tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-161045092024-03-12T19:41:55.061-04:00Rocks AliveFaith, Music, Literature, and Whatever Else is On My Mindrocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.comBlogger288125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-72960584687114140962014-04-17T16:00:00.003-04:002014-04-17T16:00:51.813-04:00God is Dead: A Homily for Good Friday, Year AReading: The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to St. John
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. It's all gone wrong, hasn't it? Somewhere over the course of the week, things have gone astray. Sunday, we were cheering a triumphant Christ, and today, we're mourning a dead criminal hung on a gallows. Even by the end of worship last week, the shouts rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-37139393384020382592014-04-17T15:51:00.001-04:002014-04-17T15:51:35.305-04:00Raising Lazarus: A Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year AGrace to you and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who is calling us out of the grave. Amen. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It's hard not to hear the accusation in these words from Mary and Martha. It's even harder not to find the same tone on our own lips when we turn on the news or get the proverbial late-night phone call. Last week, we have rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-52855645203289944442014-02-19T22:53:00.000-05:002014-02-19T22:58:07.454-05:00Don't Call It a Comeback: Christianity, Politics, and Political ShiftsA friend shared an article over at The Atlantic about the re-emergence of moderate and leftist Christian politics. After twenty-some odd years of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and the Religious Right, the author, Michael Wear, asks why we are seeing a shift towards more moderate and liberal Christian politics. Citing two influential texts, Wear concludes that the shift is a reaction against the rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-61237798216250642142013-09-24T10:54:00.002-04:002013-09-24T10:54:20.767-04:00Serving Dishonest WealthProper 20, Year C -- Eighteenth Sunday After PentecostLuke 16:1-13Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and our Lord Christ Jesus. Amen.
Wall Street
Five years ago, as the stock and housing markets crashed, we heard about a lot of bankers who, despite their culpability in the economic fiasco, were getting away largely unscathed. CEOs who took paycuts that still left them making rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-70977562707943794442013-06-25T22:57:00.000-04:002013-06-25T22:57:48.553-04:00The Offerorty and the KioskA recent (satirical) post over at Stuff Christian Culture Likes got me thinking about how wrong-headed we are about the Offertory. This post started off as a series of Facebook posts and, eventually, I realized it should be re-edited into something a bit more coherent. I owe a great deal of thanks to my liturgy professor, L. Edward Phillips, my Eucharistic theology professor, Ted Hackett, and to rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-26426647085118187512013-06-07T10:00:00.000-04:002013-06-07T10:05:26.365-04:00Soul-Body Dualism and Sacramental TheologyAbout a week ago, I put forward some thoughts on death and Fundamentalism's Gnostic tendencies, suggesting that the Fundamentalist view of death (especially as expressed in Grudem's Systematic Theology) tends towards an ancient heresy. In reading James K.A. Smith's Imagining the Kingdom (appropriate as it was in reading Smith's Desiring the Kingdom that I got the idea for the original rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-21621791150891184162013-05-29T10:34:00.002-04:002013-06-07T09:18:10.550-04:00Against (Further) Heresy: or, Fundamentalism's Gnostic SecretAbout a year ago, Thomas Long took aim at what he sees as the deeply Gnostic bent in the more liberal branches Protestantism. "Preaching Easter at Old First Gnostic" suggests that scholars like Crossan and Bishop Spong, along with the congregations that follow them, are the contemporary heirs to the Gnostic tradition in as much as they reject the mystical and metaphysical aspects of Christianity rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-7040531322677352292013-05-12T08:48:00.002-04:002013-05-12T09:01:52.667-04:00Thinking Through the AscensionBelow is my homily for the Ascension, but first, a word: it is perhaps obvious to say, but a sermon which meditates on the ineffable quality of the Ascension is, itself, hard to put into words. "Beloved people of God, we cannot explain this. So let me now explain how we can't explain." Sunday comes too soon.
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Grace
to you, and Peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Risen rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-65336326141367675172013-04-19T23:03:00.002-04:002013-04-19T23:24:34.666-04:00Scattered Thoughts on the Killing of a Killer, ReduxIn the aftermath of this week, I decided to revisit my thoughts on the killing of Osama bin Laden. My thinking has changed slightly over the past two years, and I have edited a few parts of this post to reflect that.
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On September 11, 2001, I was told of the attacks more than six hours after the fact. Within a year and a half, I was watching my father depart home for the impending war in rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-89343156126930453522013-04-12T11:31:00.003-04:002013-04-27T16:27:37.111-04:00Reflections on Beginning the Ordination ProcessToday, I had my Meet and Greet with my synod's ordination committee.
Let me start off by saying that I left the meeting feeling as though the panel members affirmed my calling into the ministry in the ELCA. I have never heard any of my seminary friends, all further along in their respective processes than I am, say that they left such a meeting feeling affirmed (or even good). The four pastors rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-39973326138869877332013-01-03T14:05:00.000-05:002013-01-03T14:05:59.975-05:00Teaching the Bible as MythologyI remember the slight sense of fear that accompanied my first biblical studies class in college -- the challenges to fundamental doctrines I had grown up hearing, the implicit critique that many of my pastors and Sunday school teachers were either ignorant or liars, and the demand that I must, somehow, restructure my worldview to either reject religion or find some way to allow it to co-exist rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-26265093318251264142012-12-25T12:16:00.005-05:002012-12-25T12:16:59.569-05:00God Bless Us, Everyone"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and things the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-12582936663454864112012-12-19T00:04:00.002-05:002012-12-19T00:04:40.461-05:00It's December. List time. So here we go: the most interesting people of 2012, not the crap celebrities that Barbara Walters wanted to discuss. I present to you a pop musician-free list of the ten most intresting people this year. No Honey-Boo-Boo (that's a thing?), no boy bands. Enjoy.
10. George Lucas -- Proving that fans will never, ever respect him again after the prequels, Lucas raised rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-65066739528427852652012-12-06T15:56:00.001-05:002012-12-06T16:19:34.225-05:00Eschatology in Les MisSome time ago, I was fortunate enough to see Les Misérables at the Fox Theater. As wonderful as the theater (an old movie palace done up in a breath-taking Arabesque style) is, as amazing as the set design was, and as moving as the performance itself was, there is one thing that I cannot shake: the finale.
As the story draws to a close, we are shown a dying Jean ValJean as he is led to Heaven byrocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-80843098631265963362012-04-28T18:33:00.001-04:002013-04-27T16:28:42.282-04:00Blue Like Jazz Goes HollywoodPatrol has a great review of Blue Like Jazz, which, for those of you not constantly plugged into the world of Christian pop culture, has been turned into a movie.
As an undergrad, I was hugely influenced by Donald Miller. As of late, I have "fallen away" from the flock of twenty-somethings following Miller. I haven't seen the movie, and it's been years since I read the book. When seminary calms rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-47772974760795116132012-04-28T18:20:00.000-04:002012-04-28T18:35:19.988-04:00I'm BackTo quote Futurama's Bender, I'm back, baby.
It'll be slow-going at first, but I am slowly but surely going to start posting again.
For those who followed me back in undergrad, here are a few updates:
I'm engaged, finishing up my second year of seminary, and a Lutheran (yeah, I didn't see that last one coming either).
Rock on.rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-24223396294232365792009-11-23T17:41:00.006-05:002010-01-09T16:09:58.843-05:00Of cabbages and kingsThe time has come, the blogger said, to speak of things no more.When I started this blog, I was a senior in high school in Leavenworth, Kansas, applying to colleges. I find myself now a senior in college in Athens, GA, have been accepted to Emory's Candler School of Theology. And for four years, I have written for the world to see. More often than not, my posts were knee-jerk reactions to things rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-39745876851350053972009-10-12T21:32:00.004-04:002009-10-12T21:37:05.533-04:00Kanye,I'm happy for you and everything, and Imma let you finish, but Regina Spektor actually had one of the best videos of all time.*shrug*Yes, Kanye's a jerk, that's nothing new. And yes, this post is very late. But honestly, Regina Spektor has a history of interesting and creative videos, and those from her latest album are no exception.Below is "Man of a Thousand Faces" from the new album Far.Rock rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-16958845994744573672009-09-08T13:38:00.002-04:002009-10-22T23:37:05.959-04:00Why in the world......is "eschatology flatulence" not a Google Bomb?It's not even close. There are over 16,000 sites that include both these words.I don't get it.Edit: Somehow, though, my blog is now the number two search result. Yea?rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-8186084652181288472009-08-22T20:08:00.006-04:002009-08-22T20:21:45.953-04:00Raphael's "School of Athens"I've always liked this painting. I'm much more a fan of Michelangelo than of Raphael, but the summit of the philosophers has always seemed like one of the most amazing learning environments to ever be conceived. Well, that and I live in a little college town by the name of Athens.The two philosophers at the center of the painting are generally thought to be Plato and Aristotle*. But it's rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-11837258402144935222009-08-13T23:30:00.001-04:002009-08-13T23:35:23.920-04:00Anonymous -- Internet GolemA golem* is a creature in Jewish folklore made by man out of inanimate material, generally soil. Much like Dr. Frankenstein's Monster, the best-known story of a golem ends with the creature betraying its maker.I have jokingly referred to the Pillsbury Doughboy as a golem, and along those lines, so are the fabled Gingerbread Man and his comical form, the Stinky Cheese Man.But what would an actual rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-41363692089040987242009-08-08T01:04:00.000-04:002009-08-08T01:04:29.654-04:00Health Care Refo-oh crap, what are you doing with that noose?From a recent NY Times article:The bitter divisions over an overhaul of the health care system have exploded at town-hall-style meetings over the last few days as members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds. In several cities, noisy demonstrations have led to fistfights, arrests and hospitalizations.Um...on the up-side, people are starting to take notice of rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-14637942581436711192009-08-08T00:35:00.014-04:002009-09-08T18:05:00.638-04:00On Cash for Clunkers and Why Fox News Sucks at MathI started to write a brief end note to this post about political fist fights, town hall meetings, and the conservative double standard. The end note was going to be on an outrageous claim from Fox News that the Cash for Clunkers deal was running out of money. But the note quickly spiraled, and has taken the form you see now.Now, on to Cash for Clunkers.Yes, due to the program's popularity, it rocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-41371619690534379742009-08-05T16:44:00.002-04:002009-08-05T16:51:05.672-04:00Did you know......that Christopher Hitchens sends his daughter to a private Quaker school?That's what he said when he was interviewed by the Commonwealth Club of California.He was asked which religion he detests the least, and gave the response that even the Quakers make the mistake of viewing faith as a good thing.It is of the highest order of hypocrisy to claim that religion poisons everything and then send arocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16104509.post-55184525639377662362009-07-31T12:27:00.003-04:002009-07-31T12:38:17.046-04:00Don Miller on Story and ChristianityI realize that the title is very descriptive. The point in all of Don Miller's books is the role of Story. In fact, his latest book, coming out in August, was originally going to be called Let Story Guide You, though he rewrote it and changed the title to A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.Anyway, he gave a brief overview of the book on his blog, and laid out what he thinks is the true narrativerocksalive777http://www.blogger.com/profile/16717588816513443978noreply@blogger.com9