Hey all. Some good news. Please add politicaljesus,com to your blogroll. I have been invited to be a regular contributor to political Jesus, which was started by the esteemed Rodney Thomas Jr., and is on the list of top 50 bible blog sites on the net. See you there!
My paper on Karl Barth’s theology of election and universalism.
So here is what I am struggling with at the moment. If I am being honest, I am having a hard time thinking that my blessings come from God when there are so many others in the world who aren’t blessed. How can I thank God for my meals when so many do without? How can I thank God for my house when so many are homeless? If I do, it seems like i put God in the place of not caring about them as much as about me. It seems more appropriate to think of life as the blessing and the earth and the universe as the blessing. Everyone is blessed that way, and God doesn’t seem to play favorites.
Another way to say this is why would God bless Americans with materialistic things and unhealthy food while leaving other nations so impoverished and without basic needs? Is it because of God’s blessings, or because human action? I tend to think the latter. Therefore, why would I thank God for myself benefitting from a system of inequality put in place by humans that allows me to have more than others? I don’t think I should.
Can anyone help me with perspective here?
So this was longer, with more of my train of thought, but I was having trouble uploading due to the length of the video. So here is the chopped version, witch can seem disjointed at times, because it is. Next time, I will know imovie better, as well as being more succinct with my answers. I would love any feedback or follow up questions. Thanks to all who participated!
I will be answering the recent questions via video blog very soon. Thanks, and please keep submitting them. In the meantime, i updated the blog to the new wordpress version. Also, there is now a handy little button on the left side of the page whereby you can subscribe to the blog via any rss reader, like google reader or….click the place to subscribe via email! viola.
loves me new stuff.
My friend (of of my best) Michelle is an absolutely amazing artist, and I didn’t know she had a site to display her beautiful art. So go here and check it out. Follow it because she is going to be bigger than Garfunkel.
or for the peeps who don’t like links: http://michellebrandley.blogspot.com
Michelle led a great mission group last night and talked about various spiritual disciplines. When we talked about solitude and silence, i recalled how I had heard (and experienced) that it takes about 3 hours for your mind to process and get rid of all of your ambient thoughts, then you can really just be silent. Scott brought up that it takes about 3 hours to enter REM sleep. I wonder if they are related.
My love and all time best gut-buddy Deter is finally using his blog. Check it out here.
