A man wanted to know what God´s will was so he flipped open his Bible and pointed his finger down. It read, “So Judas …went away and hanged himself.” (Mt 27:5) He thought maybe he should try again so he came to the verse, “go and do likewise” (Lk 10:37). Still not satisfied he found the verse, “what you are about to do, do quickly” (John 13:27).
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It’s been a hectic summer, and to be honest I haven’t really kept up with the recent controversy over a proposed Islamic mosque and But I came across the following blog post this morning that is worth reading if you’re at all interested in this debate (or any other political and cultural conflict for that matter) . The context is specifically in regards to the Cordoba House, but it’s applicable to so much more. Here’s a brief quote by Skye Jethani, followed by a link to the post (originally published in The Washington Post). As much as I sometimes complain about my job, one of the perks (?) is that I get to take a few short road-trips every week or so. It definitely beats sitting in my office all day. Usually, I’m on the phone non-stop even while driving, and trying desperately to fight off the urge to read my BlackBerry between calls. But on the days that I’m lucky enough to not be on endless conference calls, I get to catch up on my favorite podcasts. Who would have guessed that the next phase of my “spiritual journey” would be on I-77 to Columbia, SC (of all places)? First, I just wanted to let everyone know that we haven’t fallen off the face of the planet. Summer is busy. There are so many things fighting for our time — like “America’s Got Talent” and “The Bachelorette” — who’s got time to blog? ;-} Secondly, welcome to our new site! We’ve moved it to a different host and made a few changes. With this new platform, we have MANY more options available to use in the future. I’m already using one new feature – my “Now Reading” list. Be sure to check it out. For many of us who grew up in the church, it can be very easy to develop a “been there, done that” attitude towards just about everything religious. We think we “know” things because we’ve heard them a thousand times. And the more basic and simple the truths are, the more we think they somehow belong in a box in the attic with our Vacation Bible School popsicle-stick artwork. Like the Lord’s Prayer. For me, the Lord’s Prayer brings up images of old needle-point and Sandi Patty — both of which probably need a little dusting off — and neither of which is all that inspiring to me. I could probably say the whole thing backwards with just a little work. I really can’t hear the Lord’s Prayer without thinking of a tediously long wedding song with a three octave range. And as hard as I’ve tried, I can’t say it in any other translation than King James. This is so good, it deserves it’s own post: Lately I have been reading several books by N. T. Wright, including his latest book, After You Believe. Among many other topics, he writes about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. It’s a great book, and when I have time I’ll try to write a review of it. This post really has very little to do with N. T. Wright, but his book made me start thinking about the various ways that we have to renew our minds. There’s the obvious bad stuff we all face, but sometimes there’s also some “un-doing” that needs to take place in our theology too. By the time you’re in your mid-forties, I suppose you can sub-consciously accumulate a lot of questionable theology. For me, some of it (ironically) came from Christian comic books. Several months ago, our church hired a new WL (worship leader). Unfortunat A big part of the limited congregational worship participation seems to be directly related to the unfortunate rampant “Christian Artist Wannabe” disease that many WL’s have been plagued with. As defined by C. Tomlin’s Christian Medical dictionary: Well, it’s Holy Week. Lent is ending soon and I wanted to share with you my, um, not-so-intense spiritual journey. I thought about trying to put a more “spiritual” twist on this. But what the heck, I figured you all would see right through it anyway. ;-} I decided that rather than taking the usual passive “give something up for Lent” approach that I would attempt more of an active “self-discipline” approach. I’m always frustrated by my lack of time to be creative, so I decided that I would actually “create” something every day of Lent, even if it was just a 5 minute sketch of a stick man. When Balaam’s Ass and I started this blog, I warned (on the “About” page), that “you might want to put your sacred cow into a witness protection program”. Well, this might be a good time to buy Bessie a big blond wig and dark sunglasses and start looking for another barnyard. If you’re not aware of the recent comments from Fox News’ Glenn Beck on “social justice”, read here for a little background info: Beck recently equated Christian “social justice” with Nazism and Communism, and urged Christians to flee from churches that claimed to be concerned about social justice. He even went as far as to hold up signs with the Communist Hammer and Sickle and a Nazi Swastika, while the words “Social Justice” were on the TV monitor next to him. |
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