I am homeschooled. My Science textbooks are creation textbooks. My friends mom's talk about Liberal's as if they are talking about drug dealers. In fact, they promptly associate the two. I'm sure it's on the scale for them
First support Obama, then you're getting tatoos and having sex.
So I'm not going to lie, when I read part of the God Dellusion and listened to the excerpt from Letter to a Christian Nation, I was sort of.. excited.
These people seem intelligent, rational.
Do I agree with them? no. But I like listening.
I liked the fact that the thing they both seemed to be concerned with is real faith. I think they are right in saying that real belief is a touchy subject, it's one that gets precidence over other issues, and it's one that costs something. It IS bloody.
Because belief in God is a personal thing, but i think it should be talked about. As a Christian, I believe my faith is true, and can stand the test of open debate, i believe it is strong enough to endure the hard questions like stem cell research and abortion.
These people seem very VERY sure that they are right, but then again, so am I. I hope that they're the kind of people one could talk to and feel listened to. Because I do think if faith could be talked about rationally to them, much of the blame on religion would be dispelled.
These excerpts also gave me a greater respect for Tim Keller's Reason for God. I hope that both the authur of Letter to a Christian Nation and the God Dellusion will read Reason for God. And if they didn't agree, I hope they would at least respect the careful documentation and evidence presented.
In other words, I enjoy conversations like this where there is no shouting or name calling, i have more hope that the truth can eventually be spoken.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Holy Confusion Batman! It's the Emerging Church!
Boy does one change their mind about things in a short amount of time.
I waded through Velvet Elvis and A Generous Orthadoxy and The Post-Evangelical and D. A. Carson (Not bad, over my head, but not bad) and Leslie Newbigin and countless others.
I like it, at first. It challenged me. It made me feel cool. What can I say? I'm a prime canidate for the emerging church movement. I'm a pastors kid in the deep south at a white church. I also somehow managed to escape the small town mentality, believe in equal rights for women in the church, am so much against racism in any form that you might say i'm prejudice against racists. And I've seen enough done in the name of Christ in my young years to make a budist monk throw up. Needless to say, I felt the call of this cool, urban movement that validated my spiritual bagage.
So I read, so I felt cool, I referenced postmodernism in casual conversation. I lived it.
But then I read the opposite argument books, and I also I read C. S. Lewis, I read Madeline L'engle. Two authors who really have nothing to do with the movment.
And they taught me something.
They reminded me, that a hopefully journey is not really hopeful unless it arrives at truth.
And that things that are lovely, and wonderful and good aren't often fashionable.
and I felt as if a giant fog had been lifted and my head had cleared.
Yes, there are still problems with evangelicals
there are still problems and disfunction in the church
But, Praise God! There are no problems in the truth, the ever consistancy, the inerrancy of God.
And I don't have to wade through holy confusion, feeling deep with my latte stained copy of Derrida.
I can be still, and know that He is God.
I waded through Velvet Elvis and A Generous Orthadoxy and The Post-Evangelical and D. A. Carson (Not bad, over my head, but not bad) and Leslie Newbigin and countless others.
I like it, at first. It challenged me. It made me feel cool. What can I say? I'm a prime canidate for the emerging church movement. I'm a pastors kid in the deep south at a white church. I also somehow managed to escape the small town mentality, believe in equal rights for women in the church, am so much against racism in any form that you might say i'm prejudice against racists. And I've seen enough done in the name of Christ in my young years to make a budist monk throw up. Needless to say, I felt the call of this cool, urban movement that validated my spiritual bagage.
So I read, so I felt cool, I referenced postmodernism in casual conversation. I lived it.
But then I read the opposite argument books, and I also I read C. S. Lewis, I read Madeline L'engle. Two authors who really have nothing to do with the movment.
And they taught me something.
They reminded me, that a hopefully journey is not really hopeful unless it arrives at truth.
And that things that are lovely, and wonderful and good aren't often fashionable.
and I felt as if a giant fog had been lifted and my head had cleared.
Yes, there are still problems with evangelicals
there are still problems and disfunction in the church
But, Praise God! There are no problems in the truth, the ever consistancy, the inerrancy of God.
And I don't have to wade through holy confusion, feeling deep with my latte stained copy of Derrida.
I can be still, and know that He is God.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Deconstructing the Emerging Church: Wading in Holy Wars
Writing a 20 page research paper on the emerging church movement seems to be the living definition of "biting off more than i can chew".There seems to be no limit to books I can read on the subject, podcasts I can listen to, Lectures I can attend. After reading about ten books and countless internet and blog articles I start to realize that most of what i am reading is the same thing over and over again
"emergence is the movement of the church in a cultural shift toward postmodernism"
what the heck does that mean? sounds like a trendy twitter topic #postmodernism. And in the sentiments of Dan Kimball, most of those who are emergent realize they aren't philosophers and aren't up to defending the concept of postmodernism. It's a grass roots movement, charicterized by the fact that it has no centralized location, no creed or system of beliefs outside of a few basic ideas around orthapraxy and the McLaren Generous Orthadoxy. Which teriffies the baptists and my only complaint is how am i suposed to present my evidents in my research paper as credible and true if there IS no offical source? It's great to talk about at starbucks, it proves harder to... well... prove.
Of course there are plenty of people to shoot it down, plenty of people to yell from the pulpit about the dangers of emergence, that it's a bunch of hippies who want to sit around and pull the bible apart and ignore basic truth. That it's all a cult, a hoax, something to be afraid of.
well, i mean, they said that about EVERY church movement when it started.. didn't they? Come to think about it, somebody is going to freak out about the new no matter what. So a certain amount of hostility toward the movement is to be expected. right?
The main draw of this movement seems to be that when people walk into a church that is making efforts to "emerge" or speak with someone who considers himself emerging, and those people have been jaded and hardened towards God and any sort of mettanarrative (trendy postmodern word #mettanarrative) find something accessable.
You hear delightful phrases like
"i just didn't feel judged"
"They don't seem fake. very authentic"
"I didn't want to have anyhting to do with Jesus before, but now i do"
As people who love Jesus very very much, and as humans who in our nature are terrified and addicted to the New, can we rightfully dismiss this movement? If it is taking love to places that were unacessable by other methods, then i cast my lot with these crazy hippies. count me emerging.
"emergence is the movement of the church in a cultural shift toward postmodernism"
what the heck does that mean? sounds like a trendy twitter topic #postmodernism. And in the sentiments of Dan Kimball, most of those who are emergent realize they aren't philosophers and aren't up to defending the concept of postmodernism. It's a grass roots movement, charicterized by the fact that it has no centralized location, no creed or system of beliefs outside of a few basic ideas around orthapraxy and the McLaren Generous Orthadoxy. Which teriffies the baptists and my only complaint is how am i suposed to present my evidents in my research paper as credible and true if there IS no offical source? It's great to talk about at starbucks, it proves harder to... well... prove.
Of course there are plenty of people to shoot it down, plenty of people to yell from the pulpit about the dangers of emergence, that it's a bunch of hippies who want to sit around and pull the bible apart and ignore basic truth. That it's all a cult, a hoax, something to be afraid of.
well, i mean, they said that about EVERY church movement when it started.. didn't they? Come to think about it, somebody is going to freak out about the new no matter what. So a certain amount of hostility toward the movement is to be expected. right?
The main draw of this movement seems to be that when people walk into a church that is making efforts to "emerge" or speak with someone who considers himself emerging, and those people have been jaded and hardened towards God and any sort of mettanarrative (trendy postmodern word #mettanarrative) find something accessable.
You hear delightful phrases like
"i just didn't feel judged"
"They don't seem fake. very authentic"
"I didn't want to have anyhting to do with Jesus before, but now i do"
As people who love Jesus very very much, and as humans who in our nature are terrified and addicted to the New, can we rightfully dismiss this movement? If it is taking love to places that were unacessable by other methods, then i cast my lot with these crazy hippies. count me emerging.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Obama vs. Fox
I am very fascinated by the Obama/Fox news controversy. As I mentioned in my ap language class forum, i think it's a argument of definition. All the sudden we as an audience begin to wonder "what is news?" and my big question "is someone wrong just because they disagree with Obama?" I know that Obama's famous line is that he 'welcomes the tough questions', but if so, i have to ask, why is it that the orginization which is asking tough questions the one that Obama attacks?
It doesn't add up to me.
Its also sort of frustrating to me that he and his administrations point of attack was to declare that fox operates like a "talk radio". Here again, argument of definition. I believe this is a dangerous thing for a president to do, because historically as a people American's have accepted or at least highly considered a President's opinion as truth. Much different than Bono or the Jonas brothers saying that they think Fox is like talk radio, a president is in the dangerous position of people really believing what he says, simply because he says it. Or simply with "great power comes great responsibility".(spider man yess)
and while we're at war, home sick with swine, losing property value and our jobs, aren't there better ways a president can spend his time than to attack Fox?
It doesn't add up to me.
Its also sort of frustrating to me that he and his administrations point of attack was to declare that fox operates like a "talk radio". Here again, argument of definition. I believe this is a dangerous thing for a president to do, because historically as a people American's have accepted or at least highly considered a President's opinion as truth. Much different than Bono or the Jonas brothers saying that they think Fox is like talk radio, a president is in the dangerous position of people really believing what he says, simply because he says it. Or simply with "great power comes great responsibility".(spider man yess)
and while we're at war, home sick with swine, losing property value and our jobs, aren't there better ways a president can spend his time than to attack Fox?
working bibliography
Mallory Searcy
Research Paper Bibliography
10/24/09
McLaren, Brian . A Generous Orthodoxy. El Cajon: Zondervan, 2004.
Myers, Joseph. Organic Community. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.
McKnight, Scot. "Five Streams of the Emergent Church". Christianity Today. October 22, 2009
.
Miller, Donald. Blue Like Jazz. Colorado Springs: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff
Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature vol. 10. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, l984.
Tomlinson, Dave. The Post-Evangelical. Glasgow: Triangle Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
1995.
Caputo, John. What Would Jesus Deconstruct?. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Wuthnow, Robert. After Heaven. Los Angeles: University of California Pres., 1998.
Webber, Robert. The Younger Evangelicals. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002.
Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.
Brewin, Kester. Signs of Emergence. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.
McLaren, Brian. A New Kind of Christian. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Research Paper Bibliography
10/24/09
McLaren, Brian . A Generous Orthodoxy. El Cajon: Zondervan, 2004.
Myers, Joseph. Organic Community. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.
McKnight, Scot. "Five Streams of the Emergent Church". Christianity Today. October 22, 2009
Miller, Donald. Blue Like Jazz. Colorado Springs: Thomas Nelson, 2003.
Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff
Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature vol. 10. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, l984.
Tomlinson, Dave. The Post-Evangelical. Glasgow: Triangle Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
1995.
Caputo, John. What Would Jesus Deconstruct?. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Wuthnow, Robert. After Heaven. Los Angeles: University of California Pres., 1998.
Webber, Robert. The Younger Evangelicals. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002.
Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995.
Brewin, Kester. Signs of Emergence. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007.
McLaren, Brian. A New Kind of Christian. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Monday, October 26, 2009
the 23 psalm
The 23 psalm
Sometimes words flow out
In streams. Like jets of water
From the hoses by the track
Icy. Grass flavored on my
Sweat
Like creeks of peace
Making rivets in my face
He restores my soul
Other times, words are beats
Drum drum drum
Stop. Stitch. Short.
Staccato dreams, like incoherent
Phrases. lost in my head or trapped in
Inexpressibility.
Being trampled at breakneck speed.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Then there is
Summer in a sailboat
Stung by jellies in the
Alive places. Where dolphins
Are too shy to admit they
Stop. Start. Stop. Start.
Stucatto. Come when we sing
Sailor songs at the top of our lungs.
Now we are at the
Smoother melody for
The lord is my Sheppard. I shall not [wait till the
hose water taste and the dolphins wink]
I shall not want.
Sometimes words flow out
In streams. Like jets of water
From the hoses by the track
Icy. Grass flavored on my
Sweat
Like creeks of peace
Making rivets in my face
He restores my soul
Other times, words are beats
Drum drum drum
Stop. Stitch. Short.
Staccato dreams, like incoherent
Phrases. lost in my head or trapped in
Inexpressibility.
Being trampled at breakneck speed.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Then there is
Summer in a sailboat
Stung by jellies in the
Alive places. Where dolphins
Are too shy to admit they
Stop. Start. Stop. Start.
Stucatto. Come when we sing
Sailor songs at the top of our lungs.
Now we are at the
Smoother melody for
The lord is my Sheppard. I shall not [wait till the
hose water taste and the dolphins wink]
I shall not want.
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