Fun quote from a webcomic.
We are the substrate that bacteria party on. Never forget who your true master is: the hundred billion bacterial cells living in your gut, thousands of species drinking your beer for free. Consuming yogurt is the only true form of revenge we can take on these microfloric lactobacillus loafers. This is a morally justified act.
And about a year ago, I started becoming…an agnostic? A liberal Christian? A deist? My soul, if I indeed possess one, seems to have an “under construction” sign hanging on it. Enter at your own risk, and for pity’s sake, wear a hard hat…
If God has indeed used Scripture to birth something real within our hearts and minds, let’s trust Him to bring us where it leads rather than cutting it down and using it as mulch for some doctrine of our own, based as it usually is in the often underdeveloped and immature understanding of those who went before us! I’m not advocating a “chronological snobbery” (Lewis’s phrase) that assumes everything before us was wrong and everything modern is right, but neither should we commit the opposite error of supposing that “greater things than these” can never be done by those who meet God for themselves. Surely an all-out trust in God as a fundamentally good person, as best we understand “good” with all the available data weighed judiciously, is preferable to letting slavish adherence to orthodoxy stand in for a faith that could mature both our souls and our understanding of God.
via “We might like it, but it’s not in the Bible, so…” – Undeception.
I’d recommend reading the article.
Because the Bible does not come with a divine commentary, we all interpret the Bible, and we are all responsible for determining what makes the most sense using whatever means we have at our disposal. We do not have the option of just “going with what Scripture says” — we can only go with what we think Scripture says.
via Putting words in God’s mouth – Undeception.
“…Using whatever means we have at our disposal.” That’s what I’m doing lately: the best with what I have.
This is a great perspective.
In Matthew 16, Jesus said that He would build His church, and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. This does not mean that the church is to huddle safely behind marble walls and stained glass cathedrals, as Satan tries to beat down our doors. Rather, it is the church which is to lay siege to the gates of hell.
…But our enemy is not flesh and blood — we do not attack other people. No, people are the captives and the victims. People are the ones we are fighting for…
So let us stop inviting people to church, and instead invite the church to hell. Let us go with Jesus, and batter down hell’s gates.
via To Hell with the Church | Till He Comes.
This is a great perspective. It could easily become unconvincing by loading on too much “spiritual warfare” craziness, but if it remains about loving and serving people traditionally written off as hell-bound then it’s a powerful description of God’s Kingdom as I understand it.
For the church to lack love is for the church to lack everything. No heresy could conceivably be worse!
via Shutting Up about Free Speech | Till He Comes.
As a man perpetrating a long list of heresies lately, this is a great and timely reminder about what’s truly important.
In the creation/evolution debate, some biblical literalists have raised the point that until recent times the church never questioned the historicity of Adam. Peter Enns responds to the point:
Knowing what the history of the church has thought about Adam is not an argument for Adam’s historicity, as some seem to think, since the history of the church did not have evolution to deal with until recently.
That’s the whole point of this debate—evolution is a new factor we have to address.
Appealing to a time in church history before evolution was a factor as an authoritative voice in the discussion over evolution simply makes no sense. What Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and the Puritans assumed about human origins is not relevant. (And, no, I am not dismissing the study of church history, historical theology, etc., by saying this.)
Calling upon church history does not solve the problem; it simply restates it.
via Recurring Mistakes in the Adam/Evolution Discussion | Peter Enns.
Long quote from James McGrath about transcending death as more than resurrection.
There is no way that a historian can conclude that Jesus rose from the grave – or demonstrate decisively that he did not. There doesn’t seem to be any way that scientists could ever decisively show that there is a spiritual afterlife – or decisively demonstrate that there couldn’t possibly be.
Perhaps rather than simply take sides in such debates, progressive religious believers ought instead to shift our attention to transcending death. Did Jesus survive death? How could one settle that debate to everyone’s satisfaction? But did Jesus transcend death? There I think that we can provide a definite answer, and that answer is “yes.” Can anyone deny the impact he had on at least some of those who knew him? Can anyone deny that his life and teaching have continued to impact and transform others, and continue to do so? Would anyone say that there is no sense in which Jesus lives on, even if only in the hearts and minds of those who find in him something transformative – whether an example, a Messiah, a savior or a deity?
…If Jesus did not transcend death, then whether or not he survived death would be a mere fact, and nothing more.
There’s an interesting article about introverts marrying extroverts at the blog Introverted Church. My wife and I aren’t polar opposites, Myers-Briggs style, but we do have an intro/extrovert mixed marriage.
The payoff question-and-answer from the article:
So here’s my question: given the vast potential for misunderstanding and conflict between introverts and extroverts, why do so many of us marry our polar opposite? The old cliché says that opposites attract, but why?
In typical introvert fashion, I gave much thought to this issue. My conclusion? We seek the strengths that we lack. Whether consciously or not, we recognize our own weaknesses and look for a partner that can fill in the holes: someone who brings balance to our lives.
via Introverted Church: Guest Post: Married to an Extrovert.
I love my extrovert.
From a blog post outlining why the author believes that the Resurrection happened in some form or another.
[T]he dialectic to be found in the cross and the resurrection presents the best response to the question of theodicy that I have encountered (or the “open wound of life” as Moltmann called it). In the cross, Christ is an innocent person being executed, a man abandoned by his friends and utterly forsaken by God. But the resurrection is God’s response. Christ is vindicated by God and installed as lord and judge over all. It instills hope for the future regarding the open wound of life.