Dreams from my Father

 This evening, I started reading Dreams from My Father, the autobiographical book by the young lawyer Barack Obama.  It has been startling good so far, and I think it's the best book that I've read dealing with cross-culturedness or TCK's since Third-Culture Kids, which I also loved.  It is a book that is rather frank and very open and reminds me again why the President's story speaks to so many people, even those who disagree with his policies.

 A few brief thought-excerpts that struck me in my personal journey and the journey I see others in:
 "...the fluid state of identity- the  leaps through time, the collision of cultures- that mark our modern life." (vii)
 "... [my past] speaks to those aspects of myself that resist conscious choice and that- on the surface, at least- contradict the world I now occupy." (xiv)
 "I enjoyed such moments [of companionship]- but only in brief.  If the talk began to wander, or cross the border into familiarity, I would soon find reason to excuse myself.  I had grown too comfortable in my solitude, the safest place I knew." (4)

The Broken Ugly

The Broken Ugly or Ugly Beauty

Have you seen the falcon soaring,
 High, majestic in its flight?
Death and pain are in its talons;
 They're rending, tearing limb and life.

Have you seen the glow of sunset?
Have you seen the moon’s bright gleam?
Have you wondered at the mountains
 Or joyed to swim the sparkling stream?

Have you seen the Grecian idols,
 Molded bodies, well-taught minds?
Has the joy of children filled you
 Or wonder at some childish ‘finds’?

Have you felt those bruising muscles?
Have you seen that mind crumbling?
Has the joy now turned to terror?
 Or does the ‘find’ now have a sting?

Have you heard of God’s Creation,
 Beauty shining perfectly?
But man’s rejecting God’s commands,
 Brought about the Broken Ugly.

Have you seen the Curse mar Blessing?
Have you seen God’s “good” shattered?
Have you seen the man and woman,
 Choosing death, deceived and flattered?

Have you heard the Gospel story,
 God forgives, life eternal?
But the cost was Jesus dying,
 Bearing wrath and sin infernal.

Have you seen the Man of Mercy?
Have you heard God on the cross?
Have you heard Him cry in anguish,
 Or welcome home a thief who’s lost?

Have you heard Him shout, “Completed”!?
Have you pondered what it means?
Have you seen His pain and triumph,
 And known for you His blood once streamed?

Have you seen the world in this way?
Has the Gospel dawned on you?
True, it shows sin, pain, and death –
 But grace and love and mercy too.

Theological perspective on immigration - with a link

"We must never deny that illegal immigrants are breaking the law. Yet these immigrants’ law-breaking is no reason for the church to remain uninvolved in North America’s largest mission field today consisting of fifteen to eighteen million people, many of whom tremble in the shadows of our society. Civil law is written on soft paper and constantly evolves. God’s law was chiseled on stone tablets and has remained unchanged." - Alejandro Mandes in "Thinking Theologically About Immigration"

   The Gospel is the only saving power in the world.  Any involvement in politics, philosophy, the arts, or education - in short, any involvement at all in this world - must be an outflow of our belief in and practice of the preaching of the Gospel of the crucified Savior, Jesus Christ.  If it is not, we are wasting our lives on seeking to save the world by our own human means.  But, if it is such a Gospel outflow, we have the opportunity to show the world the Gospel on full display in every area of life, just as God intended, for the Gospel has much to say about these areas of culture. 

   We must be careful never to transfer our trust to the transformative power of politics, the beauty of the arts, the uplifting nature of education or soaring thoughts of philosophy.  Our trust must be in the person of Jesus, the human-God who sacrificed Himself to save us and draw us into eternal fellowship with Him.   This is utterly stupid to the modern mind that values knowledge, and it smacks of impotent weakness to the pre-modern mind which values physical strength.  But, we preach Christ!

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (I Cor 1:21)

Too Many Books?

"Since we do--to some degree-- arrange our libraries so that our friends will see our books as we want them to be seen, an easy way to clear them out is to decide which books we'd prefer to, shall we say, hide or banish altogether, so that our friends won't see them at all.  We can throw large numbers of books away just so no one will know you ever took such nonsense seriously."  

-- Orhan Pamuk, Other Colors, 108.

Who Knew?!? The Perpetual Viriginity of Mary is orthodox doctrine...

While talking to a Catholic friend last week, the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary came up.  I began explaining what I thought was historic, orthodox Christian doctrine on the topic, mentioning several of the references to Jesus' brothers and sisters.  (Mt 12:46-50; 13:54-58; Jn 2:12; 7:2-10; Acts 1:14; I Cor 9:5; and Gal 1:18-19 are the main ones, along with their cross references.)  But since I didn't have anything conclusive, I decided to do some brief study on it yesterday morning.  After reading the above references, I was fairly convinced that Jesus did have natural (half-)brothers and sisters.

And then, I decided to look up the history of the doctrine, and things got interesting.  Martin Luther, John Calvin (Harmony of the Evangelists, 215), Ulrich Zwingli, and John Wesley (in "to a Roman Catholic") at least held to the perpetual virginity of Mary.  These references do not include the many church fathers who are known or cited as supporting the doctrine.  The explanation of the above passages is that these "brothers and sisters" were either close relatives of Jesus or step-brothers from a previous marriage of Joseph.  Apparently Protestants have, by and large, ceased to hold this doctrine during the last several centuries due to the uncertain Biblical evidence. 

Anyways, I found it very odd that I have never come across this before in my studies.  And while the weight of Scripture seems to rest most naturally with Joseph and Mary having children after Jesus' birth, it certainly would not be unthinkable that they did not.  Indeed, this is not a particularly important issue of faith as long as we accept all that the Bible says.  Nevertheless, it piqued my interest and I thought I'd share it and see if anyone else had come across it before.

Arizona

This post and others on this blog present a constructive view of the immigration law passed in Arizona, for people of faith.

Some of the boycotts going on regarding Arizona are rather ridiculous, but while Arizona certainly has the right to seek to enforce its borders, I do think that everyone else has the right to expresss their dismay about how it does so... that's what we are doing to N. Korea and Iran...

Two burdens of Jesus on the cross

   I was reading this morning in I Timothy 5 about the church's care of widows; as I tried to understand the section better, I read this in John MacArthur's commentary I Timothy.

    "Jesus spoke from the cross to only two individuals.  He forgave the dying thief, and arranged for the care of His widowed mother.  Nothing so clearly reveal the heart of God as that.  While bearing the burden of the world's sins, Jesus' mind was concerned with the salvation of one sinner, and the care of one widow." (emphasis mine)

The Missional Church

In "The Missional Church," Tim Keller speaks to transformation that is needed within the American Church today.  I do not agree with everything said in the article, but much of it is really helpful.  The three paragraphs given below are from different contexts in his 3-page article.  I would note that my biggest disagreement with this article is that I do not think every aspect of the church should revolve around outreach; however, the point is that we must think of our mission even as we worship, disciple, have community, and serve. 

"But the church in the West had not become completely 'missional'--adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a 'missiology of western culture' the way it had done so for other non-believing cultures. ...

In a 'missional' church, the laity needs theological education to 'think Christianly' about everything and work with Christian distinctiveness. They need to know: a) what cultural practices are common grace and to be embraced, b) what practices are antithetical to the gospel and must be rejected, c) what practices can be adapted/revised. ...

In general, a church must be more deeply and practically committed to deeds of compassion and social justice than traditional liberal churches and more deeply and practically committed to evangelism and conversion than traditional fundamentalist churches. This kind of church is profoundly 'counter-intuitive' to American observers. It breaks their ability to categorize (and dismiss) it as liberal or conservative. Only this kind of church has any chance in the non-Christian west. ..."

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

NHCLC blog - enlightening

The blog for the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is an excellent way to educate yourself about the issues facing our Latino brothers and sisters.  These two most recent posts are very enlightening; I haven't gotten to the rest yet.

More info on the NHCLC is available here at their website.

Toward a more Christ-like way of thinking...