"not rape"

This moved me.

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/12/21/original-essay-the-not-rape-epidemic/#more-2134

excellence

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
—John Gardner, in Excellence (1961)

A "RAPTURE" I can believe in

The Rapture, by pete rollins

Just as it was written by those prophets of old, the last days of the Earth overflowed with suffering and pain. In those dark days a huge pale horse rode through the Earth with Death upon its back and Hell in its wake. During this great tribulation the Earth was scorched with the fires of war, rivers ran red with blood, the soil withheld its fruit and disease descended like a mist. One by one all the nations of the Earth were brought to their knees.
Far from all the suffering, high up in the heavenly realm, God watched the events unfold with a heavy heart. An ominous silence had descended upon heaven as the angels witnessed the Earth being plunged into darkness and despair. But this could only continue for so long for, at the designated time, God stood upright, breathed deeply and addressed the angels,
“The time has now come for me to separate the sheep from the goats, the healthy wheat from the inedible chaff”
Having spoken these words God slowly turned to face the world and called forth to the church with a booming voice,
“Rise up and ascend to heaven all of you who have who have sought to escape the horrors of this world by sheltering beneath my wing. Come to me all who have turned from this suffering world by calling out ‘Lord, Lord’”.
In an instant millions where caught up in the clouds and ascended into the heavenly realm. Leaving the suffering world behind them.
Once this great rapture had taken place God paused for a moment and then addressed the angels, saying,
“It is done, I have separated the people born of my spirit from those who have turned from me. It is time now for us leave this place and take up residence in the Earth, for it is there that we shall find our people. The ones who would forsake heaven in order to embrace the earth. The few who would turn away from eternity itself to serve at the feet of a fragile, broken life that passes from existence in but an instant”.
And so it was that God and the heavenly host left that place to dwell among those who had rooted themselves upon the earth. Quietly supporting the ones who had forsaken God for the world and thus who bore the mark God. The few who had discovered heaven in the very act of forsaking it.

Rauschenbusch & the King

I came early to Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis, which left an indelible imprint on my thinking by giving me a theological basis for the social concern which had already grown up in me as a result of my early experiences...
It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the social and economic conations that scar the soul, is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried. It has well been said: "A religion that ends with the individual, ends."

Martin Luther King Jr.
from "Pilgrimage to Non Violence"

love

“Love of God” must be synonymous with “Love of man”.
If it is not love of man, it is love of self.
And something to be feared.

being godly is kind of like being a community organizer

I dont say this in many circles, but I am pretty sure I believe this:

God Exists.
God doesnt care.


Let me explain.

Many people view church as the "house of God". It is the place where God stays for an hour or so on sunday. Where we can tell him what we want/need/fear/hope etc. And please don't misundertand- I think that community gatherings are important and beneficial.
It is good to gather with people who have shared interests. And organize to accomplish a goal.

There is, I think, a misunderstanding when it comes to the way Americans view church.
If we continue to view Church as if it were a hospital, where all the sick people needed to line up to get treatment from an effectively trained practitioner for what ails them- we will continue to be disappointed in "God" and ask the wrong questions about the nature of evil and malady in our lives.

This is a deeply flawed model.
This is like going to the Smithsonian and expecting to discover a docent on 19th century warfare in the US- and asking them to solve Race relations between the El Salvadorian gang in one neighborhood and the African American Crips in another (they keep shooting each other).
The docent can surely give you some insight- but they cannot solve the problem.
Sadly, pastors and priests do not have magical powers and all they can do is tell the story of "God". They are anthropologists.

The real practitioners are those who roll up their sleeves and try to heal with their own hands.
In this way Hospitals are Churches.
Schools and Universities are Churches.
Your local PTA can be a Church.
Your local pet adoption center is a Church.
Even your local starbucks is church... But church?
What is church?

If we do not care, god does not care.
If we cannot find the cure- there will be no cure found.
God is not a chemist- god has no lab coat.
God only has one thing in his tool belt- you.

I began thinking I could change the world.
Then it turns out I can only change myself.
I still hold out hope that the former can be achieved by the latter.

Denny Bradshaw 1960-2008

A philosophy professor was holding a lecture one morning on the nature of objects.

This was a Metaphysics course and the discussion centered on the professor's blue neck tie.

The professor asked the class "what makes this tie blue?" This was not intended as a trick question. "Pigment" one student stated."Refracted light on our rods and cones?" another proposed.Dissatisfied with the answers given thus far, the professor waited patiently to see if more suggestions were offered from the class. Finally a student in the back raised his hand and said "God makes your tie blue. God makes everything happen, so God must be the reason that your tie is blue". The professor was a kind man and a patient teacher. He said to the student "That is a very common belief. But unfortunately you can't have GOD in your ontology." This surprised the student, and he asked "Why?".

The professor replied, "You can't have GOD in your ontology because he does too much work."

Denny Bradshaw 1960-2008

http://www.myspace.com/dennybradshaw

Has the YMCA lost it's Christian Path?

I am a huge fan of the YMCA.



If you don't know, it is a very old (150 year +) non profit organization whose mission is
"To put Christian Principles into practice through programs that develop healthy spirit, mind and body for all."


(disclosure: I work for the YMCA)

The YMCA is in almost every community across the country and in over 120 countries.
It exists to serve and turns away no-one based on an inability to pay.

A friend of mine recently blogged about how the "church" has abdicated its role in saving our communities.


"I believe that most of the work of God in the world today is largely being done by para-church organizations anyway, as the church has abdicated this responsibility.”


http://www.axxess.org/?p=42

Sadly, I agree with his assessment.
This reminded me of a story from a few years back. I was an eager young program director working with a friend of mine at our local YMCA to create community development programs. Some of them included:

• Teen Clubs, Teen Camps
• Grief Support Groups for families who had lost children
• Kids in motion classes
• Classes offering financial strategies for families trying to buy a home
• Healthy Kids day/ Activate America anti-obesity programs
• Workshops for adults with MHMR disabilities
• English for Speakers of Other Languages

etc, etc...

The town we live in has many Spanish speaking citizens (legal or not I do not know, or care) And the YMCA is the largest childcare provider in our town (over 1000 kids daily) so we come into contact with Spanish speakers (breadwinners!) all the time who would benefit from learning English (more importantly their kids would benefit! imagine navigating an emergency room in Mexico with YOUR baby and no one spoke English).

There is a large local conservative evangelical church in the town I live in. And they have an existing ESL program. So we thought, "Hey, why not partner with them? They have the teachers and the curriculum, we have 1000 plus kids and workshop space and buses for transport"

Its a win/ win right?

Not so fast...

We placed a call to the local church and after leaving several unanswered messages, we got their ESL coordinator on the phone and it goes something like this:

YMCA: Hi this is the YMCA and we have heard you have an ESL program, would you be interested in partnering with us to serve more people?

Church: (after a considerable pause) Um. To be honest, we got your messages..

YMCA: Oh great! what do you think?

Church: Well, to be honest, we have concern that the YMCA has deviated from it's Christian path, so I am not so sure how comfortable we would be partnering with you...

YMCA: Uh? We want to see people speak English. I didn't realize that was a point of theological concern.

Church: I will take down your name and number and share this with our Executive Pastor...

YMCA: OK?

Church: Have a blessed day!

==================================

Suffice it to say we never heard back from them.

She was sharing a little code with me: We (the YMCA) are not explicitly anti- Gay, Abortion, Mormon, Muslim, Jewish enough to be CHRISTIAN.
Books could be (and probably have been) written on this small point.

This type of church is indicative of many churches that you have seen. Angry, Narrow and Scared. What is so egregious about their behavior is not just their arrogance (which is pretty hard to stomach) but rather the complete waste of resources. "Giving" to others (like providing ESL classes) with pre-existing terms is NOT charity. Their process of branding everything with their brand of Christianity is such a waste. The result of which is little Christian ghettos where people can only speak to those they agree with. This is a joke and from the outset there is a cautionary tale to be learned for the Emergent set:

If you think you have nothing to learn from the "moderns" you will be doomed to repeat their mistakes... So dialogue and learn from one another...

aloysha

A Jerry McGuire moment (Farewell for now...)

I took a day off from work today.

It is the first day I have taken off in a while.

I did not realize just how tired I am.

Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.

The search for meaning in life is exhausting and I think I am just now beginning to believe something I have probably professed to my family and friends for years.

Ready?

Here goes:

We do not FIND meaning in this life.

We CREATE meaning.

Pithy, cute and straight to the point.

You've probably said it yourself. Heard it a million times yourself.

I do not know how frequently I have said this in the past but today it hit home more than it ever has before.

Does God need a new bass player?

3-2-2008

I went to a party last night in honor of a friend of mine from high school.
There were 100+ people there.
There was BBQ, and beer, and dogs and babies and guitars and a big sprawling lawn.
Sundresses and lots of laughter. And a wheelchair.
The wheelchair belonged to my friend Zac. The evening’s special guest.
Zac and his wife of 9 years moved home from California this week.
After 8 years of battling various types of cancer, there does not seem to be anything that medicine can do to put his illness at bay any longer.
He road worn and tired. Zac has decided to rest.

I don’t want to overstate my involvement with this get together.
Zac is a friend, but not a best friend. We went to Junior High and High School together.
A person in whom I share a reciprocal esteem. We don’t Myspace or email one another, but I felt it was important to show up last night and give him a hug. We don’t see each other frequently, but he is still loved.

I have often thought that we (as a culture) do not handle death very well.
We are afraid of it. We use weird ways of dismissing its finality by saying things like “well maybe God needed a good softball player up in heaven” to make us feel like there is purpose in dying.

There isn’t purpose in dying. There is purpose in living.

The beautiful thing about last nights party was the rare opportunity to participate in life with Zac, if only for a few more moments, rather than to remember life later while participating in a funeral or a wake.

Zac is a brilliant musician.
As I made my exit from the party last night, his musician friends (probably 8 or 10 of them) had made a circle on the porch with acoustic guitars and congas and a steel guitar.
It was beautiful.
Someone gave Zac an acoustic bass to play from his wheel chair (they removed the arms of the chair to accommodate). And for the next several hours they played music from the 90s; music from our Jr High and High School Days. (Sublime,Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Meat puppets, Toadies, STP, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc.)

It was wonderful. It was sweet. It was sad. It was life being lived in the present.

Maybe God needs a new bass player? No. That would be a reduction. Right now, Zac’s friends need a friend. And for now, they have one. And he plays bass pretty well.

Apocalyptic Literature

Apocaplytpic literature is the writing of the defeated.
Having lost their vision of national events, they turn away from social justice.
They retreat into private religion, with its rewards in a future outside of history.
They have rejected a vital faith for artificial schemes.

- phyllis trible

Assault on Scientology?

This is the Anonymous video purporting to be a warning of attack against Scientology. If only people would get this mad at Benny Hinn... (spooky)

Here is an entry on a counter- Scientology group called Project Chanology

Seems some people think the uppers in Scientology have not been playing very nice and have mounted an all out computer assault on the Church of Scientology's web presence. According to Wiki, they have taken the Scientology website down a couple of times.

Here is what he says:

"Hello, Scientology. We are Anonymous.Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; suppression of dissent; your litigious nature, all of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who trust you, who call you leader, has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed. For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind–for the laughs–we shall expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form. We acknowledge you as a serious opponent, and we are prepared for a long, long campaign. You will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your methods, hypocrisy, and the artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell.You cannot hide; we are everywhere.We cannot die; we are forever. We're getting bigger every day–and solely by the force of our ideas, malicious and hostile as they often are. If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many.Yet for all that we are not as monstrous as you are; still our methods are a parallel to your own. Doubtless you will use the Anon's actions as an example of the persecution you have so long warned your followers would come; this is acceptable. In fact, it is encouraged. We are your SPs.Gradually as we merge our pulse with that of your "Church", the suppression of your followers will become increasingly difficult to maintain. Believers will wake, and see that salvation has no price. They will know that the stress, the frustration that they feel is not something that may be blamed upon Anonymous. No–they will see that it stems from a source far closer to each. Yes, we are SPs. But the sum of suppression we could ever muster is eclipsed by that of the RTC.Knowledge is free.We are Anonymous.We are Legion.We do not forgive.We do not forget.Expect us."

Food for thought

http://animalethics.blogspot.com/2008/01/meat-cancer-and-cumulative-case-for.html

Are you persuaded by her argument?

Zombie Church

A good friend of mine recently put together an interesting critique against the current instantiation of "Christians" and called them the ZOMBIE CHURCH.

From Wikipedia:

A zombie or zombi is a reanimated corpse. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the dead being raised as workers by a powerful sorcerer. In modern horror fiction, zombies are generally undead corpses brought back from the dead by supernatural or scientific means, and are rarely under any one's direct control. They typically have very limited intelligence, and hunger for the flesh of the living.

The Church is the "Body of Christ" right?

Is resurrection ALWAYS a good thing? I mean, if it were, why are people so afraid of Zombie's?

Two things that jump out at me from this good piece of zombie scholarship are:

• A zombie is re-animated corpse


• A zombie has hunger for the flesh of the living

Is the current prevailing Christianity the "living spirit" re-animating that which is dead?
Is the current prevailing Christianity the spirit of the dead, hungering for the "flesh of the living"?

The Church is constantly being spoken of as a body. And it goes without saying that the resurrection is a huge part of the Christian church's narrative. But what if parts of the "body" should not have been resurrected? Is it possible that there are portions of the church that exist in a zombie like state? Seeking after flesh??

Questions I ask myself:

• Why is Christianity so fixated on blood?


• Why is the Body the featured metaphor?


• Is there any validity to the critique that Christianity is life taking, instead of life giving?...

What is the difference between being a Zombie and Re-birth?

for Rev Martin Luther King Jr.

"Walter Rauschenbusch had done a great service for the Christian Church by insisting that the Gospel deal with the whole man, not only his soul but his body; not only his spiritual but his material well being. It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of a men and is not concerned about the social and economic conditions that scar the soul, is a spiritually moribund religion- only waiting for the day that it be buried."

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Stride Toward Freedom" 1958

"The attractivenes of an historical figure for later generations is often generated as much by one's failure as successes. It is not a bad thing to be a failure. If one is a great enough failure, it sometimes means ones place in history is secure"
- Winifred Rauschenbusch Rorty

Why Philosophy is Useful

I think PHILOSOPHY is important.
It gets a bad rap sometimes due to its unique vocabulary. And lets face it, books and arguments about essences and logical fallacies aren't really that sexy. But nonetheless, I think the study of philosophy is an important process; it is a posture that can be used to refine our internal values and to make sure that we are in concert with our values (and ultimately solidarity with our community)

Philosophy can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.
I take as some of my general operating assumptions to be the following:

• Humans (in general) after satisfying the lower 4 levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (sex, food, shelter, safety, etc.) find it psychologically satisfying to pursue the escape of "the grip of time and chance". We are born. We self actualize. We bury our Grandparents, our Parents, our Siblings, and then... facing our own death. We want to have control... Our inquiry into understanding comes from this desire for control.

This is where the project of Metaphysics comes in. What else is out there? How can we (or can we at all?) get beyond that which we can manipulate with our faculties? Beyond the "hard sciences"?

• Language is one of the defining elements of Humanity. Humans, as far as we can tell, are unique in our creation, because we have the ability to "describe". This portable, memorable descriptivism is our great power over the environment we live within.

Language is tricky. Beautiful, useful, vitally important, and elusive. Language tricks us from time to time. It is a shape shifting medium of understanding; operationally unstable, yet powerful and useful. The noun "language" is often more of a verb than a noun. We think of it as static, because functionally it stays relatively stable, but it is actually dynamic. It morphs over time and in accordance to our needs. "Language" is a verb. It is something that we do.

It is process. We can point to a fire and think of it as a noun, but it is actually a verb (more like "the process of burning") Fires are warm, fires are good for so many things, but they should be watched, always watched.

This descriptivism (and more importantly re-descriptivism), is our great evolutionary advantage over our environment. We use descriptions (words) to organize with other anthropoids with which we share common values to accomplish certain tasks. When these descriptions cease to yield a result that is favorable, we quit using them, or we re-describe. This re-description is the "doing" of language. It is in this re-description that the power of language resides. It is important to recognize the capacity we have to redescribe- because to think of words as static is to fall victim to the tool.

Language is in the service of man. And in as far as language fails, we must re-describe in a way that is more useful, more beneficial to the shared values of a particular community.

Law is for the man, not man for the law...