Maunderings

In effort to simply keep this train a-movin' I present a few items that caught my eye this week:

• I found a little bit of conversation over at open source theology about the charismatic/emergent interplay. There are some good questions and some different perspectives to look at Jesus' miracles through,

"How much is Jesus’ healing ministry a prophetic sign of the renewal of the covenant (a reversal of the curse of the covenant) rather than a normative expression of faith?" and later, "Wright shows that Jesus’ working of miracles should be seen as the breaking in of the new order of the Kingdom of the creator God. The healings performed among Israel are a sign of what will happen for the whole world. This is highlighted particularly in his demonstrations of power over nature. His miracles then are to be seen as lived stories of the kingdom, which are stories of true exodus, and some in particular, such as the exorcisms, articulate the true exodus clearly as a deliverance from the oppression of Satan rather than deliverance from the oppression of Rome."

but the comments turn to eschatology which certainly does have an important role in talking about healing, exorcism, miracles and whatnot but it wasn't really a part of our conversation and has a vocabulary of its own (parousia, preterism, etc) which might not be accessible.

• What Jerry Falwell, Zizek and Obesity Can Teach us About Our Evangelical Holiness Codes

David Fitch rolled so many issues and ideas that I think are important into one piece and then mentioned Zizek in light of them that I don't want to even try pimping this to anyone - read it or don't - I think it hits a damn sight close to a root hypocrisy in evangelicalism.

• I struggle often with staying at the big Faith E. Free (one of the main reasons I do stay is because of the coemergentco chums that I regularly see there) and this post about converting to catholicism caught me,

"To me, to convert now would be a very Protestant thing to do; that is, as an individual I'd be picking my favorite denomination. To quote Dorothy Day (quoting Peguy, I believe): "Somehow we must be saved together." I see my calling as one of teaching Baptists and other free churchers to be more catholic and to work for the unity of the church, not, as Kaspar says, by a simple return to Rome, but by mutual conversion to Christ."

I don't know if the dots exactly connect, but I felt encouraged to struggle with some of the backwards theology for the sake of the entire body of Christ rather than bail out and shake the dust off my feet as I leave.

• I like the concept of this and I think it's the artist that did the GY!BE, formerly GYBE!, art on LYSFLAH (or for Ryan - the Oct.31st Record).

• If any of these are tongue-in-cheek I think they are brilliant.

• And finally...W...T...F...I love christian music.