Artifacts of a Life Once Lived

ethereal and earthly in discombobulation This is the world I know. I know of no other sphere of being outside that which I have experienced. What have I to rest my time upon, if that which is like me has no foundation of being either? My being is contingent upon the order of the universe. I cannot survive unless that which I know remains as such. If man is responsible for the world as it is then I have man to thank for my existence, but I cannot find another who will claim that man is the foundation of my existence. What I have experienced is that my sphere of life commonly yearns for a life that is beyond this life, we cannot be satisfied with fullness even of the earthly type. If my life is the determination of a man then I ought, in common sense, to simply desire all that which man has created in its purposes; this is not my experience. I wish for the higher and realer, that which hard, bright, clear, and whole. I wish for that which man cannot provide, ever. This world smells of...

Marsden, like many other devoted American evangelicals who have grown up within the conservative movements of protestant theologies, was a man of considerable spiritual appetite. Marsden tells his story, as do hundreds of other like-minded Sunday school fed followers, about the world in which he grew up. His story trots a path somewhat like this, though I have filled in the details where it might be necessary. “I grew up in home where the bible was the center of our daily living regiment. My parents, though well meaning and often bullishly honest, were under the strictest conviction that the world was haven of brooding rebels of the fantastic sort, enigmatically labeled as harbingers of destruction. It was not as if they viewed the delinquents, the hoodlums, and violators of societal law as the culprits; no, quite the contrary, it was the good citizens; the democrats especially, the university professors, the bartenders, etc. who were to be feared at utmost precaution. After all, thei...

One of the strongest catalyzers of the missions movement during the twentieth century has been the idea that in taking the gospel around the world we are actually shortening the time of Christ’s return. That is, we believe that we can somehow, in our schemes “hurry up” or “hasten” the coming kingdom of God. Is God on our timetable? Does God actually have some plan where once the gospel has reached this last place He will commence the apocalypse? If this were so why wouldn’t we just do a massive airdrop of literature with airplanes all over the world, that would seem to solve the problem, right? If all that God is interested in is making a necessary stop on the last island of Iwo Jima why don’t we just send a group over there, do a mass evangelistic campaign, and if nothing comes of it than nothing comes of it, but we have taken the gospel there, and that’s all that matters because we are that much closer to bliss. Now I have a difficulty with this mentality. There is no love in this sc...

My difficulty in coming to terms with the idea of a secret rapture finds itself in the very ideology of life that I am attempting to expose as purely individual and self-serving. In the light of the fact that the scriptures speak so little on such a significant topic, I am dumbfounded at my once unapologetic acceptance of this undoubtedly European doctrine. In trying to come to grips with the scriptural and historical evidence for understanding a secret rapture, I have found little support. The doctrine itself represents a world of science more than it does a world of biblical perspective. The scientists of the early 18th and into the 19th have suggested that all truth when scrutinized under tooth and scalpel is able, with pinpoint precision, to be exposed in unified propositional statements. The idea of Christian prophecy lends itself to this pursuit of scientific discovery, especially in the community of Protestantism in the early modern period. In seeking the biblical understanding ...

This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends. This is how the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper.

The Life Long Learner: "The habits of thoughtful reading, careful research, dialogue that is more than just talk, writing, critical thinking and analysis, reflective practice, conceptual reasoning, spiritual reflection, the ability to ground knowledge in a disciplined theory base, the ability to access and use resources, communication, social interaction, justice and reconciliation, and so on, are the habits of a lifetime." She continues... "Embracing lifelong learning as normative for theological education is actually consistent with the deepest values and commitments of Christian faith. Many academic habits and artifacts were, for the most part, created by the forces of institutionalization, rationalism, and professionalism and not the values of Christ and the gospel. Conventional curricula, educational forms, assessment processes, and credentialing are largely inadequate to serve the mission of the church in the world. If Christians, committed to what Nietzsche descri...

The world is going to hell in a hand-basket. I’m not really even sure what they are talking about when they say a “hand-basket.” I guess its just something you carry stuff in, but nonetheless, what kind of attitude is this to promote ill-will and harshness on a world of seeming hopeless futures. I guess Christians are guilty to. Guilty because we have obsessed ourselves with Raptures and Apocalypses and Millenniums and Anti-Christ’s. We are obsessed with End-Time Left-Behind marketing schemes to the degree that we get so lost in the ideas that have scarce witness in the text of the Christian Canon. We have it all figured out, we have our charts and interactive CD-ROMS, we have suspects and villains of hellish-birth, we have credit cards for marks that are implanted in our skin so that we become the devils if we drink in the modern economic market, but we have forgotten one thing. The kingdom of God is caring for the poor and the providing justice for the fatherless and widows. The king...

The Role of Theological Education: Theological Education ought , in partnership with the Church, to train leaders through holistic formation, critical instruction, and competent enhancement, and to disseminate those leaders into the church with the intent to engage the world with the truth of Christ. Being overly simplistic, three general schools of thought have existed concerning the role of theological education (theological education refers to the theological institutions separate from the body of the church), however before each is investigated it must be understood that within these three schools of thought lay very different assumptions concerning the nature of theological education. This is particularly important for it must be admitted that ones view of the nature of theological education will directly effect how that person views the role of theological education. The first school views the nature of theological education as formative to the learner both mentally and spiri...

A significant part of being human is expressing the passions of the soul as is often defined by the term spirituality. God has place an inherent appetite for matters beyond the realm of the phenomenal, yet as a fallen human race we often strive to meaningfully deal with these desires of divinity with meaningless pursuits of personal pleasure. So instead of pursuing the bond of deep love we pursue the acquaintance of casual sex. Instead of pursuing unhindered friendship we pursue manipulation with associates. Instead of thoughtful contemplation we pursue the mindlessness of entertainment. The root of these things stems from our basic fundamental flaw of self-love and self-absorption. Spirituality, a necessary pursuit, has lost its beauty in American culture. We fall prey to the latest spiritual fad, the marketing of million dollar corporations, and as a result we find ourselves empty at the end of the spiritual shopping spree, thus Spirituality is coined as an American phrase that means...

Linda Cannell on Educational Pursuits (Theological Education Matters, 304) Christians are pilgrims, learning is best imaged as a shared journey, and lifelong learning is compatible with the Christian mandate of a lifetime of obedience. The culture of learning communities, whether formal or non-formal, is such that each one helps the other to be more like Christ. The late Henri Nouwen once observed that the culture of the academy tends upward, toward pride, arrogance, and elitism, whereas the gospel points one to humility, service, and obedience. Learning, virtue, and service are lifelong endeavors, and the academy has a vital role to play in a new ecology of formal and non-formal modes of education. How should education be approached, and what role does education play in the pursuit of full-human living. I think Linda has answered this question brilliantly in the above paragraph. Holistic, Lifelong Learning at the feet of Christ is the proper approach. Education informs our minds and h...

What is it to become 'human' as a follower of Christ? Life's diversity in conjunction with an understanding that God has created diversity demands that I consider life in its totality of relationships with all races, cultures, and systems of thought. Why have I limited my life-span of experience to a culture, and even more narrow, a Christian sub-culture, which changes with the seasons? Do I really want to look back on my life and see how disgusting is my loyalty to my immediate social constructs? I do not speak this way because I have pent-up frustration or because I have been wronged by my subculture, rather I speak this way because in my encountering life, I have happened upon wise and tempered dissenters who have challenged me to look beyond my particular temporal cultural setting and see my experience as a world-corporate experience. This brings me to my first problem. One issue I must sincerely address is the role of experience in my development of thought on life and...

Quotations from Father and Son: Biographical Recollections by Edmund Gosse (chapter 1) I cant help but compare my adolescence to such a one as this: "The peculiarities of a family life, founded upon such principles, are, in relation to a little child, obvious; but I may be permitted to recapitulate them. Here was perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect abnegation [denial of self] ; yet there was also narrowness, isolation, an absence of humanity ." He follows: "So confident were they of the reality of their intercourse with God, that they asked for no other guide. They recognized no spiritual authority among me, they subjected themselves to no priest or minister, they troubled their consciences about no current manifestation of 'religious opinion.' They lived in an intellectual cell, bounded at its sides by the walls of their own house, but open above to the very heart of the uttermost heavens. This, then, was the scene in which the sou...

If there is anything that we can learn from our society consumed with excess passions of lust, greed, and power, we can learn that something is horribly wrong. However, it’s one thing to simply just describe the problems of the world, and it’s quite another to prescribe a solution to the problems. Just yesterday I held a discussion with a dear friend who has live significantly longer than I have, at least fifteen or more years. Somehow our discussion turned from discussion theological grids of truth, to cultural issues directly related to the grids of understanding. I was not necessarily trying to solve the world’s problems as many young arrogant students like myself do, rather I was simply trying to understand why our culture continues to burrow into the soils of destructive passions represented by our lust for money, sex, and control. Things that were discussed were serious problems, mainly having to do with the ideal of the American Dream, yet we seemed unshaken by the difficulties ...

My generation is a generation consumed with self-fulfillment, self-indulgence, self-satisfaction, self-realization, we are a generation consumed with ourselves. We seek, at all costs, to find the happiness (at the expense of all others) that we have been taught we deserve. My generation has found that its only hope lies in finding that fulfillment, satisfying one last desire, consuming one last product, finding the right one, the one that will make us happy and make us proud. Never has a generation of humans experienced so much psychological dysfunction, never has a generation of youths struggles so much with serious battles with depression, never has a generation had to struggle with determining sexual orientations as has ours. Our generation’s culture of sex and materialism has simply fueled the fire of self-love. In the midst of this upheaval of disoriented minds and passions, ours is a generation which finds its ultimate telos in the “making of yourself.” This tragedy of horror is ...

The title of my blog takes on a bit more meaning at this hour as today represents the end of my 25th year of existence and tomorrow begins my 26th. A new year, a promise of new adventures, new relationships, new dreams, new challenges, new passions, a year of new life. I am a bit frustrated maybe even dissatisfied at the state of my life in its present form, I have found that I am of little use to anything. I dont mean to say that I am useless, but that I have found no place where I may be used. I have done nothing significant with my life at this point other than graduate high school and college which, quite frankly, were not even challenges, actually, the challenge was getting through without getting expelled. The point is that so far I have nothing of significance to show for the work that I have done for the past seven years and a half of post-high school education. Though it may seem to be a bit negative, I must state that I am excited about the fact that school has been a catalys...

"Theology is in essence the conversion of the heart, but its end is a life which can by example inculcate pure doctrine and wisdom in others." - August H. Franke Theology is the bending of the soul toward knowledge of God. Theology is holisitc, involving all of the person: body, mind, and heart. The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

Fullness of Life in a Body of Disrepair: A conversation between two Seeking the life of Christ in a Broken Body. Scott Grace wrote : If you ever have a free moment I am interested in learning a bit about your views on the state of the Church today. Maybe this is unfair in an email, however I am going to ask anyway. I have not heard much concerning your Ecclesiastical associations, but, as you can imagine, when you left FBBC many uniformed fundamentalists from my upbringing "labeled" you unfairly. I never heard the story from your side. I know that might be an entire dinner conversation, but I would be happy to hear the readers digest version or even sound bite version. I welcome your thoughts, for the reason that I am trying to process through, myself, my understandings of what the Church should look like in respect to Scripture, History, and Tradition. Here in Dallas I have attended four very different "forms" of Church, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Bible/Community, an...

STARS OF LESSER GLORY Im trying to discover a concept so that I might put that concept in writing, a concept that classifies and describes the man, or for that matter woman, who has found what it is to live a life consumed with honesty and vulnerability demanded by existence. One who knows the importance of life free from the horrors of rugged individualism. However, the absence of individualism is simply only one aspect of that persons character. This person is also a pietist, one who understands the power of spiritual formation and theological wisdom, yet they are a humanist in that they understand the human psyche so that they are most helpful to individuals in their present situations. Though this archetype fulfills these roles, she is not so self conceited to think that hers is the final argument for she knows that her life is formed and shaped through the very own society she wishes to understand. This human is consumed with the divine, however he understands the absolute relevan...

" There is an emotional element in the makeup of each human individual, which calls to be expressed in any genuine appreciation and welcoming of another's love, whether it be the love of a friend or a spouse or the love of God in Christ ." J.I. Packer " Keeping in Step with the Spirit " Why do we need to experience love? Could we not simply exist without that desire? What is it about humanity that requires this aspect of divinity? It is that we are image bearers of God. However, unlike God we are not self-sufficient, but we must rely on God and others for wholeness. God loves and experiences love because that's what he is, humans have to love and experience love because God is teaching us that we cannot, in complete self-sufficiency, survive on our own. We need God just like we need others, plain and simple. We need to be needed and we want to need. The soul left to itself, such as the man who says "I am an island" is the soul left to dry and dissi...

Oh England, land of enchantment, today you will find that life has arrived. One whose home is beyond your shores, who seeks your good hospitality. give to her your good hand and keep her, show her the majesty of your beauty, shelter her in the kindness of your palm, care for her until the time of return happens upon her. Oceans cannot deaden care for her, for her home will call to beckon her return, Distant land, she is not yours to claim, she must come. It is not with you that she belongs, no, she is only with you for a short while. She will return. Time, yours is the ability to keep us from each other, Distance, yours is the strength to separate our lives, But do not be high minded, In the grace of Affection we are reunited in due season.