Another good one from the Hauerwas article:
I also think � and this is John Howard Yoder's point � people say, "Well you can't survive without violence." Yoder said, "Well, you know, there have been a people that have survived for two millennia without an army, without a land, without a nation state � that their lives have been held together through lives of holiness and prayer. They're called Jews." (Laugh) So, you can live the way Jesus wants you to live. The Jews have done it. Maybe it's true that Christians got called out in the world for Jews to live the way we Christians think we should. This is about God after all. It's not about us. Therefore, it makes some sense that the Jews may be living the way we think we should.
20021030
Stanley Hauerwas: Faithfulness First
As a Christian, if George Bush had come to you and said, "Stanley, what should I do?" What would you have told him?
It's a tricky question because, if he had asked me, he wouldn't have been President! (Laugh) So, I'd say, "You need to tell the American people the truth." This is still about oil. We intervened in Kuwait to protect Saudi oil. You can say, "Well, gee, don't you think you ought to oppose a tyrant?" Look, the United States is very selective about which tyrant it's going to pursue. When Indonesia invaded East Timor twenty-five years ago, we didn't do anything. Why? East Timor didn't have any strategic interest to us. Bin Laden is clearly motivated by the fact that the United States is in Saudi Arabia. We're in Saudi Arabia to protect the oil. We need to say that the reason America has such a problem is because we're such a rich country, and we depend on the resources of the rest of the world. Therefore, maybe the best thing we could do� I mean, rather than saying, "Well, what can you do to support a reaction against bin Laden" � rather than saying "Go out and shop" � maybe he should have said we should put a three dollar tax on gas. (Laugh) That way we won't use so much of it. That would have been a sacrifice. Yeah, I'd say, "Tell the American people the truth about these matters." I'm not sure that people around the Bush Administration even know the truth because they need to tell themselves lies about what they're doing � and they believe the lies � in order to carry forward.
As a Christian, if George Bush had come to you and said, "Stanley, what should I do?" What would you have told him?
It's a tricky question because, if he had asked me, he wouldn't have been President! (Laugh) So, I'd say, "You need to tell the American people the truth." This is still about oil. We intervened in Kuwait to protect Saudi oil. You can say, "Well, gee, don't you think you ought to oppose a tyrant?" Look, the United States is very selective about which tyrant it's going to pursue. When Indonesia invaded East Timor twenty-five years ago, we didn't do anything. Why? East Timor didn't have any strategic interest to us. Bin Laden is clearly motivated by the fact that the United States is in Saudi Arabia. We're in Saudi Arabia to protect the oil. We need to say that the reason America has such a problem is because we're such a rich country, and we depend on the resources of the rest of the world. Therefore, maybe the best thing we could do� I mean, rather than saying, "Well, what can you do to support a reaction against bin Laden" � rather than saying "Go out and shop" � maybe he should have said we should put a three dollar tax on gas. (Laugh) That way we won't use so much of it. That would have been a sacrifice. Yeah, I'd say, "Tell the American people the truth about these matters." I'm not sure that people around the Bush Administration even know the truth because they need to tell themselves lies about what they're doing � and they believe the lies � in order to carry forward.
Man, Dan Hughes is a good talker:
this one who tells us to forgive 70*7 and who himself forgave even those executing him on the barbaric Roman electric chair also sets no limit to the love and forgiveness of his Father. God loves his enemies. God sends the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. God forgives 70*7. victory is a posture of reconciliation and selflessness; not right systematic beliefs.
He just says that so well. Here's the rest of it.
this one who tells us to forgive 70*7 and who himself forgave even those executing him on the barbaric Roman electric chair also sets no limit to the love and forgiveness of his Father. God loves his enemies. God sends the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. God forgives 70*7. victory is a posture of reconciliation and selflessness; not right systematic beliefs.
He just says that so well. Here's the rest of it.
I don't know why exactly, but it's been it'sin my head a lot in the last while. Maybe because I am moving to the richest country I have ever seen. Maybe it's because twice this week friends asked me if having money and comfort is going to wash over me, cop me out, so to speak. I am thinking about what I cannot forget, the thing that has become deep and central in us over the last few years.
That thing is God's heart for the poor, the rejected, the losers, the fringes of society - whatever language you prefer. I am thinking a lot about attention paid to "spiritual disciplines", as I am feeling a need to increase things like prayer and contemplation in my life; but I am also being reminded of the incredible importance of the poor as a spiritual discipline. Friendship with the poor is vital to my spiritual health. There are kingdom things that I cannot learn apart from friendship with those on the fringes. I think it is quite similar to the role of working out (physically) in my life. Especially when I started, I despised the practice of waking up at six am on a dark and cold Winnipeg morning, dragging my butt down to the gym, and running until my lungs burn. Same thing with spiritual disciplines. They're not something you especially want to do; they are disciplines. But without my trips to the gym, I become unhealthy and fat (maybe I should say, "even fatter"). Without the poor in my life, messing up my neat and tidy times and spaces, teaching me humility, and kindness, and perserverance, my spirit is flabby.
I think I need the poor to be central in my life because they are the loudest prophetic declaration I know of that says that God's values are contrary to ours. The people who have little worth by our value systems, the people that the world says are not people who you should strive to be friends with, are the ones who Christ was deliberate about being with. We are trained to run from any kind of pain, suffering, or "ugliness". Christ chose to be there, in the low places.
God don't let me forget to be deliberate about joining him there.
That thing is God's heart for the poor, the rejected, the losers, the fringes of society - whatever language you prefer. I am thinking a lot about attention paid to "spiritual disciplines", as I am feeling a need to increase things like prayer and contemplation in my life; but I am also being reminded of the incredible importance of the poor as a spiritual discipline. Friendship with the poor is vital to my spiritual health. There are kingdom things that I cannot learn apart from friendship with those on the fringes. I think it is quite similar to the role of working out (physically) in my life. Especially when I started, I despised the practice of waking up at six am on a dark and cold Winnipeg morning, dragging my butt down to the gym, and running until my lungs burn. Same thing with spiritual disciplines. They're not something you especially want to do; they are disciplines. But without my trips to the gym, I become unhealthy and fat (maybe I should say, "even fatter"). Without the poor in my life, messing up my neat and tidy times and spaces, teaching me humility, and kindness, and perserverance, my spirit is flabby.
I think I need the poor to be central in my life because they are the loudest prophetic declaration I know of that says that God's values are contrary to ours. The people who have little worth by our value systems, the people that the world says are not people who you should strive to be friends with, are the ones who Christ was deliberate about being with. We are trained to run from any kind of pain, suffering, or "ugliness". Christ chose to be there, in the low places.
God don't let me forget to be deliberate about joining him there.
My posting might be somewhat sporadic in the next while. I take off for Nagoya on Monday, and I don't know what my computer situation will be for sometime after that. Looks like we will be living in a friend's apartment in downtown Nagoya for a good part of December, so I will be back with some regularity at that time. Until then, it will be wherever I happen to track down a computer.
I have been studying Japanese pretty hard for the last couple of months. We will soon see how much it will pay off. For me, it gets way easier to learn the language when it is all around me all the time. Trying to learn it here is so disconnected from the rest of life that it frustrates me because I can hardly seem to remember what I learn the day before. Mo sugu wasureru yo.
I have been studying Japanese pretty hard for the last couple of months. We will soon see how much it will pay off. For me, it gets way easier to learn the language when it is all around me all the time. Trying to learn it here is so disconnected from the rest of life that it frustrates me because I can hardly seem to remember what I learn the day before. Mo sugu wasureru yo.
Me as a cyclops. What fun I am having with photoshop today...
20021028
This a view of salvation that I really appreciate. James expands on this a bit on his site:
... Well in Orthodoxy it doesn't work this way at all...in fact we see it altogether differently. Salvation is union with Christ and so the relationship with Him is not an added benefit to the "salvation contract", rather the relationship IS salvation itself. And so the process of salvation (since salvation is a relationship) is very much like the process of developing a relationship (big suprise, huh?). But to try and label or characterize any relationship with legal terms and definitions is to negate its true worth. Don't believe me? Try it sometime with your spouse.
... Well in Orthodoxy it doesn't work this way at all...in fact we see it altogether differently. Salvation is union with Christ and so the relationship with Him is not an added benefit to the "salvation contract", rather the relationship IS salvation itself. And so the process of salvation (since salvation is a relationship) is very much like the process of developing a relationship (big suprise, huh?). But to try and label or characterize any relationship with legal terms and definitions is to negate its true worth. Don't believe me? Try it sometime with your spouse.
20021027
Whenever I find Miroslav Volf talking about the concept of the "other", I am inclined to listen. It is a remarkable thing when you hear a Croatian talking about the importance of loving Serbs. A while ago, that would have been kinda like a Jew talking about the importance of loving Samaritans. Not something you hear everyday.
20021026
A couple new good blog finds: Mennoboy and Leighton Tebay.
They're Saskatchewan boys... probably Rider fans... hmmmm **eyes narrow into slits**
They're Saskatchewan boys... probably Rider fans... hmmmm **eyes narrow into slits**
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