What! What! What! What!

Jesus always seemed to be doing two things: asking questions and telling stories. Christians always seem to be doing two other things: giving answers and “preaching.” -Becky Pippert

I found this quote here.

-ryan

"So Rosewater told him what he was reading. It was the Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visiitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way. The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low.
But the Gospels actually taught this:
Before you kill somebody, make abslutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.
The flaw in Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the univers. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh, boy--they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it Goes.

The visitor form outer space made a gift to EArth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.
So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn't possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers though. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was.
And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privilegges of The Son of the Creator of the Univers throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connnections! "

This quote is from Slaughterhouse-Five. So it Goes is what he always says after the mention of death.

hymen heart no more

So this may be cheating, but my post is inspired by Daniel's. The discussion that Daniel's post started reminded me of some familiar terriority that I've walked and now needs to be retraced. I grew up in good ole fundamental Ev Free and matriculated at the progressive North Park U. But in both flavors of Christianity I became a Christian who had a theoretical God...sure I believed he existed, somewhere, and was maybe doing some stuff, again somewhere, but for me in the 21st century I felt like all was doing was trying to justify is absence. Trying to come up with arguments that proctected his love, justice, mercy, etc. and at the same time excused his absence.

When I graduated I came home from college to find that my parents had became holy-spirit filled, speaking-in-tongues, charismatic christians. Wierd, wierd, wierd. And sometimes i'd go to church with them at Resurrection Fellowship - and it was uncomfortable, disconcerting, ignorant,...and yet, and yet there was something that kept drawing me back. I'd be irritated, annoyed and most annoying of all I'd be moved. And after a year of being irritatingly moved/touched there, this is what moved and touched me: they had a very simple belief/conviction that God is present, good and accesible. And so they spend their time trying to access him.

Now there was much that I didn't agree with, much that wasn't healthy, but this, this simple creed was so beautiful and needed. So often we just assume the clock-work God and go on our religious business. However you don't just want to make God your buddy, we need to keep the tension between a mysterious, other, free God with one who desparately wants to reveal himself, for us to interact with him.
I realize that I'm treating sensitive ground, even as I write this I sense a fear and a desire/hope for a present God - if after I write this and I turn to Him in prayer, will i feel anything, will I ever expereintially know God in prayer, will I ever find Him or will I be left with a dry, grinding exercise, constantly ratinionalizing, "well he must doing something beyond my comprehension."? (I've been feeling this so often)

Its a great risk is find out if God is dead or not, a risk that costs so much - but we must be the first ones to take it. Regardless of the world's problem of evil, we have to start with ourselves and discover for ourselves if God is present and accesible. And if we find out for ourselves that the Kingdom exists, maybe then we could spread it to others.

-steve

By the way...

Our profile picture is an old chinese star chart.

-ryan

testing 1, 2...testing 1,2

don't pay any attention to this, i'm just checking to see if i can actually post now.

daniel

Reposts

Over lunch I reposted Daniel's and my posts from squarespace to here. I toyed with the idea of recreating the comments that Melissa, Daniel and DWC wrote but I can't do exaggeratory impersonations very well through hypertext - que cerra.

also, here is the link to the Pete Rollins interview I mentioned at the squarespace blog.


seth






Technorati Profile

The Absence of God

hey everyone, for a bit yesterday seth, steve, and i were talking about the difficulty that is found between the biblical reality proclaimed in light of Christ and the way it appears to us now. Christ's life, death, and resurrection are the pivot points of reality, God's kingdom is at hand, and in Christ we are restored to fellowship with God and one another. Yet, when we look back on history most of it is pretty messed up with disease, war, famine, hatred, hypocrisy, with little evidence of the breaking in of God. i just found a quote which i think aptly summarizes my feelings much of the time:
"I believe, therefore I suffer. Believers suffer with the suffering, for they would like to rejoice with the suffering and yet in their suffering they continue to long for the joy withheld from them. The believer grieves over the lack of love and hope [in the world] which proceeds from lack of freedom, justice, and peace [in the world]. But when believers look into a world painfully marked by death and the henchmen of death, as believers they also sufer deeply over the experience of the hiddenness of God's activity..." --Eberhard Jungel
the quote goes on from there and has some interesting thoughts on reality in the face of this, but this was the part that resonated most with me. no earth-shattering solutions on my point, but i think that Jungel articulates somethings i've been wrestling with. you're welcome to read the rest of the quote at http://fireandrose.blogspot.com if interested.
cheers,
daniel

Stanley Hauerwas talks about medicine, death, and the Christian community.

Here is a talk from the Emergent Villiage site. Check it out.

-seth

Ryan Posts a Post

Tuesday night, after Lander’s party at Avo’s and our discussion about gender roles, I gave Kay a ride home and we talked about many big life things, like heaven and hell, the difference between Christ’s actual message and contemporary Christianity, looking around at what God is doing in “non-Christians’” lives and how God is working outside of (and in some cases, in spite of) the church, and ways that God can work through other religions to bring people to a saving truth about Himself. I have arrived home, and now attempt to type up one the more novel realizations. Be advised that this is all “hot off the grill,” un-thought-through, gushing of ideas, just because I want to try and get it down in writing before I forget it.

Disclaimer 1: The following rant addresses the Native American culture, of which I know next to nothing about, only what I’ve glimpsed in the natural history museums, and the stereotypes I’ve grown up with, but I'm still fascinated by it all, and I beg anyone who knows anything more about anything here to log in and edit the heck out of it!! I’m glad this is just within our little circle for now, as uninformed as it is.

Basically, this is about giving polytheism a little credit.

God was probably very pleased with the Native Americans, with all their different gods – the sun god, the rain god, the wind god, the river god, the animal gods, etc., because they saw all the different ways in which He interacted with His creation. Even though they viewed them as separate gods, the “One True God” was still being worshipped, and in a much more holistic way, I must add, than in contemporary Christian worship. Today we usually just “praise” God for what He’s done in our personal lives, or for saving us from hell, or “worship” Him for some abstract personality trait like love or righteousness, in language that has become worn and cliché. I’m not saying that no one actually worships God these days, but just look at our “worship services” compared to: desperately relying on God for His provision during a bison hunt, or the exhausted relief and overwhelming joy of a downpour after months of no rain, or the quiet, expectant hope of a row of seeds planted in the soil, or the jubilant ritual of drum and dance, or the deeply symbolic arts of face paint, bead work, basketry, dreamcatchers, kachinas, masks, pottery, bone, and leather, or the strong sense of community, or the profound understanding and respect for the ecosystem and animal life. This is perhaps the closest humans have come since the Fall to how God created us to live, in harmony with His creation, interacting with Him and each other through celebration, prayer, and hope, giving weight and respect to even the smallest things, living boldly in the face of the biggest dangers, etc. The fact that they were polytheistic I’m sure did not bother God. He knew they were worshipping Him all the same, and was surely very pleased and impressed that they could find Him in every part of nature, animal, and community life. We have so much to learn from their culture, but sadly most Christians get hung up on the polytheism, which usually translates immediately into paganism, and don’t get any further into exploring the rich, holistic existence of these lovely people.

Disclaimer 2: Of course there’s the issue of tribal warring, etc, which somewhat taints the idyllic picture I have sketched, but Blah I’ll let someone else reconcile that…… this is just a gush of realizations, etc, trying to be captured in writing…..