7 posts from January 2007

Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow.  But if He knows I am going to do so and so, how can I be free to do otherwise?  Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the same time line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot.  Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them.  But supposee God is outside and above the time line.  In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'.  All the days are 'Now' for Him.  He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not.  He does not 'foresee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him.  You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing.  Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way - because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you.  In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

There is no greater proof in the world of our spiritual danger than the reluctance which most people always have and all people sometimes have to pray; so weary of their length, so glad when they are done, so clever to excuse and neglect their opportunity.  Yet, prayer is nothing but desiring God to give us the greatest and best things we can have and that can make us happy.  It is a work so easy, so honorable, and to so great a purpose that (except in the incarnation of His Son) God has never given us greater argument of his willingness to accept it, of His goodness and our gracelessness, of His infinite condescension and our folly, then by rewarding so easy a duty with such great blessing.

from The Divine Hours, Vol II, quoted from Jeremy Taylor

Distressing as it is, the President has declared himself martial witness to truth and right cause as AP states:

WASHINGTON - President Bush, on a collision course with Congress over Iraq, said Friday "I'm the decision-maker" about sending more troops to the war. He challenged skeptical lawmakers not to prematurely condemn his buildup.

"I've picked the plan that I think is most likely to succeed," Bush said in an Oval Office meeting with senior military advisers.

Just a couple of things:  one, this is not a Republican/Democrat thing...this is about right and wrong.  Two, we are the decision makers.  If the mid term elections said anything, it's not that we want all the red/blue state maps redecorated, but that we as a nation do not want the fearful incompetence of this present administration to decide anything.  It's a Republic, something that the Republican in Chief has long forgotten, if he ever knew at all. 

Three, there is no such concept as the premature condemnation of the President's plan.  As noted Jan 22, in the New Yorker Magazine:

This was the advice given by McGeorge Bundy* to Lyndon Johnson in a memo dated February 7, 1965 [yes, you read that correctly], concerning an escalation plan for Vietnam that Bundy thought might have as little as 25% chance of success:

Even if it fails, the policy will be worth it.  At a minimum, it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own."

The President's plan has been condemned for the last 42 years.  In my book, the sudden resurgence of criticism doesn't quite qualify as "premature."

So what do we do?  I have to think about it, but I have some ideas...coming up next!

addendum:  HR at emergingsideways tipped me towards zefrank's show re: this.  Check it out. 

* this is a flagrant criticism of a blue government official...conspiracy diluted.

One of my most recent Fuller Sem courses is an introduction to the people and culture of Islam.  Every other other Saturday, we gather for the whole day and make a seminary outing of it.  Of course, it's kind of preposterous to consider it a true introduction since there are only Christians in the room, however, I'm learning much I did not know about this truly remarkable history, faith and tradition. 

To begin the class, the professor put up a comic strip which showed a rugged mujuhadin holding (what else) a bomb.  Underneath was the caption, "The only good Muslim..."  Sadly, when the Westerner finishes that sentence, we fail to draw the merciful and grace filled conclusion that Jesus would lead us to think and feel.  And why?  Why have the few (the less than 1%) been allowed to shape public perception?  Because that's the way it works.  Don't you have to join the Republican party after becoming Christian? 

The instructor then put the second half of the cartoon up which showed a very attractive and diverse group of people above which read, "...The majority of them."  When I can I'll post the cartoon because I think it serves us in the West to stop and think about how we think about "our enemy" in the East. 

To sum it up, I have learned that our perception and policies are simply grotesquely "naive."  Of course, I'm not qualified enough to fairly critique the obscene responses of our administration and military complex.  It goes without saying that I'm no politician.  I don't have the time to sit around and write chain emails of emotionally manipulative (and completely fabricated) statistics, incontextual quotes, and the magnification of a severely minority opinion.  Well, I guess if I have time to blog...

But I am a bit more fluent as a beginner theologian.  I believe that our Scripture and doctrine makes it clear that there is only "us."  There is no "them."  It is the world that God so loved that he gave his only Son.   It is every nation that will bow before the throne of God.   Not a church, not a neighborhood, not a particular race nor dialect, but all people reconciled to one another and to God in a reconciled creation. 

I don't know where this posting is headed, but I do know that we have alot of backtracking to do.  We have a ton of room to be reconcilers, a ton of room to walk with humility, a ton of room to repent and own the actions of others as our own.  I know we have alot to learn in order to move forward.  I know that I have much more to write as I flesh out my perspective.  

I just got turned on to the Spoken Groove.  If you've never flobglobbed, then my zinoinkend, you've never schtipped a rithenfundren!  Check out this video and dine on his lyrical feast.  Genius, damnit!  Genius I tell you.  Douglas Adams would be proud!

spoken groove was-a-boom-boom (i think)

A prominent world leader suggested that today, as we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. we ought to do something nice for someone...help someone in need.  Ironically, this same world leader has muted the cries of a defiant country in crisis and a mourning generation of parents in our land and theirs.  Oh, if MLK, Jr. was merely challenging America and indeed the world to "do something nice."

What is life but a platform where we air our thoughts and feelings?  Quite a bit (to say the least), but it's hard to do a whole lot more on a blog.  It has been difficult not writing; not having that typepad identity, regardless how appropriate.  Needless to say, two more lapsed quarters in seminary, umpteen books, and a world that keeps moving towards globalism and uniformity and I still have the desire for a place to air my stuff.

So suffer a while with me if you will.  I'm going to try voxing here on the free version typepad.  It's cute.  I'll give it that, but cute might be all I need.  Functionality can come later.  I just need a net to catch some thought-filled butterflies that flutter around in my head. 

While on typepad, I struggled with two things:  what to say and what you would think if I said it.  I'm getting over that right now.  I've stayed away from politics in the past because they are such hot issues, but my faith thrives in the heat.  Not in the red/blue schism, but the right/wrong split.  Like Isaiah standing before an all powerful Ahaz, the gospel breathes life into all aspects of living.  Life is not political.  Politics are simply a part of living and if we've learned at all from Jim Wallis, it's that our walk with Christ must transcend dual party politic and encumber itself with Kingdom perspective. 

So, prophetically and vindictively (I'm still a sinful cuss):  When this particular President took office, knowing his performance as governor in a single state, I said...more like proclaimed...This is a President who will "Go Down in History" period.  What we suffered in the Lone Star State, we have suffered together as a nation and no amount of chain forwarded email from beyond the grave will convince me otherwise.

Bushhistory