"We've created life in our own image, so it has a virus"

"I think computer viruses should count as life.
I think it says something about human nature
                                         that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive.
                                                                            We've created life in our own image"
                                                                                                                      - Stephen Hawking

us and them

"Whenever a circle is drawn defining insiders and outsiders, us and them - the Christian is the one who always steps outside that circle to identify with the outsider" -Peter Rollins

God is like music: professor and the prima donna

And the professor is Moltmann.
Wonder if the Molt would agree with

• Len Sweet  ( "string theory [means] then life is at base music..For anything that vibrates gives off sound..so..you and I..are at base a song.. There is no one who isn't musical..My personal definition of Jesus is 'God's perfet Pitch.’")

and

• The Grateful Dead 

about the topic at hand.

Anyway..the "at hand" is a grreat post from  (thankfully blogging again) Rude Armchair:

"God is like music"

moving center part 3

Steve Collins has a new image-series  (LINK)  on  "Scalability:What are parishes and denominations in emergence?", one image below (see also centered sets with moving center  and centered sets and moving center part 2).

 

"The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is.."

"The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is

Painting by Mark DeRaud

surrender.
Look.
Listen.
Receive.
Get yourself out of the way.

(There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender,
for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)"
-C.S. Lewis, "An Experiment in Criticism"  (context)

NT Wright video: Paul, Gospel, Empire

Mark Baker on "centered groups"

Mark Baker, one of our local seminary profs, has written "Religious No More,"  a book that I was thrilled to hear included some "set theory" (click that label below for more).  Kurt Willems, one of his students, drew--on his blog and in his copy of the book--these diagrams.  Baker uses the terminology of bounded groups and centered groups.  Kurt's post is here..

eternal life as interactive, intimate relationship which conceives something (Dallas Willard)

From  Keith Giles' subversive interview w/Dallas Willard:

DALLAS: ...What it means to be saved is to be living a life of interaction with Jesus and that’s the only description of Eternal Life in the New Testament is John 17:3 where Jesus

says, in his prayer, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent”. Now again, “Know” does not mean “to know about him”.

          KEITH: “It’s not about knowledge”.

DALLAS: “Biblically ‘Knowledge’ is interactive relationship. As Mary said to the angel, “But how can this be since I know not a man?” See that word ‘know’ is different than knowledge. What she meant is that she had not had sexual intercourse with a man, that is called ‘Carnal Knowledge’.

KEITH: “So, it’s an intimacy that conceives something then?”

DALLAS: “It most certainly does. The intimacy is one of interaction. When the prophet says, on the behalf of Jehova to Israel, ‘You only have I known or all the peoples on the Earth’,

he’s not saying he doesn’t know “about” the others, he’s saying ‘You’re the only one’s that I’ve entered into a covenantal relationship with, an interactive relationship’. So eternal life then

is an interactive relationship with God. That’s what salvation is.

"Subversive Interviews" by Keith Giles pp 76-77 here

A loud fart in the salon of spirituality

More info

WTF Church

yes, it's for real..check this

on switchng from Blogger to Wordpress

I am still holding out..don't care how old school Blogger is.. see video:

Colbert/U2 mashup: the friendship of enemies

Colbert: "keep you friends close,and your enemies closer.
You can start by hating yourself."

Reporter character in U2's "Cedars of Lebanon:
"Choose your enemies carefully 'cause they will define you
Make them interesting 'cause in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning but when your story ends
Gonna last with you longer than your friends"

Rev Tim Tom: best youth pastor since Ignatius

If you didn't get the Ignatius reference, he's here.  But here's Rev Tim Tom below:

the source of misunderstandings

"Language is the source of [all] misunderstandings"
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

preaching, cultural texts, and "gifts of the Lord lie torn"

Here's an excerpt from an important post by Len..

who gets extra credit for soundtracking his post to a vintage Bruce Cockburn song, "Broken Wheel".

preaching and cultural “texts”Posted  by len

Way out on the rim of the galaxy
The gifts of the Lord lie torn.
Into whose charge the gifts were given
Have made it a curse for so many to be born.
This is my trouble.
These were my fathers.
So how am I supposed to feel?
Way out on the rim of the broken wheel.
-Cockburn, Inner City Front, 1981

Culture is a particular “text.” To bring God into the conversation we have to take the text that has read us (Scripture) and use it as a lens to read this other “text.” If we fail to do this work, in the fear that this involvement will somehow taint us, we are not guaranteeing our safety or purity. Rather, failure to engage with the cultural texts around us only ensures that they will impact us subversively – without our awareness and then leaving us highly vulnerable. Cultural exegesis is thus a “deconstructive” project and a way to begin “seeing our seeing.” Human societies are always cultural projects, and we are embedded and influenced in ways outside our awareness. In order to live as communities faithful to the gospel we have to become aware of the cultural texts we live within so that we can resist where necessary, and affirm where possible..  -Len Hjalmarson, continued. 

early Mandela-themed versions of "Breathe": explicit agape

click, then click again once there, to enlarge

Following the evolution/ deconstruction etc of U2 songs in the making is fascinating..

Consider "Breathe," which early on was a tribute to Mandela...here's a pic of an early lyric sheet of Bono's that he gave me, but told me not to post...

       uh, that is found in the deluxe book edition of "No Line on the Horizon" CD.  (:

And here below is  a newly revealed  canned line from  (written from Mandela's perspective) with the first  explicit "agape" references  (true, it's all agape in U2 lyrics, they've just never used that word)  in the U2 canon (the first part was on the version in the book pictured above, but the agape part is new):

"18^th of July on the banks of a not well-known river, 
I started a journey to where I am now.
 Troublesome, troublemaker, guided by the drums of my Creator ...

 "..Agape love forged like steel in the fire.
 Agape love whispering to us to walk out into the street,
 sing your hearts out to the people you meet"
(link, complete): 

Related classic video :The amazing Andrews Bonsu prays in "the mighty name of Jesus Christ."
----------------------------

 Later PS: found this audio:    1:02-1:20 (the other snippets are identical to album version)

Extractional Church

Alan Hirsch video ( "the church can be reborn through incarnational mission, messianic spirituality and apostolic structure." ) here.


Brad gives "extractional"context here.

kids grill pastor w/awkward questions about Jesus

"Outnumbered is a BBC sitcom about a long-suffering couple with three smart children. Sadly for those outside UK, it is not streamed or archived on the BBC site . Here’s a funny clip that has gone viral, with 9-year-old Ben slow-grilling a minister...Andy Hamilton, one of the very gifted writers of the series, is not a professing believer, but spoke at the Christian Greenbelt Festival last summer. Remarkably, the show is not fully-scripted, and much of the children’s acting is actually improvised."
-Link

"A matrix of Meanings" -Craig Detweiler video

spirituality in film:

collective experience

"There’s a collective experience happening at a rock concert that I’ve always assumed would probably be what church should be like"  -Jeff Tweedy of Wilco

Moltmann: "An individual is not a person"

From Danielle Shroyer's (danielleshroyer.com) blog:

The individual is not a person

          By Danielle Shroyer

February 7th, 2011 — 10:25am

I realize I’m prone to these kinds of statements about Moltmann, but honestly, the paragraph below is absolutely mind blowingly fantastic. It’s so good, I’m not going to say any further commentary about the content itself, other than encourage you to read it, and think about the vast amount of application it has for our lives and the way we structure them if we want to live into the “social program of the Trinity.”  It is, to use a term I’ve coined for just such a moment, a Moltmann WWF Smackdown.  I have read thousands of pages of philosophy on human identity. None of them describe the problem with modern individualization and the true purpose of human identity and personhood as powerfully as Moltmann does here…in one short paragraph, no less.  Philosophers of the modern and postmodern age, consider yourselves smacked down.

“For the last 200 years Western industrial society (and now modern society in general) has experienced one thrust towards individualization after another. The last of them bears the name ‘postmodern’. The opportunities for choice open to individualized men and women are enormously increased, and anyone who has the means can also take advantage of these opportunities. But this power is paralleled by the growing powerlessness of the individualized people, who can certainly look on at events and the world through the media, but can do nothing to change them. An individual is not a person, but–as the Latin word individuum says–something that in the final analysis is indivisible; it means the same as the Greek word ‘atom.’ As the end-product of divisions, the individual has no relationships, no attributes, no memories and no names. The individual is unutterable. A person, unlike an individual, is a human existence living in the resonant field of his social connections and his history. He has a name, with which he can identify himself. A person is a social being. The modern thrusts toward individualization in society promps the suspicion that a modern individual is the product of that age-old Roman principle of dominance: divide et impera- divide and rule. Individualized people can easily  be dominated by political and economic forces. There is only resistance for the purpose of protecting personal human dignity if people join together in communities and decide their lives socially for themselves.
These few pointers may suffice to show the public relevance of the trinitarian concept of God for the liberation of individualized men and women, and the relevance of the trinitarian experience of community for the development of a new sociality.”
- Experiences in Theology, p.333

Beatles 3000

Alan Hirsch: 1) Cultural Distance 2)American Missionary Problem : No Fivefold

HT: Brad Brisco

name three things that get passed around

One is the "secret" love of Jesus...as in U2's "Ultraviolet".

"Your love is like a secret that gets passed around".

  See  below , though, for a hilarious moment.  Before Bono realizes it, he has mixed his lines up and sung,
"Your love is like a light bulb that gets passed around"1:58-2:03 here:

Anyway, the other two items are announced here below on Family Feud
(HT Scott Lindsey) ...
Like item #1, they are both found in some churches:

what a Mennonite pastor, the "Queen of Cognation" and a "new pagan" can teach us about "Language shapes everyone's thought"..including Jesus'?

Thanks to studying at FPU under  Pastor James Wenger, who specializes in the linguistics/anthropology nexus, I have ever since been a fan of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (language shapes thought, over against Chomsky et al).
St. Don Berg and I loved the class, I dunno about anyone else..

For decades ignored, discredited and bebunked, the Hypothesis is once  again popular, thanks to strong empirical evidence collected by Lera Boriditsky  (here's  a great new article of hers from Scientific American) and the delightfully named thinktank "Cognation"  (note, that term alone is a microcosm of "language shaping thought.").  Bonus: click here to hear the Cognation National Anthem...


But as this article from  "Who Jesus Was" reminds us, not many have taken up the historical, and historical/theological implications of S-W.  If language inevitably shapes thought, no matter what ones culture..

Then what about Jesus, who was for a few years, part and parcel of a human culture, and spoke a language (or two) that shaped his thought.  Knowing  and trusting his divinity, we can be secure in asking what some would suggest are risky, heretical, or unnecessary questiosn about his humanity.
It also means we can read the article "even though"  the author  "is the hierophant of The Church of the New Paganism."      (:

In the article below, the bold emphasis is mine, as I will take up the challenge....and make it a bold emphasis in my thinking and research (which of course, will flow through my primary language):

We Are What We Speak:

 In 1956 the linguistic anthropologist Benjamin Lee Whorf posed the intriguing question: How does language determine the way we experience the world? A leading researcher of Hopi culture, Whorf observed:

I find it gratuitous to assume that a Hopi who knows only the Hopi language and the cultural ideas of his own society has the same notions, often supposed to be intuitions, of time and space that we have, and that are generally assumed to be universal. [italics mine] In particular, he has no general notion or intuition of time as a smooth flowing continuum in which everything in the universe proceeds at an equal rate, out of a future, through a present, into a past; or, in which, to reverse the picture, the observer is being carried in the stream of duration continuously away from a past and into a future.

Whorf’s insight has been experimentally confirmed by a new generation of cognitive psychologists, whose most articulate exponent is Stanford’s Lera Boriditsky, leader of an international research group rather cleverly called “Cognation.”:

We've looked at the influence of language on the patterns of early vocabulary acquisition in English and Navajo, on thinking about time in English, Greek, Spanish and Mandarin, on color memory and color perception in English and Russian, on people's thoughts about the gender of toasters (and other inanimate objects) in Spanish and German, and on people's representations of actions and events in Indonesian, Mandarin, Turkish, and Russian.

Sharon Begley writes, “In a series of clever experiments guided by pointed questions, [Boroditsky] is amassing evidence that, yes, language shapes thought. The effect is powerful enough, she says, that ‘the private mental lives of speakers of different languages may differ dramatically,” not only when they are thinking in order to speak, ‘but in all manner of cognitive tasks,” including basic sensory perception...

Although to my knowledge no one has yet pointed out the implications of “Cognation’s” findings for historical research, they are stunningly obvious and strongly supportive of the implications of the behavioral ecology thesis that man has no nature but history.

Language, whether written, spoken, or both, is the chief constituent of human culture. The Biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek, were not the same languages in 1st century Palestine or 4th century Rome with the same subtle connotations and layers of meaning as modern scholars understand Hebrew and Greek. And we have an even poorer understanding of 1st century spoken Aramaic. To reconstruct Aramaic words that appear in the New Testament, scholars must rely on 4th century texts that employ a written form of Syrian Aramaic....

Amidst the semi-scientific claptrap, ahistoricism, and anachronism of that species of the higher nonsense known as the social sciences, the sociology of knowledge represents an enclave of humanist scholarship, especially as exemplified by Peter L. Berger, the author, along with Thomas Luckmann of the classic The Social Construction of Reality, which has lost neither relevance nor freshness since its first publication in 1966...

For unknown reasons this model, ideal for historical research, has rarely been employed by historians. Among contemporary New Testament scholars, only Gerd Theissen uses the methodology of the “social construction of reality” in his research. As a result, his insights into Jesus’ miracles, healings, exorcisms, the nature of illness in 1st century Palestine, and many other New Testament subjects, are often insightful.  -Dan Wick, link

Neil Young the Prophet (sermon video)

Photo credit: Neil Young standing under the cross..like all prophets do

Here's  video of a sermon  (excerpts below, full sermon here) by  John Van Sloten of New Hope Calgary which considers Neil Young as prophet.

Under the video was this quote:  "The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us..." - Walter Brueggemann in The Prophetic Imagination 

Of course, you won't be surprised this pastor has also preached:

Coldplay, Viva La Vida & Christ’s Spirit of Revolution

 

and wrote a book called "The Day Metallica Came to Church"...

More on Neil?:

• Pastor Neil Young on Romans 7 and 8

• Neil Young's Joyful Le Noise

• The Prophets: Rush, Neil Young, Genesis

 

the Apple iHand

Headline: "First adopters are already cutting off their limbs at the wrists in preparation for the release of the latest must-have Apple gadget, the sleek new iHand. " News video:
Apple Fans Chopping Off Hands In Anticipation Of New iHand

"Red Letter Christianity, Black Letter Epistle-anity, or Whole-Canon Spirituality?"

One of Mike Morrell's most important posts yet...and that's saying quite a bit:

Red Letter Christianity, Black Letter Epistle-anity, or Whole-Canon Spirituality?

 

"straight" apology here.

"What would happen if you were to show up at San Francisco's Pride festival wearing a t-shirt that said "'Hurt by church? Get a straight apology here.'"?

Elevation and Suach/ Does God believe in The Edge?

I love hearing rabbis comment on U2, especially when they don't know they are doing so.

Of course, I am  thankful  that we have a "resident rabbi," Adam J. Bernay.  I'll never forget what Rabbi Adam quipped, watching  a live version of "With or Without You." (see" Rabbi Chazat Bono is hungry, so he pulls a nigun").

I haven't yet gotten his take on  the song "Elevation," which is (at least partly) about a



Jewish prayer form of spiritual "elevation" of "base thoughts. "(See "of course prayer is erotic...until elevated").  

I HAVE asked Adam about sabbath ELEVATORS, 
                                                          but not ELEVATION prayer yet.
 

 I can guess what two-letter response he will initially give. (:




Doing a bit more research into elevation prayer, it seems that not just the praying person is elevated, but in some versions, anything can be elevated..or "made holy.":

"to perceive the essential nature of a thing..makes each thing stand on its own essence..
when a persen perceives the true spiritual nature of thing, he also elevates that thing spiritually.
Standing refers to such elevation.  The expression, 'making things stand', therefore says that when "one probes from them" he elevates the

thing that he probes"
"Sefer Yetzirah" by Aryeh Kaplan

Rabbi David Cooper writes:

"Aryeh Kaplan, the most prolific modern writer to discuss the Jewish contemplative approach, lists several types of Jewish meditation in his books JEWISH MEDITATION and MEDITATION AND THE BIBLE. One is called suach, a state of prayerful elevation in which the mediator communes with the divine source of life."

          -link 




.Often, when singing "Elevation" in concert,  Bono lifts his face heavenward
  (to make it obvious who he's talking to)
and sings/prays:
 "I believe in You.
             Do You believe in me?"
(a line/chiasm he has used/preached elsewhere...see 6th
 paragraph from bottom at that link, and see 2:22ff of the video at top 

of this post).. But here below  he even points a finger upward at God and
asks if God believes in..
well watch it and see...3:31ff below:

no more warning stickers

An intriguing development:

"LifeWay Christian Stores, the Southern Baptist–owned U.S. retailer, plans to drop its controversial "Read with Discernment" program.

The program, which began in 2007, listed popular authors such as Rob Bell, Donald Miller, Brian McLaren, and William Young, who the chain said "may have espoused thoughts, ideas, or concepts that could be considered inconsistent with historical evangelical theology".......


'I understand why they did it," one pastor said. "They had to find a way to get some people off their back in order to be able to sell books.'....."

           -Link, full story

German Reformation 2.0

Wolfgang Simosn tips us off to this video, with the comment:
"Special times call for special people. There is a new generation of Kingdom revolutionaries and reformers emerging in many places, most of them young and passionate, who want to see the principles of the Kingdom implemented on earth 

nd who will not take “no” for an answer. Many brilliant but not Kingdom-dedicated young leaders out there wanted to see their own hip, post-modern, super-creative initiative spread around the world, only to realize later, (if ever), that this is the same-old, same-old religious guru-driven religiosity that Jesus came to save us from.
But not so Johannes Wöhr, a young apostolic German, whom God is using to influence thousands to believe that Germany, 500 years after Luther, can and will see a reformation that even Luther never dreamed about. Have a look!
-Link

Violet Burning triple album update:

Coming soon. News here.

"there’s a blaze of light in every word/
it doesn’t matter which you heard/
the holy or the broken ‘hallelujah’"




the violet burning from the violet burning on Vimeo.

my name is night from the violet burning on Vimeo.


the violet burning from the violet burning on Vimeo.

rock is dead from the violet burning on Vimeo.

FACT0RY CRA5H PR3V13W M1X by thevioletburning

--

Bonus, some vintage/classics for any newbies out there:
the violet burning by thevioletburning

More?  Click "the violet burning" below

pastor: "they cast porn films in our building"

"It’s a safe guess that only a few pastors can utter the following sentence:
 'They do casting for porn films in our building'....." 

(story continued here. 
(HT St Mike)

Wile E. Coyote moments in Bible reading

The only thing missing from this great post by Jon Acuff:



        

      "\

Wait, what???” Bible verses:

Sometimes, if I am reading the Bible too quickly, I have a Wile E. Coyote moment. Often when chasing the Road Runner, Wile E. would get so focused on what he was doing that he would run 15 feet off a cliff without realizing it. Then he would pause in mid air, look at the camera, then at his feet and plummet.
I feel that way sometimes while reading the Bible. I’ll get in a rhythm and start making progress. I’ll be cruising through Genesis and Exodus, moving along at a good clip, flying by the material, until out of nowhere I’ll pause, mid thought and say, “Wait, what???”
I’ll go back a few verses and realize that I breezed past something outrageous that at first glance I took as commonplace. Recognizing my error I’ll push pause, reread the verse and then fall off a theological cliff much like Wile E.....

           -LINK:Click to continue 

...is the soundtrack/videotrack he suggested:

"Seven Deadly Sins" Mashup by Colbert

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive - The Seven Deadly Sins - Lust Mash-up
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive - The Seven Deadly Sins - Anger Mash-up
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive - The Seven Deadly Sins - Pride Mash-up
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive - The Seven Deadly Sins - Sloth Mash-up
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive - The Seven Deadly Sins - Gluttony Mash-up
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> Video Archive

speak to which mountain?

"If anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done.'  (Mark 11:23). If you want to be charismatic about it, you can pretend this refers to the mountain of your circumstances--but that is taking the passage out of context.  Jesus was not referring to the mountain of circumstances.  When he referred to 'this mountain,' I believe (based in part on Zech  4:6-9) that he was looking at the Temple Mount, and indicating that "the mountain on which the temple sits is going to be removed, referring to its destruction by the Romans..


Much of what Jesus said was intended to clue people in to the fact that the religous system of the day would be overthrown, but we miss much if it because we Americanize it, making it say what we want it to say,  We turn the parables into fables or moral stories instead of living prophecies  that pertain as much to us as to the audience that first heard them."
-Steve Gray, "When The KIngdom Comes," p..31


“Indeed, read in its immediate context, Jesus’ subsequent instruction to the disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain..’ can refer only to the mountain on which the temple is built!... For him, the time of the temple is no more.” 

-Joel Green and John Carroll, "The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity,” p. 32, emphasis mine).

"The word about the mountain being cast into the sea.....spoken in Jerusalem, would naturallly refer to the Temple mount.  The saying is not simply a miscellaneous comment on how prayer and faith can do such things as curse fig trees.  It is a very specific word of judgement: the Temple mountain is, figuratively speaking, to be taken up and cast into the sea."

 -N,T. Wright,  "Jesus and the Victory of God," p.422 

see also:

• “Temple Tantrums For All Nations”
•  temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn?

 

sin as taboo: RIP, Poor Old Lu

Besides having invented screamo vocals..in 1994! (in this song below,  1:40ff, 2:25ff),
 this whole band is an overlooked gem.  Many will catch the CS Lewis reference in the band's name "Poor Old Lu"). And re: this album's title ("Sin"), see Beth Maynard on "the naive thought that any artist who
writes about sin must be in favor of it."

Wikipedia notes:
"While Poor Old Lu developed an extremely loyal following, it did not achieve wide popularity in Christian circles, due in part to its edgy sound and challenging lyrical content. The band addressed hypocritical televangelists, drug addiction, sexual guilt, domestic unrest and spiritual rebelliousness in its lyrics, topics generally considered taboo in Christian music." (link)