Everyone has the right to believe what he or she wants to believe. In fact, that can’t be helped. Homogeneous belief can be legislated (as it often is) but it can’t be enforced (as is often attempted). In other words, we can be told what to believe, but we can’t be forced to believe it, even under the threat of death. We may believe the craziest and even most hateful things. We may be inspired to believe what is most beautiful and true. This is our right. Even Luther said,
Every man must do his own believing, just as every man must do his own dying.
I see our community as a place where this must be made possible. I do not wish to create an enclave of homogenous religious thought. I could try, but it would be impossible. Or, together we could try to become that, but the result would not only be a fabrication, but unhealthy for our members. This, in my opinion, is a very present danger, but commonly practiced today. In an effort to preserve a certain dogma and piety, some isolate themselves from the world and only engage the world to extract converts to its thoughts and ways.
I do believe in the inestimable value of such places as monasteries and such communities as the Amish. More than that, I believe in their right to exist. But there needs to be open places where people can freely express wonder and adoration, commune with the True, seek truth, and learn how to be wise and compassionate in the context of community. There must be such communities that are witnesses to the fact that the Beloved Community is not just an idea but a reality made manifest. There must be such demonstrations of a just and free intercourse of all people, and that testify to the declared truth of the reconciliation of all things. These can be light to the world that peace on earth and good will to all people… all people… is not just possible, but among us and at hand!
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend, Mark Hemmings, and was taken on his recent trip to Japan. It was shot at Shinjuku Station in Japan. Very cool!
Check out my tees HERE. I’m growing my inventory all the time. And check out my art HERE.
If you like this post, or if you'd like to use it, consider buying me a beer.
I think we really don’t know what freedom is. We talk about it. We claim to experience it. But do we really know what it is? I’ve become aware of the fact that we can claim to be free when it is very obvious we are not. We might think we are free. We might feel like we are free. But we don’t realize that we are in fact in some kind of bondage. We are not free, and we don’t have the discernment to understand the insidious nature of our bondage, and we don’t have the language to articulate this bondage.
Fear often blinds us. I’ve often said that fear is a gift to prevent us from harm. Fear is good sometimes. If I’m walking along a path in my wife’s home state of Alabama and I see a snake a few feet away, my immediate reaction is to leap backwards. Fear can prevent physical harm in such situations. But I also think fear applies to our primitive reluctance to walk into freedom. We know, intuitively, the cost of such freedom. We know that it means leaving some comforts and securities behind. It means walking into a pathless land beyond theology, doctrine, rituals, tradition, norms and custom.
Which explains why we can be so wrapped up in our theologies, etc., and think and feel like we are free. It is because they provide a warm security against the truth of reality which seems brutal, cold and fearful to us. The truth is, the beauty of Truth and Love lies beyond our fears. It takes courage, insight and honesty to move into this place beyond fear.
If you like this post, or if you'd like to use it, consider buying me a beer.
I wrote something yesterday in this post on Higher Learning or Life that I thought I would expand upon a bit today. It is the quote:
There is a transformation that is not planned or manufactured or even wish for, a completely new creation in which truth alone is master and not the efforts of my own mind.
This one sentence reveals my complete exhaustion with knowledge. I have concluded that our intelligence may have made our life easier in many ways, but it has also brought much destruction. We do not love any more than we used to. In fact, we use facts to divide and hate and punish. Our never-ending studies have not brought us any closer to the truth. I know we need to learn facts in order to live from day to day. But amassing fact upon fact in our brains is only impressive but it ultimately changes nothing. We are like a carpenter with tons of tools hanging off his belt. Impressive! But he can’t build the house! I was talking with a pastor recently who said he’s been preaching about grace for years and years, and when he talks with his people, he realizes that they haven’t changed their minds at all! They believe what they’ve always believed and will continue to do so. He’s deciding whether or not he wants to keep doing this for the rest of his life.
Our minds are hard, inflexible, determined and rigid. We take bits of facts and tack them onto our calloused brains like a bunch of sticky-notes. If the fact doesn’t agree with what we already believe, then we neglect it or change it to harmonize. This is human behavior. This is how our brains work. It is a machine intent on self-preservation, and that is its primary impulse. We must see this. This is fundamental!
Can we calm ourselves? Can we truly listen? There is true transformation that comes about by truth itself, and not my analysis of it or my grasping for it. When I listen and the truth is heard, that in itself transforms! And this can be heard anywhere at anytime. Jesus didn’t say, “Consider John 3:16!” He said, “Consider the lilies of the field.” Can we listen? For those who have ears to hear, let them hear!
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Jorgen Klausen.
If you like this post, or if you'd like to use it, consider buying me a beer.
I began my PhD in New Testament Studies over 20 years ago. Through a series of twists, I ended up not pursuing my degree. My direction radically changed from heading towards teaching to pastoral ministry. No regrets. Here’s why:
- Even though I was accepted into the program, the university started critiquing my transcripts from my previous schools, which to it were too conservative, and was going to require me to do everything all over again, including my 4 years of New Testament Greek. Uh, nope!
- I realized immediately that the PhD was another loop to jump through and that I was at the merciless mercy of the professorial class, the universities, and the politics of that university’s flavor of Christendom and church. I couldn’t stand the learned arrogance I was bombed with every single hour of every single day.
- Lisa was pregnant with our first son, and the financial realities hit us like a road-block. I chose the quickest route out of education and into a paycheck. I went from studying scripture, theology, theological French and German, etc., and dove into a job as a chimney-sweep. I’ve never been so dirty nor chimneys so clean!
- I had a liberating revelation that I didn’t need to “know” any more. The inability of further learning to transform me was clear. I already had more knowledge than I would ever integrate into my life. I sensed that I was simply going to heap further burdens upon myself that I wouldn’t be able nor need to bear. No more facts were required. No more studies were necessary. No more books were essential.
- Along with this revelation came another more cataclysmic one: the absolute destitution of my heart. My own pride, ambition, hardness and cruelty exposed themselves. I saw at once the fathomless suffering and the beautiful delicacy of life and decided that living was more important than memorizing. There is a transformation that is not planned or manufactured or even wish for, a completely new creation in which truth alone is master and not the efforts of my own mind. This, I decided, is where I would live the rest of my days. Or die trying.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Howard Nowlan.
If you like this post, or if you'd like to use it, consider buying me a beer.
I heard a report today that an experimental survey was conducted in the USA. Over 300 children were given fast food of some type. The vast majority picked McDonald’s has having the best flavor. Get this: even if different food NOT from McD’s was in the wrapper, the kids still thought it was the best tasting. Which convinced the researchers that kids are victims of advertising. Because they are told that McDonald’s is the best, they believe it if it says so. Different food in the same wrapper tastes like the same food they hoped to expect.
Which got me thinking about what happened this last weekend between Slice of Laodicea, Apprising Church and me. It convinces me that we could use the same words and totally change the content of those words and we will still receive them. But if the new, different and even offensive content is wrapped in the recognizable and favored wrapper of words that we know and are familiar with, then we take it as the same traditional content. Just because we use the same old traditional words while spreading hate and fear, it doesn’t mean the content is good. If my hate and fear-mongering is wrapped in John 3:16, we are guilt-pressured into receiving it.
I’m not pointing fingers at anyone but myself and anyone who’s willing to stand with me to admit that we do not have a corner on the truth. Can we please admit that just because we own a bible and know the words that we can be miles away from knowing and speaking the truth? When will we realize that when we say we know something, we don’t know as we ought to know? Can we ever graduate to the place where we no longer need to search for him and seek the truth? As another religion rightly insists, if you meet the Buddha, kill him. Insert truth for Buddha everyone. Blessed are they who’s hearts are set on pilgrimage.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings.
If you like this post, or if you'd like to use it, consider buying me a beer.
I made a comment last Sunday that several people have commented on. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that if a “truth” doesn’t work in all situations, then it isn’t truth. It might seem true. But if it isn’t true for everybody, then it isn’t true, ultimately, for anybody. This applies to theology. If it isn’t true for everybody, then it isn’t true for anybody. That’s why much of our western theology is poor. Much of what is taught in churches and in our books today seems true, but only if you are middle-class or better and live in North America or Europe. If someone says to me that God would not let me go hungry or bankrupt or die by brutality, that’s a lie! He obviously lets many people go hungry and bankrupt and die of brutality. This line of reasoning, as harsh as it may be, must apply all the way down the line. If it is true for me, it must be true for a starving Aides orphan in Darfur or a Christian in China locked away in a solitary cell never to be heard from again. Some people think that some of the best theology these days is coming out of third-world countries. I believe it, because it is less likely to be tainted by comfort- and success-oriented thought patterns that enamour us.The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings.
i think it’s our duty to be truthful in the church. painfully so. in a recent time article, it was revealed that the whitehouse’s public show of support for faith-based groups was a cover for it’s ridicule of them. that’s not the biggest deal and comes as no surprise to me. but the tactical approach to dealing with them struck me. instead of actually giving money to the faith-based groups, the whitehouse started boasting about the amount of money available to them. two different things. making promises that won’t be delivered. what’s available and what you can actually have in your hands are two different things. here’s an interesting quote from Time magazine, Oct. 23, 2006, p. 41:
In an effort to divert attention from all the money that wasn’t being given to faith-based groups, we had come up with the idea of highlighting the amount of money now ‘available’ to faith-based organizations…
David Hayward is an artist trapped in a pastor's body, stripping to the essential.
