"The Devil Votes Christian Values"

There's a provocative sermon title for you! A sermon by a Southern Baptist to boot. Read about it, and find a link to it, here.

On Consumption...

There is an intriguing video making its rounds in schools and other places. It is worth a watch. Pro-business political conservatives will quickly denounce it (government appears in it as a toady to corporations, who appear as greedy fat cats), but it has a point if you can see through the sterotypes (for my part, I am not convinced that all government officials are toadies, nor that all corporations are greedy, irresponsible fat-cats--though in both cases, some surely are). Particularly the section on "Consumption" rings true as I observe people; and surely as followers of Jesus Christ we dare not define ourselves as consumers, but as stewards of God's good gifts. So take a look. Let me know what you think.

Got Joy?

Started another book this week. Mike Mason went on a 90-day experiment with joy--an attempt to feel joy for 90 days. This book is a collection of 90 2-page scriptural reflections on joy. So far I've read only a few, but am intrigued.
Actually, a pastor friend of mine who describes himself as a "brooding Russian novelist" (think Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky) recommended it. I confess to a startling lack of joy in my life for some time, and am eager to pursue it. I'll keep you posted.

Hymn for meditation

Here is a verse from an old hymn. Meditate on it when you feel overwhelmed by failure or criticism:

What though th' accuser roar
Of ills that I have done!
I know them well, and thousands more:
Jehovah findeth none.

Praise God that in Christ Psalm 103:11-12 are fulfilled:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth
so great is his steadfast love to those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgression from us.

Found in a Strange Place

Sometimes books and articles that critique faith in science, rationalism, etc. appear in unusual places. Here is a book review from Stanley Fish, on a book that debunks the present-day aggressive atheism of Hitchens and Dawkins. If you are even somehat following our cultural moment on this one, it is well worth reading--and you may be a little surpised. (Even Stanley Fish--who is not, to my knowledge, anywhere close to being a Christian--regards Hitchens and Dawkins as "school-yard atheists.")

A reflection on Christ (from Valley of Vision):

Herein is wonder of wonders;
he came below to raise me above,
was born like me that I might become like him.
Herein is love;
when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace,
to raise me to himself.
Herein is power;
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
he united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreated and the created.
Herein is wisdom;
when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
and no intellect to devise recovery,
he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
a man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me.

Missionary Challenges

This is from a recent newsletter from the Tricaricos, missionaries in Uganda:
"Many of you already heard about the fire in Kopetatum.... It spread quickly and completely destroyed two mantayas (fenced clusters of residential huts)....
"The disaster has presented many opportunities for us and significant challenges to us. We love our neighbors. We want to show our love, but the best ways to do so are not always clear to us. Our suffering neighbors have asked us for money and food. They know we have the resources to make things much different for them in a very short period of time. But would that be the best way to love a people enslaved by the sins of idleness, drunkenness, and deceit? I must admit that Matthew 5:42 is a hard saying for me. Does Jesus mean that on every occasion, we disciples must :give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you?" I do not think he does. Surely, in some capacity, he does want us to say "yes" to those who ask. In the case of our mission here, we often deny requests that come. Or, to put it differently, we try to reshape the requests so that some long-term good might come from short-term relief.
"Some years ago our mission helped the people of Kopetatum start a stone-selling business. Many of the residents have spent time hammering and pounding the rocks in their village and forming mounds of them to display for sale. In fact, we have been pleased to buy their stones for our own construction needs. So,. we told our friends that we want to store up some rocks for future projects, and would like to buy from them right away. This, we thought, would provide a genuine flow of cash that could be used for food and materials for rebuilding.
"The response from most of the people was outrage. Our buying things that require them to work is not assistance, you see. They only acknowledge material gifts as bona fide expressions of love, and told us as much. Dave and I met with some of the men to talk about our plan, but we were not heard. they were not interested. We repeated our offer, even though there did not seem to be any takers. This has been hard. We pity our friends so much. They need Christ. they need to see themselves as divine image-bearers who are able, with the strength that God provides. to solve their problems in ways other than by begging for money. Do pray that they would see these things. Holy Spirit come!
"I am happy to report that a man came to us the next day, having worked hard cracking stones. His name is Loduk Albino, a member of the church, and crippled. He can't use his legs, but his arms are strong. In one day, he had pummeled and piled enough stones to bring in money to feed his family for more than a week. We bought them. On another day, some women arrived, proudly announcing their stones were ready. We are buying theirs too. We are prepared to buy from any who come, all the while offering them freely what cannot be bought--the gospel of our lord and peace with God through his blood (Isaiah 55:1-2)."

Virtual Friendship?

Can't resist posting this from Carl Trueman. Witty and pointed about the use of cyberspace:

Well, the virtual world is new but it is here to stay; and it will no doubt continue to shape human behavior and self-understanding. We cannot ignore it but neither should we simply allow it to dictate to us who we are and how we think. Thus, we must teach people by precept and example that real life is lived primarily in real time in real places by real bodies. Pale and pimply bloggers who spend most of their spare time onanistically opining about themselves and their issues and in befriending pals made up of pixels are not living life to the full; nor are those whose lives revolve around videogames; rather they are human amoebas, subsisting in a bizarre non-world which involves no risk to themselves, no giving of themselves to others, no true vulnerability, no commitment, no self-sacrifice, no real meaning or value. To borrow a phrase from Thoreau, the tragedy of such is that, when they come to die, they may well discover that they have never actually lived.For myself, I rejoice that I grew up before the web and the videogame supplanted the real world of real friendships, real discussions, real lives. I did not spend my youth growing obese and developing Vitamin D deficiency in front of an illuminated screen, living my life through the medium of pixels. However she does it, the church should show this generation of text and web addicts where real friendship and community lie, not with some bunch of self-created avatars on Facebook but with the person next to them in the pew on Sunday, with the person next door, with the person they can see, hear, touch and, of course, to whom they can talk, and who is created not in webworld but by the mighty Creator. And never, ever allow your church to go virtual so that people think that logging on to a service or downloading a sermon is really being part of the body of Christ. Of course, I write, as I indicated last month, as a self-proclaimed miserable middle-aged git. My instinct, therefore, is that things like Facebook, along with low-rider jeans, dances that involve the `splits,’ and sentences such as `It was like you know like totally awesome and stuff,’ are probably best left to the under-25s. Use these web doohickeys if you must; just don’t mistake them for real life, or the relationships that only exist there for real friendships.