posted by:
PerfectJoy (
reply)
post date:
02.06.08 (8:39 am)
I know exactly what you mean. Just the little things can make such a big difference as well. The other day, I walked by an old chapel set upon the newer church grounds. Looking at the windows for the beautiful stained glass, all I could see was the plexiglas that protected it from vandals. It reminded me of the chapel that was on the church grounds that I used to attend. Beautiful stained glass set back in the 1800's and you really could not enjoy the beauty of them from outside. Why people would want to try and destroy them, I do not know. All I know is that once inside, they are beautiful to see. Another reminder of what wonderful things you can find inside.
posted by:
bawdy (
reply)
post date:
02.06.08 (11:37 am)
I'm surprised you don't require security around your pulpit to protect yourself from your congregation!
posted by:
auntconi (
reply)
post date:
02.06.08 (2:34 pm)
Reply to: bawdy
hehehe, er I mean,
tsk, tsk, tsk ... now please be good you guys!
;)
posted by:
surrogate (
reply)
post date:
02.06.08 (2:45 pm)
Lousy... Seems like at churches, at least, ought to be left off the Hit List...
posted by:
LadyG (
reply)
post date:
02.06.08 (3:31 pm)
So sad that it has come to this, that churches are not even safe from vandelism.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (7:24 am)
Reply to: PerfectJoy
I know a beautiful stained glass window, a work of art, can be shattered and ruined in an instant. And so I understand the sad need to protect them.
I have a big problem with churches that see the need to fortify themselves in protection from their communities. The church is for the community. It's purpose is to be of ministry and a change-agent of that very community, in New Testament terms the church is to be a shining light upon a hillside. However, for some of our congregations, the church comes to be a fortress locked away from the community. I think this often happens as the community changes, and the church ages but stays the same in make up. The members of the church move away from the community, but continue to drive back for worship on Sundays. They are no longer a part of the community that surrounds the building.
S, a church with gates and fences and security guards makes a statement to the people of the community. "We are threatened by you." "You are not welcome." "We do not love you and do not care about you. Leave us alone." If I were in that community, alone and lost, I would resent such a presense.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (7:26 am)
Reply to: bawdy
Protection from my congregation. I've never been physically injured by a snore or a wandering mind.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (7:27 am)
Reply to: auntconi
No worry about Bawdy. He is one of my favorite heathens.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (7:32 am)
Reply to: surrogate
It is bad for a church building to be the victim of vandalism. However, such is the price to be paid for being located in a community. I think it works against the mission of the church to lock yourself away from the community. A church should be inviting in its statement to others. If the members are intimidated and fearful of their community to the point they put up fences, then I think it is time for them to turn over the responsibility of ministering to that community to someone else. Don't want blacks, Hispanics, and lower-class people in your church? Then move to a nice, white, safe neighborhood and let someone else give it a try.
Show me a church with a security fence around it and a locked gate, and you show me a building that has ceased to truly be a church.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (7:36 am)
Reply to: LadyG
I'm aware that several factors of life can bring a person to have no respect for the property of another, even sacred property. Perhaps your family and immediate community has set such a sorry example. Perhaps drugs and alcohol have clouded judgment. And, perhaps that particular church has made a sorry statement to you and your community- "We are afraid of you and we do not love you; leave us alone, or we will call the police." Give me some neighbors like that, and if they are persistent and loud with their dislike of me, I may be tempted to express to them my dislike of their presense.
posted by:
bawdy (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (1:01 pm)
Reply to: PastorDave
Haha..surely they sit at the edge of their seats, hanging on your every word.
posted by:
kurtmaddox (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (1:30 pm)
Me too! The barrier I despise most is the spiritual barrier of exclusive truth whereby one seeker must be right and one seeker must wrong and the only thing to two can ever logically agree upon is that one of the two of them knows who God really is and the other hasn't nary a clue :-)
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (1:47 pm)
Reply to: kurtmaddox
No problem. Just toss out the Bible as the Word of God, Jesus Christ as God in the Flesh and Saviour of the world, and historic Christianity tried and affirmed through the centuries. Perhaps you could start your own religion? Or, you could continue to label yourself a Christian, but just redefine the word.
posted by:
surrogate (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (4:29 pm)
"No problem. Just toss out the Bible as the Word of God, Jesus Christ as God in the Flesh and Saviour of the world, and historic Christianity tried and affirmed through the centuries. Perhaps you could start your own religion? Or, you could continue to label yourself a Christian, but just redefine the word."
Pretty sure of yourself there Dave. And, by the way, the term Christian has been defined a dozen different ways over the centuries and all of the definitions have one thing in common: They ignore the fact that Jesus was a Jew. Period.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (7:46 pm)
Reply to: surrogate
It sounds a bit more harsh than I generally like to communicate. And our mutual friend, kurt, perhaps should be treated more kindly. But he's a big guy; he can handle it. What I've written is succinct, and expresses some basics of the Christian faith that cannot be compromised. As to how Christianity should be defined- the words of Jesus and the scriptures give a quite exclusive understanding. All roads do not lead to God. He is the narrow road that leads to life.
posted by:
surrogate (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (9:05 pm)
"What I've written is succinct, and expresses some basics of the Christian faith that cannot be compromised."
Dave, arbiter of truth.
I ntice that when Kurt writes something that might take real thought and something other than your automatic response, like that incredible comment he wrote in response to you on my blog a couple of weeks aqo, you ignore it. Is it that if something doesn't fit what you "know for sure" it's not worth debating?
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (9:20 pm)
Reply to: surrogate
Truth is not relative.
As for debating: We've covered this stuff, in detail, and with passion. Still, I was thinking in this particular instance, I'd decide not to just laugh it off or respond with a wise crack, and actually engage with some straightforward honesty. I believe in absolute truth. I believe Jesus Christ is God's ultimate expression. I do not believe all religions are equal. That's pretty straight, I think.
Now, this comment from kurt on your blog: Perhaps I was busy, or perhaps I was on vacation, but for some reason it did not register with me. Sorry. I really should make a better effort to be engaging on other people's blogs. You are very good at it, and so is kurt, and at one time I think I made a better effort to do so.
I endeavored to do so with kurt a couple of months ago, and he informed me that he has decided not to discuss controversial issues on his blog anymore. That hit me pretty hard. I guess maybe I'm still dealing with that when he comes along and seeks to engage me in debate?
posted by:
kurtmaddox (
reply)
post date:
02.07.08 (10:35 pm)
Reply to: PastorDave
I didn't take your comments as unkind and I'm certainly a "big boy" and getting bigger than I'd like lately! lol!
Still, I think Surrogate makes an accurate general observation about the shift treatment to give to thoughtful challenges to your exclusivists views regarding ultimate truth. I certainly understand and I don't really expect thoughtful responses when debating exclusivists of any stripe, including the Bible-centric "Christan" variety.
As I've said many times, you may very have everything right and every Buddhist, Jew, Muslim, Scientologist and fan of Richard Dawkins certainly may be on their way to Hell in a handbasket unless they "accept Jesus Christ as their Lord & Savior" and reject all other claims to the contrary.
As I've also said before, I respect any person who professes to have discovered THE Ultimate Truth to All Things and is willing to state both the positive affirmation of their belief (that they will go to Heaven and be rewarded eternally by the One True God) as well as the obvious negative reality of their exclusive beliefs (that everybody else is issued a single bag of rotten marshmellows to roast over the eternal flames of their self-chosen torment).
As mind viruses go, the most virulent strain is always the one that contains within its dominant meme both the promise of eternal reward as well as the threat of eternal punishment for disobedience. The potency of such memes have never been more clear than today as exclusivists on all sides, particularly Christians and Muslims, dig in their self-righteous heels for the fulfillment of their self-fulfilling Apocalyptic Visions of a final clash of Good (My Side) vs. Evil (Their Side).
It isn't very interesting that persons infected with exclusivististic religion would naturally trend toward horrible clashes with those memetic tribes who claim an equal but opposite certainty that they are the true Children of God. The interesting part is that the other half of the population of the planet are so intimidated by the irrational designs of these rival God-clans that we sit back and let this inexorable march toward a lose/lose endgame continue almost without much resistance.
The debate is never to convince you of anything. Rather, the debate is to leave a dialog for others not yet infected with the meme of absolute certainty about unknowable truths so that they might have a framework upon which they can think through the questions for themselves and see that there are plenty of us out there who reject exclusive claims about Ultimate Truth and that we've lived to tell about it.
The "Bible" has been debunked so many times in so many ways for so many reasons that even the most sincere theologians are forced to readily admit that the codified scriptures used as "inerrant" instruction are ripe with obvious issues regarding their veracity. You hear very little about the provable history of what passes for "The Word of God" from any Christian pulpit because the very admission of the Bible's now easy to understand history would certainly raise serious questions about using these documents in the support of such things as condemning homosexuals as immoral or preventing women from leadership positions in the church or any such similar anti-human silliness.
The Bible has enormous merit as it is an important record of man's insatiable thirst for understanding his own fate and his longing for purpose in a universe that can seem purposeless.
For anyone willing to suspend judgement about the content of the various claims to Ultimate Truth, one will quickly identify how similar any human being who adopts an exclusive view of God begins to act in regard to the expression of such beliefs. They become very easily offendeda and quite often angered at the suggestion that their beliefs aren't absolutely THE TRUTH given to them by divine revelation. The exclusivist Christian, the exclusivist Muslim, the exclusivist Scientologist and the exclusivist proponent of any "God" exhibits nearly identical social/psychological/emotional symptoms.
As a person raised to adopt an unwavering belief in a Fundamentalist Christian belief system, I find it both intriguing and liberating that the most recent scholarship on early Christianity gives a very different portrait of the historical Yeshua Bin Joseph than the world has been given through Pauline/Roman Christianity.
At the very least, the earliest verified writings about Jesus are glaringly devoid of the dogmatic language found in the source writings which all Christian scholars agree to have likely been the pre-cursors to the so-called Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark & Luke. (Not, of course, written at all by "Matthew", "Mark" or "Luke" but attributed to them by later writers.)
The Apostle Paul, of course, did write the stuff that continues to this day to provide the basis in traditional Christianity for so much human repression, discrimination and suffering as it relates to everything from the repression of women to the condemnation of homosexuals and the Saintification of Martyrdom.
Jesus, it seems from the earliest Christian writings, taught of a loving God within each person ready to embrace each person with a direct relationship unique just to that person and for that person to figure out for themselves. Paul, in contrast, offers the world a love of dogma, structure, obedience to the leaders of a new movement and a zealots love for absolutism conspicuoulsy absent from the earliest record of the teachings of Jesus passed down by those who were much more likely to have actually had a sense of the what the historical Jesus taught than could have the Apostle Paul.
As you know, Paul as a religious zealot long before he converted to Christianity and set about evangelizing Rome with his own vision for establishing his own version of the Christ Cult by adapting it just enough to his audience to make it compelling to the other Rome -- the poor, the workers, the slaves, the soldiers and the like. (I'm not suggesting Paul didn't believe what he taught anymore than I'd suggest Osama Bin Laden doesn't believe what he teaches or that Tom Cruise doesn't believe what he teaches or that any of the literally thousands of exclusivists throughout history don't believe their teachings or are ready and willing to drink their own Kool-Aid even if the cost is death.)
Have you ever asked yourself why it is that Fundamentalists who disagree on the very nature and person of God are always ready to join to together and hold hands when it comes to repressing all the rest of us who don't buy into any of your various dogmas?
You can all agree that homosexuals are immoral, wives are to submit to the husband and God-fearing governments should restrict us from all manner of things from bad words to condoms, but, you don't actually agree on the one thing that actually matters in any of your belief systems -- who is God Almighty and what exactly does God want us to do?
I know what I'm writing certainly isn't "succinct" and it certainly doesn't express some basic truth that "cannot be compromised". I have the natural debate advantage with you simply because even if I'm right, we're both OK in the end. You, certainly, have the memetic advantage because if you're right, at least 5/6ths of all of humanity that's ever walked the face of the earth are condemned to an eternity of unspeakable torment.
If the Muslims are right, of course, we both fry!
Be Good!
Kurt
posted by:
spook102956 (
reply)
post date:
02.08.08 (9:28 pm)
I can understand your driving on by the church that was all fenced in but I hope you didn't use it as an excuse not to find a place to worship with others. I hope you found another church. I think it's neat to go to church when your on vacation, try another denomination, etc.
posted by:
spook102956 (
reply)
post date:
02.08.08 (9:30 pm)
When I was growing up our small church did not lock it's doors, ever. That was until some kids (I'm sure they were kids) got in and made bicycle tire marks up and down the hallway and scattered popcorn kernals and liquid dish soap all over the kitchen. It was sad when we had to start locking the church.
posted by:
spook102956 (
reply)
post date:
02.08.08 (9:36 pm)
Sorry so talkative. This summer some vandals stole copper wiring off 11 of our new church's air conditioning units--totally ruined the units. There were 12 units on that side of the building, the last one they didn't touch. My husband is landscaping that side of the building and was the first to discover the vandalism. The pastor asked him, "I wonder why they didn't touch the 12th one? My husband replied, "Probably b/c it has a hornet's nest in it." We all had a good laugh at the thought that possibly the hornets scared them off--they didn't touch the units on the other side of the building either. But now our wonderful pastor prays for the vandals during the service.
posted by:
spook102956 (
reply)
post date:
02.08.08 (9:37 pm)
When I was growing up our small church did not lock it's doors, ever. That was until some kids (I'm sure they were kids) got in and made bicycle tire marks up and down the hallway and scattered popcorn kernals and liquid dish soap all over the kitchen. It was sad when we had to start locking the church.
posted by:
kurtmaddox (
reply)
post date:
02.09.08 (8:41 pm)
Reply to: PastorDave
Yes, I'm not really doing anything on my blog anymore. Still, I can't resist a good run at a subject elsewhere from time-to-time! lol!
Also, for the record, I don't take any umbrage whatsoever at any of your responses and I always believe you are sincere and fair with your comments. After all, it is for each of us to decide when, where and how often we are willing to engage any specific topic with any particular person on our blogs. I respect that and appreciate how often you are willing to play in the sandbox of accepting a spirited challenge to your beliefs. Afterall, your very beliefs are the most serious challenge possible to all of the rest of us since if we can't come to see things your way or don't find opportunity to accept your same Truth, then we all burn in hell for eternity. So, on the order of things, that's pretty stiff challenge even if the challenge is often simply inherent to your beliefs and not stated as a direct challenge.
Now, onto the claim that we've covered this ground before "in detail." I have to take issue with that statement. Sure, you often re-affirm your belief in the central tenants of Christianity, but, you rarely take on the specific issues I raise themselves.
For example, how do you, as a defender of the value of The Bible in its entirety explain that stories from the Old Testament where supposed Holy Men gave their daughters and/or their wives over to raped and sexually abused by infidels. (The story of Jephthah's & his daughter in Judges Chapter 11 and/or the store of Lot and his wife in Judges Chapter 19.) Not to mention Yahweh's seeming desire for human sacrifice in at least 2 Old Testament stories, which are central stories to the very founding of the Yahweh cult.
What about the Biblical fact that Moses, after defeating the Midianites, basically committed genocide against them and gave explicit orders that all the boy children and women who were not virgins would be killed. Then, in a shocking move that should be repugnant to any thoughtful person, Moses instructed that the female children who were still virgins be kept alive "for yourselves".
Numbers 31:18 - "BUT ALL THE WOMEN CHILDREN, THAT HAVE NOT KNOWN A MAN BY LYING WITH HIM, KEEP ALIVE FOR YOURSELVES."
It seem clear to me, that wherever modern morality comes from -- it DOES NOT COME FROM THE BIBLE!
Then, of course, there's Joshua in the Battle of Jericho. Joshua didn't rest until "they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, YOUNG AND OLD, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword" (Joshua 6:21)
So, there's a new topic if you'd like to address it.
You've also never responded to what are incontrivertible facts about the historical veracity of scripture itself. The Bible wagged with confidence in any Christian Church is a document of at least suspicious origin that was built in piecemeal fashion after decades of oral tradition and dozens of splintered factions within 1st Century Christianity.
Of course, someone as Orthodox as yourself would find it very difficult to much of an airing to a serious study of the origin of scripture. My favorite fundamentalist statement is always:
The Bible says it, I believe it, end of story!
Well, then why isn't it fair to point out what "The Bible" actually says and ask someone making such claims to defend Biblical ethics which include, among other horrors:
1 - The death penalty by stoning for WOMEN who committ adultery.
2 - The death penalty for cursing your parents, making love to your stepmother or your daughter-in-law, homsexuality, marrying a woman AND her daughter, bestiality (the beast must also be put to death). (Levitus 20)
3 - The death penalty for working on the Sabbath.
See the unbelievably brutal story in Numbers 15 of the man Moses has executed because he was found gathering sticks in the forest on the Sabbath.
If we followed Biblical ethics, we would still behave like the Taliban do today and we'd still be stoning to death any virgin who could not prove she was a virgin, if her husband pronounced himself dissatisfied with her.
(The Taliban so hated by America's fundamentalist Christians is simply a lot more serious about Biblical justice than they are willing to be!)
Of course, you'll toss out that "all that changed with Jesus and the New Testament" argument. It is certainly true that even the Jesus of the Canonical Gospels is a better match for modern ethics over the insanely cruel Yahweh of the Old Testament. Still, there's no scriptural statement from Jesus that the world wasn't to still follow the general ethics of Judaism. After all, if Jesus is actually the same person as Yahweh in some cosmic sense -- then Jesus was a co-conspirator in all those horrific rapes and genocidal rampages throughout old Old Testament history as it states by its own record of events!
Here's an easier one for us to discuss:
If the Old Testament way of relating to the world died with Christ on the cross, then why do we continue to value The Ten Commandments while ignoring the Leviticus prescriptions for dealing with homosexuals, female adulterers & rowdy kids?
Further, how do you reconcile an irrerant body of rules for living with the fact that it condemns only female fornicators to the death penality while remaining conspicuously silent on male philandering (sp?)?
These are serious and sincere questions that ANY thoughtful person should challenge themselves to work through while searching out their own hearts as an honest Truth Seeker, aren't they?
It is far easier, of course, to see the world like the Tribal people of the Middle East have seen it for almost all of human history -- as a world of Our True God versus Your False God. What my scriptures say are TRUE and what your tribe's scriptures say are BUNK! If God rides with me, then even GENOCIDE is morally justified by using the ultimate in SITUATIONAL ETHICS and MORAL RELATIVISM, which are supposedly the very things that conservatives hate most in America!
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.11.08 (7:20 am)
Reply to: kurtmaddox
kurt,
I'll be the first to admit I do not have all the answers. I am not polished with debate, I have barely a rudimentary knowledge of the original biblical languages. The Bible is a complex aggegate of books written over many centuries by many quite different personalities with varied objectives. It contains all kinds of literature, most not meant to be taken literally. It is amazing in its honesty, reveling its characters with all their weaknesses. I am doing a read through of the Bible, and again am struck with just how much contradiction is allowed to exist in this book. If there were something dishonest or sinister in the intent, I would think redactors and collectors would have carefully edited out the inconsistencies. Yet, they are there, most often without apology.
The Bible gives a progressive story. It tells of God's loving pursuit of sinful humanity, His intent to provide for us the clearest opportunity for salvation. You know that, kurt. He chooses the people of Israel to be a kingdom of priests, in purity and fidelity to share the message with the world. They fail miserably. Ultimately, the Messiah is born of this nation. His story is the highlight, and the thread of the Bible. His death and resurrection provide opportunity for salvation for all mankind. The church takes up the mantle once held by Israel, with the commission to go into all the world. The epistles of the New Testament further refine and define this mission. And, the final chapter is a glorious and mysterious account, in figurative and apocalyptic language, of the culmination of human history.
What a great book! I think its honesty is testimony to its inspiration. And I think, if you could find a way to read it with your heart and not just your head, you would find it to be the Word of God.
I have answers to your questions. They will not satisfy you. A good book of biblical scholarship would probably give more thoughtful reply, perhaps by McDowell or Stott or an old favorite of mine named Frank Stagg.
I conjecture that you have family and friends who have moved past the insistance that the Bible be neat and tidy and make perfect sense. They love Jesus, and find the message of the scriptures to be a great comfort, to be the words of God. These people have something that you begrudgingly admit to be good, even attractive. And, in respect to them, you do not enter into this kind of conversation on your blog. Maybe you should explore more deeply what they have, deep inside? Like I've tried to say, the message of the Bible, and the message of Christ, is not intended so much to hit the head as it is the change the heart.
posted by:
PastorDave (
reply)
post date:
02.11.08 (7:25 am)
Reply to: spook102956
I did find another place to worship on that day. However, what would have been wrong with myt aking a day off? I do follow the biblical admonition of Hebrews 10:25, and assemble with believers regularly. Because of my particular connection, sometimes I get a bit irritated with fellow believers. I need to get a way. Solace becomes my way of rejuvenating, re-energizing. Maybe everybody, once in a while, needs to simply skip church? A radical idea coming from a Baptist pastor, I guess.
posted by:
kurtmaddox (
reply)
post date:
02.16.08 (1:35 am)
Reply to: PastorDave
Not to be too "smarmy", but, I'd submit that your own words in your most previous reply are in absolute and direct contridiction to your very claim the "The Bible" is the "Word of God".
Yes, I personally know HUNDREDS of human beings who believe as you do and are absolutely wonderful people whom I love very much and whom I respect a great deal for how they choose to live their lives depsite the obstacle perpuating what seems to me to actually hold them back from a more perfect perfection of their ethics due to their insistence to advocate that billions of their Earthly brethren will be eternally punished by their Loving God because they lost the birth lottery.
Of course, your statement completely ignores that I also know and love many Buddhists, Muslims and atheists -- all whom share a common humanism that makes them loveable and compells me to value their friendship.
Every word you wrote about The Bible could just as easily been written about the Baghavad Gita or the Qu'ran or The Book of Mormon. Yet, I've never heard you state a single point in defense of any of these other treasured ancient scriptures purporting to give us understanding of God?
Do you not see what a circular argument it is to make the claim that whoever reads scripture and finds it irredeemingly nonsensical must be reading it with their head instead of with an open heart?
My heart has always been and remains wide-open to the love and the instruction of "God". In fact, I've sought "God" all my life with all my might and with all my strength and with all humility. I'll pray with you know that if there be a God who deals intimately in such a way as you suggest that my heart be opened and my head be filled with the knowledge of the One True God. If such a God has chosen to work in such a way in this world, then I beg of that God to forgive my ignorance and to invade my doubt and to be revealed to me!
