Do the test

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Science of Superman

God all-knowing?

I have been looking at the confession of faith for my conference. In the commentary on the confession of faith we state that God is all-knowing. Now if knowing is more than just head knowledge but also experiential knowledge. Is God truly all-knowing? Does God know everything experientially? Specifically I started to wonder if God has ever experience shame or guilt.
Two ways I see that it might be possible for God to experience shame and guilt.

There was a man who had a son. When the son was grown up he set his heart to do evil all the time. The son continued in his evil behavior for many years. Soon everyone knew about this son's evilness. As time passed the community began to associate evil with the son's family name. Does the father experience shame even though he has done no wrong?

There was once a man who decided to never wash or change his clothes. As time passed his body and clothes became filthy. This man and his clothes were infested with fleas and lice. He was miserable. One day another man passed by, this man had just had a bath and had bought new clothes. When he saw the filthy man he had compassion on him. The man with new clothes offered to trade his clothes with the filthy man. Once they trade clothes would not the clean man now experience the consequences on the filthy man's choice to not wash? Is this not sort of like what Christ does for us - taking our sin upon himself?

Walk to Winnipeg

A group of Native youth have decided to walk 500 km from Northern Manitoba to Winnipeg. Their goal is to help raise awareness about some of the problems that they are facing. They want to meet with government officials to talk about what can be done.
What can we do to support them?

Seven deadly sins

The Catholic Church has just announced that there are a new seven deadly sins. They are

• Bioethical" violations such as birth control.
• "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research.
• Drug abuse.
• Polluting the environment.
• Aggravating social injustice by contributing to the widening gap between rich and poor.
• Excessive wealth.
  

This is in addition to the old list

• Lust.
• Gluttony.
• Greed.
• Envy.
• Wrath.
• Pride.
• Sloth, which replaced sadness in the 17th century.

I am some what surprised at this list and that they have come out with a new list. Pleasantly surprised that Catholic Church sees the destruction of the world, social injustice and excessive wealth as major problems that need to be addressed. I was sadly surprised that certain things were not on the list. Things like abortion, terrorism and sexual abuse.
Over all I am not sure that making a list of the worst sins is the best idea. First of all, it comes across as really judgmental. This list would be a lot more powerful if sexual abuse was included because the Catholic Church would have been identifying some of their sins. Second reason a list might not be a good idea is that this implies that Christianity about following rules and not about following God. Third, I have real doubts that this list is going to change anything.

Cross Current

For the past I week I have been at Winkler Bible Camp teaching at their Cross Current program. They have 20 students and I had the privileged of walking through Genesis with them. I certainly learned a lot from the students. I would definitely do things a little differently if I were teach again - more hands things and not just intellectual things.
My highlight of the week was getting to know the students and seeing videos of their talent night. One person sang a pop song (can't remember the name) in low German. It was very funny - and I don't even speak low German.