Good essay by Dan Gilliam over at Next-Wave e-zine.
Read it here.
Pentecost is coming, so what exactly is the “Church?”
The more I think about it, hear what people are saying (and I’m more interested in what un-churched people are saying, honestly), the more I read, the more I experience, I think Dan’s list is a pretty good summation or at least a good foundation upon which to begin, even though his intent is not to present what the “Church” is.

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Is there a difference in being:
1. Open-minded
or
2. Free-minded

This gets at the heart of how we perceive, interact with, interpret, and apply Scripture to issues of life. I don’t really think we do a very good job.
On a recent blogging expedition (Titusonenine), a commenter posted a series of scripture verses that he claimed proved that Jesus indeed spoke on the subject of homosexuality. Most people who support the full inclusion of gay people in the Church today will say that Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. While I agree with that, the conclusion that, then, scripture should not be used as an authoritative contributor to the anti-inclusion arguments doesn’t seem to me to be the next logical conclusion.
My response will be first, and then I will include the verses the commenter used.
—
My response to Jim the Puritan (#29) –
Jim, the verses you quote are absolutely correct, but your assumption is that all forms of same-sex relationships fall within the definition of what is immoral, automatically. The verses themselves, and thus Jesus, say nothing specific about homosexuality. I disagree with you as you attempt to say that Jesus said anything about homosexuality as recorded in the Gospels of our Lord.
What many people are asking is why the assumption? Then, when we go to Scripture and in light of what has been learned about the homosexual condition over the last 100 years or so, they say that there has been a mistake in our very human interpretation of God’s Holy Word with relation to homosexual people. They believe that a faithful biblical exegesis and hermeneutic of the few verses used to condemn all forms of same-sex relationships in light of all of Scripture cannot bear the weight of the argument against all forms of homosexual relationships. There has been a misinterpretation of Scripture, and the Tradition has supported this misinterpretation for a variety of reasons.
Even a growing number of Evangelical scholars are saying that there are great problems with the traditional interpretations, and many are changing their opinions. This isn’t God’s Word changing – it remains the same always – but our human understanding of God’s Holy Word. Is this the Holy Spirit casting new light on God’s Word? Time will tell, but we need to remember Gamaliel’s recommendation to the Sanhedrin as we work through these times.

Islam and American Women
I listened to a NPR interview yesterday morning of an American woman who converted to Islam. She is a self-described feminist. I think she was kidnapped (or something like that) and her captives let her go as she promised to read the Quran. When she did, she said that she found a most profoundly pro-women’s liberation document that she has ever read. That is my take on her comments, as best I remember them. I heard recently that Islam is just about the fastest growing religious movement in the U.S., and primarily among American women.
Back in high school, I read a book entitled 1985. It was obviously a take off of Orwell’s 1984, but with a different vision. The book was situated in a pre-Thatcher, 1970’s Labor Party Britain, and Islam became a very influential force – really the only force that could enable any part of British society to go forward beyond the violence and labor strife that marred the day.
Do we realize that for many young women, Islam will become the next new thing? It will be the new way of living and will become a new way of liberation – although a very different vision of liberation from the 1960’s-70’s National Organization of Women type of women’s lib. As the negative results of many of the 1960’s ‘revolutions’ become more apparent, non-baby boomer women will look to other means of acquiring a sense of freedom, dignity, and respect.
Christianity is failing them. Conservative Christianity is looking back to a mythical 1950’s sense of womanhood. Liberal Christianity desperately hangs onto the 1960’s women’s-lib kind of womanhood. Neither are right, neither work well, and neither will meet the needs of young women. Islam, at least as it will be conceived in an American form by American converts, present a very different and I think increasingly attractive alternative, unless Christians in this country can get their act together to realize what the New Covenant of Jesus really teaches.
The failed Bishop’s Meeting in New York
The meeting of a few American Bishops from opposing sides and the representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury in New York City this past week ended with no resolution between the warring parties. Now, the commentaries and opinions are flying – spin for the most part.
Bishop Duncan of Pittsburg, the Moderator of the Network, posted a statement. Here is a bit of it:

“It was an honest meeting. It became clear that the division in the American church is so great that we are incapable of addressing the divide which has two distinctly different groups both claiming to be the Episcopal Church,” said Bishop Duncan…”

Notice what Duncan said? “…two distinctly different groups claiming to be the Episcopal Church.” The onward march for control of the Pension Fund, the buildings, and the name Anglican continues.

“Say what you want about the vices of the dogma of sin, one of its virtues has always been to remind us that we—all of us—live between the animals and the gods, that one of the underappreciated challenges of human life is to somehow become a human being.”
In Prothero’s review of the new Oxford University Press’ new books series on the Seven Deadly Sins, he writes much about how each of the authors handle their respective sin. I find it interesting that the book written by the Columbia University Buddhist Studies professor Robert A. F. Thurman (Uma’s father!) gets a good deal of attention and Prothero suggests that his book is the only one that treats the topic as “sin” – or what might be traditionally understood within Christianity as sin and the effects of sin. What does this tell us about current American culture? You know, this American culture of ours that if you heed the spin of poll-results from the politicized Religious Right suggests this good, wholesome, and particular kind of Christian nation, despite the evil, godless, and liberal American cultural elites who are trying their hardest to destroy Christian America.
Anyway, the quote above struck me. What does it mean to be truly “human?” Biologically? Psychologically? Communally or individually? And, particularly for me, Spiritually? Can any of the above really be separated without loosing the essence of what a “human being” really is – this thing between animals and the gods? I don’t think so, but for many people the “spiritual” aspect is often removed from the equation – or at least any kind of defined and systematized understanding of “spirituality.”
Then, there is this idea that it is quite challenging to actually become a “human being.” Perhaps, to view the holistic nature the human is a good first step in understanding what it means to be a true “human being.” The spiritual cannot be seperated from the physical from the psychological, etc.
I agree with Prothero’s assertion that our cultural understanding of sin and sin’s effect upon human life has been turned on its head – sin once seen as that thing which impinges upon our freedom has been turned to be understood as that which brings about our freedom. Where does the difference between freedom and license, liberty and libertinism?
From my Christian perspective, there are things that we do that originate from our inner-selves (what is unclean is not what we put into our bodies but what proceeds out from of our hearts) that distort our understandings of and relationships with God, our neighbors, and our own self-understanding. To live by license or a libertine existence seems to bring about true freedom, but often we become bound by and controlled by those behaviors. Our true freedom is hindered or even destroyed. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want whenever we want, but true freedom is the ability to step outside of our own wants and our own lusts. To give into or indulge our own wants and lust often leads to enslavement to those wants and lusts – materialism, greed, addictions, etc. To engage in the struggle and daily battle to resist the temptation of sin, I think, is the process of discovering true freedom.
We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We don’t deny ourselves, but we are enabled to move outside ourselves so that we can consider the wants and needs and betterment of our neighbors as a goal at least as important as self-indulgement – perhaps even more so. For me, this is a beginning point of discovering what it means to be a “human being.” It is a challenge and it requires discipline, but the process brings freedom.
Read the review by Stephen Prothero (chairman of the Department of Religion at Boston University) of the new book series on The Seven Deadly Sins published by Oxford University Press at ChristianityToday.
Via: Titusonenine

I keep running into walls when trying to describe stuff in politics, philosophy, theology, etc., concerning what is or isn’t “liberal” or “conservative” or “fundamentalist” or “evangelical” – and so on.
I think, for myself and for now, I will define a “fundamentalist” (little ‘f’) as one who will not or cannot honestly consider or accommodate that there could be alternative opinions/ideas/theories other than that which s/he already accepts as “fact.”
So, when the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary makes statements like “no credible scholar” accepts the alternative interpretations of Scripture concerning what the Bible actually does or does not say about homosexuality, what he is saying is that a scholar can only be “credible,” and therefore worthy of consideration, if s/he agrees with the president’s already decided opinion of what is the truth. It is circular reasoning, and it is a hallmark of “fundamentalists.”
By the way, a “fundamentalist” can be either a “conservative” or a “liberal!”
I will stand by the idea that if any of us truly want to know Truth we have to first acknowledge that what we have believed up to this point could be wrong. I am a fallible human and will always be prone to mistakes and deceptions. If we don’t, all we want is confirmation of what we already believe to be true and the consolation that goes along with that pseudo-security. This isn’t relativism. It is, I think and as much as I can determine, humility.
All we want to do is gather around us those who will scratch our itching ears – and to a “fundamentalist” this constitutes who is a “credible scholar” or not!

sitting,
on the train moving forward
morning commute
looking out the windows
this side and that
still?
moving,
three trains riding on different tracks
moving forward swiftly, slowing to the same destination
people sitting, staring, reading, listening
knowing?
wondering,
where are we going, really?
why?
streaming,
cars and trucks and vans go by
out the window they pass us by
all different directions, going, moving
forward?
rising, rising
look right!
the sun shines through clouds streaming
people watch
brilliant!
listening,
again and again
Bird York and In the Deep
“thought you had
all the answers
to rest your heart upon.
but something happens
don’t see it coming, now
you can’t stop yourself.
now you’re out there swimming
in the deep.”
over, over and again
U2 and Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
“You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
All my shame
You know I believed it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”
solitude,
even if for only a moment
even if only by the din of an iPod gently
in the midst of a sea
in the deep,
I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
but, I’m still swimming
I’m still sitting
I’m still moving
I’m still wondering
I believe it… You!

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