A Parable for American Evangelicalism: Christ as Product of Consumer Choice

Ricky Bobby: Dear Lord baby Jesus, or as our brothers in the south call you, jesuz, we thank you so much for this bountiful harvest of Dominos, KFC, and the always delicious Taco Bell. I just want to take time to say thank you for my family. My two beautiful, beautiful, handsome stricking sons, Walker, and Texas Ranger, or TR as we call him. And of course my red hot smokin' wife Carley, who is a stone cold fox.
Cal Naughton, Jr.: mmm...
Ricky Bobby: Dear tiny infant Jesus...
Carley Bobby: Hey, um... you know sweetie, Jesus did grow up. You don't always have to call him baby. It's a bit odd and off puttin' to pray to a baby.
Ricky Bobby: Well look, I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I'm sayin grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grown up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, or whoever you want.

Avraham-Hersh Borshevsky

http://www.borshevsky.com/ledodi.htm

Fragment from Song of Songs, 6:3
"I AM MY BELOVED'S AND MY BELOVED IS MINE", Hebrew & English

Artprint on fine paper, handfinished with gold paint
Dimensions: 11.3"x13.7" (unframed)
Price: $40

Avraham-Hersh Borshevsky was born in 1970 in small North-Ukrainian town Korosten and grew up in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), were he got his artistic education in the Arcitecture department of the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute . In 1990 Avraham made "aliyah" to Israel, where he was enrolled to Jerusalem Yeshiva "Shvut Ami". In 1994 after extensive and thorough study of the Jewish Scribal Art laws Avraham was granted a Certificate of Torah scribe by the Jerusalem "Mishmereth STaM" Halachic Committee of Jewish Scribal Arts. In year 2000 he was granted a Certificate of the Expert for Jewish Scribal Arts.

Avraham Borshevsky’s art blends together artistic and Jewish traditional religious schools; the scribe joins the continuum of centuries old tradition of the masters of Jewish Ceremonial Art by specializing in the field of the illuminated manuscripts since 1998. Parchment scrolls and books of Holy Scriptures embellished with gold leaf and silver and decoratively masterpieces of calligraphic compositions on some chapters and verses of the Book of Psalms meet the canonic demands of Judaism, apart from their artistic value, and therefore can carry out their ritual function. Despite of his conspicuous achievements in the field, A. Borshevsky continued to explore the subject of Western, Jewish and Chinese calligraphies with the leading Israeli masters.

In 2002 Jerusalem and, in 2003 Moscow witnessed immense success of his personal exhibitions. A year after, in 2004, written the scribe wrote the Mezuzah that was universally recognized by the outstanding religious institutions and academic experts in Israel to be the largest Mezuzah ever written in the World's history. The Mezuzah was recorded into the Guinness World Records™. Israeli Rabbis pointed out significance of the fact: "The event has conspicuously consecrated the Name of the Creator in the world! The beauty of the calligraphy in the Mezuzah has no rival!"
The International Maimonides Prize is the most sought for prize in the Jewish world. Laureates of the prestigious prize are granted a hand-written parchment Dyploma done by Avraham Borshevsky.

All of Avraham's works are distinguished for their powerful imagination and filigree technique. By now one can find them in the synagogues, offices and the houses of outstanding rabbis and Hasidic Spiritual Leaders, of politicians and conspicuous public figures, in prestigious art galleries and private collections of those who know the value of Jewish Ceremonial Art.

Wisdom and Comfort from the Psalms

Teach me your way, O LORD,and I will walk in your truth; knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name.

---Psalm 86:11

Whom have I in heaven but you? and having you I desire nothing upon earth.

--Psalm 73:25

Yours, Mine and Ours

Today in Cornerstone, we did the story of Saul. We pretty much followed the entire biblical text from 1 Samuel 10 to 15. I've read this many times, but this time something struck me. Twice, in the interchange between Saul and Samuel over the Amalekite fiasco in Chapter 15, Saul resists acknowledging the Lord as his God.

YOURS:

Saul to Samuel, 1 Samuel 15:21
"The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal."

Saul to Samuel, 1 Samuel 15:30.
"I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel; come back with me, so that I may worship the Lord your God."

Now, it is no unusual thing to see that locution, "Lord your God" in the OT. Moses, Joshua, David use it regularly when addressing the children of Israel. These usages reinforce the idea that the community has entered into a covenant with Yahweh. But IMO Saul's usage seems to parallel Pharaoh's:

Exodus 10: 16
Then Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you.  Now forgive my sin once more, and pray to the Lord your God, to take this deadly plague away from me.

Both Pharaoh and Saul are speaking not to the community of Israel, but to individual prophets (Moses and Samuel). In doing so they recognize Yahweh's existence, but not their relationship to Him. In today's passage, the point is that the Lord is Saul's God, not just Samuel's. That is what got Saul into trouble in the first place, and led him to disobey.

MINE

While Saul's confession is often contrasted with David's, in 2 Samuel 12:13, I want to compare it to Thomas'.

John 20:28

"Thomas said to [Jesus], 'My Lord and my God!'"

This is one of the apexes of faith presented to us in scripture. Thomas acknowledges not only that Jesus is God, but that He is Thomas' Lord. Imagine how the story would have been different if Saul had said, "I have sinned...came back with me so that I might worship the Lord my God." But he was worried about loss of face and position. In focusing on himself, he makes it impossible to focus on God, muchless his relationship to God as Lord.

OURS

Which brings my roving thoughts to their conclusion: the culmination of what is "yours" and what is "mine" is that together we be able to say, what is "ours."

Here is how the Hebrews did it in the OT:
The Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One"
"YHVH eloheinu YHVH ehad" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

And here is how we as Christians do it:

The Lord's prayer: "Our Father, who art in heaven..."

But note the shift: from God to Lord to Father. Not even Samuel could call Yahweh "daddy."

Consider this: you can't pray the Lord's prayer in the second person, or even the first person singular. In order to even see its value as a prayer at all, you have to move from a spiritual state of "second person" to "first person singular." That is, (with apologies to Martin Buber!) from a "you-Him" to "me-You" relationship. But in order to pray it, you must move from the "me-You" to the "we-You."

Finally, though for textual reasons the doxology at the end of the Lord's prayer is no longer included in many translations of Matthew 6:13, my understanding is that the Eastern churches still include it. If we follow their lead, the movement then climaxes in YOU:

"For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

Y0u-Him. Me-You. We-You. You. You. and You!

Curmudgeons, Unite!

Recently Brad affectionately referred to my husband as a "curmudgeon." Well, it looks like Steve's got company... (grin!)

From Richard John Neuhaus, "The Public Square," First Things, March 2007:

Call him a curmudgeon if you wish, but Dr. Stephen Bower nicely puts some common complaints in his open letter to the Spring Valley Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina. Apparently the church has been “updating” its “worship style” in order to appeal to a broader “market.” Dr. Bower writes:

“We could easily integrate some of the so-called contemporary into our worship service as we know it. This is more a question of whether we should be striving to build up the Body of Christ or multiple bodies, each with its own brand of theology, liturgy, and church culture-i.e. old light people are irrelevant, new light people are relevant; old light people live in the past, new light people live in the present; old light people meet in the sanctuary, new light people meet in fellowship hall; old light people remain stiff, unemotional, and impersonal, new light people are relaxed, emotional, and personal; old light people are uncaring, new light people really care; old light people sit in hard wooden pews while new light people sit in soft chairs and gather informally around a table; old light people like to hear the word of God from the pulpit, new light people like to see the word of God on a screen; old light people are conceptual, new light people are visual; old light people want to be educated, new light people want to be counseled; old light people like to think, new light people like to feel; old light people seek communion with God, new light people seek communion with themselves; old light people believe in open invitational communion, new light people believe that is not enough; old light people believe they are sinners, new light people believe they are emotionally unsatisfied; old light people believe the church ought to serve others, new light people believe it ought to serve them.”

If some folks don’t like the Presbyterian tradition, Dr. Bower concludes, “we, they, and the Lord would be better served” if they were directed to churches more attuned to their tastes. Of course, he is painting with broad strokes, and the idea of attending “the church of your choice” reflects a very Protestant ecclesiology, although in recent decades, and despite rules about parish boundaries, many Catholics also “church shop” within the capacious ambience of Catholic worship.

Apart from Dr. Bower’s letter, I know nothing about Spring Valley Presbyterian, but the concerns he addresses are probably a permanent feature of church life in America: the tension, if not war, between unbridled voluntarism and marketing on the one hand and, on the other, the struggle to maintain an ecclesial community that at least approximates a biblical understanding of the one Church of Jesus Christ.

Extraordinary Youtube Political Satire

MAD TV, Saturday, March 16

Steve Jobs introduces the new iRack .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=rwnkoGLhrE

(NOTE: This link has been giving me problems recently. If you can't get it to work, go to Youtube and enter "irack")

What We Fear Most May Be What We Most Need

Scot McKnight's "Jesus Creed" blog entry for March 15,2007 is an interesting one.
http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2153#comments

In it he addresses the question, "what fear drives the Liberal churches, the Evangelical churches, and the Emergent churches?"(because "what people fear the most tells you most about them. ")

His answers:

Liberal churches most fear intolerance.

Evangelical churches most fear change.

And this is what he says about emergents:


"So, what is the emerging movement afraid of? This might surprise you, but I think I’ve got this one nailed. What will surprise you is that it is not theology — Liberal or Evangelical. The emerging movement, no matter how many times I say this it doesn’t seem to convince many, is not a movement rooted in a set of doctrines. It is theological, but not the way either Liberalism or Evangelicalism are. It’s biggest fear is centralization of power and authority. Look, Emergent Village set off nothing short of a firestorm when it decided to centralize and form a National Coordinator (Tony Jones). Tony worked hard to convince folks they weren’t giving away the whole house when they simply tried to coordinate the efforts of emerging Christians around the globe by forming a clearinghouse. No, what the emerging movement fears is institutions, bureaucracy, control, and centralizing authority in a local pastor, a local presbytery, or a denomination. One of our oddities — and believe me it bugs me at times — is that many of us in the emerging movement draw deeply from some of the most hierarchical, centralized and institutionalized churches in the history of the Church: the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. (Not to mention other denominational structures.)"


I think McKnight is right on; but then, I would prefer to cast the question this way: what premoderns fear most is change; what moderns fear most is intolerance, and what postmoderns fear most is authority.

Small wonder that the postmoderns are drawn to Orthodoxy and Catholicism. What we most fear is often what we most need.

Philosophical humor

A Lenten Thought

"Grace pierces before it heals."

--Ricky Padilla

Rob Paravonian on YouTube

"IF you want to enjoy pop songs, you can't listen to the lyrics..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S8wBNoiv90&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

We all love the Pachelbel Rant from Youtube... this one is about the Friend's Theme music and Sugar Ray's music!! Very entertaining!!