Salvation

Rays of light dance in broken strands through clouds,
Touching points of bustle upon the surface of earth.
People and cars scurrying around,
As if mice in a lab rat’s maze,
Each going to his own corner to conduct life.
Business cuts open the calm of night,
As each “to-do” list gets longer.
Emptiness replaces the fullness of dreams,
Dreaded reality seeps into a warm heart turning colder.
Fantasies give way to haunted nightmares,
As sleep wares off to the awaken stare.
Life fades way to death,
Dancing across vacant stares.
Warmth leaves the soul,
Rendering it to apathy and despair.
The last remnants of hope dissolve as the moon sets.
Humanity gives way to machinery,
Conformity takes over freedom.
Wars resume as battles are fought and lost.
The social machine ensues with torment and deceit.
Scalding the spirit, we reject the truth before us.
The Son of Man sets the captive free,
Though few acknowledge their captivity.
The looking glass reflects inhumanity,
Soaking up injustice and treachery.
But man searches for the unknown,
While not admitting the fault of his own.
How long will greed win out,
The soul waging war against itself?
St. Paul professes the plight of man,
Expressing in words the human contradiction.
Each one desires good while practicing evil,
Putting into action the desires of the sinful self,
The soul is torn in two—
Seeking that from above,
Succumbing to that from below.
The battle of spirit and flesh,
Old as time itself,
Wages war on all that is good,
Destroying all that is right.
The Image within us,
Woos man to the heights of joy,
The flesh seeks all in its path to destroy.
The hope we cling to the Spirit receives,
Producing fruit no man can cultivate.
The Gardener prunes and weeds,
Causing to grow love, joy, patience, kindness,
Goodness, faithfulness, self-control, and peace.
In His loving care, man’s heart conceives,
A glimmer of hope dispelling darkness,
Leaves man with rest most dire.
In the hurts of society, his heart breaks,
In the delight of the Lord his heart sings.
Redemption grasps its hold,
Salvation manifest in rest.
Mourning gives way to gladness,
An unexplainable joy no longer shall recess.
The soul cries out in delight,
As the Christ dissolves the night.

Atonement

Should I start this with, "I'm sorry"...or should I just move on? Hard call.

I have three previous blog entries that say I will get back to a certain point, but haven't. For instance, I still have to respond to the second half of Natalie's set of questions!!!! I guess I want people to know I haven't forgotten.

I'm starting a personal study on "Atonement". Basically, I'm investigating the 7 different types of atonement that are most often talked about in the church. I'm starting with Scot McKnight's recent book - Community Called Atonement, and working from a number of other resources I have.

Check out Scot's blog, by the way: http://www.jesuscreed.org

And, of course, wouldn't you know, Scot is reading some books himself, and made recommendations in his blog.
- Picturing the Gospel, by Neil Livingstone
- The Justifying Judgement of God, by Justyn Terry

Side note: So, I'm hoping that in this study of atonement, I can find out the true purpose behind Stephen Colbert's "Atone Phone"....1-888-OOPS JEW. Have you seen this? I'm sorry, I should NOT find this as funny as I do. Starting on Rosh Hashanah, he has this white phone with a blue "Star of David" on the front sitting on his desk, and any Jews that have wronged him are to call 1-888-OOPS JEW and apologize before Yom Kippur. When the phone rings, it plays Hava Nagila (sp?). Check your local listings for when the Colbert Report is on Comedy Central in your area.

Theology

God is big.

God cannot be put in a box. (Physical or otherwise.)

I just looked up the definition of thelogy and got a bit of a chuckle. Dictionary.com defines Theology (from American Heritage) as:

"The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions."

Since God lives outside of nature (i.e. God is a superset of nature) then can one actually say that God HAS a nature? Or IS God a nature?

And is the nature of God different from religous truth? I should hope not.

Here it comes...the best part....rational inquiry into religous questions!!!!

So, if you have religous questions, and you seek to answer them, you are studying thelogy. If you "rationally" explore religous questions, you are studying theology.

This has been a number of years ago, now, but I was standing in the religion section at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. I had a stack of Bonhoeffer books and was looking at something by Henri Nouwen. An older man came up to me and asked me about Bonhoeffer. I had recently read "The Cost of Discipleship" and entered into a discussion with him. We talked about Paul Tillich and Systematic Theology, Luther, Bonhoeffer, Nouwen, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, and a handful of other authors. He then asked me, "Where do you pastor?" When I told him I was just a layman, I thought he was going to fall over. He was an Episcopalian pastor and said, "If I had parishioners who could be half as well read as you, I'd be a happy man."

Theology is not new to me. I love it as a topic. However, I believe that theology is more than just a study of the nature of God. By learning the nature of God, and learning to interpret His original plan for creation, humanity, nature, etc., I think I learn more about myself and how I am to relate to ALL of these things.

I'm currently reading Chuck Colson's "new" book - God and Government. It's a rewrite/update of "Kingdoms in Conflict" from 20 years ago. I read KiC when I was in College. So, given that the U.S. is currently in a war in Iraq, Israel is attacking Syria without support from the U.S., and Osama Bin Laden is threatening to attack Pakistan, AND next year is an election year, I thought it would be interesting to see what Colson has to say. I wish I had something valuable to say about the book so far. I'm nearly half way through it, and still have yet to get any insight into what God thinks about pre-emptive strikes, and what the role of God in human politics is or should actually be. Oh, I have my own opinions, don't get me wrong. I was just hoping to learn something. I'll keep you all informed. Basically, Colson and I don't see eye to eye (at least from his writings) on some things. However, I respect him enough to read the book. HA HA HA HA.

By studying what I think God's view of human politics is, it helps me better understand how to relate to people, cultures and situations around me. That's theology.

Okay, I can see some of you saying, "Uh, oh. Brad's going to tell us how to vote." or "Brad is about to tell us that the election should be about abortion, gay marriage, or even the war is bad!" Well, you're wrong. I am a firm believer that you cannot legislate morality. Colson even goes so far as to say in his book that the difference between politics and the church is that politics thinks that by changing society the people will change, and the church should believe that by changing the people will change society. It's dichotomous. So, I'm not going to tell you how to vote. I will just say this, "VOTE!!!!" I believe in the democratic process, and the model that is laid out in our constitution, but if you don't vote, you don't get to complain!!!! You can't win if you don't enter! Enough of my rant on politics. (Poly meaning "many" and Ticks" meaning blood-sucking pests) My point is that understanding what we can of God's plan makes the whole political race thing a non-issue. I don't want to change society to change the people. I want to change the hearts of the people, and society will change as a result.

Wait, I said I was done with my rant on politics, didn't I?

Okay, so back to theology. What are some of the theological things you don't understand? What are some of the doctrinal things you struggle with? What do you think about? Iron sharpens iron....let's talk.

Trying to get unburied

Okay, Sorry...been a week. I've been buried at work. I promise to post something tonight if I can.

I think most of you "get" what my vacation was like. I'll stop with that last post.

Brad

Vacation is Variety (Sept 2nd, 2007)

We do not take our vacations lightly. The work laptop stays home. (The personal one may come along, like now.) The cell phone stays off. The daily routine goes out the window.

Anne's parents have a time-share condo just outside of Port Townsend here in Washington. When they can’t use the unit, we get it. It’s an important part of our lives. Oh, yeah, and the $55 cost for the entire week is hard to beat too! (We supply the food.) The picture here is a view of PT from the beach by our unit. (well, the beach is a five minute walk...but you get the point.)

I brought a couple of books to read. First, I’m finishing the new William Gibson book – Spook Country – which enhances some of the “universe” from his previous book, Pattern Recognition. Second, I brought a Mother Theresa book. Reading the Shane Claiborne book gave me a desire to read something by Momma T. But, I haven’t done much reading, yet. (Sunday)

When we are here, our church away from church is the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Chimacum. Pastor Don Peiper and his wife Claudia have become friends over the last 14 years, and we look forward to seeing them and their kids. Don even gave Anne a hug this morning. We’ve stopped standing up when they ask guests to introduce themselves because there are enough people who know who we are. It’s our church away from church. So, notice, the title of this entry is “Vacation is Variety”. Here’s a couple of emerging Christians, regularly attending a lame excuse for a hard core Nazarene church, attending a Lutheran church on vacation, where the guest speaker was Anglican by tradition. I LOVE HOW GOD WORKS!!! The experience is always fruitful to our thought. Once, we attended LCR and the worship was led by a bluegrass band from here on the peninsula – The Dukes of Dabob. (Available to serve in your worship service for a small fee! EXCELLENT!!!)

So, church is important when we are on vacation.

We always swing by the game store – Completely Puzzled – on Water Street in Port Townsend on our first or second day here. We went on Saturday and bought a card game -- Killer Bunnies: The Quest for the Magic Carrot. What? Stop looking at me like that!!! I can talk about Mother Theresa in one breath and Killer Bunnies in the next. We brought some games from home, but it’s always fun to learn a new game together.

Our 8 year old daughter is doing most of the dinner cooking this week. Yesterday and today, we had hotdogs wrapped in canned biscuit dough and cheese, then baked. We also had salads with lettuce we brought fresh from our garden. It was her first real time fixing dinner for the entire family. She was excellent!!!

Summary: Port Townsend, Beach Condo, Lutheran, Killer Bunnies, Anglican, Biscuit-wrapped Hot Dogs, Mother Theresa.

Any Questions?

I'm Back

Back from vacation....I will now be posting a few items I wrote while gone. These will each be about a week after the actual event. So, please, don't get too confused. **GRIN**

Pax,

Brad