broken eikon

Hey you guys! I’m not quite sure exactly how many of you read the blog (I think somewhere between 5-6 million), but I wonder if you would help me with an experiment. I was thinking about doing a video blog similar to an old blog that I used to do on myspace. First, there would be a call for questions (spiritual, theological, pastoral, or otherwise). Then, I would collect the billions of questions and choose some to answer. Then I would do a video blog answering the questions. That simple. So send me your questions, from the theology of Karl Barth to the proper way to evangelize a Christian. This should be fun…

So I was reading the Presbyterian book of confessions today. I came across the confession of 1967, and I have to say… I was blown away. In 1967, the Presbos adopted this confession of faith as a response to “racial discrimination, nationalistic arrogance, and family and class conflict”.  It was very responsive to biblical scholarship and  asks the church to read scripture with literary and historical context in mind. There are many really really cool parts, but this really stuck out to me is line 9.45, containing the following words…, “this search (for reconciliation and peace) requires that the nations pursue fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict, even at risk to national security, to reduce areas of strife and to broaden international understanding… Although nations may serve God’s purposes in history, the church which identifies the sovereignty of any one nation or any one way of life with the cause of God denies the lordship of Christ and betrays his calling”.

“Even at risk to national security”?

Can anyone find me another statement of faith that states that nations should pursue reconciliation even at their own risk? That sounds too much like Christ for me…

And that last part about identifying any one nation or way of life with God’s will means denying the Lordship of Christ. Dang.

love it…

The Hebrew word for the sea is yam. In Hebrew, the sea is considered chaotic and scary. Yam also happens to be a Canaanite deity. Which one? The God of primordial chaos and raging sea. Fits, right? Yam is also shown to be a serpent called Lotan, with 7 heads. Well, it seems that tons of mythologies have gods of the sea as chaotic deities that are also serpents. In Norse Mythology, Jörmungandr, the midgard serpent is the snake that circles the worlds seas and will slay Thor during Ragnarok. Typhon (typhoon…), in Greek mythology is the uber-powerful Titan that fought Zeus and is laden with serpentine coils. Tiamat, the goddess of the sea and chaos, is a dragon often in Babylonian myths. The serpent of Chaos in Egyptian myths is Apep. Vritra, the serpent God kept the waters of the world captive in Vedic Brahmanism.

So interestingly, Christian writers began to merge their idea of Satan with the primal chaos of the sea serpents. This is why we get Christian writers talking about Satan being the one who deceived Adam and Eve. While this is certainly a valid opinion to have, I tend to see things a bit differently. I see two different evils in the world. First, there is this ancient Chaos, represented in the seas, formless and void. This is the thing that God overcame when creation happened. This is what we fight against when we chose life over death. This is what is overcome when we chose order and light over chaos and darkness. But there is another evil.

There is the evil that desires not destruction, but power. The anti-God. Not opposite of God, but putting itself in place of God. This is what the scripture calls the Satan. The powers and principalities. The “world”. The system of domination that is in our world today as militaristic, technological, therapeutic imperialism. The suicide machine that focuses on itself as the only thing. Selfishness incarnate. Now, you may see similarities, but make no mistake, the Satan does not desire destruction of all. It needs creation in order to function, because it is a parasite. It corrupts the life.

So… just thought you should know…

John 10:7 says Jesus is the door. As we all know, doors are made from wood. So Jesus, if you take the Bible as God’s word, is made of wood. Now, here is the freaky part. According to the church councils of the 4th century, Jesus is the same substance as God. Therefore, follow me here… God is made of wood. Now to take it to a whole other level. The Holy Spirit, according to those same councils, is the same substance as the Father and Christ. Now…ready?… The Spirit is the same word in Hebrew for breath. Therefore, Jesus=door=wood=God=wood=Spirit=wood=Spirit=breath. Jesus had to breath. Jesus was a breath cannibal. He breathed in himself, which was wood. And since we know humans don’t breathe wood, Jesus was not human.

Thank you for indulging me on this particular piece of stupidity.

Please read this story, and then everyone who wants to road trip here, please indicate so below. This is my favorite quote from the article: “because any time you change things for the better, you’ve got to come from God.”

In his sermon on the mount, Jesus informs us that Kingdom living involves letting go of our anger and contempt for others. I realized while I was preparing to preach about that, I had someone who was angry with me, and part of the problem was my anger and contemptible attitude. Therefore I

was convicted to “leave my gift at the altar” and reconcile with this person. I tried to call him, but I had the wrong number, so I emailed him. Here is the conversation:

On Apr 27, 2009, at 4:08 PM, you wrote:

Mr. X,
My name is Chad from Lone Star Comics in Fort Worth. I was told from
Cass, our manager, that you came in and let him know of your
displeasure with my service. A week or so afterward, I saw you
outside the store, and you called “F-You!” and gave me the finger. I
could not figure out why you had such a hostile attitude towards me
or what I had done to offend you. A few times you mentioned my
poilitics, but I didn’t remember having a conversation about that.
It took me a little bit, but I believe I do remember having a
conversation with you sometime. At any rate, I wanted to apologize
to you for any rudeness I may have given you or any way in which I
was disrespectful. I hope you can forgive me for my poor choice of
words and poor attitude towards you. This is coming from me, not
Lone Star. Thanks.
Chad
from Lone Star

His response was a follows:

Hi Chad,

I was the one that was too harsh the other day. I was not in a very
good mood and even if I have issues with you on the political side I
should not have yelled out.

I think we do not mix well but I have found that people can often find
common ground after events like this.

Yes I do accept your apology and I offer you mine as well. We should
just take a step back.

Thanks for taking the time,

X X

I wrote back that I look forward to seeing him again and that there is a firm handshake waiting… Apparently Jesus knows what he is talking about.

Over here at Brian McLaren’s blog, he posted about a conference he was attending this weekend. Check it out. This line however struck me as very very very encouraging (and if you have been in Bible study with me at all or heard me preach, you know why this excites me):

Speaking about the priorities that revelealed themselves in the emerging movement of Christianty, his first priority was this:

“1. A fresh vision of Jesus, rooted in the canonical gospels rather than in later theological debates. This fresh vision of Jesus and the kingdom of God brings a new perspective on Paul and the whole Bible as well.”

All I can say is right freakin’ on.

Great post by Scot McKnight on the Scripture and alcohol. Scot is super smart. Read it here.

So I had this idea a while back when I was taking a Gospels class. We were talking about how the stories of Jesus existed before they were actually written down. Many small stories of Jesus, called pericopes (peh-rick-oh-pees), were eventually collected and arranged by the gospel writers to suit their needs in composing their gospels.

Each of these gospel writers (classically called the Evangelists) had their own agenda in composing their gospels and had their own reasons for including certain pericopes and leaving others out. Of course, like John says, it isn’t possible for a single ancient book to collect everything related to Jesus, so this process seems like it was not only expedient for the Evangelists, but necessary.

I usually tend to think it is better to try and be like the Apostles, rather than just listen to them, and so finally my thought is this:

What would it look like for a person or a community to take all known pericopes of Jesus (or more?) and formulate them, like the Evengelists did, into a coherent “gospel” by which they could use like the Evangelists did and for the purpose they intended? What has stopped me is twofold. First, I thought if I did it by myself, which sounds like a lot of fun, it would be very presumptuous and probably very arrogant sounding. Second, if done in a group, it would take so much time as to be unwieldy and tedious (approx. 367 pericopes).

So after a couple of years of sitting on this, I would like to know what you all think about this idea.

Thanks.

Rod posted a review of my paper on Jesus and the Temple in John. You can check it out here.