(Mears State Park, Michigan)
(I'm re-posting this for someone who asked.)
Do you know who you really are, and who you are meant to be?
Here are links to some of my posts on IDENTITY.
Thoughts about God, culture, and the Real Jesus.
(Mears State Park, Michigan)
(I'm re-posting this for someone who asked.)
Do you know who you really are, and who you are meant to be?
Here are links to some of my posts on IDENTITY.
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Sermon-prepping, in Starbucks |
Today a friend sent me this article. It's helpful. I'll address some of the issues in this article in my coming blog series "Deconstructing Progressive Christianity" (Why I could never call myself a "progressive Christian").
"Here's How the New Christian Left Is Twisting the Gospel"
(Cancun)
In a few days I will post my first of several points on why I could not call myself a "progressive Christian." I'm calling my post "Deconstructing Progressive Christianity."
I'm giving a hat tip to Jacques Derrida. "Deconstruction" originated with Derrida. Since then, it is used in a variety of ways that are alien to what Derrida was saying. Often, perhaps always, the more a term is used, and as it enters public domain, it becomes misused, and gets vaguer and vaguer. This is what has happened to "deconstruction," which in America, has become synonymous with "destruction."
The term "progressive Christianity" suffers a similar fate. It's woefully vague; hence, for me, it is useless. But more about that in my forthcoming second post on why I could never self-refer as "progressive."
Now... fasten your seat belts or, perhaps, just eject... here is one of the best explanations of "deconstruction" I have read. It's from Christopher Norris's book Derrida.
Please don't be offended as I say this. If you don't have some grasp of what Norris is saying, then you don't understand deconstruction. If you don't understand deconstruction, then wisdom says don't use the word. But, alas, this is what people do. I've done it too; viz., use words that, when I am pressed, I am unable to explain.
Norris writes:
"Deconstruction is neither 'method' on one hand not 'interpretation' on the other. In fact it is not too difficult to come up with a concise formula that would make it sound very much like a 'method' and yet describe accurately some of Derrida's most typical deconstructive moves. What these consist in, very briefly, is the dismantling of conceptual oppositions, the taking apart of hierarchical systems of thought which can then be reinscribed within a different order of textual signification. Or again: deconstruction is the vigilant seeking out of those 'aporias', blindspots or moments of self-contradiction where a text involuntarily betrays the tension between rhetoric and logic, between what it manifestly means to say and what it is nonetheless constrained to mean. To 'deconstruct' a piece of writing is therefore to operate a kind of strategic reversal, seizing on precisely those unregarded details (casual metaphors, footnotes, incidental turns of argument) which are always, and necessarily, passed over by interpreters of a more orthodox persuasion. For it is here, in the margins of the text - the 'margins', that is, as defined by a powerful normative consensus - that deconstruction discovers those same unsettling forces at work. So there is at least a certain prima facie case for the claim that deconstruction is a 'method' of reading with its own specific rules and protocols. And indeed, as we shall see, the above brief account of Derrida's deconstructive strategy does provide at least a fair working notion of what goes on in his texts." (p. 19)
Let me add a teaser here. For Derrida, deconstruction considers all subject predicate sentences (of the form S is P) false. To understand deconstruction includes understanding why Derrida thinks this way. And it is to understand why, for Derrida, writing is inferior to speech. But who has time to understand such things, except for a pastor like me who only works for two hours on Sunday mornings?
In my coming post on why I cannot use "progressive" to qualify my Christianity I will expose the glossed-over idea of "progress" as mythical and utopian; hence, as not fitting with the Christian worldview. (My post will not be this technical!)
(And, BTW, deconstruction, when understood, has some intractable philosophical problems. That's another story...)
(Warren Dunes State Park, Michigan)
Some in our church family have chosen to fast and pray, for periods of time, up to and through the Inauguration. That's a good thing, right?
At Redeemer I'll be preaching this coming Sunday on "Fasting and Spiritual Warfare." I'll focus on these verses from Isaiah 58:3-12.
A suggestion: read them with me throughout this week, and up to Inauguration Day.
Be counseled, and guided, and exhorted, and broken, and moved by them.
The context was that the people of Israel
had been fasting, but no spiritual transformation (changed lives) was
happening. So, God give his "chosen fast."
If you are a Jesus-follower, what do these verses say to you, about you? What counsel, what guidance, what exhortation, does the Spirit give you? How, if at all, are you broken and moved by these words?
'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD ?
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -
when you see the naked,
to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the
glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say:
Here am I."
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the
noonday.
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
(Rockford, Illinois)
This case goes before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
A college has banned a Christian student from publicly sharing his faith on campus.
See HERE.
Monday, January 11, 2021
Description: In 2016, Georgia Gwinnett College officials stopped student Chike Uzuegbunam not once, but twice, from peacefully sharing his Christian faith with fellow students on his college campus. First, officials said he had to get advance permission to use one of two tiny speech zones that made up far less than 1% of the campus and were only open 10% of the week. Despite following these policies, Chike was again prevented from speaking. After ADF challenged the unconstitutional policies, Georgia Gwinnett argued that Chike’s speech should receive no constitutional protection, changed its policy, and claimed it should be able to avoid any penalty for violating Chike’s free speech rights. Two courts agreed. Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Chike’s case.
I have always felt that a Jesus-follower's second responsibility is to their family. Sometimes "family" is referred to as "loved ones."
My first responsibility is to love God.
My second responsibility is to love those in my family.
My third responsibility is to share the love of Jesus with others.
If I don't live out our first two responsibilities, my third responsibility will be inauthentic.
If someone claims to follow Jesus, but does not fulfill their second responsibility, why would I listen to what they say to me about the love of Jesus?
Dallas Willard puts it like this.
"A common usage of the word neighbor today locates the neighbor as one who lives “next door” or close by. [See Luke 10:36-37] A “next-door” neighbor is one with a special degree of intimacy, in this understanding, and there is something to that. But in this understanding my most important neighbor is overlooked: the one who lives with me— my family, or others taken in by us. They are the ones I am most intimately engaged with in my life. They are the ones who first and foremost I am to love as I love myself. If only this were done, nearly every problem in families would be resolved, and the love would spread to others."