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Justice vs. fairness, why I can’t get on American Idol, and other existential rants.

May 19, 2009

Justice?

Continuing a thread about what I think we oughta be thinking about (See this post for the intro to this section). This is a direct follow-up to the last post (aren’t they all?). I seem to have painted myself into a bit of a corner on this one. The first item in this list is justice, a huge concept to be sure, and one I have been actively working to understand in the last year. You should know I have written and re-written this post many times, and I’m not sure I even like this final result. That’s why we call it “Raw Thoughts :-)”.

I could cheat and go on to kindness – a lot easier to dissect – but justice comes first in the list, so I have to deal with it. Two months of no posting is too much time, so I am going to try to take this in small chunks. Just for fun, I’d like to propose a bunch of questions I’m not sure I know the answer to, then propose a bunch of answers I’m not sure I agree with. Sound like a good time? Here…we…go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted inRaw Thoughts Uncategorized viralJesus (main)

Six: justice, kindness, humility – part one.

March 4, 2009

cieling_cat_createsI think we have a problem with obsession. As a culture in America, we have the time and discretionary money to obsess about whatever interests us. That’s why we have a thriving entertainment gossip industry (think TMZ), why the word “fansite” exists, why there are little tiny stores in the strip mall that sell random specialty things that don’t go out of business, and why there is an entire translation of the Bible in LOLcat (this is an obsession with LOLcat, not the Bible, I think). We can collect, study, and dissect the minutia of whatever we like – we’ve got that kind of time on our hands.

In the Church world, we obsess about sin. Sin is the subject of our programs, policies, and procedures. Identifying and confronting the sin in ourselves and others is our chief industry and most common consideration. We spend a lot of time talking about who is wrong in their beliefs and practices and making sure ours are not also wrong or sinful. We can study, dissect, and disseminate the minutia of sin. We’ve got that kind of time on our hands.

 

It’s almost like we think Jesus died to keep us in the sin business.

 

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Hugging the Monster.

February 22, 2009

Another detour, but some things much on my mind these days. This will be a random and rambling rant, and maybe not too cohesive. Enjoy :-).

If the economy continues to collapse in America, a lot of our mega-church and mega-ministry institutions will likely collapse with it – since they are built on the same principles (if you rely on donations to support your bloated, unwieldy organization, things will be getting tight for you very soon, I fear. Some TV preachers might have to sell their Bentleys). The measure of success for everyone in America - even those with a faith-centered worldview – is being severely tested, and will be even more so in the days to come. America is enduring much upheaval, precipitated mostly be events in our economic sector. You could argue that the foundation of our national stability has been our financial system, which seems to be rapidly morphing, maybe even collapsing. For many of us, the foundation of our personal lives is also our financial system, and the cornerstones of that foundation are the value of the house we own and live in and our source of income. And those are in jeopardy too. And things could get a lot worse. Maybe.

One of the things you learn in survival training is that the sooner you accept the traumatic event you have been faced with, the greater your chance of surviving it, especially if you have considered the possibility of it happening before it does (thinking the unthinkable). One author calls this “hugging the monster.” Or as Steve Buscemi so succinctly put it in “Armageddon” – “It’s time to embrace the horror!” 

So let’s hug the monster. Let’s ask the big question. What if it all collapses. What if we lose everything?

Posted inRaw Thoughts viralJesus (main) What does God want?

Five dot One: The Extra Mile, pt. 2 – aka “The Mac Problem”

February 15, 2009

In the previous post oh so long ago, we talked about going the extra mile – helping those who can’t give us anything in return. In the intervening four months, we welcomed a new girl into our family and a giant project at work ate the rest of my life (80 hour weeks, that sort of thing). Those are my excuses for the gap between that and this. Of course no one has asked me about it :-).

Also in that intervening time I have been putting much thought and action into these faith concepts. Since not many people currently read this and no one is dying without new content, I am finding it more important to write something well-crafted than to just write something. But I am also going to try to keep these shorther – people got lives :-).

All preliminaries out of the way – I have been thinking a lot of how Jesus teaches us to do good things. It seems from the things He says that He is not only interested in what we do, but why and how we do it.