Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
I Know Exactly When Jesus Will Return
On this first glorious day after the Rapture of the Church, I'm sure some people, especially those who positioned themselves so certain of yesterday's Rapture, are re-evaluating their personal expectations. (I wonder if they are re-evaluating their interpretive framework.) Maybe they aren't. Maybe they are simply trying to figure out the next outrageous attention-getting scheme, carefully calculated to bring in donations from the naive. Naaaah...no one would do that.
I for one am still packin' up. I'm gettin ready to go. Swing low, sweet chariot!
Are you? Maybe you are one of those who believes, like I do, in the "blessed hope," that is, one day when God will make all things right that have been wrong. The 2002 Baptist Faith & Message says, "God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness..." This is more or less a pretty standard Protestant/Baptist/Evangelical statement of belief, also known as a confession of doctrine.
Well...since we've had yet another incident that received lots of lame reporting and occasioned lots of cheap laughs, I'm looking for something decent to come out of it.
Back in 1988, I recall being slightly upset that many of my friends were expecting the Rapture in September. Not that I was some intellectual superior who saw through the whole thing, but that I was inclined to expect it too. Expecting it on a specific day and in a specific way proved to be psychologically wrenching, I'd say even damaging. I was trying so hard, like I did quite a bit in those days, to virtually "wish" my expectations into existence. I didn't have the common sense to realize that "magical thinking" is not all that helpful for day to day spiritual living.
My response was to re-evaluate my personal expectations. It was around this time that I discovered that the Rapture was a pretty late development in Christian thought (like, 1200 months ago), and that the scenarios I'd been adopting wholesale were pretty recent schemes, too. Not that everything recent is bad, but I might have more respect for something with more historical and theological depth. When I realized all this, I began to be more open-minded to other end-time scenarios. (I realize here that I've lost lots of people, who don't believe at all in being open-minded, but only in being "absolutely correct" as quickly as possible.)
So, by few years later I was more widely read, a little more studied, and probably more relaxed. Eventually, I became completely sober on April 10, 2003. Today I'd be categorized as a "Classic Pre-Millinialist" who thinks that Biblical prophecy is Biblical preaching. I am well aware of both the overlapping of the ages and the now and the not yet. I am also aware of the delay of the second coming, and wish more people wondered about it. I also resist as best I can my quite natural (maybe sinful!) apocalyptic tendencies. This means that I don't let my dogma run over my karma.
So, my challenge is for you to re-evaluate your own personal expectations. Are you very certain of things about which the Bible is not? Or are you agnostic, knowing absolutely nothing about "last things" because you think it is too complex? What will you do next time someone makes a joke about Jesus' return? How does your belief, or lack of it, in judgment day effect what you do today for others?
Here's to the second day after the Rapture.
*However*
I for one am still packin' up. I'm gettin ready to go. Swing low, sweet chariot!
Are you? Maybe you are one of those who believes, like I do, in the "blessed hope," that is, one day when God will make all things right that have been wrong. The 2002 Baptist Faith & Message says, "God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the dead will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness..." This is more or less a pretty standard Protestant/Baptist/Evangelical statement of belief, also known as a confession of doctrine.
Well...since we've had yet another incident that received lots of lame reporting and occasioned lots of cheap laughs, I'm looking for something decent to come out of it.
Back in 1988, I recall being slightly upset that many of my friends were expecting the Rapture in September. Not that I was some intellectual superior who saw through the whole thing, but that I was inclined to expect it too. Expecting it on a specific day and in a specific way proved to be psychologically wrenching, I'd say even damaging. I was trying so hard, like I did quite a bit in those days, to virtually "wish" my expectations into existence. I didn't have the common sense to realize that "magical thinking" is not all that helpful for day to day spiritual living.
My response was to re-evaluate my personal expectations. It was around this time that I discovered that the Rapture was a pretty late development in Christian thought (like, 1200 months ago), and that the scenarios I'd been adopting wholesale were pretty recent schemes, too. Not that everything recent is bad, but I might have more respect for something with more historical and theological depth. When I realized all this, I began to be more open-minded to other end-time scenarios. (I realize here that I've lost lots of people, who don't believe at all in being open-minded, but only in being "absolutely correct" as quickly as possible.)
So, by few years later I was more widely read, a little more studied, and probably more relaxed. Eventually, I became completely sober on April 10, 2003. Today I'd be categorized as a "Classic Pre-Millinialist" who thinks that Biblical prophecy is Biblical preaching. I am well aware of both the overlapping of the ages and the now and the not yet. I am also aware of the delay of the second coming, and wish more people wondered about it. I also resist as best I can my quite natural (maybe sinful!) apocalyptic tendencies. This means that I don't let my dogma run over my karma.
So, my challenge is for you to re-evaluate your own personal expectations. Are you very certain of things about which the Bible is not? Or are you agnostic, knowing absolutely nothing about "last things" because you think it is too complex? What will you do next time someone makes a joke about Jesus' return? How does your belief, or lack of it, in judgment day effect what you do today for others?
Here's to the second day after the Rapture.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Now That's Why We Have a Monarch!
It is easy to make the mistake of assuming that there are monarchs in the UK so the rest of us can enjoy big weddings every 30 years or so. Yesterday we saw another real good reason for the English to keep them around.
The English-Irish conflict goes back a while. It is hard to imagine the depths of the visceral hard feelings that entire generations of Irish and English have felt for each other. (By English, I use a common collective term, however inexact!) Countless thousands have died fighting for various versions of self-determination and tribal honor. Families on both sides of the Irish Sea have been disrupted throughout modern history because of this mighty struggle between neighbors. It is hard for us to realize the complexities of this negative relationship, which continued even after Irish Independence began in the 1920's.
A cool war continued until more recent times, when the world became smaller and settling scores from the middle ages seemed thankfully less important. So cooperation, management of those Northern Counties and their conflicts, economics and modernization brought the Isles closer together. But no Queen had come to visit.
Well, she arrived yesterday. In Emerald Green, her Royal Presence pierced the hearts, probably, even of the protesters. Without precedent, she reverently visited the Garden of Remembrance, and today will visit the site of Bloody Sunday. Twenty years ago I would have thought such a vision impossible, but it will become a reality today.
What we are seeing is reconciliation bearing fruit. Much work and sacrifice has created this opportunity for healing. There is no way to erase the past, but there is a way to shape a positive future in spite of the bloody past. We all have a great Queen, one of those rare persons who can carry her office and her duties in a way that is larger than life, and that makes life better- rewarding those who do the hard work with the final healing ointment of acknowledged final reconciliation.
It is beautiful to see, wonderful to appreciate, soul-stirring to imagine what these acts of a monarch might mean for the children of those British Isles, and in other places in our world that seem beyond hope of reconciliation.
"How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
Tonight, we can be as one,
Tonight..." -U2: Sunday, Bloody Sunday
The English-Irish conflict goes back a while. It is hard to imagine the depths of the visceral hard feelings that entire generations of Irish and English have felt for each other. (By English, I use a common collective term, however inexact!) Countless thousands have died fighting for various versions of self-determination and tribal honor. Families on both sides of the Irish Sea have been disrupted throughout modern history because of this mighty struggle between neighbors. It is hard for us to realize the complexities of this negative relationship, which continued even after Irish Independence began in the 1920's.
A cool war continued until more recent times, when the world became smaller and settling scores from the middle ages seemed thankfully less important. So cooperation, management of those Northern Counties and their conflicts, economics and modernization brought the Isles closer together. But no Queen had come to visit.
Well, she arrived yesterday. In Emerald Green, her Royal Presence pierced the hearts, probably, even of the protesters. Without precedent, she reverently visited the Garden of Remembrance, and today will visit the site of Bloody Sunday. Twenty years ago I would have thought such a vision impossible, but it will become a reality today.
What we are seeing is reconciliation bearing fruit. Much work and sacrifice has created this opportunity for healing. There is no way to erase the past, but there is a way to shape a positive future in spite of the bloody past. We all have a great Queen, one of those rare persons who can carry her office and her duties in a way that is larger than life, and that makes life better- rewarding those who do the hard work with the final healing ointment of acknowledged final reconciliation.
It is beautiful to see, wonderful to appreciate, soul-stirring to imagine what these acts of a monarch might mean for the children of those British Isles, and in other places in our world that seem beyond hope of reconciliation.
"How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long, how long?
Tonight, we can be as one,
Tonight..." -U2: Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Thursday, May 5, 2011
What happens in a great worship service
in 2011?
- There is some keyboard based band, with live instruments
- There is a real loud organ
- There are music leaders, singers
- There are visual enticements and helps
- There is recitation of belief and focus
- There is strong congregational singing, reading, participation, praying, testimony
- There is a lot of prayer
- There is lots of Scripture, treated reverently
- There is a strong message, meaningful, intelligent and challenging
- There is a call to response and action and commitment
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