What postmodernism offers the church is the lack of epistemic certainty.  They doubt that we can know things for sure.  Derrida deconstructs language to show that language is ultimately a very murky form of communication.  Lyotard distrusts metanarratives that proclaim an ultimate truth for all generations and all peoples.  Postmoderns are basically saying that you can’t be sure something is absolutely true.

The influence of modernism on the church has been it’s elevation of human reasoning in interpreting the bible.  Truth to moderns is “that which corresponds to reality.”  Truth is right or wrong.  Truth is correct or incorrect.  Truth is, true or false.

Yet is that what the bible teaches?  Does the bible talk about truth in a factual sense?  The bible says, “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” It does not say, “then you will know the facts, and the facts will set you free.”

Truth is not the same as a fact.  That is the big lesson of postmodernism.  This is what postmodernism teaches the church.  Being truthful is not the same as being factual.  Facts will never set anyone free, but truths will.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”  Jesus was not proclaiming that he was a fact.   Truth is best embodied in a living and breathing Christ and not some statements of facts.

What this means is that truth lies beyond just words.  If I told you,”Jesus loves you.”  That would be factually true, but it takes a long time of living and walking with Jesus to really realize the depth of that truth.  That statement as you live life will become truer and truer to you as you experience his love.  That’s what truth is.

That’s why when postmoderns say that we can never really know the truth, they are right.  When are you ever going to fully understand God’s love for you… maybe in heaven?

Have you heard that there is no distinction between the secular and the sacred?

God created the universe, wouldn’t that make the entire universe sacred? Wouldn’t that make every tree supernatural? Wouldn’t that make harvesting fruit from that supernatural tree a spiritual activity? Wouldn’t that make harvesting and farming a holy task?  Wouldn’t that make work a “sacred” activity?

The church does not respect “ordinary” work as a sacred activity.  In fact, pastor’s rarely talk about work.  They do not talk about how to glorify God in your job.  I think there’s a hidden assumption that God’s work is the work of vocational ministers.  Working in the “secular” world is just working for money.  That’s the only purpose.  But this is wrong.

On the flip side, those in the work world also do not respect the work that pastor’s do.  The pastor doesn’t have a boss looking over his shoulder pressuring him all the time.  He doesn’t have the stress of deadlines to meet and quotas to fill.  He doesn’t have a boring monotonous job.  He gets to talk to people and hang out with people and he considers that a job?  I’ve heard many times where people will doubt a pastor’s calling.  They think that a pastor chose ministry because he wasn’t good at anything else.

Thus there is a divide, a war if you will, between the secular and the sacred.  Yet there should be no such war because the secular and the sacred is a false binary.

I believe that working everyday is a special ministry in and of itself whether you’re an engineer, doctor, custodian or starbucks barista.  It should be honored and respected by all, including Pastors.  It should be supported by the pastor and viewed as a very spiritual task.  It should not be looked at as working to make money so you can support your family.  It should be looked at as a mission and the congregation as missionaries.  They should be commissioned to work and be excellent in their profession.

I also believe that pastor’s go through stresses that a typical congregant will never understand.  Caring for a congregation, loving its members, thinking of ways to further the spirituality of the church, while dealing with church politics, opposition and criticism is very difficult.  The congregation should love, support and respect their pastors not only as pastors, but as educated professionals.

Wordpress is so awesome for blogging!

I’m in the process of setting up a new revamped blog for Orange Turtle Photography and I’m discovering all the neat powerful features that wordpress has over other blogging tools. There are so many themes and plugins! It’s like you have the whole world updating wordpress with new features. It’s especially powerful when you host it on your own domain! It’s so cool that I am tempted to ditch this xanga and integrate my personal blog into the Orange Turtle blog. Not decided on that yet, but I’m thinking about it. Xanga’s best thing… the networking… is gone because nobody comments or reads xanga anymore .

The blog is not complete yet, but when it is, I’ll reveal the site address. Stay tuned for that!

Soda is bad for you… almost as bad as cigarettes are.

I can’t believe how many people have told me, “I don’t drink soda,” just like we would say, “I don’t smoke.” With a little disdain in the voice, like “you drink soda?…. ewww.”

And soda is addicting! I get through my morning with a nap, and I get through my afternoons with a soda typically. Without that soda, it’s TOUGH.

back from China.  China BU GAN JING! hahah. 

We all got sick but it was a good trip and the camp and kids were cool.  My head almost exploded trying to speak and listen to Chinese. 

I had a great 4th of July.  I played wiffleball with friends and had some bratwurst sandwiches… pretty good stuff.  We also played BANG.  For those of you who have played that card game, don’t you think Willy The Kid is REALLY cheap?  I mean, Volcanic is bad enough, but Willy The Kid?  I was Willy The Kid and I killed off everyone as the renegade fairly easily.

I guess because of some technical reasons like xanga is dynamic or something, xanga can’t be googled.

So if I know I wrote a post about something 2 years ago, I can’t search for it on google.  The xanga search feature is really crappy for some reason.

This is sad because if xanga ever dies, my xanga will die too.  Other blog thingies like blogger can be googled.  So even if the blogger fad dies, you can still get readership through search engines. 

Xanga seems to be on its way down, just from the amount of activity.  I checked my subscriptions this morning and there was only one new entry since the last time I read it (Friday morning.)  I know weekends are slow usualy for xanga, but I still think that’s kinda sad.

Coffee is a strange substance.  I don’t really like the taste.  Its acceptable if I put a decent amount of coffeemate in it.  I’ve never really drank coffee at all until now.

I am feeling tired, sleepy, lazy one minute… and then I drink a couple sips of coffee and a couple minutes later I’m energetic and motivated to work.  Its strange.  I seriously feel like it takes effect only a couple minutes later, and it only requires a couple sips to kick in. 

Even days when I don’t feel tired, I get less work done than I do if I drink coffee.  Seems like coffee gives you motivation to work too.  Weird. 

I recently read this: http://www.tektonics.org/af/christianmyths.html

“God is my buddy, Jesus is my friend. The modern hymn calls Jesus a “friend” and some may appeal to a verse in John where Jesus calls his disciples “friends”. But the understanding of the word is decontextualized. People of the time of the Bible did not “get to know” each other as modern persons in the West do. A “friend” meant a person who looked out for your practical interests — not someone you had beer and watched football with.

But really, even a more common view can be misleading. Many evangelists speak of a “personal relationship with Jesus”. The phrase is used to mean something not too far from the “God is my buddy” idea, in essence meaning we can talk to Jesus any time, and so on. If I had to correct this, I would say that what is required of us is a patronal relationship with Jesus. The NT explains our relationship with God in terms of a client-patron relationship, one in which God, patron, is remote; and Jesus, as a broker, mediates between ourselves and God. Then we do have the indwelling Holy Spirit as a broker as well; but though the Spirit supplies us with mediation and perhaps power, there is nothing to show that the Spirit is some sort of intimate conversation partner. And finally, since people of the ancient world seldom “got to know each other” personally (as is taken for granted in modern, Western society) there is no way that NT writers could have had an idea like a “personal relationship with Jesus” in mind in the first place — not as we perceive it.”

It doesn’t say where the guy gets this idea from… so I’m not sure, but what concerns me is his attack against using the words “personal relationship with Jesus.”  If Jesus doesn’t mean “friend” in John 15:15 in the same way that we think of when we read the word “friend” then obviously the translators are missing something.  I tend to doubt the guy because if it didn’t mean “friend” in the same way that we think of the word “friend” then why didn’t the translators translate the word as “associate” or something like that.  I think that would fall within the semantic range of the greek word filov . Of course the lexicon lists “friend” as the first meaning for the word filov .

To all the greek scholars out there… do you agree with this guy?  Is the word “friend” decontextualized and if we recontextualize it for our modern day setting,is the meaning more along the lines of patron or associate? 

Do English Ministry congregations in Chinese churches make an impact on their community?  Do you know examples of mature english ministries that are still attached to Chinese speaking congregations that are actively impacting their communities?  Do you admire any english ministry congregations and are there any churches that we as a Chinese church should look to as a model? 

Yesterday at church, there were two guys who were smoking outside our church.  I think they were hispanic, though I cannot be sure.  They drove up in a Civic SI.  I noticed them, but didn’t think much of them.  They were workers in a neighboring business since our church is in a commercial complex.  Joe asked me the question, “Who are those guys?  Do they go to the church?”  I knew the implication of the question.   Our church should be impacting their lives for Christ. 

Do you know any english ministries in Chinese churches that as a whole impact people other than middle class/upper middle class educated Chinese on a regular basis?