:: in.a.mirror.dimly :: A theology and culture blog with the Bible in one tab and a news feed in the other.

One of the blogs I read regularly is going to be scrapped. Makeesha is in a situation where she has decided to stop blogging for the sake of harmony in her church.

She will be blogging here and here.

I don’t know the nature of the situation, but blogs can make life difficult. Things become even more sensitive when people unfamiliar with blogs take them too seriously.

I view my blog as a type of journal or writing notepad. It’s a place for young ideas, half-baked thoughts, and first drafts. Sometimes they come out polished and gleaming, but who has time to do that every single day?

I think blogs are a lousy place to debate sensitive topics, but they’re a great place to share ideas, even if they’re on sensitive topics.

The fact remains that even if someone has to shut down a blog, the ideas still remain. And if one person has some unwanted ideas, the odds of others sharing them are quite high.

That is where wisdom comes in. When is it better to let these ideas have a forum to stew a little and simmer down as opposed to bottling them up and waiting for them to explode? When is it better to just can the blog and let it fizzle out in the bottle?

In my reading of Zechariah this week I am continually drawn to chapter seven. Chapter seven shows the exiles searching for ways to start over in their old land. They have certainly heard prophecies of restoration and promises of God’s coming rule, but it doesn’t seem to have arrived yet.

Some leaders from Bethel go down to Jerusalem to seek the Lord and ask if they should still mourn on the day of the temple’s destruction. The Lord’s response may have been shocking. Look at this:

7:5 When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months through all these seventy years, did you truly fastfor me, indeed?
7:6 And now when you eat and drink, are you not doing so for yourselves?
7:7 Should you not have obeyed the words that the Lord cried out through the former prophets when Jerusalem was peacefully inhabited and her surrounding cities, the Negev, and the Shephelah were also populated? (NET Bible)

The Lord is clearly frustrated and once again reminds his people that religious observances do not supersede obedience. This was one thing he hoped they would learn in exile, but they simply found new ways to avoid the commands of God.

Of course reading this passage through today’s lens I cannot help but think of Christmas. Are we really going through all of this for Jesus? Ouch. It always comes back to hearing and obeying God. Simple to do. Easy to forget.

I never realized how dependent I have become on the internet until it was suddenly and without warning, snatched from my clutches. While our internet at home is humming along, our connection at work was down for an entire week.

AN ENTIRE WEEK!

I didn’t think this would be a big deal, but then I couldn’t check my e-mail, look up words in an online dictionary, look up phone numbers in the online white pages, search for directions, and the list goes on. The list of things I could not do became so long that I actually typed it all out.

I probably missed a few, but here is the list.

What I use the internet for:

Spel chek (just kiddin’)
Dictionary
Thesaurus
Encyclopedia
Fact check
Calendar
Phone directory
E-Mails (lots and lots of e-mails)
Word Processing
Spreadsheets
News
Weather Forecast
Leisure Time
Journaling (Blogging)
Keeping up with friends (their blogs)
Directions
Finding a store’s hours
Task List
Reminders and Sticky Notes
Research and searching archives
Bible Reading
Bible study tools
File Sharing
File transferring
Shopping
Wishlist
Photo archiving
Sharing Photos
Finding stock photos
Downloading free software
Listening to my favorite radio shows

I don’t do all of these things at work, but you get the picture. My life intertwined with a little blue ethernet cable in the office and the wireless router box at home.

For some reason Robert Gates needed me to come along with him to the Pentagon. I’m a good administrative person, so perhaps he wanted me to take notes for his meeting with Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld was seated in the conference room and was very warm and insightful. He quickly launched into a description of the Anbar provide in Iraq where thousands of militant soldiers were overwhelming American troops.

Gates listened very intently, soaking everything in. Rumsfeld continued to lay out the bleak strategic situation in the Anbar Province of Iraq, filling in minute details. I thought to myself, Rumsfeld got us into a mess and he’s hard to work with, but the man is brilliant.

I woke up from this dream not knowing to make of it. Then I read about the Anbar Province and about Gate’s meeting with Rumsfeld.

I still didn’t know why I had the dream. All I could figure is that God wanted me to pray. And so I have been praying for our leaders, our soldiers, and the people in Iraq. I don’t know what God is up to, but he has my attention.

Let’s remember to pray for peace in Iraq and for our leaders as they try to figure out this mess.

Nate’s back after a very eventful five-month break from the rigors of blogging.

He has some good thoughts on his blog about Advent and the prophets that goes well with my smattering of posts connecting the exile with Advent.

Enjoy!

I’ve been deleting this post for two days now, so it’s time to just get it out.

Here’s my idea. Christmas is coming. We give gifts. All well and good.

What if we gave the gift of links (as in links to blogs) to one another? Not only are we blessings those who work so hard to post good content, we are blessing others with a chance to read some good stuff.

I have a number of blogs that I read regularly, but have been tardy in adding to my “For a Good Blog” list. So, now that I had the day off from work, I took the time to finally add them to my side bar.

Charity
And then there are blogs who aren’t updated frequently, whose content may be slipping a little, and so forth. You know the sort. Why not let them stay on. Give them another shot.

Perhaps a new year will bring a fresh batch of posts. Perhaps they have been too busy with truly important matters to blog. Perhaps they have a potentially terminal case of writer’s block (terminal for the blog that is).

In any case, let’s remember those who are not able to blog as much as they would like . . . and leave a place for them at the “table.”

The most dangerous place in Iraq is not Baghdad.

This is.

The Book of Zechariah is perhaps the closest book in the Bible to Revelation. It’s roughly in the same Apocalyptic genre and deals with the restoration of God’s people at the end of the ages.

Here’s a little collection of my favorites from the first four chapters of Zechariah for meditation (NET Bible):

1:16 “‘Therefore,’ says the Lord, ‘I have become compassionate toward Jerusalem and will rebuild my temple in it,’ says the Lord who rules over all. ‘Once more a surveyor’s measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.’
1:17 Speak up again with the message of the Lord who rules over all: ‘My cities will once more overflow with prosperity, and once more the Lord will comfort Zion and validate his choice of Jerusalem.’”

2:10 “Sing out and be happy, Zion my daughter! For look, I have come; I will settle in your midst,” says the Lord.
2:11 “Many nations will join themselves to the Lord on the day of salvation, and they will also be my people. Indeed, I will settle in the midst of you all.” Then you will know that the Lord who rules over all has sent me to you.
2:12 The Lord will take possession of Judah as his portion in the holy land and he will choose Jerusalem once again.
2:13 Be silent in the Lord’s presence, all people everywhere, for he is being moved to action in his holy dwelling place.

3:8 Listen now, Joshua the high priest, both you and your colleagues who are sitting before you, all of you are a symbol that I am about to introduce my servant, the Branch.
3:9 As for the stone I have set before Joshua – on the one stone there are seven eyes. I am about to engrave an inscription on it,’ says the Lord who rules over all, ‘to the effect that I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.

4:2 He asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, “I see a menorah of pure gold with a receptacle at the top and seven lamps, with fourteen pipes going to the lamps.
4:3 There are also two olive trees beside it, one on the right of the receptacle and the other on the left.”
4:4 Then I asked the messenger who spoke with me, “What are these, sir?”
4:5 He replied, “Don’t you know what these are?” So I responded, “No, sir.”
4:6 Therefore he told me, “These signify the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength and not by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord who rules over all.”

Prior to the book of Daniel was a period of disobedience, idolatry, and judgement that brought about the exile. The people of God were uprooted from their own land and settled in an alien culture where they were oppressed and faced very real threats to their livelihood.

Even in these dire circumstances, the Lord still worked to show favor to his people. He blessed them and even used their own triumphs and blessings to bring mercy and peace to their neighbors and enemies. We don’t often hear talk among Christians about loss and blessings in the midst of defeat and deprivation. Those stories are out there and people are telling them, but they are rarely elevated in the same way as narratives of triumph and victorious blessing.

And after we have navigated our way through the hard times where blessings and victories seem few and far between, there is no guarantee that we can simply take the favor of God for granted. That is where we find Israel in the book of Haggai, a brief stop before we move on to Zechariah during this Advent season.

The people of Israel are slowly reestablishing themselves in their own land. They have built homes and cultivated crops, but one very important piece is missing: the temple of God.

Now remember, God does not really care all that much about the temple as a dwelling so to speak. He was just fine with a tent for quite a long time and made it clear that the temple was man’s idea, not his own. Nevertheless, he meets us where we are at and creates space for us to worship him with a particular time and place.

By this point in the history of Israel, the temple was an essential part of worshipping the Lord, and we must recognize the significance of its absence among the returned people. What seems to rankle the Lord is that his people have not fully repented and turned to him. After communicating this to the people through the prophet Haggai, “The people worshipped the Lord in earnest” (1:12 NLT). The Lord quickly responds, “I am with you.”

Even after the exile and 70 years of living under foreign rule and persecution, the people of God still find it hard to remember him. The quickly forgot him in the midst of rebuilding their lives and putting food on the table. Dare I add to this the task of purchasing gifts for the holidays . . .

I’ll just take a stab at this and say that one lesson we can draw from this story today is the importance of sacred space, time, and practices. We don’t need a particular form, but do need something that will help us remember. The temple really wasn’t for God. He often said he didn’t need it. The temple was for the people so they would have a place to meet with God. It didn’t have to be a temple, that’s just what worked at the time.

It’s not the symbol that matters, it’s what the symbol points to.

As I look at my Advent wreath, I am reminded of the call to repentance and the hope of Christ symbolized in the first week. Today we celebrate the peace of God that has come through his son and will be made complete in his second coming. Next week we celebrate the love of God that brought his son into our world for our salvation. Lastly, during the fourth week we rejoice in the coming of God’s son who initiated the redemption of creation and brought his Spirit into our lives so that we may call him Father.

In chapters three and six of Daniel there are two very similar stories about the struggle of God’s people to remain faithful and holy. Both involve a ruler who is favorable in his opinion of the Jews and a conspiring group of nobles and councilors who scheme to ruin God’s people. Both address idolatry and the blessings of remaining faithful to God.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
There is no doubt that many faithful Jews were killed or at least marginalized during the exile becasue they would not worship foreign gods. And so we have two very similar stories about obedience and deliverance, start with our 3 friends here.

Oddly enough, right after Nebuchadnezzar dreams about a statue with a gold head, he mades one completely out of gold and orders everyone to worship it. Something tells me the dream did not have the desired effect. Nevertheless, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are all delivered from the flames of a furnace.

3:28 Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, “Praised be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent forth his angel and has rescued his servants who trusted in him, ignoring the edict of the king and giving up their bodies rather than serve or pay homage to any god other than their God!
3:29 I hereby decree that any people, nation, or language group that blasphemes the god of Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego will be dismembered and his home reduced to rubble! For there exists no other god who can deliver in this way.” NET Bible

Daniel in the Lion’s Den
King Darius is tricked by his counselors to issue a decree that everyone should pray to him for 30 days. Daniel refuses to give in and the king is forced by his counselors to toss Daniel into a den of lions. They had so many creative ways to kill people back in the day.

God once again rescues his faithful servant.There is a very clear message in Daniel’s story: trust in God = no injury

6:21 Then Daniel spoke to the king, “O king, live forever!
6:22 My God sent his angel and closed the lions’ mouths so that they have not harmed me, because I was found to be innocent before him. Nor have I done any harm to you, O king.”
6:23 Then the king was delighted and gave an order to haul Daniel up from the den. So Daniel was hauled up out of the den. He had no injury of any kind, because he had trusted in his God

Lessons in Exile
These two stories are not here to teach one simple, universal truth: faithful people are always rescued by God. They could instead be viewed as highlight reels, or the best of God’s deliverance. People in exile should not give up on God because he has not given up on them, and here are some stories to prove it.

These stories show how God still remembers his people even in the midst of persecution and exile. For a people who knew a lot about death and loss, these few stories of triumph were a source of comfort and encouragement. I don’t think that anyone living in exile read the story of Daniel in the lion’s den and then expected to succeed in all they set out to do.

The New Testament addresses this issue as well. After recounting the great heros of faith who were delivered by God, there is another list of those who were not:

But others were tortured, not accepting release, to obtain resurrection to a better life.
11:36 And others experienced mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
11:37 They were stoned, sawed apart, murdered with the sword; they went about in sheepskins and goatskins; they were destitute, afflicted, ill-treated
11:38 (the world was not worthy of them); they wandered in deserts and mountains and caves and openings in the earth.
11:39 And these all were commended43 for their faith, yet they did not receive what was promised.
11:40 For God had provided something better for us, so that they would be made perfect together with us.

I’m not a big politcs blogger, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate how seriously President Bush is taking this report. Of course we could have trouble if the President doesn’t like what he finds. I just hope Bush responds to the tune of the study group.

And if you didn’t click on any of those links, then I suppose this post doesn’t make any sense.

I’ve been a believer that theology belongs in the regular life of the church. Lately I’ve come across a few thinkers who share that idea.

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsh state in The Shaping of Things to Come:

It is important to note that truly indigenous churches are ones that are self-theologizing. Christ is in a community when it is able to develop its own theology using language, symbols, and longings with local flavor and resonance. This sounds risky, we know. But we are not suggesting that basic Christian doctrine be up for negotiation. As indigenous churches grow, they must be people of the Word of God, but they need to express biblical theology in culturally relevant ways (74).

Jordon (with an “O”) Cooper quoted Stanley Grenz the other day:

Solid theological reflection is crucial in the practice of ministry, understood both narrowly as the work of ordained leaders and in the wider sense of being the whole life and mission of the people of God. Actually, today the chief rival to ministering from a theological base is engaging in the practice of “church” by means of a pragmatic outlook, that makes decisions largely if not solely on the basis of a consideration of what “works.” In the long run, however, the pragmatic approach is self-defeating, simply because it transforms the community of faith into an institution whose chief end is not the glory of God and the fulfillment of a divinely-given mandate, but survival. The long-term health and viability of the church demands that its leaders and people return again and again to the forming and informing vision of what the community of Christ is called, mandated, and empowered to be by the Lord of the church. Above all, I would add, we are called to be a people who embody in our life together and in our relationships to all humans and even to all creation the great narrative of the biblical God, the one who has come to us in Christ and now empowers us through the Holy Spirit poured out in our hearts and in our fellowship.

I don’t think either of these statements require every church to develop it’s own creeds and host theological conferences. Instead, think of it this way. While we have some basic chunks of Orthodox Christianity that must be affirmed, we should not simply adopt every theological notion that hops down the pike. We must listen to the Spirit of God and to the church.

The truth is that God wants to apply the scripture to our lives here and now, and we are the most qualified people to live out the Gospel in our own context. That right there may be what contextual theology looks like. Simply living the truth of God in a particular time and place.

Early meetings, evening activities, and a two-day internet famine at work have kept me off line for almost two solid days in a row. I can’t believe how many things I do online.

A few years ago I only used the internet for e-mail. While sitting at my desk yesterday wishing, just wishing I could check my e-mail or the weather or even the wing span of a Panamanian Hopping Swallow, I actually made a list of everything I do online. It wasn’t a full page, but it was close.

And here’s the kicker, I would have posted it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even send it home because my computer doesn’t have a floppy drive and my flash drive broke (boo hoo) and neither of those things are really necessary anyway because I usually just shoot everything over on GMail and GMail saves a copy.

Yes, life was strange without internet for a few days. I actually read the local paper, the physical paper that is. I usually read it online.

And of course I ran into two articles that I have been waiting, biding my time impatiently, to note in my blog:

$14,000 coin dropped into Salvation Army kettle
This has the the ring of scene in UHF where a bum is given an incredibly valuable coin by the sworn enemy of the UHF station and the bum says something like, “Gee, Thanks Mister!” and then promptly donates it to the UHF station.

Well, not quite, but it’s still pretty cool that Salvation Army received such a nice gift. Hopefully that will make up for some of the times people run past the bell ringer.

Vermont is the Second Healthiest State
That’s right, I’ve stumbled into the very heartland of health. Check out what the Banner says:

“The Vermont Department of Health cited certain facts that lead to the state’s high rankings: that the state had the lowest motor vehicle deaths per 100 million miles driven, the lowest percentage of children living in poverty, good access to prenatal care and a low violent crime rate.” article

Of course the accident thing makes A LOT of sense, though I will say that snow and mountains can cause accidents just as easily as rush hour traffic in an urban area. And the famous malfunction junction in Manchester (7A and 11/30) is one daily head-on-collision that locals have to avoid.

The healthiest state of course is Minnesota, but we’ve got our sights on you for next year! I’m going to ride my exercise bike every morning (to avoid accidents on the road), eat only fruits and vegetables, tutor 6 kids, drive 5 miles below the speed limit, finish my garage as a bedroom, volunteer at the hospital, and patrol the streets of my town once a week.

If we all band together we can do this. Let’s send a message to Minnesota: We’re Coming For You. Who’s with me!

The story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in chapter 2 is one of the best known from Daniel. The King dreams of a statue with various levels made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and then iron/clay. The statue is then smashed by a huge rock that fills the entire earth. Fortunately, Daniel is able to interpret the dream for the King.

How would a people in exile read this story? First of all, God has placed his people in a position where they must act as priests for other people. Daniel is responsible for making known God’s message to the king.

Secondly, the Lord quickly disarms the wise men of the king by the raising the stakes: the king must have the dream told to him and interpreted. That leads up to a chance for the Lord to reveal himself as the supreme God.

Lastly, this is a story about grace. The Lord is not only acting for the benefit of his own people. He is revealing himself and his plans to a people who do not know him. He is giving them a chance to know him and to worship him, even if they end up worshipping his messenger! (2:46) It’s funny that we either blame or worship the messenger.

In my eyes, the true hope though for an exile is 2:44-45. This is the promise of God’s coming kingdom:

2:44 In the days of those kings the God of heaven will raise up an everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed and a kingdom that will not be left to another people. It will break in pieces and bring about the demise of all these kingdoms. But it will stand forever.
2:45 You saw that a stone was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands; it smashed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold into pieces. The great God has made known to the king what will occur in the future. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is reliable.” NET Bible

You can wiggle and squeeze the meaning of this chapter into any world scheme that you want, but it’s most likely that the metals/materials of the statue refer to the following kingdoms: Babylon, Mede, Persia, Greece, and then the divided kingdoms of Greece. The Jews living under the divided kingdoms were quite aware of this and must have been devastated to see the Romans enter town. This unstoppable empire seemed to be the final rock that would sweep all of these other kingdoms away and cover the earth.

Nevertheless, in the fullness of time, God sent his son to be another kind of rock, to bring another kind of kingdom that would quietly subvert and chip away at the kingdoms of man.

God’s kingdom has come: Hallelujah.

A group of friends sit in a living room chatting about the roles of husbands and wives. One uses the words submit, obey, and serve one too many times in reference to women, and eventually blunders into an insensitive statement.

Members of the group are offended. They react strongly and challenge his statement. The offender realizes what has happened and attempts to clarify his statement.

It’s a long, tense evening. Though 3 or 4 are the main participants, all present in the room follow the conversation closely and begin to understand where each side is coming from in the debate. Before they depart, the debate is concluded, the offense has been forgiven, and everyone finds something else to talk about.

That’s how most dialogues and debates go when conducted in person. The same does not go for blogs. Rose pointed this out after her recent meeting with Mark Driscoll.

Online “dialogues” quickly become heated and divisive in the following pattern:

Issue A

Insensitive remark 1. about issue A

Question about Issue A, ignores remark 1.

Angry response to insensitive remark 1.

Calm response to insensitive remark 1.

Insensitive remark 2. to maker of insensitive remark 1.

Mediating remark between insensitive remarks 1. and 2.

Angry remark about Issue A that brings up Issue B as well

Another angry reponse to insensitive remark 1.

Calm remark about Issue A

Insensitive remark 3. addressed at Issue B

Insensitive remark 4. addressed at maker of insensitive remark 3.

Makers of insensitive remarks 3. and 4. spar back and forth about Issue B, completely forgetting that this all started with Issue A.

That was actually an abbreviated form of what typically happens every day on the high-traffic blogs. Let’s face it, blogs are a great way to share information and they sometimes work for collaboration, but they simply do not work for large-scale, constructive dialogue about sensitive issues.

Think about this: Many long-distance relationships fail because letters and e-mails can be misinterpreted (my wife and I dated long distance the whole time and we made it though!!!). How can we expect to succeed in constructive communication when we hardly know all of the various people tossing comments into the pot, reacting, counterreacting, and introducing other topics.

I’m not saying that it cannot work. It has in the past. In the comment section of one person’s blog I had a conversation where I challenged the author on something, gently though, and I believe that God used me to save him from sin. That’s the exception.

It’s not to say we shouldn’t try. I’m more interested in lowering our expectations and calling all blog commenters on high-traffic sites to think twice before leaving comments. I never have those problems here, IMD’s readers are the best, but it gets to be a bit much on other sites that I frequent.

Let’s remember that love is our supreme goal. If our words do not bring about love for God and one another, we’d best stick our hands in our pockets and go for a walk.

Now I dare you to leave an angry comment below that completely misinterprets everything I just said . . . I LEAVE COMMENTS ALL OF THE TIME ON BLOGS YOU MORON AND NO ONE EVER GETS ANGRY!!!!