More Here...

The reading from scripture to get things started is from Matthew 13:3-23 More Here...

Summer is over as far as Hollywood is concerned. No more big potential blockbusters await us. Looking back at the season’s hits – mostly morality plays writ large – I wonder: What do this summer’s movie heroes say about us?

Psychologically, watching a star on the screen can be like looking in a mirror. Sometimes we transfer our own worries and dreams on the characters so that we see heightened versions of ourselves. Sometimes our heroes reflect the attitudes of our era. Seen this way, Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood” is much more than Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood.” Why, I wonder, was this 2010 iteration of the legend so world-weary and glum?

You could ask similar questions of other recent big-screen heroes. Robert Downey Jr.’s cocky Tony Stark had the smugness beaten out of him in “Iron Man 2,” while Leonardo DiCaprio played a con man who literally lived his nightmares in “Inception.” Why did we have so many dark antiheroes in this supposed season of light? Many Christians tentatively tiptoe around movie theaters because of this. Did they have even more reason to do so this year?

Sure, there was joy to be found. Tom Cruise’s spy in “Knight and Day” joked his way through life-and-death scenarios, while the entirety of “The A-Team” was a gag. Were these escapist fantasies America’s way of ignoring two wars and a lingering recession? Likely not, considering they both grossed less than “Inception” and “Iron Man 2.”

As for women looking to see themselves reflected in the summer’s movies, they mostly had uninspiring choices. Angelina Jolie’s rogue agent in “Salt” was as grim as any of those tortured men, as was mopey “Twilight” heroine Bella. The season’s chick flicks – “Sex and the City 2” and “Eat Pray Love” – only offered female figures mired in materialism and narcissism. Were there any heroines this summer?

Obviously the cast of “The Expendables” doesn’t count. The summer season ended with this brawny blow-’em up, in which Sylvester Stallone directed himself and other 1980s action icons in a time capsule of manliness. The movie took first place at the box office two weekends in a row. I’m not sure what this nostalgia for the likes of John Rambo says about the state of heroism in 2010.

What popcorn movies did you indulge in this summer? What did the heroes in them represent for you? Could you describe any of them as Christian figures, or is Hollywood helpless when it comes to that?

When I saw this photo of the nuns in the picture above, it made me think about myself and how I view others who are lost. As I pondered the answer to this question, it became very clear to me that I could do better in this respect.

We are what we speak most of the time, and it's important for us to speak compassion, acceptance and love. Now, don't get it twisted and confused. What I'm talking about here is how we really feel about those who are lost and in need of God's guidance.

You see, it's easy to witness to those who are open to being witnessed too. But our quest should be one that endeavors to labor among the lost. Christians are charged to love those who are difficult to love. It's no feat to love someone who likes you. However, loving someone who doesn't know Jesus or who doesn't like you is a different story. And mind you, we can't expect to enter into the gates of heaven flaunting a limited list of hand picked individuals, who we discriminately chose to pray for. More Here...

I am beginning to work on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age.  I say 'work' very intentionally because this is a monumental work that will probably be remembered as Taylor's magnum opus.  It developed out of his 2007 Gifford Lectures and transmuted into a 900-page book that without its dust jacket could easily be mistaken for the collected works of J.R.R. Tolkien.  But I'm not the only one who has worked at this.  Taylor (as always) is a laborious, meticulous thinker and cataloger of thoughts.  If the reader rejects his telling or his conclusions, it won't be because Taylor missed a step.  So from the very introduction, Taylor begins working on answering the question, "What do we mean by secular here?"  

For our part, the question might be, how could you possibly consider America a secular nation when every President since Ronald Reagan has ended every speech with, "And God bless America?"  

Taylor identifies two common meanings for the term, which he uses to isolate the uncommon meaning that he is working with.  

The first common meaning is used in terms of "public spaces."  Taylor says that these spaces have (allegedly) been "emptied of God, or of any reference to ultimately reality.  Or taken from another side, as we function within various spheres of activity - economic, political, cultural, educational, professional, recreational - the norms and principles we follow, the deliberations we engage in, generally don't refer us to God or to any religious beliefs; the considerations we act on are internal to the 'rationality' of each sphere - maximum gain within the economy, the greatest benefit to the greatest number in the political arena, and so on." More Here...

Christianity isn’t a religion; it’s a relationship. This is, perhaps, the most common naïve Christian slogan. I consider it naïve for two reasons. First, because it is not true, and second, because while it is used to counter one valid problem, it implies a view of the Church which is just as large of a problem.

When Christians claim that Christianity is a relationship and not a religion, they intend to distance it from cold ritualism. I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. Performing a service for the mere sake of performing a service, or saying a prayer merely for sake of saying a prayer are both wrong and ought to be avoided. Worse yet is for a man to perform a service or say prayer for the sake of convincing himself that he is not a bad man, or for assuming that these acts prove his goodness and allow him to stand before God. The purpose of our services and our prayers is to both worship God and be edified in our pursuit of Him; our righteousness before God is Christ alone, not anything of ourselves.

The trouble, then, is not the sentiment of the statement. The trouble is the statement. My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines religion in the following words.

Religion: 1) the service and worship of God or the supernatural; 2) a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

Clearly, the dictionary entry contained more than those first two definitions, but none of the other definitions could be construed in any way that would disqualify Christianity as a religion. Christianity is and always will be a religion. More Here...

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“I know something’s wrong,” I said. ”We’ll take a look at it,” was the reply.

Look, they did.

They did so much looking, they needed to look at it overnight. “FREE LOANER!” I celebrated silently to myself. (It’s the little things.)

This particular body shop has a deal with a car rental place down the street. I dropped off my keys with the front desk and waited as one of the staff came around the front with a shuttle van to take me to the rental place.

I hopped in the shuttle and we began to make small talk for the short, five-minute drive down the street. The drive was short, but the conversation with my driver, Wade, was long enough to give me pause. More Here...

By Sharon at SheWorships

This week I heard a truly fascinating story on NPR about why ALL humans, no matter their skepticism, are inclined to sense or experience the supernatural. The story began with a scientist named Jesse Bering who was a confessing atheist but, upon losing his mom, had a supernatural experience. The evening after her passing, he heard the wind chimes chiming outside her room, as if to indicate that his mother had safely “passed to the other side.”

Upon having this thought, Bering was surprised at himself. Where did this thought come from? As a seasoned skeptic and proud scientist, why did his brain so easily drift into this non-scientific belief? Bering was fascinated by the psychological implications of his experience, so he decided to study it.

Bering is not the first to ask this question. As the NPR story explained, “In the history of the world, every culture in every location at every point in time has developed some supernatural belief system,” a reality that has grabbed the attention of the scientific community and warranted much research. More Here...

The lectionary texts for this past Sunday included Luke 14:7-14, the parable of seating at a wedding banquet. During a discussion with some members of my congregation after the service, the following question was raised: "How do we as Christians make room for others at our table?"

The gist of my response to this question is that making room has nothing to do with the "petty" things like dressing more casually to go to church or having the right style of music or putting on the right programming or making the church "seeker sensitive" -- what the heck does that even mean, anyway? My hunch is that making room at the proverbial table has far more to do with being willing to be wrong and eager to question beliefs that have always been taken for granted.

The more I immerse myself in theology, the more that I realize that, unlike most academic fields, theology becomes the site of fierce battles precisely because there is so much at stake. If historians made some amazing discovery that proves that George Washington was never a president of the United States, most people would probably be surprised, some people would not care, and a handful of crazies would construct an elaborate theory to prove that the new findings were part of some sort of government conspiracy. In general though, after the initial hubbub around the issue died down, we would correct our history books, the debate would become a distant memory, and we would go on with life as normal. 

But theology is not like history. More Here...

By Matt at The Church of No People

I’ve got something big to share with you today.

As of today, I’ve been blogging for twenty-two months.  Last week, I reached the benchmark of 300 blog posts.  That means you’ve now slurped down 300 doses of my amazing wisdom and impeccable wit, and I’ve read through thousands of your comments.

I always hope that this blog is a meaningful thing to do.  That means writing about meaningful things that I hope will be worth your time.  A couple of months ago, it meant deciding not to put ads on the blog.  It oftentimes means reaching out to some incredible people around the world.

But today, I’m really pumped, because I’m doing something with the blog that’s very meaningful, and I need your help. 

I’m collecting about 800 million glasses of water

…give or take a couple.  I’m not joking. More Here...

Don’t judge or you’ll be judged! This phrase appears as a naïve Christian slogan when its scriptural meaning and context is ignored. In my experience, “Don’t judge!” is tossed into discussions like a smoke bomb to prevent persons from making moral evaluations. It usually means this: Hey, you can’t pass any judgments because it’s not your place to judge; it’s God’s. So leave me alone, jerk.

As we know, “don’t judge” is in reference to Matthew 7:1-2, which says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (NIV).

At first glance, the common use of the phrase might seem justified. But let us examine the verses that follow. Verses 3 through 5 continue the theme. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye” etc. It’s obvious from these verses that it is not judgment which is being condemned, but hypocrisy. This passage is saying that, if you are going to pass a judgment, make sure you are not engaged in the same sin that you are condemning. That is, hold yourself to the same standards you hold others. More Here...

    than the shouts of a foolish king.
18 Better to have wisdom than weapons of war,
    but one sinner can destroy much that is good.

- Ecclesiastes 9:13-18, NLT (emphases mine)
 
Do you find yourself giving more respect to those who have wisdom or to those who have status? Why?
 
Thanks to InterVarsity Press for today's pointed thought.

We are often conflicted about the values on which we base decisions (that is, if we bother thinking about values at all).

Especially when it comes to marriage nowadays, we seem to be conflicted between love and freedom. Peter Kreeft, a philosopher at Boston College, has written a very enlightening series of dialogues in The Best Things in Life that shed light on our contradictions and understandings. Here is a bit that really helps elucidate some of the tensions within our own view of marriage:

Felicia (F): Love justifies everything. Love is the meaning of life. Love makes the world go round. Love is happiness.
...Socrates (S): Then marriage, with its promises, would increase your happiness, wouldn't it?
F: No. We don't believe in marriage. It would box us in.
Socrates: You see the promise of lifelong fidelity as a threat to your happiness?
Felicia: Yes, if and when we fall out of love. We want to be free.
Socrates: Then you do not identify love with happiness, as you said before. For you always want to be happy,  but you do not always want to be in this love relationship. Do you identify happiness with freedom, then? You always want to be free-- to stay or to leave?

The rub here is that desiring freedom contradicts desiring the love relationship. More Here...

By Matthew at Jesus Needs New PR

Yesterday, I ran into one of my gym acquaintances, a thirty-year-old named Gabe (name changed) who I hadn’t seen since April or March. This is how our conversation went…

“Hey Gabe. How’s it going?”

“I’m doing all right; haven’t seen you in a few months.”

“I was thinking the same thing. But I’ve had a busy summer. And I’m on deadline, so I’m sure I’ve been easy to miss.”

Gabe sighed. “This is the first time I’ve been to the gym since May.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” He sighed again. “Where do I even begin? I lost everything in the flood.” More Here...

Anne Rice is of course not the only professed Christ follower bailing on the church or “organized religion”, some argue an entire generation is doing so. Could there be something “in the water”?

1. We live in a context of mistrust. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity trying to exegete Jesus’ admonition to “love your neighbor as yourself” illuminates what it means to ‘love yourself”. C.S. Lewis suggests that this is really self-regard. When I do something wrong it’s a fluke. When someone else does something wrong it is a pattern. When I lie it’s justified. When someone else lies it’s because they are a liar. We regard ourselves differently than we regard others. We trust ourselves differently than we trust others. I get much more nervous being in a car on a winding mountain road when someone else’s hands are on the wheel rather than my own. This speaks a lot to our control issues.

How does this work out in terms of our capacity to relate to religious institutions? We want to trust only those we know personally, only those we have experience with, only our networks of trust. Denominations and other religious organizations are really trust leveraging networks. A credential is a document that says, “I can trust John because this other group of people say he’s trust-worthy.”

We have a deep distrust of institutions. We don’t trust government since they needlessly exposed soldiers to radiation. We don’t trust families since our parents divorced. We don’t trust business since they drove the economy off a cliff in 2008. We have trust issues.

How do people with trust issues respond? Keep things close, keep things personal, stay in control. Sending money to institutional offices with the assumption that “they know best” requires a highly developed sense of trust. As a culture we increasingly imagine that such people are naive and we disregard them and disrespect them.

2. One block builds on another here. When institutions act we filter their actions through a prejudice that their actions are motivated by naked self-preservation. This is a convenient prejudice (as most of them are) because it means that any argument or behavior can be dismissed and not fully considered.

3. Tim Stafford in a bit of a book review on his blog notes that conspiracy theories tend to flourish when we personalize impersonal forces of unwelcome change. Not only can’t I trust, not only is this institution acting merely to preserve itself, but furthermore someone in this institution has always had it out for me. Now I have yet a third reason why I don’t need to listen.

4. I am confident in God’s regard for myself based on my moral/missional/ecclesiastical/communal performance. Take points one through three and add to them a personal narrative of divine participation in my life and you can come up with a very potent mixture. I know I’m not perfect but I’m surely better than average. My credentials in God’s eyes, and in the eyes of those around me who I regard and who hold me in regard surely have established that I am on the right track with things and I know the way things need to go. When things go the way I want them to go this affirms that God is blessing me and I’m on the right track. When things don’t go well this either speaks of God’s favor in chastening me or more likely in my own importance (or that of my efforts) and my importance in the larger work of God to elicit such opposition by the devil and other forces of evil. This becomes for me a defining moment where I simply must take a stand so I must harden myself in my position together with my allies and stay the course no matter the cost.

Now laying it out like this a path of self-delusion is clear, but the key to delusion is its irregularity. Just becomes someone is paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get them. Institutions aren’t always trustworthy. Other people are unreliable because they are in fact people.

The delusional factor is the presumption that I am reliable and the increasing distortion this brings to my world. What gets very dangerous in this scenario is one’s progressive inability to listen. Others may not be right, but there might be something helpful for me to learn. Institutions may not be running with perfect efficiency or making all good decisions, but it might not be all a waste of time and money either. It is in fact a good bet that I am thinking about myself, and orienting the world around me to a greater degree than others are doing around me (assuming they are likely as ego-centric and self-absorbed as I am). If there is one thing the Bible should be clear on it should be the fact that imagining God’s regard for us based on our moral/religious/theological performance is very thin ice indeed. Consider Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

The gospel gives me hope as an individual if I can believe a number of its tenets. It can lean against this narrative progression and hopefully open my eyes and ears to how things might be outside of myself, hopefully resisting this insidious path of delusion. What is also difficult is working with others who struggle with the same delusion. To the degree that we don’t have ears to hear we are at the mercy of our own prisons.

"How you played the last song ruined it."

Should a song ruin worship? On Sunday, music group led the worship with songs, and generally it went well. People were singing, enjoying the songs and getting close to God. It seemed that people seemed to like the song choices and if they weren't favorites still appreciated the time to just sing to God and build their relationship.

Then, at the end of the service, one of the old ladies came up to music group and told us that we played the last song wrong. The last song we played was "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," and she said that the tune we played was not right. Our reply was that there are three "tunes" to which it can be played and we simply picked that one. She then agreed that this was fair enough but continued to say that we had changed the rhythm of the last line to fit along. She said that we do not have the right to change music that we have not written. Again, our reply was that she could check the music if she liked and that we had played the rhythm according to the music that we had.

Our minister then interjected and said that he had no trouble with following it and did not see anything wrong in what we played -- neither did anyone else. The lady then seemed to take this the wrong way and asked our minister whose side he was on, to which music group simply said, "We play for God." Needless to say, this lady felt that how we played this song ruined her worship. More Here...

Much of the news and political discussion now is centered around last weekend's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington D.C. hosted by radio talk show host Glenn Beck. In addition to the normal partisan reports about the rally, there are the wildly fluctuating estimates as to how many people were actually there.

Much of the news also seems to be centered on Beck's calling America back to Christian values. I don't have all that much interest in the politics of a radio host anymore. They all remind me of Lewis Prothero: "That's quite enough of that, thank you very much."

But Beck's focus on Christianity this weekend causes me to revisit something from earlier this year that he said on his show.
More Here...

By Justin at BeDeviant

Seth Godin is my pastor because no one cares for their congregation (tribe) more than he does.

Anne Lamott is my pastor because she receives grace better than anyone I’ve ever seen. (I’m sure she’s just as adept at giving out grace as well.)

Jason Upton is my pastor because he allows me to see God in a way that is not inherent to my spiritual make-up.

Cynthia Ware is my pastor because she is constantly striving to seek better ways to communicate God’s word to a waiting and weary world.

Mike Housholder is my pastor because I hear him skillfully unpack God’s word each and every week.

Kristin Anderson is my pastor because she truly cares about the lives of the people under her care. A pastor to pastors, is what she would say (and I would agree).

Jeff Hanson is my pastor because, well, he’s had more impact on my spiritual life than anyone else.

Who is your pastor and why?

Greetings, Revelife readers!  We realize that a very somber anniversary is rapidly approaching.  September 11, 2001, was a day that many will never forget.

We don't want to make light of the day, especially as it can bring to the surface very emotional memories, but given the current circumstances in the Ground Zero vicinity, it's clear that the events are still fresh in our memories.

Were you in New York City that day?  Or did tragedy strike in your life?  If you feel comfortable, we'd appreciate the opportunity to share your stories of hardships, hope, and what the future holds. 

Of course, we'll take posts on a wide variety of topics, so don't hesitate to submit your post, as it could easily get featured on our front page!

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