Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Friday, July 1, 2011

Neil Postman - Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business [Paperback]

by Neil Postman







Product Details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); 20 Anv edition (December 27, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 014303653X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0143036531






Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 - October 5, 2003) was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University. Postman was a humanist, who believed that "new technology can never substitute for human values."

MORE ON NEIL POSTMAN - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman (excerpts below)

Biography

Postman was born and spent most of his life in New York City. In 1953, he graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia where he played basketball. He received a master's degree in 1955 and an Ed.D in 1958, both from the Teachers College, Columbia University, and started teaching at New York University (NYU) in 1959. In 1971, he founded a graduate program in media ecology at the Steinhardt School of Education of NYU. In 1993 he was appointed a University Professor, the only one in the School of Education, and was chairman of the Department of Culture and Communication until 2002. Among his students were authors Paul Levinson, Joshua Meyrowitz, Jay Rosen, Lance Strate, and Dennis Smith. He died of lung cancer in Flushing, Queens on October 5, 2003.[3]

Works

Postman wrote 18 books and more than 200 magazine and newspaper articles for such periodicals as The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Time Magazine, The Saturday Review, The Harvard Education Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Stern, and Le Monde. He was the editor of the quarterly journal ETC.; A review of General Semantics (founded by S.I. Hayakawa in 1943) from 1976 to 1986. He was also on the editorial board of The Nation.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Postman's best known book is Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), a historical narrative which warns of a decline in the ability of our mass communications media to share serious ideas. Since television images replace the written word, Postman argues that television confounds serious issues by demeaning and undermining political discourse and by turning real, complex issues into superficial images, less about ideas and thoughts and more about entertainment. He also argues that television is not an effective way of providing education, as it provides only top-down information transfer, rather than the interaction that he believes is necessary to maximize learning. He refers to the relationship between information and human response as the Information-action ratio.

He draws on the ideas of media theorist Marshall McLuhan to argue that different media are appropriate for different kinds of knowledge, and describes how cultures value and transfer information oral, literate, and televisual in different ways. He states that 19th century America was the pinnacle of rational argument, an Age of Reason, in which the dominant communication medium was the printed word. During this period, complicated arguments could be transmitted without oversimplification.

Amusing Ourselves to Death was translated into eight languages and sold 200,000 copies worldwide.

Informing Ourselves to Death

Postman gave a well-known speech at the meeting of the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik) on October 11, 1990 in Stuttgart: [1]. He argues that our society relies too heavily on information to fix our problems, especially the fundamental problems of human philosophy and survival, that information, ever since the printing press, has become a burden and garbage instead of a rare blessing.

"But what started out as a liberating stream has turned into a deluge of chaos. If I may take my own country as an example, here is what we are faced with: In America, there are 260,000 billboards; 11,520 newspapers; 11,556 periodicals..." "...Everything from telegraphy and photography in the 19th century to the silicon chip in the twentieth has amplified the din of information, until matters have reached such proportions today that for the average person, information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems."

According to his speech, "the tie between information and action has been severed."

"Information is now a commodity that can be bought and sold, or used as a form of entertainment, or worn like a garment to enhance one's status. It comes indiscriminately, directed at no one in particular, disconnected from usefulness; we are glutted with information, drowning in information, have no control over it, don't know what to do with it."

He also compares contemporary society to the Middle Ages, where instead of individuals believing in anything told to them by religious leaders, now individuals believe everything told to them by science, making people more naive than in Middle Ages. Individuals in a contemporary society, one that is mediated by technology, could possibly believe in anything and everything, whereas in the Middle Ages the populace believed in the benevolent design they were all part of and there was order to their beliefs.

Technopoly

In his 1992 book Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology, Postman defines “Technopoly” as a society which believes “the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency, that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment ... and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts.” [4]

Postman argues that the United States is the only country to have developed into a technopoly. He claims that the U.S has been inundated with technophiles who do not see the downside of technology. This is dangerous because technophiles want more technology and thus more information.[5]However, according to Postman, it is impossible for a technological innovation to have only a one-sided effect. With the ever-increasing amount of information available Postman argues that: “Information has become a form of garbage, not only incapable of answering the most fundamental human questions but barely useful in providing coherent direction to the solution of even mundane problems.” [6]

In a 1996 interview, Postman re-emphasized his solution for technopoly, which was to give students an education in the history, social effects and psychological biases of technology, so they may become adults who “use technology rather than being used by it”.[2]

Postman has been criticized by being called a Luddite, despite his statement in the conclusion of Amusing Ourselves to Death that "We must not delude ourselves with preposterous notions such as the straight Luddite position."[7]

The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School

Social critic Neil Postman has veered away from media and has shifted the focus back onto education. Postman states, "education without spiritual content or, (as he puts it), without a myth or narrative to sustain and motivate, is education without a purpose". Postman speaks strongly about the function of school being a democracy where different views are shared to help unite us. In Postman's view multiculturalism is a separatist movement that destroys American unity but on the other hand, he discusses teaching through diversity as an important theme that should be utilized in regard to teaching history, culture and language. Postman attempts to formulate new philosophies to help inform education and give to it an alternative voice.

The Disappearance of Childhood

In 1982's The Disappearance of Childhood, Postman argues that what we define as "childhood" is a modern phenomenon. He defines "childhood" as the period from around age 7 – when spoken language is usually mastered – to around age 17when written language is mastered. Not coincidentally, these ages correspond to the typical school years.

The word "child" originally meant "son or daughter"; only in modern times did it gain its second meaning - "a person between birth and full growth". Prior to modern times, children were considered "little" adults, rather than today's conception of them as "unformed" adults.

In medieval times, children and adults "lived in the same social and intellectual world" (36). Children dressed the same as adults, shared the same labor and past times (gambling was considered a normal childhood pursuit), and with literacy confined to special classes (the monks, for example) had similar intellectual levels. Few children attended school. Children weren't shielded from the harsh realities and shameful secrets of the adult world. Adults didn't conceal their sexual drives, nor was there a high level of “civilized” mores defining certain behavior, body functions and characteristics as distasteful. "Without a well-developed idea of shame, childhood cannot exist" (9). To Postman, the middle age's absence of literacy, education and shame explains their absence of our conception of childhood.

Postman credits the invention of movable type printing to the idea of childhood. With literacy came adult "secrets,” information available only to adults who could read. And literacy required schools to teach people how to read. "Because school was designed for the preparation of a literate adult, the young became to be perceived not as miniature adults, but as ... unformed adults": (41). These two factors created a new social hierarchy - adults now had "unprecedented control over the symbolic environment of the young" (45). For Postman, 1850-1950 was the "high-water mark of childhood. Children's birthdays began to celebrated, and their welfare became viewed as something special that needed protection. Children gained specialized clothing and literature - different from adults. Childhood became viewed as an idyllic time of innocence.

In 1950 came television and the disappearance of child. Television is an egalitarian dispenser of information. No longer were there adult realities and secrets - these were dispensed in news, commercials, and programs to people of any age. Childhood's innocence was lost and the idea of shame became "diluted and demystified" (85). Television, which became the dominant source of information (over books), requires no specialized learning, further diminishing the distinction between children and adults. Some television content adultifies and eroticizes children; some television infantilizes adults. Television has created a three-stage life cycle: infancy, adult-child, and senility (99).

He notes other changes that have also occurred since 1950 that have added to children becoming more like adults. Divorce, economic realities and women’s liberation have led to less nurturing of childrencitation?.

His evidence for the disappearance of childhood: the rise of crime perpetrated by and against children; the increase in sexual activity and drug/alcohol abuse in children; children and adults sharing musical tastes, language, literature, and movies (many big budget movies are comic books that would have been marketed solely to children years ago); the lack of differentiated clothing styles (little girls in high heels, grown men in sneakers). Even childhood games have been replaced by organized sports (Little League, Pee Wee, etc) which are more like adult sports. "Adulthood has lost much of its authority and aura, and the idea of deference to one who is older has become ridiculous" (133).

He makes a point that civilized behavior acknowledges our animal urges (sex, violence, etc) but makes them secrets that are kept hidden from children. Since they are no longer secrets, our society may become more barbarian. A case in point is foul language, which is no longer kept hidden from children, and has become more predominant everywhere.

While positing his theory, Postman offers no solution for society on the whole. Even as he wrote in times before before the widespread availability of the Internet, he acknowledged that there is probably no turning back from our visual, electronic age. Thus, he writes “Resistance entails conceiving of parenting as an act of rebellion against American culture” (152).


References
  1. ^ verify?
  2. ^ a b c PBS Newshour Interview, 1996
  3. ^ New York Times Obituary: Neil Postman, October 9, 2003
  4. ^ (Postman, 1992. p.51)
  5. ^ Howard P. Segal, "Review", The Journal of American History, vol.79, no.4 (March 1993), p.1695-1697
  6. ^ Neil Postman, Technopoly: the Surrender of Culture to Technology, (1992), p.69
  7. ^ Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, (1985)
  8. ^ http://www.joshkarpf.com/3i/proposal1970.html
  9. ^ Hu, Winnie (November 12, 2007). "Profile Rises at School Where Going Against the Grain Is the Norm". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/education/12village.html. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
  10. ^ From interview from PBS on MacNeil/Lehrer Hour (1995).
  11. ^ from The Disappearance of Childhood
  12. ^ Talk given at the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft fuer Informatik) on October 11, 1990 in Stuttgart.
  13. ^ "Informing Ourselves to Death" (1990)
  14. ^ a b from the Neil Postman book "Amusing Ourselves To Death"
  15. ^ "Language Education in a Knowledge Context", 32.
  16. ^ From interview from PBS on MacNeil/Lehrer Hour (1995).
  17. ^ From interview from PBS on MacNeil/Lehrer Hour (1995).
  18. ^ In this speech, Postman encouraged teachers to help their students "distinguish useful talk from bullshit". He argued that it was the most important skill students could learn, and that teaching it would help students understand their own values and beliefs.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

NPR - Natural Gas: Promise and Perils



Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Listen: 10:06 a.m. (ET) Natural Gas: Promise and Perils


An environmental clean water protester participates in a rally
in the state capitol  against gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale
natural gas formation Tuesday, June 7, 2011 in Harrisburg, Pa.
(AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower)
Natural Gas: Promise and Perils

New questions about what's been called the fossil fuel of tomorrow: The natural gas industry faces scrutiny over its optimistic financial forecasts and the environmental safety of fracking.

Natural gas extracted from deep shale deposits has been hailed as the key to America’s energy future. Compared to alternatives, natural gas is cleaner and is said to produce fewer greenhouse gases. It is also forecasted to be available at affordable prices, but some say as production rises, extraction costs will go up as well putting a squeeze on profitability. In addition, many argue short and long term environmental risks have yet to be adequately addressed by regulators or the industry: Opportunities and unanswered question about this country’s natural gas boom.









Guests

Ian Urbina
reporter, NY Times

Tony Ingraffea
Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering
Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow
Cornell University

Seamus McGraw
writer and author of "The End of Country"

John Hanger
former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.




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Love Wins - Small Group Discussion Guide


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Love Wins
by Rob Bell

Love Wins coverReading and Discussion Guide


Chapter 1: What About the Flat Tire?

  1. Before reading this book, how did you think of heaven and hell?
  2. Do you believe God invites us, even welcomes us, to discuss and debate the big questions of faith, doctrine, and the Bible?
  3. What messages have you heard about who goes (or how many go) to heaven? Or about how God can be both loving Father and Judge?
  4. Of the questions Bell raises in this chapter, which did you experience as raising issues you have had before or issues you would like to discuss more?


Chapter 2: Here Is the New There

  1. Bell remembers his grandmother’s painting of heaven as a floating, glimmering city. What is your vision of heaven? What factors have shaped this vision?
  2. How does the perception of our lives and our church change when we think of heaven as a restored Earth rather than as a faraway place?
  3. If Jesus consistently focused on heaven for today, why do we so emphasize heaven after we die?
  4. Bell describes the Christian life as our preparation to become the kind of people who can dwell in heaven; how does this reorient how we shape our lives?
  5. What is the connection between our understanding of heaven and how we live our lives?


Chapter 3: Hell

  1. See again the painting on page 20, where hell is represented as a dark, ominous abyss. How do you imagine hell? What factors have shaped this vision? Has your concept of hell changed over time and if so, how?
  2. What changes in how you think of the gospel when hell is seen as perhaps temporary or time-limited?
  3. What do you think of the idea that hell might be for correction rather than as punishment?
  4. If the purpose of hell is for correction, then what do we think happens in hell?
  5. If we remove the threat of punishment in our presentation of the gospel, why might someone be interested in the good news?


Chapter 4: Does God Get What God Wants?

  1. Do you believe human life is tragic or is it a romance?
  2. Do you think an all-powerful loving God would allow the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived to suffer eternally? Why or why not?
  3. Do you think God would say to someone trying to repent, “Sorry, too late. You had your chance”?
  4. As Bell shows, the Bible does not spell out all the details of what happens after we die. What might be God’s purposes for not explaining everything and, instead, promising that we will be “surprised”? Why do you think various church traditions have spelled out exactly what will happen?


Chapter 5: Dying to Live

  1. How would you describe to others what Jesus accomplished on the cross and how it affects us?
  2. How meaningful to you are some of the words the Bible uses to describe Jesus’s work on the cross—sacrifice, atonement, justification, redemption, victory?
  3. According to Bell, how does Jesus’s death and resurrection relate to the basic pattern of life, death, and rebirth we witness in all of life?
  4. What changes if we accept a more “cosmic” or “grand” understanding of Jesus’s accomplishments and goals?
  5. Why do Christians so often focus on questions of who is in and who is out of heaven?


Chapter 6: There Are Rocks Everywhere

  1. When you hear stories of people experiencing Jesus or a divine presence, how do you react? Is your tendency to believe them or not? Have you experienced God directly in this way?
  2. In what sense do you think was Jesus in the rock Moses struck to get water?
  3. How does seeing Jesus above all religions and cultures change how we approach people of different religions and cultures?
  4. With this expanded view of Jesus, where might be some new places and ways we see him today? How does Bell’s view of Jesus change how we explain the gospel to others?


Chapter 7: The Good News Is Better Than That

  1. What story do you think God is telling you about yourself?
  2. When you describe what you believe, what picture of God do you think others perceive?
  3. Do you believe God is fundamentally for you or against you? Have you ever found it difficult to love God?
  4. If the gospel is mostly about “participation” and not about “entrance,” why would this, as Bell argues, open us up to joy, happiness, and even throwing a good party? What role has joy played in your Christian life?
  5. Bell claims that there “is a secret deep in the heart of many people, especially Christians: they don’t love God” (p. 176). He says that some people have a distorted view of God where they think Jesus rescues us from God. Have you witnessed or experienced these feelings or thoughts?


Chapter 8: The End Is Here

  1. Bell recalls the moment from his childhood when he decided to be a Christian. How have your early experiences of faith shaped your current faith life? What do you think of your earlier spiritual experiences today?
  2. How does our spiritual outlook change when we think of God’s invitation to us shifting from where we will go when we die to a relationship right here and now?
  3. If your heavenly life begins now, how might that change your life, your goals, your focus, and your everyday life?
  4. What do you think it means to trust God’s love?
  5. Why do you think Jesus so emphasizes the urgency of deciding today, now?
  6. Do you believe that “love wins”?

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A Critique of HarperOne & the "Love Wins" Guidebook

It's hard to put into words my initial reactions when I see a for-profit Christian group working so hard at selling their idea of Christianity. I suppose my visceral reactions wouldn't be so large if they focused on a main idea or two, but when I look at HarperOne's list under "Guides" (go to link) I get the sense from within the corporate boardroom, that their beliefs range all over the spiritual landscapes of personal faiths, selling whatever can make them money regardless of the consequences to the individual lives of converts and seekers that they serve.

Now, on the one hand, the results of their efforts grants to us, their readership (or viewership) potential blessings especially when reading these guides within small group fellowships. And though I tend to be wary (or is the word "discerning" more fashionable these days?) when it comes to a Christian smorgasbord purporting a buffet-style banquet with a one-stop-feeds-all marketing strategy, I must remember that my needs are as unique as another's is valid.

And as I listen and watch HarperOne's promo video reciting each author's various journeys and soulful stories, finding some who resonate deeply within me and others that are beyond my grasp, if not leaving me altogether skeptical. I then begin to remember the many New Testament scriptural warnings given by Jesus and John, Peter and Paul, as they speak of false teachers, warning of would-be illicit guides to man's spiritual journeys. At some point we, as maturing Christians, must separate the wolves from the sheep, the false shepherds from the true, if we are to share in the truths of God, his many works of love, and his grand vision for our lives.

And so, without presuming to judge the many spiritual guides that HarperOne produces in assembly-line fashion, hopefully ministering to as many different lives as can be imagined - while working diligently each fiscal quarter to make as much profit as possible (most probably deemed "God's blessing" by the cynic in me) - I pray that we are led straight-and-true to our Savior and Lord discovering truly helpful - and not misleading - spiritual resources within this postmodernistic, mystical generation, that we live and move and have our being.

- skinhead

ps... though I favor Rob Bell greatly, and regularly submit insights from him that I find sublime and helpful, it seems to me that HarperOne's LOVE WINS guidebook is conflicted throughout by the HarperOne process of provocative distillation to the greatest amount of people, in the widest possible manners, to the greatest economic good and bottom line dollars, as can be generated to HarperOne. In Jesus' words, beware "the love of money/mammon," or more properly, those who would use you and your talents for money - which I believe HarperOne has forced upon their many well-intentioned authors that are desiring to deeply honor God, while impacting society as widely as possible, through a wide-range of talents, efforts, insights and resolute hearts.

And so, the questions I read from within the LOVE WINS guidebook seem to fall within the HarperOne realm of provocative and slippery marketing, rather than a decent guide to the Christian faith, so that it leaves a lot of mushy, subjective topics unanswered and unanswerable (though I, and many others, would like to try and provide some kind of scriptural response to each topic or issue posed, however newly dressed-up in today's latest gnostic fashions).

And thus, the reason for this emergent blog, is to help delineate Christian orthodoxy for the 21st Century, topic-by-topic, doctrine-by-doctrine, verse-by-verse, question-by-question. In an attempt to leave the unknowable unknowable, and the answerable answerable, while giving certain knowledge and argument, from the God of mystery and wonder, who would have us to know with veracity certain creeds and foundations, truths and practices, and doctrines without dogmas.


**********


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How To Use
Some tips for leading a fun, interesting book club discussion:

Choose a theme: Pick a theme or subject, and compare and contrast more than one book.

Extra credit: Supplement your reading with extra materials. Read newspaper, magazine, and online author interviews to learn more about the author and the book. Is it autobiographical? Are there any cultural or historical aspects of the book that you can research to supplement the discussion? If available, bring book reviews to the meeting so that you and the other members can discuss whether you agree or disagree with the review.

Go in-depth with a favorite author: Consider focusing on several works by one author, tracing his or her progression as an author and the changing themes in the various works. Be prepared to discuss the author’s life and career and the context in which he or she wrote.

Author events: Is your church or sponsoring institution interested in bringing a HarperOne author in for an event? To inquire about an author’s availability for speaking engagements contact HarperOnePublicity@harpercollins.com or call (415) 477–4447. Or, if an author is speaking in your area, attend an event. To learn more about where your favorite authors will be will be, visit www.authortracker.com, and be among the first to know about new books, events, and special promotions.

New horizons: Use the book as a jumping-off point to explore other cultures and civilizations through food, music, clothing, decorations, and customs described in the book. If the book makes reference to an artist or composer, share an example of that person’s work with the group.

Visual aids

Travel adventure reading: Combine the group’s reading with travel—whether a trip to a local museums or an extended vacations abroad. This can mean anything from a day trip to a local art museum or historic site to a group vacation to the Holy Land!
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Chapter 1: What About the Flat Tire?
  1. 1.  Before reading this book, how did you think of heaven and hell?
  2. 2.  Do you believe God invites us, even welcomes us, to discuss and debate the big questions of faith, doctrine, and the Bible?
  3. 3.  What messages have you heard about who goes (or how many go) to heaven? Or about how God can be both loving Father and Judge?
  4. 4.  Of the questions Bell raises in this chapter, which did you experience as raising issues you have had before or issues you would like to discuss more?

Chapter 2: Here Is the New There
  1. Bell remembers his grandmother’s painting of heaven as a floating, glimmering city. What is your vision of heaven? What factors have shaped this vision?
  2. How does the perception of our lives and our church change when we think of heaven as a restored Earth rather than as a faraway place?
  3. If Jesus consistently focused on heaven for today, why do we so emphasize heaven after we die?
  4. Bell describes the Christian life as our preparation to become the kind of people who can dwell in heaven; how does this reorient how we shape our lives?
  5. What is the connection between our understanding of heaven and how we live our lives?

Chapter 3: Hell
  1. See again the painting on page 20, where hell is represented as a dark, ominous abyss. How do you imagine hell? What factors have shaped this vision? Has your concept of hell changed over time and if so, how?
  2. What changes in how you think of the gospel when hell is seen as perhaps temporary or time-limited?
  3. What do you think of the idea that hell might be for correction rather than as punishment?
  4. If the purpose of hell is for correction, then what do we think happens in hell?
  5. If we remove the threat of punishment in our presentation of the gospel, why might someone be interested in the good news?

Chapter 4: Does God Get What God Wants?
  1. Do you believe human life is tragic or is it a romance?
  2. Do you think an all-powerful loving God would allow the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived to suffer eternally? Why or why not?
  3. Do you think God would say to someone trying to repent, “Sorry, too late. You had your chance”?
  4. As Bell shows, the Bible does not spell out all the details of what happens after we die. What might be God’s purposes for not explaining everything and, instead, promising that we will be “surprised”? Why do you think various church traditions have spelled out exactly what will happen?

Chapter 5: Dying to Live
  1. How would you describe to others what Jesus accomplished on the cross and how it affects us?
  2. How meaningful to you are some of the words the Bible uses to describe Jesus’s work on the cross—sacrifice, atonement, justification, redemption, victory?
  3. According to Bell, how does Jesus’s death and resurrection relate to the basic pattern of life, death, and rebirth we witness in all of life?
  4. What changes if we accept a more “cosmic” or “grand” understanding of Jesus’s accomplishments and goals?
  5. Why do Christians so often focus on questions of who is in and who is out of heaven?

Chapter 6: There Are Rocks Everywhere
  1. When you hear stories of people experiencing Jesus or a divine presence, how do you react? Is your tendency to believe them or not? Have you experienced God directly in this way?
  2. In what sense do you think was Jesus in the rock Moses struck to get water?
  3. How does seeing Jesus above all religions and cultures change how we approach people of different religions and cultures?
  4. With this expanded view of Jesus, where might be some new places and ways we see him today? How does Bell’s view of Jesus change how we explain the gospel to others?

Chapter 7: The Good News Is Better Than That
  1. What story do you think God is telling you about yourself?
  2. When you describe what you believe, what picture of God do you think others perceive?
  3. Do you believe God is fundamentally for you or against you? Have you ever found it difficult to love God?
  4. If the gospel is mostly about “participation” and not about “entrance,” why would this, as Bell argues, open us up to joy, happiness, and even throwing a good party? What role has joy played in your Christian life?
  5. Bell claims that there “is a secret deep in the heart of many people, especially Christians: they don’t love God” (p. 176). He says that some people have a distorted view of God where they think Jesus rescues us from God. Have you witnessed or experienced these feelings or thoughts?

Chapter 8: The End Is Here
  1. Bell recalls the moment from his childhood when he decided to be a Christian. How have your early experiences of faith shaped your current faith life? What do you think of your earlier spiritual experiences today?
  2. How does our spiritual outlook change when we think of God’s invitation to us shifting from where we will go when we die to a relationship right here and now?
  3. If your heavenly life begins now, how might that change your life, your goals, your focus, and your everyday life?
  4. What do you think it means to trust God’s love?
  5. Why do you think Jesus so emphasizes the urgency of deciding today, now?
  6. Do you believe that “love wins”?


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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Rob Bell - Abide in God's Annointing (1 John 2.26-27)


HELICOPTERS, ALICIA KEYES, AND A WOMAN IN AN ART MUSEUM http://marshill.org/teaching/2011/06/26/1-john-2v26-27-helicopters-alicia-keyes-and-a-woman-in-an-art-museum/

  (click here to hear sermon) 


Helicopter lands on Michigan Street in downtown Grand Rapids
for EMS Expo at DeVos Place (an aerial mobile hospital)

The University of Michigan Medical Center Survival Flight helicopter comes in for a landing on Michigan Street NW in front of the downtown post office Thursday afternoon. The helicopter came to town for the Michigan EMS Expo which is at DeVos Place April 16-19.







Duane Hanson's "Woman with a Purse"


America's Got Talent: Anna Graceman
If I Ain't Got You (Atlanta Audition)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQJLM6xyO_M
Air Date: June 21, 2011


America's Got Talent: Anna Graceman
Wonderful World (Vegas Audition) (hd)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oGsW67zJz4&feature=related
Air Date: August 1, 2011





Christ Our Advocate
1My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
The New Commandment
7Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because[a] the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him[b] there is no cause for stumbling. 11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

 12I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
13I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
14I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.
Do Not Love the World
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Warning Concerning Antichrists
18Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 20But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.[c] 21I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is the promise that he made to us[d] eternal life.

26I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.
Children of God
28And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

Footnotes:
  1. 1 John 2:8 Or that
  2. 1 John 2:10 Or it
  3. 1 John 2:20 Some manuscripts you know everything
  4. 1 John 2:25 Some manuscripts you