Liberal Slope Slipper < Conservative Christian with Electricity

I did half a podcast with my friend Emery over at achristianandanatheist.com. It was the third in a series of podcasts focusing on sexual morality. This week it was to be me (a more liberal guy, I guess) and Tony (a more conservative guy, I guess...but not THAT conservative as he doesn't hold to a young earth theory). It was going pretty well until my power went out, right in the middle of what I like to think was a very compelling statement I was trying to make.

Moral of the story?

If you go down the slippery slope of liberal Christianity, your power will go out in the middle of a podcast you are trying to do with an atheist friend in Portland.

You have been warned.

Miscellaneous Debris

So I have started a bunch of blog posts lately, and none of them went anywhere. But since I am way into being eco-friendly, I didn't want to waste them. So, I've decided to post them all together in a kind of blog-gumbo for your reading enjoyment. Remember, these are all the beginnings of blog posts that I didn't have the time/energy/kiwis to finish. They are random and unrelated. Enjoy...or not. Whatever.

- I don't understand what the big deal about Obama is, do you? So far the only things I have heard with any sort of consistency are that he is our first African-American president and he can deliver a heluva speech. I looked into his voting record while he was still a U.S. senator. He tended NOT to vote. It is hard to determine just what is so special about the guy, in terms of political prowess at least. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a disgruntled Republican. I think McCain/Palin were the greater of the two evils.

- I opted not to attend our most recent district ministerium (a kind of get together of regional pastors). Why? Because the main event at this months gathering was a tour of one pastor’s gargantuan church facility. It is hard for me to get excited about that kind of thing when I am unable to provide adequate dental care for my family (as a small church pastor) and this guy is deciding how many plasma screen TVs to put in his new 40,000 sq facility. Who needs it? Not me. I wonder how many starving children you could feed with the kind of money it takes to build a place like that?

- Do you ever get the feeling that you are absolutely not cut out for what it is you are supposed to be doing for a living? I sure do. I am a pastor and I would like to say that I do what I do because of some lofty spiritual ideal. The reality is that, most days, I do what I do so I can afford to care for my family.

- Mega-churches suck. They keep luring away my people! WTF, mate?!?

- Have you ever wondered why the Bible is so hard to understand sometimes? I do. The bummer is my job depends on me understanding it. Good Greif!

- My wife is expecting our fourth Child. I really don’t know what else to say.

- If I had the opportunity to choose the way I was going to die, I think I would be tempted to choose to die while having sex. Except that would probably be embarrassing for my wife. So I think I would have to choose to spontaneously explode. While visiting a mega-church. I would just want to absolutely explode into a million gooey pieces right in the middle of some multi-million dollar church building. That way, no matter what happened during the Sunday morning service, there would always be at least one guy elbowing his buddy and whispering, “Hey, did you know some dude exploded in here one day…he just blew up man, seriuously.”

Justice? (Part 2)

So I have been reading the book of Habakkuk lately. At New Horizon we have been discussing God and the problem of evil (you know, why does God let bad things happen to good people?) and the prophet Habakkuk addresses this question to a certain degree. He just doesn't do so in a way that suits my western, post-enlightenment sensibilities.

What I mean is he doesn't articulate a logical, linear, apologetic for the problem. He simply records a somewhat oblique discussion of justice between himself and the God he assumes can/should do something about evil in the world.

The "can do/should do" component is important to me (being western, post-enlightenment and having a penchant for logical, linear apologetics). In my mind, the issue of God and evil can be reduced to the point that there are two possible solutions:

1) God is able to do something about evil, but not willing to.
2) God is willing to do something about evil, but is unable to.

Of course many of my fellow evangelicals look at the issue and offer up a third solution: God is able, but not willing to do something about it now, rather, he is in the process of doing something about it. I think this viewpoint is what Ivan is dismantling in The Brothers Karamazov (see previous post).

Maybe God's motives just don't make sense, in which case the discussion is futile, or at least not logical or linear.

Justice? (Part 1)

One of the more dazzling encounters with the dark side of God that I have ever had came the first time I tried to read "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Specifically that famous chapter in book five titled "The Grand Inquisitor."

What an absolute sucker punch.

For those of you who have never read it, part of the chapter is a poignant and somewhat disturbing discussion of God and the problem of evil. You know, why do so many BAD things happen if there is a God out there who supposedly loves us and has the power to do something about it?

It is a tough question to wrestle, especially if the tried and true Christian answers leave you wanting more. Things like "God doesn't want bad things to happen, he just chooses to allow bad things to happen."

That one doesn't work for me. The way I look at it, the difference between "allowing" and "wanting" is so small as to afford little or no moral absolution for a deity who is supposed to be all powerful. If God could stop children from starving to death, why doesn't he?

It makes you want to cry out along side the prophet Habakkuk. "Where's the Justice?"

Revolution #3

The more I think about Jesus and his revolution, the more I'm convinced I wouldn't like him. At the very least I wouldn't want him to attend too many elder meetings. He must have been very uncomfortable to be around at times. I mean, the kinds of things he was asking people to give up (money, possessions, friends, family, life itself) were drastic.

Who does that?

Which of us would be willing to "sell all we have" in order to be part of the revolution? Which of us would leave our families behind to follow Jesus as he taught us how to suffer and die for the betterment of people around us. Who would EVER sign up for that kind of sacrifice, that kind of self denial? It's hard for me to go without ice cream or sex for too long...let alone giving up EVERYTHING to follow my revolutionary leader.

Anyone having second thoughts?

I am.

I mean, come on, sex is fun! Ice cream is good! Maybe Jesus' teaching about self sacrifice was hyperbole. Maybe it was a metaphor. In fact, I am sure that it was.

I am now certain that when Jesus called his followers to practice self-sacrifice as a lifestyle, what he really meant was we should build enormous church buildings, and borrow millions of dollars so that these structures can have air conditioning and hi-def television screens. Yes! And a big projector screen up front so we can have Nooma videos on endless loop. We should also have big fluffy chairs so that our asses don't get sore as we sip our cappuccino and watch our worship bands rock out to another Jesus tune. Righteous!

Yes I'm convinced, Jesus was all about the comfy.

Now, don't you feel better? I sure do. I am going to go sip a latte and thank God I am not starving to death in Darfur.

Revolution #2

I've been reflecting on the Gospel of Mark. I especially like the way it begins. No nativity, no shepherds, no angels we have heard on high, no silent night, no roomless inn. All we have is a short, cryptic prophecy and it's fulfillment in a bug-eating nature-dweller.

John the baptist: wild man, holy man, pre-revolutionary. He is John the Barbarian, a guerrilla warrior, a slightly unhinged mouthpeice of the divine, calling his countrymen to repentance. Clad in camel-skin, rallying the people, preparing the way for the Annointed One.

Then we have Jesus joining a movement already in progress. Being baptised with the rest of the sinners, responding in like manner to John's call for departure from the status quo. Only Jesus' river experience is a little different. He comes up out of the water and (re)encounters the divine. As the Spirit of God decends on him he hears a message from God.

"You are my annointed. The chosen one, you are Messiah. You are my man!"

Jesus response to this epiphany is to be driven into the wilderness. The Spirit drives him out away from the crowd into the hinterlands of the Judean wilderness.

What a way to start a story.

Revolution

There's nothing like a good economic meltdown to help me come to my senses. Ever since this past week's message (at New Horizon) I have become increasingly aware of the fact that my primary allegiance is not to this country. I like this country and am thankful for the many opportunities afforded me here, but as a follower of Jesus I think my primary allegiance is to the Kingdom of God.

Here is a re-write of an impromptu poem/reflection I read on Sunday. It's not quite the same, but it's close. It's called "You have heard"

You have heard that our country is on the brink of total economic meltdown, but that's not true.
You have heard that the political system of our country is totally corrupt, but that's not true either.
You have heard that the leader of our country is a feckless thug, an avaricious warmonger, but this is certainly not true.
These things aren't true because for those of us who have decided to follow Jesus, our citizenship does not belong to these United States of America. We are part of a revolutionary new Kingdom, one that was created to change the world, conquer death, and beat back the gates of hell.
We are not called to be loyal to a flawed system of human government. We are called to be part of a movement that started over two thousand years ago. A movement that transcends politics and is destined to reinvent the cosmos.
You may have heard that it is the end of the world as we know it. That our country is imploding, collapsing, falling apart at the seams.
But you have heard wrong.

Hang in there. The Revolution is just getting warmed up.