check out http://www.comosaywhat.com

thats my new home!

The Golden Compass opened Fri. I found this review to be interesting and pretty powerful.

http://kester.typepad.com/signs/2007/12/his-dark-materi.html

from http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=stevedsmallwood

http://smymonline.org/

"All Southern Missouri District ministers received this letter today from the District Office:

Dear Fellow Ministers;

We trust the blessings of God are greatly upon each of you during this special Holiday Season.

In our October presbyters meeting a motion prevailed that no Assemblies of God credentialed minister in our district will be allowed to attend a non-Assemblies of God Church unless they are given permission by the Presbytery Board.

It was also moved that the District write a letter to those ministers that have been brought to our attention who are attending a non-Assemblies of God Church indicating it will be necessary for them to receive District Presbytery approval for them to do so, or their credentials will be in jeopardy.

If you or some credentialed minister in your church falls into this category, please comply or encourage them to follow through with this action.

May God continue to bless you and your family as together we strive to enhance the Kingdom of God.

Sincerely,

Superintendent"

Labels: rant

i am a monist thru and thru (in the anthropological sense).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monists#Christianity

what are you?

recently there's been a lot of buzz about the supreme court hearing a case on the death penalty. i promised to write about how christians should approach capital punishment. and here it goes.

first let me say, i believe that these issues are germane to the church and that the church must address and engage the world on social issues. too often we and others impose a privatized religion on us. that is to say, god saves my soul, cleans me up, and puts me merrily on my way. i don't believe this to be the way of jesus. though personal transformation is important, it's only one aspect of christ's work. jesus addressed issues of injustice in the body politic, not just in one body. for more on these, see works by yoder, hauerwas, willimon, etc. as a primer, read "the politics of jesus" by john yoder.

i want to consider three factors in understanding OT theology and the christian response to our issue.

let's start at the old testament, which sets up the rule of lex talionis, eye of an eye. Exodus 21:23–27 is the most well known verse which people use to support the death penalty. what many people fail to understand is that this verse isn't an injunction to punish people, but it's designed to limit retribution. if someone pokes out my eye, my maximum retaliation is to poke out one of his eyes, not two. if someone kills my son, i can only kill his son, not his entire family. lex talionis is not descriptive on how one must be punished, but it prescribes the limits on revenge. understood this way, the old testament isn't mandating that a murderer must himself be murdered.

this doesnt gloss over the fact that the OT is full of examples of someone killing seemingly on behalf of god. but i dont think that anyone would argue for vigilantism today. despite all the other stories in the OT, we see one story that over arches the rest. this leads to our second point: this story of the exodus serves as the archetype for israelite history and as a paradigm for israelite future. the exodus is constantly in the minds of god and his children. any time the people waivered in faithfulness, wandered in apostasy, or ended up in exile, the prophets reminded them that god delivered them from egypt and can deliver them again if they repent. and remember how they exited egypt: according to the story, the israelites did nothing, god bought them out of bondage; he set them free. no israelite had to pull a sword or strike an egyptian. if god did it then, he can do it again.

finally, and perhaps most importantly, we must take into account progressive revelation. that is god has not revealed himself all at once throughout history. instead, as time progresses we have more and deeper insights into god and his ways. in fact, this culminates with the ultimate revelation of the cross. indeed, all of history, even the bible itself, is subject to god's revelation through jesus christ. so while we may see god allowing killing early in the OT, the evidence against capital punishment decreases as the story progresses. along with that, we must understand that the bible was written by many different people over many different years, and it will naturally reflect some mores and standards of those people.

Labels: death penalty, old testament, theology