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.

What happens when you die?

Tom Wright is one of my favorite authors. He has written a lot about life after life after death. Here is a link to an interview done by abc.

Rosenstrasse protest

Could non-violence have been used to stop the Holocaust? Sounds crazy, doesn't it.

However there is the interesting story called the Rosenstrasse protest. Allow me to summarize the story. It happened in 1943. Nazis rounded up the last of the Jews in Berlin with the intent of shipping them to concentration camps. However many of them were married to German woman (who were not rounded up). These women showed up at the prison and peacefully protested for about a week (about 6,000 in total). What happened? The Jewish men were released - in fact 25 men were even brought back from Auschwitz.
Perhaps non-violence could have stopped the Holocaust.

Project Censored

I came across a webwite called project censored. "Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."
It is very interesting. Two stories caught my attention.

From 2007 #18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story

From 2008 # 11 The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan

Raises a few questions. Like why do we have troops in Afghanistan?

Lent

How is lent going?

I have committed to praying the Jesus creed every evening and every morning. The creed is "Hear oh Israel the lord our God, the lord is one. Love the lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
I found that by reminding myself of this I have been more aware of my need to love the people around me. I guess what I am saying is that I am starting to see how badly I sometimes love.
Also if I am honest I have forgotten to say the Jesus creed some evenings and mornings. Though I have started to get my children to say it before they go to bed.

Genesis and anxiety

Walter Brueggemann in his commentary on Genesis says the creation/fall account deals with anxiety.
"This text may be brought to comment upon the power of anxiety among us: (a) The causes of anxiety among us are wrongly discerned . This text fixes the issue in terms of accepting the realities of our life with God. Our mistake is to pursue autonomous freedom. Freedom which does not discern the boundaries of human life leave us anxious. (b) The attempts to resolve anxiety in our culture are largely psychological, economic, cosmetic. They are bound to fail because they do not approach the causes. (c) Our public life is largely premised on an exploitation of our common anxiety. The advertising of consumerism and the drives of the acquisitive society, like the serpent, seduce into believing there are securities apart from the reality of God."
"Failure to trust God with our lives is death."

Authority of the Bible

Christians claim that the bible is authoritative. What is meant by this is twofold - first that the bible is God's word, literally. The bible is what God has to say to the world. Second is that because it is God's word we are called to obey it.
Now this belief is under attack right now (and has been for a long time). As the church we have defended the authority of scripture, argued for it, written about it. But have we convinced anyone?
I personally don't think we are going to convince very many people about the authority of the bible by well reasoned arguments. One of the reasons for this is that Christians have used the authority of the bible to justify all sorts of injustices. We have recognize that this is our past and regrettably this is our present (as seen in the health and wealth gospel).
What will convince people is if they see the power of God in our lives. If through reading/studying/submitting/meditating on the bible we become more loving and more engaged in justice it will be evident that the bible is authoritative in forming us to be truly human.

coffee with Warren

My Dad sent me an article that Warren Harbeck wrote about peace and reconciliation. Read it at coffee with Warren follow the link "Nigerian imam and pastor heal animosity through love".

Let me know what you think.

self-understanding of the church

Craig Van Gelder, in his book The Ministry of the Missional Church, says that every church has an organizational self-understanding - an understanding that makes up the core of their identity. He says there are three major understandings of the church.
"Established Church. Self-understanding: Exists as the primary geographical location of God's presence on earth through which the world can encounter God, with this authority being legitimated by the civil government."
"Corporate Church. Self-understanding: Exists as an organization with a purposive intent to accomplish something on behalf of God in the world, with this role being legitimated on a voluntary basis."
"Missional Church. Self-understanding: Exists as a community created by the Spirit that is missionary by nature in being called and sent to participate in God's mission in the world."

What understanding does your church have? Do you think it should have a different one?

Mission Fest 2

On Saturday my girls were feeling better so we went to mission fest. It was really good. I enjoyed talking to some of the different missionaries - it is amazing to hear about what God is doing in the world. We also listen to Gracia Burnham. She and her family were missionaries in the Philippines. Gracia and her husband, Martin, were kidnapped and held for just over a year. When the government moved into set Burnham's free Martin was killed in the gun battle. Gracia was rescued. Gracia told a couple of stories about her time in captivity. After telling some stories she talked about sacrificing everything for God. She challenged us to give up everything and join God in his mission in the world.
Did anyone else go? If you did what was your highlight?

Mission fest

This week is Mission Fest in Winnipeg. It should be very exciting to hear about what God is doing in the world. I love wondering around talking to the people from the many different organizations. Hopefully I make out some time this weekend but right now my daughters are sick.

What is church?

In his book, The Ministry of the Missional Church, Craig Van Gelder says, "The church is created as a community into which individuals are incorporated, rather than being a community that is constructed by self-selecting individuals (as understood by modern, Western social contract theory in relation to volunteerism)."
Is this true? Thinking about the bible I do believe that Craig is right. But how does this work?
In my context people self-select what church they belong to (there are lots to choose from). This is mostly based on personal likes/dislikes. At times they will deselect themselves and pick a different church. Also in my context there are lots of questions about baptism and membership being held together. There is a push to say that a person should not have to become a member when baptized. So, how does what Craig say actually work?

Our Father Abraham

I just finished reading the book Our Father Abraham: Jewish roots of the Christian faith, by Marvin R. Wilson. I have posted a couple of times about this book - I wrote when something really stood out to me.
Marvin reasons that as church we should realize that we have deep, deep Jewish roots. We worship the Jewish God, follow a Jewish messiah, the bible was written by Jews and was written mainly to Jews. Marvin states that we need to grasp this heritage. I totally agree.
The beginning of the book does a good job of reasoning why we should engage in Hebrew beliefs. In the second half of the book Marvin explores some aspects of Jewish thought he thinks is important for the church to understand.

The Gospel

In 2 Timothy 2:8 Paul gives a definition of the gospel that he preached. He says "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel".
My wife pointed out that this verse mentions nothing about the death of Jesus. Now it is implied - to be raised from the dead means that you have died - but it is not the focus. However, usually when we talk about the gospel we emphasize the death of Jesus (in fact I have heard people preach "the gospel" without ever mentioning the resurrection of Jesus). We say that Jesus died for our sins. Now this is true but here Paul does not make that the focus of the gospel. The focus is on the fact that Jesus is King (Christ is not Jesus' last name it is his title and means King) and he has been resurrected. My wife pointed out that with us focusing so much on Jesus' death we often get very focused upon our sin instead of upon Jesus.
How do you think sharing the gospel will change if we focus on the fact that Jesus is King and has been raised from the dead instead of solely focusing on him dieing for our sins?