Christianity is now almost impossible to explain

Christianity is now almost impossible to explain, not because the concepts aren’t intelligible, but because the living, moving, speaking examples of our faith don’t line up with the message. Our poor posture overshadows the most beautiful story and reality the world has ever known. Hugh Halter and Matt Smay The Tangible Kingdom cited by Mark Priddy

Mark Priddy's article about Caring for Strangers is very close to my heart. He tells the story of a group inviting the staff from a local diner to dinner as an act of hospitality to the alien in the land after having read Deuteronomy. Not a Potluck or a stand-up party but a sit down table cloth and best china dinner not just the select few but 35 of them. Read his article and wonder if it's something you could do? (read it here)

We got involved, well others from our church were involved in pedestrian Sunday, a street festival outside the gym doors. But as yet I'm not sure we understand our world and how we relate to it. H Richard Niebuhr wrote Christ and Culture, a book that has become a classic. It it he posited five different stances which the church has to the world. These are Christ against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, Christ Transforming Culture. How do they operate?

Well Christ against culture is obviously antagonistic and the view encourages the separation or withdrawal from culture. The Christ of culture is the opposite,one of accommodation and political correctness.Christians are likely confuse the prevailing spirit of the age for the Holy Spirit. Christ above culture suggests obviously a superiority or benevolence as culture cannot be all bad because it is founded on the nature created good by God. Christ and culture in paradox see that both Christ and culture claim our loyalty and there is a lasting the tension between them cannot be reconciled. Christ transforming culture is obviously Neibuhr's preference and also my roots. This is optimistic about the ability of Christians to change and influence culture. This is a position that at least sees life missionally.

I don't think we stand still rather oscillate between various positions and we have a tendency to retreat into one of the first 2 either Christ against or Christ of culture. We certainly have a tendency to congregate with people who are similar or the same instead of combing the laneways and alleys to bring guests into the feast.

Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. Luke 14:23

Prove this is no lie

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie. Katsushika Hokusai, renown Japanese woodcut artist cited by Danny Gregory

I make no wild claims about having it all together or having solutions. We work those out in fear and trembling. it is a matter of to go on trying and never to give up going on trying. If you believe then we have eternity to work it all out. (No, the picture isn't me. It's taken on the New York subway from Bill's Gallery here) At the moment I'm not good enough nor consistent enough to make it a busker. Who know about the future, but I'm still working on it?

The future and optimism

Many people live with the unconscious or conscious expectation that eventually things will get better; wars, hunger, poverty, oppression, and exploitation will vanish; and all people will live in harmony. Their lives and work are motivated by that expectation. When this does not happen in their lifetimes, they are often disillusioned and experience themselves as failures.
But Jesus doesn't support such an optimistic outlook. He foresees not only the destruction of his beloved city Jerusalem but also a world full of cruelty, violence, and conflict. For Jesus there is no happy ending in this world. The challenge of Jesus is not to solve all the world's problems before the end of time but to remain faithful at any cost. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

Remaining faithful in all things, in all trials and tribulations. There is often flawed thinking that when everything is going right you're following God and living the right life and the opposite that when things are going wrong then you're far from God and in the wrong. But one of the alternative translation of the Lord's prayer takes us to "Do not bring us to time of trial" rather than "Lead us not into temptation." Our thinking tends to lead us into causal thinking. What caused this state? This is part of blame culture and thinking. Rather first and foremost we need relational thinking, to cry to God and express our need of him. The need to remain faithful is more important than to portion blame or cause. Life is not black and white as the author of Ecclesiastes asks why good things happen to bad people and bad to good people and everything is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Foolhardy Optimism

The city is in ruins. Steve McCraw, director of Homeland Security in Texas speaking of Galveston.

Hurricane Ike hit hard and even after the lessons of previous experiences, 10,000 people still stayed in Galveston, Texas. Despite living in a place that remembers a hurricane that killed 8,000 people in 1900, these people ignored the best advice and so far 2,000 have had to be rescued. The city is uninhabitable reminiscent of New Orleans not so long ago with Katrina. Only two weeks ago it was Hurricane Gustav for Eastern Texas. Do people still have an optimism that everything will turn out OK? I still feel a lot of people live with "it will never happen to me" lifestyles. Furthermore I read a report that 300 relief workers in Houston are low on food and water already. The report suggested that they were already hungry and thirsty. Even more issues await the residents of Texas seen in this warning sent out.

Citizens remaining in Southeast Texas should be very cautious of snakes, fireants and other potentially dangerous wildlife in the wake of Hurricane Ike. Cottonmouth water moccasins and copperheads are the two most prevalent poisonous snake species in the region and they along with numerous nonvenomous species are likely to enter homes and other dwellings in flood conditions.

Trying to avoid thoughts of the plagues of Egypt, I see that preparedness is not a foolhardy optimism. It is always a readiness for the inevitability that something might go wrong. Preparedness is not always prepared to stay but also a prepared to go. I often have a bag packed ready to go. It contains my travel clothing rather than my everyday wear. You might wonder what the difference is if you know what I normally wear. Well everything in the bag is fast dry Though they are mainly lightweight as a result, but it does layer for cooler situations. I think we should be always living with "it might happen to me."

With an understanding of the end of time, Christians not only have a strong hope in life in the age to come but also a judgment on behaviour and action. What did we do with our resources? What did we do in response to situations? I'd like to be prepared to that accounting exercise.

After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. Matt 25:19

Communities and unity

Communities are defined by who’s in them and who isn’t, us vs. them. … people are galvanized by being presented with an opponent. (As a sidebar, when Al Gore established his leadership by defining a situation that impacts us all, by asserting that for once there was no Them, just Us, all of Us, and that we could all make a contribution to fix the problem, I was very inspired. I was also flabbergasted by how many people, those in power and those with no apparent axe to grind, were skeptical and even openly hostile against the effort to reduce global warming. I just don’t get it but can only assume that the agendas are hidden but there, and that the power of denial is incredibly strong. ) Danny Gregory My vote

I got into reading Danny Gregory's blog because he draws and writes and teaches it. Gloria introduced me to his blog and his work is fascinating. But I am quite taken by his passionate tirade about the state of his country's politics. Somehow I feel so right for so many countries and in fact many communities. In the last 12 hours (it's Sunday Evening) I've sat and had some pretty significant conversations and given and received encouragement that may the impossible and miraculous can happen in this world.

Danny continues:

It’s sad that in the current political debate so many people seem more interested in diminishing the ideas of others than in providing solutions of their own. The politics of division are an enormous drag on our progress and eat up resources and energy that could be so much better used.

The trouble is community is com plus unity. That is unity together but when we define ourselves something is very wrong. Somehow that will always setup a them vs us thinking. This stuff isn't just about politics. When it comes to things of faith and spirituality it can set up arrogance and pride. I learned a long time ago that frequently what you accuse others of are the things you are already! Something about planks and splinters. When I realized that I shut my mouth and have been careful about when to open it.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." John 8:7

I have never noticed before that Jesus' answer is under pressure, it is almost as if he is forced to make this pronouncement because they keep talking. They keep accusing "In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" In that act they accuse themselves. Remove the us vs. them division for we are all in the same condition really!

Concrete - the Lessons of history

I've been hearing so much about concrete crumbling and that concrete structures have a life of 40 odd years before extensive work is required. Also concrete basements that leak and flood. The first thing that has sprung to mind is that many Roman constructions are also made using concrete. The Pantheon is the oldest domed building in the world. Built in Rome and extensively renovated around 145 AD, the dome is both 43.3 metres (142 ft) high and 43.3 metres across. This building is big and almost 2,000 years old and it's built of concrete! We even know the formula for Roman concrete. It is known their concrete was made from a pasty hydrate of lime, with pozzolanic ash and lightweight pumice from a nearby volcano, and fist-sized pieces of rock. Also the Romans developed waterproof concrete which can be poured under water and will actually set. So what is our problem?

For most of the time I have been able to read I have had an interest in archaeology. I recently came across an interesting theory taken from the observation that at least parts of the Khufu Pyramid (Great Pyramid) were "microstructurally" different from other limestone blocks. This is suggested that some of the immense blocks of the Great Pyramids of Egypt might have been cast from synthetic material - the world's first concrete - made 2,000 years before the Romans invented concrete! (see the article here) Linn Hobbs, professor of materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology asked: -

Maybe the ancient Egyptians didn't just leave us mysterious monuments and mummies. Maybe they invented concrete 2,000 years before the Romans started using it in their structures.

OK so why are 2,000 year old and even 4,000 year old huge concrete structures still standing requiring limited maintenance and here in my city all sorts of concrete structures (including my church and city bridges etc) need major reconstruction and repair work?

Learning lessons from the past is the historian's self justification for their discipline. We sometimes read the history of Israel with interest but don't realize that we are to learn the lessons of the past and that it has personal implications. We can be just as self-focused, rebellious and stiff-necked as the Israelites. We can be just as forgetful and ungrateful. If we are to build solid great structures then perhaps we need to learn from the past both the good and bad points.