Dang it, today is the deadline for the Southshire writing group’s call for stories. I’m currently working on a short story about food and need to send it out today!!!
I chose Turkish Coffee as my topic. Here’s a snippet from the story that begins in the photo shop of my friend Reuben:
Read the rest of this entry »
It is not uncommon to think of God as a conqueror who extends the reign of his kingdom in this world. He defeats the forces of evil and advances boldly. We love to hear stories about radical change, instant turn arounds, and sudden shifts of alliegance, turning from darkness to light. But does it always work that way?
While we can say that God does conquer evil and in some cases affects immediate change, I wonder if God’s subtle, organic, and patient approach is tends to resemble rehab. After going through rehab for some shoulder and neck issues, I found that it was a lot of hard work and dedication, but over time the change was very real and my quality of life has improved dramatically. When I compare our hurting world to this little experience of mine, I think I see some similarities.
God just doesn’t invade and set things right immediately. Why? I’m not sure, but part of it must be that it’s the only way that many of us will change. Sometimes sudden change will happen, but more times than not, it’s God’s persistence and gradual rehabilitation of our broken lives that wins us over. He chooses not to force himself on us and selects the path that will lead to the most genuine, long-lasting, and authentic change possible. God’s ways appear slow to us, but in reality, they are the most effective.
I weary of outreach strategies and gimmicks. It seems that such things are a really easy target, but then those who support them wonder why more people don’t take advantage of them, and so I make an irreverant post.
Internet evangelism day is May 7th, and I only wish that Christians would leave their computers unplugged lest we mess things up any more than we already have. Would you like to be “evangelized” by a Jew, Muslism or Buddist? Would you like them to use “strategies” and “proven techniques” to hook you into their faith systems? Do you even care about what they have to say when they talk about the benefits of their religions? No. Perhaps internet evangelism day doesn’t have to be about aggressive proselytizing, but I can guarantee that it will quickly become this in the wrong hands.
And once I again I cover some old territory. If you have to take a class or employ a technique or use a gimmick to share your faith in Jesus, the problem is not your style or approach, it’s your relationship.
After the weekend’s distractions of maple syrup and hiking, I’m ready to resume my look at sola scriptura and its implications on the authority of scripture. Here are the questions I’m using as my jumping point:
What kind of documents do we find in the Bible and how are we to understand them?
What kind of authority was the Bible meant to have?
>>Who determines what the Bible has to say?<<
What is the Bible’s role in the church today?
If there was ever a sticky question facing the church, this is it. While we can certainly see a consensus throughout church history on a number of key issues, is it possible that certain voices in the church have been silenced because a powerful majority used their interpretation of the Bible for their own advantage?
<%image(20060327-sugarhouse.jpg|200|335|sugarhouse)%> We spent yesterday visiting a number of sugar houses in the area for the open house weekend. I was browsing the Bennington Banner this morning and found they had a picture of the place we visited yesterday. It was quite an operation.
The owner works in the construction industry, but apparently does maple syrup on the side in the winter. He has quite a bit of land with over 600 taps. While driving on the narrow dirt track know as Maple Hill Road, you can seen tons of tubes running down the hillside into holding tanks. While traditional tapping is done with a spout and a bucket, the latest trend is to run lines. It makes collecting the sap a whole lot easier. I recorded a short video of one of these lines. With the sound on you can hear the sap flowing. View the video.
The sap is then put into this huge evaporator machine. There basically is a rather large warming tank that gets the sap hot. The sap will start out clear and does not have any flavor that can be distinguished. Once the sap is warmed up, it is sent into several hot tanks that look like larger versions of the vats you would use for french fries. The picture here is of the evaporating end of the machine where the fire burns the hottest.
It’s probably too soon to know what will happen next, especially because there are enough people on both sides who can mess things up royally, but Hamas seems to be willing to make a deal with Israel. From Haaretz:
GAZA - The Hamas militant group on Monday said it was prepared for dialogue with the Quartet of international mediators to try to end conflict in the Middle East.
“Our people are in need more than any other nation on earth for peace, for security and stability. Our government will not spare any effort to achieve a just peace in the region,” Hamas prime minister
designate Ismail Haniyeh told the Palestinian parliament as he presented his governing agenda.
I was hoping that governing an entire nation/state would push Hamas closer to the mainstream and cause them to be more moderate. At least they have a much more direct link to militants than Fatah. Fatah had to play cat and mouse with militants while also supporting them at times. Hamas can hopefully speak more directly to militants on their side and provide a solution that will be acceptable to the Palestinian people.
I still worry about the Israeli military though. They can roam about the country with impunity and it’s never clear who calls the shots there, especially with Sharon down. Can the Israelis keep their military from sparking additional conflicts while peace negotiations resume?
<%image(20060326-maple bucket 1.jpg|206|275|maplebucket)%> Vermont, the maple syrup capital of the US, is in the middle of sugaring season. It’s that wonderful time of year when the nights are cold and the days are warm, causing the clear sap to flow out of the maple trees. The sap is collected in buckets or in tubes that lead to large holding tanks, and then it is boiled down.
This weekend there is an open house for all of the sugar shacks. We have had a lot of maple syrup and maple-related products such as maple sugar, maple spread, maple cookies, maple brownies, and a maple ice cream shake. It’s just fantastic. I’ll have more pictures to come, but here are a few to start off.
After receiving tons of bad press lately, it seems that Wal-Mart is rounding an important corner. Wal-Mart is currently working on providing organic products and encouraging environmentally sustainable production practices.
Read the article here.
Is this a good thing? I think so. I’m curious what will happen to the smaller organic farms if big farms go organic, but overall, it seems that this is a good step forward. So many farms have ruined our streams with their use of fertilizer and pesticides. Hopefully this will be a positive step forward for the 4,000 Wal-Mart stores in the US and the 2,200 world-wide.
I made my first post over at Mere Mission and tried to stir the pot a little with a different look at mission. When you think of mission, the words go or sent should come up. Often though we assume the invite or come are good enough. I personally have had it with people inviting me to church but not caring about me in the least. While I’m not anti-invite, I am anti-invite only. I actually think that if we simply told people about what God’s doing and let them meet God in other venues more comfortable to them, they may eventually take the step toward church. And if church is not their thing, how can we bring church to people?
Here’s a link to my post. There are some good replies to my post that offer both a view from a perspective that may hold to higher ecclesiology than myself and a view that offers some good clarification. Good times for all. My thanks to Todd for setting up this site.
I already posted this on my Vermont Non-Profit and writing blog: www.edcyz.com, but since it affects my place of employment (SVAC), I thought it was worth recylcing here.
There may be a light at the end of the tunnel for the Southern Vermont Arts Center and Hildene in their dispute with the state over the tax exempt status of large portions of their properties. I don’t know why the state would want to add additional burdens to two non-profits who do a lot of good work. The action of the state seems very self-defeating. Isn’t it good to have land held under the protection of non-profits who allow the public to use the land. I wonder if some land developers were behind this scheme in the first place.
In any case, there appears to be some movement toward a compromise according to the Rutland Herald:
“State tax officials have compromised on a plan to change the tax-exempt status of Hildene, one of this town’s biggest tourist attractions.
Instead of considering all but 50 acres of the 400-plus acre estate, plus the former home of Robert Todd Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln’s son, to be taxable, only about 25 acres of meadowland are still being challenged, said Seth Bongartz, Hildene’s executive director.
“That’s still significant to us,” Bongartz said. “We made the point that it is 412 acres, period — this is an estate we’ve struggled to hold together against all odds for 28 years.”
The concession followed a two-hour meeting Thursday between Bongartz, town officials, representatives of the Southern Vermont Arts Center — another property appealing an earlier decision on its tax status — as well as officials from the state Tax Department’s Division of Property Valuation and Review.
Hildene, SVAC and several other high-profile and previously tax-exempt properties in Manchester came under state scrutiny in recent years because of concerns that not all of the property they owned was central to the educational purposes justifying the tax exemption.”
My friend Todd, a pastor north of Philadelphia in the burbs, has begun a new web site called Mere Mission. Todd is passionate about an intentionally missional approach to ministry. Not only is he involved in going out to the world, he also has a cool vision for his church, the Well.
Just shooting from the hip, I can tell you that Todd and his congregation have done everything possible to create a space for the community. They provide a cafe setting with wifi, host concerts of every variety (I mean, even punk high school stuff), and art exhibitions. The place is decked out with Ikea furniture and they are exploring some new forms of worship. They even have paints on hand usually.
In any case, back to mere mission. Todd has a passion for a missiological approach to Christianity. One outlet for this is meremission. The site will have a blog, articles, and a reading list. I hope to get over there soon and begin posting.
A good place to start is Todd’s post on What it Means to be Missional.
Moving along today onto our next question, we hit the thorny issue regarding what kind of authority the Bible was meant to have. Here’s our list of questions that we’re working through:
What kind of documents do we find in the Bible and how are we to understand them?
>>What kind of authority was the Bible meant to have?<<
Who determines what the Bible has to say?
What is the Bible’s role in the church today?
>>What kind of authority was the Bible meant to have?
Time restricts me from hitting this one full head on as it deserves. It would require a look at church history, Judaism leading up to the time of Christ, and a thorough study of the use of the OT in the NT. But I’ll throw a few thoughts out there to see where they take us.
I began working through the implications of sola scriptura about a week ago here. After giving myself a little bit of space to think through it more fully, I wanted to dive into the first question on my list. I hope that answering these questions will help point us toward a more useful version of sola scriptura for the church today:
What kind of documents do we find in the Bible and how are we to understand them?
What kind of authority was the Bible meant to have?
Who determines what the Bible has to say?
What is the Bible’s role in the church today?
And so we move on to the first question:
What kind of documents do we find in the Bible and how are we to understand them?
As I near the end of What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?
The bottom line is that I’ll never know how much the church has obscurred Paul. In addition, I find it hard to get past my own cultural preconceptions and the disconnect I feel when he talks about the pagan world, Jews, Greeks, Romans, etc.
On the other hand, I find that I am deeply indebted to the work of the church throughout history. The historic church has an important voice in how I read the Bible today. I must allow theologians from the past and present to speak to me and offer their own perspectives. Of course I’ll never truly escape them anyway. I am at my present place only because others have gone before me and set the course.
<%image(20060320-loverbunnies.jpg|160|120|loverbunnies)%>This was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. We are currently “bonding” our two bunnies. They are both neutered, but need a little bit of time to get used to each other. Bailey was just neutered, so he hasn’t quite figured out what’s different yet. Our first two attempts at bonding the bunnies resulted in the hysterical scene captured on video at great peril.
::INAMIRRORDIMLY:: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other. Ed Cyzewski is a freelance writer, theologian, and a nonprofit employee in southern Vermont.
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