Tomorrow I run Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon for the second time. I am a little more anxious/nervous than last time, probably because last time I had no idea of the destruction that awaited me. Perhaps a little recap would help:
May 2009: I ran the marathon at 235 lbs., on two hours of sleep, with a cold, and a day after helping a friend move into a second-story apartment. This added up to both legs cramping at mile 15 and me ending up walking half of the rest of the race. I finished, but not well: 47 minutes later than my goal, exhausted and in pain.
May 1, 2011: I will run the marathon at 204 lbs., on more than two hours of sleep (I'm hoping for at least 6), no cold (but a little sinus congestion), and not helping anyone move. I'm watered up, carbed up, and trying to remain calm.
I feel a connection to this race, and I'm leaning into my training and familiarity to take me through to the end better than last time. I'm wearing the shoelaces from the shoes in which I ran last time, and I'm also wearing the same two shirts I wore for my first (and still fastest) half marathon. As an additional reminder, I'm wearing a pace chart on my left wrist, underneath which is my mile times from 2009, so I'll know if I'm doing better mile by mile.
For me, this is a huge challenge, and I feel like I'm going into a title fight or something. I'm ready. Let's do this.
01 March 2011
Rob Bell, Emotion-Driven Theology, and Why It's Nothing New
If you're a Rob Bell fan (and frankly, what Christian aged 18-35 isn't?), then you are familiar with his Nooma videos and possibly some of his many can't-make-a-normal-looking-book books. You know that in the videos he teaches something using stories, walking down alleys, and a slightly trembling, urgent-sounding voice.
Here is the video and below it is the text of what he has to say after telling a story about a work of art which features Ghandi.
LOVE WINS. from Rob Bell on Vimeo.
Will only a few select people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And if that’s the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do or who you know or something that happens in your heart? Or do you need to be initiated or take a class or converted or being born again? How does one become one of these few?
Then there is the question behind the questions. The real question [is], “What is God like?”, because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the gospel of Jesus, is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. And so what gets subtly sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But would kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be good news?
This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith. They see it as an endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies and they say, why would I ever want to be a part of that? See what we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like. What you discover in the Bible is so surprising, unexpected, beautiful, that whatever we have been told and been taught, the good news is actually better than that, better than we could ever imagine.
The good news is that love wins.
If you're a theology nerd, then you know that this has many Calvinists all huffy and lathered up, claiming that Bell is probably a universalist, and, therefore, unorthodox at best and heretical at worst. He could be an annihilationist, which still leaves an empty hell but upholds that some will eternally be separated from God. I don't think he's gonna be simply an soteriological optimist (a la Clark Pinnock and his A Wideness in God's Mercy, which teaches near universalism through the death of Christ). I think he will be a full-blown universalist, albeit a Christian one (all are saved through Christ) and not a normative religious pluralist (all are saved through their own religion, no matter how unbiblical it may be).
Either way, it's nothing new. Yes, that's right: in this instance, Rob Bell is not original. I'm sure he'll say things in the book that his fans will consider real zingers, and no doubt there will be an emotional appeal to his arguments. But the underlying arguments will not be original. Clark Pinnock argued for a generous, optimistic soteriology before Rob Bell was even born, and liberal theologians have been denying the reality of hell for over a century.
Additionally, though Bell and others who deny the orthodox, historical teaching on hell undoubtedly feel that their understanding is the true biblical one, the reality is that to arrive at such a conclusion requires some impressive hermeneutical sleight-of-hand (in the form of redefining the word for "eternity" and "eternal," reading annihilationism into the text, and using the varied biblical images for hell to conclude that they cannot all be true literally [fire and "blackest darkness" cannot both be literally true at the same time]) and an emphasis on emotional, philosophical questions (such as those Bell asks above) over a better question like, "what does the Bible actually teach on this subject?"
I may actually buy this book for its argumentative value. I know some friends of mine are going to wave this around triumphantly as they eulogize hell once and for all. But I say, not so fast and not so original.
09 February 2011
Before You Throw Away Your Hymns
I don't like all hymns. Let's just get that out there right now. Some are lame and had to be lame even by the standards of the day in which they were written. Most, however, were written out of tremendous challenges and suffering, real life situations that made/make them so relevant to life. Here's one example, "Near to the Heart of God," written over 100 years ago (taken from 101 More Hymn Stories):
"Near to the Heart of God was written and composed by Cleland B. McAfee, in 1901, while he was pastoring the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, Illinois. He received one day that diphtheria had just claimed the lives of his two beloved nieces, and while in his saddened, shocked state, he wrote this hymn as a comfort for his own soul as well as for the other members of his family. He first sang it with choking voice just outside the darkened, quarantined house of his brother, Howard, the day of the double funeral. The following Sunday, McAfee's choir repeated it as a communion hymn at his own church service. Another brother, Lapsley, was so impressed with the simple buy comforting message of the hymn that he carried it back to his pastorate, the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California. From that time to the present, it has continued to be a source of great encouragement to believers everywhere."
A lot of Christians today don't like hymns simply because they are old. Because they are old, they have an old sound, don't work well with clapping and jumping (at least if you don't play them to an upbeat tempo). More sophisticated critics would argue that such "old music" isn't relevant to today's seekers because "if they don't like the music, they're probably not going to come back, even if the message is good. It has to connect to the 21st-century people you're trying to reach."
What I think lies behind such thinking is a false choice: either play hymns or be relevant. Can't there be a third option: play hymns (in an exciting, modern way) and help people understand the "old" lyrics? Sharing the stories behind the hymns, explaining archaic lyrics, and providing the biblical context that inspired many hymns is not a waste of time or too much work to be worth it. We need modern songs, but not at the cost of excommunicating something because it's old. Progress is not to abandon the old, but to help people worship better and more from the heart. Helping people understand the enduring quality of hymns IS progressive; ditching them just because they are old is chronological snobbery and lazy.
"Near to the Heart of God was written and composed by Cleland B. McAfee, in 1901, while he was pastoring the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, Illinois. He received one day that diphtheria had just claimed the lives of his two beloved nieces, and while in his saddened, shocked state, he wrote this hymn as a comfort for his own soul as well as for the other members of his family. He first sang it with choking voice just outside the darkened, quarantined house of his brother, Howard, the day of the double funeral. The following Sunday, McAfee's choir repeated it as a communion hymn at his own church service. Another brother, Lapsley, was so impressed with the simple buy comforting message of the hymn that he carried it back to his pastorate, the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, California. From that time to the present, it has continued to be a source of great encouragement to believers everywhere."
A lot of Christians today don't like hymns simply because they are old. Because they are old, they have an old sound, don't work well with clapping and jumping (at least if you don't play them to an upbeat tempo). More sophisticated critics would argue that such "old music" isn't relevant to today's seekers because "if they don't like the music, they're probably not going to come back, even if the message is good. It has to connect to the 21st-century people you're trying to reach."
What I think lies behind such thinking is a false choice: either play hymns or be relevant. Can't there be a third option: play hymns (in an exciting, modern way) and help people understand the "old" lyrics? Sharing the stories behind the hymns, explaining archaic lyrics, and providing the biblical context that inspired many hymns is not a waste of time or too much work to be worth it. We need modern songs, but not at the cost of excommunicating something because it's old. Progress is not to abandon the old, but to help people worship better and more from the heart. Helping people understand the enduring quality of hymns IS progressive; ditching them just because they are old is chronological snobbery and lazy.
07 February 2011
02 February 2011
Slow motion high FPS compilation
Don't care for the music, but this is some fun stuff. I'd hate to be the dude getting kicked in the face (or the guy getting slapped)!
31 January 2011
Reading, Have Read, Will Read
Reading: Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups (Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas); Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion (Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck)- a thorough yet light-hearted response to the growing number of church-is-lame-so-quit-going-and-be-Christians-apart-from-institutional-Christianity; Sticky Church (Larry Osborne); God of the Possible (Gregory Boyd) - Boyd's popular level introduction to open theism.
Have Read: The Christian Atheist (Craig Groeschel); The Ten Dumbest Things Christians Do (Mark Attebury) - currently using this as our small group study; Everyman's Battle (Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker) - my second time through it, full of good reminders.
Will Read/Want to Read: Most Moved Mover: a Theology of God's Openness (Clark Pinnock) - it will be my second time through this book; the first was a little rushed as I read it while doing research for a paper; Appealing to Scripture in Moral Debate: Five Hermeneutical Rules (Charles Cosgrove); The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry: A Troubleshooting Guide for Church Leaders (Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson).
Have Read: The Christian Atheist (Craig Groeschel); The Ten Dumbest Things Christians Do (Mark Attebury) - currently using this as our small group study; Everyman's Battle (Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker) - my second time through it, full of good reminders.
Will Read/Want to Read: Most Moved Mover: a Theology of God's Openness (Clark Pinnock) - it will be my second time through this book; the first was a little rushed as I read it while doing research for a paper; Appealing to Scripture in Moral Debate: Five Hermeneutical Rules (Charles Cosgrove); The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry: A Troubleshooting Guide for Church Leaders (Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson).
22 November 2010
What I'm Reading, Want to Read, Have Read
Usually, when I read a book, I end up reading several books together. Maybe I have trouble finishing what I start when it comes to books; maybe the book starts out boring and I don't want to have to endure it if I don't have to. Somehow, though, I still read a good deal, even after graduating from seminary, when many people would like to take a few years off from reading.
One book I'm reading is The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel. The subtitle reveals the gist of the book: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn't Exist. It's not deep, but it hits right where many (most?) Christians are at.
One book I've barely started but am interested in digging through is the Calvinist classic The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Lorraine Boettner. This work is a classic presentation of Reformed theology (5-point Calvinism). Why am I, a non-Calvinist, reading it? A quote I heard long ago comes to mind: before you can say, "I disagree," you need to say, "I understand." There are some things about Reformed theology I don't understand.
I have recently read Glenn Sunshine's Why You Think the Way You Do: the Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home. I reviewed this book for the Stone-Campbell Journal, which will come out in the spring. Sunshine traces major ideas from the Roman Empire through modern times and how those ideas affect our ethics, actions, priorities, etc. In short I thought it was too big of a task for a popular-level book of less than 250 pages, and I would refer the reader to the works of Rodney Stark for better stuff in this area.
Then there are many books to which I turn when preparing for lessons, sermons, and answering general inquiries. These books are read a chapter here, a chapter there. Recent shelf pulls include The Kingdom of the Cults, The Quran, The Book of Mormon, The Faith Once for All, Heaven, What the Bible Teaches About Spiritual Warfare, Pagan Christianity?, The Apostolic Fathers, BAGD, NIDNTT, TDNT, NIDOTTE, A Reader's Greek New Testament.
Oh yeah, and The Bible. :)
One book I'm reading is The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel. The subtitle reveals the gist of the book: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn't Exist. It's not deep, but it hits right where many (most?) Christians are at.
One book I've barely started but am interested in digging through is the Calvinist classic The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination by Lorraine Boettner. This work is a classic presentation of Reformed theology (5-point Calvinism). Why am I, a non-Calvinist, reading it? A quote I heard long ago comes to mind: before you can say, "I disagree," you need to say, "I understand." There are some things about Reformed theology I don't understand.
I have recently read Glenn Sunshine's Why You Think the Way You Do: the Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home. I reviewed this book for the Stone-Campbell Journal, which will come out in the spring. Sunshine traces major ideas from the Roman Empire through modern times and how those ideas affect our ethics, actions, priorities, etc. In short I thought it was too big of a task for a popular-level book of less than 250 pages, and I would refer the reader to the works of Rodney Stark for better stuff in this area.
Then there are many books to which I turn when preparing for lessons, sermons, and answering general inquiries. These books are read a chapter here, a chapter there. Recent shelf pulls include The Kingdom of the Cults, The Quran, The Book of Mormon, The Faith Once for All, Heaven, What the Bible Teaches About Spiritual Warfare, Pagan Christianity?, The Apostolic Fathers, BAGD, NIDNTT, TDNT, NIDOTTE, A Reader's Greek New Testament.
Oh yeah, and The Bible. :)
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