My Bill Moment

I probably shouldn’t write about this, but I will.

Last week at theology group, I threw out the statement that we are not to judge others, assuming this was something that everyone agrees to.

The first question shot at me was something about fruit.  So I responded that yes, we can look at the externals, the fruit of a person’s life, but we aren’t able to know what is in another person’s heart.

Ha!  You would think I said something totally outrageous.   Suddenly I was on trial, and the presbyterian pastor with the starched collar began his line of questioning, with a smugness that made me suspicious.

Laying out his argument, he said, “So you would call someone a non-christian, wouldn’t you?”

“As I already said, we cannot know the condition of another person’s heart.”

In the meantime, I wondered if during the weeks that I missed, they had concluded that I was a universalist, which I’m not (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and I was trying to figure out how to answer their questions without proving their conclusions about me.

“But you would say that someone isn’t saved, right?”

This was where I missed my moment to turn the question around.  With a thousand thoughts running through my mind about how I view people and their relationship with God and His with them, I stalled and stood up to refill my water instead of answering.

“Well, you would say someone is an unbeliever, wouldn’t you?”

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is . . .”

Shoot, that ended weakly, leaving me thinking all week about what I should have said. Oh well, maybe next time.

(BTW, we do this for fun. No sacred cows are harmed in the debates.)

Glossary

Pulled from the draft file…

I began compiling this list last spring. The following are the redefinitions I use of certain terms in order to not see familiar scriptures through the grid in which they were taught to me. I find it helpful to remind myself of the definitions listed here when I encounter these terms in order to challenge assumed interpretations of certain passages. In other words, when I see these words in scripture, these are the definitions that I substitute.  Since I compiled this list, I have encountered others who use similar definitions of the terms on the list.

• sin – alienation, the blindness we were born into, acting out of blindness rather than light and truth
• repentance – turning toward truth, new understanding
• righteousness – God’s faithfulness to who He is
• holiness – wholeness, completion
• judgment – restoring things to the way they were intended to be
• sabbath – the rest and peace of God, shalom
• revelation – God revealing Himself (not facts)
• faith – the obedience of belief, to live (act) as though a thing is true
• grace – empowerment to live by the Spirit and life of Christ within
• church – the people of God
• religion – things we do to try to earn what is already ours
• gospel – the good news of restored relationship – God, man, and creation
• salvation – rescue
• new birth, conversion – awakening to the reality of our reconciliation
• evangelism – sharing the message of reconciliation
• heaven – the realm of God’s presence
• hell – the darkness of living alienated from God and His love

As I said, this is my personal mental list, subject to revision.  We each have an underlying picture and definition about these words that shapes our understanding of God and His story.

Your thoughts?

Random Stuff

I went to my grandma’s funeral a couple of days ago.  She died at 101 and 1/2.  We lost her several years ago to Alzheimers.  She lived a good life and had lots of loved ones with many happy memories of her.

The funeral wasn’t especially sad.  The Scripture passages and reflections were nice.  The sermon was odd, but whatever.  Most of the hymns were good.  The familiarity of “In the Sweet By and By” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” compensated a bit for their lacking theology.

It was nostalgic to see so many of my dad’s cousins.  One of the things that struck me was the family resemblance.  It was interesting to look around the room and see women of all ages – 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s – who somewhat look like me.  There is a sense of belonging and connection in that.

I finished up the final projects for my online classes before I left for the funeral.  So, now that I’m home, I have a week to get ready for Christmas.  Whatever that means.  I should probably make a list.

I haven’t registered for classes for next semester, but I probably will.  They actually sound pretty interesting – “Ethics & Social Responsibility” and “Social Change & Diversity.”

I haven’t been reading much outside of school stuff.  In theology group, we discussed Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer.  I found it disappointing.  We are currently talking about Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton which isn’t as good as I hoped either.

At our coffeeshop gathering, we are slowly going through So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore.  It has a lot of good stuff in it about freedom from religious obligation, but I tend to worry about communicating an anti-institutional message, which I really think misses the point.  Anyway, we’ll see what next year brings.

Over Christmas break, I hope to read . . .

• The Great Divorce – CS Lewis
• The Weight of Glory – CS Lewis
• On the Incarnation – St Athanasius (finally)

Probably my favorite book from earlier this year was Transformational Architecture by Ron Martoia.  If you missed that one, it’s worth checking out.

When I walk, I mostly listen to Baxter Kruger these days.

My two oldest kids moved out this month and a third is already making plans to leave in June.  I guess the nest that fills up quickly also empties quickly.

One of the nice things about school is that it mostly keeps me too busy to think or feel.  Sometimes that’s okay.

My other plans for Christmas break include tax work, dusting, and putting away the laundry from the past 3 months.  Woohoo!

It will be nice to catch up with reading blogs too.

Reconciled

Well, I’m supposed to be writing my final papers, but instead I’m thinking about sin, depravity, Adam, and the second Adam.  This is a thinking out loud post, so be aware that it is process, not necessarily conclusion.

Maybe some of you wonder about these things.  What exactly happened in the garden?  Sin, doubt, idolatry?  And what is the curse of our fallenness?  Sin, shame, blindness?  What is it that we were baptized into in the first Adam?  Depravity, disease, death?  What have we been baptized into in Jesus?

I Cor. 15 - For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

It is interesting to me that Christians of almost every type are willing to accept the totality of the effect of the first Adam, yet immediately limit the effect of the second Adam, Christ.  Surely the actions of the second Adam are at least as impacting on mankind as the act of the first Adam.

Hebrews 10- Jesus sets aside the first to establish the second. We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. When this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins…by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The corruption has been set aside, not through our actions, but by Jesus.  It was the will of Jesus and the Father to accomplish this through His sacrifice.

II Cor. 5- The ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Our message to the world is that they are already reconciled to God, they are already loved and embraced by the Father.  That is the good news.  God is not counting their sins against them; he has already dealt with that problem.

That’s enough for now, maybe Romans 5 in another post.