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

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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

Saturday, December 10, 2011

The Pew Survey: The 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape


Report 1: Religious Affiliations


Summary of Key Findings

Major Religious Traditions in the U.S.An extensive new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life details statistics on religion in America and explores the shifts taking place in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey finds that religious affiliation in the U.S. is both very diverse and extremely fluid.

Key Findings and Statistics on Religion in America

More than one-quarter of American adults (28%) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion - or no religion at all. If change in affiliation from one type of Protestantism to another is included, 44% of adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.

The survey finds that the number of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith today (16.1%) is more than double the number who say they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children. Among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion.

The Landscape Survey confirms that the United States is on the verge of becoming a minority Protestant country; the number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51%. Moreover, the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation, encompassing hundreds of different denominations loosely grouped around three fairly distinct religious traditions - evangelical Protestant churches (26.3% of the overall adult population), mainline Protestant churches (18.1%) and historically black Protestant churches (6.9%).

While those Americans who are unaffiliated with any particular religion have seen the greatest growth in numbers as a result of changes in affiliation, Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses as a result of affiliation changes. While nearly one-in-three Americans (31%) were raised in the Catholic faith, today fewer than one-in-four (24%) describe themselves as Catholic. These losses would have been even more pronounced were it not for the offsetting impact of immigration. The Landscape Survey finds that among the foreign-born adult population, Catholics outnumber Protestants by nearly a two-to-one margin (46% Catholic vs. 24% Protestant); among native-born Americans, on the other hand, the statistics show that Protestants outnumber Catholics by an even larger margin (55% Protestant vs. 21% Catholic). Immigrants are also disproportionately represented among several world religions in the U.S., including Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Although there are about half as many Catholics in the U.S. as Protestants, the number of Catholics nearly rivals the number of members of evangelical Protestant churches and far exceeds the number of members of both mainline Protestant churches and historically black Protestant churches. The U.S. also includes a significant number of members of the third major branch of global Christianity - Orthodoxy - whose adherents now account for 0.6% of the U.S. adult population. American Christianity also includes sizeable numbers of Mormons (1.7% of the adult population), Jehovah's Witnesses (0.7%) and other Christian groups (0.3%).

Like the other major groups, people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion (16.1%) also exhibit remarkable internal diversity. Although one-quarter of this group consists of those who describe themselves as either atheist or agnostic (1.6% and 2.4% of the adult population overall, respectively), the majority of the unaffiliated population (12.1% of the adult population overall) is made up of people who simply describe their religion as "nothing in particular." This group, in turn, is fairly evenly divided between the "secular unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is not important in their lives (6.3% of the adult population), and the "religious unaffiliated," that is, those who say that religion is either somewhat important or very important in their lives (5.8% of the overall adult population).

Even smaller religions in the U.S. reflect considerable internal diversity. For instance, most Jews (1.7% of the overall adult population) identify with one of three major groups: Reform, Conservative or Orthodox Judaism. Similarly, more than half of Buddhists (0.7% of the overall adult population) belong to one of three major groups within Buddhism: Zen, Theravada or Tibetan Buddhism. Muslims (0.6% of the overall adult population) divide primarily into two major groups: Sunni and Shia.

A Very Competitive Religious Marketplace

A Note on Defining Religious AffiliationThe survey finds that constant movement characterizes the American religious marketplace, as every major religious group is simultaneously gaining and losing adherents. Those that are growing as a result of religious change are simply gaining new members at a faster rate than they are losing members. Conversely, those that are declining in number because of religious change simply are not attracting enough new members to offset the number of adherents who are leaving those particular faiths.

To illustrate this point, one need only look at the biggest gainer in this religious competition - the unaffiliated group. People moving into the unaffiliated category outnumber those moving out of the unaffiliated group by more than a three-to-one margin. At the same time, however, a substantial number of people (nearly 4% of the overall adult population) say that as children they were unaffiliated with any particular religion but have since come to identify with a religious group. This means that more than half of people who were unaffiliated with any particular religion as a child now say that they are associated with a religious group. In short, the Landscape Survey shows that the unaffiliated population has grown despite having one of the lowest retention rates of all "religious" groups.

Another example of the dynamism of the American religious scene is the experience of the Catholic Church. Other surveys - such as the General Social Surveys, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago since 1972 - find that the Catholic share of the U.S. adult population has held fairly steady in recent decades at around 25%. What this apparent stability obscures, however, is the large number of people who have left the Catholic Church. Approximately one-third of the survey respondents who say they were raised Catholic no longer describe themselves as Catholic. This means that roughly 10% of all Americans are former Catholics. These losses, however, have been partly offset by the number of people who have changed their affiliation to Catholicism (2.6% of the adult population) but more importantly by the disproportionately high number of Catholics among immigrants to the U.S. The result is that the overall percentage of the population that identifies as Catholic has remained fairly stable.

In addition to detailing the current religious makeup of the U.S. and describing the dynamic changes in religious affiliation, the findings from the Landscape Survey also provide important clues about the future direction of religious affiliation in the U.S. By detailing the age distribution of different religious groups, for instance, the study's statistics on religion show that more than six-in-ten Americans age 70 and older (62%) are Protestant but that this number is only about four-in-ten (43%) among Americans ages 18-29. Conversely, young adults ages 18-29 are much more likely than those age 70 and older to say that they are not affiliated with any particular religion (25% vs. 8%). If these generational patterns persist, recent declines in the number of Protestants and growth in the size of the unaffiliated population may continue.

Major changes in the makeup of American Catholicism also loom on the horizon. Latinos, who already account for roughly one-in-three adult Catholics overall, may account for an even larger share of U.S. Catholics in the future. For while Latinos represent roughly one-in-eight U.S. Catholics age 70 and older (12%), they account for nearly half of all Catholics ages 18-29 (45%).

Finally, the Landscape Survey documents how immigration is adding even more diversity to the American religious quilt. For example, Muslims, roughly two-thirds of whom are immigrants, now account for roughly 0.6% of the U.S. adult population; and Hindus, more than eight-in-ten of whom are foreign born, now account for approximately 0.4% of the population.

Other Survey Highlights

Other highlights in the report include
  • Men are significantly more likely than women to claim no religious affiliation. Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13% of women.
  • Among people who are married, nearly four-in-ten (37%) are married to a spouse with a different religious affiliation. (This figure includes Protestants who are married to another Protestant from a different denominational family, such as a Baptist who is married to a Methodist.) Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).
  • Mormons and Muslims are the groups with the largest families; more than one-in-five Mormon adults and 15% of Muslim adults in the U.S. have three or more children living at home.
  • The Midwest most closely resembles the religious makeup of the overall population. The South, by a wide margin, has the heaviest concentration of members of evangelical Protestant churches. The Northeast has the greatest concentration of Catholics, and the West has the largest proportion of unaffiliated people, including the largest proportion of atheists and agnostics.
  • Of all the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States, black Americans are the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation. Even among those blacks who are unaffiliated, three-in-four belong to the "religious unaffiliated" category (that is, they say that religion is either somewhat or very important in their lives), compared with slightly more than one-third of the unaffiliated population overall.
  • Nearly half of Hindus in the U.S., one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained post-graduate education, compared with only about one-in-ten of the adult population overall. Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.
  • People not affiliated with any particular religion stand out for their relative youth compared with other religious traditions. Among the unaffiliated, 31% are under age 30 and 71% are under age 50. Comparable numbers for the overall adult population are 20% and 59%, respectively.
  • By contrast, members of mainline Protestant churches and Jews are older, on average, than members of other groups. Roughly half of Jews and members of mainline churches are age 50 and older, compared with approximately four-in-ten American adults overall.
  • In sharp contrast to Islam and Hinduism, Buddhism in the U.S. is primarily made up of native-born adherents, whites and converts. Only one-in-three American Buddhists describe their race as Asian, while nearly three-in-four Buddhists say they are converts to Buddhism.
  • Jehovah's Witnesses have the lowest retention rate of any religious tradition. Only 37% of all those who say they were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses still identify themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses.
  • Members of Baptist churches account for one-third of all Protestants and close to one-fifth of the total U.S. adult population. Baptists also account for nearly two-thirds of members of historically black Protestant churches.

 

About the Survey

These are some of the key findings of the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, which draws primarily on a new nationwide survey conducted from May 8 to Aug. 13, 2007, among a representative sample of more than 35,000 adults in the U.S., with additional over-samples of Eastern Orthodox Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. The study also takes advantage of the 2007 survey of American Muslims ("Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream"), which was conducted by the Forum in partnership with its sister projects, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. In total, these surveys included interviews with more than 36,000 Americans.

Detailed data tables provide extensive demographic information on the 14 largest religious traditions, 12 large Protestant denominational families and 25 individual Protestant denominations in the United States.



Report 2: Religious Beliefs & Practices
Social & Political Views
  

Summary of Key Findings

A major survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A strong majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, including majorities of nearly every religious tradition, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country’s religious landscape.

This is not to suggest that Americans do not take religion seriously. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey also shows that more than half of Americans rank the importance of religion very highly in their lives, attend religious services regularly and pray daily. Furthermore, a plurality of adults who are affiliated with a religion want their religion to preserve its traditional beliefs and practices rather than either adjust to new circumstances or adopt modern beliefs and practices. Moreover, significant minorities across nearly all religious traditions see a conflict between being a devout person and living in a modern society.

The Landscape Survey confirms the close link between Americans' religious affiliation, beliefs and practices, on the one hand, and their social and political attitudes, on the other. Indeed, the survey demonstrates that the social and political fault lines in American society run through, as well as alongside, religious traditions. The relationship between politics and religion in the United States is particularly strong with respect to political ideology and views on social issues such as abortion and homosexuality, with the more religiously committed adherents across several religious traditions expressing more conservative political views. On other issues included in the survey, such as environmental protection, foreign affairs, and the proper size and role of government, differences based on religion tend to be smaller.

Religion in America: Non-Dogmatic, Diverse and Politically Relevant

Most Americans agree with the statement that many religions – not just their own – can lead to eternal life. Among those who are affiliated with a religious tradition, seven-in-ten say many religions can lead to eternal life. This view is shared by a majority of adherents in nearly all religious traditions, including more than half of members of evangelical Protestant churches (57%). Only among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Mormon groups (57%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (80%), which together comprise roughly 2.4% of the U.S. adult population, do majorities say that their own religion is the one true faith leading to eternal life.

Most Americans also have a non-dogmatic approach when it comes to interpreting the tenets of their own religion. For instance, more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, a pattern that occurs in nearly all traditions. The exceptions are Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, 54% and 77% of whom, respectively, say there is only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.


The lack of dogmatism in American religion may well reflect the great diversity of religious affiliation, beliefs and practices in the U.S. For example, while more than nine-in-ten Americans (92%) believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit, there is considerable variation in the nature and certainty of this belief. Six-in-ten adults believe that God is a person with whom people can have a relationship; but one-in-four – including about half of Jews and Hindus – see God as an impersonal force. And while roughly seven-in-ten Americans say they are absolutely certain of God’s existence, more than one-in-five (22%) are less certain in their belief.

A similar pattern is evident in views of the Bible. Nearly two-thirds of the public (63%) takes the view that their faith’s sacred texts are the word of God. But those who believe Scripture represents the word of God are roughly evenly divided between those who say it should be interpreted literally, word for word (33%), and those who say it should not be taken literally (27%). And more than a quarter of adults – including two-thirds of Buddhists (67%) and about half of Jews (53%) – say their faith’s sacred texts are written by men and are not the word of God.

The diversity in religious beliefs and practices in the U.S. in part reflects the great variety of religious groups that populate the American religious landscape. The survey finds, for example, that some religious groups – including Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of historically black and evangelical Protestant churches – tend to be more likely to report high levels of religious engagement on questions such as the importance of religion in their lives, certainty of belief in God and frequency of attendance at religious services. Other Christian groups – notably members of mainline Protestant churches and Catholics – are less likely to report such attitudes, beliefs and practices. And still other faiths – including Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims – exhibit their own special mix of religious beliefs and practices.

The Landscape Survey also reveals that people who are not affiliated with a particular religious tradition do not necessarily lack religious beliefs or practices. In fact, a large portion (41%) of the unaffiliated population says religion is at least somewhat important in their lives, seven-in-ten say they believe in God, and more than a quarter (27%) say they attend religious services at least a few times a year.

The findings of the Landscape Survey underscore the importance of affiliation with a particular tradition for understanding not only people’s religious beliefs and practices but also their basic social and political views. For instance, Mormons and members of evangelical churches tend to be more conservative in their political ideology, while Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists tend to be more politically liberal than the population overall. But the survey shows that there are important differences within religious traditions as well, based on a number of factors, including the importance of religion in people’s lives, the nature and certainty of their belief in God, and their frequency of prayer and attendance at worship services.

One of the realities of politics in the U.S. today is that people who regularly attend worship services and hold traditional religious views are much more likely to hold conservative political views while those who are less connected to religious institutions and more secular in their outlook are more likely to hold liberal political views.

The connection between religious intensity and political attitudes appears to be especially strong when it comes to issues such as abortion and homosexuality. About six-in-ten Americans who attend religious services at least once a week say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, while only about three-in-ten who attend less often share this view. This pattern holds across a variety of religious traditions. For instance, nearly three-in-four (73%) members of evangelical churches who attend church at least once a week say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, compared with only 45% of members of evangelical churches who attend church less frequently.

These are among the key findings of a major survey on religion and American life conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life between May 8 and Aug. 13, 2007, among a representative sample of more than 35,000 Americans. The first report based on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey was issued in February 2008 and focused on the religious affiliation of the American people, including the impact of immigration and changes in affiliation. This report provides information on the core religious beliefs and practices as well as the basic social and political views of the various religious traditions in the U.S. as well as people who are not affiliated with a particular religion.

The report includes information on members of many religious groups – such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, atheists and agnostics – that are too small to be analyzed in most public opinion surveys. More detailed tables, provided in an appendix to this report, also summarize the basic beliefs, practices, and social and political attitudes of a dozen Protestant denominational families and 25 of the largest Protestant denominations in the U.S. These detailed tables also include information on what the survey classifies as “other Christians,” which includes such smaller groups as Spiritualists and other Metaphysical Christians, as well as on members of a variety of other faiths, including Unitarians and New Age groups.

To read the Summary of Key Findings in full, download the PDF (18 pages)



Thursday, December 8, 2011

An Aussie Children's Christmas Story

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Christmas Story (2010 version)
told by the children of St Paul's Church.
 
 
 
 

Luke 2 (ESV)

 
The Birth of Jesus Christ
 
1In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first registration when[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, his betrothed,[b] who was with child. 6And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels

8And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. 10And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will toward men.

15When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." 16And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
 
21And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
 
 
 

Jesus, the Fulfillment of God's Revelation to Man

Daniel's article below cannot be emphasized enough as to how to read the Bible. It is read first and foremost Christologically, that is, through Jesus. All the more startling when considering the many OT Jewish themes of promise left unfulfilled unless understood as fulfilled in Jesus. Who ends them. Completes them. Uplifts them. Transforms them. Transitions them.

These are known as the "Themes of Continuity and Discontinuity" found within the Bible and in perfect correlation with the overarching Christological themes of the Bible that bind the Old and New Testaments together as one documental revelation by God to man. The balance between the books then is given to the NT, as the OT should now be read from the perspective of Christ as Israel's Messiah Redeemer. As the Second Adam. As the risen King of Judah. The Inheritor of the Davidic throne. Who perfects the Israelic priesthood in Himself (Hebrews). Who is God's Prophet, Priest and King. Who is the Lamb and Lion of God. And so on, and so on. Each biblical theme is found changed by, and in, and through, and because, of Christ. Christ Jesus completes the testimony of God to man in the OT. And Christ Jesus continues the testimony of God to man in the NT.

R.E. Slater
December 8, 2011

* * * * * *  * * * *


The Story of Christ… Really…

by J.R. Daniel Kirk
November 15, 2011

I’ve found myself indirectly thinking about what it means to read the Bible as Christians. By “indirectly” I mean that these thoughts have gnawed around the edges of my thinking while I’ve been working on other things: teaching the Gospels and Acts, writing a paper on wisdom literature in the Coen Brothers’ movies, listening to sermons on the deadly sins, reading books on what the Bible is and we’re supposed to do with it.

By “reading the Bible as Christians” I don’t just mean reading it like we’re supposed to learn from it. There are lots of ways to read the Bible so as to learn from it. But those among whom I number myself approach the Bible as Christians–not as Jews, not as Mormons, not to mention that we don’t approach it as atheists or pantheists or deists.

Reading the Bible as Christians means that we not only read it with a ready disposition to hear it as God’s word, as the story of salvation, it means to read the story with the conviction that the narrative comes to its surprising climax in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

You have to do this on purpose, if you want to do it.

Pick up the book of Deuteronomy, and you’ll come away with a strong sense that the way God will fully restore his people is through their faithful obedience to Torah. Jesus is a surprise.

Pick up the law or the prophets, and you’ll come away with the strong sense that God’s ultimate plan is for a nation to be located in the geophysical land of Israel. The explosion of the promise of land to a promise of the world and indeed of new creation is a surprise.

Pick up the Proverbs, and the next thing you know you’ll be looking for your diligence to overflow in wealth and peace. The call to embody the death of Jesus in all quarters of our world is a surprise.

To read the Bible as the story of Jesus is to decide that nothing in the OT comes to us directly. It all comes to us mediated through Jesus. This means both that it is mediated through Jesus and that it all comes to us. Some is transformed in him, some is fulfilled and left behind. And some comes as a word reiterated now for a people reconfigured around Christ rather than Torah.

The vitality, and validity, of our reading the OT as Christians hinges on our willingness to read it in light of what we know to be more ultimately true: the Christ who is the end of the Law, the Christ to whom the Law, Prophets, and Psalms bear witness.


4 Comments

On (not) Being Insecure Christians

Kathy Escobar: On Insecure Christians

by Rachel Held Evans
November 21, 2011

Today I am delighted to welcome to the blog my friend and a true “woman of valor,” Kathy Escobar. Kathy is the co-pastor of The Refuge, an eclectic and beautiful faith community in Denver. She is passionate about community, healing, equality, justice, spiritual and transformation, and is the author of Down We Go, a challenging book about following Jesus into the hard places of community. When I think of women who inspire me, Kathy’s one of the first to come to my mind because she truly puts her convictions into action. If you enjoy the post, be sure to check out Kathy’s blog, or follow her on twitter.

kathy-escobrI had an amazing conversation last week with a non-Christian counseling grad student who had a project in this class to "move toward something in their culture they were uncomfortable with." He chose Christianity. His experience with it wasn't a positive one so he was trying to bravely explore it. We had a delightful conversation because he asked the best questions, the kind where trite Christian answers won't quite do. He wasn't talking about atonement theories or biblical interpretation of certain passages (for the most part, I think only Christian insiders give a rip about that kind of stuff).

He asked--Why do Christians never seem to feel very good about themselves?

I laughed that he had hit the nail on the head. The basic premise of Christianity is that there is nothing good in us. That original sin has ruined us and we are miserable sinners, unworthy of anything good without the blood of Jesus. That depravity is our essence.

With that as our starting place, my experience has been that despite all of the "God loves me" messages that get tossed around in church services and Bible studies, nothing completely fills in the cracks of that deep chasm. That somehow, no matter what, we just aren't good. We aren't worthy. We aren't secure. We aren't loveable. We are fatally flawed as human beings.

I know this well in my own life. I come from a liberal, non-churchy family that believed in the basic goodness of people (we were those people who evangelical Christians worried about!). When I opened my heart to following Christ, I needed a real, tangible God and was strangely and beautifully drawn to Jesus. I always say that if I had just stuck with that and never became involved in the kinds of churches I ended up attending, I would have been better off in the security-as-a-person department. But alas, that is not my story, and the rigidity and rules sucked me in, and I learned about what a miserable person I was without the cross of Christ. I ended up feeling worse about myself than when I started, and I brought a lot of shame and guilt to the table from the beginning! Christianity seemed to cement in me my badness. It reminded me constantly how much I fell short and how unworthy I was without God in my life.


About 17 years ago a wise and beautiful friend rocked my world with an important theological twist that some of you might say "duh!" at, but it was never taught to me in my hyper-conservative-evangelical circles. We were made in the image of God. That goodness is in us from the beginning. Sure, sin and brokenness has infiltrated this Genesis 3 world, but we must remember it all started with Genesis 1. Man and woman, created in the original image of God. That is our essence even though brokenness buries it.

I think that the spiritual journey is to uncover God's image that was originally placed there.

I know from experience in my own life and journeying alongside many others that this is no easy task. It makes it far worse when the starting place is "I am really a miserable wretch."

The Apostle Paul in Romans 7 talks about the struggle of our humanity to lean into sin. This passage is used all the time to hold up basic depravity, but we forget the twist that is there--"It's not me, but the sin that lives in me" (vs. 7:12).

As a mother of five, the last thing in the world I want my kids to think is that they basically suck and are unworthy, unlovable. I want them to know they are beautiful, created in the original image of God with his imprint built into every fiber of their being. I want them to know they are worthy, secure, free. With a great human capacity to sin, fall, fail and really mess things up, sure. But I do not want a faith that forces me to build in them a basic insecurity from the start. That feels cruel. And completely counter to what I know about being a loving parent, and I'm only a human one.

My experience in working with people in pain in the church is that there's an awful lot of insecurity going around in a system that is supposed to be built upon freedom, healing, and wholeness. Far too much fear, depression, inadequacy, unworthiness exists in countless Christ-followers when they have a chance to be really honest. Something is gravely wrong with this!

But the systems we've created and the theologies we've clung to perpetuate it.

Ultimately it not only damages us personally and relationally, but keeps the real power of the church paralyzed and stuck.

And really insecure.




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 Scot McKnight & Chris Folmsbee by MissioLife
From our community to yours

Just like MissioLife is intended for use by a community, it was created by a community. MissioLife was brought to life by a team of writers, editors, artists, web designers, and numerous others at Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City. We’ve been dreaming, praying, and working hard to help your faith community experience and engage the mission of God.

Get to know some of the main contributors below:

Erik Leafblad has a Master’s of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is the Director of Ministry Initiatives for Youthfront in Kansas City, and is adjunct faculty member at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas. Prior to this, Erik served as a youth and young adults pastor in Minnesota and New Jersey. He is married to Amy, with two wonderful children, Soren (4) and Svea (2), and resides in the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas.

Kris Mitchell has master’s degrees in Marriage and Family Therapy from Friends University and Biblical Studies from Trevecca Nazarene University. He has served as a children’s pastor for the past ten years.

Arla Mitchell serves with Kris in children’s ministries and homeschools their older son. They reside in Olathe, Kansas.


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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Miracle of Light

              
The Miracle of Light
Today’s entry features an essay from writer Jill Carattini, managing editor of “A Slice of Infinity” at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. Jill’s essay addresses the way that, far from seeking to disenchant the world, the most advanced theoretical science (in addition to the ordinary and careful examination of the natural world) can help us to appreciate the beauty and intractable mystery of the world, leaving us in awe of its creator and redeemer. The essay is also but one example of several recent forays into the topic of the science/faith dialogue by writers for RZIM who seek to dispel the myth that the two fields are in necessary conflict (see here and here), suggesting that this work of reconciliation is also one of apologetics and evangelism.

“The Miracle of Light”


by Jill Carattini
December 4, 2011

Scientists refer to the year 1905 as Albert Einstein's "annus mirabilis"—his year of miracles. While working as a patent clerk, Einstein spent his free time debating physics and working on theories that would end up altering the way we think of the world. All within a few months, he completed a series of papers, the least of which included his theory of special relativity and the renowned equation E=mc². Yet among these better-known contributions was also his most revolutionary contribution. Over a hundred years ago, Einstein submitted a paper that directly challenged the orthodoxy of physics. The paper described his radical insight into the nature of light as a particle.

In 1905, all physicists explained light in the same way. Whether the flame of a candle or the glow of the sun, light was known to be a wave. It was a time-honored, unquestionable fact. For over a century, scientists had grown in their certainty of this, citing experiments that made certain the wave nature of light, while overlooking some of its stranger behaviors. For example, when light strikes certain metals, an electron is lost in the process; but if light were only an electromagnetic wave, this would be impossible. Albert Einstein would not overlook these peculiarities, proposing that light was not only a wave, but consisted of localized particles.

Einstein knew that his theory was radical, even mentioning to friends that the subject matter of his March paper was "very revolutionary." Yet perhaps the most helpful aspect of his theory was the unassuming attitude with which he presented his far-reaching thoughts. He seemed to recognize that there was an unfathomable quality within the dual nature of light, and that understanding light at all was a lofty feat. "What I see in nature," he once noted, "is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility."

Science has of course had many advances since Einstein, though with these advances we seem to have misplaced our acceptance of the unfathomable. Anything unknown often seems just a matter of time until it is understood and explainable. And yet, most of us still experience moments of awe where we are suddenly comfortable again with mystery, or awed even that we should discover this thing in the first place. It seems obvious at these moments that the mind is more than a flux of explainable atoms, if for no other reason than that it recognizes in awe and beauty that there is more to see and know.

One of the things about Christianity that I admire most is its comfort with mystery even in knowing.

"O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
'For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?' "


The Christian story is about a God who goes out of his way to know and to be known, to offer us his name, to call us by name, to show us he is worth knowing and loving. Jesus came near so that God would be fathomable. And yet how unfathomable is a God who comes near? There is so much to life and mystery that is unplumbed by our own minds, even as it is held in our minds and in minds long before our own. Why do we have these minds? Why this instinct to search and know? How is it that we should know God by name, or know the voice of the Son? And how shall we respond to the kind of God who invites a love of knowing him:

"This is what the LORD says,
he who made the earth,
the LORD who formed it and established it —
the LORD is his name:
'Call to me and I will answer you
and tell you great and unsearchable things
you do not know' "
(Jeremiah 33:2-3).


In 1905, Einstein's departure from the established beliefs about light so disturbed the scientific community that his particle theory of light was not accepted for two decades. His theory was and remains a revolutionary concept. The idea of light being both a wave and a particle is still a strange mystery to grasp. Even so, it is incredible that we should know light enough to marvel at it. And it is altogether unfathomable that the light of all people has come near enough to be known.

First published October 24, 2011 as “The Miracle of Light,” Slice of Infinity 2577. Used by permission of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).


Jill Carattini is a native of Pentwater, Michigan, and resides with her husband Tony in Atlanta, Georgia. Her early suspicion of Christ's uniqueness and her compulsion towards thinking theologically led to a degree in religion from Hope College and a Masters of Divinity from Western Theological Seminary. She is ordained as a specialized minister in the Reformed Church of America and has enjoyed living and working in diverse ministry settings, from the inner city to university campuses to a local mission church in a Native American community in Oklahoma. Widely read in theology, aesthetics, church history, and justice, she has also studied in the Middle East in order to better understanding the culture, history, and politics of the region’s conflict. All of those contribute to her work writing and editing A Slice of Infinity, RZIM’s daily reading considering themes from theology and culture to philosophy and the arts, aimed at reaching into the culture with words of challenge, words of truth, and words of hope.




Savings Cooperatives v. Predatory Lending


An Ichthus in a Sea of Loan Sharks
Predatory Lending agencies prey upon the poor consuming their earnings with 400+% interest rates
preventing any personal savings and financial escape.

An Ichthus in a Sea of Loan Sharks

How faith-based nonprofit Grace Period is turning the tide on predatory lending.

Amy L. Sherman
December 6, 2011

To a hardworking mom facing a cash crunch, a payday loan can seem like awfully good news—the chance to borrow some money in advance of a paycheck that is days or weeks away. But when that paycheck actually arrives, paying back the loan is often out of reach—the average payday loan customer renews their loan nine times, paying new fees each time. The Center for Responsible Lending has found that the average customer with a $300 payday loan will end up paying $500 in interest and fees, plus the original loan amount.

You would think a business like that, charging effective interest rates that can range north of 400 percent per year, would have trouble attracting customers. In fact, the market is huge—the United States hosts more payday lending stores than Starbucks and Burger Kings combined.

But a Pittsburgh-based organization wants to provide an alternative.

Dan Krebs and Tony Wiles first learned about the dubious practices of payday lenders in 2006, through a sermon preached by their pastor at Allegheny Center Alliance Church (ACAC). Krebs had been running the finance department at a local car dealership, and thought the church should be able to come up with a creative alternative. Wiles, an ex-cop who'd grown up in ACAC's struggling Northside neighborhood, had been "searching for something to do to give back, to do something in the community that could really make a difference." The two joined forces to launch Grace Period.

Grace Period is unusual, perhaps unique, in its faith-based approach to actually creating something better than the much-criticized payday lending industry. There's no shortage of protests against payday lending, and efforts to outlaw the practice are under way in several states. Indeed, for 10 years the state of Pennsylvania has strictly enforced old usury laws that prevented non-banks from charging more than 6 percent annual interest. It's illegal to offer a traditional payday loan in Pennsylvania—but that wasn't stopping offers from streaming in over the Internet, nor was it addressing the real financial needs that payday lenders promise to address.

Then Krebs and Wiles launched Grace Period. They were hoping to reach customers like Jameikka Drewery, a medical assistant and single mom with five children. In 2006, she had been burned by a payday lender called Advance America, which was circumventing Pennsylvania's usury laws until it was kicked out altogether by the attorney general in 2007. "It was a rip-off," Drewery says. "Every paycheck I had to go and pay them and then borrow back just to pay my bills. I did that for four months or so before things finally got better."

When Drewery needed a loan in 2008, she was stumped. "I was getting married and I needed a loan to pay for a [reception] hall," she explains. The place she wanted required a $250 deposit. An acquaintance recommended that she check out Grace Period.

When Drewery called the organization, she heard something different from the usual payday lending pitch. Wiles explained that Grace Period was a savings cooperative, one you join as you would a gym. Clients enroll as a member in the club for at least one year. Grace Period offers the new member an initial loan and establishes a workable repayment plan. Typically about $50 is deducted automatically each pay period from the member's paycheck to cover loan installments and modest club dues. These automatic payments continue for 12 months. During that time, the initial loan is repaid and additional funds accumulate as an emergency savings reserve for the member. At year's end, members can withdraw funds and close their accounts or remain members, earning interest on their savings.

"They look at how much you make and how much they believe you can pay back," Drewery says. "They tell you [that] you don't want to borrow more than what you can pay back every paycheck and still have enough to live on."

When Drewery cut back from working two jobs to "just a job and a half" so she could start nursing school, she walked a financial tightrope. Over the next few years, she borrowed several times from her Grace Period account to handle various challenges, such as her car breaking down. "The best thing about them was that when I needed them they were always there," she says. "They helped me save."

Largely through word-of-mouth endorsements, Grace Period's membership has increased 55 percent from 2010 to 2011, to nearly 4,000 members. It's on track to loan $1.73 million in 2011 through its partnership with Pittsburgh Central Federal Credit Union.

Grace Period wouldn't have gotten off the ground without support from Krebs's church. ACAC members raised $750,000 in new deposits at the credit union, providing initial capital for the new venture. "Everybody has got a couple hundred dollars sitting around for a rainy day," Krebs says. "We just asked people to put their rainy day money where it could help somebody else." Dan Moon, then CEO at Pittsburgh Central, was already inclined to do something new to service the Northside community. "We were taking a risk on a newly formed business," he admits. But when he visited ACAC and met the leadership and church members at an open house showcasing the Grace Period initiative, "We saw this whole church committed to this. They were ready to back up these loans."

Today, Grace Period's member dues system provides cash on hand to cover the operating expenses of the nonprofit. New club members are constantly being added into the loan pool; meanwhile, older customers pay off their loans but remain in the club. Their capital is then available to help out new members, turning previous debtors into creditors.

Close to Grace Period's modest storefront on E. Ohio Street, financial temptations abound: a Money Mart shop, two Rent-a-Center stores, and a Jackson Hewitt tax office offering "refund anticipation loans." To avoid these debt traps, Krebs says, "People need to have a systematic savings program—and that's what we offer."

Drewery recently stopped in to Grace Period to close her account. She and her family are moving to South Carolina to be closer to her ailing mother. She and Tony Wiles talked and prayed for a half hour, she says. She could hardly believe it when he reminded her that she'd saved $1,700.

"Who'd have thought that I could save $1,700?" Drewery exclaims. "I keep saying, 'If I can do it, anybody can do it.' "


Amy L. Sherman's newest book is Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good (IVP, 2011). Small portions of this article were adapted from Sherman's essay "No Such Thing as a Free Loan," which appeared in the March/April 2011 issue of Prism.