You may remember last fall when I wrote a post about forgiveness. I had encountered a guy who believed it was inappropriate to forgive someone until they asked for it. In fact, he went so far as to say it was unbiblical.

Well, I ran into him again. This time we talked about asking for forgiveness when you don’t believe you did wrong.  Two specific situations came up in the discussion (there was a group of about 15 of us, which is also known as a class).

Situation 1:

A person says you did something that you did not do. They are offended. The question became is it appropriate to ask for forgiveness. Some said that we should and others said that we simply because someone is offended, that doesn’t mean that anything that was done was wrong.  The argument back was that it didn’t matter if it was wrong or not, the relationship was fractured and that was wrong. The basic gist was that asking for forgiveness doesn’t require much from the person except humility.

Situation 2:

Someone then brought up scenario #2.  What do you do if someone says you did something wrong and either it is a lie, or you believe it’s a lie. Do you ask for forgiveness in order to repair the “fractured relationship” or do you refuse to ask forgiveness, instead forcing the person to deal with the truth. At this point, the class broke into a verbal free for all with opinions raining in from all sides like confetti during a championship parade.

So what are your thoughts?

A little over a year ago, I told a friend and frequent critic of the Emergent Church that I believed the EC had died as we knew it. There were things happening there that simply were going to cause people to figure out where they stood on some things. I have maintained that the EC, like all movements had a center, a left and a right. What was interesting to me was the fact that I thought those who were more left were going to be the one’s to cause this shift.

The other day, I read an article by a friend and fellow student Jeremy Bouma. He called his post, “Goodbye Emergent, Why I’m taking the theology of the Emerging Church to Task.” Jeremy lays out how he got to the point he is at and explains where he intends to go with his series.  The comments range from thoughtful to what was that person thinking?

I doubt that Jeremy’s departure from Emergent will really signal a great shift in anything other than the fact that I think he is one more guy who is asking what does it mean to be emergent, and how does that effect my beliefs? Of course, the watchdogs watchblogs have made mention of his post and even some emergents writers have loaded up for bear.

This is an interesting time. I think we’re going to see some more clear definitions laid out for us over the upcoming months. I think that will be good, not so we can decide who’s in and who’s out but so that we can honestly know where we all stand. It will make it harder for some who like to use a broad brush to do so and that is always a good thing.

I want to ask this question here because I think we have probably the most diverse set of voices in the blogosphere. Except maybe for CNET.

Recently I had a conversation with someone who was adamant that because our church used the New Living Translation of the bible in our pews we were somehow less “biblical”. Of course this person was arguing vehemently that the King James Version bible is the truest form of scripture. By no means is this person dumb or a KJV 1611′er by any stretch.

So I have to ask…Really? In my experience and my study the KJV version is probably the worst for translation accuracy. So I’m miffed why people fight so hard for this.*

Thoughts?

*THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE MESSAGE!

Tags: kjv 1611, people, thoughts?

I’m reading a wonderful little book by Mitch Albom. The book is called Have a Little Faith. Every now and again a book sort of creeps up on me and disturbs me…in a beautiful and wonderful sort of way. So far this book is doing just that.

I read this today and thought I would offer it up to you for your thought and consideration.

Albom is telling the story of being in class one day in 1974 when the teacher began discussing the Red Sea crossing by the just emancipated Hebrews.

“There is a Talmudic commentary here,” the teacher says. … “After the Israelites safely crossed the Red Sea, the Eyptians chased after them and were drowned. God’s angels wanted to celebrate the enemy’s demise.”

“According to the commentary, God saw this and grew angry. He said, in essence, ‘Stop celebrating. For those were my children, too’” (76).

Be blessed, my friends.

I’m sort of bothered that Christmas is gone already. It’s even worse as an adult waiting all year for Christmas and then having it pass by so quickly. That bugs me. But this year has been a lot of fun for a lot of different reasons and I am unhappy it is over so soon.

I learned a lot about Christmas this year. It’s been a long time since I was able to merely participate in a Christmas Eve worship. I did a little singing this year, but that’s about all. It’s a different thing to sit in the pews on Christmas Eve.

Anyhow, blah, blah, blah. I thought I would share this one last post with you since I’m certain there are other things planned for the not too distant future. There’s a really nice article posted at Credenda agenda that I thought you might be interested in reading. Find it here: How NT Wright Stole Christmas.

I am especially fond of this:

Several years ago, when The Passion of the Christ was making headlines, I realized that N. T. Wright has spoiled every Jesus film.  Once you’ve read Wright, you realize that none of the movies get Jesus right.  Pharisees and scribes are reduced stock villains with caricatured Jewish features.  Pilate has to make an appearance, and Herod, but we are given no sense that first-century Israel was the powder keg that it actually was.

No film ever gives us what Wright says we should be looking for: a “crucifiable” Jesus, a Jesus who does something so provocative to make the Jews murderously hostile.  In the movies, Jesus is a hippy peace-child, a delicate flower of a man, a dew-eyed first-century Jewish Gandhi.  Why would anyone want to hurt Him?  Maybe because He’s so annoyingly precious; but that’s not the story of the gospels.

Just this year, I had another realization.  N. T. Wright has spoiled Christmas too.

NT Wright excites a lot of different emotions in people when he writes, but one thing is for certain: He is going to be honest with his readers. Disagree with Wright we may, but we will never come away from reading his work without being challenged to honestly think about Jesus, Scripture, and how the two shape the faith we call ‘christianity.’

Be a blessing.

HT: Internet Monk

Every year my mom writes a Christmas poem that she and my dad use as their Christmas wishes.  Below is this year’s poem.

She has also written a book of 25 Christmas poems and family devotionals available here.

May you all be blessed by the words and wisdom of the most amazing mother a girl could have!

I saw this over at Boar’s Head Tavern and thought it might be fun here too.

Richard Dawkins recently wrote (I suppose he probably should have just quoted himself) that “Darwinian theory was the best idea of all time.” That may or may not be true.

The fellas at Boar’s Head are having some fun with it–someone even suggested Beer was the best idea ever and another the bacon cheeseburger.

What’s your take? What’s the best idea ever?

I’ll start by saying the dark chocolate M & M.

Interesting article on Internet Controversies.

From the article:

The Internet has been a breeding ground for controversy from the start. Part of this is a result of the fact that the Internet is the great neutralizer; it empowers everyone to have a voice.

Emphasis mine.

It seems that lately, I only post on Friday’s after the open thread (sorry Chris L). This stat was passed onto me yesterday via Facebook and I thought I’d pass it on to you here. I found it to be profound.

WARNING! This may involve picking your jaw up off the ground after reading. Proceed with caution… Rev. Clenard Childress, Northeast Region President of the Life Education & Resource Network… “The abortion industry kills as many Black people every four days as the Klan killed in 150 years. Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more Blacks than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease & violent crime combined.”

When I was in college everyone had to take a logic class. Quite frankly; I hated it, struggled to pass it, and was determined never to use logic again.

Then I started blogging and quickly came to realize that given the nature of blogging (quickly written arguments) that logic was often a “dead language”. It became evident that given enough time, or not enough time, any argument would disintegrate into ad hominem attacks on red herring arguments which in essence were only straw men.

Not really recalling much of my logic class from 10 years ago and struggling to keep up in the “fight” I determined to learn “logic” again. Wikipedia here I come.

One of the quickest things I learned was about the Sophist movement in Greece. People who argued every side of an argument without any real logical basis. Therefore everything they argued had shreds of truth but anything taken to its logical conclusion didn’t make sense.

So my point is this; after learning a fair amount about logic I’ve come to the conclusion that most christian blogs, that are so adamant about the “Truth”, are actually just Sophists.

Anybody care to argue? You can talk to the complaint department.

Tags: Blogging, logic, monkey