Who do we follow?

I just in the last week have started to listen to a podcast based on presenting Orthodox (I am guessing Eastern Orthodox) Christianity. Their big claim is the believe their doctrine is based on apostolic teachings. In the episodes I have listened to they discuss the writings of the Church Fathers a lot (they also quote Chesterton a bit, which is always a good thing in my book).

One of the things they mentioned is that Protestants often reject any authority other than the bible. This reminded me of a story in Velvet Elvis where Rob Bell talks about a leader at his church, while trying to understand what a particular passage says, decided to throw out all the opinions she had come across and just ‘take it for what it really says’ (p. 53).

That worries me. Part of that is because if the Bible scares you, it’s doing its job. Part is because of the scary arrogance of the person involved. This passage of the Bible has been around for a while, I really suspect someone out there before us has figured out what it most likely means.

I come to the Bible to be shaped, not to shape it to fit me (at least that’s what I hope).

Another interesting thought I had when thinking about this. Reading the Bible in that way is applying a postmodern interpretation on it, saying that I am the only one who can know what it means for me.

So, if you are trying to read the Bible for ‘what it really says’, you can be looking at it with postmodern sensibilities.

I’m not sure which is a worse word in some Christian circles, liberal or postmodernist.

Just think about it.

Mother Teresa

I have been lightly following the Mother Teresa story over the weekend. On some of the blogs where this has been discussed, I remember something I saw posted at Wil Wheaton’s site right after the Virginia Tech shootings, that everyone was blaming the shooting on their pet issues. I kind of feel that right now reading some of the reactions regarding Mother Teresa’s letters. Atheists are jumping and screaming and shouting that this proves there is no god.

(A quick aside on this: Too many of these people are just too emotional about their denunciations of religion and their hatred of religion for me to accept they arrived at this decision objectively. I see too much pain there.)

It seems to me sometimes, however, that in the Christian establishment, to express any kind of doubt is some form of heresy. I wonder how these people explain the presence of Psalm 137 in their Bibles. Peter doubted and it turned out all right, if he pulled the same stuff today I think it would be scary what the modern day Pharisees would do to him.

I have a functional intellectual conviction of why these types of things happen. I have yet to be so saturated by it as I’m sure Mother Teresa and her people were.

‘Blessed Be Your Name’ can be a hard song to sing sometimes. If we can face that (and still sing it), we’re getting somewhere.

More Worship Thoughts

‘God’s healing has more to do with learning to worship than it does with getting life fixed’
– M. Craig Barnes, Yearning, p. 18

This quote has been haunting my head for the past two weeks or so. Maybe it’s because there are so many things in my life the need healing; there are wounds that run deep in my heart and I want need to be healed of them, I believe that I need to be whole.

Maybe I just need God. Maybe I just need to know His presence, need to feel His promises every moment of every day, to find the strength to trust Him at all times.

I have long realized that worship isn’t about singing songs (even though that’s a part of it, a part that I think we all need), that it’s a direction of the heart, a decision. I need to do a better job of making that decision.

I think far too often I seek healing before I seek God. I know that’s the case.

What’s the Value

Oscar Wilde once said that a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. I’m not sure I totally agree with that these days, but it’s an interesting thought.

Regarding what I posted moments ago, I realize that these problems are at their core a fundamental difference in values. In the case of the co-worker, they are so afraid of making anything remotely like a mistake that they have to create a universe where mistakes can never happen. That just doesn’t sound like a place I’d like to visit. Or know what to do there.

Note that I’m not trying to rip on this co-worker, just trying to understand. I’ll probably still be frustrated when things happen, but I’ll be able to navigate better when I understand. When I can see what someone else sees it is a good thing.

The other situation…I don’t think the other party understands what happened. And they don’t know how to proceed because of that.

Jesus came to tell us people matter most to God. I’m still trying to figure out what that means and how to do that. And I suspect I will be for a long time.

How I See It

Differences in perspective are hard.

There are things going on in my life right now where perspective is a big thing. Primarialy that the main issue that separates us right now is perspective.

One of these happened at word today. There was a problem that was written up that was caused by my own negligence in not fully following my own procedures. If everything was done correctly, there would be no problem. Someone else couldn’t understand that and that things were done correctly. It felt like some weird variant on ‘Who’s on First’.

‘I can’t reproduce the problem.’
‘Then it works.’
‘But I can’t reproduce the problem.’
‘Then it’s fixed.’
‘But I can’t reproduce the problem.’

The other stuff…it’s not something that I feel comfortable talking about. By the same token, I need some indications that a good process is going on there before I can go farther. If that made any sense.

Food for Thought

‘A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol. ‘

-Deitrich Bonhoeffer

Adama And Cylons

This past weekend I rewatched the Battlestar miniseries. It’s still amazing. While I still love the show, it just doesn’t feel the same as the miniseries.

But on to an observation. It seems to me that it took the old man about ten seconds to suspect that Leoben was a Cylon. I find this interesting because if we are to listen to some of the background materials for the Caprica series that is probably never going to happen, it sounds like the Adamas were involved in the backstory of the Cylons.

I wonder if Adama knew that Cylons looked human. I wonder if he knew that Tigh is a Cylon; I wonder if he knows more about the Cylon war than he lets on (and that’s why he hates those Cylons). If we interpret things that way, it just brings up a lot of questions.

Actions Speak

I was reading through Newsweek this week, and came across this interview with Anne Hathaway. I find it very intersting that she said that she didn’t want to criticize the Catholic church in any official way, because of the good things they do.

Unwilling to publicly criticize an institution…I need to pause for a moment, this is pretty rare in our current climate. But I think what she says is a good benchmark. We are so quick to demonize, to polarize. We are so assured of our own righteousness that hearing anything against what we believe is heresy.

The next thing you know, we’ll be hearing that Jerry Fallwell and Larry Flynt were friends. Oh, wait a minute, it turns out they were.

When we get to know each other as people, to see the things that they’ve done other than the ones that just piss us off, we can see a lot of different things.

Imagine if people cared about what the Catholic Church (or any other church) did, rather than the social postions they take. It may not be enough for everyone.

But I suspect it would be enough for many.

Waiting Strength

One of the worship songs performed on Sunday included the line ‘Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord’. From that and the rest of the song, I realized this comes directly from Scripture, but this idea is kind of foreign to me. I almost never get strength from waiting; it usually whittles my strength away.

When I thought about it, the waiting that is stated is waiting on the Lord. Waiting on El Shaddai (The God who is Enough), Jehovah Jireh (The Lord will provide), and any other of the names that are appropriate in this situation. The waiting is not supposed to be some kind of nervous freaking out about what will happen next but recognizing that when the story ends, it will be cool.

I think I feel myself getting stronger.

Yearning

Sometimes I think the book Yearning might be ahead of its time. It was published in 1992, but it asks and tried to deal with (but I don’t think answer) questions that are eternal and even in some cases I think things that the Emerging Movement is trying to say.

The most powerful quote from this book that I can think of is ‘God’s healing has more to do with learning to worship than it does with getting life fixed’ (p. 18). That idea scares me and invigorates me.

It scares me because I may never ‘get it all together’. There is a part of me that wants to be fixed, to be whole. I suspect everyone can resonate with this.

It invigorates me because nothing depends on my getting it all together, it’s just about learning to worship. The point is to hope, to trust, to keep going forward. God wants us to love Him and for that to transform us rather than than to get it right without love.

I may be spiritually limping around some days, but God is there. And He is enough.