Imitating My Father.

This Is What I Do In the Bathroom..., originally uploaded by use2blost.     
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Love. Big, broad topic. Posted on it a few times...I'll try not to do it again for a little bit, so here goes:

     Love.
     The kind  patient thing. More important than the really impressive stuff, like speaking in angelic languages, or foretelling the future. Superior to faith and hope.  1st Corinthians 13 is probably the definitive passage on love. Paul explains it in detail. Paul doesn't mention (in this passage) that it's the only way to imitate God. The only way you can intentionally imitate God is by loving.
     Unless you can walk on water.
     Or sling together a space-time continuum, like our mascot.
     Imitating is not to be confused with resemblance. Imitating is better.  We resemble our Father, we are an image of him. There are things about you that are inexplicably beautiful, for this reason. Looking like Daddy is cute, but it's nothing compared to putting Daddy's hat on or grabbing Daddy's briefcase, and swaggering through the doorway, a tiny little voice intoning dadspeak over the shoulder as baby wanders off. That's even cuter. I guess that's my love angle. Imitating Jesus. Cuz I can do that. Some days I can even do it well.
    Often, I'm sadly lacking patience, kindness, spiritual fruitiness. I'm experienced at keeping track of your screwups, and of the times you've hurt me. Yadda yadda. I sometimes rejoice in injustice or the bad fortune of others...and I'm hoping y'all do too, or I'm even worse than I thought.
     I hope my failure to measure up to the standard I hold is a human condition, not a personal failing.

Perhaps agape sojourned here for 33 years, visiting from another world, the only place it occurs naturally. Perhaps love left a picture. Maybe we are just trying to sketch the photograph we have been given. Perhaps some of us sketch better than others.

    My love is bad. However, I can sometimes for a few moments, on a situational basis, imitate Jesus. I have these occasional episodes of shining excellence. I pull it off and you are amazed, or impressed, or converted. Andy Stanley talks about not having to ask a question, because he knew what his father was going to say, because he knew his father that well. There perhaps is a point where we reach an intuitive understanding of God's character (Only the tip of the iceberg...), and can begin to practice the imitation of God. This is probably where I should concentrate. Not on a bar set impossibly high by myself, my denomination, or the pulpit I sit in front of.
     There are I times when I know what he wants me to do. I can look back and spot these times. Practice lets me recognize them as they occur.Sometimes courage lets me seize the moment, sometimes fear drives me to scurry past it. As always, repetition promotes competency...and that other stuff, the spiritual fruit.

More about love @ Bridget's

About the photo:

I practice my hubris. I flex my chutzpah. This is my first attempt at staging a concept. Since it is the easiest room in the house to convert into a ghetto lighting studio, I do some strange things in the hall bathroom, but this takes the cake. I am hugely surprised...Twelve layers processed in PS elements, and Dynamic Photo. Everything except yours truly is taken from the Hubble website, and nope, I'm not wearing any panties!. I plan to post in a blog carnival thing on love and I've never done it before...the angle I intend to explore is love as an imitation of God....sort of  "in His image..." speculations. Thus, a visual pun.

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For the ghetto lighting group...I'm standing in my bathroom perpendicular to the mirror using onboard flash, which was evidently aimed right at my tattoo.

Heresy, Part II

Shrooms by a Pear Tree    Large
Originally uploaded by use2blost

Okay, I am probably not gonna have another 'to be continued...' blogpost. The pressure was horrible. Plus, thinking about Part II made me wonder if Part I sucked. It was totally different from posting and forgetting about it. Not good. And fair warning, BTW. This is a post on theology. It may be boring... and is contrary to what I have been taught in Church.

So, to recap Part I (actually, this will be much easier to follow, with a couple points I forgot to mention.)

1. Much Church doctrine comes out of the epistles.
2. I believe this is a bad Idea.
3. The Apostolic Writer's Alliance (Peter, John, James, The Unknown Author of Hebrews, and of course, Paul) are surely special, and men to be taken seriously, but they should not be confused with Jesus.
4. The Bible, in many ways idolized by mainstream evangelicals and put on a higher plane than Jesus himself, makes clear that even Church Fathers are capable of grave misjudgment. This is a clear distinction from Jesus, who never botched it.
5. Jesus was God. They weren't. Why in the hell would somebody view their words with equal authority?

In Acts chapter 15, when Peter and the Boys hold palaver on the Issue of Making Gentiles Cut Off Pieces of Their Penises, they draft a letter for Paul's posse to carry back to the newbies explaining it was a false alarm. Which is all good. Nobody today seriously thinks you have to be circumcised to Go to Heaven.

But there is verse that catches my eye.

For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us ⁸⁸ not to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: ⁸⁹ 15:29 that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols ⁹⁰ and from blood and from what has been strangled ⁹¹ and from sexual immorality. ⁹² If you keep yourselves from doing these things, ⁹³ you will do well. Farewell.

Now, as they saying goes "Did it ever occur to you, that nothing occurs to God?"

Think about it. You're Peter. This means you are :

1. Headstrong, and Transparent, and prone to making sure your ass is covered.
2. A good Jew.
3. You're also The Pope. Yeah. A Jewish Pope.

You are a Jerusalem Rock Star. A redneck fisherman, you hung with Jesus, and You have healed people miraculously in public. More then once, the bible portrays you as having a defective filter between your brain and your mouth. Now if this man hears audible direction from God, in an environment where such things were known to happen, He says "God told me that was WRONG." he doesn't use the word "seems".

It is from the Epistles that we get much of the doctrine regarding marriage, sexual morality, treatment of divorcees, treatment of homosexuals, and what to tell people about about the Good News That You Go To Hell If You Don't Believe What We Believe. If we rank scripture hierarchically, placing the speech of Jesus at the top, followed by His canon (The Old Testament), then the epistles, we can construct and entirely different set of protocols for how the church should behave about these matters. My point is that getting doctrine from the pulpit, is contrary to Jesus' directive in Matthew:

23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 23:2 “The ¹ experts in the law ² and the Pharisees ³ sit on Moses’ seat. 23:3 Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴ 23:4 They ⁵ tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move them. 23:5 They ⁶ do all their deeds to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries ⁷ wide and their tassels ⁸ long. 23:6 They ⁹ love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues ¹⁰ 23:7 and elaborate greetings ¹¹ in the marketplaces, and to have people call them ‘Rabbi.’ 23:8 But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher and you are all brothers. 23:9 And call no one your ‘father’ on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 23:10 Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one teacher, the Christ. ¹² 23:11 The ¹³ greatest among you will be your servant. 23:12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

23:13 “But woe to you, experts in the law ¹⁴ and you Pharisees, hypocrites! ¹⁵ You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! ¹⁶ For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in.

I think a good argument can be made, that we should read for ourselves, and never think we are in a position to decide people should be denied things we have because their moral performance is lower than ours.

Heresy. Part I

MSR Hubba, Solo backpacker tent, a copycat, originally uploaded by use2blost.

     Just a thought...A lot of Church Doctrine comes from the epistles. In my mind, Scripture should be weighted selectively. First priority, or the heaviest weight should be accorded to the red ink, the speech of Jesus. From there, I tend to give equal credence to the remainder of the Gospels, and the Old testament as a whole. Lastly, The epistles, and Revelation. My reasoning for this is a little convoluted. Jesus endorses the older writings, and he did rise from the dead, after all. That's a big deal.
     Interestingly enough, Jesus tells the blindly religious:

"You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!"

John 5:39, The Message

     Jesus places himself above Scripture more than once (Imagine that!). It's funny. As soon a religion overwhelmed relationship, we began to use Scripture to explain Jesus, rather than Jesus to explain Scripture. When we do this, we get funny.
     We burn witches. And Protestants. And Catholics. And Mormons. We persecute homosexuals. If Church leaders are capable of something as asinine as the Crusades, surely they are capable of a couple of theological errors. Paul, Mr. Gung Ho Off the Freaking Chain, speaks to the fact in 1st Corinthians, when he holds forth on what he and God think about marriage and divorce, making it a point to mention that his ideas and God's are separate. What a concept. I have never  heard any mention of this from a pulpit. Another troublesome verse in Acts speaks tellingly to the fact that even Peter and the Jerusalem Apostle's Association don't know where God stands on doctrine. Peter even goes so far as to put this in writing.
     One passage of Acts tells us a story of some new gentile Christians. They have been relaxing in euphoric generosity (Old school Christians would sell their shit and give the money to the Church to parcel out to the needier Christians), because they don't have to go to Hell and Burn Forever. Hell Yeah! (hell, no?) Of course we love Jesus! Have some money, and lets eat together!
     Often,  just as we are thinking how cool Jesus is some religious guy comes over and has to ruin it. God wanted to make sure we knew this has been happening since the very beginning, as we see from Acts of the Apostles. Some ultraspiritual dudes pop up and tell the newbies "Ah, You need to cut off part of your dick to do this Jesus thing, and not go to Hell and Burn Forever."
     There is naturally a stunned silence. (Ya gotta love Luke. His Gospel, and the Book of Acts are fascinating.)
     The Committee Representing Those Who Read the Bible and Know What God Wants continue: "Not all of it. Just part of it. And not even the most important part. We just want you to cut off the skin that keeps the head sensitive. So sex is more fun. Cut that part off. We had to do it. Don't you love Moses? Jesus did this. Jesus loved Moses."
     This seemed like a big step. These new Christians wanted a second opinion. Even the girls. (I'm sure this was the talk of the congregation, even though Luke doesn't explicitly state this).
     They send Paul's Posse to confer with Peter and The Jerusalem Apostle's Association. (This had to really annoy Paul, who thinks he is an Apostle...good stuff, the Bible.) They Have A Meeting. Never known for verbal restraint, Peter begins to preach.   Then they write a letter. A letter where Peter makes clear that apostolic opinion on doctrine is only that. An opinion. This is special. We'll take a look at the letter next week.

Love Your Neighbors, Except the Homosexual Ones?

Bug Love, originally uploaded by use2blost.

     Update: This was a piece crafted to encourage the reader to take a hands-off approach to the issue of homosexual matrimony. I no longer feel this way... Today, I believe a follower of Jesus should take an actively encouraging stance toward homosexual equality. I just can't help it. I read my Bible, I think, and I have known too damn many homos with the fruit of the spirit within them. Also... it occurs to me, that Paul never got 'saved'. If we want to be honest, Paul's conversion as documented in Acts was one of duress. Can you freely choose Christ when you've had your ass kicked off your ass (LOL) and been struck blind?
Just sayin...
Chris 6/7/11


Disclaimer:


     Dang, y'all. In the last year, This has become the busiest post on this lil' ol' blog. Whodda thunkit! I'm a little bit nervous, I notice many of you arrive here after Googling Andy Stanley+Homosexual. Hopefully, if he's noticed this (I've seen a hit or three from North Georgia.), he is amused. At no time/place/dream have I ever read/heard/been told about Andy's position on homosexual marriage ect. He is just one of my favorite speakers. I have heard him imply that homosexuality is a sin in an old sermon. This was a critical thinking exercise for an English class, Never met Andy, don't own an Ipod. Been to NPC twice... I like to catch a service on my way home from hiking.
Chris, 2/22/2010

     I have not posted since last year. A couple apparently manageable situations swelled up, grew fangs, and broke free of their restraints, suddenly my daily routine was anything but ... I let a lot of stuff go: blogging, commenting, photography, sleep. This is a paper I was told to write... one where I attempt to persuade the audience to accept my viewpoint (fat chance! :D), and one where passive voice was obsessively avoided, under the red-inked lash of Mrs. Wilcox's correcting pen. This is why it possibly sounds nothing like me, is choppy (I had a space limit), and many of my points are not fleshed out. The issue is interesting, though it seems to only break the headline barrier when election looms on the horizon. Working through my opinions, and the reasons behind them, was an eye-opener for me, and made me remember with embarrassment an earlier time, when I would take words from the pulpit, slap a few out of context verses underneath them as a foundation, and adopt it as my personal doctrine. I practice a LOT more critical thinking now, I hope.


BTW... I found myself completely out of my depth in Mrs. Wilcox's eng 101 class. I could not have explained the difference between active and passive voice to save my life, but passive voice sure does come easier. One of the things we were taught to look for was the use of passive voice signal words, i.e.-


Have, has, had, do, does, did, be, am, is, are, were, being, been, can, could, may, might, must, shall, will, would, ought to. These counted off...16 of them would get you an F. It's really harder than it sounds... you should give it a try.


Also, a few words about Andy Stanely: I've noticed if you google "Andy Stanely and Gay rights" this post is on the fourth page, and someone from south carolina googled " Andy Stanley Homosexual" and this post is the first entry...Go figure.

     

     The opposition of gay rights by Christians undermines Christian credibility and the spreading of the gospel. Popular culture uses the word “marriage” to refer to two different things. The institution ordained by God,[1] and the civil contract, often of short duration, facilitated by secular authorities. Mainstream Christian religion struggles to prevent homosexuals from acquiring the benefits of the civil union, and where that has failed, to fight for a prohibition against using the term marriage to legally define long term cohabitative arrangements between members of the same sex. This hinders the dissemination and acceptance of the gospel, as well as the goodwill of a significant slice of the population that needs to hear it. Additionally, the legitimacy of Christian culture as salt and light suffers a negative impact in a world sorely lacking in clarity and palatable flavor. This mindset also conflicts with the examples of Jesus, and God the Father. The evangelical community best serves the agenda behind the Great Commission (Holy Bible, New International Version "Matthew 22.36") by keeping a healthy distance from a movement espousing political aggression against the homosexual population’s attempt to grasp equality. 
     Sadly, in a society of overwhelming literacy, busyness leaves the typical modern layman relatively unfamiliar with scripture, in contrast to the new testament Jew, who walked in a world where ninety-five to ninety-seven percent of his peers lacked the ability to read or write (Ortberg), but shared a rich oral tradition with his community, and was required to memorize the Pentateuch prior to being granted the privileges of adulthood. This twenty-first century failing effectively handicaps critical thinking in the majority of Church attendees, encouraging a herd mentality/mob rule approach to the selective legislating of morality, targeting the Equal Rights for Gays issue. For a segment of the population with a divorce rate virtually indistinguishable from the rest of western culture, to draw a line in the sand over the sanctity of marriage, while remaining conspicuously silent on the issue of heterosexual cohabitation showcases a terrible arrogance.  
     The critical thinking Christian, a grateful recipient of grace, should rejoice with love that gay people may, through legal commitment, obtain things that a heterosexual partner in marriage takes for granted: A more attractive tax status, the ability to provide affordable family health insurance, public acknowledgement of love for a spouse, and an environment that discourages promiscuous eroticism (Boteach).The ongoing attempts to deny these benefits to homosexuals contradict the doctrine of “love your neighbor as yourself” (Holy Bible, New International Version "Matthew 28.18-20"). It places the participant in the company of bigots and hypocrites, and flies in the face of the example of relational evangelism modeled in scripture by Jesus. In Mark 2:13 Jesus approaches Levi at the tax collection booth, and says simply: 
     “Follow Me.” (Holy Bible, New International Version "Mark 2.14").  
     Today’s reader tends to overlook the significance of this invitation. Israel, at this time a conquered nation, reserved its deepest contempt for the tax collector, a man employed by Roman authorities. This man made the choice to grow rich from the subjugation of his countrymen. The tax collector warranted his own category, demonstrated by the biblical cliché “tax collectors and sinners” (Stanley, Simple "Follow"). Jesus commits the faux pas to end all faux pas, equivalent to inviting a known pedophile to tag along while he goes to pick up the kids. This shows bible readers ( not sermon listeners) the first step in evangelism according to Christ, the establishment of relationship. In the war of personal conflict, there exist two fronts: The battle of the heart, and the disagreement . Lasting peace necessitates harmony in both. Human selfishness tends to prioritize the argument, and having won, will from time to time magnanimously condescend to make overtures toward the vanquished heart. The wisdom of this method remains questionable. Remember, the victor deals with another selfish human, and human hearts can break upon losing an argument. They become scarred, hardened, closed. They begin to malfunction. The loyalty of the defeated seldom manifests itself, and bitter tears provide excellent nourishment for the seeds of future discord. The opportunity for lasting peace withers away, choked out by the weeds of resentment. The issue arises again, and who knows the outcome? Victory in the matter of the disagreement decreases the probability of winning the battle of the heart. By winning the heart first, Jesus neatly sidesteps the problem of acrimony, and opens the door to win the argument, with reason and loving example in the near future.This rationale lies behind his unconditional invitation to “Follow me”. (Stanley, "Life Rules")
     Jesus’ logic follows a precedent, not a radical departure from God’s previous treatment of humanity. After all, he did only the will of the Father. For example, Israel receives the Ten Commandments only after a dramatic rescue and three months divine babysitting during a walk through the desert (Holy Bible, New International Version "Exodus 19.1-8"). Three months after trying God’s patience time and again. Three months after God says: “Follow me.” Three months after God makes an impression. When the Church takes an aggressive stance against gay marriage, it communicates a message diametrically opposed to “Follow me”. It communicates a message that undermines Christian credibility and the spreading of the gospel. It communicates someone else’s message. The critically thinking believer asks himself: 
     “Whose message is that? Why would the average man or women spare the time necessary for aggressive intolerance?”  
     The difficulties of life demand the bulk of the average person’s attention. Western humanity rushes about at a frantic pace, driven to wallow in it’s prosperity, often thoughtless as to the source of the blessings. The Christian that gives credence to scripture understands that a loving God, allows himself to be opposed. God permits the existence of evil for the sake of good, and a desire for voluntary faithfulness. Free will, seldom swayed by power, makes love possible. Phillip Yancy explains this with compelling clarity:

“In a concentration camp, as so many witnesses have told us, the guards possess nearly unlimited power. By applying force, they can make you renounce your God, curse your family, Work without pay, eat human excrement, kill and then bury your closest friend or even your own mother. All this is within their power. Only one thing is not: they cannot force you to love them.

The fact that love does not operate according to the rules of power may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power. He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle—the kinds we may secretly long for—do nothing to foster that love.”

  Mr. Yancy goes on to quote Douglas John Hall, author of God and Human Suffering: “God’s problem is not that God is not able to do certain things. God’s problem is that God loves. Love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life.” (Yancey)
The questions remain: “Whose message is that? Why would the average man or women spare the time necessary for aggressive intolerance?” 

Seventy years in the past, as God watches from a timeless eternity, people in Germany, a supposedly Christian nation decide the Jews, a minority population that believes the wrong thing threatens the way of life they desire to recapture. Their world falls apart, the different ones the source of their problems. They hear another message, that it’s okay to treat the wrong people the wrong way. It’s okay to give them less than the right people, the good people. Less privileges, less rights, less space, less freedom, less food, and less air. Seventy years spans less than the blink of the divine eye. God watches, with omnipotence held in check, unlimited power in voluntary restraint. He desires the love of humanity, toward himself and each other (Holy Bible, New International Version "Matthew 22.36"), and waits in divine abdication for humanity to get off this familiar path. He waits for his people to exercise the free will bestowed in love, for the sake of love, to foster that love. He waits for the Church to realize that the opposition of gay rights by Christians undermines Christian credibility and the spreading of the gospel. I wish we would hurry up.

Works Cited

Holy Bible, New International Version "Mark 2.14". Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.

Holy Bible, New International Version "Matthew 22.36". Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.

Holy Bible, New International Version "Matthew 28.18-20". Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006.

Life rules. By Andy Stanley. Perf. Andy Stanley. Northpoint Community Church, Alpharetta.

Simple "Follow". By Andy Stanley. Perf. Andy Stanley. Northpoint Community Church, Alpharetta .

Yancey, Phillip. Disappointment With God. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988.

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[1] God, in this post, refers to Elohim/Yaweh, God the Father. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, acknowledged as the creator of reality by Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Religion refers to Christianity. Though exceptions exist, Christianity in general, and this author acknowledge in Yeshua, or Jesus Christ, a paradoxically divine nature. One with God, yet separate… different, yet the same.