"bigger, more complex, and more violent": church?

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.:
-Einstein (attributed to)

Pastor Bob

I would love to give full credit and a direct link to this cartoon by cartoonist David Hayward/Naked Pastor for this cartoon, but I found it on Michael Kahn's blog (with credit, but not a direct link to the original post. Support David!)

Matrix Church

This appears to not be a joke:

"There is no cost in becoming an Ordained Minister in the Universal Matrix Church"

Click here

Sexing up The Light of the World

It won't likely happen.
But it wouldn't be the first time naked women evangelists
would be unleashed on the streets of Fresno.

The proposal is apparently not a joke:

PETA has a deal for Fresno

By Jim Boren on June 7, 2010 11:46 AM | 6 Comments
FRESNO BEE

PETA wants to help Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin keep the street lights on. All the mayor has to do is let PETA hang banners from the city's light poles. PETA would pay for the space. But the anti-meat banners could upset some ranchers.

This is how PETA describes the banners: "The banners would feature a photo of a bikini-clad PETA Lettuce Lady and the caption, 'Get Lighter: Go Vegan!'"

City spokesman Michael Lukens gave this response from the mayor:

"She said (the idea of) looking for sponsors for light poles isn't a ridiculous idea. We've already made our city buses available for commercial advertising. However, if we would look for sponsors for light poles, there would need to be a formal public and competitive process -- we simply can't just move forward on a letter we've received with a general concept.

"Also, the Mayor has no problem with banners on light poles, but her preference is that they contain a message that's unique to Fresno. She also said that messages on buses can go by as the bus moves away so if you don't like the image, it's gone in seconds. Whereas, banners on light poles are stationary and will always be there, which is why there would need to be healthy public debate about whether this should be done and what the parameters should be."

PETA spokesman Michael Lyubinsky said the offer was e-mailed to the mayor's office today, and Lukens confirmed that it has been received.

Swearengin has proposed reducing the number of street lights that are illuminated in Fresno as part of her budget-cutting proposal. This would be an interesting way to help close the city's budget gap.

But I doubt the idea would get the support of agriculture, especially from the Valley's cattle ranchers.

Here's the PETA letter to the mayor:

June 7, 2010

The Honorable Ashley Swearengin
Mayor of Fresno

Via e-mail:

Dear Mayor Swearengin,

I am writing on behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters to offer a little help in keeping Fresno in the black--or should I say, out of the dark? When we read about your plan to turn off the city's streetlights in order to reduce the budget shortfall, we had a bright idea: We could pay the city to hang banners on its streetlights featuring one of PETA's lovely "Lettuce Ladies" along with text that reads, "Get Lighter: Go Vegan! PETA." This proposal could help defray the cost of keeping Fresno bright and safe while sending a valuable message that might also make its citizens and visitors lighter and radiantly healthy.

A vegan diet--which is free of fiberless, cholesterol-laden meat, eggs, and dairy products and full of fresh fruit, vegetables, beans, and whole grains--is a natural form of weight control. Most plant-based foods are naturally low in fat and calories. As a result, vegans weigh, on average, 10 to 20 pounds less than their meat-eating counterparts. They also have better overall health: According to the American Dietetic Association, vegetarians are less prone to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity than meat-eaters are.

In addition, every vegan reduces water pollution, helps prevent deforestation, reduces methane emissions, and saves more than 100 animals a year from the horrors of filthy factory farming and slaughter. In today's industrialized meat and dairy industries, millions of chickens and turkeys suffer broken wings and legs while they're still conscious, piglets have their tails and testicles cut off without being given painkillers, fish are cut open alive on the decks of fishing boats, and calves are dragged away from their loving mothers within hours of birth.

Allowing us to place our pro-vegan banners on city streetlights will help keep the lights on and the flab off Fresno residents while providing a green and humane message. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely yours,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President

Read more: http://fresnobeehive.com/opinion/2010/06/peta_has_a_deal_for_fresno.html#ixzz0qHIhqbFB

-------------------------------------

Knowing our wonderful Christian mayor, there is no way she will go for it.
The city which has a redemptive gift of money won't buy it just because the economy would tempt us (see: "Dropping the Drop of the Fresno Drop").
But even the Fresno Bee article doesn't let on..other than "bikini-clad"...what this campaign looks like.

(I am glad that) Until today, I had no idea that flirty female models (often Playboy Playmate models) wearing nothing but lettuce have been evangelists for PETA in public places.
They're called the Lettuce Ladies, and like everyone else, they have a website: www.lettuceladies.com/

Some of the videos there I don't recommend you watch, except to see how outrageous/racy they are.

Lettuce Ladies have been known


to pass out tofu sandwiches in airports, dressed in nothing but lettuce....all for the cause..

You know, this is not much different than what we all do, in more subtle ways..."sexing up the sermon," seducing folks into conversion etc. But our Christianizing/Aphroditing of it is worse!

See

• "Sexual energy drives the engines at church"

• Church is Not Porn

• Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, Images, and Aphrodite

• Reduction of Seduction Part 1
• The Reduction of Seduction: Part 2

• My Real Estate Isn't as Big/Sexy as Yours

• The bliss of exclusion is a seduction

• "I don't know if this is right, but I know it's working.."

• Soldier Girls and Sex At Least Once a Day

• sexiness of translation, McArthur the pomo poster boy?

• I've heard the sermon on sex, but how about..

• THOMAS SMITH:Part 1: Missions as masturbation

• Part 2: Missional as rape
• Part 3: Missions as orgasmic and fun
  
• Part 4: Missional and sexuality (again)

• Lindsay, Britney and Amy go into a bar ...

• does open source invite sexual indiscretion?

• Pepsi, Sex, Elevation...& Mission Trips That Are Actually Missional

• "The Truth Isn't Sexy"

• Missional sexuality

• Elevation leads to Vertigo 2.0

• The Rev Gaga, Transubtantiatrix?

• I don't want to be on the news...yeah, right

Maybe Pamela Anderson is called to be an evangelist.

What would Shelly Lubben do?

Audio of Moltmann: life story

What a gift: audio of Moltmann interview, where he talks about overlap of his life story and his theology:
here

Related:

Moltmann Wrestles With God in POW Camp

(see also "labels" below)

Mike Guglielmucci

• If you can, immediately skip to the 18 second mark or beyond in this first video (without reading the intro, you'll have to be quick), and prayerfully just watch the song/bask in it, and see how God uses it.

• Then watch the other videos here to learn the backstory..(don't scroll down yet to see the titles)

• Then return and watch the top video (also at bottom) from the beginning.

I really think this experience will have a significant impact on your life..



























This song, as well as Michael's writing credits from many songs have been excised from CDs, DVDs, see this and this:



Official statement here
and longer version here

the Holy Kiss for today..on a bridge and in a bucket

"There is the kiss and the counterkiss, and if one wins, we both lose." -Walter Brueggemann -
---------------
We covered the biblical tradition of the "holy kiss" in our gathering last Sunday.
It was a lot of fun. We started with a game of Hangman;
We had "Holy _ _ _ _" on the whiteboard when folks came in!

They has to guess what four letter word filled in the blank to make this a phrase that appears in Scripture. When i said "yes" to the first guess of "S," you should have heard the comments!

That the Bible explicitly mentions this practice five times:

• Romans 16.16a — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• I Corinthians 16.20b — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• II Corinthians 13.12a — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν ἁγίῳ φιλήματι).
• I Thessalonians 5.26 — "Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• I Peter 5.14a — "Greet one another with a kiss of love" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἀγάπης).

...makes it a classic case study in how to apply
any scriptures that we assume need a cultural equivalent to out taking them literally.
(Though some of our folks took the "holy kiss" literally Sunday..no, not on the lips....I wish I had video..someone post the stories!(:...)

On this issue of interpretation:

• Brian Dodd's discussion of the "interpretive bridge" is helpful (p. 19 here)

as is

• Ron Martoia's posts on the "two buckets" (see "The Two Bucket Theory Examined" here).

I really recommend you read both above links, then get back to us.
They helped us when we tackled women in leadership, and homosexuality.

We learned that, counterintuitively to our guesses from this end of the cultural bridge, it seems the early church's holy kissing was almost always... on the lips!
The reason is powerful: that form on kiss implied equality...a kiss on the cheeks implied one person was inferior. Nothing like a Kingdom Kiss as an acted parable and reminder that in Christ we are equal! Of course, today, when we look at cultural equivalents like the "holy hug", "holy handshake," we might not realize that that, too, began as a Kingdom equalizer:

In fact, handshaking, which can seem quite prosaic today, was popularised by Quakers as a sign of equality under God, rather than stratified system of etiquette of seventeenth century England
-link

Ironically, the kiss of inclusion became a kiss of exclusion (from centered to bounded set):

Just as kissing had many different meanings in the wider ancient world, so too early Christians interpreted the kiss in various ways. Because ancient kissing was often seen as a familiar gesture, many early Christians kissed each other to help construct themselves as a new sort of family, a family of Christ. Similarly, in the Greco-Roman world, kissing often was seen as involving a transfer of spirit; when you kissed someone else you literally gave them part of your soul. The early church expanded on this and claimed that, when Christians kissed, they exchanged the Holy Spirit with one another. Christians also emphasized the kiss as an indication of mutual forgiveness (it’s from here that we get the term “kiss of peace”). These different meanings influenced and were influenced by the sorts of rituals kissing became associated with. For example, because the kiss helped exchange spirit, it made perfect sense for it to become part of baptism and ordination, rituals in which you wanted the Holy Spirit to descend and enter the initiate. The flip side of the coin is that before someone was baptized you wouldn’t want to kiss them. Early Christians often believed that previous to exorcism and baptism people were inevitably demon possessed. Given that they also thought that kissing resulted in spiritual exchange, it’s pretty clear why you wouldn’t want to kiss non-Christians. I sometimes think of this as an ancient form of “cooties.” It resulted in early Christian debates over whether one could kiss a pagan relative, if one should kiss a potential heretic, or if Jews even had a kiss.
-Penn, link

We incorporated insights from these and other articles linked below, and quoted the only book on the topic, "Kissing Christians" by Michael Penn. You'll note some of the articles below include interview with him. We particularly enjoyed some of the early fathers and teachers' comments and guidelines on the practice.

One early guideline, for real (wonder if this was in the weekly "bulletin"):

1)No French Kissing!
2)If you come back for seconds, because you liked the first kiss too much, you may be going to hell!!

Clement of Alexandra (c.150 - c. 215):

"There are those who do nothing but make the church resound with the kiss."

Chrysostom (4th C):

“We are the temple of Christ, and when we kiss each other
we are kissing the porch and entrance of the temple.”

Augustine (4th C):

"when your lips draw close to the lips of your brother, let your heart not draw away."

One interview with Michael Penn:

By Rich Barlow

Whoever said ''a kiss is just a kiss" didn't know their theological history. During Christianity's first five centuries, ritual kissing -- on the lips -- was a vital part of worship, says Michael P. Penn, who teaches religion at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley. In that context, kissing helped Christians define themselves as a family of faith, he writes in his new book, ''Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church" (University of Pennsylvania Press). Excerpts from a recent interview follow.

Q: Let me start with the basic question: Who kissed whom?

A: In the first two centuries [AD], men may kiss men, women women, but also you would have men and women kissing one another. In future centuries, there continued to be a debate over who should kiss whom. In later years, Christians will no longer have men and women kissing each other, but only men men, women women. [Christians had] debates on whether or not priests could kiss the laity, on whether you should kiss a non-Christian relative in the normal, everyday situation, even debates over whether Jews have a kiss or not.

Q: When in the service was the kiss performed?

A: Our earliest references would be a kiss that would follow a communal prayer. Later on, it gets increasingly associated with the Eucharist and also occurs in part of the rites of baptism and in ordination rites. You have Christians kissing each other as an everyday greeting or also martyrs, before they're killed, kissing one another.

Q: What was the theological significance?

A: In antiquity, a kiss on the lips was seen as transferring a little bit of one's spirit to the other person. You have a lot of early -- I kind of think of them almost as Greco-Roman Harlequin -- novels that speak of the kiss as this transfer of spirit. Christians modify it a bit, to suggest that when Christians kiss each other, they don't just exchange their own spirit, but also share a part of the Holy Spirit with one another. So the kiss is seen as a way to bind the community together.

There's another side, though. There was a concern that kissing an individual who has promised to join the Christian community but isn't yet baptized should be avoided, because the spirit that would be transferred wouldn't be a holy spirit but a demonic spirit. So you have the kiss working as this ritual of exclusion.

Q: Did Christian leaders worry about the erotic overtones?

A: We have only two explicit references to this concern. One says, essentially, to kiss with a closed and chaste mouth, which suggests that a few of these kisses may have been too erotic. The other one warns against those who kiss a second time because they liked the first one so much.

Judas kissing Jesus [to betray him] terrifies them a lot more than eroticism. There's this evil intention behind it. Early Christian writers use the kiss of Judas to warn that it's not just how you practice the kiss, but what you're thinking. If you kiss another Christian while keeping evil in your heart against them, you are repeating Judas' betrayal.

Q: When did kissing fall out of favor?

A: In the third century, men and women are no longer to kiss one another. Early Christians met in what we think of as a house church -- you meet in someone's living room, essentially. Starting in the third century, when Christians [worship] in a public forum, this familial kiss is less appropriate. It's also a time where Christianity becomes concerned with making sure women and men are categorically separated. In the fourth century, that clergy and laity become increasingly distant. You start having prohibitions against clergy and laity kissing one another.

The ritual kiss never entirely died out. We still have it as an exchange of peace [in Christian services]. We see it in the kissing of the pope's ring. In Catholicism, a priest may kiss a ritual object.

Q: What would Christianity have been without the kiss?

A: What I find exciting is to see how what we think of as trivial is so central to early Christian self-understanding. Our earliest Christian writing, Paul's letter to the First Thessalonians, talks about the ritual kiss, albeit briefly. We have hundreds of early Christian references to this ritual. For these authors, it was anything but trivial.

-LINK
----------------------------

ARTICLES:

• -Ritual kissing key for early Christians

Wikipedia article on Holy Kiss

Kiss and Tell the Gospel

Michael Penn explains what the early church meant by the "holy kiss."

On Kissing: A Q&A with Michael Penn

-PUCKER UP by Martin Marty

GREET ONE ANOTHER WITH A HOLY KISS (PDF)

The Holy Kiss of Love: Are We Keeping This Command?

I Corinthians 16-II Corinthians 1: Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss