Monday, May 7, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
The early church be dangerous as a sea monster
Ahoy, me lovelies and hearties in Christ. Last evening, under the great expanse of heaven, I laid down upon the main deck and ruminated on a puzzling question: Why be everyone wanting to sail back into the choppy waters of the early church?
Everytime I haul myself up to a pew at a lecture, me peg leg snapping the stones of the church, me very appearance causing the older lovelies to faint dead away, I sit and listen to the wise men and women of our age invoke the early church as a model for us lost souls today.
I guess they not be reading Paul. Corinth be a fine city and I did a lot of fine sinning there before me conversion -- you know what they say, "What happens in Corinth, stays in Corinth" -- but that church be uglier than me mother-in-law in the morning, God bless her dreary soul. Sex scandals, people gorgin' themselves at the table while others be hungered, factions worse than a mutiny. This be what we want the church to be?
Galatia, now there be a church without conflict! Beware the knife, me mateys! Philippi? Are Euodia and Syntyche getting along yet? The persecutions be done yet?
The early church, she be as dangerous as a sea monster, a charybdis eating Christians alive.
I fear that we be using the early church as a tabula rasa, a slate to paint our wildest dreams of faithfulness upon, a utopia that is but a poor reflection of the Kingdom of God. Give me, instead, the rock and pitch of a congregation that struggles to be faithful, that knows its salvation be somehow caught up in its brokenness.
Give me the church now. Hoist the mainsail. We sail toward the future tonight and further -- to the eschaton!
A Like-Minded Landlover
I can't believe this...
http://christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2852
Be there nothing new under the sun?
http://christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2852
Be there nothing new under the sun?
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The Pirate's Life for Me
I can see your snarled lips—hear your dismissive harrumphs. Piracy is no model for orthodoxy, a blasphemous affront to God. But look again, me hearties, and you’ll see the truth of it. A Pirate’s systematic theology (prolegomena, at least):
Total Depravity: We verminous few hold no grudge with the truth. We’re depraved sorts, riddled with scurvy and rickets, enslaved to material desires. There be no illusion of goodness among us. Me first mate, Calvin, harangues us daily, “Worms – Rats – Diseased, infested cockroaches – that’s the lot of you without the grace of God. No good swabbers of the deck.” But, by the grace of God, we be instead Pirates for God. Simil iustus et peccator, it’s tatted right on my shoulder, simultaneously justified and sinner.
Outcasts: There be not a noble blood among us. Chased and belittled across the seas, we find ourselves banished, hated, despised. If God be true, if God love the unloved, the our sorry band of lost souls marks the X of God’s new treasure. Beware, hearties, of the fine priests, from the fine families, who speaketh fine words because he be scared to speak the truth. Did not our celestial cap’n say, “Woe to you when people speak well of you for that is what they did to the false prophets of old.”
A Ship’s Journey: We all be packed in together, tossed upon the waves, confronted by the dangerous lady that is the sea but buffeted by the ship’s hold. We are in that world but not of it. We face that danger but know we cannot live without protection. Be there a better place to contemplate the salvation of God? Be there better mateys to correct your effrontery when your poetic flights have strayed to far from God? Ye have mutiny here before ye have unwarranted speculation.
Raiding: We pillage but only from the best. Our confessional treatise (coming from Zondervan in 2008) be titled, “A Generous Pillaging: Why the Mateys are Missional, Evangelical, Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Maritime/Land-loving, Pillagers/Defenders, Anarchist, Arsonist, Fully Finished but Not Fully Sanctified Christians.”
Treasure: Pirates seek treasure. Theological Pirates seek the pearls of ancient wisdom, dug up from the tomes of those who’ve passed before. What modern (or post-modern rapscallion for that matter) has offered us a treasure as great as Augustine’s words of peace, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord.” It be wisdom that's better than a swift tail wind, better even then gold.
Paradox: Orthodoxy? Piracy? Indeed, they be strange bedfellows, I grant you, but as I penned in my dissertation at pirate seminary, “Tension sparks creative resolution.”
Narrative: Ever heard a boring pirate adventure? Exactly.
Now stifle those wayward grins and let me tell you a story of St. Patrick and the Kraken…
Total Depravity: We verminous few hold no grudge with the truth. We’re depraved sorts, riddled with scurvy and rickets, enslaved to material desires. There be no illusion of goodness among us. Me first mate, Calvin, harangues us daily, “Worms – Rats – Diseased, infested cockroaches – that’s the lot of you without the grace of God. No good swabbers of the deck.” But, by the grace of God, we be instead Pirates for God. Simil iustus et peccator, it’s tatted right on my shoulder, simultaneously justified and sinner.
Outcasts: There be not a noble blood among us. Chased and belittled across the seas, we find ourselves banished, hated, despised. If God be true, if God love the unloved, the our sorry band of lost souls marks the X of God’s new treasure. Beware, hearties, of the fine priests, from the fine families, who speaketh fine words because he be scared to speak the truth. Did not our celestial cap’n say, “Woe to you when people speak well of you for that is what they did to the false prophets of old.”
A Ship’s Journey: We all be packed in together, tossed upon the waves, confronted by the dangerous lady that is the sea but buffeted by the ship’s hold. We are in that world but not of it. We face that danger but know we cannot live without protection. Be there a better place to contemplate the salvation of God? Be there better mateys to correct your effrontery when your poetic flights have strayed to far from God? Ye have mutiny here before ye have unwarranted speculation.
Raiding: We pillage but only from the best. Our confessional treatise (coming from Zondervan in 2008) be titled, “A Generous Pillaging: Why the Mateys are Missional, Evangelical, Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Maritime/Land-loving, Pillagers/Defenders, Anarchist, Arsonist, Fully Finished but Not Fully Sanctified Christians.”
Treasure: Pirates seek treasure. Theological Pirates seek the pearls of ancient wisdom, dug up from the tomes of those who’ve passed before. What modern (or post-modern rapscallion for that matter) has offered us a treasure as great as Augustine’s words of peace, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord.” It be wisdom that's better than a swift tail wind, better even then gold.
Paradox: Orthodoxy? Piracy? Indeed, they be strange bedfellows, I grant you, but as I penned in my dissertation at pirate seminary, “Tension sparks creative resolution.”
Narrative: Ever heard a boring pirate adventure? Exactly.
Now stifle those wayward grins and let me tell you a story of St. Patrick and the Kraken…
This Lily-Livered Non-Believer will be Run Through
Come the Eschaton, we'll not mess with the likes of these. Bishop Usher was a matey of mine. Don't go messing with our early church fathers or it's the galley for you!
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