Some interesting things elsewhere IV

Yeah, it’s becoming almost regular now, my list of interesting things elsewhere…

Today we have a picture of an albatross to celebrate the release of my bandcamp single with that name. It has the original indie-folk versions, a trance version, a triphop version and another remix of my song ‘albatross’ and can be downloaded for free or for a chosen price if you like. so which version do you like most? ( The song might be based loosely on the dark island passage of the narnia book with the ship and all the islands…)

Btw, did you know that of 21 species of albatross recognised by scientists 19 are endangered? Long live progress I’d say…

Scot McKnight rethinks Near-death experiences (be sure to read the comments also.) A subject that I don’t have much opinion on, but I find it interesting nonethelesss….

American politics is something I don’t understand. One of the things I don’t understand is how certain ideas that are regarded ‘conservative’ can be seen as Christian. Morgan Guyton has an interesting article about how Ayn Rand and Jesus are completely uncompatible, according to a follower of Rand. I don’t know that much about Rand, but it’s seems quite evident to me that someone who hates altruism has nothing at all to do with Christ!

After my post on speaking about creation, it might be interesting to read the  opinion of your fellow-reader Eric, a scientist himself, on his blog the jawbone of an ass, with his views on genesis (read this first, and then gen 1 part 1 and part 2, genesis 2, genesis 3, genesis 4, and you can find a lot more interesting stuff over there…)

Also interesting is the last post from our Asian friend Vinoth Ramachandra, who clearly believes in evolutionary creation himself, and reviews a book from Raymond Tallis, an atheist himself, against ‘darwinitis and neuromania’, that looks quite interesting but also quite heavy… His review ends with the promising words “What a pity that so much effort has been devoted to lambasting the polemics of Dawkins and Harris, when Christians should be reading thoughtful humanists like Tallis.“

Scott Morizot has (again!!) a must-read post, the third in his ‘pluralism and the christian gods’ series. Be sure to reas 1 and 2 too!

Roger Olson has an interesting article about panentheism, a word that is used in some corners of the emerging church, but that seems to have very different definitions depending on who’s using it…

And if you consider changing your religion, there’s always the terror of the Old Ones one can turn to. Read this tract and repent! (!!Do not read if you have a problem with sci-fi, horror, or religious propaganda!!) ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!! Looks like Jack Chick has some part-time job making flyers for other religions…

anything interesting that you read lately?

shalom

Bram

Some interesting things elsewhere III

Yes, that’s me, sitting at the beach at the mouth of most Southern estuary of the river Schelde in the North Sea, in the Netherlands, where we were with the people of our Vineyard church from Antwerp yesterday. As you can see the weather was changing at the moment of taking the picture, and not for the better…

Now onto the new list of ‘Some interesting things elsewhere’: I know I’m not disciplined enough, and not able to give my blog enough priority to do this every week like some bloggers do, but here is a new list:

Dianne Anderson  has written an interesting series on C.S. Lewis and platonism(part I, part II, part III) and complementarian use of the shadowlands metaphor. I think she has an interesting point that is much broader than her feminist application, and important in other ways too.  And then Sarah moon has a post on ‘intangible christianity‘, and I understood much more why her point is so important. Christian salvation is not something vague and mystical (in the pejorative sense) that means that somewhere in the heavenly realm your status has been changed, and your sins (actually the punishment for them) has been ‘washed away’ without anything happening here and now, but it is the Inbreaking of the Kingdom of God, ‘already and not yet’, that will only be complete after the Judgment with erasing of all evil. But salvation is something very real here and now!

Josh Hopping has a post about scriptures, politics, and the bootstrap myth, confronting the myth of the ‘do-it-yourself’-person that is even more pervasive in America but endemic to (neo)liberal Western thought but completely unchristian. Something similar from Bill Guerrant on sustainable traditions about American virtues and the seven deadly sins. (And again, what’s said about the US can be broadened to our Western culture in general…)

These stats on the sex industry from treasures in Los Angeles make me very very very sad… Kyrië Eleison! 

Related, Kurt Willems on the Pangea blog asks question ‘can porn be used responsible’, and gives an interesting observation about freedom: “God invites us to allow the Holy Spirit to shape our character to make us look more like Jesus, free from the shackles of longing for someone other than a spouse. Porn never accomplishes this aim in any circumstance.“

And for something completely different, Scott Morizot wonders about the influence of Islam on the Western renaissance in general and calvinism in specific. Intriguing idea.

peace

Bram

God cannot be around sin?

According to contemporary evangelical ideas that some people seem to hold, God cannot be where sin or evil is. I have encountered this idea several times in my life preached as a ‘biblical truth’, but I’m afraid that, like more ideas in  ‘radio orthodoxy’ (Oh man I’m glad we don’t have commercial Christian radio over here!) it’s neither truth nor biblical .

I would personally assume it quite obvious that the said idea is in itself a bit weird, and unbiblical, even without posing the question of how to rhyme this idea with Gods omnipresence, and God being ‘the Almighty’ (quite a powerless Supreme Being that would be, scared away from a little bit of sin, especially in a world that is filled with it…).

I do think that Scott Morizot offers a very good commentary with the following paragraph:

I’ve always been incredulous about the often repeated modern assertion that God is holy and can’t be around sin or evil. Nowhere do we see that in the story of Jewish and Christian God, but it’s absurd whenever we look at Jesus. He sought out the “sinners” and those considered ritually unclean and acted as though he could make them clean through association rather than the opposite. Jesus certainly had no problem “being around” sin. In fact, that was one of the major criticisms levelled at him. At one point, he almost shrugs and says he didn’t come to the healthy, but to the sick. And in the fullness of that revelation, in case we missed the point of a God who goes looking for man from the moment in the story of the garden when he asks Adam where he is, Jesus shows us a God seeking out “sinners” and always facing man wherever we might flee.

- Scott Morizot (click his name for the source)

Another remark would be that we can inverse the idea: sin cannot be around God. God, who is all-pure and an all-consuming fire, will not at all be affected by sin, but sin and evil itself might kinda suffer the same problem as darkness when exposed to light… (But here we can discuss the role of Satan in the book of Job, which might be quite a discussion!)

I do think that this issue will deeply influence the way we view atonement, but I let my readers think about that… So what do you think?

shalom

Bram

The worst of all sins, the Jesus creed and an orthodox hell…

Let’s start with a quote that could come from some classic book about Christianity of the sort that should be read by everyone, but in fact just is stolen from a blogcomment by the ever incredible Scott Morizot, on Sarah Moons blog. (The context is a discussion about premarital sex, but I’m not going into that now)

The modern church has largely lost sight of the deeper understanding of the ancient church. The physical passions, lust, gluttony, and the rest can be very destructive, but they are the lesser passions. Greed, anger, hatred, bitterness. Those passions form us into subhuman beings and are more dangerous for most people in the long run.

- Scott Morizot

I think this is really important stuff. We shouldn’t put our main focus on outward sins like a lot of Christian moralists do, but on the structural sins that reside in our heart. We should not fight symtoms, but cut to the core of the problem. And the problem of sin is much deeper than breaking a law and doing what we shouldn’t do:

Sin” in the Christian sense does not mean breaking a law or violating ritual cleanliness. The closest meaning would be ‘missing the mark’ and the ‘mark’ for Christians, as I understand it, is always Christ. Communion with Christ. Forming Christ in ourselves. Being Christ to others.

- Scott Morizot

This is something I’ve been thinking about, since I’ve reread Scot McKnight’s ‘the Jesus creed‘, I’ve very clumsily started to at random times recite to myself the “Jesus Creed”, or Jesus adaptation of the Shema that we mostly know as ‘the great commandment’, and wondering if I do indeed in any way even try to live up to that. Which can be a really confronting exercise!

The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Christ, From Mark 12

First comment here is that loving God is something strange, but I do believe that it means to know God, a personal relationship with God. If we believe that in the afterlife we’re going to be with Him without end, then it’s worth trying to get to know Him in this life too, isn’t it?

Another comment: If the law is summed up in “love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your fellow human as yourself”, then this must be the first thing to which we turn to see whether something is sin, even if we take the definition of sin as law-breaking. Everything that hinders us in growing this double love of God and neigbor in any way is ‘sin’. And the most dangerous sins here would be indeed things like greed, anger, hatred and bitterness. Which is scary sometimes to realise, for example if we consider that our economy does run on greed, when, like Paul says, love of money is the root of all evil…

If we allow those things to grow in our lives, they will hinder love, and in the end make it impossible. And if love is really impossible, we indeed become ‘sub-human’, we become a child of darkness that will never be able to endure the light. Which is a very scary definition of hell which I did encounter in orthodox thought: for the lost soul eternity with God IS hell, an all-consuming fire…

those are just thoughts that are incomplete; so all comments are welcome!

Shalom

Bram

a truly orthodox view on salvation…

a little video break for the hellish discussions here…

You can’t get more orthodox than the eastern orthodox. and I found this video so beautiful I instantly thought I’d share it. I got it from Scott Morizots blog, which is definitely worth reading!!

Something in the eastern orthodox view on salvation reminds me of why I cannot not be a follower of Christ. Something unexplainable that I cannot deny and that is more try and more valuable than all of this world… I have the same with the (neo)anabaptist emphasis on the sermon of the mount, and with the Kingdom vision of both the vineyard and some voices in the emerging/missional church. And with hearing the psalters live.

Christ truly is great, and the gospel truly IS good news….

shalom

Bram