I’ll admit it: I’m a technophile. I love technology - gadgets, especially. I love dreaming up ways to make things work better. When I was a kid, I always had some idea about something new I could build.

This evening, as I watched the State of the Union address, I applauded the President’s proposal to fund and emphasize alternative energy sources - both for homes and buisinesses and for transportation. There is great potential for alternative energy sources in all areas of life provided that we design new infrastructure to support those sources.

For instance: hydrogen as a fuel has incredible possibilities; nevertheless, it will require some serious infra-re-structuring. It will need places to fuel and re-fuel that currently do not exist. Moreover, hydrogen, is, in fact, explosive. It would be wiser as a fuel for things that stand still and don’t get involved in high-velocity impacts - perhaps even surrounded by bricks and mortar. Once we have determined safety on that score, then we might be more inclined to mount such a volatile material in a moving vehicle.

I’d love to see alternative fuels come into the ascendant. Just the tech discussion could get me digressing for hours. But there’s a deeper issue here.

This issue is one that no one in congress or in the presidency will touch for the next couple of decades, in all probability. No matter the party, we are committed to this issue so thoroughly that we will just not go there. The president mentioned our addiction to oil. His response was to create new energy resources to reduce our oil consumption.

But the real issue is our consumption addiction. To merely invest in new (and preferably cleaner) technologies would be only to switch addictions. Like the now clichéd swap from cigarettes to coffee or food. The solution here must deal with the root addiction: consumption.

But neither party will deal with this issue because it will not merely upset, but destroy our economy and our place in the world if we were to deal with it faithfully. To cut our consumption addiction would be to envision an economy that is not dependent on growth to keep us going. The only “healthy” economy we can live with here is one that grows. We must be willing to consider an economy that is healthy in a stable, or static, growth rate, and probably one that will allow for a degree of slipping to get to that stability.

Neither party wants this - because neither party wants the wrath of the American people to get us there. It will reduce our standard of living. No one wants that. Not anyone. The question, of course, is whether it is feasible, possible, reasonable, or, most importantly, just, for our entire nation to live as a nation of aristocrats - people who live at a high standard of living (with its requisite power and control) vis-a-vis those on the bottom of the economy. And in our economy, the bottom isn’t here - isn’t wedged between California and Maine - it’s overseas.

We just can’t keep spending. But our economy is dependent on spending. That, at least, was the conclusion after the fall of 2001, when everyone quit spending. But if we don’t, then what? If we keep spending more than we earn, if we keep spending more than we have, if we have no contingency plan, what happens when the bills are called in and when the resources dry up or become unavailable?

Our solution must be both/and: both research and development of new technology, and decisive economic reform that relieves us of our dependence on a growth economy for survival. Sustainability is absolutely necessary, and growth is not sustainable indefinately. We must deal with this, and soon. Otherwise, there will be no future.

When FBC Warren was founded in 1803,

Thomas Jefferson was still president.
Louisana was purchased, but not ratified as owned by the U.S.
Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France (and, for that matter, most of Europe)
Alexander I ruled Russia
American Slaves were considered 3/5ths persons
There were only 17 states in the United States, 7 of which permitted slavery.
King George III of Great Britain was still on the throne, but going a bit nuts
Railroads didn’t exist yet
Beethoven was 33, and already quite deaf

Ralph Waldo Emerson was far from self-reliant - he was still in diapers

Sermon 29 January 2006
4 Epiphany, Year B
Mark 1:21 - 28

“Casting the Demons out of the Church”

[Note form; never typed in MSS]

3 weeks ago, we saw in the passage about Jesus’ baptism how God demonstrated Jesus to be his son through the declaration “this is my son” and by the descent of the Holy Spirit. In this event, he inaugurated his ministry, etc.

2 weeks ago, we invited this God who has come among us to speak to us through the Story of Samuel. …

Last week, we heard what this call of God means - the proclamation of God’s rule, his victory over his enemies, and how he invites us to set aside life as we know it and join in God’s life.

Today, and over the next four weeks, we will look at five passages of scripture from the Gospel of Mark that demonstrate that God’s rule - his kingdom - has shown up among his people and is setting everything right.

Today we see the first of these scenes: Jesus casts out a demon - out of someone who showed up to church.
(more…)

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.

Ronald Reagan’s immortal words are still the most appropriate as we remember:

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and ’slipped the surly bonds of Earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.

(link)

It’s been a long week.

I’m wiped out.

I’ve got the next two days off.

Please pray for us - God is at work, and that means opposition to God is cropping up.

Pray that I follow God no matter what.

grant reminds us that today is the feast day of the Conversion of St. Paul.

Let us all celebrate this Damascus Road experience that led to the Word of God spreading throughout the world.

It’s a really good thing when you have the opportunity to reconcile with a friend over differences you caused each other. When one person hurts the other - especially when trust is broken - both people lose freedom. The injured party is unable to be free to trust in the same way they were at first; the injuring party doesn’t have the freedom to act without being questioned about their motives. So one person’s sin actually injures both people. It actually messes up life for both - in a way that neither can fully resolve on their own.

This is why it is so essential that forgiveness take place. Forgiveness releases the injurer from what they “owe” the injured; it also releases the injured from holding something against their injurer. This is a necessary first step for freedom from the thing that caused the injury in the first place.

Thus we live in a world where we all live so injuredly that we cannot get ourselves out of our injury. We need freedom from both our own sins and those sins committed against us. Without some mechanism for reconciliation, we have no hope of freedom.

Jesus is the way this comes about because he is the only one who could completely repent of sin (being completely free of it) and who could completely forgive. Therefore, we have life in him because we must share in his life to receive his life - a life of reconciliation and forgiveness. I am grateful for the restoration of a friendship today; I pray that several others that were broken recently can be renwed as well.

Peace to all.

Sermon 22 January 2006
3 Epiphany, Year B
Mark 1:14 – 20

Acting out the Kingdom

Given that we’re going to have a meeting after the worship service today, I thought I’d start us off today by reading from the Church Constitution. Sound like fun?

Actually, there are two words that figure prominently in the passage of scripture we just heard which also find significance in the Constitution’s “Article of Faith.� Let’s listen to what it says:

“The purpose of this Church shall be to maintain public services for the worship of God and for the teaching and preaching of the gospel, and in general to promote the interest of the Kingdom of God according to the teaching of Christ.�

There are two words in there that show up significantly in the text for today: “gospel� and “Kingdom.� Now, those of you with sharp ears and good short-term memory will realize that ____________ never read “gospel� in that passage from Mark. That’s because every Bible translation in English for the last 30 years or so has dropped the older-sounding language (laden, as it is, with all sorts of extraneous interpretations) in favor of more everyday language. So, in this passage, the old-time term “gospel� has become “good news.�
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Today I picked up The Prophetic Imagination, 2nd Ed. by Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001).*

I’ve been hearing about this book out on the ‘net for a while now, and I ordered it a few months ago (before Christmas hit). This book is decidedly radical, exposing the ways in which we have domesticated both Christianity and the scriptures, turning them into the lap dogs of religious platitudes and self-affirmation.

Brueggemann shows how “Static Religion” (p. 28, ff.), supported by the triumvirate of the “Economics of Affluence,” the “Politics of Oppression,” and the “Religion of Immanence,” is the utter enemy of God. This “Static Religion” whether in the form of traditional religions such as Christianity or the informal religions of patriotism or societal status quo, is the dominant shape of our religious landscape. Static Religion defeats the Gospel of Jesus Christ before it even gets started, because it requires God to subject himself to the triumvirate before he is permitted to speak.

The Prophetic Imagination declares God to be free to act as he wills, and envisions a society radically different than the one supported by Static Religion. This society adopts God’s perspectives on each of the three parts of the triumvirate: instead of the Economics of Affluence, the Economics of Equality; instead of the Politics of Oppression, the Politics of Justice; instead of the Religion of Immanence, the Religion of God’s Freedom. In so doing, the Prophetic Imagination restores those marginalized by the Triumvirate of Static Religion to the place they belong under the Reign of God.

Therefore,

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us. (p. 3)

This prophetic ministry criticizes the dominant culture of Static Religion and energizes people with a vision of something radically different. In so doing, it exposes the uncritical numbness created by Static Religion which denies the reality of experience in favor of managing behavior.

There is much, much more here… I’m halfway through it as of today; I picked it up this morning. It’s only 125 pages - take up and read!

*[Yeah, NBTS, not quite Turabian format, but all the data is there.]

Some good stuff from the Signposts folks:

The future of the Christian church rests on the quality and the success of our discipleship. The future of any movement relies on the ability of the current members to recruit people to the cause. If Jesus had not been successful in recruiting people to his cause and inspiring them to follow in his path, then the Christian faith would have concluded with his death. The resurrection experiences of the early disciples were obviously a significant factor in turning the scattered and scared disciples into people who were capable of creating a fledging Christian community. Yet, the resurrection experience was significant only in the context of the discipleship that Jesus had offered in his lifetime. The continuation and growth of the Christian faith resulted from Jesus’ ability to infuse his disciples with the message. As Hirsch notes, it almost failed; despite the time and energy that Jesus put into his followers’ discipleship, the fragile Christian movement almost failed before it had begun.

…

The Christian faith has always found ways to communicate and create disciples. The task has not changed, even if the context has. We need to create ways to develop disciples who embody the ways of Jesus. This development needs to take into account our current post-Christendom, post-modern, post-denominational and consumeristic missional context. We need to ask what it means to covenant together to take the missio deo seriously. How do we cultivate individual commitment to the cause of Jesus?

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Yes, sentenced to church.

Cincinnati, Jan. 19 - A judge sentenced a suburban Cincinnati man to attend services for six weeks at a predominantly black church for threatening to punch a black cab driver and using racial slurs in a fight with the man.

Brett Haines, 36, of Anderson Township, picked church over spending 30 days in the Hamilton County jail. Judge William Mallory Jr. offered Haines the choice last week after Haines was convicted of disorderly conduct.

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I’m not sure if this is a cure for racism, but it’s an innovative approach, n’est-ce pas?

grant had a great post on the Christian conversation about “sacred” vs. “secular.”

I was hoping we might shed some light on this whole Secular vs. Religious thing, but nobody really picked up on it.
Basically, I don’t really see a secular world at all. To me, secular means devoid of any religious nature. I think if you have a Christian world view that says that God’s presence is always with you, there is no secualr world. There are levels of spirituality in most movies, because most people respond to these films, because most people are even the slightest bit spiritual.

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I agree with what Grant says. Basically, there’s a bunch of us out there now who believe that all of life can be “sacred” if we have devoted our lives to God. When I went to seminary, I really didn’t take any classes that were uniquely “pastoral.” Every class I took would be appropriate for any Christian who wanted to approach deepening faith from an academic perspective. As I completed seminary, I continued working as a Computer Systems Administrator, knowing that, for me, CSA was sacred work. No, I didn’t do it just so I could badger people about God. No, I didn’t use it to “infiltrate” and try to bring Jesus into a high school.

Instead, because I believed God was in charge of my life and I set my priorities around him, my Christian life permeated everything I did - inasmuch as I actually followed through on my beliefs. All truth is God’s truth; when we find something to be true (as in philosophically, in film, etc.) it points us to God.

To a Christian, all of life is sacred, or it is not Life.

… like a weather forecast or something…

It’s a VOLCANO after all!

“Light ash can be expected, nothing that would accumulate in any thickness.”

(more)

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”‘ But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven,” called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide. and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

(emphasis mine)

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (15 January 1929 - 4 April 1968)

…while I did depart from my intended text here and there, the sermon today went well.

God is, in fact, speaking at First Baptist Warren.