Some cool stuff in this article too, and well-balanced, keeping with the theme of this blog.

I was reading an article on The Ooze and then filtered through some of the comments to this article. I like this one in response to the author's comments on the hanging of Saddam:

the Bible are complicated by unbelief then thrown out as "out dated" or "God didn't really say that" (sounds like the original lie in the garden doesn't it?). Read through Romans... the whole thing. Get out your Greek helper books. See where the Bible stands on this issue. Some practical examples of "what would Jesus do". He did die on the cross. Unfairly, unjustly. Without the death penalty being in place at that time.. we'd still all be dead in our sin. There was also a thief on another cross... Christ forgave him... but still allowed him to die there. why? Why would God , that is going to have the final and fair judgement, not allow for some amount of world government power to keep the peace? Some things are not pleasant but are nessasary.. we live in a sinful world. That will not change until Jesus returns and judges the world. ( I know alot on this site don't believe that... but it doesn't change the truth of the matter). No true Christian should rejoice in the death of someone else...especially if they are unsaved. But do we not rejoice in justice? There is such a thing as justice.. and right and wrong.. even today. If anyone here claims to be a Christian... well the Bible is the bottom line for you.. so go it and know it. Read it all not just portions. Reading only portions is how we end up with denominations.. mega churches .. and the emerging church is no different. We all err when we depart from God's Word. Even if you don't believe that.

A few cool quotes/thoughts from Theroux's book:

Theroux describes an experience in the desert region of Sudan north of Khartoum where he comes upon a group of men sitting at a well waiting for the water to be pulled up by a donkey tied to a rope. After they made their dislike for both Bush and Clinton known, they said to Theroux, "Tell Bush we want a pump!" Theroux's written response is perfect: "No, I don't think so: a pump would need gasoline, spare parts, regular maintenance. Ultimately, the contraption would fail them. They were better off hauling water the ancient way, with donkey's, goatskin pails, and goatsin water containers that when filled looked like little fat goat corpses." This response is appropriate as too often the Western aid that is given does little good. We too often try to bring the people up to our standards rather than just providing the necessities for survival that the people can use to better their lives. This is where I like what Sachs wrote in "End of Poverty," where he said that our job (I don't like this term "job" as it could be inferred that this is our mandate, which is not at all true) in the West is not to make them rich, but rather simply to help them rise to the first rung of the economic ladder, where 99% of their time and resources will not be dedicated solely to survival, and then they will be able to continue upward from there. I like that.

Upon arrival in Khartoum Theroux describes the men he sees at his hotel, all international aid workers. He writes, "They were all aid experts, and they ranged from selfless idealists to the laziest boondogglers cashing in on a crisis. In an earlier time they would have been businessmen or soldiers or visiting politicians or academics. But this was the era of charity in Africa, where the business of philanthopy was paramount, studies as closed as the coffee harvest or a hydroelectric project. Now a complex infrastructure was devoted to what had become ineradicable miseries: famine, displacement, poverty, illiteracy, AIDS, the ravages of war. Name and African problem and an agency or a charity existed to deal with it. But that did not mean a solution was produced. Charities and aid programs seemed to turn African problems into permanent conditions that were bigger and messier."

Finally, he chimes in on the topic of tipping, I share his disdain: "Tipping confounds me because it is not a reward but a travel tax, one of many, one of the more insulting. No one is spared. It does not matter that you are paying thousands to stay in the presidential suite in the best hotel: the uniformed man seeing you to the elevator, inquiring about your trip, giving you the weather report, and carrying your bags to the suite expects money for this unasked-for attention...It is bad enough th at people expect something extra for just doing their jobs; it is a more dismal thought that every smile has a price."

For some reason I was just convicted that I am quick to bash the beliefs of others but have not yet posted what I believe. I don't know why, but I'll give it a shot:

- I believe in One God, which exists in Three Persons
- I believe that God is good, and when created, the earth was good
- I believe that at the Fall of Man, when sin broke the perfect God-Man relationship, that a curse was put upon both Man and the earth, resulting in the calamity we presently experience in both
- I believe that the only way back to relationship with God is through faith in Jesus Christ
- I believe that the troubles of the world will continue to grow worse, resulting in Jesus Himself one day returning to take home His people
- I believe that the ministry of the Church is God-ordained but in no way what we view today in the Western world
- I believe God loves all people
- I believe that sanctification is a process, one that takes a lifetime, and is not meant to be a "if you don't shape up and act like us pretty soon we are going to begin questioning your salvation" type of process
- I believe that the only way to transformation is through the ministering of the Holy Spirit
- I believe too often we've reduced God to a formula, taking out the mystery and miracle and awe and power that He possesses
- I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God and is meant and "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."

I believe a lot more, but this summarizes it for now.

Cool post on the Freakanomics Blog today.

I think I'm going to like this book, a few excerpts from the first chapter:

All news out of Africa is bad. It made me want to go there...

I was mistaken in so much - delayed, shot at, howled at, and robbed. No massacres or earthquakes, but terrific heat and the roads were terrible, the trains were derelict, forget the telephones. Exasperated white farmers said, "It all went t---up!"
Africa is materially more decrepit than it was when I first knew it-hungrier, poorer, less educated, more pessimistic, more corrupt, and you can't ever tell the politicians from the witch doctors. Africans, less esteemed than ever, seemed to be the most lied-to people on earth - manipulated by their governments, burned by foreign experts, befooled by charities, and cheated at every turn. To be an African was to be a thief, but evaneglists stole people's innocence, and self-serving aid agencies gave them false hope, which seemed worse. In reply, Africans dragged their feet or tried to emigrate, they begged, they pleaded, they demanded money and gifts with a rude, weird sense of entitlement...

A morbid aspect of my departure for Africa was that people began offering condolences. Say you're leaving for a dangerous place. Your friends call sympathetically, as though you've caught a serious illness that might prove fatal. Yet I also found these messages unexpectedly stimulating, a heartening preview of what my own demise would be like. Lots of tears! Lots of mourners! But also, undoubtedly, many people boasting solemnly, "I told him not to do it. I was one of the last people to talk to him."
-Taken from Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari"

Too true, too true!

Yesterday am email came through from christianworldviewnetwork.com entitled "My Journey Into and Out of the Emerging Church." I felt it well written and would encourage you to check out the link if you have time.

One thing in particular caught my eye, however, as I have just been granted permission to write a statement of faith for my church. As most of you know, my church would be considered "emerging" by most, which I am all right with, though I disagree with much of what the leaders of the emerging network stand for. Thus, the author takes aim at a few of the general beliefs of the emerging church:

- A highly ambiguous handling of truth.
- A desire to be so inclusive and tolerant that there is virtually no sense of biblical discernment in terms of recognizing and labeling false beliefs, practices, or lifestyles.
- A quasi-universalistic view of salvation.
- A lack of a proper appreciation for biblical authority over and against personal experience or revelation.
- Openness to pagan religious practices like Hindu Yoga and incorporating them into the Christian life and Christian worship.
- Openly questioning the relevance of key historical biblical doctrines such as the Trinity.
- An uncritically open embrace of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
- An unbridled cynicism towards conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism.
- A reading of scripture that is heavily prejudiced towards a social gospel understanding.
- Little or no talk of evangelism or saving lost souls.
- A salvation by osmosis mentality, where if you hangout with us long enough you’re in.

Unfortunately, all too much of this is true, and this is the very reason I am drafting the statement of faith, which will consist of the nonessentials to our faith (and I plan to provide you the link once it is done). However, let me add a few additional thoughts:

1) It is my belief that many of the beliefs mentioned above (especially experience over Biblical authority and openness to Catholic and Orthodox traditions) are not all that uncommon in a majority of modern churches, even those where "the Gospel is preached and the Word is taught." The difference as I see it though is that in those churches these beliefs are not accepted, so they are driven inward. However, the problem with the emerging network is that these ideas are not only accepted but driven by the leaders.

2) Churches need to reclaim the Good News of the Gospel. The Good News, as I interpret from Jesus, is that man is a fallen, sinful creature, yet through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Him we have the opportunity to enter into His Kingdom. And Christ was very pointed in his messages on being in or out of His Kingdom. One of the main themes I find in my study of Matthew is that with Jesus preaching the Kingdom of God, he was also saying that the eschatological reign of God in near, or at hand, so repent and enter in because the time is short. Those who don't will be thrown into the eternal fire. It seems pretty clear, yet the author's statements above regarding the inclusive and tolerant talk coupled with the absense of the talk of lost souls is rampant in many churches, including my own. A good friend of mine led a small group discussion the other night and halfway through figured out two things: first, one of the participants wasn't a believer, which was all right, but that his beliefs were being held as valid to the other group members and he was bringing them down to his level; second, one could not refer to this gentleman as a non-believer because of the tone that term brough with it. He was apalled, and I know because I took the brunt of his vent the next day (though I did enjoy seeing him passionate on this topic).

I've said this before and I'll say it again, I love the questions that the emerging church is asking and I love how they accept people as they are. The modern institutional church has done a terrible job of reaching out to and accepting the very people Jesus hung with, and though they preach a salvation by grace alone, if you don't shape up and get your life in order and do it on their terms, if you don't come to their place all cleaned up you better watch out! However, for the most part they have been very sound with their biblical teaching, preaching of the Gospel, and so forth. So, though I am not usually a utopic, I do feel that these two extremes can be brought together under one roof and exist in the same church community. We'll see, I don't know how it will go here, I'll know a lot more in the next six to eight weeks. Pray for me.

I've also been reading Philip Gourevitch's "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with all our families" this past week. What a story! Gourevitch travelled to Rwanda after the genocide and spent just under three years researching the causes and outcomes of the genocide. I won't bore you with all of the details, as there are countless, but I want to point out a few things that were particularly intriguing:

First, it seems to be widely thought that this was an age old battle, that of the Hutus and Tutusi's. It seems nothing could be further from the truth. They lived together in harmony for centuries in Rwanda and in neighboring countries. The difference between the two and the cause of the genocide is strictly man-made.

Second, I was struck at the part the clergy took in the killings. Not only did they seem to set up the Tutsi's but also took part themselves. The title of the book comes from a letter written from Tutsi's seeking shelter in a church to a member of the clergy who they hoped would save them. He didn't. It seemed common that clergy and government officials would offer the Tutsi's refuge in their churches and government buildings only days later to lead the Hutus to these very places where they would be exterminated.

Third, the way in which the killings took place added to the evil. This wasn't a "lets round up a thousand Jews and gas them," or people being gunned down from afar, most of the killings took place with a machete. Gourevitch cited a Rwandan who said it generally took four whacks from a machete to chop the leg of a cow, how many to sever the head of a person? It was said if you had the money you could buy your death with a bullet, but otherwise bullets were too expensive to be used on Tutsi's. Gourevitch also notes that as the killings went on throughout the day, the killers would tire at night, slash the achilles heels of the victims, eat, sleep, and drink throughout the night and then return to make the outcome final in the morning. This added another level to the monstrosity that was the Hutu power.

Finally, while we all know that the International community sat and watched while the genocide took place, but Gourevitch also aptly points out how they also took the side of the Hutus once the RFP (Tutsi liberation force) took control of the country and the Hutus fled to Zaire. Camps were set up, medical and food rations were delivered, Huts power was allowed to remain strong due to the protection of the UN and France in particular. It's still a zoo in that area today, though many (possibly all) of the camps have been shut down. The UN and France also seemed to require that the new government, which strove to rid the country of their ethnic barriers and differences, admit this as a war between two frations rather than one side seeking to eliminate the other. It seemed that though the Tutsis fought in self-defense, they were as much to blame as the Hutus. The Tutsis were forced to negotiate with the Hutus once things calmed down, though they asked "for what" and "with whom" and were never given answers, only that they must negotiate.

I could go on and on, as I skim my notes there is so much to write. If this interests you I highly recommend the book, it opened my eyes even more to Rwandan genocide in particular and the problems of the international community.

I began this post on Monday and am publishing it on Saturday, thus the date is wrong on the top.

What a week from hell! I had a lot to say, no time to say it. I'm going to try to catch up tonight while I root for the Eagles!

It's kind of ironic that seconds after my post on Monday evening regarding minimum wage I received the following excerpt from Sojourners:

Dear Jason,

"... my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain...” --Isaiah 65:22-23

The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on Wednesday, January 10, on a bill to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 over two years. This bill is consistent with our Covenant for a New America and its focus on making work "work" for individuals and families. A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.

It went on to urge us to call so and so and say this and that, it's fine, it's what I expect from this organization, and I have no problem with their right to email me and ask for my support, even though I abhor the mixing of politics and religion in such a way that Sojourners exhibits.

However, what caught me right away was their use of the Isaiah Scripture to promote their agenda. Do they think we are that stupid? Are there that many out there that have absolutely no biblical concern for proper exegesis and interpretation that they think they can just throw out any Scripture and draw people in? It makes me sick, I knew right away without even looking that this text had nothing to do with the topic, but to be sure I double-checked and sure enough, it is clearly an eschatological Scripture in a section entitled "New Heaven and New Earth." One day, this will come true, until then, unfortunately, we do have to toil and labor, in vain, we don't always reap what we sow in the physical sense. It's part of the curse. I just get enraged that our church culture has become so dumbed down that we will accept anything that tickles our ears without being a solid Berean and searching Scriptures to see if what we are hearing is true.

This is why I have little confidence in the new Democratic House Majority. The WSJ opined last Thursday an editorial titled "The 100 Hours Rush" detailing the Democrats rush to get certain legislation passed before they got bogged down in committee hearings and such. A few interesting points:

First, they want to increase minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 in the next two years. Great, you say, but the WSJ notes, "No serious economist disputes that a higher wage floor will reduce employment. The debate it only over how many people will lose jobs." So if I am a clerk at the local grocer, making $6 an hour, married with a husband who makes a decent wage, kids are in school, working maybe twenty hours a week to get out of the house, maybe save up for a vacation or pay off some other bills, etc. Sure, I would like to make that extra $1.25 an hour, but chances are instead that I will be relieved as my employer will no longer be able to afford me. Or maybe I don't lose my job, but in order to keep me they have to raise prices so I end up losing the money anyhow. I wish everyone could make what the left considers a "living wage" (I've heard $14/hour as rough estimates) but unfortunately it's just not realistic.

Second, on price control of prescription drugs, I have little sympathy in this area with Lisa being a pharmacist and having inside info on how much it costs to develop and get these drugs approved. Let the market determine the costs of drugs! Instead, the WSJ reports that "Democrats want to allow the government to deal directly with drug companies. They argue that this would lead to lower prices for medicines, but the more likely outcome is fewer drug choices and drug controls."

Finally, ethics reform was the buzzword in the last election, so now it seems they want to control the lobbyists instead of the Members of Congress. They write, "Putting restrictions on the right of citizens to peition government is a strange way of handling ethically challenged politicians. If a Member can be bought with a free lunch or skybox ticket from a lobbyist, he shouldn't be in Congree anyway. " AMEN!

Well, it's that time of the year and I can feel the seasonal depression hitting hard. Lisa could tell when I hit the tanning bed the other day that the time was here. It seems every year after the 1st of January it hits me hard (for two reasons I think, first watching the Jan. 1 Bowl Games in warm weather makes me realize that there are actually areas this time of the year that are not 20 degrees and second, watching the early season PGA tourney's in the island paradis that is Hawaii. Why do those people get to live in such comfort while I am chilled to the bone 24/7?). I find I am not content with anything, just dreaming about being somewhere else doing something else, but with my family at least (Lisa likes to hear that, rather than me adding on the end "with someone else"). I just want to get away! Yet I plod through, realizing that there are issues no matter where you live and what you do. I look for mini-vacations that come cheap, hoping to steal a few days on the beach. But mostly I just sit back and dream about another time and another place where maybe just once I can go through a winter without snow and cold and ice. Maybe I'm dreaming, maybe it will happen someday.

Finished "Why Men Hate Going to Church" last night. Solid book, I agree with the premise, my fear is just that we'll go too far in the other direction and have to put up with men peacocking all the time in these men's groups. I had to deal with that a little at my old church, listening to men brag about their promotions and such, I'm just not into that, but I may be in the minority.

I'll just share two quotes from the chapter entitled "Check Your Manhood at the Door":

Before he became president of the US, Teddy Roosevelt was a Sunday school teacher. One day a boy showed up for class with a black eye. He admitted he'd been fighting, on the Sabbath no less. Another boy was pinching his sister, so he tok a swing at the scoundrel. The future president told the boy he was proud of him and gave him a dollar. When word of this got 'round the church, Roosevelt was let go.

My friend Randy took the youth group downtown to minister to street people, but got in trouble for giving a ride to a man who had been drinking. Several mothers were incensed. "You're supposed to keep our children safe!" one mother said. "Why can't you just meet at the church and teach the Bible?"

Another story told of a men's group that was going paintballing one Saturday morning, but due to feminine pressure that the activity was too war-like and agressive, the pastor asked the men to stay at church and study 1 Tim instead. They did, few showed up.

Of course, there is balance in all of this. One connection I had to the quotes above was a discussion with a fellow teacher, an older man, who attends a large congregation in my area. This year for their harvest party they had some sort of outreach at the church that somehow attracted a small group of gothic teenagers. Some of the mothers were enraged, and packed their kids up in the minivan and headed for the comforts of their suburban home. John, on the other hand, a man who in his prime was a bodybuilder and still works out six days a week, said he felt that these were the people Jesus would have attracted to one of his parties, so he was all right with it. I'll bet you next year, though, that there won't be such a party where outsiders like this are not welcome, it just isn't safe!