Friend of Kuyper Gets a Facelift!

If you haven't been over to my other web resource Friend of Kuyper recently, check it out!
All new material and a new look!

REDEMPTION: To Become Truly Human (Worldview Revisited)

Our redemption is not some supplement to being human; it's what makes it possible to be really human, to take up the mission that marks us as God's image bearers.

Perhaps the most moving article in the series that Comment recently published on a rearticulation of the Creation-Fall-Redemption story was written by James K.A. Smith on the Redemption.

Listen to these words about our Creator-God:

__“What love is this that would take such risks?
__The covenant God of Israel and Father of Jesus Christ is an extravagant, inventive Creator who—in what almost looks like madness—entrusted the care and unpacking of creation to us, his creatures, commissioned as his image bearers. Deputized and gifted to carry out this mission of image-bearing cultivation, we are to work and play, to make love and art, to till the earth and transform its fruit into our daily bread while also incarnating our most outlandish dreams in cathedrals and skyscrapers. Such image-bearer culture-making will be most fruitful when it runs with the grain of the universe—when our work and play runs in the grooves of God's life-giving norms.
__Creation, then, comes with a mission and a vocation. Being God's image bearers is a task and responsibility entrusted to creatures. If God created from and for love, then he also created us with the invitation to love the world and thus foster its—and our—flourishing.”

Wow. Amen! But as we’ve seen in the second chapter of the story (FALL), this vision of the wonderful creation is deeply marred:

__“While God's self-giving love entrusted to us the care and cultivation of his creation, humanity seized this as an entitlement rather than receiving it as a gift. Thus our mission of unfolding the potential latent in creation took the form of unfettered invention rather than normed co-creation.”

Redemption, then, is the story of our good Creator not leaving us to our own devices, but actively intervening through Jesus Christ.

__“Jesus of Nazareth appears as the second Adam who models for us what it looks like to carry out that original mission of image-bearing and cultivation. The Word became flesh, not to save our souls from this fallen world, but in order to restore us as lovers of this world—to (re)enable us to carry out that creative commission. Indeed, God saves us so that—once again, in a kind of divine madness—we can save the world, can (re)make the world aright. And God's redemptive love spills over in its cosmic effects, giving hope to this groaning creation.”

This is an incredible statement of the purpose of redemption. Many, many Christians in America have a different vision of redemption from this. For most American evangelicals, the Word became flesh in order to save our souls out of this fallen world. Redemption is reduced to forgiveness in this life (while we are in these sinful physical bodies) and spiritual bliss in the next life (when our immaterial selves escape this physical realm to live in “heaven”). Jamie Smith does not get into this in this particular article, but this physical/spiritual dualism does not come from the Bible, but from Plato. Against this pagan understanding, N.T. Wright writes in Surprised by Hope, “We are not saved as souls, but as wholes."

Redemption, therefore, is not about saving humanity from this creation, scrapping it and providing human immaterial souls with eternal existence someplace else. God originally created humans as his Image-bearers, and therefore God is redeeming that image-bearing capacity in us. Smith writes,

__“So our redemption is not some supplement to being human; it's what makes it possible to be really human, to take up the mission that marks us as God's image bearers. Saint Irenaeus captures this succinctly: "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." Redemption doesn't tack on some spiritual appendage, nor does it liberate us from being human in order to achieve some sort of angelhood. Rather, redemption is the restoration of our humanity, and our humanity is bound up with our mission of being God's co-creative culture-makers.”

So, why are humans redeemed? For a spiritual immaterial afterlife? Or for something so much more? Smith tells us the purpose of God's redemption:

__“While God's redemption is cosmic, not anthropocentric, it nonetheless operates according to that original creational scandal whereby humanity is commissioned as ambassador, and even co-creator, for the sake of the world. In an equally scandalous way, we are now commissioned as co-redeemers. Redemption is the re-orientation and re-direction of our culture-making capacities… While not quite a matter of ‘save the cheerleader, save the world,’ the scandalous economy of redemption does seem to suggest, ‘save humanity, save the world.’”

The rest of Smith’s article is written so beautifully that I urge you to go over and read it in full. In marvelous, almost poetic prose, he give us snippets of what redemption looks like, sounds like, smells like, and tastes like. Wow! Amen!

And praise God!


Posts in this series on WORLDVIEW REVISITED:
Creation
Fall
Redemption
Wonder, Heartbreak, Hope
For more on this Reformational Worldview, see my web resource,
Friend of Kuyper

FALL - Making Sense of Our Brokenness and Pain (Worldview Revisited)

__"God saw all that he had made and, behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31).
__But things are not looking so hot these days. What happened? Why is everything so bent and broken? Why, God? Why am I so bent, so broken? And others, too?"

With those words, David Naugle opens an excellent article in COMMENT in a series on Creation-Fall-Redemption. Naugle, of course, is dealing with “The Fall.”

The Fall, understood biblically, explains why things are not the way that (we feel instinctively) things should be. When bad things happen, we wonder, “Why?” And the Bible’s answer is “The Fall.”

“This is the second ‘act’ in the overall narrative of the Scriptures, the next major theme in a biblical view of life and the world. First, there is the good news of creation, but now we have the bad news of the fall. It introduces fundamental conflict into the biblical drama, which must be resolved before God's story ends. It shows, contrary to other worldviews, that evil is not rooted in creation itself, but in the moral rebellion of the human race against the divine authority of the holy God. I sometimes call this episode the ‘uncreation’ because of the damage it did to God's very good world: how it twisted his intentions for humanity, for our knowing and loving and culture-making, and for all the earth.”

The Fall “makes so much else understandable—in particular, our persistent brokenness and the world's deep pain.”

The cause of the Fall, according to Genesis 3, are

• The human temptation to believe the serpent/Satan’s aspersions on God's character, suggesting subtly that God is stingy with his provisions.
• The human temptation to rebel against God’s sovereignty in order to be “gods” ourselves, that is, autonomous beings, doing our own thing, living in freedom as we please.

Naugle points out that the consequences of the Fall came in the form of four separations and three curses.

“First, human beings are separated from God (3:8-9)…”
“Second, human beings are separated from or within themselves (3:10)… Fear, shame and guilt have shattered the previous sense of wholeness and well-being. The line dividing good and evil will cut through the heart of every human being, as Solzhenitsyn has noted.”
“Third, human beings are separated from each other (3:11-13)…”

“At this point in the narrative, God announces a series of curses upon the serpent, whose humiliating "dust-eating" defeat is prophesied; upon the woman, who will struggle mightily as mother and wife; and upon the man, who must sweat profusely in order to have dominion over the earth. Then we die.”

“Once these three judgments are administered, a final separation is described at the end of Genesis 3. God drives the first human pair from the Garden, and stations an angelic battalion at its east entrance to prevent them from reentering it again (3:20- 24). We traded the bounty and blessing of Eden for the chaos and confusion of a broken world. Ever since, we have sought to get our happiness back by our own "utopian" efforts, whether individualistically or collectively.”

That is “the Fall.” The next chapter is “Redemption,” which will be my next post, reflecting on Jamie Smith’s thoughts on it.

Naugle gives a hint of what is to come:

“Only God and his kingdom can fill the longings of the heart. Life without God is vain and futile.”

Posts in this series on WORLDVIEW REVISITED:
Creation
Fall
Redemption
Wonder, Heartbreak, Hope
For more on this Reformational Worldview, see my web resource,
Friend of Kuyper

Is Jesus "a third way"?

Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola have written a new book, Jesus Manifesto: It's Time to Restore the Supremacy of Jesus Christ (Thomas Nelson). An article based on the opening chapter of the book appeared over at Emergent Village. I have really enjoyed Len Sweet's books and Frank Viola's blog (Sweet's book, Out of the Question...Into the Mystery: Getting Lost in the GodLife Relationship is still one of my favorites).

But I'm wondering something: Exactly who needs to "restore the supremacy of Jesus Christ?" Sweet and Viola state,

__"The body of Christ is at a crossroads right now. The two common alternatives are to move either to the left or the right. It’s our observation, however, that we are living in a unique time, when people are frozen as they look in either of those directions. When they look to the left, they decide that they cannot venture there. When they look to the right, they feel the same. Whether they realize it or not, people are looking for a fresh alternative—a third way.
__"The crossroads today, we believe, is one of moving forward or backward. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is that third way—and the only way—that we can forge a secure path into the future. If the church does not reorient and become Christological at its core, any steps taken will be backwards."

Certainly, "those on the left" had lost their Christology. But had "those on the right?" This notion of focusing on the supremacy of Jesus Christ may be revolutionary for those in the emergent crowd that come from the liberal left end of American Christianity, but these words are nothing new to those on the right.

There's nothing revolutionary about this manifesto that I see. For 2000+ years, the true church of Jesus Christ has been primarily marked by the statement that Sweet and Viola say is their "Jesus Manifesto:"

"What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less."

Certainly those "on the left" that lost this in the past 100 years need to hear it afresh. And I praise God that Sweet and Viola have their ears.

But those "on the right"?

CREATION: Worldview Revisited

Al Wolters gives us fresh insight into CREATION > FALL > REDEMPTION with his recent article in Comment.

In much of Christianity, there is affirmation of the glory of Creation. The wonder of a sunset - or a mountain range, or a blooming flower, or the depth of the stars in the sky, or the birth of a baby - all makes us go, “Wow! God is incredible!”

But the Neocalvinist tradition takes this wonder of the glory of God’s creation to the next and best level: As Wolters writes, “Creation is conceived of in a particularly comprehensive way, and even salvation is in large measure understood as the retrieval of creation as God originally intended it. Creation is foundational to everything. Moreover, creation is good in a deep and primordial sense— so deep, in fact, that the goodness of creation continues to manifest itself even in the midst of terrible perversion.”

The Creation-Fall-Redemption story as understood by Kuyperians is more nuanced that that of other Christians, including other Calvinists (for more on the differences between Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism, see this previous post).

According to Wolters,

“Unlike other understandings of orthodox Christianity, this vein of the tradition does not see redemption as something pitted against creation (as in dialectical theology), or as supplementing and fulfilling it (as in some understandings of Thomism), or as standing alongside it without intrinsic connection (as in various two-realm theories), but rather as renewing and restoring it. Thus creation, embodying God's intention from the beginning, is the very goal of salvation in Christ. The whole point of redemption is to restore life and the world to the way they were meant to be from the beginning. Salvation means re-creation; grace restores nature.”

If you haven’t read Wolter’s essential book, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview, stop everything right now and order this book! This is one of the best articulations of the Neo-Calvinist understanding of Creation-Fall-Redemption.

Wolter's recent article in Comment underlines that when those in the Neo-Calvinist (or “Kuyperian”) tradition speak of “Creation,” we don’t just mean the “natural world” (that is, the physical and biological world). We have a more all-encompassing view of God’s good creation –

“In the biblical view, creation is everything which God has ordained to exist, what he has put in place as part of his creative workmanship… Creation includes such human realities as families and other social institutions, the presence of beauty in the world, the ability to appreciate that beauty, the phenomena of tenderness and laughter, the capacity to conceptualize and reason, the experience of joy and the sense of justice. An almost unimaginable variety of objects, institutions, relationships and phenomena are part of the rich texture of God's creation.”

Since “Creation” encompasses all things, then God’s order for these things has been in place since the beginning. In other words, the sovereign king has put into place his “creational law” for everything that is.

The next two chapters of the story, of course, are “Fall” and “Redemption” (which we'll cover in our next two blog posts). And these relate directly to this all-encompassing view of the good creation. Wolters writes,

“It is difficult—in fact, impossible—to speak of creation as a Christian in abstraction from the two other fundamental categories of the biblical story: sin and salvation. Sin means the distortion of creation, and salvation its recovery in Christ. This means that creation comes back with a vengeance (so to speak) in the redeemed Christian life. It is in the richly textured glory of created human life, in which mothers sing lullabies to their babies, and children run for the sheer joy of going fast, that God wants to be glorified by our service and witness to him, so that all the world can see what true created human life is like, despite the scars and scourge of sin and death. That applies to our moviegoing and our moviemaking, to our parties and our philosophizing, to our imagination and our determination.”

Posts in this series on WORLDVIEW REVISITED:
Creation
Fall
Redemption
Wonder, Heartbreak, Hope
For more on this Reformational Worldview, see my web resource,
Friend of Kuyper

Wonder, Heartbreak, Hope: Worldview Revisited

Comment Magazine has published a series of articles revisiting and re-articulating the biblical worldview storyline of “Creation, Fall, Redemption.” In the next series of posts, I will highlight and discuss the insights of the authors as they attempt to reinvigorate the imaginations of Christians with the amazing story of God. The authors of the articles are three of my favorite Christian theologians: Al Wolters, David Naugle, and James K.A. Smith.

Gideon Strauss, president of the Center for Public Justice and editor of Comment for Cardus, starts us off with three new descriptive words for C-F-R. Check out the article here: 2010 Comment Manifesto: Wonder, Heartbreak and Hope. Below are some excerpts.

Wonder
The Word and the Spirit of God open our eyes to the wonder of the world God made… Creation is not just nature, but encompasses the God-ordained structure of all of human life and all the things in the world…

With eyes of wonder we can see the diversity and complexity of creation accurately and correctly… We begin to discern the pattern of God's creation, and begin to learn the wisdom of caring for things as they are, neither neglecting nor exploiting their structured possibilities, but rather disclosing their meaning as creatures made and loved by God.

Heartbreak
Our dulled tastes, our self-interested arguments, the entanglement of our identity with our consumption, our failures to cultivate expertise, our subtle slights of others and our seeking after status at the cost of justice… all of life (has) fallen away from enjoyment of the good and obscuring the wonder evoked by a good creation.

With broken hearts we confess our own complicity in the vandalizing of God's good and peaceable order. We admit to our own idolatrous love of God's creatures and their diverse qualities: power and fame, sex and wealth, nature and community not least among these. We confess that we seek to shape things into forms foreign to their created purposes, and that we through lack of imagination and enterprise allow things to lie undiscovered and unenjoyed.

As thoroughly as God's good design suffuses all that is not God, so thoroughly does human evil mar all things… The Word and the Spirit of God open our eyes to the heartbreak suffered by the world God made, and mindful of God's pain we find our own hearts broken.

Hope
We…yearn for the full recovery of the peace of God, desire the complete restoration of the reign of God, and await the fulfillment of the promises of God.

Our hearts burning with hope, we rejoice in the good news of the cross and resurrection of Christ and the promise of forgiveness and of the resurrection of our bodies and the reconciliation of all things with God. We celebrate the good things, great and small, that are foretastes of the coming kingdom.

As wide as the sorrows of humanity, as deep as the rifts between human and human, as high as the walls that prevent all God's creatures from fulfilling their intended purposes, so wide and deep and high reaches the redemptive work of God in Christ.



Posts in this series on WORLDVIEW REVISITED:
Creation
Fall
Redemption
Wonder, Heartbreak, Hope
For more on this Reformational Worldview, see my web resource,
Friend of Kuyper

Think Orange Review Project

Frequent commenter to Vanguard Church, Henry Zonio (of the excellent on-line resource, Elemental Children's Ministry) did a blogging project on Reggie Joiner’s book Think Orange: Imagine the Impact When Church and Family Collide. Several elementary children's ministers contributed their interactions to the chapters of the book.

Thanks for organizing this Henry!

Here are the links to the contributions:

Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Conclusion

Canton Peace Day - This Sunday 1-7 PM

Canton Peace Day 2010 from Derek Urey on Vimeo.

On this memorial day weekend, the folks at LoveCanton and Kingdom House would like to invite you to celebrate the fact that Canton has the lowest crime rate we've had in a decade. We will also mourn the loss of the 11 people killed in homicides and the 3000 child abuse cases last year. We need to celebrate progress, love those who are hurting, and stop sitting on the sidelines watching these news articles like they're some sort of entertainment.

Join us this Sunday, May 30th, 2010 at Nimisilla Park for a day of live music, dance, painting, basketball, food and fantasticness. Everything from rap to folk, break dancing to ballet. A huge family style pot luck.

Glenn Beck is a False Prophet

I’ve written before about the problem I see with Evangelicals listening to and following the political vision of Glenn Beck. Glenn Beck has increasingly conflated his political views with his religious views. This causes me alarm for two reasons:

First, as someone who describes himself as an expert historian on the United States, Beck’s credibility should be questioned because he has chosen to be a Mormon, a religion that is demonstrably false historically. If he has so easily “drank the Kool-Aid” (his own words for his acceptance of the Mormon religion! -watch the video in the above link) concerning this false religion even when the historical facts are stacked against it, why should we accept his other conclusions on American history?

The second alarm is this: Increasingly, Beck is positioning himself as a cross between political commentator and religious prophet. On his FOX NEWS television show and especially on his radio program, Beck speaks as an evangelist – preaching against the evil darkness that is engulfing America that God has called him and his followers to battle. He sees himself as a modern-day prophet from God and that he is called to lead America out of this present darkness.

Beck has been promoting a new book that will be called “The Plan,” in which Beck says he will “provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in" the "Refounding" of America. Beck will “unveil” The Plan “at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall” on August 28, 2010 (the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on those same steps).

I have no qualms with anybody seeking to create peaceful political movements based on their ideological convictions. This is what makes America great.

What I have concern about is this: Beck seems convinced to be on a mission from God. And he is telling his audience that if they are not with him and “The Plan,” then they are in danger of being against God and his Prophet.

Listen to this clip from April 20th Glenn Beck Program (Premiere Radio Networks):



Let me call it as I see it: Glenn Beck is a false prophet.

He is telling people that he and his Mormon friend and co-host Pat Grey are "feeling" something – a feeling that is coming from God. (Later in the clip, Beck says that he and Pat went home to pray and to open their Bibles. We must remember that the "Bible" that Glenn Beck and Pat Grey consults is the Book of Mormon).

Beck says to Pat, “'The problem is that God is giving a plan, I think, to me, that is not really a plan.' And I stopped myself because I didn’t want to utter those things out loud, if that’s not exactly right, and it’s not.”

"It’s not" what? At first I thought Beck was saying that it’s not a plan from God, but then he kept talking about it -- “The problem is that I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand.” So, The Plan is indeed from "The Lord," and it is indeed being revealed to Glenn Beck. So what he must be saying that "it's not" right that he thinks that The Plan is "not really a plan" (whatever that means!).

But even as Beck is making no sense in that statement, he still believes that he is the Prophet from God that will reveal God’s "Plan" to us! But he is working from an inner "feeling," and he believes that The Plan will be hard to understand. And so he asks his listeners, “I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part."

What is "The Plan?" We don't know the details yet, but Beck does say that "The Plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you, is ‘Get behind me.’ And I don’t mean me, I mean Him. ‘Get behind Me. Stand behind Me.’”

For evangelicals who want to be involved in the political process, I think it is time to jettison Glenn Beck. He believes that his political views are directly from God. He is claiming to be a prophet. This is something that evangelicals must not stand with; and in fact, it is something that we must publicly stand against. We saw evidence of Beck's false gospel when he recently told his audience to leave their churches if they believed their churches taught “Social Justice.”

And now, Beck has crossed the line. He is presenting himself as a prophet from God.

He has the audacity to tell his audience to “Get on your knees! Turn to Him!” (What “Him” is Beck talking about? The false god of the Mormon faith?) and that this god is giving him “The Plan” and that the message of The Plan is "Get behind me.”

That phrase that Beck chose, I think, is telling: “Get behind me!”

There was a moment in Jesus’ ministry when one of his disciples said something really stupid, something contrary to God’s will. What did Jesus say to Peter? “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

Amen.




I took the time to type out what he said below, so we do not miss what Glenn Beck is saying here:

…Yesterday, when I walked out of the studio, I looked at Pat and I almost said to Pat, I said, “I can feel it coming.” He said, “I know.” He said, “It’s just that, they are just, they are just strong in power and focus.” And I said, “It’s just, it’s darkness! I can just feel it coming.” And I, I started to say, I said, “The problem is, is that,” and I stopped. Because I don’t want to utter something like this without really thinking it through, but what I was about to say is, “The problem is that God is giving a plan, I think, to me, that is not really a plan.” And I stopped myself because I didn’t want to utter those things out loud, if that’s not exactly right, and it’s not. That time of reflection took me about thirty seconds as Pat stood there, going, “(inaudible) did he forget we were having a conversation?”

And I said, “The problem is that I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. But I’m telling you, here’s what I feel with everything in me, and I... If you’ve listened to this program – oh, are they going to use this against me – if you’ve listened to this for a long time, you know who I am. And you know that many of things I’ve done and said that have put me in, you know, harm’s way one way or another, they always start at the same place, they always start at my gut or my heart, and then I figure it out as we go along. All the stuff that I feel has been important on the show has been things that I felt and didn’t understand.

I say, because of my track record with you who have been here for a long time. Because of my track record with you, I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part. The Plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you, is “Get behind me.” And I don’t mean me, I mean Him. “Get behind Me. Stand behind Me.” I truly believe I have done years now of reading the Founders, their diaries, their letters, the Pilgrims, their diaries, their letters. I’ve read the first-hand letters; I’ve held them in my hand. The exchanges between the Founders, I’ve held their actual letters in my hand. I have seen it with my own eyes. And I will tell you that God was instrumental and they knew it! They knew they had very little to do with it! They just stood where they were supposed to stand! And they said the things that they were supposed to say as He directed! Some of them lost their way, some of them got it wrong, they got back and forth…they were human. But that’s what He’s asking us to do…is to stand – peacefully, quietly, with anger, quiet with anger, loudly with truth.

Faith is the answer. Get on your knees! Don’t let it take a September 11th. Please, get on your knees – I don’t care what church you go to, no church at all, I don’t care! Turn to Him!

Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism: Strengths of Each

Ray Pennings, Senior Fellow and Director of Research at Cardus (a Neo-Calvinist Think Tank in Canada), offers these insights on the strengths of Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism. He desires that the two streams of Calvinism can dialogue and learn from each other.

See the video here:

Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism from Puritan Reformed on Vimeo.

NOTE: Since this video was produced, the article from Pennings has been published online.
You can read it here: "Can we hope for a neocalvinist-neopuritan dialogue?"

Summary of what Pennings said in the video:

The Strengths of Neo-Calvinism

1. A Robust Theology of Creation (“The Creation Order” or “Cultural Mandate”)

Not just focused on the physical creation that God made (the lakes, the rivers, the mountains, etc.,) but the fact that everything within Creation (science, technology, etc.,) were there already in Genesis 1. When God declared that the Creation was “very good” that that all was envisioned. Our task, therefore, as human beings, is to cultivate that.

2. Sin’s destructive force on the Creation (“Antithesis”)

Sin goes through the human heart and affects the structures of society as well. Thorns and thistles begin to grow, not just in the plant world, but in every aspect of our existence.

3. The diversity of institutions in society (“Sphere Sovereignty”)

4. Christians can and should work together with non-Christians for the common good (“Common Grace”)

Unbelievers have valuable insights, abilities, and contributions to society because God grants his grace to them. We can learn from their insights and cooperate with people of all stripes in various ways. This provides a framework, in a multicultural society, for working together.

The Strengths of Neo-Puritanism

1. The emphasis of the Church and her offices

Whereas Neo-Calvinists often see the essence of the church as "the invisible church" and talk a lot about “the priesthood of all believers,” Neo-Puritans emphasize corporate worship as the central means to animating the spiritual life. Neo-Puritans emphasize biblical teaching and the regular practice of the sacraments (communion and baptism).

2. The emphasis on piety or a “public theology”

Neo-Puritans emphasize a way of understanding biblically how to live amongst our neighbors, rooted in orthodox doctrine rather than seeking ecumenical compromise.


Related Links here at Vanguard Church:

For a more in-depth description of Neo-Calvinism, click here:
Neocalvinism: What is it? Is it different from the Calvinism of Albert Mohler? Yes it is.

For how we need to understand the differences of Neo-Calvinism and Neo-Puritanism, click here:
Which is the new Calvinism? “Neo-Puritanism” or “Neo-Calvinism?”

"Only In Cleveland."

Here's the best commentary I've read on the heartache of being a Cleveland sports fan in light of the Cavaliers' loss to the Celtics:

Cleveland fans keep looking for world titles, find only worlds of hurt
By Dennis Manoloff, The Plain Dealer
May 15, 2010


Only In Cleveland.

Only In Cleveland can a team finish with the best record in back-to-back regular seasons, and have the MVP on its roster, and not even make the finals of its sport.

How else to explain what happened to the Cavaliers the past two seasons?

2008-09: Best record in the league, coach of the year, MVP, swept through first two rounds, out in the conference finals.

2009-10: Best record in the league, MVP, wiped out in the conference semifinals.

This is not the norm in the National Basketball Association.

People who are not from Cleveland cannot possibly understand, they should not even try to understand, the cold truth:

Major professional sports teams in Cleveland, at least since 1964, cannot win it all.

It is convenient and therapeutic to talk of jinxes or hexes or curses. It also is inaccurate. There are no ghosts in play.

Just worlds of hurt.

Here is a sampling of the hundreds of posts on cleveland.com since the Cavs bowed out Thursday night:

"You witnessed consistency in Cleveland professional sports." – dulynoted

"Good morning heartache. . . . You're like an old friend coming to see me again." – ProtestClevelandSports

"Cleveland will win a championship eventually. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but eventually." — matt2korn

Some — mostly those sneering from the outside — maintain that Cleveland fans have created a toxic environment for their teams by constantly bemoaning their fate. That the culture of losing and woe-is-me mentality feed off each other. That Cleveland fans would not know what to do with themselves if one of the major pro teams ever won the whole thing again.

To which those under the manhole covers say: "Try us. Please. Let us experience what not knowing what to do with yourself feels like."

What, exactly, do the vultures expect? Are Cleveland fans supposed to pretend their teams are champions?

Fans do not play the games. They react to those who do. Ownerships, front offices, coaches and players here the past 46 years continue to back their faithful into a dark, damp corner.

It is bad enough that Cleveland pro teams regularly lose much more than they win. But the real disappointment comes when one of them seemingly gets a good look at a title, only to have it evaporate.

"The hard part is having hope, and the second you have hope, it's taken from you," said native Clevelander Tom Ray, who moved to New York City last year. "There's a sad inevitability to it."

That is where many Cleveland fans are today. They realize the Cavaliers' failures the past two seasons will be bundled and ranked among the biggest flameouts in the history of Cleveland pro sports.

After each of the playoff exits the past two years, instant revisionists claimed the Cavaliers were a flawed team, that the regular season doesn't really mean much. Easy to say after the team is eliminated. Bottom line: The Cavaliers were the No. 1 seed in the entire pool for two straight seasons, which means they were a favorite to win it all.

Only In Cleveland can a team hold home-court advantage throughout the playoffs and lose two of three home games in the second round, as happened this season against Boston. Only In Cleveland can a team acquire a top 50 player in NBA history, Shaquille O'Neal, in a supposed fleecing — and have the fleeced team, the Phoenix Suns, go deeper in the postseason.

We all know about The Shot, The Fumble, The Drive, Red Right 88, Jose Mesa. The Indians of 1996 and 2007 don't have nicknames, but they flopped with the money on the line.

Now this. Of the numerous suggestions for nicknames posted online, "Le Brown Out," from kmandingo and perhaps others, will suffice for the time being.

"Le Brown Out" represents a considerably bigger gag than that belonging to the 1988-89 Cavaliers vanquished by The Shot. It is much, much bigger than that belonging to the truly flawed 1987 Browns that lost in The Fumble. It safely trumps the 1980 Browns squashed by Red Right 88, a team that walked a tightrope all season.

The 1997 Indians were not supposed to get past the Yankees in the first round, let alone the Orioles in the American League Championship Series. Granted, Only In Cleveland can a team have a lead in all seven games of a World Series, including one in the ninth inning of Game 7, and still lose. But a rational analysis of what led to "Jose Mesa" does not allow it to match Le Brown Out where epic flameouts are concerned. At least the 1997 Indians and their closer made it to the World Series.

The Drive and the 2007 Indians are the only two that can rival Le Brown Out for mega-bit-spitting. The 1986 Browns had a Super Bowl appearance in their pocket before preventing themselves from winning and letting John Elway work his magic. The 2007 Tribe held a 3-1 lead in the ALCS with a 19-game winner on the mound at home in Game 5 — and still lost the series. Win the ALCS and you're favored to win the World Series. Not that that would have meant anything, of course.

The Cavaliers of the past two seasons were being fitted for rings in some quarters before the playoffs began. Shaq wanted a ring for The King. That is why the meltdown just witnessed is so jarring.

Only In Cleveland can a team have its back-to-back MVP, LeBron James, perform poorly in pivotal Game 5 of the second round (which turns out to be a blowout home loss), and the back-to-back MVP gets criticized for dogging it. Never mind that he's injured or that his teammates are giving him no help or that the defensive-minded opponent, knowing he has no help, is hounding him all over the court. He's playing poorly, so he must be dogging it.

Dogging it? Surely, these critics jest. They want us to believe LBJ suddenly decided in Game 5 of a tied series to lose interest . . . on his home floor, no less? And we have proof of this where, again?

Regardless of whether there is a shred of truth to it, the mere perception speaks to the magnitude of the Only In Cleveland moment. King James is on the hot seat in a region he owns.

Makes no sense.

Defies logic.

Only In Cleveland.

"We can't wallow in our sorrows and whine about 'only in Cleveland' forever," posted brian 929. "Sports fans everywhere are disappointed every year. Only one team can win a title; 28 or so others go home unfulfilled. That being said . . . it does seem like C-Town is the only place that can't EVER be that one team left standing."

The Best Counter-Terrorism Plan

I was watching Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" show on CNN yesterday, and in his discussion about the Times Square bomb plot with his guest, counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke, Clarke said something very important and profound (the interview starts at 14:27).

"We are going to have one of these attacks succeed. And I think that what we have to start talking about now, as a nation, is what our reaction is going to do.

Because the last time, 9/11 happened and we panicked. I panicked, everyone did. We overreacted, and in many ways, the things that we did were counterproductive. Other things that we did were wasteful. Some things we did destroyed our own value system.

So we should have this discussion now. If there is another attack and it is successful, what are we going to do, and what are we not going to do this time?"

The best counter-terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Yet, our governmental leaders here in the United States feel that they need to whip of fear in the populace in light of terrorist acts. I guess they think this will help them win votes. But this plays right into the terrorist's purposes.

Rather, we need to accept that terrorist plots are a part of our reality, and train our people to act accordingly. As Christians, we must remember that God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline (2 Tim 1:7).

The LORD is my light and my salvation —
__whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
__of whom shall I be afraid?
When evil men advance against me
__to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
__they will stumble and fall.
Though an army besiege me,
__my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
__even then will I be confident. (Psalm 27:1-3)

Relationships: The Context for Living the Coherent Christian Life

But is it really possible? Sometimes I wonder...

Steve Garber, in his book, The Fabric of Faithfulness: Weaving Together Belief and Behavior (p. 173) wrote,

__“Those who keep on pursuing the vision of a coherent life—one that meaningfully connects the disparate strands of one’s existence—are people who have made the choice to live their lives out among folk who share their vision of the good life.

__“On the other hand, those who seek a self apart from social content and social context, in the end, find themselves disenchanted, disenfranchised, disconnected, disgruntled. This is true to the way the world is: premodern, modern, and postmodern, north, south, east, and west.”

I agree with this statement. It is proven time and time again.

And yet…

It is easier said than done.

In a culture of selfish desires, rugged individualism, the false and insidious gospel of prosperity, and a fear of vulnerability, real social connection with people who share a vision for justice and peace and radical obedience to Christ are hard to come by.

I’ve found it only in small ways. More often than not, I feel disenchanted, disenfranchised, disconnected, and disgruntled. People are just not willing to go that far.

And, truth be told, maybe I am not either.

How can I, along with my wife and kids, become connected with people who share our hearts’ desire to live a coherent Christian life?

How I Trained My Dragon: A Morality Play on "The War on Terror"

Last Friday, Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed posted my review of How to Train Your Dragon.
I thought it was a fun movie and insightful on many levels. Here are my thoughts:

Friday Night at the Movies: How to Train Your Dragon
by Bob Robinson

In a thoroughly enjoyable, family-friendly movie, Dreamworks Animation has created a wonderfully entertaining, visually exciting movie. With How to Train Your Dragon, directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders provide thrills and laughter for all ages, but underneath the dazzling 3D effects hides a deeper, much more profound message.

The story is about a village of vikings who are terrorized by dragons. The film is filled with battle scenes where dragons destroy the vikings’ village and steal their livestock. The vikings have been fighting the dragons for generations. It has gotten to the point that the very identity of being a viking is tied directly to killing dragons.

The young hero of the story, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), is a wimpy kid trying to prove his worthiness as a viking to his father and leader of the vikings, Stoick (Gerard Butler), as well as to the dragon master Cobber (Craig Ferguson).

The most frightening and most despised dragon is the “Night Fury,” a dragon that has never been seen, who streaks over the village in the darkness and shoots deadly firebombs at buildings. Hiccup manufactures a gun in order to shoot down the Night Fury. It works, and after a search, he finds the Night Fury injured near a crater lake, trapped and unable to fly away.

He slowly gains the trust of the Night Fury dragon, names him “Toothless,” and even flies on the dragon’s back (in 3D, this was a marvelous ride!). Hiccup finds that the most feared dragon, the Night Fury, is actually as loving as a tame puppy.

The underlying message begins to shine through as Hiccup begins to doubt the endless war against the dragons. He begins to wonder if the vikings have been battling the dragons for so long and are so sure that they are heartless terrorists, that the vikings are perpetuating a war that may not be necessary. When Hiccup tells his father what he is discovering about this reality, his father is repulsed not only by the idea, but by his own son.

This movie brings our current “war on terrorism” into a new light. How have we so dehumanized our enemies that we see them as no more than animals – dragons – streaking across the sky with the intention of doing us harm?

I don’t want to give any more of the story away, but there comes a moment in the story when Hiccup understands the real reason why the dragons are doing what they are doing. With that realization, he is better able to think of and implement solutions to the conflict – better solutions than merely killing every dragon.

Jesus’ demand that Christians must love our enemies is a difficult command to follow. In real life situations, it is emotionally difficult to actually understand what our enemies are thinking, what motivates them to oppose us, and what we must do to reach out for the purpose of reconciliation. Sure, it is not simply forgiving and forgetting; it takes seriously the sins that were committed and seeks to tell the truth about those things. But the burden of peace and reconciliation is placed squarely on our shoulders.

However, the American way has often been to treat enemies as not worthy of understanding. We take the easy route far too often, simply deciding to fight rather than to understand, to hate rather than to love.

We need to ask hard questions, questions that our hardened hearts do not want to ask. What drives terrorists to do such atrocities? How can we provide possible solutions to these underlying causes? Are we doing all we can to understand the mind of our enemies? How can we overcome their animosity toward us? What are we doing to overcome their evil with good?

Glen Stassen and many others have been advocating “Just Peacemaking” as a means to overcome conflict. They say that a biblical way of seeking peace is when “adversaries listen to each other and experience each others' perspectives, including culture, spirituality, story, history and emotion.” To find peace, we are to “seek long-term solutions which help prevent future conflict,” and “seek justice as a core component for sustainable peace.”

It wasn’t until Hiccup understood the dragons’ perspective that he could figure out a long-term solution to the conflict between the vikings and the dragons. It wasn’t until Hiccup engaged his friends to seek justice for the dragons that a sustainable peace was found.