Tip of My Hat, Wag of My Finger: Onesie Edition
Tip of my hat to the person who invented the Onesie
Wag of my finger to the same person for not popularizing them for adult.
Theology Done Well (2): NT Wright on a Balanced View of the Atonement
HT: Dustin Fulton
Theology Gone Wild (2): If You Don’t Matter to God…
Why am I not surprised the Answers in Genesis people put this out?
Theology Done Well (1): The Jesus You Never Would’ve Guessed Existed
If figured if I was going to do a negative, cynical series on “Theology Gone Wild,” then I should probably do an accompanying series on Theology Done Well. Here’ the first installment. Normally I like to wait a few days between posts, but I thought this was a really interesting painting. This is a far cry from the “Jesus” we usually see interacting with politicians.
Theology Gone Wild (1): God Bless America
So, I think I’m going to start a new, unending, series called “Theology Gone Wild.” The series will catalog pictures, conversations, blog posts, etc. that set on display the humorous, disturbing, or completely contradictory aspects of Christian theology in American culture. For your viewing pleasure, here’s the first entry…
10pts. to anyone who can tell me what’s wrong with this slogan? 
Rethinking Sabbath: Abide in Me
For many Christians, their understanding of the Sabbath is limited to it being “a day of rest.” This is really unfortunate because, though it is certainly a day of rest, it is so much more than that. Partially this misunderstanding is because by ‘rest’ most of us mean a day of relaxation and leisure. But biblically speaking, Sabbath is much more than mere relaxation and leisure.
Sabbath is a weekly reminder that we are not what we do, a weekly reminder to us that we are created by God (see the first Sabbath in Genesis 1!) and that our value is in that reality, not in the reality of a 40 hr. work week or in what we produce. Our value is not in what we do “for a living” (as if “living” is encapsulated in a large 401k!). Our value is not in the amount of money we make. Our value is not in our contributions to society. Our value is solely and completely found in the fact that we are created in God’s image!
The weekly Sabbath is a reminder, in the midst of a hectic work week filled with schedules, deadlines, bills to pay, food to be put on the table, and chores to be finished that these things ultimately do not give us our identity. Sabbath is a weekly ritual that reminds us to just “be” who we are in God instead of being consumed with what others want us to “do.”
Sabbath is not about having one more thing to do. Sabbath is about finding our identity in the One who created us to rest in Him, not in our toils and labors. Sabbath is about seeing our own worth within the larger story of the God who created and redeemed us, not in the myth of a big paycheck or loaded billfold. Sabbath reminds me that my toils mean nothing, but my residing and abiding in God mean everything!
You see, when Christians find their identity primarily in what they do, then it is easy from there to hold contempt in our hearts for those who don’t “do” as much…those who are unemployed, those who are disabled, those on welfare, or stay-at-home moms (or dads). This leads to pride and arrogance because it assumes that “because I work I am more valuable to society and God than that person who doesn’t.”
But, you see, God does not see it that way. He does not find the most value in those who do the most for Him or for the nations. God finds the most value in the one who sits at His feet and abides, rests, and dwells with Him. Sure, this will produce “doing,” but it would be a mistake to assume that our value is attached to doing.
Sabbath is much more than about leisure. It’s much more than about attending worship services. It is much more than pot-lucks and Blue Laws. Sabbath is about resting in the God who created and redeemed us. It is about ceasing our labor for a single day each week to remind ourselves that our identity is not in the work week, but in the wonderful God who became incarnate in Jesus and now indwells us by His Spirit.
Why I Love Being a Father: Moral Values are a Distant Second
HT: JR Forasteros
God as Father: Rethinking the Proximity of God
During college I was completely convinced that people need first and foremost to hear about their sin and their depravity. My conviction was that we have a Christian culture too comfortable with God as “Father” and this coziness with the Father metaphor, I believed, led to lax ethical standards and an assumption that God is closer to Santa Claus than a wholly transcendent (removed) “Other.”
Today, I am not convinced that this conclusion is entirely off base. However, I am increasingly convinced that it is not entirely correct either. I believe this appealed more to my Calvinistic leanings which tended more toward seeing God as so transcendent and Other that immanence (closeness/intimacy) is almost beyond Him.
I want to suggest here that this over-emphasized image of a transcendent (removed) Father is actually hurtful in our culture. While it is important to maintain the transcendence of God, we live in a culture that experientially knows fathers as absent and removed from their children. Even fathers who are in the same home as their children are often mentally removed – thinking always of work, sports, or finances. They are there physically, but really there are anywhere but “there.”*
I’m not saying Christians should avoid discussion of sin or references to God as transcendent. I’m merely saying that we live in a culture which understands the brokenness of the world (the old notions of moral, spiritual, and material progress are nearly gone in the postmodern world), and the absence of father figures. No doubt, this brokenness needs a theological context, but that is to build people up in God’s great mercy, not to tear them down in violent fear of Him.
Because I am no longer convinced that we are cozy with the metaphor of God’s fatherhood I am convinced that we need a renewed interested in the immanence (closeness) of God. Because I’m convinced that we simply do not understand what it means for God to be our Father, we need a renewing of our teaching/understanding of the Trinity, what it means to be “in Christ,” and the Spirits indwelling work within us. A recovery of the transcendent necessitates a recovery of the immanent – both are at stake.
Rather than forsaking (in a reactionary theological move) the immanence of God, as some new-Calvinists and even Arminians have done, we need a reawakening, a re-defining of the immanent, close, and inviting Fatherhood of God. Jesus’ prayers to the Father were not cheap and neither do ours have to be. “Our father in heaven”. The immanence and transcendence of our God are both magnified in this statement. They are NOT held in tension – they are both accepted in their fullness. To understand God as transcendent we must understand Him as immanent. And to understand Him as immanent we must understand Him as transcendent. I’m not calling for balance – I’m calling for full realization of both un-opposing realities.
We need a re-awakening of our notions of God as Father in a world with absent, abusive, and faulty fathers. Fathers are both transcendent and immanent, which is why the metaphor works so well.
*And this doesn’t even take into account those who grow up with abusive fathers. It occurred to me recently that maybe some of these people have no problem with the wrath and violence of God because their own fathers were wrathful and violent. Their image of God, then might really be a perpetuation of a familial cycle of violence – they have found their identity in someone who abuses them and now they look for that same attention from God. They know of no other way to relate to father-figures.
A Labor Day Prayer of Confession
Last night JR, Amanda, and I wrote a Labor Day confession prayer which JR prayed this morning at his church. Here it is…
God, you made the world and everything in it. You are Lord of heaven and earth and do not live in temples built by labor, and you are not served by human labor, as if you needed anything, because you yourself give all humanity life and breath and everything else.
We confess that far too often, we do not remember that you are the source of every good gift, of every breath we take and of every calorie of energy we exert.
And we confess that in our darkest moments, we do not want gifts, handouts. Because to us, handouts are for losers. Handouts are for dropouts. Handouts are for beggars on roadsides. Handouts are not for us.
Because we are a people who labor. Our bodies labor to earn so we can eat, buy, sell and secure. Our minds labor with anxiety over all we must accomplish and all we leave undone. Our souls labor endlessly to win your affections – as though your heart could be won by the sweat of our brow. We labor, we produce, we strive, and all too often we consider ourselves worthy and deserving of that with which you have given us.
We confess that we often allow the labor of our hands to distract us from the work that your Spirit is accomplishing in our world – in your world.
Let us remember that you created us in six days, that at the end of your labors, you rested.
Let us remember that the work of our hands is to sow the seeds of our own destruction, not our salvation.
And let us remember that from those first days, you did not rest again until you laid in the Tomb, having accomplished in your work the redemption that all our labors could not purchase for us.
Let us remember that our salvation was a gift given out of the very depths of your love for us, and that it was given freely, graciously.
Let us remember that we are more than producers, more than the sum of our labors, more than our portfolios and purchasing power. Because at the foot of the cross, we are all beggars in need of the handout you so freely extend to us.
This is a weekend in which we break the surface of the sea of our daily toil to draw a collective breath to break from our many labors. So teach us in this time to rest as you created us to rest. Teach us to pause from our production. And in that rest, in that pause, give us eyes to see where your Spirit is already at work, that we may join into your labors. Because we confess that your work -
- proclaiming good news to the poor
- freedom to the prisoner
- healing the sick
- releasing those who suffer oppression
- and doing the hard work of justice
- these labors are what the Spirit anointed your Son to accomplish, and what we as his body are anointed still to do. Let us fill our brief lives with the work of your kingdom. Let the work of our hands become the work of your body, and your Son.
For in this hour together, we look to Jesus, through whom we know and receive your many good gifts and in whose name we gratefully pray.
