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You, Your Self, Your Soul, Is a Story
Sacramento Claw
Sacramento solid waste is using their claw to pick up leaves. While I’m waiting for the operator to finish emptying it into the garbage truck another car swoops around me and runs through. I’m upset. I feel like some part of me has been violated.
Why do I feel this way?
This person’s actions has made me late. I was waiting anyway. I didn’t even see the driver of the other vehicle. Neither my car nor my reputation were hurt in any way. Was it worse because my children were present?
I caught the other driver at the next stop sign. It is an awkward intersection and I immediately saw the opportunity to swing over to the left of the other vehicle and cut off their intended left hand turn. I would even the score.
Another part of me quickly reasoned that doing so might cause an accident. It is a tricky intersection and I’ve almost had accidents there before. The other driver might not see me come up on their left. They might hit me. I swallow and take my place behind the minivan that has offended me.
Is this Normal?
What is going on inside of me? What “me” has felt violated? Why are these feelings and thoughts rapidly shooting through my consciousness and why are there seemingly different selves debating the merits of one action over and against others? How many “me”s are there?
A fearful part of me worries, “perhaps I’m not mentally healthy? Is this multiple personalities? Is this how schizophrenics hear other voices in their head?”
Another part of me dismisses the thought. I’m healthy, sane, “normal”. Certainly my experience must be common. This must be how we all are. I hope! I know enough people well enough to know that something like this happens to most of us much of the time.
Borders of the Self Continue reading
I’m struck by how deeply we trust condemnation as the most effective means for seeking and motivating change. The desire for justice, honesty, transparency and good government are right. Yet when those are threatened we resort to rejection and condemnation because we want no mistaking that what is happening is wrong. We use condemnation, ridicule and harsh judgment as the means to insulate us from what is wrong and produce change in whoever is causing the problem, getting people to shape up through condemnation (really, now, has anyone been condemned into a better way of living?).
Posted in Daily Links and Notes
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Christianity, evolution, and Bambi Theology
What does the vast amount of animal suffering and death say about a God who uses evolution to create.
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To Be Able To Make Us Able To Receive Absolutely Everything
Addiction to Circumstance
We are, by nature, addicted to circumstance.
As infants we cried when we were hungry, cold or wet and hoped someone would heed our plea. As we grew, this pattern scaled up, grew more complex, deepened.
When we meet someone we ask “how are you” and if we get past “fine” we usually hear a measure of good tidings or complaint.
According to Thomas Jefferson we are endowed by our creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (edited from John Locke who said property). When our circumstances deliver pain we flee them, when happiness is seen on the horizon we pursue it. We are happiness junkies and circumstance is our dealer.
Expectations
The tenets of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) are simple and common:
1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die. (– Kindle location 267-276).
There is a reason many people who read the Bible are disturbed by what they find. This Yhwh who brought Israel out of Egypt simply can’t be the god of MTD. We like that he freed the children of Israel from slavery. The god of MTD wants us to be happy and slavery certainly sounds like a downer, but why lead them out into the desert? Why does he keep bringing them to places where there aren’t adequate provisions or even nice digs? If he wanted to play favorites and he was willing to move a few “bad people” in the process surely taking them up the Mediterranean coast to the milk and honey land would be the preferred route.
The Happiness Paradox Continue reading
Listen First: Chimes (Student Newspaper) Feature on Stories of LGBT Students at Calvin
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NY Times Obit for Eugene Callender
NYT One of the first Black pastors in the CRCNA.
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Addressing our Angst
I wrote a piece on the CRC Network on the CRC and Angst. It came out of a far longer discussion on CRC-Voices. We get ourselves into a tizzy or we fall into despair. I wrote this to afford a bit of perspective.
Are things worse today than they’ve been in the past? I don’t know.
The CRC has always had problems. Read old Acts of Synod. Read old Banners. We usually swap some problems for others.
If we look at what is ailing us through the lens of viability of local churches we feel the stress.
Yes, the CRC in terms of its history at this level is in more distress. Why?
It is likely the CRC is doing better in what we call “evangelism” as we’ve ever done. We take in more people who were not raised CRC than ever before. We are more ethnically diverse than ever before. We are more successful planting new churches than ever before. I think these are indisputable. Do we do any of these things well enough to address hemorrhage left right and center? No.
Why not? The work done in evangelism and church planting isn’t really connected with the reason for the losses. If you look at churches in the denom you’ll see that some conservative churches with KWOO (Keep women out of office) are growing nicely. Some churches that have WICO (Women in church office) grow nicely too. Some that are very conservative, preach sin, hell and substitutionary atonement are making disciples. Some churches that are doing nice seeker things that give people a lift and make them feel good about themselves are growing nicely too. Churches of all of those categories are declining too. Add your issues: third wave, gay or anti-gay, etc. None of these issues are accounting for what is eating at the denomination.
While the URC split (or PRC) split subtract from Synod and ministry shares, I don’t think of them as exiting “the system” really that much. They gain new enthusiasm for a generation but that diminishes.
Why then is the CRC in trouble? A better question is why are many CRCs in trouble? Continue reading
Posted in CRC, Institutional Church
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Should The (small d) denomination Be Anxious?
Answering a comment on The Network
I’ve got enough contact with “the current leadership” (or a piece of it anyway) to know that there is plenty of angst about. The listening tour going on is of course part of that.
I find it vital in this conversation to differentiate between the Denomination (community of congregations) and the denomination (institution housed at 1700 28th St.) The Denomination is more important, of greater concern, and at the same time more durable than the denomination.
As I said in my blog piece we are in a long term cultural transition that deeply impacts the church because it deeply impacts how the church, the gospel and the Bible are understood. There are million blog posts and thousands of books written about it. We are not lacking “answers”, we are awash in them. Some are of course better than others, we just don’t know which ones. Historians will argue about it hundreds of years from now.
This is not the first time the church has faced this, in fact it faces it every time it goes into a new place, or the culture around its places changes. The Bible is a record of many such changes and how they were navigated.
We know from many such changes that there will be loss. We will lose a lot and it will hurt.
As Americans our minds turn to “what should we do?” Continue reading →