Patheos response by Bruce Epperly
Huffpo Response by Dianne Butler Bass
Jonathan Fitzgerald’s Response
John Suk: “Anything Goes but Nobody Shows”
William Briggs has some interesting graphs created by the data on church attenders, number of churches, number of ministers.
A voice inside the Episcopal Church which once again demonstrates that it doesn’t take a big name to be a terrific and insightful writer. This is a passionate statement of faith. Continue reading
James KA Smith compare and interview with Tony Kushner with Augustine’s confession.
That’s exactly what terrifies Augustine about the stage in Book III of the Confessions: the actor so regularly divests the self of a center and identify–so regularly fragments and dissipates the self (the chief effect of sin, for Augustine)–that Augustine worries there’s no return. This is the great danger for actors. And Kushner recognizes the danger. He’s not willing to go there himself, but also thinks that actors are those brave souls who have the courage to risk themselves in this way.
I guess poor treatment towards women isn’t just for theists anymore. 🙂 Link
I never noticed until today that the 10 Commandments seem to be organized in descending order of penalty. The numbering is different in different traditions but between the first through “adultery” the penalty is death. Then we have stealing, the penalty in the Mosaic law there is usually restitution plus possible punitive damages. In the “bear false witness” commandment the penalty is determined by what you accused someone else of so that one too is variable. There also seems to be no penalty for coveting.
Handy list from Judaism 101 of the 613 specific commandments you can find in the Mosaic Law.
Within a few minutes of each other I read how confidence in organized religion is down in America and I read a lovely piece on CRC Voices about the interaction between a local pastor and a girl coming in needing to do community service hours. Both remind me of a familiar truth, how the church has often failed, and how despite it’s failure what Jesus started has changed the world and even our expectations.
“Jesus didn’t come to start an organization.”
Folks think they can read Jesus’ mind based on the gospels and many have deduced that the church is some weird accident. I don’t know. Whatever you might think Jesus was thinking (Matthew 18 amongst other passages seem pretty clear) those who followed him DID start the church, and it was unique.
Prior to Jesus what would you get if you went to a city in the Roman Empire at a temple? A show? A meaty meal? Laid? All of course if you had the money to pay. Some pagan temples were kind of like Las Vegas. That didn’t happen with the church.
When Not Even Your Family Will Take You In
I never know what I’ll find at the door or when I answer the phone at my little church. Sometimes it’s a drunk bipolar and his son who wish to play the instruments in the sanctuary. Sometimes it’s someone needing bus money. Sometimes food. Sometimes prayer. Sometimes they’re just angry. Sometime a job. Sometimes I can help. Sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I won’t. In any case their knock or their call says something about the church. The church is often a place you can go when not even your family will open the door or pick up the phone. The church is the last refuge for the refuse of the earth. I know no other place like it.
“All time” is of course relative to Gallup polling, but the trend is clear.
Paul in the book of Acts through chapter 17 reminds me of Ironman. Paul was the Tony Stark of the Pharisees and in his conversion he becomes a missionary Ironman. He goes into city after city in the Eastern Roman Empire starting churches, raising up leaders, making converts, showing people how the Old Testament spoke of Jesus.
At the same time Paul has been suffering greatly in his missionary journeys. His life is regularly threatened, he is beaten, charged with crimes, imprisoned, and kicked out of town multiple times. As we saw in Philippi Paul, like his master Jesus, joyfully bears his cross, it yields good fruit and Paul is vindicated. Paul had to flee Thessalonica and Berea to Athens and then he gets hauled before the Areopagus. Now he moves on to Corinth and seems seriously depleted.
Paul notes in his letter to the Corinthians his state when he came to them.
1 Corinthians 2:1–3 (NRSV)
1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
After being in other places days or weeks, Paul would stay a year and a half in Corinth.
Nice piece from Sojourners that gives some demographic concrete examples of where the line between the classes breaks down in American and what it means for government spending.
Further Comments on the Ten Commandment Order of Penalty
Fun and helpful comments from David Snapper on CRC Voices.
I started this because I’m doing the HC and was up to the seventh commandment. I remembered Neal Plantinga’s admonition “when you talk about the seventh commandment don’t forget to talk about adultery (by jumping right to lust). Then I noticed what felt like the flow of the commandments. I didn’t notice the inclusio of the land or the chiastic structure Snap highlighted. Very cool.
I also had the circumcision debate rolling around in my head http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/10/an-age-of-consent-for-circumcision. Secularism elevates the second table of the law and demotes the first. The Hebrew worldview had God large, and us small.
Many of us are culturally religious enough to understand God being first, the HC hammers that pretty clearly. What is interesting in the order is the priority given to honoring parents (the HC broadens that to all authority) Honoring parents is ahead of murder, and as Snap noted is tied to the land, just like the first commandment (if you embrace that numbering system, remember the numbering system isn’t native to the text and is quite variable over the ages). That’s a pretty strong cultural signal and one in contrast to our own.
Also it’s interesting to note that in Matthew 5 what Jesus does is basically merge coveting with the adultery commandment. Most English translations use the word “lust” which is OK, but the LXX reader will note epithymeo comes right from the 10th commandment. That interest is of course part of the larger argument Jesus is working in the Sermon on the Mount about self-righteousness. Note how Jesus also elevates talk and thought crimes (9 and 10) in the service of the Sermon on the Mount.
It also makes me ponder how we should evaluate sexual sin and property crimes with respect to crimes of allegiance and respect.