#me when my sermon is arbitrarying

[atmosphericalz]

elliot kingsley my soggy wet sopping mentally ill mipy moo british nonbinary goofy silly cat okay ill stop anywyas i love elliot kingsley theyre my #1 goober on GOD!!!!!!!!

guys i think i like elliot kingsley way too much I NEED TO BE STOPPED SOMEONEPLEAAUUSUDHEHAGDHD hi im ssane

[jdgo51]

Devotionals Daily - Make every day a better day… when you start with the Lord!

God Is Good All the Time

Today's inspiration comes from:

Seasons of Sorrow

by Tim Challies

Editor’s note: Death and suffering comes to all of us. Tim Challies shares his very personal journey of trauma and heartache after the loss of his son and finding comfort in Jesus.

"'I’ve heard of an old man, a stalwart of the Christian faith, who slipped from earth to heaven with the words of a child’s song upon his lips: “I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back.”

I’ve heard the account of a renowned theologian who summarized his entire life’s work in a melody he learned upon his mother’s knee: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”1 Sometimes the simplest words are the most important. Though we hike beyond theological foothills to explore the towering mountains of God’s thoughts and deeds, we never forget the beauty, never stop needing the blessing, of the simplest truths.

I once attended a church where it was the custom of the pastor to pause in his liturgies or sermons to say, “God is good,” to which the congregation would reply, “All the time.” Then he would say, “All the time,” and the congregation would answer, “God is good.” It was a recital of the simplest of truths — that goodness is not an occasional attribute of God, not an infrequent disposition, but a constant one. It was meant to remind us that God’s goodness does not vary with our circumstances but is fully present and on display in our worst moments as well as our best, in our most lamentable experiences as well as our most joyful. And though the pastor’s little phrase may have become trite over time, though I may have grumbled about it in the past, today, right now, nothing is more precious to me, nothing is more important to me, than this:

God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

This is not the only truth that is propping me up.

I’ve heard people in grief speak of God’s sovereignty, perhaps repeating a well-known phrase that compares it to a pillow upon which the child of God rests his head, giving perfect peace.2 Sovereignty speaks to power and the right to reign. It is the attribute of kings or potentates or others in positions of supremacy. Ultimately, it is an attribute of God himself, who rules Heaven and earth to such a degree that nothing happens or can happen apart from his will. Nothing is given to us that does not pass first through God’s own hand.3 God’s sovereignty is a sweeping doctrine that touches every aspect of life across every moment of creation and every corner of the universe. There is no moment, no spot, no deed, no death, that falls outside of it.

God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.

God’s sovereignty is offering me comfort in these dark days. It assures me that there was no earthly power, no demonic power, no fate or force above or below, that had its way with my boy, that interrupted or superseded God’s plan for him. There was no mo- ment in which God turned his back or got distracted with other affairs or nodded off to sleep. There was no medical deformity or genetic abnormality that had been overlooked by God. God’s sovereignty assures me that it was ultimately no one’s will but God’s that Nick lived just twenty short years, that he died with so much left undone, that he has departed and we have been left here without him. When Job was told of the death of his children, he did not say, “The Lord gave, and the devil has taken away,” but

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.

And with that certainty he blessed the name of that Lord.4

But while God’s sovereignty offers comfort, it offers comfort only if I know something more, something of his character. After all, God might be sovereign and capricious. He might be sovereign and selfish. He might be sovereign and arbitrary. He might be sovereign and evil. So for this reason I ask, “What else is true of God?”

If I am laying my head on any pillow in these days, it is the pillow of God’s goodness. I keep saying it: “God is good all the time.” I may be saying it with sorrow and bewilderment and something less than full faith. I may be saying it as a question: “God is good all the time, right?” But I am saying it. I don’t necessarily understand how God is good in this, or why taking my son is consistent with His goodness, but I know it must be. If Nick’s death was not a lapse in God’s sovereignty, it was also not a lapse in His goodness. If there was no moment in which God stopped being sovereign, there is no moment in which He stopped being good — good toward me, good toward my family, good toward Nick, good according to His perfect wisdom.

God can’t not be good!

God’s goodness means that everything God is and everything God does is worthy of approval, for He Himself is the very standard of goodness. Those things that are good are those things that God deems good, that God deems fitting, that God deems appropriate. For something to be good is for it to meet the approval of God, and for something to meet the approval of God is for it to be good.5 If that’s the case, then who am I to declare evil what God has declared good?

Who am I to condemn what God has approved? It falls to me to align my own understanding of goodness with God’s, to rely on God’s understanding of good to inform my own. Ultimately, it’s to agree that if God did it, it must be good, and if it is good, it must be worthy of approval. To say, “Thy will be done,” is to say, “Thy goodness be shown.” It’s to seek out evidence of God’s goodness even in the hardest of His providences. It’s to worship Him, even with a broken heart."'

The first anecdote I heard long ago but cannot now place; the second is widely attributed to Karl Barth. This is widely attributed to Charles Spurgeon, but I’ve had trouble tracing it to its original source.

See “Lord's Day 10” (Q&A 27), Heidelberg-Catechism.com, Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary, accessed April 19, 2022, www.heidel berg-catechism.com/en/lords-days/10.html. Job 1:21.

See Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical

Excerpted with permission from Seasons of Sorrow by Tim Challies, copyright Tim Challies.

[philosophicusabicus]

Diaries in the Loony Bin

The Loony Bin is a group of individuals who could be called “friends”, but maybe that’s too suggestive. At any rate, this group has a diverse set of opinions on politics and sports, with voices across the political spectrum and through many sports. The intersection of politics and sports, in contemporary society, is met with disdain; however, the members of the Loony Bin seek to make it an acceptable space of discourse. Every week, when the asylum isn’t particularly chaotic (there can be no promises as to consistency of date), an entry will be posted, documenting the developments of thought and culture within these walls. Where many see lunacy as a vice, it is seen as a virtue here. The diary herein is will capture all of the voices of this group, but it will use only one narrator, striking many different chords and tones. Topics will change with rapidity, so be always on edge. Though, nothing will get too toxic, as most topics will be treated rather lightly, aiming at parody. We’re in the Loony Bin after all.

Entry #1:

Where saner minds prevail in the Loony Bin, there is the same old chatter about Brady; about how the Bucs will repeat; about the prospects of Tampa’s young roster. But, in the deeper corners of the Loony establishment, there are whispers of a new team in town — a team in the same conference which has been biding its time of late. The St. Louis R… Los Angeles Rams. This team has the defense of a Trump supporter pressed about another investigation; and they have Stafford now, who can be a completely average version of himself and still be better than Goff. They made the playoffs last year with the latter under the gun: by trusted and tried Loony bin logic, there is no world where they don’t fare better this year.

Alas, as we approach the eve of the NBA Finals, we would be remiss not to reflect on the curious outcomes of the playoffs we have just witnessed. The Suns are on the cusp of their first finals in 28 years, walking over a series of teams who were hobbled to their bones. 1st round against LAL, practically no AD. 2nd round against Denver, no Murray. 3rd round against LAC, no Kawhi.

Is anyone else seeing a curious trend here?

This is like the string of upsets that led to the election of Biden in 2020 — think Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona, among others. Speaking of Biden, nobody can say they’re overly happy with what he’s accomplished in his term so far, but then again many are still aboard the “anything is better than Trump” bandwagon. So that mass is just easy to please.

I have a story to relate. A guard patrolling the halls on a foggy evening last month overheard in a ward unit a patient on a delirious soliloquy. Ranting and raving was usual for this patient deep into the night, but this rave, this was different. “Trump’s rhetoric.. his mannerisms.. his behavior.. it is unfit for the Presidency. Nothing need be pinned on him from a legal standpoint for it to follow that he does not meet the standards of the Chief Representative of the United States. If you were to quantify the number of immoral exhibits he has demonstrated, however insignificant, they would add up to a hefty sum: a demeaning and vicious personality. A personality unfit for such a high position. If we have to pick political poison, let’s pick the lesser of the poisons.” The guard began to hear an uncorking of caps, a sloshing of potions, and a loud thump of a corpse, crashing to the floor.

There was a rampant disease going around the property, from hall to hall, greensward to greensward. Its many and various symptoms included: involuntary association with Big Tech, amnesia about mortgage loans and student debt; anxiety related to pressures of the labor and financial markets; headache and fever regarding quality of romantic life; and a strong preoccupation with taking selfies.

The Bin was in lockdown and every non-faculty member had to isolate in their respective wards. Hence, if the patients were to communicate to each other, a new way medium had to be contrived: they call it “Loonygram”.

As I understand it, though admittedly I understand it very little, one performs some kind of slippery action to facilitate the correspondence between users. From what I have gathered though, it has little chance of success without being a certified maniac. Many prefer the pleasure they derive from their own babbling monologues.

While a doctor was trying to rationalize his patient one day he got carried away on a sermon of his own: “Why the fuss over kneeling anyway? Just because some action affronts a symbol you respect, doesn’t mean the intention was to disrespect that symbol. Differentiating actions and their outcomes from intentions goes a long way out there. There was no intent to disrespect what that American symbolism; that was just a byproduct of an effort trying to gain respect for another symbol: social equality”

The patient, strapped to their chair looks helplessly up at the doctor and asks “So… that helps me in here how?”.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t. Look, it aint all rational out there either, if you catch my drift”.

The patient scrunched his eyes circumspectly at the doctor before his attention was drawn to a fly buzzing on the adjacent wall.

These are curious times within these walls. An episode occurred on the Loony grounds one morning in which one patient wandered over to another, unprovoked, and yelled “my team is winning it all this year!”. The other patient, startled, replied “w..who is your team?” “w..what sport is this even?”

“I am at liberty to express myself; I have the first amendment behind me after all!” cried the provocative patient.

“Indeed, you do. But only where it doesn’t infringe on the freedoms of others” observed the second patient.

“And at what point is that?” jeered the first patient.

“Frankly, I’m not altogether sure. But let’s come to this decision mutually before you spam me with your raptures about the Yankees. Your favorite team is the Yankees, ya?

“How could you possibly.. know?”

“I saw you in the cafeteria last October, forking your pork chops like a feral animal; not long after Gleyber struck out for the 5th time that night either; I saw it in your eyes.”

How that altercation ended remains to be seen, since I merely borrowed it from the journal of another author, who has been missing ever since.

In other rumors, it is with great pain and sympathy that I report an exorcism which took place some time ago in the health dormitory on the fifth floor, all dust and eerie. The patient was being consumed by the demons of his loyalty to the Cowboys.

The pastor on hand, tending to his duties as exorcist, was on the verge of performing his most solemn task, when the possessed man said, as he foamed at the mouth “Elliot… Elliot”

“Excuse me? Elliot? What… Elliot’s going to be the most overrated running back in the league? I’m with you there” laughed the pastor, stuffing a hankerchief in the man’s mouth to muffle his screams.

“Dak. Dak. Dak. Back”

“Dak or not, there is a constant with the Cowboys. At the end of every regular season, they’re barely scratching playoffs.” applying the shock therapy he was taught in his vocational school.

“D..depth a..and.. youth.. a..at receiver” coughs the patient as he loses consciousness for the final time.

“Death and youth make a believer? That’s some sound philosophy my man. You’re impressionable when you’re young so that makes sense, and you live with more respect and appreciation for life as you get old and nearer to death. Truly well spoken”

“This one is one of the better cases, Mary” the doctor says as his assistant walks through the doors.

Tensions are up to a fever pitch these days. Just yesterday, two psychiatrists were shoving each other over whether the condition of the patients is binary or not.

“Their conditions are binary!? That is a very limiting way to view things. If the patient does not want to identify their condition as “sick”, and feels like they want to be labeled ‘sort of sick I suppose’, then the more power to them.”

“No, that is infeasible. If we do not have a clear threshold for their condition, then how can we administer their treatments? At what point? It would be arbitrary.”

“There is no essence of “sickness”; you can’t just define it in any terms you want, just so that it aids your goals; besides, they’re not really sick, sort of.” The insane man, lying on the bed for the entire course of the conversation, just looked blankly and confusedly at his doctors, thinking “so the stories you hear on the outside are true, these people really are Loony huh?”

Some disturbance is happening on the floor below me now, so I must close this entry and I will write another day…

[questionsonislam]

What are the fundamental rights Islam gives to man?

To comprehend the importance given to human rights in Islam, it is better to have a glance at the circumstances of the world before Islam. As follows:

1. All of the states in the world were ruled by monarchy. The ruling king, monarch or emperor had full authority over the people he ruled. He used to kill or exile the people he desired, and he did not have to account for anything he had done to people.

2. People were divided into classes. The monarchs close acquaintances and relatives (the nobles) were in the privileged class. Besides, a large group of people who were despised and whose rights were violated constituted a separate class. There was a deep gap between those classes.

3. Slavery was carried out in the most barbarous way. Personal dignity was flagrantly violated.

4. People were treated depending on their races and color of their skins; the superiority of the lineages were accepted as the unique superiority measure. People were not appraised according to their intelligence, knowledge, competence, morals and virtue.

5. There were no fundamental rights or freedoms. None of the fundamental rights or freedoms such as freedom of conscience and religion, right of property, freedom of having a residence, freedom of opinion were considered for an ordinary person. People were subjected to oppression and persecution because of their belief and opinions; and consciences were under oppression.

6. The fundamental principles of law were disregarded. It was even impossible to imagine fundamental judicial concepts like equality in law, domination of the laws, individuality and legality of the punishments. Personal desires and commands were deemed as law, different punishments were applied to the persons committing the same crime but belonging to different classes.

The religion of Islam came and committed the greatest revolution in the history of humanity when the world was in such a dark state.

If it is examined fair-mindedly, it can be seen that the ultimate humane targets that have been attained today were realized many centuries before the human rights declarations were published in the Western World both in the Noble Quran and in the practices of the Prophet (PBUH),

As a matter of fact, the principles included in the speech (the Farewell Sermon) the Prophet (PBUH) gave during his Farewell Hajj are the clearest examples about the issue.

This sermon was read in the year A.D. 632 in the presence of more than 100,000 Muslims. That is, 1157 years before the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which is regarded as the first written text concerning human rights.

The new principles Islam brought to human rights also had major effects on the struggle of the human rights in the West.

Man has a different value from the other beings. That value increases through belief in Allah and obedience to His commands. Thus, man becomes the most honorable guest in the universe. Man gets the value of humanity by his birth, in fact by the beginning of his formation in the uterus and he bears that value throughout his life.

The value of being a human surrounds everyone. Woman-man, elder-younger, black-white, weak-strong, poor-rich, no matter from what religion and nationality, race or color; the shadow of that compassion encompasses all.

Thus, Islam protects the blood of every person from being shed illegally, his chastity from being violated, his property from usurpation, his dwelling from being violated, his lineage from being deteriorated, his conscience from being under constraint. Islam assures the honor and dignity of humanity.

The fundamental rights and freedoms Islam has provided humanity are as follows:

1. Islam put an end to the discrimination of race and color. All people descended from Hazrat Adam. It is not possible for a person to choose his own race and color. It is completely by Allahs determination. It is extremely wrong and harmful to make discrimination and to regard some races and colors as supreme by condemning some races and colors both from the point of view of Islam and humanity.

Almighty Allah says in the noble Quran that He created mankind from a male and a female, and that when their numbers increased, he made them into nations and tribes so that they would know and help each other easily and they would make friends . (al- Hujurat, 13)

As it is seen, the fact that people are from different races and colors are not for superiority to each other but for getting acquainted with and helping each other.

An event illuminating that approach of Islam is as follows:

Abu Dharr, from the companions (sahaba), got angry with Bilal al-Habashi and insulted him by saying: Son of the black woman. He despised him because of his mothers color. When the Prophet (PBUH) was informed of the event, he got very angry and told Abu Dharr the following:

— O Abu Dharr. You have despised Bilal because of his mothers color, is that so? Then, you still have the mentality of the age of ignorance (jahiliyyah).

Hazrat Abu Dharr felt very sorry and repented for those words that slipped out of his mouth with a momentary anger without his intention. He began to cry, threw himself to the ground and put his face on the ground and he said:

— I swear, I wont raise my face from the ground unless Bilal threads and tramples on my cheek with his foot.

He apologized to Bilal al-Habashi repeatedly.

2. Islam put an end to the superiority of family and ancestry and being proud of that. During a meeting that the Companions (sahaba) were present, Sad b. Abi Waqqas offered some of the notables to mention the names of their ancestries. He named his ancestors from the beginning to the end. Salman al-Farsi, who was originally from Iran, was also present there, He didnt have a famous lineage as the notables of Quraish. He did not know his ancestors in detail, either. When Hazrat Sad offered him to name his ancestors, he found this offer strange and gave him this answer: I am Salman, son of Islam. I dont know my ancestors like you. I know one thing that Allah has honored me with Islam

Hazrat Umar also felt uncomfortable with that unnecessary offer of Sads about naming ancestors that reminded the mentality of the age of ignorance . He was so pleased with Salmans meaningful answer that he likened his answer to Salmans answer saying, I am Umar, the son of Islam, too.

When the Prophet (PBUH) heard the case, he also liked Salmans answer and he said: Salman is from me, from my family.

The Prophet demolished the mentality of ignorance based on the superiority of the lineages by giving the noblest families daughters in marriage to some companions that were slaves set free.

3. Islam brought the citizens the right to control and supervise their administrators. It aimed to put an end to the arbitrary management, injustice and illegality in the administration of the state. Hazrat Abu Bakr expressed that issue as follows in his speech when he was elected as the Caliph: O people! I have been elected as your administrator although I am not the best one among you. Obey me if I perform my duty in accordance with Islam. If I go astray, warn me.

One day, Hazrat Umar asked the Muslims in the mosque, If I go astray, what will you do? They replied: We will straighten you with our swords. Hazrat Umar was very pleased with that answer.

4. Freedom of Thought and Conscience. Freedom of thought and conscience is the most important human right after right of living. Not giving this right to man means reducing him to the degree of the animals by getting him out of his real essence. Therefore, Islam by no means allows thoughts and consciences to be kept under oppression. With the principle There is no compulsion in religion, Islam does not approve of making people accept the fundamentals of belief by force.

5. Islam has paid attention to the establishment of slavery painstakingly and brought it to a judicial regulation.

When the religion of Islam arose, slavery was prevalent as he most barbaric and inhuman practice all over the world. Islam, of course, could not have been expected to abolish that establishment completely that was prevalent all over the world. So, Islam did not choose to abrogate slavery completely at once but gave it the most humane and civil form by making great reforms regarding it. In addition, Islam supplied some formulae to make slavery abolish indirectly by increasing and facilitating the ways of passing to freedom from slavery.

6. Freedom of Property. Love of property and desire to have goods are among the various feelings Allah has given to man. That issue has been specified clearly in the Quran. Islam has given man the right to have property and has laid the groundwork for satisfying that feeling in a legal way. Nobody can interfere in any way with anybodys right of having property that Islam gives to him without his permission.

7. Equality before Law. Islam accepts all people equal before law like the teeth of a comb. Islam does not allow making a privileged treatment to the people in accordance with their social status and pedigrees.

In Islam, the dominance and the superiority of the laws are essential. The president and any of the citizens are treated equally before law. The guilty one is penalized even though he is a president. The most striking examples of it are that Fatih Sultan Mehmet and a Greek architect; Hazrat Ali and a Jewish; Salahaddin al- Ayyubi and an Armenian were taken to the court to be judged.

A woman from a noble family of the Mahzum tribe committed a theft on the conquest day of Mecca and she was caught in the act. She had to be punished. But, since the woman belonged to a noble family, they were afraid to blacken the name of the family so they wanted her to be forgiven and not to be punished. But how would they attain it? How would they tell it to the Prophet? Eventually, they sent Usama b. Zayd, the beloved one by the Prophet, to the Prophet as an envoy. Usama entered the presence of the Prophet and told him about the case. He asked him to forgive the guilty woman. The Prophet (PBUH) got very angry with this offer. He got out right away and made this historical speech:

O Muslims, do you know why the nations before you had been demolished and destroyed and had become a thing of the past? When a person from the notables committed a crime, they would not punish him. However, when an ordinary person committed a crime, they would desire strongly to apply the punishment. This injustice caused them to be destroyed. I swear, if the person committing the crime were my daughter Fatima, I would not hesitate to punish her at all.

Thereupon, the punishment was applied immediately.

The following sentences from the speech that Hazrat Abu Bakr made when he was selected as the Caliph also attract attention from that point of view: The weakest ones among you are the strongest before me till they take their rights. The strongest ones are the weakest before me till I take others rights from them.

8. Individuality and Legality of Punishment. In Islam, there can be no illegal punishment, and punishing somebody else instead of the person committing the crime is not in question.

The principle of the individuality of punishment is expressed in Chapter al-Anam as follows: Every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden (sin) of another. (Verse: 164)

9. Independence and Impartiality of the Courts. Courts, which are the establishments for justice in Islam, have been kept away from all kinds of outer oppressions, personal animosities, spites andarbitrary applications; and the judges havent been allowed to lose their impartiality. In Islamic courts, presidents were tried with ordinary people and they were punished if they were found guilty.

10. Inviolability of Residence and Immunity of Private Life. In Islam, nobody has the right to interfere with an individuals private life and to enter his residence without his permission. In Islam, it is forbidden inspecting peoples confidential affairs.

11. Freedom of Travel. In Islam, traveling is accepted as a cause to learn lessons and to get healthy. Therefore, people are encouraged to travel.

12. Right of living, assurance of protecting lives, property and chastity from violation. That issue has been manifested in the most beautiful way in the Farewell Sermon by Allahs Messenger:

O people! Just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. They are protected from all kinds of violation.

13. Social Security. The religion of Islam patronizes man so that he wont be aggrieved and wretched due to old age, illness, disasters and accidents, and Islam takes the future of the needy under assurance through social security measures it supplies. Above all, Islam incites people to take themselves under assurance economically by encouraging them to work. Besides, Islam supplies a distinct security in the family, in the circle of neighbors and relatives by various measures it has taken. The state itself takes the individuals security under assurance when all of these security precautions are insufficient. The establishment of zakat (alms) and waqfs are the perfect social security foundations.

14. Freedom of Labor, Justice and Equality of Payment. In Islam, working and endeavoring are appreciated and encourageed greatly. Begging, being a burden to someone else is not welcomed. What is more, working to provide a living for ones family is regarded as worship as long as (fardhs) obligatory duties are performed. The verse, That man can have nothing but what he strives for. shows the importance Islam gives to endeavoring and working

Islam, which assures the freedom of working fully –on condition that it is a legal earning way-, also organizes the relationship between the employee and the employer in the nicest way.

The principle Pay the wages of a worker before his sweat dries assures the rights of workers in the perfect way.

The worker, in return, will try to complete the work assigned to him perfectly and completely and he will accept trying to deserve the wages he receives as a principle.

15. Patronage of Children. Islam patronizes children beginning from their birth; several aids are made to parents for their children nutrition and clothing expenses and subsidies are allocated from the treasury of the government. Today, that aid is supplied in all rich states under the name money for children. Allahs Messenger insistently warned the army of Islam against killing women and especially children in the wars.

16. Fundamental Education is Obligatory and Free of Charge. The hadith Seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim man and woman. makes the fundamental education obligatory. The curriculum of the fundamental education has been prepared very carefully in Islam.

The fundamental education includes vocational education besides religious, ethical and moral knowledge. Islam considers it necessary for children to be trained for a profession along with religious knowledge.

[spurgie-cousin]

You've discussed growing up religious and how religion affects your life today. How close to fundie were you and what started shifting your views away from those shared by your family?

My situation is kinda weird, I was born in a small town with generally just a lot of churches, but specifically a lot of 'fundie-lite' denominations who were more conservative than mainstream Christianity. A few years before I was born, a few of those congregations decided to join forces to create a fundie-lite 'mega' church which then became the biggest church in the area (1k members in a town with 13k people and also at least 15 other churches). The year before I was born my parents joined.  

Because of the merged congregations, the 'fundie-ness' of the members varied greatly. My parents were on the liberal end of the spectrum (I wore pants, shorts, watched tv and my mom even let me read Harry Potter even after the sermon saying it was evil) and the other end of the spectrum were skirts-only homeschoolers a la the Duggars. The were very basic tenets agreed upon by everyone, like no sex/kissing before marriage, women are homemakers (ideally), secular people are misguided and don't understand that they're misguided, etc etc.

I got off way better than a lot of my peers because my mom ended up being a very successful business person, and lowkey resented the shit out of the church but couldn't (and still can't) admit it because her dad was a pastor. I'd say I was right on the line between secular and fundie lite, while most of the church kids I grew up with have at least 2 kids and are do some kind of arbitrary 'youth ministry' by now. 

 Anyway as far as when I decided I didn't agree with the church, that started super early, but the event I consciously remember is a series of anti-gay sermons that I had to sit through when I knew an uncle of mine was gay. That was the beginning of my serious separation with the church and it just progressed to the point where I just decided Christianity really wasn’t for me. My parents have since separated and my dad is also no longer attending that church but my mom still does, and to my great delight they both still retain pretty conservative religious beliefs. 

[queertheology]

A STRANGE BAPTISM: SERMON ON THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH

Acts of the Apostles 8: 26-40

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.’

The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

When approaching a new text I think it’s helpful to start with the question, “What stands out to you? What do you notice?” And so I think it’s fair to start by saying, I notice this is a weird text. First an angel of the Lord appears out of nowhere and commands Philip to go down a wilderness road. Without question Philip goes and finds an Ethiopian Eunuch riding in a chariot who just happens to be reading Isaiah. And then at the end of this whole encounter Philip apparently has the gift of teleportation and finds himself in a new place leaving the newly baptized Ethiopian Eunuch by himself. What do we do with a text like this?

The book of Acts picks up right where the Gospels leave off. Some have even called it the 5th Gospel. Unlike the rest of the Second Testament, which is very much about the theology of the fledgling Christian movement, Acts is very much an action novel. It follows the stories of the nascent Christian community (who were still calling themselves “Followers of the Way”) as they struggle to form a group identity. They were a small community who were being heavily persecuted. The story of the conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch comes right after Stephen has been stoned to death for proclaiming Christ. This story begins a series of healing and conversion narratives. Right after this story we read about the conversion of Saul who would become Paul. The book of Acts is trying to explain the expansion of this new movement. It’s a time when old rules about who were in and who were out were being challenged. And so we come to this text. Philip finds an Ethiopian Eunuch, an officer in the court of the queen, reading aloud from the book of Isaiah.

It’s interesting that Phillip asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” and the Eunuch responds, “How can I unless someone guides me?” There is a reason that we don’t baptize children in private. It’s about more than just allowing the congregation to coo over their adorableness (although that’s nice too!). We baptize as a part of a community because we are making a vow to help guide these children as they grow into their unique faith expressions. The role of faith formation doesn’t just fall to the parents or to the teachers tasked with teaching Sunday School; it falls to the entire community.

How do we as a community understand the Bible? How is it that we approach this text? For some of us, this collection of writings has been used as a weapon against us, and so we either abandon it altogether or we read it so that we can form it into a shield to protect us. For others we have read this text so many times that it has ceased to bring us any new revelation. For some we haven’t approached the text at all; it either holds no relevance to our lives or else we simply have not had the opportunity to engage with it. My hope is that we can all begin to unpack our baggage around this text and begin to engage it with new eyes and open hearts; so that when these children begin to read it on their own, we can guide them and allow them to guide us.

One of the most significant parts of my spiritual journey has been relearning how to read the Bible. I have had to find new ways to let these words speak to me and to move in my heart. I have had to find ways to make the text sing again while also keeping my mind and my intellect engaged. So how do we read this text with new eyes? What about this story still speaks to our lives and our community today?

I wonder what it was that led this Ethiopian Eunuch to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. Clearly there was something in him that was compelling him to seek out a place of worship. But this person would not have been welcome in the Temple in Jerusalem. His status as a Eunuch, someone who had either been castrated or born with ambiguous genitalia, would have prevented him from being able to even enter into the Temple. We don’t know what compelled him to go to Jerusalem, what he had hoped to find there, or what his experiences were. But I think we can safely assume that he wasn’t allowed to participate. And now he was returning home.

Some of us have had this experience of going to a church and hoping to worship and instead being turned away. Or of being allowed to attend and yet being made to feel uncomfortable; maybe because we weren’t wearing the right clothes, or we didn’t know when to stand or kneel, or because of our gender identity or sexual orientation. And we have left church with a heavy heart, maybe crying on the way home because we had so desired to worship and had been prevented.

I wonder if the Ethiopian Eunuch was experiencing some of those feelings as he traveled toward home? And yet, Philip finds him reading the Scriptures. Maybe he was trying to find out why he had been rejected. Maybe he was looking for solace. I wonder if he had turned to his favorite passage to reassure himself that he was a beloved child of God. A couple of chapters after the passage he’s quoted as reading in our Acts narrative we read these words: “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say “the Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant. I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” What powerful words! And words that stand in such contradiction to the law in Deuteronomy that says, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted into the assembly of God.” These are words that would have crushed his spirit. Words that would have been used by others as an excuse to keep him out of the Temple. These words are still in use today to keep transgender people out of the house of God. But in spite of these hurtful words, the Eunuch was also able to find words that affirmed him and gave him hope. Words that he may have been turning to in his time of rejection.

Many us of have favorite passages that we turn to in time of need; For some it might not be a Scripture passage but a favorite poem or novel. Maybe there is a song that speaks to you in the midst of your pain or joy.

Philip enters into the story in the midst of rejection and confusion. He sits beside the Ethiopian Eunuch. He answers his questions and tells the story of Jesus; this person who was recklessly hospitable. A man who ate with sinners and touched lepers. A man who purposefully made himself unclean in order to call attention to arbitrary rules about who was in and who was out. Jesus wanted to challenge ideas about who was acceptable. I imagine these words would have sounded sweet to this Ethiopian Eunuch. Confirmation of what he already knew in his heart.

And then they came upon water and the Eunuch says, “Look! Here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

And Philip, who would have known the rules preventing eunuchs from worshipping, who would have know that this person he had been talking with was considered to be unacceptable says nothing. Philip just gets into the water and baptizes him. This evangelist baptizes a gender non-conforming person who had been excluded from worshipping life of the community. But after this moment he was allowed to go on his way rejoicing. This is a passage that speaks to the power that happens when we let down our walls and allow the Spirit to move. She will lead us deeper into communion with God and with one another.

There is something beautiful in what we do when we baptize children. We welcome them into the family of God first thing. We tell them that they are acceptable and pure and a part of the larger body. And we commit to walking with them on their journey. But it’s also an easy thing to baptize a beautiful infant. It’s easy to welcome a beautiful child into our family.

It can be a lot harder to welcome flawed and fragile adults. Or surly teenagers. It can be a lot harder to live into our baptismal vows when we were too young to remember that they happened. What does it mean for us to walk through the world as people who have been baptized? What does this symbol of water mean in our daily lives? Do you remember your baptism?

I grew up in a tradition that practiced adult baptism and so I do remember my baptism. However I have walked a long way since being submerged in those waters. Many of us have walked a long way since our baptisms; through different religious traditions and denominations, through crises of faith, through death and through transformation. Our baptismal memory fades.

What is the big deal about baptism? In Colossians 2:12 it says, “When you were buried with Jesus in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead.” It seems shocking to talk about death in our rite of baptism, especially in the context of baptizing a child. It doesn’t make sense to talk about baptism being a death to an old way of life. But baptism isn’t just about what happens here with children.

Some of us are finding our way back to the church after years of being away. For some it takes courage just to walk inside these doors on a Sunday morning because of the years of abuse that have happened within church walls. For some of us we have become complacent in our faith and need to feel the breath of the spirit moving in us once again. For others we have remained in the church but maybe we are feeling tired and need to be renewed. Can you remember your baptism?

Jesus had a pretty remarkable baptism story. When he came up out of the waters of the Jordan the heavens opened and God’s voice said, “This is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” I wonder if he thought back on that moment in the trials that were to come; when the religious leaders were hating him, when the Romans were bearing down on him. He must have struggled with his faith, wondered if he was doing the right thing. But he could always look back to that moment of baptism and say, “yes. I am God’s beloved.”

Can you remember the waters pouring over you? The voice of God claiming you as God’s own beloved child with whom God is well-pleased? Does that sentiment ring in your heart? If not, why not?

This is why we baptize in community: So that we can remind one another of our baptisms. When these children grow and struggle with their faith we can say to them, I remember your baptism. This is why we exist in community so we can turn to one another and say, I remember your baptism and God is well pleased with you. This is what allows us to approach the Scripture with new eyes and with open hearts, allows us to engage with these ancient words again and feel the Spirit breathing new life into us and recharging us for our work in the world.

“Look, here is water! What is to prevent you from being baptized?” The institutional church cannot keep you out, the law of the land cannot diminish you. It is only what is inside you that can keep you from these waters. Can you let go of the pain an approach the water? Can you lay down your shame and approach the water? What is preventing you from being baptized? Today if you are having trouble remembering your baptism; if you are grappling with doubt; if you cannot hear the voice of God saying to you that you are beloved, I say, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent you from being baptized?”

For more articles like this, check out QueerTheology.com

[troybeecham]

Fr. Troy Beecham

Sermon, Proper 23 A 2020

Matthew 22:1-14

“Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again, he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so, the wedding hall was filled with guests. “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

This is the third parable of Jesus in a row as recorded in the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the kingdom of heaven. Given the teaching of the prophets, those Jewish listeners who heard Jesus’ parable would have readily associated a festive meal with the celebration of God’s covenant people after the Day of Judgement. This parable falls under the category of the “hard sayings” of Jesus because in it he unflinchingly speaks about judgement and punishment, and we 21st century Western folks find it difficult to think in such ways. We have been taught to perceive Jesus, and God the Father, as being our buddy, a laid-back self-help guru who only wants us to be nice to each other. Being nice to each other is certainly a laudable thing, but when we cast Jesus in such a non-Scriptural role it can obscure, or completely eliminate, the clarity of Jesus when he speaks about judgement and punishment. We must also remember that he preached this parable only days before his crucifixion. Knowing how little time he had left, Jesus pulls no punches, but rather pleads with us to be changed and made ready for what is to come.

One particular criticism of Jesus in this parable is that it sounds harsh to our ears, and the punishments seem disproportionate to the crime. For his contemporaries, this language sounded like the realities of their lives, even appropriate, and some took pleasure in hearing about the just punishment of the wrong-doers. They heard their own prejudices affirmed: all the “bad” people, the “wrong type of people” were getting their just punishments. As much as we like to think that we have matured out of seeing God as Judge, we today are just as happy when we hear how our enemies are going to “get what’s coming to them”. I see it in print daily as we judge each other over our responses to the political and social issues of the moment, the absolute glee as each side fantasizes about how their enemies are going to suffer when their candidates win or lose. We can make no spiritual progress without the willingness to look at our secret desire for the judgement of others and the desire for a wrathful God when it comes to our enemies.

But is that all there is to be seen in this parable? Can God only be a wrathful enforcer of arbitrary rules on the one hand or the indulgent, doting father who cannot see that his children are anything other than wonderful on the other? God, Jesus teaches us, is much more than either of these extremes. Let’s look further into the parable to see why.

The parallel to this parable as recounted in the Gospel according to St. Luke follows a dinner at the home of a Pharisee, whom Jesus challenges to invite those who cannot repay his hospitality: the “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind”. It is more than mere hospitality and money that is being examined here. To share a meal with the cripples, the lame, and the blind would render the Pharisee unclean according to his understanding of the Torah. This is no simple thing, but literally an issue of the Pharisee being in right relationship with God. Jesus challenges him to see that his understanding of the Torah is clouded, and so is his soul, with the prejudices of his time. His slow, or complete lack of, response is entirely understandable. How easily could any of us be told that the core of our beliefs is wrong, have been wrong, for centuries, and that our right standing with God is in jeopardy because of our inability, or unwillingness, to have our beliefs challenged and redirected in a new way? This is no less true for a culture as for an individual. Change is difficult, especially around our core beliefs about God, ourselves, and each other.

But change is at the heart of Jesus’ proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God. We all of us are called to be changed, or using biblical language to repent, and to be open to God in ways that usually challenge and frighten us. Allowing the Holy Spirit to come and transform us from within is frightening when you think about the consequences of a truly transformed life. Jesus uses the language of being born again, being born anew, born from above. We must be born again, a throughgoing and wholesale transformation of our values, our core beliefs, and our conditioned loves and hatreds. Anything less is to show up, as the parable says, to the banquet wearing the wrong robes.

There’s a contemporary parable in the Talmud:

A king who summoned his servants to a banquet, but did not appoint a day or a time. Now kings can be unpredictable: one day merciful, another wrathful. The wise invitees dropped all that they were doing, got dressed in their best, and sat at the door of the palace to await the pleasure of the king. They said to themselves “It may not look like a banquet is being prepared, but this is the palace of the great king! He can order a banquet at any moment and his will shall be done!” The foolish invitees went about their daily lives, saying to themselves “We will wait until we hear that preparations are being made, and the we will bathe, clothe ourselves in finery, and present ourselves to the palace of the great king.” Without warning, the king ordered his servants to prepare a banquet immediately, to open the doors and escort his invitees into the feast. The wise ones entered into the presence of the king, prepared and adorned in their finery, but the foolish ones hurried to the palace and entered the presence of the king unbathed, clothes in dirty work clothes, totally unprepared even though they had been told to prepare for the banquet by the servants of the king. The king warmly received the wise, who entered rejoicing, but with the fools he was angry. Then the king proclaimed “Those who heeded my invitation, prepared themselves and waiting for me cleansed and dressed in finery, let them be seated with me and rejoice with me. But those foolish ones, cast them out, confiscate their lands, and let them be placed in chains!”

Kings are unpredictable. They keep their own counsel and answer to only themselves. It is entirely their decision as to when they will open the doors of the kingdom and set out a feast. But the king’s son, Jesus, and his servants, the prophets and the apostles, have proclaimed the invitation of the king. To refuse to come, to refuse a king’s command, is treason; to kill his son or his servants amounts to insurrection, so the king will send his troops, his angels, to put down the rebellion. We have been invited. We are awaiting the command of the king. How have we responded? Have we allowed the Holy Spirit to enter into our lives to transform us? Have we welcomed the Son, our Savior Jesus, into our souls so that we might be born again and clothed in the robes of his righteousness? Have we dropped everything to await the Day of the Lord at the doors of the kingdom, ready to enter when God calls for the end of time and the Day of Judgement? Or are we still clothed in the rags of our own busyness, our own righteousness, and filled with the prejudices, hatreds, and loves of this world? There will come a day when we must all stand before the judgment of God. Are you prepared?

My prayer is that we may all receive the invitation of God with the wisdom that is the gift of grace, and so yield ourselves and our of our lives to his Holy Spirit that we might be born again and clothed in the righteousness of Jesus, having our deepest selves remade in his image so that we may love what he loves and desire only what he desires. We must be prepared, my friends, for no one knows the day or the hour except the Father.

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

[hieromonkcharbel]

SOLITUDE AND THE TYRANNY OF DIVERSION:

Merton's 30-page essay, Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude, appeared in his book Disputed Questions (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1960). The essay is arranged into three parts: 1. The Tyranny of Diversion (9 numbered sections), 2. In the Sea of Perils (22 sections), and 3. Spiritual Poverty (12 sections).

The Notes is Merton's clearest articulation of his thoughts on solitude, representing a refinement of earlier arguments defending monasticism and eremiticism (Dans le desert de Dieu, the preface to Jean Leclerq's book on the Renaissance hermit Paul Giustianiani, and the books The Solitary Life and Thoughts in Solitude). Notes extends the philosophy of solitude to lay people, that is, to all his readers. A footnote to the title indicates that while this essay might have been entitled "Philosophy of Monastic Life," Merton is extending the etymological sense of monachos as solitary:

I am deliberately discarding everything that can conjure up the artificial image of the monk in a cowl, dwelling in a medieval cloister. In this way I intend obviously, not to disparage or to reject the monastic institution, but to set aside all its accidentals and externals, so that they will not interfere with my view of what seems to me to be deepest and most essential.

Merton tells us that he is thinking of the solitary layperson of the sort as "Thoreau or Emily Dickinson."

PART ONE: The Tyranny of Diversion

The premise of the Notes is that everyone is a solitary in the existential sense, never fully conscious of their aloneness because they allow society to fill their minds and hearts with "diversion, systematic distraction, borrowing Pascal's term, 'divertissement.'"

The function of diversion is simply to anesthetize the individual as individual, and to plunge him in the warm, apathetic stupor of a collectivity which, like himself, wishes to remain amused. The bread and circuses which fulfil this function may be blatant and absurd, or they may assume a hypocritical air of intense seriousness.

Our own society prefers the absurd. But our absurdity is blended with a certain hard-headed, fully determined seriousness with which we devote ourselves to the acquisition of money, to the satisfaction of our appetite for status, and the justification of ourselves as contrasted with the totalitarian iniquity of our opposite number.

This passage is quoted here at length because it sets the stage for the layperson's view of not so much solitude but of society itself and the role of the individual in contemporary (Western) society. The individual is a product of society and its values, a cog in a wheel. The individual is alienated not in the sense of failing to fit into society -- for in fact he fits in all too well -- but in the sense of alienation from himself, from the virtues and content that make a human being a distinct person, not an individual atom in a collectivity.

Merton further asserts that interior solitude will not automatically resolve the dilemma of the modern individual. Nor is solitude itself without its difficulties. The first of these difficulties is "the disconcerting task of facing and accepting one's own absurdity." When the mask of organized and normal society, the mask of diversion, is removed, the individual is confronted with "an abyss of irrationality, confusion, pointlessness, and ... apparent chaos."

Only at this point is faith possible, real faith contrasted with the faith that was a spiritual amusement, another diversion. Without society's illusions, the profoundness of the mystery of God can appear, the oneness of reality, of not thoughts or things "but the unspeakable beauty of a Heart within the heart of one's own life."

We all die alone, yet we are all united by the mystery of death. Likewise, the aloneness itself which is where we discover our true self, unites us in the solitude of all.

The solitary must not merely withdraw from society ("a sick solitude") but transcend it. He renounces the group, defined by society's "aspirations, fictions and conventions," to unity with all persons in transcendence, supernaturally, precisely through the solitariness of each of us. Where society makes each individual useful -- to its own fictions -- solitude makes the individual authentically useful to society, and, therefore, ready to transcend it. The solitary thus rejects everything that is contrived, everything that does not transcend. In this process, the solitary

must renounce the blessings of every convenient illusion that dissolves him from responsibility when he is untrue to his deepest self and to his inmost truth -- the image of God in his own soul.

The price of fidelity in such a task is a complete dedicated humility -- an emptiness of heart in which self-assertion has no place.

Merton insists that "non-conformity" cannot be rebellion, for this sets up new illusions, subjective ones instead of social ones. This can be worse than accepting the social myth. But to guard against a false religion or a narcissistic mythology -- "a world of private fictions and self-constructed delusions" -- means becoming "fully awake," fully conscious.

Hence, solitude must be characterized by "emptiness, humility, and purity." The solitary pulls free of the diversions that alienate him from self and from God to live in transcendent unity.

His solitude is neither an argument, an accusation, a reproach or a sermon. It is simply life itself. It is. ... It not only does not attract attention, or desire it, but it remains, for the most part, completely invisible.

Merton stresses the distinction between the solitary and the individualist. The individualist does not seek transcendence, only a heightened self-consciousness, a higher form of diversion. He does not reject the social myth but maintains it as a backdrop to his own myths. He seeks not the hidden and metaphysical but the smugness of self-congratulations. In short, the individualist's model is not the desert but the womb.

PART TWO: IN THE SEA OF PERILS

For Merton, the true solitary is "one who renounces ... arbitrary social imagery." The true solitary is united to others precisely by values that transcend nation-state, class, group, or other arbitrary social structures that serve to separate the family of humankind.

The first of these unifying values is the solitude of each individual, the uniqueness and profound mystery of the person, the self. This paradoxical uniqueness in unity makes solitude "the foundation of a deep, pure, and gentle sympathy with all other men, whether or not they are capable of realizing the tragedy of their plight." Empty of self, solitude becomes the path to God.

In this solitude and emptiness of his heart there is another, more inexplicable solitude. Man's loneliness is, in fact, the loneliness of God.

The realization that the loneliness of the self reflects the loneliness of God yields the conclusion that faithfulness to solitude is fidelity to God. Without fidelity to the true self, a person negates his whole life, which is God, alone in him.

The hermit, then, (Merton specifically refers to the "Christian hermit") is a witness to a profound truth. He remains hidden in order to reflect the transcendental character of this mystery. Yet he is, in the Christian context, outwardly professing this solitude and therefore has a serious function in the community.

The hermit remains to put us on our guard against our natural obsession with the visible, social and communal forms of Christian life which tend at times to be inordinately active and often become deeply involved in the life of secular, non-Christian society.

Though the hermit is not only not of the world but may be not even in the world, functionally speaking, it is curious that the desert hermits of ancient Christianity were recalled not only for their extreme asceticism but also for their depth of charity and discretion. Merton makes the point of noting that they did so without benefit of institutional liturgy or functions. But this was only successful because the hermit was completely empty of self. Hence the vocation of solitude is a vocation to "silence, poverty and emptiness."

The purpose of the solitary life is, if you like, contemplation. But not contemplation in the pagan sense of an intellectual, esoteric enlightenment, achieved by ascetic technique. The contemplation of the Christian solitary is the awareness of the divine mercy transforming and elevating his own emptiness and turning it into the presence of perfect love, perfect fulness.

This is a passage that Merton would not have had to revise, even as his interest evolved towards the classic Christian mystics and Eastern, especially Zen, thought. It distinguishes Greco-Roman philosophy from the spiritual philosophies east and west where a transcendent element is built into the psychology and metaphysics. It carefully extricates this spirituality from the excesses of ritual, activism, and even society. Its form of enlightenment does not depend on a rational, intellectual element or extreme asceticism. It is at home with Merton's later pursuits already mention: Christian mysticism and Zen Buddhism.

Merton anticipates the chief objection to withdrawal from the world, that "we must do something about [the human] predicament." Love of humanity cannot be overtly a particular help or particular social action. Instead solitude manifests love by pointing to God. Merton fears that "visible symbolic forms" of public effort inevitably lose their purity because they must be executed with others in the realm of others. Withdrawal is itself a strong witnessing and deliberate action that points to a clearer vision of how the world should be -- of the kingdom of God on earth (but not in Merton's words, however!).

Such a statement to the world must be an expression not of rebellion (as Merton states earlier) but the fruit of a rigorous spirituality.

Such men [that is, solitaries], out of pity for the universe, out of loyalty to mankind, and without a spirit of bitterness or of resentment, withdraw into the healing silence of the wilderness, or of poverty, or of obscurity, not in order to preach to to others but to heal in themselves the wounds of the entire world.

Again, Merton attempts to refine his concept of the ideal solitary, who is not the non-conformist who begrudgingly adapts to the world. The essential point is that the solitary deliberately leaves his life behind and goes into the desert, physical or otherwise.

There have always been solitaries who, by virtue of a special purity, and simplicity of heart, have been destined from their earliest youth to an eremitical and contemplative life, in some official form.

Merton refers to the Carthusians and Camaldolese. He notes, however, that even these are not his ideal solitaries. His ideal solitaries are, rather,

the paradoxical, tormented solitaries for whom there is no real place; men and women who have not so much chosen solitude as been chosen by it. And these have not generally found their way into the desert either through simplicity or through innocence. Theirs is the solitude that is reached the hard way, through bitter suffering and disillusionment.

In retrospect, we can correctly count Merton himself among these.

To such as these, solitude seems to choose them rather that the other way around, and they accept or live in torment and alienation. They are not solitary because they withdraw within a crowd or walk blithely through it. Instead, their solitude is born of an inner unity of which the mass of humanity is ignorant, a unity that is

secret and unknown. Even those who enter it, know it only, so to speak, by "unknowing." It is the one vast desert of emptiness which belongs to no one and to everyone. It is the place of silence where one word is spoken by God. And in that word are spoken both God Himself and all things.

Merton's sentiments here are firm and unreserved. He speaks of the hermit's strong sense of honesty and integrity. He compares the hermit to a stranger and a wanderer. The hermit is bound to have his eccentricities and notions about solutions to problems, his own and others'. The true solitary's life is "an arid, rugged purification of the heart," where lies the spiritual core, beyond speech and logic. The awesome loneliness of the hermit reminds us that each of us must confront God, alone.

The solitary is not automatically a mystic. Solitude is humility, or, spiritual poverty. It is physical and social insecurity. It is "material and physical poverty without visible support."

The hermit remains there to prove, by his lack of practical utility and the apparent sterility of his vocation, that cenobitic monks themselves ought to have little significance in the world, or indeed none at all. They are dead to the world, they should no longer cut a figure in it. And the world is dead to them.

And, by extension, the coenobitic life which is in a way the life of the common person in society, is dead to those who are true solitaries. For life in modern society leaves no room for contemplation or compassion, not for that universal compassion which the solitary embraces.

PART THREE: SPIRITUAL POVERTY

Merton's conclusion from part two introduces part three: "The life of the hermit is a life of material and physical poverty without visible support." The hermit is not automatically a more spiritual person, a person without worries, cares, or frustrations and insecurities. The image of Robinson Crusoe is "the myth not of eremitical solitude but pragmatic individualism," which has a secure and clever reply to every practical dilemma. The hermit is not so convinced. The hermit experiences (and this is not Merton's analogy but could have been) not the paradisiacal oasis of Crusoe but the arid desert and dryness of soul described by St. John of the Cross, though more modestly, more ridden with angst.

Merton uses the strong vocabulary of existentialism to emphasize the strong doubt, the "unknowing of his own self," of the solitary reduced to silence, with only one certitude: "The presence of God in the midst of uncertainty and nothingness." Here is an excellent description of the paradox of solitude:

The solitary life is full of paradoxes: the solitary is at peace, but no as the world understands peace, happy but not in the worldly sense of a good time, going but unsure of the way, not knowing the way but arriving, arriving but likewise departing. The solitary possess all riches but of emptiness, embracing interior poverty but not of any possession. The solitary has so many riches he cannot see God, so close to God that there is no perspective or object, so swallowed up in God that there is nothing left to see.

Overarching these reflections is Merton's assumption that the solitary life is God's will. This interpreting of God's will is too facile among monastics, he avers, for whom the path is

not human words but sacramental gestures of God. But with the solitary there is only one way, for others are not yet aware of their own solitude. This realization of one's solitude being the only way to find others, to have compassion for others, to see the common humanity of all in the loneliness of all and of God -- this confirms the solitary path, at the same time dissolving "all distinction between mind and thine."

Merton concludes by speaking of the "I" which solitude and the deep self reveal. Whereas the "I" of individualism can be cultivated and pampered, the deep "I" of the spirit can only be and act. (emphasis his). It comes from God and is the most universal element. In the "I" the solitude of each of us meets the solitude of God; "beyond division, beyond limitation, beyond selfish admiration." Indeed, for Merton, this "I" is Christ himself, it is God.

CONCLUSION

Surely the Notes is Merton's boldest articulation of a philosophy of solitude, challenging church, monasticism, society, and the individual. Moreover, the essay reflects the heartfelt anguish of Merton's own personal path, and many references to the solitary are references to himself and his difficult experience both in articulating a vision of eremiticism and in wrestling with his personal desire for solitude. Despite some circuitous arguments and repetitions, this melding of cerebral and experiential makes the Notes one of Merton's more compelling works and one of the more interesting treatments of solitude anywhere. Only with his "full-time" status as a hermit after 1965 do we see the flowering of this essay's trajectory, incorporating mysticism and Eastern thought in Merton's public writings. Truly this essay is the epithet Merton chose to preface it, a line from a poem of St. John Perse: "un cri d'oiseau sur les recifs" -- the cry of a bird over the reefs.

¶

SOURCE: Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude in Disputed Questions, by Thomas Merton. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1960, pp. 177-207. See also William R. Shannon: "Reflections on Thomas Merton's Article: Notes for Philosophy of Solitude" in Cistercian Studies Quarterly. 29, no. 1, (1994).

[mockingowlproductions]

Modern Day Album Burning: A Christian’s Response to Return to Order

Before meeting my husband, I had never heard of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Since we’ve gotten married, we’ve read some of the books and watched several films based on Pratchett and Gaiman’s work. We’re also huge fans of Doctor Who.

When Good Omens was officially announced by Amazon – not Netflix, sorry Return to Order – we were excited beyond belief. One of the most comical stories by the duo, starring two brilliant actors, there was nothing to do but wait in tingling anticipation for May 31.

We had every good intention of watching a single episode per day. Twelve hours after we remembered what day it was however, we had finished the series.

The mini-series lived up to its promise. David Tennant: Brilliant. Michael Sheen: Fantastic. Supporting cast: Splendid.

We watched the show with utter delight. We discussed theology and doctrine about the End Times for hours after each installment of the six-part series. We felt the depth of the questions surrounding afterlife, death, Tribulation, Armageddon, and more.

We laughed our tushies off at the many dazzling, ridiculous lines throughout the whole thing. And we were delighted to finally know of a good use for the Queen song, “I’m in Love with My Car.” Hats off to you, Mr. Gaiman.

Today, when I got home from a walk, my husband mentioned the news piece that an uber religious group was protesting and demanding that Netflix remove Good Omens from viewing.

“Uh, it’s on Amazon.”

“Yes.”

Needless to say, I laughed heartily and looked up the protest to see what the heck was going on with these people.

I quickly discovered a short article on the protest, which linked to the religious group’s page. On the page, I read their demands, which started off with stating that “Due to an oversight…” they had gotten the streaming service wrong.

If that wasn’t enough to stop their argument, they had more to offer.

“This series presents devils and Satanists as normal and even good…”

Is it bad that a piece of art presents Christians and non-Christians as humans with needs, fears, and hopes? Is it so strange to imply that people who don’t follow Jesus could be among the masses? Or even working for evil?

When we forget that those with different beliefs and convictions are just as human as we are, we run the risk of committing one of the greatest sins of all: not loving and respecting our neighbors as we are commanded to love and respect ourselves.

It’s possible that the people in this religious group have watched Good Omens but it feels as though they either didn’t see anything beyond a trailer or that they went into the film series with presuppositions that this show would be evil and ungodly.

The fact that they publicly demonstrated against Netflix for producing this series says a lot about their approach. A knee-jerk reaction for publicity is what this feels like, rather than an actual truth-seeking mission and call to be like Jesus.

As Christians – that is people who follow Jesus Christ of Nazareth – we are called to live a life that demonstrates mercy, grace, and love. Not judgment as though we are God. In fact, the book of Matthew in the Bible specifically talks about getting rid of the giant plank in your own eye before going after the speck of dust in your neighbor’s. Of course, this is about one Christian to another, not a Christian judging a non-Christian for acting like “the world.”

We cannot expect non-Christians to adhere to Christian standards. And truthfully, people who are outside of the Church are often the most insightful into the behavior of the Church. They happen to be our target audience. And if we’re not meeting the needs of those who need Jesus, then why does the Church as an institution exist?

What is the point of protesting? What is the point of petitions? What is the point of all this advocating if the end result isn’t practical service driven by the love and compassion of Jesus, demonstrated with humility?

One of the key things that Return to Order appears to miss is that Good Omens is intended as a satire and comedy. The writers have not demonstrated a background of Biblical theology and have not claimed that this is a theological look at the End Times. Instead, this is a work of fiction. A satirical work of fiction.

One of the main points Return to Order seems to have issues with is how both heaven and hell are portrayed as being led by groups that want to have war for the sake of war: “…an arbitrary struggle devoid of meaning and truth.” Which reflects the mindset of a number of Christian groups who seem to have forgotten about mercy. Good Omens’ point is that there are Christian and non-Christian groups arbitrarily fighting for the sake of fighting.

Fear mongering, a staple of the conservative church that I grew up in, is still alive and well. Petitions like this continue feeding a long line of B.S. to marginalized people who are sheltered and kept from religious and political freedom through sermons preached by folks with an agenda. These folks often tell abused women that they’re at fault for the abuse and insist children should be taught that they don’t deserve love.

This culture of argument and divisiveness completely ignores the fact that “True love drives out all fear.”

How is biased, angry rhetoric godly? How can fire and brimstone sermons that condemn the already forgiven be a righteous demonstration of love?

The perpetuation of endless conflict for the sake of pride and ‘being right’ isn’t what I consider Christianity at all. A work of fiction is a work of fiction. A good story is a good story. A demon hell-bent on stopping Satan while driving a car aflame blaring Queen on the radio is a damn good production.

This Christian’s interpretation of Good Omens is that it’s a great work of fiction worth enjoying as such. It’s not a theology textbook, and it doesn’t claim to examine orthodox Christianity. It’s a satire that pokes fun at the end result of well-intentioned religious extremists.

The best way for us to put away the sword of the “Culture war” is to watch, read, listen, and interact with pop-culture that isn’t just made by Christians for Christians. And when we engage with non-Christian materials, it’s imperative to employ critical thinking skills to recognize the middle ground where we can connect with people in conversation – which involves both listening and speaking.

Because, let’s be honest. When have you ever heard that an angry protest or knee-jerk petition was the reason a non-Christian found peace, love, and acceptance in Jesus Christ?

What does an angry mob with pitchforks and torches have to do with the love of God?

When Armageddon does happen, whether there’s Pre-Trib, Mid-Trib, or Post-Trib celebration at who’s right, I want to look Jesus in the eyes and hear Him say, “You loved the people I love. Well done, good and faithful servant.” I don’t want to have Him shake his head at me for judging people for using satire and humor to express themselves and their struggle with reconciling the mission of Jesus with the life “Christians” today.

 -- -- --

Thank you, Neil Gaiman and the late and great Terry Pratchett for calling out the fallacies and foibles – and truth be told the hysterical nature that the Church is so often guilty of. Return to Order might not care much for you, Mr. Gaiman, but there’s always a place on our pew for you, anytime you want.

[wesleyhill]

favorite books read in 2018

This was a weird, in some ways disappointing year of reading for me. I didn't read nearly as much fiction as I would've liked. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I stopped Anna Karenina about two-thirds of the way through, not out of any lack of enthusiasm but... honestly, I don't really know why, though Life Factors no doubt played their role. I think I'll make that the first novel I read in 2019, or better yet, I’ll make that my fiction reading during my two months in Cambridge for my sabbatical. I also started but didn't finish a bunch of other books, which is not my usual style (but also maybe isn't such a bad thing). Still sitting on my nightstand after months of my not finishing them are Rowan Williams' little book on Teresa of Avila, The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete (okay, this one has actually been on my nightstand for years now rather than months — don’t tell my godparents, who gave it to me when I first got Karl), Adventures on the Wine Route by Kermit Lynch (which I read half of before a wine-tasting trip in June and which is so well written), and The Parting of Friends: The Wilberforces and Henry Manning by David Newsome (which will almost certainly be on next year's best-of list). Oh, and also Sarah Perry's follow up to The Essex Serpent called Melmoth which is chilling and intriguing and may well have ended up on my list if I'd already finished it. Okay, preamble aside, here are my more-or-less-Top-Ten favorite reads of 2018: Two of the best books I read this year were by friends, but they would have ended up on this list even if they weren’t. Rachel Marie Stone’s Birthing Hope: Giving Fear to the Light is so good it makes me want to give up writing. It’s “feisty, smart, and theologically illuminating,” as I got to write on the back cover. And Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis is a braided intellectual biography in the tradition of Paul Elie’s The Life You Save May be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage that I learned a lot from and whose learning I am kind of in awe of. Here are the other most memorable things I read this year, in the order in which I read them, except for the last one which is my favorite book of the year: Fire Sermon: A Novel by Jamie Quatro. I can think of only a handful of times I've been so engrossed by a novel. I read it almost in one sitting. The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans by Matthew Croasmun. I'm not convinced by all the arguments here, and the more I think about it, the more questions I have (I do wonder if Croasmun's Paul has much need for a sacrificial atonement, for instance), but I was hugely stimulated by this, and I think it represents one of the best interdisciplinary projects I've seen in biblical scholarship. My review should be up at Marginalia sometime in the next few weeks/months. Waiting for the Past by Les Murray & physical by Andrew McMillan. These were the most affecting books of poetry I read this year. The Drone Eats with Me: A Gaza Diary by Atef Abu Saif. A spare memoir about surviving Israel's 51-day assault on the Strip in 2014. Divided Christendom: A Catholic Study of the Problem of Reunion by Yves Congar. Among other things, I appreciated and learned from his Catholic take on Anglicanism. Christ the Heart of Creation by Rowan Williams. Even better than the lectures it's based on, which I enjoyed listening to a couple of years ago. I think it's one of the best books of one of our finest theologian’s long career of writing great books. A Brutal Unity: The Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church by Ephraim Radner. Radner’s ecclesiology has done more than anyone’s to shape my understanding of Christian division, as I’ve commented on a bit here and hope to say more about in the new year. Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen Fields and Barbara Fields. I can't improve on what my Twitter friend Phil Christman says about this book (which is also what made me pick it up in the first place): "Western democracies are destroying themselves in part because they are all built on contradictions: ideals of freedom and human rights on the one hand, exploitation and arbitrary abuse on the other. 'Race' is a story we tell ourselves to resolve this contradiction. (Prisoners aren’t working for 15 cents an hour because we’re not really a democracy; they’re doing so because black people don’t finish high school.) That’s the main message I get from the Fields sisters’ work, but I’m putting it too bluntly to get across the actual experience of reading this book, which is intensely pleasurable in the manner of the essays of James Baldwin or Marilynne Robinson or Mary McCarthy. The authors’ ability to argue, explain, surprise and clarify makes it literature as well as scholarship." My book of the year: 1 Samuel as Christian Scripture: A Theological Commentary by Stephen Chapman. This seems to me to be an absolute model of theological interpretation of the Old Testament, and I am still, months after reading it, thinking about Chapman's Christological reading of King Saul. P.S. In the category of book I’m still reading and want to finish slowly and savor: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler. The prose is beautiful but not flashy. This book has made me a better cook (just ask my housemates!), not just because of its recipes but more by reminding me of why I love cooking in the first place and why it’s become almost like a spiritual discipline for me. It’s one of the ways I slow down, enjoy my physicality, and practice something like what folks call "mindfulness."

[exnihiliogenesis]

Preach no teaching, rhyme love releasing music lyrics for the art life peace modes by any beat beloved on sound tune melody gist force to the written bars to hold each word verse with logical features which needs lots of eased prose in read achieved hobby entertainment indeed heeded in complete strophes for rhymes free conceives poetic lee lust when it's plain artefact poetry love followed to understand and to know poem arbitrariness in experience the more.

Title: Rhyme optimism sermon

The thing is one and for itself simple

It rhymes or does not for a long time

By skill and talent from nature ability

For all can be somehow managed with

The facilitate poetry option always left

In wording creations to match the verse

Craft to make swift lyrics come afore

As if it is magically bestown whenever

One opens the mouth and speech prose

To power wordability into the arts love

Fashion language on eloquence which

Is in sentient consent the musical cadence

In the rhythm feel for rhymes what will

Logical fulfill the real deal until still free

And source effective as meanings work

Is selected to flex it with instincts wild

In the making for my rhymes are the audio

Slave king in the ear tuned like poems

Open in all lively lyreling new more

Tongue sling rhymering straight times

Fighting swing oral temporal versifying

Personal fresh mental styling so actualizing

Mind memory hypnotizing all best perfect

Rhyme resolute cast flowing ciphering

Which neverends like the digits in Pie

Constantly roundabout poetics to be whiling nature

Random bars on without seeming

Ending as presumably language trending

Singularity for prose sealing is steady on happening

When poetry makes always melodious sense

Again as it is giving word knowledge information

That these bars are out of imagination a

Self-invented coincidental play in formulation

On how life can be expressed in so vast variations

To perform the listening comprehension through

The story content understanding that every

Word changes the present consequent

Interpretation which develops news tension

Out of what would be nice in having rhymed the

Latest last ending by wording the context relations

Why expectation has to be entertained since

All remains learning from nature of external

Source to make reason that rhyme wording

Creation is originating in the drive for world logical

Sensation which can be adapted with the immediate

Realization on love or power to even the odds and

Let decisions become uninterrupted in succeed

The main continuing action by self-visualization

In proceed while wanting all in control so that

Everything in cause and effect makes

Determinations to solve the nature soul for

Reasoning what should be capably done successful

To overcome incoming obstacles which are like

In a game confronting you where you must manage

To evolve upright and organize the accomplished

Next up surviving for each moment to do a living

And strive through all what's about to go down to

Ensure more securities so world can be seen as a

Way to gain what you would eternally deserve for

Working in this system of still being a social animal

To be love functioning is very important to the time being like

When you're alright, for happiness is the only

Assumption in order to give love the very true

Meaning and keep achieving life nature art fulfilling

By music interpretation when god and no god

Existence is theoretically almighty and unbelievable

True consequence in having recognized the

Incomprehensive state which is in world further

More now always given and is a true proof existing

As the world is independent since it is by itself of its

Own free evolving and gives me hope for one day it

May lead into a higher realm for establishing nature

To perfect salvation with the wonders still certainly

Yet to come to heavenly not forsaken creation to

Always be able to see light resurrect given in the world through believing

Never leaving because it's like an angel from God

Anyways free for in the making nature existence to

Life renewance simply for its possible taking of time

And place in the never-ending search of truth and

Wisdom for remembering the joyous freedom in

Playing the proseing adventure for self-experiencing

Show in the game movie where you are acting your

Only one unique but rebirthing life to finally know the never fading

Secret of life is the invincible soul which is in

Everything infinitely on all times with all does go

Once you're in the lyrer to grow in the game to

Revolutionize the nature like a hero who has to force

Flow soul win lyrically through being along with

Everything and possibly change the game before it

Can change you for no worse and the better no

Matter how you let poetry be the ultimate

Creatability to rhyme permanently in the forever ever with after existentially present given in

Background dimension to live spiritually like legends

Throughout the ether of time and energy, loving

Prosody and lyricism to study and work in

Naturalism and evolutional excitement as also in

Experience forth rhyming the rap hip hopping so

Anything can be still possible in the glory to come in

Unconditional fate to praise love for what virtue is

Through grace, will always ever be song to conquer the witness in all

Days to happy made victory on and on strong 'cause

World is born and living mysticism for poesy is the

Thanksgiving of life knowing it ain't missing to win

Anything and never really will stop seeking the nature perfection as

Almighty which is present but does relatively not always show so all

Remains truly real and powerful for it is still all all.

[rjzimmerman]

To my simple mind, Miller represents evil incarnate, the perfect icon and symbol of the trump administration. This man has no grace, no sense of decency, no empathy, and no soul. I’m not Jewish, but I sincerely appreciate the rabbi’s sermon. My father-in-law was Jewish, so our extended family enjoys the presence of the Jewish heritage, faith and culture, which blends in interesting ways with the Roman Catholic heritage, faith and culture that I brought into the family.

Excerpt:

The childhood rabbi to Stephen Miller, special adviser to Donald Trump and a key architect of his “zero-tolerance” immigration policies, criticized his former charge on Monday as a purveyor of “negativity, violence, malice and brutality” who had learned nothing from his Jewish spiritual education.

Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of Beth Shir Shalom, a progressive reform synagogue in the beachside city of Santa Monica where Miller grew up, devoted his sermon marking the Jewish New Year to a striking denunciation of Miller and the now-abandoned policy he championed of separating immigrant families at the border.

“Honestly, Mr Miller, you’ve set back the Jewish contribution to making the world spiritually whole through your arbitrary division of these desperate people,” the rabbi said. “The actions that you now encourage President Trump to take make it obvious to me that you didn’t get my, or our, Jewish message.

“This is the season of apology, and to get to an apology, shame over past actions is necessary. Some shout at others when they are self-righteous enough: you should be ashamed of yourself! That’s not something I would ever shout or demand.” But Comess-Daniels went on to say it was up to Miller to acknowledge his wrongdoing.

[bloggong]

Take #2 on Post-Modernism

Okay, photo kinda unrelated but healthy reminder.

Wowza, what are these regular updates on this tumblr huh?

Anyway, today was Day 1 of YF camp, and as usual our camp speaker Greg already put out a few absolute bangers (apart from endorsing Mr Shai Linne ofc).

I find it interesting that as of late, more and more church messages and sermons have been centered around the danger of subjective truth. I remember my Church Pastor addressing it a while back, and even before him, I can vividly recall Paul Washer talking about it as well. Effectively, whether the rebuttal arises from the post-modernist's refusal to accept the presence of irrefutable absolute truth, or from the unwillingness to submit to an ultimate authority which governs their decision-making, their worldview crumbles into irrationality and darkness (Wow harsh words but I'm sure Paul and the other apostles were as, if not more harsh).

Anyway, the reason why I am writing this post as I take 176 to West Coast Park is because of something Greg spoke about on Day 1 of YF Camp. In addressing the need to discern the truth, alongside the need to recognize that there is 1 truth, Greg cut to the heart of a topic I have been getting into as of late , namely, presuppositional apologetics.

Presuppositional apologetics (or presupp, for the cool kids), is an apologetic method coined by one Cornelius Van Til. Such an apologetic originated from Van Til's rejection of the other methods of defending the faith that he was presented with, (the evidentialist argument, creator-creation argument etc), a rejection arising from the notion that such apologetic placed the unbeliever as the "Judge", with "God" being put on trial.

In his rejection of said methods, Van Til acknowledged the supremacy of the Word of the immutable almighty God, the Bible, as the absolute standard from which any value judgement or decision must be made. Moreover, another piece of justification for the presuppositional method of defending the faith, one I find very compelling, was Van Til's reference to Romans 1:18. If the unbeliever, is truly as the Bible says, "[suppressing] the truth in unrighteousness", then this means that they already know the truth of Scripture. 

In effect, no men or women who denies the truth is without excuse, for all of nature screams the Glory of God, and attests to the existence of an immutable and loving creator. In this light, the apologist should not put the Sovereign God on 'trial', allowing the unbeliever to decide if the Father is 'real or not'. 

Rather, the apologist should presuppose (hence the name hehe) the truth of the Bible, and seek to prove the existence and legitimacy of the Father and Christ through the daily assumptions the unbeliever makes about reality, since they know God exists, and are rejecting it in unrighteousness. Another thing I appreciate about this apologetic method is its emphasis on the moving power of the Holy Spirit. In true Ephesians 2:8-9 fashion, presupp highlights that only by the grace of God can men be saved, and only the Spirit can sanctify a depraved people.

Romans 1:18 Unbelief and Its Consequences

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness

Alright, now that I've laid out the groundwork of Presuppositional Apologetics, I want to link it back to Greg's talk today. Throughout his talk, I couldn't help but link it back to the unconscious, inconspicuous post-modernism that has seemingly permeated the secular mindset on all levels.

Oh and before I forget, bruh Proverbs 9:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Something key about presuppositional apologetics is its emphasis on tracing an observation to its root. In other words, it rationalizes every occurrence observable to scripture. To give an example, Van Til would argue that secular morality, logic and axiomatic theory, and an innate sense of justice, are all proof of a transcendent omniscient omnipotent God. In the same strand, presupp forces the apologist to begin their apologetic from the position of every word of the Bible being true. So should the unbeliever question whether they can prove the Bible is real, the response is "Yes I can. The Bible tells me so."

While I can understand the apprehension one might have adopting such an apologetic method, the more you think about it the more it makes sense.

In his book, "Defense of the Faith", Van Til begins by espousing on Ultimate Authority. Whether one is a Christian, an Atheist, a Materialist, a Monotheist, Polytheist, Pantheist, or any other belief system, they unconsciously submit to an ultimate authority. Most of the time such an authority is logic and sense perception, though in some cases it can extend to axioms and morality.

Regardless, the presuppositional apologist takes these assumptions, and points out how without God, they cannot make sense. For the sake of clarification, I will explicate on Morality, especially in the post-modern worldview.

For a post-modern Atheist, they would argue morality is subjective. Should a society or culture advance past a certain point, morality can fluctuate and change with it. In other words, any feelings of injustice exist because of this unspoken shared moral code that everyone agrees on.

The issue here is twofold.

Firstly, for an atheist, morality should not matter. If men really is borne not in the image of an immutable God, but is just a bunch of chemicals, or on a more macro-level, quarks bouncing off each other, then there is no basis for morality. Really, men is just a bunch of chemicals acting a certain way at a certain temperature. In that case, why should one dictate a certain moral action? What differentiates men from a bottle of coca cola that is shaken and opened, with fizz leaking out. If men has no intrinsic value, then why is there even a debate about morality? Arbitrary concepts like right and wrong, which a debate attempts to determine, do not exist if the two debaters are composed of noises concocted by atoms in motion. Some atheists would argue that morality arises from a need for mankind’s self-preservation. Here, the question becomes one of degree. Where does such a rule extend to. If morality is innately understood by every human, yet is entirely subjective, then does this mean that because my morality states that I will kill anyone with squeaky shoes, a squeak from your Converse Sneakers warrants your death?  Evidently that is not how morality works. Morality is not simply composed of two groups of people shouting at each other, with the louder group determining the morality of the system. If men has an awareness that things like murder, sin, and adultery are wrong, but this is not to arise from the presence of a Just God who has placed in every men and women’s heart a notion of his justice, then where does this morality extend to? Even if I can agree that within my family, we share a sense of morality, why should this ethical code extend to those outside my direct sphere of influence? If someone’s long-term longevity is of no direct interest to me, why is it wrong to rob your neighbor? In the same vein, why is it wrong to wage war on other nations should their interests not at all align with mine?  Here, the atheist’s argument for having a coherent moral system completely falls apart. This is what Van Til calls the futility of the non-Christian worldview. In the futility of the Atheistic Worldview, we observe the “impossibility of the contrary”, where in the absence of any other explanation for morality, the Christian worldview can account for one.  Similarly, for the secular Post-Modernist, they are quick to state that while something might be true for them, it does not have to be true for others. In short, subjective truth. This is dangerous for many reasons, but on the logical front, it is self-contradicting. Many Post-Modernists will even admit that they do not know what is ‘true’ for sure. All one has to do to refute the post-modernist is ask them if they know THAT to be true. If the post-modernist cannot claim to know anything to be true, their argument is incoherent and any knowledge claims are inconsistent with their worldview, in which case their worldview likewise crumbles into absurdity. To quote the man, Mr Paul Washer, in his indictment of the post-modern mindset, “either I am right and you are wrong, or you are right and I am wrong, or we are both wrong, but we CANNOT both be right!”

Hopefully through this very brief example, it has become clear (to at least some degree) how the presuppositionalist is to defend the faith. In having a consistent and coherent epistemology, the apologist is to hold up the ultimate authority of the Bible above all other things. Only through this can a logical argument emerge. Yet, and this remains key, regardless of the apologetic one employs to explain the faith, I pray that the a love for the unbeliever, a love that mimics the love of Christ, is what motivates our pleading with them. The apologist is to plead with the unbeliever as one pleads with blinded people in a burning building. While I often times find myself trading blows with others when talking about the faith, especially in using presupp, we have to remember above all, to hold fast to the truth of the gospel, that God became man, and bore the wrath of all who believe, such that they might in grace, find eternal salvation.  Brothers and Sisters, let us encourage each other in the time we have on this earth, that we preach as dying men and women, to dying men and women, that they might in grace and mercy, find the salvation that they know to be true, and know of the sweetness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Matthew 8:1-4 

Jesus Cleanses a Man with Leprosy

When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. And a man with leprosy came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus reached out with His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

This might become a running theme, but as usual I’m going to end with an excerpt from Shai Linne’s song “Startling Mystery”

“Sovereign Lord, who can truly understand Your depths? You give us life, You're the source of every man's breath Your mysteries, the sharpest of minds can't guess They stand perplexed, can't fathom what you plan next In the garden, we failed Your command's test We transgressed, now our world is a grand mess Lord, You're perfect, so why should You demand less? Man's best is only a sinking sand quest

But through Christ, watch God saving hand flex Redeemed the people, North, South, East, and West Glorious robes, in the Promised Land, dressed We stand blessed, all because of the Lamb's death 

So as we're liftin' up our praise to You, receive it, Lord The object of our affection, whom we adore Fallen in our misery, You darted into history The pardon of iniquity, startling the mystery

The oceans, the planes, the mountains, the rain The universe proclaims the glory of Your Name And what am I that You called me to Your side? And took this heart of stone and broke it open wide”

Friends, keep each other in prayer, that we walk in a manner that is pleasing to our King. 

Coram Deo 

-Gong 

6:16pm

12 December 2020   

[fetwmhbgmwbr]

September 21, 2020

I didn’t get to the second half of the post I wanted to write yesterday, so I’ll try to tackle it now. I’m happy with what distract me, though; my roommate and I got into a pretty interesting discussion of Polish phonology, as nerdy as that sounds. He’s Polish and we’re both half-Linguistics majors, so it’s at least explicable, but it still sounds funny even to me as I wrote that sentence! 

To get right to it, I’m going to meet with my professor of Early African American Literature on Wednesday morning over Zoom. She wants to get to know us as well as answer any questions we might have about the course, things we’ve done so far, and things we’re going to do. Here’s what I’ve thought about mentioning to her so far:

We listened to Toni Morrison’s 1993 Nobel Prize speech in my Intro to Literary Studies class, and it had a similar, sermon-like quality that reminded me of MLK’s “The Drum Major Instinct” that we had listened to in Early African American Literature a few days prior.

Individually, I’ve been reading more Black authors because of the current social climate regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. I brought with me to college James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Notes of a Native Son, as well as Angela Davis’ Women, Race & Class, all three of which I’ve finished. I don’t think I read them critically, though. It was more of a “these are the important texts I’ve heard people recommend, I should read them for the sake of reading them” situation. So, I want to revisit them, and I’d love her perspectives or some guiding questions as I revisit them. 

The Angela Davis book in particular I wanted to mention because it gives a pretty thorough overview of the confluence of the gender, racial, and class equality/justice movements, and she talks about lots of figures whose work is on the syllabus for this class. Again, I think I should re-read it to get a better idea of what they stood for, but that actually leads me into my next question.

I’m interested in my professor’s style of reading. I’ve had an internal debate for a while about how I should read these books that I know have had a profound impact on the world, but I can’t see which pros outweigh the cons of any one method. 

The first would be to just read it straight through, no notes, not necessarily breaking it into chunks so you have time to reflect on it. The bonus is you can get through books quickly, but the downside is you might miss out on a lot of the significance and meaning of it. I feel like it’s the most appropriate way to read novels, but it’s not suitable for non-fiction and essays like I’ve been reading.

The second is to read less at a time, breaking it into manageable pieces so you have time to reflect on what you’ve understood as well as what you haven’t. But, still no notes. This one is a nice middle ground because it doesn’t necessarily disrupt the reading experience with jotting down notes, but you still build in time to engage with it. The downside, which is even more severe in the last method, is that it takes longer. I generally like what I’m reading, so forcing myself to take it slow and let it sit overnight can be anathema. 

The last method is to read in smaller chunks again, and either annotate or take notes as you go. I personally hate annotation, I like my books to look clean so I can re-read them easily, loan them to friends, that kind of thing. But, I could use a notebook or post it notes to jot down my thoughts as I go. This one, I theorize, would be best to actually understand what you’re reading; it’s almost a metacognitive strategy to probe your mind as you’re taking in information to see what connections you make. The downside is, it’s very labor-intensive, so reading for fun would turn more into reading for interest, which is still good but is, necessarily, different. Now that I consider it, though, I don’t think that the smaller sections would bother me then, because I’ve put in the effort to understand it as I go along. I would probably stop when I get tired, and at that point I wouldn’t want to keep going, anyways.

An alternative approach would be to read everything through once, at the pace I want, with no notes, just to get an impression and feel the cadence of the author that I’d miss going analytically. That being said, once I’ve finished it once, I would go through again with a fine-tooth comb and then do the analysis, so I get the best of both worlds. The very clear downside with this one is, I have to read everything twice, and the second time will take a significant amount of time. With longer books, the idea of reading it twice alone makes me irritable. I suppose I could do this method by chapter or section, so that I can still feel the energy of the book but I don’t have to read it start to finish twice. 

The last debate I want to settle about reading is the age-old question, should I read two books at once? I did that a lot as a kid, I think with the Percy Jackson series and whatever else I could get my hands on, but now my personality has changed so that I can’t imagine reading two books at once, unless it’s for school. I know some people like to read a serious book and a fun book at the same time, which makes sense to me, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how I would keep everything straight!

The James Baldwin essays I’ve read, as well as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, introduced me to the concept that race is totally arbitrary. Yes, people have different skin tones, physical features, cultures, and customs, but the broad classifications of “white” and “black” are totally made up. Baldwin and Coates call white people some variant of “people who believe they are white,” and I thought that was a very interesting point. I did an exercise in a high school diversity club once where we were asked to write five things that described us on a balloon. When we went around, all of the Black Americans in the room, as well as some Black Caribbean and African boarding students, had written “Black” as one of their descriptors, most Jewish kids had written “Jewish” for themselves, but not a single white kid identified themself by the color of their skin. The point my teacher wanted to make was that race doesn’t actually matter unless it’s been used against you. To relate it to this Early African American Literature course, I’ve been surprised by how little Marrant, Lee, Terry, and Hammon openly discussed race. It could have been a business decision, they might not have been published if they had written openly and aggressively about race. But I also wonder, and it’s the Christian perspective of the sermon pieces and the anti-Native American perspective of the other two that make me think this, if the black and white distinction wasn’t as strong yet. I know that American slavery was already in effect, and had been for more than a century, so I can’t imagine that this was the case, but I’m curious about that. I imagine Angela Davis might say that the distinction hadn’t been made yet because there was no economic (read, capitalist) reason for it: there was no threat to the existing power structure from free Black Americans as long as the Native Americans and non-Christians were bigger outcasts. But, I have no clue if that’s an accurate analysis, or even if Davis would agree with the words I just put in her mouth. 

The last possible point of conversation is that I have signed up for the book club my professor is leading, where we’ll read Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. I joined because I’ve always wanted to try out a book club, and the book sounds like it will fit with my current goal of reading stories that, essentially, my parents would never touch. I don’t know how the club works, so I could ask that, and I'm also interested in hearing why they chose this novel out of the whole, wide world of literature. 

Now that I’ve written way too much, I don’t think I’ll try to pare down into a plan of what to talk about. I’ve developed my ideas by writing this, so hopefully when I join the Zoom call and say hi, the conversation will flow naturally and I’ll never be at a loss for words. 

[andsoshespins]

“...letting go is not giving up.”  YES.

I have been fortunate enough to not have had many toxic people close to me in my life.  I have never really been in an unhealthy relationship romantically, familial, or friendly.  I do not have a lot of extraneous individuals in my life who do not serve my soul well.  (Which is the context I immediately applied when I originally read this paragraph by Ms. Gill.)

And, yet, this speaks directly to my soul.  I do hold on tightly, a mark of my fastidious nature and determination which are admirable attributes that typically serve me well.  Until they don’t.  

I come from a family and culture known for stubbornness; and I think against that backdrop, I have internalized this very idea that “letting go is the same as giving up,” even if I never put words to the thought.  There is a bit of pride intermingled with that, perhaps a bit of over-estimating my own abilities to make change (which is darkly funny for anyone who knows me in real life because I have always suffered from cripplingly low self-esteem, but I digress...).  The obligation to family and tradition has often been a kind of burden, not because I do not love and appreciate the individuals in my family, but because the expectation for arbitrary things diminish the true connections and organic interactions.  

This also reminds me a bit about religion and my journey with it.  Growing up in a Roman Catholic household, attending Catholic school for all of my formal education until graduate school, frequenting church and mass with my family, I had a bit of a hard time letting go of religion even though it had been years since it served me in any way.  In high school, I had been growing away from the idea of institutions like the Church, critically thinking about the dogma we were taught, more curious about the nuns who had left the convents than another reading of Job, etc.  But I was young and still maneuvering my way through teenage turmoil, so I felt like I could not let go of that routine stability just yet.  Throughout most of college, I actually attended mass fairly regularly, still holding on to this ritual that no longer served me but started to feel suffocating.  The moment I was honest with myself and realized the only reason I continued this practice was out of habit and obligation--certainly not valid enough a reason or pure in motive for me--I stopped.  I had started student teaching while still running my college literary magazine, two endeavors and communities that fulfilled me more than any year’s worth of sermons could, and so I finally let go. (And that is not to say I “replaced” anything; I was just changing, or better yet, really learning myself buried under everyone else’s expectations I had never asked for.)  I know I have grown in immeasurable ways since I cut this formalized religion out of my life.  I think had I still been under this weighty judgment (which so much of religion had been for me in my experience), I would have been stifled in my own expression of myself and my ideals.  For a long time I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind, I wondered whether I had been a kind of “quitter” and given up on something worthwhile because I could not wade through the tough times I was experiencing with it.  Whenever I attend a wedding, funeral, baptism, confirmation, or any other major sacramental achievement in support of my family or friends, my decision to not be a part of the Church is reaffirmed.  I know I am better without it.  But it was a journey.

Not to minimize the seriousness of the original thought presented by the amazing Nikita Gill and the afore-printed religious reflection, but sometimes I also stumble upon the challenge of letting go with physical things.  It has been nearly two years that I have lived in my house; and I still have two enormous boxes of “stuff” I vacillate between keeping and throwing away, whittling away a bit at a time then saving the rest for later.  And even in those little moments when I make the final decision and place something in the garbage bag, it is born of a burst of courage to let go.  

I know that I have often weighed this balance of letting go and giving up in my own mind with regard to romantic relationships.  I have only ever had one serious long-term significant other with whom I shared six years.  And at the end, I reflected and wondered if the ending should have arrived sooner.  (In retrospect, I do not think so.  I truly believe the timing was exactly appropriate.  But I wonder had he not moved, which accelerated the ending, how much longer we may have held on.  And, if I may lay bare my soul here, that is a distant worry in the back of my mind for the future.)

In summary, letting go is a lesson I am always learning. 

Somewhere along my journey, I learned that letting go was the same as giving up, and giving up is weakness. This has harmed my ability to let go in a healthy way immeasurably. It took me much too long to learn that letting go is not giving up. Letting go is recognising you are holding on to a situation that does not serve you in any way and has become unhealthy. It is knowing when to step away no matter how much it hurts to do so because you have the courage to let something or someone go.

- Nikita Gill

[woodworkingpastor]

Giving: Rededication of our faith 1 Corinthians 16:2; 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Earlier this summer I taught a Sunday School class about greed, after which Mike Hanger introduced me to the song Buy me a boat, by country music artist Chris Janson.  I wrote about this in study guide to our sermon series this fall, and I hope I wasn’t too hard on him!  Musically, this is a fun song to listen to; it has a fun melody and a great electric guitar line.  But lyrically it raises some issues.  Money can’t buy happiness,

But it could buy me a boat, it could buy me a truck to pull it,

it could buy me a Yeti 110 iced-down with some silver bullets.

Yeah, and I know what they say, “money can’t buy everything.”

Well, maybe so, but it could buy me a boat.

But as I indicated in the study guide, it’s another set of lyrics that might catch our attention:

I keep hearing that money is the root of all evil,

and you can’t fit a camel through the eye of a needle

I’m sure that’s probably true,

but it still sounds pretty cool, ‘cause it could buy me a boat…

Sometimes looking at things like this frustrates people, because of all the problems in the world, we don’t go looking for trouble in our country music. But the song does raise some questions about how we might make decisions about our money in light of our faith. We might at least admit that singing Buy me a boat is quite a bit different from this verse 4 of Take my life:

Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold,

Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose,

every power as Thou shalt choose

And so here we are, on sermon number 7 of 10 in considering how we as members of Oak Grove Church of the Brethren can practice our faith in the times in which we live, pledge cards in hand.  How are we building margin into our lives so that we can better love God, neighbor, stranger, and enemy with our money? That’s all!

The New Testament relief offering

If you enjoy a bit of Biblical sleuthing, then the matter of the love offering Paul collected for churches in Jerusalem is a fun one.  It’s not so very difficult to figure out, and it reveals to us some helpful counsel to our own pursuit of Jesus.

One of the big issues the church needed to work out in its early years was how to include non-Jews into the ministry of the church.  The Jerusalem Conference of Acts 15 decided this issue, and they gave Paul and his team two tasks:

They were to proclaim the Gospel in non-Jewish areas (others were given the Jewish areas).  This is the part of Paul’s ministry we tend to focus on—preaching the Gospel, inviting the lost to salvation, instruction on Christian ethics, calling of leaders, etc.

They were to remember the poor.  It is obvious that Paul worked diligently at this; he mentions it to the Romans, the churches of Galatia, and in three separate letters to the church in Corinth. We can read in Acts where Paul delivered the offering.

This love offering was important part of Paul’s ministry because there had been a famine in Jerusalem and people needed help, and also because financial sharing created a spiritual bond among people who only had their faith in common, and who were otherwise strangers to one another. In other words, this financial offering was important for both the givers and the receivers, and Paul tells us why.

An intentional plan for giving is an act of faithfulness (1 Corinthians 16:1).  

The Corinthians were people just like us, capable of great faith and disappointing setbacks.  They could their thoughts turned toward Jesus, and they could be competitive and cliquish.  When they learned of this love offering, they were eager to give. To their eagerness, Paul offered some helpful counsel:

On the first day of every week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn… (1 Corinthians 16:1).  

Even though the offering here is a special offering, the principle holds true for our regular offerings as well: have clearly defined goals and plan accordingly. We practice this at Oak Grove, even as our financial giving patterns change.  

We take an offering each week; the Finance Commission provides a year’s supply of weekly giving envelopes largely based on this idea.

Some of you have set up automatic withdrawals from their bank; those checks arrive in the mail each week and are counted the following Sunday.

We have set up an account on Tithely that enables you to give via your smart phone; it, too, will send you a weekly reminder to give.

But whatever method you choose, the important point is that you have a plan. My hunch is that we under estimate the value of having a plan for our spiritual lives; it’s one of the reasons the pledge card is much longer next year: we really hope that you will take this card as an opportunity to reflect on all of the ways you can express your commitment to the church.

Giving as a response to God’s grace is our goal (1 Corinthians 16:2; 2 Corinthians 8:9-15).  

The Corinthians started this love offering with great enthusiasm.  But because they are human, their enthusiasm waned. As Paul writes to them in 2 Corinthians, he is concerned they’ve given up on it, and the poor response will be embarrassing. So he writes them a second (and possibly a third) time with further instructions:  Their generosity is possible because God has been generous to them.  

We typically look to the OT practice of tithing as our measure for giving.  You might have noticed it referenced in the video from earlier, and you’ll see it mentioned on the pledge card.  Tithing is a reasonable goal for Christians to achieve in their giving.  But there is one problem with the tithe: it is regressive; everyone seeks to reach that level no matter how rich or poor they are. But because we all pay roughly the same amount for clothes and groceries and fuel, it would be harder for a poor person to tithe than a rich person.

When we discuss the tithe, we do tend to forget that when the people were first instructed to tithe, they were basically at the same economic level—which, in their case, was not much. That’s not usually true in congregations like ours; for various reasons, some have much higher incomes than others, and simply applying an arbitrary 10% standard to everyone seems unfair.  Others ought to give more.

But here, Paul gives the Corinthians a different way to consider their giving: because this is a love offering, he encourages them to look at the “extra” that they have in their own budgets—the pick-up truck-driving, bass boat-pulling, cooler-filling part of their lives—and instructs them to measure their giving in relation to what Jesus did for us:

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Paul roots our giving in the Gospel: Jesus gave himself for us so that we can give ourselves back to him, something he has already praised another congregation for:

For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints—and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us… (2 Corinthians 8:3-5).

When Paul says the Macedonians “gave themselves first to the Lord and…to us,” notice that they are already Christians.  Their giving of themselves to the Lord is an act of rededication of their faith.

Take out your pledge card for a minute and let’s think about this. I think I’ve managed to mention that Love Feast was moved to October 27 as the culmination of our discipleship worship just about every Sunday, because it really is that important.  I hope each of you are planning to be here, even those of you who are a bit skeptical about it.  I wouldn’t work so hard to emphasize Love Feast if it wasn’t that important, because it represents a rededication of our faith through a confession of sin and then a commitment to right relations with one another (through footwashing) and God (through communion).

What I really hadn’t thought about until I looked closely at these verses is that our pledge cards can be the same thing: an opportunity to recommit ourselves to Christ and to this congregation. In two weeks when we return to worship with these, it will be our way of saying “I’m here.  You can count on me to share in the financial obligations, to come to Sunday School and learn with you, to forgive you when you disappoint me or hurt me, knowing that I’ll do the same for you.”

Can you imagine how counter-cultural this is in our time, when it seems people are just waiting for opportunities to spout off and head out the door, especially if they think we’re not doing things the right way? Our pledge cards are a chance to reject that kind of thinking and express deep commitment to the church as we share our lives, and especially our money.