Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff

The Sacrifical God – a case for Universalim?

Posted on by
4

James Henley one of the students on CYM had a great reflection as we sat around the dinner table so I asked if he would put it together as a guest post. James blogs here Monster-in-Law move if you want to check it out.

I had some interesting thoughts (mainly questions) during a conversation over lunch at CYM about heaven and hell, and in particular to do with universalism. Although I’m not completely sold on the concept of universalism, I also equally think that our conventional reasoning around heaven and hell needs to be thought out more thoroughly. So here are some of my thoughts…

The conventional Christian understanding of the end times is that God is so perfect that he can’t have sin – evil, bad stuff, imperfection – in his presence. So by accepting him and the cross we are purified of this sin and so as perfect, complete people, we can enter his presence.

But if the major theme across the whole gospel is self-sacrifice – the sacrifice of God sending His son to be confined to a human body, and then the self-sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross for us – then why would the same God not make the sacrifice of allowing sin into His presence? Surely, that wouldn’t be one sacrifice too far? If we believe in an omnipresent God whose presence is all around us in the world – then surely He is already in the presence of sin in the interactions he has with us. Even if God isn’t “walking amongst us” as he did in the garden, in order to be with us – in everything – he also must have to be in the presence of all the bad stuff in the world?
James

The Good Night on dvd

Raw Christain Mission v culturally loaded evangelism

Posted on by
1

I have an inkling that much of what we call mission (youth or otherwise) in the UK (west) is not rooted in sound missiology but rather unconsciously influenced by western culture. In an individualistic consumer driven society where people gain identity from brands and their positioning in the world, much of the mission we undertake is individualistically focused and even some of the service based community initiatives are consumer driven they can consumed either by the participants or those receiving. We have lost the missionary call to go to communities and grow expressions of church within the community, we have lost the art of balancing our service to the community with the building of intentional relationships, lost the balance of speaking of God and being Christlike. There a number of possible reasons:
– the cumulative effect of culture on the church
– it is short cut and costs less in terms of time and commitment
– we are in the in-between time where there are still churches so the focus is on the individual and calling them to join existing communities of faith
– in a similar vein a failure to embrace the reality of the current state churches/ and most denominations resulting in a rearranging of the deckchairs on the titanic

mentality rather than a willingness to get out of the boat
– existing communities of faith wrongly think that they reflect the wider communities they are placed in
– a lack of discipleship and cheap christianity
– a focus on teaching and singing rather than space for mission and experiments in being inclusive faith communities
– a selfish desire not to been seen as hypocritical that dis-empowers us from action and challenge.

The reason for the title for this post is that we have lost much of the raw reality of Christianity (VERY aware I am sitting in my comfortable house on my laptop typing) and as such the raw missionary impetus to go and be and see what happens. More that this the need to deconstruct our faith before we go, and to go whilst we are still deconstructing, to go with our questions, so that our being reflects our questions and so allowing what happens to be fresh and raw.

I sit here thinking okay so how does this work in the real world? If i brought this to a local church what would the response be? Well first if they were up for the challenge the focus would be on the deconstruction bit; as teaching is overly loaded in most churches and familiar and comfortable – I expect they would opt for a series of teaching weeks to get their heads around it and then maybe something would happen. This is not raw Christianity, it would be sanitised, packaged. After the death of Moses God tells Joshua and the people (all xxx thousand of them) they have three days to prepare and then they will enter the promised land. Can you imagine trying to prepare to go to war, emigrate, move your whole family and community in just three days? All the time still grieving for a leader who has died and being unsure of the guy taking his place. These people went with questions, they went with their whole worldview turned upside down, they went with little preparation all of which caused them to go with faith.

Finding Time

Posted on by
1

I usually take a bit of time out at the start of the year to reflect on life etc, and the main reflection is that I am aware of the lack of time I have had in the past year, to reflect for myself and the likelihood of finding time this year is scary. Looking back on my blog posts I think there were too many posts highlighting what others have said or passing on news and whilst the original posts are important there is a quote below from Henry Thoreau that comes to mind.

“when our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper or been told by a neighbour; and for the most part the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper or been out to tea and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters proud of his extensive correspondence has not heard from himself in a long while.”

Whilst it seems a contradiction to use the quote, it serves to remind me of the need to find time.

Wild Child rip

Perkins’ 14 movies

I believe in Santa !

Posted on by
Reply

Not posted anything for ages – but just came across the following from G. K. Chesterton.

What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it.
It happened in this way. As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good — far from it. And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me.
What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea. Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void. Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dolls and crackers, now, I thank him for stars and street faces and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.
— G. K. Chesterton in The Tablet 2

I wish you all a happy Christmas –

Keep believing in Santa…

Babe: Pig in the City divx

Chasing Amy movie

Spawn divxA Prairie Home Companion movies

Ambiguity, Communication, and practice

Posted on by
1

ASBO Jesus put up a great image the other day and by the time I got to look there were over 100 comments. My comment was on the nature of ambiguity in communication, something that we severely miss in the church. Jesus rarely explained the parables, and left room for discussion and interpretation. Often when I leave a service I have been speaking at it takes me ages to get out the door, people want to know the answers to the questions I have raised, they want to know where I stand, what i really believe. This dialogue is really important, but people still want to pin things down. On the one hand this is part of human nature and natural, the difference comes from the level of relationship you have with those with whom you dialogue. People who have travelled with me can cope with the ambiguity and lack of answers as they understand the journey. My initial conclusion about this is because people want us communicate orthodoxy but people who have been on the journey can live with the ambiguity because they have seen something of the orthopraxis along the way.marriageTightrope movies

Targeted Christmas Marketing Encounters (of the mission kind)

Posted on by
1

First Richard’s news if you missed it. Now…

A bunch of us were Christmas shopping last night after which bro-in-law told me that he had had his presents wrapped for free by people outside a church in the high street. I said I couldn’t bring myself to do that as it was cheating – I was a Christian already!
OK, I’m making a few assumptions which are really about myself and not about the people doing the wrapping:

  • I’m assuming that they are trying to reach out to people who don’t know about God’s love by wrapping the presents and
  • I’m assuming that they aren’t particularly intending to wrap everyone from their own church’s presents.
  • So therefore I’m thinking that they don’t want to wrap other church people’s presents.

The questions that now go through my head are:

  • Should mission activity be a simple extension of what we do for ourselves (the group), just extended out to others? (because otherwise we are saying we aren’t willing to do things for our closest friends what we are willing to do for others) or
  • Can mission be doing something that when ‘they’ become ‘us’ we won’t do for those people anymore?

I don’t know – I think that there is more to this than meets my eye.

Anyway, I’m going to give bro-in-law the benefit of the doubt: He is single and perhaps he was trying to meet some generous Christian females from our nearest big town!

Help I’m melting.

Posted on by
1

Yesterday I woke up no sense of taste (some would say I never had any anyway) then today started dribbling, and cant close one eye, I am slightly paralyzed on one side of my face, been to the docs and it is Bells Palsy although I like the name Idiopathic peripheral facial palsy (its the idiopathic bit I like – it kind of sums up how I feel when I am drinking anything), so am on a range of tablets and eye drops to treat the symptoms. (cost a fortune in scripts) . Josiah and Bethany helpfully commented that I was melting down one side! The docs know the cause in neurological but no cure however most (70%) recover in about 5 weeks.