Two Problems

I found this via Next Reformation. It's a pair of questions that seems to go the heart of what's wrong with Christianity today:

1. Present day Christians are not very good at accepting outsiders (sinners who do not follow Jesus).

2. Present day Christians are far too accepting of sinful behavior from insiders (Christians who have been following Jesus long enough to know better).

Shouldn’t it be just the opposite?

Any thoughts about why this is so?

Some good thoughts expressed on both blogs.

Alan Creech on (un)faithful Catholics

Alan Creech has an interesting discussion going on his blog regarding how much flexibility of opinion there is within Roman Catholic Church. There seems to be quite a good margin for what he calls "faithful dissent" although some of the more conservitave Catholics might brand you as an "unfaithful" Catholic.

Quite a few Catholic Emergent types have weighed in. I, as a "Protestant by default (believe in Yeshua but wasn't baptised Catholic)" commented that maybe the only true "Protestants" might be found inside the Catholic Church (at least there, they know what they're "protesting" about!).

This one, by a Catholic named "Tom", who got his education at a "conservative" Catholic university, had this to say:

I've often felt that the Church's insistance on infalibility--even though widely misunderstood--creates a Pandora's box of sorts. When an institution insists that it not only doesn't make mistakes, but cannot make mistakes, then the historical record becomes problematic and requires mental gymnastics.

Anyway, go there for a good read...

Call for Apostles

I found the link to this while reading Charlie Wear's blog:

Where are all the apostles?
I find myself missing them more and more lately. Which is interesting because I'm not even sure what I'm missing. What is it I want an apostle to do for me? It seems like there must be something. Is there anyone in the Church today that has the authority to say the kinds of things that Paul did? We're drowning in opinions and strategies and "movements" and "we just need to get back tos." But we don't seem to have anyone that can stand up and say, "I'm an apostle by the will of God. All this nonsense has to stop because it's divisive and it's fruitless. And whoever disagrees with me, let's just see which of us God's power stands behind!"

That was Scott Bane. It's been a while since I heard anyone talking about apostles. I believe apostles are to be a part of the latter-time landscape. I'm aware that many people who claim to be apostles, or saying that this one or that one is an apostle (and therefore you're out of order if you don't listen to him/her), but I don't believe they've fully arrived yet. If they have, they're hidden for the moment. The test of who's really an apostle may well be what Scott says above, someone with the boldness to suffix his proclamation with, "...and whoever disagrees with me, let's just see which of us God's power stands behind!"

That would only work for a true apostle.

Church and the financial crunch

There's not much I could say that isn't being said much better, but there's a conversation going on about it in blogdom. The blog post that started it appears to be this one (by Chris Marshal):

My truck is paid off but the gas prices are killing me. I don't drive that much and its over $300 per month, not including my wife's car. So what does this project to as a national economy? Recession seems inevitable, will it go way beyond that? A nation already ruled by fear and over-spending with no margins by individuals and the government, what will be the consequences?

How will this impact churches and mortgages and credit lines that can't be fed? As builders pass on who are the committed givers what is left? 1/2 of boomers are there to give and the other 1/2 are driven past their financial margins with consumerism and can't help. Gen X and Millenials have very little value in long term comittments, are all about instant gratification and consumerism is their native language. Commonly this group of up and comers are living on 125-140% of their income taking on exponential debt per year. What will be the result of these decisions having no margins when the shoe drops?

Will American churches go the way of their European counterparts? Becoming really funky coffee houses, restaraunts, art galleries and dance clubs. Just things I wonder about.

I was alerted to the subject by a post on Alan Creech's blog, but on Chris's latest post, there's a more complete list of who's talking about it and links to their blogs (including Alan's).

new links

It's about time I updated my site with new links, especially blogs that I've been visiting regularly.

One that I've found recently, which seems to fit right in with a lot of what I post here is, Messianic Musings, Rabbi Derek Leman's blog.

If you look at some of my earlier blogs regarding messianic/emerging hybrids, you'll know that I did a Google search about two years ago and couldn't find any blogs that were at the same time Messianic and Emerging-friendly (not that any of them were unfriendly, they just weren't into blogging -- apart from the occasional congregation that had one for posting church announcements, or those making political statements, etc.) Anyway, I did another Google recently, and one of the results had something from Messianic Musings that mentioned Scot McKnight. Anyway, have a look for yourself.

Being that I'm into Science Fiction, especially the writing of it, I also find SF Novelists a good site. It's got regular entries by a number of current authors on how they write, or what delights/peeves/affects them about writing, etc. I think I was pointed to that site by Tobias Buckell's blog, the author of Crystal Rain, and more recently, Ragamuffin. I don't know if he still has the first 10 or so chapters of Ragamuffin available for viewing. If you like reading a captivating novel half way through and putting it off indefinitely, you might want to check it out.

Anyway, that's a starter. I may add some more later.

The Adventures of Eetoo

As promised, I've uploaded The Adventures of Eetoo for public viewing. This is only for a limited time. As soon as I submit my final draft to the publisher, I'll reduce it to just the first few chapters to be readable online.

I realise recently that it has something in common with Ben Hur -- except it's a science fiction narrative. Like Ben Hur it follows the history of the main character in other places, but the final part of the story takes place during Passion Week in Jerusalem, where the main character and his companion witness the climactic events of Messiah's life and death, before they return to their home on their own planet with all their questions answered.

The challenges in writing such a story fall into two cattigories: 1. Mixing Science Fiction with a Biblical scenario in a tasteful and readable way. The main character is from a primitive culture himself -- albeit on a distant planet -- so when he arrives on Earth, he doesn't dwarf all the other characters with his advanced sophistication. He neither moves nor changes history with his high tech gadgets -- though they do help him through a few problems he encounters. 2. Research. Since writing The Emissary, a fictionalised story of the apostle Paul, I've done a lot of reading into first century Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, Rabbinical Judaism, as well as a branch of research called Jesus Studies. While The Emissary probably isn't marketable yet (though I'm confident it's historically viable) I've been able to fall back on a lot of that reading and research for Eetoo. It won't confirm all the traditional ideas we have of Jesus, but I believe it captures the 'Jesus of History' in a way that brings a depth to the gospel message. It follows the Gospel account, while placing it solidly in it's first century Jewish context, correcting some of the misconceptions we've developed regarding Judaism and how Yeshua related to it.

My background in understanding culture, the nature of languages, some reading on Quantum Mechanics, and how I've come to understand the Christian message, all play a part. I've also made sure that the plot moves along and doesn't leave the reader bored. I hope you're in for an enjoyable read.

enjoy

Politics a la Alan Creech

First, I'll just say, I'm grateful to be living in a country where elections don't last a whole year..!!
As for what to do with things like politics and issues like abortion, I found Alan chreech's sentiments very close to mine.

He's against abortion, believing it to be murder, but...

... As Christians, I think we'd be better off concentrating our energy on being
Christian and helping one another to facilitate our individual and collective
transformation into the Image of Christ. If that were done, I'd say the number
of abortions would seriously decrease. Abortion is bad, but it's nowhere near
the center of my faith-life.