Adam Hamilton on Worship

For those who are unfamiliar with Rev. Adam Hamilton, he's the head pastor at Church of the Resurrection UMC in Kansas City (technically, it's not quite in Kansas City, but instead, in Leawood, KS, but oh well).

When I attended the Maundy Thursday/Tenebrae service at CoR, I was at a point in my life where I was deciding between contemporary and traditional worship styles and starting to question the idea of mass-market mega-churches, and attending the service had a tremendous impact on me.

So, more than two years later, I was quite happy to find Rev. Hamilton's thoughts on worship bosted on his blog, Seeing Gray. For those interested, here's the link.

Rock on.

Monday Graph Jam #2 - Ruby Tuesday

Today's post doesn't have anything to do with the Rolling Stones. Or the restaurant. I was trying to make a pun about being a day late. Kind of like a bad action movie title. I know, I'm a dork.

Anyway, on to the graphs.
And for fans of Stuff Christians Like, don't be this guy.

Rock on.

*Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own Grap Jam. I didn't make the graphs. Or the movies mentioned in the graphs. Nor do I write the SCL blog. I'm not "that dude", Tyler Durden, or Steve McRoskey. I'm not Keyser Soze either, but that's a different story.

I Don't Want To Face the Truth, And You Can't Make Me

Although I probably should.

Following the posting of my grade for RELI2004, I am officially half way through my junior year.

Holy crap.

And what makes it weirder is that I've only been in college for two years.

Gah.

Anyway, at this point, it's time to start looking at what I'm going to do after graduation (my word, I shouldn't be talking like that - I'm too young!). Since ninth grade, I've been saying that I'll go to seminary. But it wasn't until my dad, in his usual fashion, made me face reality a year ago and asked, "Which seminaries are you looking at?"

What do you mean I have to choose? Can't going to seminary be like going to college? Why don't I just apply to the schools that all of my friends are going to and the one that give me free tuition?

Which is about where I am today. I've sent out for some information to a few schools and gotten information back from even fewer. Those schools are: Asbury Theological, Regent College, Fuller Theological, Duke Divinity, and Wesley Theological. I sent out to Candler (Emory), but they haven't sent me anything yet. (Edit: Actually, it just came in the mail today.)

I like Regent - mostly because it's in the Pacific Northwest. I like Asbury because, well, it might mean financial support from the UMC. Fuller has a lot of different campuses - campi? - which is always nice. Duke is...well, it's Duke. It wouldn't be much of a move from Athens.

Which brings me to why I'm posting this on teh Interwebs*. I need help/advice. If you're a pastor or seminary student who just happened to stop by, please, leave a comment. I'm always open to suggestions. Of course, I'm going to talk to my pastor and my campus minister and a few of my professors as well, but every little bit of input helps. And please, direct other people this way - as I said, I'm always open to suggestions. And who better to seek it from than people who've been in this place before?

Rock on.
*Oddly enough, "Asbury" is marked as wrong by the Firefox spell check, but "teh Interwebs" is not. Go figure.

Sudan's One-Sided Trials

The Sudanese government started the trials last month for members of a rebel army fighting in Darfur.

They have not, however, attempted to so much as restrain members of the Janjaweed militia.

Can't say I'm surprised. Just disappointed.

Rock on.

Mendel's Legacy

One of the things that people don't consider when they argue about science and religion is the history of science. Science and religion, were from the start, the same thing. If you were to ask an ancient Greek to explain lightening, you would learn about Zeus. By the time Christianity had been fully accepted, science was starting to come into its own, but was still not separated from the Church. Traveling through history, you would arrive at the Renaissance and meet several astronomers, all devoted Christians. Chief among them is Copernicus, both a cleric and the father of modern astronomy. At the start of the Enlightenment, there's Newton, the Christian alchemist and physicist, but also theologian and biblical scholar. Leeuvenhoek is an influential figure in microbiology and was a Dutch Calvinist.

By the nineteenth century, Christianity was...unpopular. Many philosophers and scientists saw it as a crutch for the weak. But the foundation of genetics studies was put in place by Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk.

Enter: This article from the Associated Press

I, for one, am glad to see people refusing to make science and religion mutually exclusive.

On an unrelated note, I'm not quite sure how to feel about this. Maybe I'll right more about this later.

Rock on.

Monday Graph Jam #1

I started this summer with a goal. Even though my class doesn't start until 2:15 in the afternoons, I wanted to wake up around eight to start the day off well - coffee, bagels, Bible - the usual Christian college kid gig.

This plan was derailed by day one by the internet and a roommate who has a near-obsession with internet memes. Seriously, for a while he carried around pictures of his favorite lolcats. So one night a few weeks ago, when he found a lolcat-related blog called Graph Jam, he showed me. And given my love of The Princess Bride and music, the site was an instant hit. I stayed up for two more hours going through the archives. And saving pictures.

I've got...ten, I think.

Here are the first two.
Disclaimer: I don't own these images. GraphJam does. Please don't sue.

About Time

Just as President Bush is moving to have North Korea removed from the list of nations that support terrorism, Congress is working to remove Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress from the terror watch list.

Mandela's ANC party has been on the list for longer than I've been alive, being put on it during the Reagan administration, a decade before apartheid officially ended.

I can think of no reason that the US ever should have labeled the ANC, militant though it was, as a terrorist organization at the same time we were supporting the Iraqi Ba'ath regime and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Just something to think about.

Rock on.

I'd Pay To See This Movie

Coming soon...

Cracked.com Presents a Burton/Schumacher/Nolan Film

My money's on BatBale.

Somebody Please Tell Me...

...why we're leveling sanctions against Iran as we lift sanctions against North Korea.

Yes, Iran has nuclear ambitions. Yes, Iran sponsors terrorist groups. No, Iran is not our ally.

But North Korea claims to have detonated nuclear weapons. The Kim regime has been engaged in a reign of terror since it took power. And North Korea is still at war with one of our allies.

I know, I know - North Korea is taking great steps towards ending its nuclear program. Just like they've done in the past.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad North Korea is dismantling its nuclear program. But should a regime that has kidnapped and murdered people, both in North Korea and elsewhere, really be taken off of the terrorism blacklist?

Rock on.

The Difference Between Interpreting and Picking (and Other Thoughts on Dawkins on NPR)

Today, I listened to Richard Dawkins on NPR during an episode of To the Best of our Knowledge entitled "Atheism & Its Critics".
Linkage!

The program opened with a discussion on faith. See my thoughts here.

One of the fundamental allegations Richard Dawkins levels against Christianity is that we (we being believers) pick and choose what we will accept as true from the Bible - Cafeteria Chrisitans, to borrow an old term. But I disagree with him on this. There is a fundamental difference between interpreting what you read and choosing what you read. Yes, some Christians avoid the more troubling part of the Bible. But many of the most sincere Christians are the same ones who take what they read and truly struggle with it. Yes, it bothers me to read about the mass killings committed in the Old Testament. But I have not rejected these stories. Instead, I have taken them as how the ancient Israelites saw God - as a god who loves his people and wants to protect them. Which is one of the recurring themes of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. On the other hand, if an atheist is to go through and reject the teachings of love in the Bible - to say that these are present in all cultures and therefore not relevant to the Bible - and focus purely on the violent stories of the Tanakh, then that might just qualify as "picking and choosing".

Of course, Dawkins also has a fundamental misunderstanding of the sacrifice of Christ, claiming the crucifixion is a bloody sacrifice of an innocent man to satisfy God for the sins of Adam, a man who never existed. To this, I say he's half - no, a quarter - of the way there. Yes, the crucifixion was a bloody sacrifice of an innocent man. But it was also a self-sacrifice - God himself dying for our sins. And that's the point we should take - the love inherent in the self-sacrifice, not the gruesomeness of the act. Secondly, and one of the largest misunderstandings Dawkisn makes is to assume that the crucifixion was about Original Sin. And while this may be up to debate among theologians*, by no means should it be taken as the belief of all Christians. It is my belief that Christ died for the sins of all people, not for Original Sin.

"I am in favor of goodness," says Dawkins. He claims that he stands against the claim that you don't need religion to be good. To this, I say, define "good". If "good" is doing good things - feeding the hungry, helping the poor, and such - then yes, you can be good without religion. If "good" means never doing bad, if it means living a perfect utilitarian lifestyle - always causing more utility than harm - then we're in trouble. Because nobody can ever be good in this sense.

Oh, and if you get a chance, read what Brad Hirschfield has to say - "faith without fanaticism."

Rock on.

*Though I can't think of any groups that hold this belief. Perhaps someone can provide an example.