Our friend Bruxy Cavey (@Bruxy) and the rest of the crew at The Meeting House in Oakville, ON have got a good sermon series startng tomorrow.
My God Why? Asking the hard questions about God and suffering
Millions living in extreme poverty. Agonizing terminal disease. Abusive relationships with lasting damage. Our planet is wracked with needless suffering. The question is simple. If God is loving and all powerful, why doesn't he stop all suffering? This will be a soul searching series as we ask the hard questions about the existence of God, the reality of human suffering and the surprising answers Jesus offers.
If you're as intrigued as I am, be sure to check back for the video and accompanying resources in a few days.
UPDATE: The first talk in the series is now up on the TMH site! I'm hearing really good things from my friends in Oakville.
I had hoped I'd outgrown this sort of thing, but sometimes you just need to get stuff off your chest.
This morning in the car I was listening to The Jesus Station, otherwise known as the regional Christian radio station in these parts. ('The Jesus Station' is the name assigned to it by a certain 14-year old living in our house.) I know, I know, I've confessed in the past how listening to Christian radio can get my blood pressure up to unhealthy levels, but recently I've been tuning in a little more frequently. Oddly enough, when I do lose it and turn the dial in disgust these days it's more often because of the 'paid political announcements' and less the terrifying theology of some of the musical fare. (I refuse to listen to someone tell me how he's going to fix the country while children recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the background. But, I digress.)
Anyway, I was listening when the subject of Owl City came up. By way of background, I may not be the oldest Owl City fan in the country, but I bet I'm in the top 10%. Adam Young is incredibly talented, and I really appreciate his material. He's achieved a lot of success with the album Ocean Eyes, which gets a lot of airplay around our place.
A couple of nights ago Adam sat at his piano and recorded a cover of In Christ Alone, and on his blog he shared a little of the moving experience. It's stunningly beautiful, so go listen. Now. I'll wait.
Told you.
Back to the radio thing. Listen, I appreciate what the good people at the station are trying to do, I really do. I even appreciate the point they were trying to make about the song, misguided as I think it was. They went on about "this secular artist", how his parents were pastors, which somehow seemed to give us believers a claim on him, even though, you know, he's a secular artist. There was one condensed, distilled sentence that said it all for me. They referred to Adam as a "secular artist with a deep faith", and I'd like to parse that out a bit. It's like therapy for me, but you can sit in if you like.
Secular artist with a deep faith
First is the word secular. I do not believe in the secular. Nothing is secular. If God created it all, then it all bears God's fingerprints, God's essence. Nothing exists that was created any other way. Everything is sacred.
Notwithstanding what I just said above, let's continue. The first two words put together are secular artist. I believe that all art, all creativity, is a gift from the Creator. Whether this is recognized by the artist or not is irrelevant. Truly there can be no greater oxymoron than "secular artist".
Finally, take the whole thing together. Secular artist with a deep faith. Surely this is the second-greatest oxymoron in the history of the English language. How can art--a gift from God--created by someone with a deep, abiding faith in God, still be described as "secular"... even if you believe in the secular?
This is more of the the old us-and-them that Christians are famous for, and it makes me sad. (In this case, to be accurate, it was more like us-and-sort-of-us-but-not-really-us-because-if-he-really-was-one-of-us-he-would-be-a-Christian-artist-and-not-a-secular-one.)
We have got such a long, long way to go.
Bonus - For reading this far here's my favorite Owl City song. And for the record, I can worship the Creator listening to this one as easily as I can with In Christ Alone. I hope this brother keeps making his music for a long, long time because I see God in all of it.
UPDATE: Our friend Peter Banks has been thinking about the same things, and has posted a fantastic offering from Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood for your consideration.
UPDATE: I heard back from the radio station on the issue of the ads:
As a radio station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, we are required by law to air advertising for political candidates. In addition, radio stations cannot change or censor what’s said by candidates in political ads.
Our station manager has been running ads to explain to our listeners the reasoning of why we air political ads, but those aren’t airing nearly as often as political ads.
Who knew?! I thanked them for the information and reiterated my offer to discuss the rest of the post with anyone at the station who may like to have a conversation about it.
It looks like the one public lecture entitled "Called to be Human: Agenda for Tomorrow's Church" will take place on November 16 at Christian Life Assembly in Langley, which is located at 21277 - 56th Avenue. The lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. and seating will be open, so I plan on getting there early. In anticipation of the visit the Bishop's paper and accompanying resources have been made available, so at the very least you'll get to read what he's thinking whether he shows up or not!
(The presentation isn't on CLA's calendar, so I called them to confirm. It's a go.)
I remember we sat in the swing on the front porch & as the dusk came on us like a song, dark throated & sweet, he told me about the beginning when we had bones of light & hair that burned like the sun & I asked what happened then? & I felt him floating there in the soft dark & finally he said we forgot & I said I never would, but sometimes I do & I understand now why he put his arm around me & said nothing more. ~ Brian Andreas, Story of the Day
(Where I share some half-baked theological thoughts and you respond if you wish.)
These particular thoughts came to me on the ferry this morning on my way over to Linwood House. I believe our recent conversation on atonement helped generate some of what follows. Come to think of it, those thoughts came following a ferry trip too. Must be the ocean air...
When you tell some people that Jesus died for their sins, you might get a sceptical smile, or a disinterested shrug. You're bringing an answer to a question they're not asking, a solution to a problem they don't think they have.
While we all suffer in some way from an inferiority complex, many of the people I know are not primarily walking around wracked with guilt over their mistakes, or worried about where they will find forgiveness. Oh, it's in there somewhere, but it's not their main concern. (Many of our friends in the downtown eastside would be the exception to this, but that's a different story altogether.)
They are worried about meaning, and about purpose. Why are they here? Why are any of us here? What's the point? They're not weighed down by sin, but by futility.
Jesus died to save us from our sins? So what. Jesus lived to give us purpose, to teach us what it means to be fully alive, fully human? Now that's something we can talk about.
Are you kidding me? Let's see... The Coen Brothers, doing True Grit, with Jeff Bridges, and Matt Damon, and they've even got Johnny Cash singing on the trailer. Oh yeah, this is going to be good.
In this time of general insanity it was a breath of fresh air that brought a smile to my face to read that Calgary has elected Canada's first Muslim mayor. Calgary! No, I did not see that coming out of Alberta, so props to the good people there.
In a mailing I received this morning Fr. Richard Rohr shares this timely account of his father St. Francis:
"Oral tradition communicates that Francis made at least two trips to Egypt to meet with the Sultan, Melek al-Kamil, in the midst of the Christian Crusades during the 13th Century. This was a sad period where universal hatred or fear of Islam was so prevalent, and unfortunately history appears to be repeating itself.
The humbling story recounts that one of the friars found a copy of the Koran and asked what he should do with it. Francis' response was that if he found even a single page of the Koran, he should kiss it and place it on the altar, because it was written in love of God."
Metaphors are dangerous things, as there is always the accompanying risk that we come to believe the metaphor more than what we are attempting to illustrate and amplify.
That being said...
I believe that what we often mistake for evil is actually darkness, and darkness is simply the absence of light. There is no such 'thing' as darkness--it is a non-thing--but there is such a thing as light.
This is why the recently-resurrected quote from Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis) which is making the rounds these days speaks more and more to what I am coming to believe is the purpose of the People of God in this world. To paraphrase:
Don't blame the darkness for being dark. It's much more helpful [and biblical, I think] to ask why the light isn't brighter.
If we want to 'kick at the darkness' (to quote one of my favorite theologians, Bruce Cockburn) what we really need to do is turn up the light.
So I see how often Christianity becomes a cage. To believe that we are objects of some divine transaction who need not do the hard work of participating in the transforming restoration of all creation is to erect that cage around ourselves. We are songbirds who see no purpose but to stay behind bars singing pleasant tunes while all chance of valor, service, worship, and true relationship with God pass beyond recall or desire. Instead of becoming who we were meant to be (and seeing the world put right as well), we embrace the easy faith of a gilt cage unaware that we are living behind bars. Caged Christians don’t join in with Christ in the work of bringing freedom to the oppressed or healing the wounds of this world. If there is nothing to become, if everything just plays out outside of our cage, then there is no reason to ever desire to do great acts of valor in service of the redemption of all things. But God is not a puppet master or mad scientist or even caring pet owner. When God desires relationship with us, it is not as one tending to a mindless bird in a cage. No, it is a relentless pursuit intent on redeeming our humanity through the continual transformation of that very humanity. Following God engages not just our mind and wills, but every aspect of who we are." Julie Clawson, via AZSpot
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