considering how the movie advertised itself in the cinemas, with large posters and standing displays, if her criticism is valid, one could also say that the viewers were subjected to a bait-and-switch. For my own part, when I saw the displays and posters, my thought was that it would be only typical fluff, perhaps some good FX but not very deep, and it wasn't until I saw a trailer for it that I thought there might be much more to it.

So, while not putting it past Hollywood to push feminism, I'm not sold on the notion that this movie is some kind of feminist rant, at least to the extent that she portrays it to be. If one took a movie with a rather similar plot, like "The A-Team" from last year (falsely accused prisoners, escape attempts), would she be so ready to say that it was some kind of polemic about "masculinism", or the military?

calling evil 'good'

Fighting for the soul of evangelicalism

Gen 1:31. – God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

God establishes a basis for reality that includes everything. And it’s all good. There is no exception. It even includes the serpent and the tree. That declaration is not dependent upon humanity interactivity or circumstance. God doesn’t wait until we show up and then judge after we act. God judges before. So to operate counter to this original judgment is the true basis for understanding both original sin, and the problem God is solving in the story.

So, one would rightly be left wondering "What the heck?"

For one thing, can we take a statement about how God saw things before the Fall and the entrance and effects of sin, and extrapolate that out to how things are now? When God first made the world, yes, it was good and very good. Can anyone say that it is now?

For example, in the account of Noah, we have this.

Genesis 6
5 The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

So, a bit of time after the Creation, we have the Fall, and then after that we have God saying that He was going to wipe out humans except for Noah and his family. Something had changed, and pretty drastically, too.

But, as well, there is the statement in the EV article that the serpent was something good. Given how the account speaks of this serpent, it was something different from snakes in general, but rather somehow an appearance of Satan. As such, then, to speak of it in the same was the created world, to claim that it was good as regular snakes or fish or humans were good, is not feasible.

In the context of the Genesis 1 account, we know that God is speaking of the Creation of what we know as the physical or material universe--planets, stars, the Earth and moon and sun, and all the things God made to inhabit our world. To take a statement about this Creation, and to say that thus everything that has happened is good, that even the serpent or Satan are good, is to go too far.

But I'm not really surprised that an attempt should be made to make the serpent something good. Look at the recent entries to the Emergent Village blog, and you'll see what I mean--one writer has said that he would rewrite the book of Hosea so that God is the prostitute, while the church is asleep because it believes the myth of God's faithfulness. Another has compared the righteous judgments of God to the actions of an abusive mother. Given how much they hate (I do not use that word lightly, and I mean it very strongly) the God of the Bible, is it any wonder that they should, even in a small way, try to make a good the thing the God of the Bible is opposed to?

a delicious hierarchy!

the unfaithful god of emergent village

In praise of an unfaithful God

This is just pathetic. When you have to go here, you may as well just fall on your own sword (metaphorically, of course).

If Hosea were written today, God should be the harlot, and Hosea the church, with God forever slipping out at night, undressing in the alleys and making holy love in hell to the beggars, infidels and outcasts. God is a street walker, with too heavy mascara and the smell of a thousand lovers on those divine lips, a clandestine whore who returns home at sunrise, sneaking back into bed without a shower but with a lingering wine-soaked kiss on the sleeping bride, their toes touching until morning, unashamed. And God whispers the divine confession, but only while Hosea slumbers.

God the Harlot invites us to be corrupted by love but is content to let the bride sleep, whispering reality only within the realm of deepest dreams. But God waits, hoping all things, for Hosea to be awakened from the myth of God’s monogamous love for the Church, the bride.

It's short, so by reading it yourself, you won't have wasted too much of your valuable time.

One can only imagine what this EV writer would do if he were to re-write the whole Old Testament. I can see him being ok with the whole David and Bathsheba thing, and maybe making her husband ok with it, too. Or maybe re-writing the rules about sex and marriage, making the prostitutes ok and the regular wives the outcasts. In the prophets, he would make all the statements about Israel's harlotries to be paeon of praise, not statements of condemnation and coming judgment. All the statements of God's faithfulness would be removed. Wisdom in Proverbs would be the harlot and not the good woman.

One good thing here, though, is that I get to reference Tim Stoner's book in a good way. That's that one I was a bit critical of a few posts earlier. But it's a good book, and I'm happy to say that he puts paid to his blasphemous emergent tale.

The marriage vow is a promise that ruthlessly puts to death every other rival. It puts a symbol of mutual ownership on the fingers of two people who now have covenanted to belong to each other, categorically, exclusively. Wedded love is a jealous love, and rightfully so, for the beloved's love is not to be shared. The heart of the beloved is to be capivated exclusively by her lover. This, all of us who have been in love, understand. This is how romantic love works.

This is also how the divine love affair works, too.
Timothy Stoner, The God Who Smokes, p 126

another emergent parable, and one of my own

Emergents love stories. They must work as a substitute for thinking.

Here, for example, at Emergent Village (yes, the name of this blog is similar, and that's intentional) has come up with a story he thinks is a response to the biblical idea of Hell.

Here's a summation (read the whole thing, it's...interesting). A woman has five kids, and the youngest four run away. One finally returns, and she sends the eldest to find the others, but he can't find one of them, and those he does find will not return.

Years passed, and finally she sets out to find the missing ones, and eventually does. She brings them home, has some hired hands put them in a barn, and sets the barn on fire with them in it, while she and the eldest son and the child who returned on his own have a feast.

I'll give the author's closing remarks here.

And, if you’ll excuse me, I need to throw up and hug my kids; as a father of three kids, I feel sick and suddenly have a restless desire to love-on ‘em).

So, in response, I want to try my hand at this parable-making business. It looks like fun.

A man has a large house. It's a good house, with lots of rooms and a full pantry. He decides to have a party, and invites some people. In the invitations, he sets some rules of how they are to behave, not to restrict their enjoyment but to enhance it, because he knows that, for example, beer and wine are best enjoyed when they are not drunk too much, and that hangovers are not good things.

The party begins, but it quickly goes sideways. The guests just won't behave themselves. For example, the host provided some very fine wine, which was meant to be enjoyed in a responsible way, but he sees guests drinking far too much and encouraging others to do so. He has provided places for married couples to stay, places that are private so that they could do what married couples do, but he sees people not married to each other flirting with each other, entering rooms with each other, and even commiting sexual acts out in the open for all to see. There are murders, rapes, thefts. People say that another man, a figment of their own imaginations, has thrown the party for them, and that this person they've created is ok with their actions.

Some remember the rules, but they mock the rules, saying they no longer apply, that they are old rules and that the people at the party are not really expected to act that way anyway.

As you can image, the man's home is soon a mess. Even the best of the guests make a mess of things.

Finally, the man has had enough. He calls the law, who come and arrest the people, taking them off the jail.

The guests are surprised, and even angry. "Were we not invited to your house to enjoy your feast and your wine?" They cried against the man who owned the home. "Are we not your guest? Is it not your responsibility that we acted this way? You are not fair, you are not just, to have us put in jail and imprisoned! You are a bad person, you are evil!"

The man said nothing more than that these enemies of his should be taken away.

And so, my little parable end.

You see, the EV parable is a lie. It's aim is to portray us as pitiful little victims, a classic ploy among such people. In the story, we are all God's children.

Neither of these is true. We are not victims. The Bible's language about those who do not have faith in Christ is rather different--workers of iniquity, children of wrath, enemies of God.

Also, not ever person alive or who has lived is a child of God. Those who do not have faith in Christ are children of the devil, slaves of sin, enemies of God.

This is a hard truth. It is unpleasant. But it is true, nonetheless. Our attempts at righteousness on our own are like filthy rags, we can do no good, none of us does what is right.

The same Bible that tells us that God is loving and just also tells us, quite plainly, that this just and loving God will throw those not found in the Book of Life into the Lake of Fire. To take what we like while discarding what we don't makes God to be like a cosmic grandfather, and rather unreal.

This Emergent Village author has had the arrogance to put God on trial, and to find Him to be unjust. I think God knows far more about justice than the whole human race combined, let alone one Emergent Village writer.

slightly disappointed

It's not like I changed all of a sudden and went out to the backyard to burn my draft card (there was no longer a draft, and I was too old anyway), plant an organic garden, or stop eating steak. I didn't even switch political parties. Not that I wasn't tempted on many an occasion. (It's difficult--one side sees beauty in fifty-six baggies of multicolored urine and a mural of Mother Mary with shellacked elephant dung, while the other sees it in burning mosques. While one favors killing the unborn, the other favors doing in the born. I guess, at present, I have to side with the most obviously innocent and defenseless. I know this is all a gross over-simplification, but how else can one make a choice between evils. It's possible Jesus wouldn't vote at all. He advocated paying taxes--that seems to be about the extent of His commandment to good citizenship).
Timothy Stoner, The God Who Smokes, pp 151-152

I picked up this book some time ago, and frankly have been pleasantly surprised by it. It's a collection of essays, so I've kind of skipped around, not reading it through.

By and large, I've rather liked it. Which kind of makes the part above even more of a disappointment.

He is very welcomed to whatever political convictions he wishes, but his statements do make me wonder about a thing or two.

For example, when have Republicans found beauty in burning mosques? It would help if he were to give specific examples of Republicans or Conservatives saying they enjoyed setting mosques on fire. For my part, I can't think of any such rhetoric ever being used, but I may have missed it somewhere along the line.

Also, what does he mean by Republicans favoring killing the born? I can think of only two things he may mean--capital punishment, or military action.

I'm willing to respect someone who cannot support capital punishment. But can we please, please, please stop with the arguments that capital punishment and abortion are equivalent. Capital punishment is punishment for a serious crime, something like murder, and the person being executed should be proven guilty. Abortion is simply the murder of the innocent for whatever reason, and there is no support for it in me.

If he means military, I'm not sure what to say. He can take the pacifist position, if he wishes. I don't know if that is his position, but if it isn't, I'd like to know what he meant by that statement.

As someone who is strongly conservative, I find it bothersome that someone should use apparently bogus or fringe reasons for saying that people like me are only the lesser of two evils, when compared to those who favor and defend the continued killing of the unborn, whose moral position could be stated as "Find what the Bible says and say the opposite", who deal in lies and spread fear, and promote dependence on a 'big brother' government. To my mind, the lesser 'evil' here seems rather a good thing, while the other, slighty greater 'evil' is a great evil indeed.

sojo's over-the-top rhetoric

The Ryan Plan: A Declaration of War on the Poor

Remember how, a few months ago, we were supposed to excoriate people like Sarah Palin because one of her campaign maps had bulls-eye like targets on certain states? That somehow such a thing was suppose to be responsible for certain acts of violence? So we were suppose to avoid certain words and phrases, usually somehow involving shooting or guns or anything violence?

Well, remember, that only applies to conservatives, like Palin. Liberals like Sojo can continues to use such rhetoric, like "war on the poor", to their hearts content.

Then, on April 5, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced a 2012 budget that is much, much, much worse than H.R.1. Ryan’s budget would put all the burden for balancing the budget on poor people, while at the same time cutting the tax rate for people in the top income bracket from 35 percent to 25 percent.

If you read the article, you'll not see those claims supported in any way. The only thing the writer goes on about is taxes.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, the top marginal tax rate was 94 percent.
In 1954, when Republican Dwight Eisenhower was president, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent.
In 1980, the year Reagan won his presidential election, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent.
By 1989, the year Ronald Reagan’s presidency ended, the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent.
When Clinton took office in 1992, he raised the top marginal tax rate to 39.6 percent, where it stayed throughout his presidency.
Clinton balanced the budget and left office with a surplus.
Bush Jr. chipped away at the top marginal rate until it rested at 35 percent in 2003, where it remains to this day.

If you get the impression she thinks that 90% tax rate is a good thing, I think you're right. It's all about sticking it to the rich, the achievers, the producers.

Did you know the top 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 50 percent combined?

Umm...as someone who is solidly in the bottom 50%, I can only say, I don't care. She gives this stat (again, without support) as if it's suppose to mean something in and of itself. It doesn't.

Did you know CEO pay has increased by 20 percent to a median pay of $9.6 million for top executives at 200 major companies since 2009, while worker pay has remained virtually unchanged (decreased by 0.1 percent) in the same period?

Again, so what? Such a claim, devoid of any context, is meaningless.

The Ryan plan is not fiscal responsibility; it is a declaration of war on the poor. The GOP is currently being led by blind ideology that has potential to literally kill people — real people made in the image of God.

So such irresponsible rhetoric is ok, because according to her, tax cuts may kill people?

Here's another take on the Ryan plan.

Paul Ryan's Adult Conversation

Ryan's budget would reduce domestic federal spending to below 2008 levels, restoring pre-stimulus, pre-bailout spending, again as promised. Federal spending is reduced to below 20% of GDP, the long-run, postwar, historical level, by 2015. With that level of federal spending prevailing on average for 60 years since World War II, to call it radical, irresponsible, and extreme is itself unprofessionally irresponsible and misleading.

To achieve that, Ryan's budget would defund and repeal Obamacare. It would eliminate hundreds of duplicative programs, and slash corporate welfare. That would include President Obama's "expensive handouts for uncompetitive sources of energy," establishing instead "a free and open marketplace for energy development, innovation and exploration," as Ryan explained in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Ryan also explained that his budget "gets rid of the permanent Wall Street bailout authority that Congress created last year," in President Obama's Dodd-Frank so-called financial regulatory reform bill.

Ryan's budget reduces the federal deficit to below $1 trillion by next year, while President Obama proposes his fourth year of federal deficits over $1 trillion, at $1.2 trillion according to CBO. CBO projects that under Obama's proposed 2012 budget, the federal deficit is still $1.2 trillion by 2021. That's not radical, irresponsible and extreme? Ryan's deficit by that year is $385 billion, after achieving what is called primary balance by 2015, meaning that the budget is balanced apart from interest on the national debt.

Ryan's budget achieves full, permanent balance soon thereafter, with federal spending reduced to 15% of GDP by 2050, less than half the level of federal spending by that year under President Obama's budget. Indeed, by 2050, President Obama's budget would double federal spending as a percentage of GDP from the long-run, postwar, historical average, which is disgracefully radical, irresponsible and extreme.

Ryan's budget reduces the national debt by nearly $5 trillion relative to the President's budget in the first 10 years alone. As result, the national debt as percent of GDP is reduced every year, until the national debt is ultimately paid off entirely! President Obama's budget, by contrast, would double the national debt in his first term alone, and triple it by 2021. That's not radical, irresponsible, and extreme?

A lot of that sounds pretty good to me. Less federal spending, less debt, and getting rid of the already declared unconstitutional Obamacare.

Sadly, for Sojo, fiscal responsibility seems to mean a chance to pontificate about people dying the streets. But, hey, they have Moby on their side. A has-been pop star makes any other argument void, right?

the right can do no right?

Caputo hates the Right. The Right can do no right. Nothing.

Take, for example, a bit of what he writes here. It's in a part of his book that's suppose to deal with abortion, but he ropes in a few other things, too.

It is hypocritical to oppose abortion while simultaneously opposing the vast support system such a ban would require.
What Would Jesus Deconstruct, p 114

What what would this 'vast support system' entail?

They would include full and free prenatal care of poor and uninsured pregnant women, of unemployed and unwed mothers,... It would further include a comprehensive system of government-supported adoption agencies....comprehensie system of day care...dramatic increase in support for the public schools in the poorest neighborhoods...fair labor laws, living wages, medical and vacation benefits, and good pension funds.
p 114

And what would these require?

All that would require funding, which means taxes, which conflicts with the greed of the Right, religious and secular.
p 114

So, let's see.

Could we imagine how this would work for, say, some other moral issue?

Let's take, for example, theft. Is it not hypocritical to oppose theft while simultaneously opposing the vast support system this ban on theft requires? For example, does not opposing theft mean that we must make sure that people get all the things they want? If a teenager wants a pair of really expensive atheletic shoes, is it not incumbent upon us to make sure that he or she receives them? Perhaps we should set up a social program which makes sure that teens whose families are of a lower income should receive a free pair of really expensive sport shoes of their choice?

Or what about fornication and adultery? Does opposing those things mean that we should also do other things about the issues, too? Should we, for example, set up a matchmaking service, so that people in their young adulthood can find mates, so as to deal with the temptation to fornication? Or should me maybe legalize prostitution, to make sure that those who are determined to commit sexual sins can do so in a relatively safe, legal, and affordable setting? Should we make sure the government provides free condoms, free hotel rooms, and free abortion services?

I hope these show how ridiculous Caputo is here. Opposing abortion does NOT mean that we must support the liberal social cradle-to-grave government handout agenda.

I understand why many Christians would want to discourage women from ever chooseing to have an abortion in any circumstance. But such people have the responsibility to put their money where their faith is, to do everything they can to provide these women and the children they will bear with a comprehensive system of support, and to address the deeper structural issues of povety that spawn so many unwanted pregnancies.
p 116

Yeah, because it's not really the responsibility of those who go around having sex and getting pregnant, it's the responsibility of everyone else. But, then, maybe I'll just quote Caputo one more time.

There is no one right answer. Life is not fair.
p 116

is it wrong to hope he gets audited?

My Letter to the IRS: ‘I Reserve the Right Not to Kill’

Shane Claiborne is not paying his taxes, well, not all of them. Yep, while we conservatives have to pay for the liberal's nanny state, abortion, perverted art, and a failed public education system, not to mention continue to hear the liberal's demands to increase taxes even more, they seem to think they reserve the right to NOT pay for what they disagree with.

For this reason, I am enclosing a check for $227.11, which is, according to the form, 70 percent of what I owe. The remaining $97.33 represents 30 percent of my tax payment, the amount that would go toward military spending. I will donate this remaining 30 percent to a recognized U.S. nonprofit organization working to bring peace and reconciliation. My faith also compels me to submit to the governing authorities, which is why I am writing you respectfully and transparently here. I am glad to discuss this further if you have any questions.

Hey, Claiborne, I got a solution for you...EMIGRATE!!! Leave the country you hate so much, that does so many things you despise and can't support. I'm sure there's someplace out there that would more than welcome you.

the rollins waffle

Ah, yes, right when I think there is no real fun left in the emergents, I have only to stroll over to Peter Rollins' spot on the net, and my faith in humanity is indeed damaged again.

Do you “really” believe, or really believe? (with some thoughts on Rob Bell)

Let us take each of these in turn. Firstly our modern reflexive self-awareness hides the fact that such an “enlightened” mode of suspicion was not so much missing from the past, but unnecessary for it. It is only with the development of a technological discourse that we needed to introduce brackets into our cultural, political and religious claims. One of the side effects of this development was a fundamental change in how we understood the beliefs of the ancients. Because the techological discourse is ubiquitous to us we end up viewing our ancestors as operating with a type of proto-technological language that would have actually been totally foreign to them (this kind of reading is rife in the work of people like Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris as well as Christian apologists).

He starts by making use of a Norse myth of creation. His point here seems to be that people long ago didn't care about the truth of their beliefs, it wasn't important to them. So, for example, if the ancients believed that the world was created through some hanky-panky among the gods, or the demiurges of the gnostics, or that God created the world in six days and on the seventh rested, the important thing isn't whether any of those things happened or not, because those people long ago didn't really believe them to have happened.

Secondly, our contemporary need to distance ourselves from what we believe (so as to avoid the reduction of our beliefs to the level of some technological discourse) can lead to a distancing from the power and truth of the story. We end up trying to untangle a knot that is a necessary part of such beliefs, a knot that cannot be undone without the loss of the truth itself. When the knot is untied one is left with nothing but a metaphor or an archaic proto-scientific proposition rather than with the transformative truth of the story.

Ah, here we go! That important thing isn't the story itself, but the story inside or above or beyond the story! To put another way, the important thing isn't what the ancients said or what they believed or didn't believe, but what we today can make of their stories. It's simply uncouth to say that the Norse creation story is a myth, something made up, and that we should teach them the truth of how the world was created. We should, instead, let them keep on believing their fables, seeing as they mean so much to them.

Finally, when one takes a story that is deeply true to people and place brackets around it the effect can be so unpleasant to the supposedly naive believers that they end up going in the opposite direction and claiming a direct literalism (actually becoming naive believers). Here their very attempt to protect the power of the belief in question results in them losing it.

Yeah, because believing in something too strongly means you're not really believing in it at all.

(Why am I reminded of the Spice Girls' song, "Too much of something is not enough..."? And, yes, I'm as disturbed by that as you are.)

In this reading we can see that the predominant form of fundamentalism today arises as a direct result of this contemporary act of bracketing. For with the introduction of brackets and caveats to theology the unintended result is the rise of a group who attempt to protect the belief through the assertion of literalism. No matter who wins the main casualty is, of course, the power and truth of the belief in question.

And the casual slap at those who believe the Bible to be God's literal word. Oh, yes, Mr. Rollins is so superior, that he can condescend to let those little literalists keep their little beliefs, aren't they so cute.

There is not space here to discuss the way out of this impasse, however we might want to see Rob Bell as someone who is courageously offering a way forward with his new book Love Wins. Rob understands the knot that exists in belief and attempts to remain true to it in both the style of his communication and the content. He is however under constant pressure at the moment to ‘clarify’ his position (meaning to rob it of its truth). Hopefully his talent and insight will enable him to avoid what people on both sides (liberal and conservative) seek.

So, actually stating what you believe meaning robbing the belief of its truth?

Welcome to the mumbo-jumbo world of postmodernism, where clarity is the greatest of sins.

for whom the bell whines

Hell-Questioning Pastor Rob Bell Says New Book Has Led Him to ‘Profound Brokenness’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Evangelical megachurch pastor Rob Bell said he did not anticipate the firestorm he would stir with his book that questions the traditional Christian belief that a select number of believers will spend eternity in heaven while everyone else is tormented in hell.

Bell said Tuesday that he not only didn’t set out to be controversial, he had no idea his best seller, “Love Wins,” would bring condemnation from people like Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler, who claims Bell is leading people astray.

“The last couple of weeks have been most painful in my life,” the pastor from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., told a crowd of about 1,600 at Nashville’s Belmont University on Tuesday after an audience member asked him about the criticism he has faced. “It has taken me to a place of profound brokenness.”

Well, I guess he's learned that he can't go toe-to-toe with any real Christian thinkers now, because he's playing the ultimate "I can't win" card--the VICTIM card.

"Oh, poor little me, I just kinda wondered into writing a book that I didn't really think was all that bad, I didn't expect people to really read it and argue that I'm wrong, why can't they just believe what I wrote, and stop trying to say that I took things out of context and that I'm plain wrong, that's just mean of them, stop it all of you!!!"

Pathetic.

Real, Bell, if you're going to go down, go down swinging. This little whining act is sad.

“I kept meeting religious people who were incredibly dogmatic about heaven and hell when you die but didn’t seem to care about the fact that 800,000,000 people will go to bed hungry tonight.”

Oh, you mean the same religious people who start charity works, go to places to build houses and dig wells, preach the Gospel and try to keep people from going to the Hell you don't believe in, Mr. Bell?

Victimhood and slander. Were I able, I'd stand on the door of your 'church' and shake the dust from my feet. But driving to Michigan isn't worth it, so I'll content myself with showing how much of a post-masculine thing you are.

defending the bad

It's rather amusing, in a sad sort of way, to read Caputo's extreme waffling in his book, What Would Jesus Deconstruct, when it comes to abortion.

Abortion is always a bad and difficult choice,but making a bad choice is better than making a worse one, and sometimes making a bad choice is better than being forbidden to choose at all.
p 113

Yeah. If I may sum up his position in a typical postmodern way, "Abortion is bad, therefore we must defend it".

But nothing is simple, nothing is just black and white, no one can ever say, "Thou shalt not kill," which is also a crucial idea of deconstruction, which I am reading as the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God.
p 113

Funny, but someone did dare to say "Thou shalt not kill". It was God. You know, that thing called The Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not kill" is one of those ten.

To employ a bit of logic, if deconstruction means no one can say "Thou shalt not kill", and God has said that, then perhaps deconstruction is not really about the kingdom of God.