Tag Archives: cross

Jan 19 2013

this went thru my mind (on violence)

 

V-for-violenceAustralia & gun control: I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too. by John Howard

“… nothing trumps easy access to a gun. It is easier to kill 10 people with a gun than with a knife.”

Children, culture, guns, heroes, power & violence: Giving Up Chuck and the Daisy Red Ryder [required reading]

“My heroes have always been powerful. Heroes are and should be powerful, but how you define power… that makes all the difference. … The American definition of “power that solves problems” is intertwined with the cultural mystique of guns and violence. Once my definition of power changed, a few years ago, my heroes did as well …”

Christ’s cross, discipleship & violence: A Meditation on the Cross by Paul Smith [required reading]

“I’ll say it again. If you are nailed to a cross you cannot hold a gun. If your hand is wrapped around an instrument of death you cannot grasp the hand that was pierced with an instrument of death.”

Deception, fake quotations, & lies: Did Jefferson Really Say That? Why Bogus Quotations Matter in Gun Debate

* “‘The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.’ … staff ‘have not found any evidence that Thomas Jefferson said or wrote’ those words.”

Drone strikes: The Guilty Conscience of a Drone Pilot Who Killed a Child

“The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported last August that in Pakistan’s tribal areas alone, there are at least 168 credible reports of children being killed in drone strikes.”

Faith & guns: If I Can’t Take My Gun, I’m Not Going by Neal Whitlow

“Modern weapons and an individual’s right to possess them are not dealt with in scripture. All the texts dealing with warfare don’t seem to apply. However, there a few principles from the New Testament that inform my thinking on the subject.

“It is not the responsibility of God’s people to overwhelm the darkness by force of arms. We use other tools to fulfill our mission. Our weapons are truth, faith, patience, love, forgiveness, and hope. … God’s people defend the defenseless. …  Jesus calls us to abandon our compulsions of power and control. Let’s face it. A big part of the reason that Americans can’t let go of our guns is we are enamored with the feelings of power and invincibility they give us.”

Faith & nonviolence: Jesus’ Way Doesn’t Work by Tim Archer [required reading]

“The church heard Jesus’ message. They didn’t run away. They didn’t fight. They endured patiently. For more than two hundred years. They suffered. They died. They loved their enemies and prayed for them. They turned the other cheek. And they were killed for it.

“Because Jesus’ way doesn’t work. It doesn’t protect your from suffering. It doesn’t protect you from death. (well, not immediately) It doesn’t bring your enemies to their knees. It doesn’t protect the weak nor avenge the innocent. In the eyes of the world, Jesus’ way is a complete failure.

“If you’re looking for something that works, don’t look to Jesus’ teachings. But remember one thing: if you choose what makes sense to men, you’re choosing something that God despises.”

Gun control & President Obama’s plan: * The President’s Plan to Reduce Gun Violence [required reading; download the .pdf file]; * Joe Biden Addresses the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Jan. 17 [55 min. video; skip to 10 min., 20 sec. to begin]

* “Download the full text of the President’s plan.”

* Scroll down to the Opening Plenary Luncheon to find this video.

Gun control & public opinion: In Gun Control Debate, Several Options Draw Majority Support

“Fully 85% of Americans favor making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks, with comparable support from Republicans, Democrats and independents. Similarly, 80% support laws to prevent mentally ill people from purchasing guns, with broad support across party lines. But this bipartisan consensus breaks down when it comes to other proposals.”

Gun control & the states: * Gun Laws in the US, State by State – Interactive [very interesting & helpful]; * The Gun Challenge

* “… the majority of gun legislation in the US is enacted at the state level. That has brought broad variations across the country, with states taking different approaches to issues ranging from sales, permits, licensing, self-defence and carry laws.”

* “Inevitably, a bill like Wyoming’s has been filed in Texas.”

Guns & self-defense: * How Often Do We Use Guns in Self-Defense?

“We don’t know exactly how frequently defensive gun use occurs.”

Guns & the escalation of danger: Lessons From Guns and a Goose by Nicholas D. Kristof

“… that episode … underscores the role that guns too often play in our society: an instrument not of protection but of escalation. … One study, reported in Southern Medical Journal in 2010, found that a gun is 12 times more likely to result in the death of a household member or guest than in the death of an intruder. Another study in 1993 found that gun ownership creates nearly a threefold risk of a homicide in the owner’s household.”

Gun ownership: Why I Don’t Own a Gun by Brian Zahand

“I don’t own a gun because I don’t need one and I don’t want one. And that is perfectly acceptable. Please try to be at peace with this. As I said, I don’t own golf clubs either, and that’s bound to upset some people too.”

Gun violence & statistics:* Lack Of Up-To-Date Research Complicates Gun Debate by Carrie Johnson; * How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown? [interactive map]

* “Public health research dried up more than a decade ago after Congress restricted the use of some federal money to pay for those studies.”

* “The answer to the simple question in that headline is surprisingly hard to come by. So Slate and the Twitter feed @GunDeaths are collecting data for our crowdsourced interactive. This data is necessarily incomplete. But the more people who are paying attention, the better the data will be. You can help us draw a more complete picture of gun violence in America. If you know about a gun death in your community that isn’t represented here, please tweet @GunDeaths with a citation. (If you’re not on Twitter, you can email slatedata@gmail.com.)”

Military & prayer: How Do We Pray for the Troops? by Craig M. Watts [required reading]

“The language of public prayer should express a reality shaped by the creative and redemptive activity of God, not simply one that can be read from the pages of the newspapers or heard from the mouths of either marketers or politicians. …

“So when I stand to pray in worship I never pray that God protect our troops for the simple fact that we don’t have any troops. We do not gather as Americans who plead on behalf of national interests or partisan favor before either God or the world. We are the church. Who we are has been determined by whose we are. We are people of God. We gather as the body of Christ united with Christ’s body throughout the world. Yet I do pray for the protection of soldiers and civilians alike. I pray indiscriminately, without regard to borders because all people are creatures made by the hand of God and are so loved by God that God sent God’s only begotten Son on their behalf. May they be preserved from danger and be restored to circumstances where they can live without the threat of violence either to them or from them.”

May 17 2012

Bruner on John 8.28

 

“So Jesus now said to them, ‘When you have hoisted the Son of Man up, then you will understand – that I Am, and that I do not do anything at all by myself, but that exactly what the Father taught me to say is exactly what I am saying.’” The Cross will be God’s Greatest Single Meeting Place with the human race, his one great hour of sharing. There, the Gospel of John dares to assert, in this strange hoisting, God has made himself most accessible to the world. What is God like? Look there. How much does God love the world? Look there. How can I come to know him? Look there. … The ignominy of the Cross is so countercultural, such human nonsense, that only God could have created this plan of world salvation. and carried it through. … Jesus’ whole vocabulary in the Gospel of John is deciphered by the dictionary of the Cross: the high God makes himself known in the low Jesus, and most particularly in God’s being with and for Jesus in the utter lowliness of Jesus’ degradation in Crucifixion. Deus semper minor, “God is always less.” This hoisting onto a tree is the revelation of the majestic I Am. The Burning Bush was only preview; the Bleeding Tree is the feature itself – of God’s Self-Revelation in Jesus’ Self-Immolation.

Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Eerdmans, 2012), p.524

Apr 10 2012

war stories: the hidden cross

For years I’ve been dogging a friend of mine to make a written record of some of his “stories with impact.” And then, the light bulb turned on for me today: (a) perhaps I should stop asking others to do what I am not willing to do myself and (b) perhaps I should lead by example.

And so, this is the first post in a series of random recollections from across my years thus far in preaching ministry. Some might make you smile, some will likely cause you to sigh, and some will simply just be stories. But all of these stories will have these two things in common: (a) they’re absolutely true and (b) none of the events come from any of my experiences with my current church family.

Place: a Church of Christ in a small town in Oklahoma
Time: about 1963

There were three Churches of Christ in this small town, two of them having a Sunday morning attendance average of between 150-200 members each. One day, one of these two larger church buildings burnt to the ground. Instead of rebuilding the one that was destroyed, the two larger churches decided to merge and construct a new building. And so they did.

During the course of construction, the question arose among them as to whether or not a cross would be placed in, or on, the building. Some passionately wanted one. Some passionately did not. The latter prevailed. Or so they thought …

Place: the same Church of Christ in the same small town in Oklahoma
Time: 1984

I was preaching with this congregation and I was standing in the church parking lot talking with one of the members. This brother had served as an elder for years in that church back in the 1960′s and 1970′s. His house was located across the street from the back of the church building. The front of his house had a large, unobstructed view of the back of the church building.

As we stood in the parking lot, this brother was telling me the story of “the fight over the cross” in/on the church building. He noted with a wee bit satisfaction that no cross had been placed there. That’s when I pointed to the massive brick wall that made up the back of the church building and asked, “Well then, what do you call that? How’d that get there?”

Understand that in the top third of the center of the huge back wall of the building, a large number of bricks had been set so that they slightly protruded, forming a subtle, but very distinct – and quite large! – cross.

Following my eyes and extended finger toward the top of the wall, I thought his jaw was going to fall off and his eyes would bug out! After a long pause, he said he had never noticed such before. Do recall, the wall had been erected over twenty years prior. Add to that the fact my friend had lived in his house for many years and still served as the church’s custodian and grounds keeper. Though his house faced the wall (and the cross in bold relief therein) – though his house had a large picture window and kitchen window facing it – though he walked daily from his house to the church building – and though he had served as an elder when the building was constructed – the cross had gone completely unnoticed by him.

Our conversation continued briefly, and let’s just say that he was not happy with what the contractor had deliberately done, clearly doing what he had explicitly been told to make sure didn’t happen!

That “hidden cross” provided the spark for, and something of “the punch” in, a sermon I preached that next Sunday morning. The sermon was about how we Christians often keep the cross of Christ hidden from our friends by refusing to mount it ourselves with Christ. When I got to the part about the cross in our building’s most prominent wall, there were quite a few dropped jaws and unbelievers … until they raced outside into the parking lot, and looking up to the cross, believed! By the account of all, it appeared I was the first member there to have ever even notice it!

I never heard a negative word about crosses and church buildings again there. And from that day forward, I rarely saw the former-elder/custodian & grounds-keeper walk across the street and up the parking lot to the church building without seeing him cast a glance up toward that cross. I’m left to wonder what went through his mind.

Jan 21 2012

this went thru my mind

 

Absolutely required viewing: Don Tapscott on Gov 2.0 with the U.S. State Dept (75 min. video; speech begins at 2:32; he shifts into high gear at 13:14; Q&A starts at 57:00)

Archaeology: Tomb of Apostle Philip Found

Bible: How the Physical Form of a Bible Shapes Us

Church & welcome: 10 Signals That Say “You Are Not Welcome In This Church”

Church & politics: Why Last Saturday’s Political Conclave of Evangelical Leaders Was Dangerous

Claims: “We Go Only By the Bible”

Cross: The Fence of Matthew Shepard

Elders: * Effective Elder’s Meetings * They Met to Consider this Question * Elders: How Should Elders and Staff Relate to Each Other?

Generations: To stop the flow of young people leaving Churches of Christ, intergenerational relationships are vital

Notice the comment by Ed Dodds: “Change Gov 2.0 to Church 2.0 in Don Tapscott on Gov 2.0 with the U.S. State Dept and one thing you’ll discover is that ‘the young folk’ don’t practice geo-locking in their thinking; churches, employers, universities, politicians still do.” This comment/link is also referenced in the “Required Reading” link below.

Hispanic ministry: A Spanish Service Is Not Enough: It’s Time to Feed the ‘Hellenized Latinos’

Nationalism: * Baptizing the American Dream * You Might Be a Christian If…

Pacifism, violence & war: * Fighting for Peace * Jesus Christ, Faith, and Freedom * King, Lipscomb and the Spirit of War

Parenting: Turn Your Homes into Heaven

Proverbs & Twitter: Solomon Invented Twitter

Reading: 12 Reasons I Have Decided to Read One Book Per Week

Self-confidence, shame & subversion: On Subversion and Shame: I Like the Color Pink

Tim Tebow: The Secrets of Tebow Hatred by Michael Medved