I listened to a radio program on 1210 am today where Mike Horton, a professor from Westminster, was complaining how the church doesn’t teach enough doctrine and theology. People don’t know what propitiation, justification, sanctification or atonement mean anymore. Instead we are always trying to translate the bible into everyday “real life” when the bible, doctrine and theology actually define real life.

I’m also reading this book Redeeming the Routines by Robert Banks where he says, “Doctrinal topics or broader social and political questions… tend to squeeze out more everyday concerns in study groups.” He also says, “Most Bible studies are of little help here. They tend to concentrate on the exposition of biblical books or on the discussion of theological themes.”  He goes on to talk about how pulpits have lost touch with the everyday lives and concerns of people… i.e. “real life.”

Not only does it seem like the two guys have totally different points of view, they also seem to have totally different ideas of what is actually taught in churches. But perhaps their points of view color what they think is actually taught in churches.

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I believe that a woman should be able to preach. She should encouraged to use whatever gifts God has given her. If she has been given the gifts to be a senior pastor, then she should be encouraged to take up that role.

That said, I still believe in gender roles. These often come in the form of “generalizations” or “stereotypes” such as, “Men are strong,” “Women are nurturing…” etc. A lady named JB commented on a blog that when we relate passivity to being “emasculated” we are relating passivity to being feminine and that she finds that stereotype to be offensive. She writes, “As woman, I’m offended by those who portray passivity as feminine, and strength and courage as masculine. And who imply that there can be no worse ridicule than to compare someone to me: one without “a pair”. Or to those who imply that strong women are too masculine. What, is this grade school?”

She is falling into the classic trap of “don’t stereotype or categorize me.” I guess this goes back to the postmodern thingy. “Don’t metanarrative me.” “Deconstruct the binary of gender!”

Without some sort of categorizations or generalizations, there is absolutely no organization and society will not be able to function. I “stereotype” myself all the time. I tell others that I am competent and responsible. Does that mean that I am always competent and responsible? No. But I am saying that in “general” I am competent and responsible. In order for there to be any type of communication or reasoning, there has to be a certain degree of generalization. Am I saying that others cannot be competent or responsible? No.

There are differences between men and women. These are differences that one cannot avoid. Why are men characterized as strong and courageous and not women? Because men have physically stronger bodies and therefore have traditionally taken a fighting role. Women have been characterized as nurturing because they can physically nurse and nurture a child in ways that a man physically cannot do.

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What is postmodern thought and how is it different from modern thought? That’s a huge question and rather than try to give a systematic answer to that question, I want to make an illustration or draw an analogy.

What is a memoir and what is an autobiography? What’s the difference? I think the difference between a memoir and autobiography closely parallels some of the differences between postmodernism and modernism.

I took a memoirs class in college where we had to learn about and read memoirs while writing our own memoirs. It was a very engaging class. I learned a lot about a lot of different classmates because we all had to read excerpts from our memoirs. I also read a lot of different books that I would never have thought to read.

In teaching us how to write our memoirs, the prof explained that we should not try to get the details completely accurate. We should not try to put down the events in chronological order. Some of the events may actually contradict each other. Sometimes the events do not make logical sense. The purpose of a memoir is not to give an accurate account of your life or a particular event in the past. The purpose of the memoir is to make meaning out of your own memories. Memoirs often focus on short periods of time and skip events.

An autobiography on the other hand is supposed to be a chronologically and historically correct account of your life. It should encompass most of the major events in your life. The autobiography should make logical sense to the reader.

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Rene Descartes said the famous “I think therefore I am.” Descartes put down this famous axiom to provide an absolute truth or foundation on which to build other truths. It basically begins with a doubt of all things that we consider to be true. I can doubt the apple that I see on my dining room table. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. I can doubt the car I see in the parking lot. I can doubt the feeling of wind across my face. I can doubt all my senses.One thing that I cannot doubt is my own existence. Why? I cannot doubt my own doubt. By doubting, I establish the existence of my own thought. None of you may be real… but at least I know that my own thinking is real. My own doubt cannot be doubted. It establishes itself.

Now Descartes used this foundation, or absolute truth, in order to prove the existence of God. His proof has many holes in it, but it was based on “Cogito ergo sum.” This is one of the basis of enlightenment thought. The triumph of reason began it’s reign.

Many people have used reason and rational thought to establish other types of truths that cannot be contended with. This is the extension of Descartes reasoning. They forget however, that Descartes own argument for the existence of God was riddled with holes. While cogito ergo sum proved ones own existence, it proved little else. In a strange sense, it serves to prove the limitations of rationality rather than the power of reason. [Read more]

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Made for Mutuality : Jesus Creed Why is it awesome? Scot Mcknight is the blogger/theologian and he writes about women in ministry in that post. He’s a man. That’s why he’s awesome. I love it when men take up the egalitarian banner and fight for women who are not being allowed to exercise certain gifts in church.

This post written awhile ago is also awesome for the same reason. Ben Witherington is also a blogger/theologian who is an egalitarian and argues for that position through biblical exegesis. Read the comments for a very interesting discussion.

NT Wright also has an article on women in ministry arguing for the egalitarian point of view.

I love it when men come out to take on this issue.

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1. Never talk to them again!

Hahah, just kidding. Sometimes when you don’t agree with a person, you still have to deal with them. Perhaps they are in charge of an important ministry of your church or maybe they’re the pastor. You need to not only deal with them, but also convince them to agree with you sometimes.

I have disagreed with church leaders many times. I have to admit that I’m not “successful” at getting people to agree with me a lot of the times, but I have learned a lot of lessons throughout the years.. so I’m sharing those with you :p.

The real way to “deal with” church leaders is relationships.

1. Build relationships with the church leaders.
They may disagree with you on your stance on some issue, but buy building a relationship with the church leader, they understand that you are a person and you understand that they are a person. There are feelings and inherent biases in every person. We are much less critical of our friends. We tend to accept people we like and want to agree with people that we like. Show the church leader that you truly care about him/her and they’ll begin to truly care about you. Friendship is very very powerful. Make friends with the church leader.

2. Build relationships with other people in the church.
Have genuine care and friendship with the church body. A church leader may distrust your ideas if they don’t believe that you care about the body and really love the body as much as they do. If they see that you really do care about and love the church body, your motives become unquestionable. A person who has the wrong idea but correct motives is much more palatable than someone with wrong ideas and wrong motives. They might not agree with your ideas right away, but they will see that you have the right motives.

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This is a common question that is asked, especially among people who have strong visions and risk alienating people who don’t agree with their visions. This is especially an important question in church, where unity is valued.

Some may argue, it depends on what type of vision. If your vision is biblical, you need to move forward with your vision no matter what. Others will argue that no matter what, people are more important than any lofty idea. Do not alienate people or create divisions for some “vision.”

That’s the entire point: A vision without people is only an agenda.

God ultimately loves his people and his visions are always to move people. His kingdom consists of his people worshiping him and glorifying him forever. If our visions do not ultimately help people, then it’s worthless. A vision is seeing people.

That said, once you know that your vision is ultimately good for the people, the people themselves may not know it. There may be a strong contingency that resists it. Or perhaps the privileged people resist your vision to helping the underprivileged. If that’s the case, then it will always be worth it to put the vision ahead of these people and move forward with doing ministry and really helping people in the long run.

An example of a vision may be: “Helping the poor in Africa.”

But no, that is not a vision, that’s an agenda or idea. There’s no people in that vision. “the poor” is not a person. Yet if you go to Africa, see specific people, hear their stories, and become inspired to help them… THAT is a vision.

What do you think? Do you think the people are more important? or the vision?

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I know the “in a building type” Christian church is unpopular these days, but I just can’t get myself away from it. I love the church. I love it for a lot of biblical reasons, but I think those have been delved into by many books already. So here are the one that are not necessarily biblical reasons.

1. I love that it’s organized.
I know people hate organized religion, but I love structure and organization among people. I myself am not an organized person in terms of things, but when I get people together, I love it when everyone knows their roles. I love it when people work together as a team. I love it when people follow the leader. Which leads me to the next reason…

2. I love heirarchy.
Yes, another really BAD word. I said it. I love heirarchy. I like knowing who is in charge and who is in the middle and who are the followers. When I was little, we made up a “spy” club and assigned everyone in the club ranks. It places responsibility on certain people and defines clear roles for people.

3. I love big groups of people.
Walking into a room where there are 50… 100 people or even more waiting for an event to start is an awesome feeling. It’s even more awesome when you know the names of most of the people in the room. Everyone is greeting each other. Everyone has smiles on their faces, laughing at jokes and is generally happy to be there.

4. I love good worship bands.
Good worship bands make it so easy to get into worship! The music sounds so good! The guitar, drums, bass… every instrument contributes to the wall of sound. The worship leader knows the exact words to say to manipulate the feelings of the congregation into pouring out their hearts to God. I know that it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with God and it’s a superficial thing without true spirituality, but I love the music anyway. Who doesn’t appreciate good music?

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Here’s the youtube of his speech… I haven’t figured out how to properly embed videos so that it’ll show up good for both IE and Firefox, so here’s the link:

Obama’s speech on race

Summary:

He basically says that Rev. Wright’s statements (these are my thoughts on his statements) were divisive and were wrong and reflect a wrong way of thinking. He said he could not shut Rev. Wright because Rev. Wright is like a family member to him. Then he identified with both the whites and blacks by talking about their struggles and their way of thinking and then highlighting his own diverse background. He said that we need to talk about race and that blacks need to stop blaming others and focus on working hard and overcoming. Whites on the other hand need to acknowledge that the past has contributed and is still contributing to discrimination. Then we move on by fighting for justice wherever injustice may exist. Providing healthcare, jobs, better schools etc.

Reaction of the pundits:

Most of the mainstream media is basically saying it was an awesome speech. Perfectly delivered and hit on all the right points. He defended Rev. Wright while condemning his words. He identified with all of his constituencies and consolidated his forces while seizing a new issue in the campaign. If you want someone for racial reconciliation, Obama is the candidate.

The conservative blogs and radio basically are saying that Obama sidestepped the issue. He put the focus on race while the focus should be on Rev. Wright’s statements. It doesn’t matter how close he is to Rev. Wright, he cannot associate himself with a person like that as a public figure. They point out that Obama has written elsewhere that he basically agrees with the sentiment that blacks are still oppressed by whites and they disagree with that.

My reaction:

Obama’s speech was really good. I thought he seized a potentially devastating moment [Read more]

Logo for MallChurch … a church inside a mall.

Are we supposed to “market” the church?

Just the initial thought of that is so repulsive. For some reason, when I think of marketing, I think of “flash but little substance.” Things with substance are supposed to market themselves right? We don’t need a smooth talker to “sell” the gospel message. We don’t need fancy ads or great graphic design in order to make the gospel appealing to people. It appeals to the consumerism of our culture. How are we supposed to teach our people that they should not have a consumer mentality with church when we feed that consumer mentality?

Here’s a quote from the website Church Marketing Sucks:

“We love the church, but it needs some help. Typos, cheesy logos, and bad clip art aren’t helping the cause.”

The website helps churches to market themselves, do advertising, networking, public relations, branding and identity.

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