Drink Upstream

WRONG!

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

Link: Townhall.com::America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on::By Dennis Prager.

Geez.  And my doctor wonders why my blood pressure is too high.

Here's a measured, and intelligent reply:
Professor Bainbridge's Journal

Your Moment of Zen...

Not to diminish Bill's excellent posts of a religious nature....but you all need to see this.

Link: YouTube - Benny Hinn Meets Benny Hill.

My Friend Kevin

So, I've got this teacher friend named Kevin.

He went to Columbia with me.
And I shared a pulpit with him in west Georgia.

I am envious of his preaching ability. Very dramatic. Very passionate.
More preacher than I could ever hope to be.

Here's a sermon he recently preached for his wife's installation service.

http://becominglight.typepad.com/Sermons/installation.pdf

And if you want to explore her blog, you'll see she's amazingly gifted as well, for many of the same reasons.

Articles of Faith-ish

For many reasons, some selfish, I thought I'd share a piece of liturgy I wrote for a recent worship service. Actually, as you'll notice, I only wrote the first part, the second is biblical. But I didn't think the one could survive alone.

Call to Confession
We daily behold two very different stories.

There is the one that says terrible things:
     That joy is sold in shopping malls
          and peace is purchased with violence and war.
     That it's okay if five people sit down to tables with no food,
          as long as there is one who sits down with an abundance.
     That the definitions of love and marriage
          should be used as a weapon for political gain.

But there is another story we know,
the story of Jesus Christ
     who works among us to restore life,
          to heal brokenness
          and to feed all people who hunger for food and for righteousness.

If we are to witness to this Christ story,
     we should first confess where that other story has brought us:
          to a world that suffers, a world that is both broken and hungry.
Sisters and brothers, let us confess our sins against our God and our neighbors,
     so that by the Holy Spirit, we may proclaim loudly a story of grace
          a story all the world longs to hear.

Assurance of Pardon -- Romans 8:31-9:1 (less verse 36)
What then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
She who did not withhold her own Son, but gave him up for all of us,
     will she not with him also give us everything else?
Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died,
     yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,
                                     who indeed intercedes for us.
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will hardship,
     or distress,
     or persecution,
     or famine,
     or nakedness,
     or peril,
     or sword?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through God who loves us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
                                        nor angels, nor rulers,
                                        nor things present, nor things to come,
                                        nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
                                        nor anything else in all creation,
     will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
                                                                                         Hallelujah! Amen!

Time for a little house-cleaning

I made an executive decision regarding the blog....and as such, there were no votes taken, recorded, or tallied.

I blew away the blogroll. (And that Pandora thing that no one was using....Brian Jonestown Massacre?  Sheesh....)

Yep.

It's gone.

I took a look at all of the links that were in there, and only two of them (Joel on Software and Nickerblog) linked to regularly updated sites.

With that in mind, I think we should create a new, better, more useful blogroll.  A blogroll Vista or blogroll 2.0 or whatever. 

Use the comment section to provide some input, and I'll put a new one together sometime within the next week or so.

Articles of Faith: Our Deficient Church

I believe that God blesses both gay and straight relationships,
      that gays and lesbians can and should be ministers of the Word,
      and that our slow recognition of God’s work impairs Christ’s Church
            hindering us from fully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

     In the tenth chapter of Acts is the story of Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius—a Roman, a soldier, and a Gentile living in Caesarea—dreams that an angel instructs him to send to Joppa for Peter, at the house of Simon the Tanner. Peter, who is indeed in Joppa, has settled for the moment on the roof of Simon’s house, where it is quiet. He is hungry and waits for his lunch. Assumedly, he is also meditating, because, despite his hunger, he falls asleep. And he dreams. His dream and the dream of Cornelius are like to pieces to a puzzle, but where Cornelius dreamed a simple instruction, Peter’s dream follows the same lines as the visions of the Old Testament prophets.

     In his dream, Peter witnesses the earthward descent of a giant sheet covered with non-kosher animals of all sorts. The way Luke tells the story, he leaves us with the impression that just about everything forbidden by the Law, as it is expressed in Exodus and Leviticus (and again in Deuteronomy), sits there on the sheet. And Peter, who is hungry whether waking or sleeping, hears the voice of God telling him to kill and eat an animal to satisfy his hunger. He begs off. He demurs. He protests. He reminds the Almighty that his Christian life and his Jewish life are identical as far as food, friends, and family are concerned. By no means, Lord, he says, for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean. But God insists, in the way that only God should, WHAT GOD HAS CALLED CLEAN, DO NOT CALL UNCLEAN. It is, I think, one of the few times God employs the “Charlton Heston as Moses” voice.

Articles of Faith: Sola Scriptura

In the spirit of Bill's intro post....

I've recently asked at least two of you to read Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.

I hoped to hold off on this discussion until you've read it (and I'm still going to hold back on my overall opinions in favor of letting you read the book first.)

Read on for the segment of the book that made me go, "Oh.  Ouch.  Yeah, I can't believe I believe that."

Articles of Faith: Intro

    A few months ago, I floated the idea to include a regular religion feature on this blog. To say that it received much support would be a gross overstatement. But at least two of our regular contributors thought it worthwhile.

    Skip forward five months, and I think I finally have something to contribute. Why the long wait? Mostly, I have been wrestling with possible subject matter and formats, hoping that something good and interesting I could use would suddenly pop into my head. Well, ask and ye shall somewhat receive. Recently, I have been wading through some paperwork that'll allow me to pass another checkpoint on the road to ordination, and I am struggling to put down on paper a "personal" statement of faith. I have been wondering, "What do I believe that I don't say during a typical Sunday worship service?"

    As a result of this struggle, I have considered again the outer edges of my faith. What are my core faith values versus the outskirts of faith? How do they influence one another, and where do they fall apart? As far as I am concerned, everybody has these margins of faith, but we don't like to address them. They are the places where the rules of your faith values don't have as much hold. They are the implications of some of your contradictory beliefs, and the outer limits of your ordinary beliefs.

    Christians in the United States don't tend to express their outskirt faith much. It's too messy out there. A President Bush who says he prays in the White House versus a Sen. Kerry who says his Catholic faith won't influence his political decisions is a prime example of this. During the 2004 campaign, I heard this juxtaposition put forward as a faithful politician versus a faithless politician. But that's not what it was. The implications of both statements are more far-reaching. But we find it easier to simplify and say that both men were expressing their core faith values. Even though this was probably the furthest thing from the truth. It was simply easier to make a quick decision and then go with it.

    I think it is time to get a little messy with our faith. To test the bounds of our beliefs and let the margins change the center. To look at the complexity and put it into words. That's what I think this Articles of Faith "feature" should be, a place for us to say, "I think I believe this, but I'm not sure. Let me write it, post it, and consider it more later." I'll try to be a regular contributor, but I want us all to have a shot at it. For each post, I'll have thought a good deal about what I say, because I do such thinking for a living. However, seeing where others are wrestling with God is much more interesting for me. Please don't let this be my own private forum.

    Ok, I think that's all I have to say. Good hunting.