Story.
Herod the Great was the ruler when Jesus was born. In addition to cruelty, he was know for his building projects, including a renovation of the Second Temple.
Herod the Great was the ruler when Jesus was born. In addition to cruelty, he was know for his building projects, including a renovation of the Second Temple.
It is a commonplace that Christians live by an ethic of love. We are commanded by Jesus to love our neighbors as ourselves. We easily see that loving others includes being helpful.
But what does it mean to help our neighbor?
The apostolic teaching, the authortative interpretation of Jesus, contains these words that at first reading do not seem very loving:
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat. 2 Thessalonians 3:10
If any one does not provide for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8
If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. 1 Timothy 5:4
If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her assist them; let the church not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are real widows. 1 Timothy 5:16
So, how is it a deed of Christian love not to feed someone who chooses not to work? How is it a deed of Christian love to demand that men provide for their families? How is it a deed of Christian love to demand that families take care of their own, and not to depend upon the church for maintainence?
True Christian love desires that each person become the person God wants him or her to be. True Christian love does not desire that a person remain in a condition God does not desire. Genuinely Christian help will heip a person become what God want that person to be. "Help" that makes it possible for a person to remain disobedient is not Christian help, it is ungodly enabling.
Sometimes love must be tough.
But what does it mean to help our neighbor?
The apostolic teaching, the authortative interpretation of Jesus, contains these words that at first reading do not seem very loving:
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat. 2 Thessalonians 3:10
If any one does not provide for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8
If a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn their religious duty to their own family and make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God. 1 Timothy 5:4
If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her assist them; let the church not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are real widows. 1 Timothy 5:16
So, how is it a deed of Christian love not to feed someone who chooses not to work? How is it a deed of Christian love to demand that men provide for their families? How is it a deed of Christian love to demand that families take care of their own, and not to depend upon the church for maintainence?
True Christian love desires that each person become the person God wants him or her to be. True Christian love does not desire that a person remain in a condition God does not desire. Genuinely Christian help will heip a person become what God want that person to be. "Help" that makes it possible for a person to remain disobedient is not Christian help, it is ungodly enabling.
Sometimes love must be tough.
Category: Same-Sex Marriage
Posted by: an okie gardener
The Pew Forum gives this summary of the positions held by various religious groups on same-sex marriage.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
"No! Don't hit him with the Bible! Here, use this!" Overheard from the back of the church van full of elementary aged children being taken home.
Well, we had gotten half a lesson across: the Bible is a special book. More work remained on personal interaction.
We are having Vacation Bible School at our church this week. Children, ages preschool through 6th grade, are getting Bible stories, Kool-Aid, crafts, games, supper (tonight goulash, corn, and ice cream), songs, and love. What will all this do for them? Only God knows how each life will turn out. But, I am confident that we are doing good, and no harm. And that at least some of the children are benefitting on some level.
We won't be on CNN, or FOX. Nor will our work, or the similar efforts of churches large and small this summer, be discussed on Rush or Hannity. But, what we are doing is important.
Our Founders assumed that most of the life of the republic would happen outside government--local, state, and federal. It does, and it should. But we are in danger of forgetting this blessed reality; and may even alter our national life into a web controlled by a bloated spider on the Potomac.
I have a fantasy. All the members of Congress going back home for a week, laying aside bills and hearings and fund-raising, and strumming guitars, helping 6-year olds with construction paper and paste, playing kickball with 10-year olds, and telling Bible stories in churches and synagogues across America. Or, working at the Y for a week if more in line with beliefs or lack therof. The country would be the better for it.
Well, we had gotten half a lesson across: the Bible is a special book. More work remained on personal interaction.
We are having Vacation Bible School at our church this week. Children, ages preschool through 6th grade, are getting Bible stories, Kool-Aid, crafts, games, supper (tonight goulash, corn, and ice cream), songs, and love. What will all this do for them? Only God knows how each life will turn out. But, I am confident that we are doing good, and no harm. And that at least some of the children are benefitting on some level.
We won't be on CNN, or FOX. Nor will our work, or the similar efforts of churches large and small this summer, be discussed on Rush or Hannity. But, what we are doing is important.
Our Founders assumed that most of the life of the republic would happen outside government--local, state, and federal. It does, and it should. But we are in danger of forgetting this blessed reality; and may even alter our national life into a web controlled by a bloated spider on the Potomac.
I have a fantasy. All the members of Congress going back home for a week, laying aside bills and hearings and fund-raising, and strumming guitars, helping 6-year olds with construction paper and paste, playing kickball with 10-year olds, and telling Bible stories in churches and synagogues across America. Or, working at the Y for a week if more in line with beliefs or lack therof. The country would be the better for it.
A lot is being written now about the first manned moon landing. I have nothing substantive to add, just personal recollection.
I was born in 1956. About the time I became aware of the wider world, it seemed to be falling apart. One of my first memories of fear is watching television during the Cuban missle crisis. I was old enough to understand explosions and destruction, but I think what frightened me was that the adults were nervous, both on television and off. I grew up seeing the daily casuality count from Vietnam onscreen during the nightly news, along with footage of war; by 1968 I turned 12 and assumed that my future would include jungle warfare. 1968 was a bad, bad year: assasinations, riots, a feeling that the world was disintigrating. And over all hung the spectre of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
But, alongside the gloom and doom, was another story that I followed almost like an addict: the good news of the space program. I have an early memory of my dad taking me out of the house into the darkness to watch a satellite fly overhead. Mercury, Gemini, unmanned missions to the moon. Apollo. It helped that I loved science, and science fiction, but I think that the space program would have attracted me even if I had not. I think I was hungry for heroism, for ambitious and positive goals, for the romance of exploration, for a token that humanity might just beat its problems and survive.
When Neil Armstrong spoke those memorable words, I was elated. The moon landing gave me hope for a future beyond our nation's problems in 1969.
I was born in 1956. About the time I became aware of the wider world, it seemed to be falling apart. One of my first memories of fear is watching television during the Cuban missle crisis. I was old enough to understand explosions and destruction, but I think what frightened me was that the adults were nervous, both on television and off. I grew up seeing the daily casuality count from Vietnam onscreen during the nightly news, along with footage of war; by 1968 I turned 12 and assumed that my future would include jungle warfare. 1968 was a bad, bad year: assasinations, riots, a feeling that the world was disintigrating. And over all hung the spectre of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
But, alongside the gloom and doom, was another story that I followed almost like an addict: the good news of the space program. I have an early memory of my dad taking me out of the house into the darkness to watch a satellite fly overhead. Mercury, Gemini, unmanned missions to the moon. Apollo. It helped that I loved science, and science fiction, but I think that the space program would have attracted me even if I had not. I think I was hungry for heroism, for ambitious and positive goals, for the romance of exploration, for a token that humanity might just beat its problems and survive.
When Neil Armstrong spoke those memorable words, I was elated. The moon landing gave me hope for a future beyond our nation's problems in 1969.
At their convention this week, not only did Episcopalians remove a moratorium on consecrating more openly self-affirming and practicing homosexual bishops, but also authorized the blessing of same-sex unions. Story.
These actions put further pressure on the relationship with Anglicanism world-wide, where African and Asian bishops--the growing part of Anglicanism--already regard their American kin as heretical.
Episcopalian leadership seems to have redefined "God" into a cosmic Barney, with love and hugs for all, no wrath, and no firm standards, except for "I'm OK, You're OK."
Theologically, there seem to be two basic errors in Episcopal thinking here: 1. there is no conception that the Fall has lasting effects on humanity such that we are born with problems--from physical birth defects to abnormal brain chemistry affecting our mentality to the impulse to sin, so that to say "God made me this way and that's OK" is at best naive; 2. there seems to be no conception of God's holiness, righteousness, and wrath, so that God is fine with us however we are.
These actions put further pressure on the relationship with Anglicanism world-wide, where African and Asian bishops--the growing part of Anglicanism--already regard their American kin as heretical.
Episcopalian leadership seems to have redefined "God" into a cosmic Barney, with love and hugs for all, no wrath, and no firm standards, except for "I'm OK, You're OK."
Theologically, there seem to be two basic errors in Episcopal thinking here: 1. there is no conception that the Fall has lasting effects on humanity such that we are born with problems--from physical birth defects to abnormal brain chemistry affecting our mentality to the impulse to sin, so that to say "God made me this way and that's OK" is at best naive; 2. there seems to be no conception of God's holiness, righteousness, and wrath, so that God is fine with us however we are.
17/07: Communion on the Moon
Category: American Christianity
Posted by: an okie gardener
Buzz Aldrin, a Presbyterian elder, took communion bread with him to the surface of the moon, eating it in thanksgiving. Story here from Voice of America.
16/07: Check Out Stormbringer
Category: General
Posted by: an okie gardener
Check ou the blog Stormbringer. Today's page here featuring a remembrance of the late Darrell Powers, WW2 member of the 101st Airborne, and excerpts and a link to R. Crumb's (yes, that R. Crumb) history of Country Bluesmen, plus other posts.
Story here.
The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation - or about two months before they are born.
"In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old fetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later," said the research, which was released Wednesday.
Scientists from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud, both in the Netherlands, based their findings on a study of 100 healthy pregnant women and their fetuses with the help of some gentle but precise sensory stimulation.
The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation - or about two months before they are born.
"In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old fetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later," said the research, which was released Wednesday.
Scientists from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud, both in the Netherlands, based their findings on a study of 100 healthy pregnant women and their fetuses with the help of some gentle but precise sensory stimulation.
Once more research has shown that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce.
The article linked speculates on the reasons, but does not mention that perhaps those who live together before marriage lack a serious committment to life-long marriage itself.
The article linked speculates on the reasons, but does not mention that perhaps those who live together before marriage lack a serious committment to life-long marriage itself.
