The Sunday School was created to educate children who had no spiritual instruction at home.

I suppose that’s why we send our children to Sunday School today?

The commands of the Bible tell us what we can do, not what we can’t do. If God commands it, he promises it. And that’s exciting. The commands of God are all promises.

We secretly mock those who want to be spiritually pure, but we penalize those who sell gasoline that isn’t purer.

Somewhere in Martyrs Mirror, an Anabaptist prisoner anticipating his execution (probably by fire) writes that, while his spirit yearns for the day when he will receive his new body, his current body is naturally attached to itself and prejudiced against being burned to ashes. Continue reading “The flesh shrinks back”

My wife loves me so much, sometimes she scares me. The other night she kept looking at my hand, wondering if she could find an art student who could make a life-size marble sculpture of me. I protested that I don’t know anybody besides her who would want a marble sculpture of me, and that it would probably be incredibly expensive – thousands of dollars.

But there’s somebody who has already spent much more than thousands of dollars for me, and for you. He’s given his life, and spent my entire life, to make something beautiful of me, because he finds me that valuable.

I’ve never read Rudolph Otto‘s 1917 book “The Idea of the Holy,” but it sounds like Western Christians have something to learn from him. Otto might say that much conventional orthodoxy and theology is like going to a restaurant and eating the menu. Otto pointed out that Christians tend to “flatten out” their faith, to make it more tame and manageable. Sounds to me like a religious shampoo/conditioner. Instead, Otto sought a mystical excitement in religious experience that was missing from 20th century Protestantism. It seems to be largely missing from 21st century Christianity as well. Would you like cardboard with that, sir?

For me, the scariest worship service is one where the congregation waits on God alone to speak and act. The minutes pass, and you can’t fill in your uneasiness by reading the bulletin, because there isn’t one. You can’t wait for the next part of the program to begin, because there is no program. Nothing at all happens unless God speaks, and you can’t break the tension by sharing your own pious or clever thoughts. It won’t work, because the leaders are mature enough to tell if it was God who spoke through you, or man.

I can’t understand people who seem to say that, because they talked to Jesus once when an evangelist asked them to, they now have a relationship with Jesus, with whom they hardly ever talk now.

One of the clearest depictions I’ve ever read of my Christian liberal arts college, ca. 1980, is Joseph Bayly’s story “Ceiling Zero.” It’s the sequel to “I Saw Gooley Fly,” which can be found in a compilation called A Voice in the Wilderness. In these stories, Herb Gooley can’t do much of anything right – but he’s the only one on campus who flies. Continue reading “Talk the talk, but can you fly?”

I’m skeptical about society. Most people in churches assume that the world is innocent until proven guilty. I believe it’s guilty until proven innocent. So most people consume most mass media, perhaps being cautious about some content, but asking few questions. But I assume that most television, film, advertising, and popular music were not created to glorify God, and I’m cautious about taking it into myself unless I feel good about a specific product. One reason I like international music is that it can get my feet moving without triggering sinful responses from my own culture.