Medicine of Immortality "It's a cold, and it's a broken, 'Hallelujah!'"

Free market or freeing the poor?Posted by Rick on June 4th, 2008

Most of my friends are Ron Paul fans, and I have to admit I find the guy fascinating. I watched his fundraising drive last year closely, and I have somewhat followed his campaign. I’ve known about him since college through my friend Nathan and through Scary Gary’s work in his campaign. I think he might be just what this country needs—a start at a big change. That said, I think I want that more for shock value. I like a lot of what he says, but I also find much with which to disagree.

Let’s just say I’ve been rethinking economics over the past five years (incidentally, about the time I joined the blue party). Rachel and I were discussing Ron Paul this evening, which led into a conversation on socialism vs. capitalism (along with some communism and fascism). I was mostly talking about the problems I see (biblically) with a “free market.” Lo and behold, I came home to see Doug Jones had blogged some of these things in a critique of Sowell’s economics. I haven’t had the chance to read Jones’ other critiques of Sowell, but this hits it on the head. The free market will work great in the resurrection, I’m sure, but sin will always mess it up here.

For me, one of the biggest problems I have with the libertarian way of thinking is its focus is on me. My rights. We have certain rights, and the government is taking them away. Okay, sure. I understand the sentiment. The recent bans on spanking and homeschooling in California drive me up the wall. As the Five Man Electrical band sang, “Hey! what gives you the right!” But, I question if the “American Dream” is a really a “right” we should have. Don’t get me wrong. I strongly desire those things: the perfect car, home, and job, but do I really have an “inalienable right” to pursue wealth at that level?

As I said to Rachel, the platform of the Republicans is “You can be rich!” I really like this idea. The problem is that the way to get there will often trample the poor.

The Democrats say to the poor, “You don’t have to be poor!” So who does their plan screw over?—well, the rich, and…me…and a lot of you. People that aren’t poor—we say we are, and we all have our financial problems, but we aren’t homeless, and in America, you always have the ability to pull yourself out of poverty. This isn’t Bangkok or Bogota.

I don’t want democratic style socialism. My middle class living might go down to lower middle class. That would be annoying. I would feel even more poor (such a relative term).

But is it such a bad thing to sacrifice my potential wealth for the sake of the poor? If Jones’ is right in his exposition of James, and I think he is,* that’s exactly what we’re called to do.

* I know, I too am shocked I’m finding so much common ground with Doug Jones lately.

Gift and ForgivenessPosted by Rick on May 10th, 2008

In John D. Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, Caputo relates Jacques Derrida’s concept of gift to the New Testament concept of forgiveness. He notes that, in the New Testament, forgiveness is uneconomic and mad—that is to say, it is not an exchange of debts and credits.

Caputo rightly expresses that the Christian Right (as well as Jews) has typically put conditions on forgiveness. In this economic view of forgiveness, forgiveness has four steps:

Forgiveness requires an expression of sorrow, the intention to make amends, a promise not to repeat the offense, and a willingness to do penance. If someone meets all four conditions then they have earned forgiveness. We owe it to them the way the bank owes us the deed once the mortgage is paid off. A deal is a deal.”*

But Jesus turns this concept of forgiveness on its head in Matthew 5:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Or as Caputo puts it,

“If you love those who love you, what good is that? It makes perfect sense. Even the mafia does that. The unaccountable excess of love is felt when you love your enemies, when you love the unlovable—those whom it is unreasonable to love—which is the madness of the kingdom, which follows the nonprincipal of nonsufficient reason! Just so, the unaccountable excess of forgiveness is felt when we forgive precisely those who do not meet some or all of the four conditions, who are not sorry, do not repent, and do not intend to mend their ways. That is, genuine forgiveness is offered unconditionally, not the subject to meeting any or all of these four conditions, exactly the way Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of the Roman soldiers. Just so, we often speak of things that are unforgivable—the Holocaust, say, or the atrocities of American slavery or apartheid, or the several attempts at genocide we have witnessed in the past century. But would not such unforgivable things be the very subject matter of genuine forgiveness?”**

Can you imagine a world where we actually followed Jesus’s teaching on forgiveness instead of our hearts?

* 73-74

** 74

I’m coming home…for less than 24 hours.Posted by Rick on June 20th, 2007

I’ll be leaving Florida in a few hours, and as usual, I’ve gotten to see some glimpses of God’s glory. Friday was Bob Webber’s memorial service. This was the memorial service that the family chose to attend. It was good to see Joanne again, to see that love she has for Bob. You know how they say some couples were “made for each other”? It’s that way with Bob and Joanne. When Jim Hart asked her if she’d rather be called Bob’s wife or widow, she replied, “Wife.” I was standing right next to her and heard her mutter under her breath, “Forever and ever.”

The mother of one of my classmates passed away suddenly on Monday. My classmate handled it with great faith. His father was diagnosed with terminal cancer on the last day of last term and was supposed to be in heavenly glory by this term, so this has been a bit backwards for the family. She had gone into the hospital on Wednesday and seemed fine on Thursday. She found out that a hole in her esophagus. This, in turn, caused acid to leak into her blood and poison it, causing her organs to shut down. She started taking a turn for the worse on Sunday while we were at the beach. By Monday, they were going to take her off the ventilator by evening, but she didn’t make it that long. It was shocking to me how quickly it all happened. I guess that with her husband dying of cancer, she probably didn’t feel the need to fight for her life. My classmate kept saying, “She always said she didn’t want to live without dad; now she doesn’t have to.”

Another classmate who had missed last semester (due to a viral heart attack) was back again this semester. He told the story of how, through misdiagnosis and wrong treatment, his blood was thinned to the point of leaking out of his stomach. He woke up in a puddle of blood (after having been changing bandages for several days). He thought he was going to die, so he prayed with his father, who is also a pastor (I believe). When he came back into the room five minutes later to take him to the hospital, there was a crusty scab that looked like it had been there for days. Incredible.

On Sunday I hit the beach after worship and stayed in the water a couple hours longer than everyone else. After the beach, I went to a worship service. Brian McLaren was the celebrant, and I had a good chat with him on the glories of teaching English (He was an English prof. Before going into the ministry and then public speaking). He reminded me once again why my background is oh so useful for what I hope to do in the future. Of all the well-known pastors and theologians I’ve met over the years, I have to say that McLaren is probably the most approachable. He’s had this “Hey, guys, what’s going on? Can I play?” smile on his face for the last three days.

Hmmm…I’m too distracted to blog anything else.

Random thoughts #62,324 (no one will read it; it’s too long)Posted by Rick on January 24th, 2007

Sometimes I am seriously scared about what my students don’t know. ACT’s and GPA’s are on the rise, but intelligence doesn’t really seem to be. Now it’s one thing if we’re trying to analyze a poem and a student throws out a dumb comment. That’s how you learn. Conversing, trying to understand something that stretches your mind. That’s not what I’m talking about.

Let’s take some examples from this semester. When talking about Donne’s Sonnet XIV yesterday, my students were stumped by the language: usurped, chaste, ravish, enthrall. They didn’t know what those words meant. Nobody in the class knew what they meant. Finally, someone piped up and said seriously, “Chaste is when someone’s after you.” I, of course, took a deep breath and taught them some new words, but I was stunned.

Later in that class period, another student asked, “Why does he have to beat around the bush? Why can’t he just say what he means?” My colleague Megan had a great answer: “Because he’s not a rapper.” Sadly, this is what students in a state college are like. Rap and hip-hop are the dominant musical genres on our campus. Another colleague, an Auburn PhD, once made the comment that our upper-level and graduate students are top-notch. They can hang with students at major research universities. But our incoming first-year students are at a much lower level than at other universities. On the one hand, it’s great experience. On another hand, it’s just…sad.

Rachel and Kyrie are reading a Spanish book in the other room, and I heard Rachel just say, “Let’s go learn some Spanish, so you can talk to your grandpa.” That cracks me up even though it’s the truth. Kyrie is looking at Rachel likes she’s crazy and like she’s speaking gibberish.

I really like Amy Lee’s voice, and I liked Evanescence. I was kind of annoyed a few years ago when Lorelei made a crack about them on Gilmore Girls. It still bothers me.

In my persuasive writing course, I let my students pick a few projects for writing assignments. For one of the projects, we’ll be watching Loose Change, a 9/11 conspiracy film. It will be interesting to see if they can understand the depth of argument in that film and come up with arguments against it. Without any leading, I expect two reactions: 1) acceptance 2) dislike without any true rebuttal.

Over the past several years, I’ve had many students who have served in the Middle East. In addition, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many men serving in the reserves. Never have I had a soldier who was against the war in Iraq. All think that Americans don’t understand what they’re doing over there. They’ve learned to control their anger when people lash out at the President and the troops. I find it crazy that they can control their tempers when people are making disparaging comments about what they do with their lives. They have incredible self-control.

During the State of the Union address, I was really disappointed with the way the Democrats acted so mechanically. They stood many times, just to keep themselves from looking bad. They sat on their hands whenever Bush said something they didn’t like, but if he tagged something like “support our troops” onto the end of his sentence, they stood to applaud. It was very fake.

I think I’ll be voting for Barack Obama in the primaries this year (not that it matters here). Even though he’s a social liberal, I at least sense that he’s an honest politician. That probably has something to do with the fact that he hasn’t been a politician very long.

I find it funny. David was playing the hero by marrying Bathsheba. When he acted as a kinsman-redeemer, he was coming off as a great guy. That had to make him feel even worse when Nathan said, “Thou art the man.”

Mime is used as a form of prophecy in the Old Testament. It’s used in Tabernacle worship. Paul uses the mime motif in Corinthians. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote mime plays. High church Christians use liturgical gestures from medieval mime. Try getting your priest to use mime in your worship.

There’s good precedence for Congregational, troupe, and soloist dances in Ps. 149-150, Ex. 15, and 2 Sam. 6:14-16 respectively. Try to get your priest to agree to that too while you’re at it.

There’s a biblical artistic hierarchy of Bezalel’s, Oholiabs, wise ones, and willing hearted ones. We need to bring this to the church.

The Bible is filled with vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, nudity, bad language, fornication, and adultery. But it’s always used for uplift.

Evangelicals tend to think of themselves as Bible-believing Christians while thinking of liturgical Christians as those that don’t care about the Bible. But how much time is devoted to prayer and Scripture reading during worship in each of these church traditions. Go to one church of each kind, and bring a stopwatch. It’s pretty incredible to see how much more devoted to the Word liturgical churches are.

The Rambliest of RamblesPosted by Rachel on October 28th, 2006

Rick’s working at Sears right now. I miss him. He’ll be home around 9:15. Kyrie’s napping. The house is very quiet. It’s not completely clean, so I could definitely make myself useful and get that taken care of, but I am feeling sick from this silly cold, so I feel justified to sit here and waste away in front of the enchanting glowy screen of the computer monitor. I like playing arcade games online. It sort of makes me feel like a loser, but at least I’ve gotten that out. I feel better now. Rick did a very nice thing for me today and took me shopping and bought me a leather jacket. I’ve wanted a leather jacket for years, but they’re quite expensive. It ended up costing just over $70. It was originally $199.99 and was 60% off, plus we used another coupon. I still feel like it was a lot of money, but I do like it. Also, I’ll be playing a concert on November 11 which will cover more than double what it cost. That makes me feel a little less sick to my stomach. Also, plane tickets are purchased, so that stress is entirely gone. There are other financial needs, but God continues to graciously provide (and my husband continues to work!) and day by day, everything is taken care of and more. I’m really thankful for that. It’s a beautiful, sunny day. It’s just about the perfect temperature. I need to read more. I love reading but I don’t really have the motivation to do it. My favorite time to read is around bedtime, snuggled under the covers. I really need to just grab a book from Rick’s office upstairs and start reading it. That’d be fun. Part of me wants to start selling things, maybe books, on ebay and make a little extra cash, but the other part of me thinks that’s too much of a hassle and there’s no guarantee I’d end up with any profits. I used to blog about theology and then I got excommunicated. I wonder why I don’t blog about theology much any more…
Well, first of all, I guess my life is a lot different. I really find myself wanting to talk about my ridiculously gorgeous daughter with the adorable personality that creates all sorts of bloggable moments throughout the day. She’s also quite photogenic and I’m sure people would rather see pictures of her than read boring theological posts. Besides, as much as I love theology, I’m more interested in charity, unity, compassion, etc. I guess that comes from my theology, though. Huh.

Renew Your WorshipPosted by Rachel on September 2nd, 2006

I finished the book. It’s really fantastic. It’s written with discussion questions at the end of each chapter which makes it ideal for a book study group at church. It would be particularly helpful for a worship committee or a group of people planting a church. I really liked his suggestions on getting the congregation involved in the sermon. He explained how the sermon has become clericalized, mostly due to the fact that as the Church in history grew, the individual churches were getting bigger and that wasn’t conducive to the type of sermon that allows feedback from the congregation or lay members adding their own thoughts. He still had great ideas on how to get larger congregations to feel more involved in the sermon (discussion time after the service, before the service, or even throughout the week before the sermon). I’ve always liked an atmosphere during the sermon that allows for congregants to add thoughts, as long as it’s done appropriately, with brevity, and all in good order. At least it keeps the people on their toes and encourages them to listen in.

I thought some of his best insights had to do with the worship music, which is something that so many churches need so much help with – especially smaller churches that seem to have shrunk not only in number but in enthusiasm. There’s really just nothing triumphant about worship if the people aren’t involving their entire selves to the worship and adoration of God in song.

I absolutely love liturgy, but I hate how some people misuse it by just reciting the same old words & singing the same old settings and being completely emotionally disconnected. Renew Your Worship would be a great book for open-minded congregants that feel that there is something missing in the spirit of their Sunday worship.

The Renches and the gospelPosted by Rick on December 26th, 2001

As I said the other day, I am at the Rench’s. The Rench’s are an absolutely covenantal family that I am glad to have gotten to know. I met them through their daughter Katherine about two and a half years ago. As I got to know Kat, I got to know the whole family. I’ve enjoyed my stay here, and I’ve especially enjoyed talking with Pastor Rench. Theophilus is great too. Theo has down syndrome, so I have been learning a lot about all that this week. I have has several great wines and great talks. Here’s my Christmas Eve quote:

“No, no, you can have that, but don’t touch the ice cream.”—Pastor Rench to two of his daughters that are something like 15 and 12 as they pulled out a bottle of vodka from the freezer to make themselves screwdrivers.

The rest of this week’s feasts:
Today-St. Stephen
Dec. 27-St. John the Evangelist
Dec. 28-Holy Innocents (commemorating Herod’s murder of the children in Bethlehem)
Jan 1-Christ’s circumcision
Jan. 6-Epiphany (commemorating the visit of the Magi or the baptism of Jesus)

On the bus ride down to Lafayette, I had the opportunity to spend about two hours sharing the gospel with a recovering drug addict (painkillers). It was an odd encounter. When I pulled into the bus station, I saw her standing outside, and something struck me. I knew that I would be talking with her. When she got on the bus, she made an effort to sit with me, and later told me that she had, for some reason, been compelled to sit with me. She pulled out a book on Eastern mysticism, and so I asked her if she liked to read. She told me she liked to read a lot about Eastern religion and then asked me if I liked to read. I told her I read a lot, being an English major finishing up his MA. Then I said that I spend most of my time reading Christian theology. She was interested, as all pluralists are. Basically I explained that the Christian religion is not a religion of philosophy, but rather the story of how God works with his people throught history. I explained how the Bible was a book of stories, and that we on earth are part of His story. Since I knew I had two hours, I started at the beginning (Creation), with the story of the Jews. As I went into the New Testament, I explained how God brought the gospel to the nations through the true Israel, Jesus Christ. I told her how God demands that all people everywhere worship the one true God. This was very difficult for her. She had basically spent all her time trying to earn salvation by good deeds and trying to bring about world peace. This is where being a postmillenialist came in handy. I told her that God had already ordained world peace, a time where the lion would graze with the lamb and the child would play by the hole of the cobra. About 45 minutes into this conversation, she realized I was saying that her best deeds were as filthy rags. She need only to keep faith in the Faithful One. This was very difficult for her to accept. I had spent most of my time explaining how her gods were inconsistent. They couldn’t be just. Those gods never bring about peace. Her gods were impersonal and utterly inconsistent. I spent my time showing the beauty of the gospel. She sat there stumped. She sat in silence for a full 5 minutes. You have to understand, there hadn’t been a silent minute the whole trip. Finally, I asked, “Are you scared that I am right?” She tried to deny it: “well, ya see…well…uh…....(silence)...yes.” Then she asked me “What must I do?” I felt like I was talking to the Philippian jailor. After I told her how she must proceed, she had a hard time believing that her deeds couldn’t save her. I explained that because of sin, there is a great chasm between God and us. I explained how God is holy and cannot look at sin. Then I continued to remind her that Christ was faithful to God.

I am always skeptical of reactions like this, but at the same time, I try to be optimistic. She told me that I had made this story sound so simple. At one point when we were talking about Hell, she told me, “Your God is aggressive.” I replied, “Yes, He is very aggressive. He orders all things. He makes that sun rise as He made His Son rise; He makes the grass grow and wither; He makes the flower bloom and fade, He gives us the everlasting Word; He makes your heart beat, and He breaks stony flesh. My God is very aggressive.” She started to understand that the one true God was not like other gods. She also told me that I should become a preacher, which I found funny from someone that really had no idea what all this is about. She told me how she was going home to go to church with her family and wasn’t really looking forward to it until our conversation. She wanted to know how to serve Christ. She wanted to read the Bible (not knowing where she should turn first, I suggested John). She mad a commitment to church while she is finishing rehab (she’s been clean three months and has two to go).

One of the weirdest moments was when she was just shaking her head and giggling. I asked what was so funny, and she replied, “I have joy.” She explained that she had been living in confusion and fear. Later she got really awkward and said, “Okay I gotta say it…The woman that bears your children is will be very blessed.” lol Pastor Rench asked if that was a pick-up line. The funny thing is, that is not the first time a woman has told me that while I was sharing the gospel. I am trying to find the correlation to that.

In any case, this was on Christmas Eve, and she was really excited that Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation. This God is real. This God is in history. As she said, “This is the true myth.” As I said, I am always skeptical. Her name is Jennifer, and I would appreciate your prayers for her. She is in her mid to late twenties and had a cute little redheaded child that she introduced to me at the bus station where we got off. She seemed really excited at the thought that in many generations, there could be several Christians in her line. As she had an interest in religion, she seemed very interested in sharing this Triune God with others, and teaching her child and her children’s children about this God. In any case, I realize that these things are often temporary. I even communicated to her that these are often like seed that springs up with life and is choked out by thorns. I explained that I am a piece of a body that rots away without my other body parts in the Church. I am hoping something comes of this. I just wish I was a more optimistic postmillenialist