Wrestling with the Bible study again

Here's Numbers 15:32-36. I'll give you the version from The Message, so you know it's a more "generous" translation:

32-35 Once, during those wilderness years of the People of Israel, a man was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath. The ones who caught him hauled him before Moses and Aaron and the entire congregation. They put him in custody until it became clear what to do with him. Then God spoke to Moses: "Give the man the death penalty. Yes, kill him, the whole community hurling stones at him outside the camp."

36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and threw stones at him, an execution commanded by God and given through Moses.

So here's the thing. The God I know didn't do this. The God I know in Jesus, the God who was Jesus as described in the Gospels (read Matthew 12, among many other examples) didn't do this. Or, God is crazy. The Trinity is nothing more than a schizoid personality disorder. Or, maybe, God did a lot of growing up in a few hundred years.

Or maybe, just maybe, the person who wrote down this portion of Numbers was just factually mistaken. Maybe Moses thought this command came from God, but he was wrong. Or maybe the truth got lost in the oral tradition between Moses and this story getting written down. I don't know. But honestly, I truly feel this is the only reasonable, honest, authentic conclusion I can come to. And like all conclusions in this life, I recognize that it's provisional. I don't know what the truth of this situation was. I don't know jack. But I have to say that this particular question seems somewhat cut-and-dried for me right now.

I've never believed in Biblical factual inerrancy. I suspect I never will. I do believe that all scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, etc. What that means to me is that even this passage comes to me from God - even if it is, in fact, misrepresenting God. God wants me to learn something from this word. I don't think it's the literal meaning. I don't know what it might be.

If you have any thoughts, let me know.

Embracing the new Blogger

OK, I've officially embraced the new version of Blogger. I've tagged all my posts, upgraded my template to take advantage of the nifty new widgets and the new customization user interface (losing and re-creating most of my previous customizations in the process), and did a little extra tinkering to boot. Not much has changed for you, the reader, except a little of the look and feel. (Not all for the better; I had to make some compromises in order to not lose the kewl new stuff.) The "Blog archives" nav on the left is way better than the old one, and the brand-new "Labels" section (also on the left) is there, in case you dig tags/labels as a way to access categorized information.

If you see anything that's really ugly/broken - or you just have any general feedback - let me know. Muchos gracias!

Done.

OK, I'm done tagging (aka "labeling") old posts, so those of you who subscribe to this blog's feed in a feed reader can quit cursing me. :-)

Community (Part 3)

Remember that series I was doing on Community? And how I threatened to take things to an uncomfortable place with my next post in the series? And then I seemed to forget about it? (And you probably forgot about it too!) :-) Well, I didn't entirely forget about it, but I did have some hesitation to "go there" to that uncomfortable place. But now I don't need to. Because Webb Kline went there for me. Here's an excerpt:

I have made an incomplete list of some comparisons between the traditional and missional church models as I see them. Hopefully it is complete enough to spell the challenge out for those who are trying to count the cost of making the transition.

• Traditional Church: Inward-An institution created to attract people to a building, thus is focused on the futile task of appealing to and meeting the insatiable desires of its members in order to survive financially. Made up primarily of people for whom church is little more than an addendum to their busy self-engrossed lives.
  
• Missional Church: Outward-A group of people whose passion and purpose is found in being the hands and feet of Jesus to those who need his mercy, grace compassion and love. Real missional Christians put the physical and spiritual needs of others before their own, for in this, they find their total satisfaction and meaning to life.
  
• Traditional Church: Ministry-Staff of a few performs over 90% of church ministry, which primarily amounts to pleasing a congregation of spectators, many of whom will go elsewhere when they determine that their needs are no-longer being met.
  
• Missional Church: Ministry-Everyone has a role in the missional church. A missional Christian's life purpose is found in loving and serving others and in helping them to find peace and hope in Jesus. Their work, their recreation and everything else is part of the mission, not just what comes down on Sunday morning. Their ministry is not performed by being a part of a committee, but flows from their God-given spiritual gifts, their skills and talents and their passion for serving. In short, they aren't waiting for someone to lead them around by their hand; they're already attentive to people's needs, and they serve by the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
  
• Traditional Church: Charitable Giving-The traditional church must survive on its members tithing 2-3% of their adjusted income. One church I belonged to had 1% of its annual budget assigned for missions, which also included things like youth group materials! Even when a traditional church has a heart for missions, it typically takes 80 to 90% of its budget for its building mortgage payments, maintenance and utilities and staff salaries.
  
• Missional Church: Charitable Giving-Nearly 100% of the tithes and offering of the missional church can go directly to funding their mission outreaches, because those outreaches, and not a building program, is the heart and purpose of their church. Often, those outreaches come in the form of down-town businesses geared to reach and minister to specific people groups, thus are largely self-sustaining. Typically, those same businesses also serve as the church meeting place as well, so there is no need for a building dedicated to that purpose. Freeing up finances in such a radical way, paves the way to extend their missions to meeting the needs of 3rd world people or others outside of their local community.

Webb is talking in gross generalities to make a point, and describing extremes when the reality is a continuum (again, to make a point), but the things he says in his post are pretty much the things that I was hesitating to say. If you're interested, read his whole post. It's not that long. There are some good comments, too. So...what do you think?

Google Gapminder and Africa

OK, check this out.

Play it once or twice, just for the "Google is kewl!" effect. Realize how much data is being visually conveyed into your brain, all at once.

Now, play it again, and watch what happens to the dots that *aren't* dark blue. Look at the red ones, or the light blue ones, or the green or orange or yellow.

Now, play it again, and just watch the dark blue dots. See what happens to those, in contrast to all the other colors. Particularly on the Y axis.

Now think about what that means. Think about the visual story being told there.

How can we freaking sleep at night?

HT: Bob Carlton

Deal's off

It's gone all hinky. Oh well. We're just out the cost of the home inspection, which was worth every penny. There are other houses.

Thanks for your well-wishes!

House update

For those who are interested, but whom we haven't talked to in the last few days: we have a ratified contract to buy the house, as of late Sunday night. Tomorrow (Wednesday) morning is the inspection. We're hoping it turns out that the place is as sound as it appears! I won't ask you to pray for us, because, honestly, I don't think "whether or not Mike and Tina buy this house" is high on God's Kingdom priority list. But, though it's a phrase I seldom use, I think this is an occasion where it would be appropriate to wish us luck. :-)

The Golden Calf

Wow - this is definitely one of the coolest things to happen in the history of this blog. Here's an e-mail I received recently from Robert Blakesley, a self-described "fledgeling poet" who has created a very lovely poetry "blogazine" called Linekin Bay Review:

Hello Michael

I ran across your intriguing blog "by chance" some months ago. Have only scratched the surface but was really taken by your post of May 7, 2006 on idolatry. It prompted me to organize my thoughts and eventually I wound up writing a poem you might enjoy, copied below. You can find the poem on my blog (http://linekinbay.blogspot.com) along with a number of others.

Best wishes,

~~ Robert

THE GOLDEN CALF

Scientist challenges believer,
believer dooms atheist,
Christian fights with Muslim fights with Jew:
You are so sure you have the truth,
I’m convinced I see the way.
We can’t all be right,
on that only
do we humans agree.

Differences fuel mistrust,
we take up arms.
Deeper down though I at least
yearn to be understood . . . to understand.
Must not we each, somewhere in our being,
be tiring of dissonance,
yearn to know the other,
yearn for resolution
into harmonious counterpoint?

Differing stories, differing models,
differing maps handed down,
have variously illuminated our different paths.
Mythical explanations,
reassuring beliefs, rituals and holy books
once may have been golden reflectors of light,
if not the Light itself.

Now it’s as though we have recast
. . . dare I say it, no one would admit it . . .
our holy books and holy words themselves
into objects of worship,
new versions of the Golden Calf,
as we wait and wander the dry desert . . .
separate, deep down unsure and afraid,
ill at ease with the mystery,
thirsting for the Unknowable.

I admit I'm not someone who reads a lot of poetry, but I really, really like that one. I like what it says, and I like the beauty and rhythm of it, too. As I said to Robert, I find the fact that I may have helped inspire such a beautiful thing unimaginably cool. :-) So, hop on over to Robert's blogazine and check out his other intriguing stuff!

Holy crap

Tina and I put in an offer in a house this afternoon. We are now, officially, attempted first-time home buyers. We affectionately refer to it as "That 70's House". We really like it.

Aaaaaagh! :-)

New RSS (Atom) feed

Hey all, if you happen to subscribe to my blog's feed (in Bloglines or the like), it has come to my attention (thanks, StaplerDude!) that my feed's URL changed when I upgraded to the new Google/Blogger thingy. If you were subscribed to my FeedBurner feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/RudeArmchairTheology), you should automagically get the new feed. If you were subscribed to my unBurned Blogger feed (http://mcroghan.blogspot.com/atom.xml), you might not be seeing updates. So, if you want to subscribe, please switch over to the FeedBurner feed, and I'll try to make sure it always points at the right thing.

Thanks!

5 things YOU didn't know about me

Well, my friend the LightLady tagged me with a meme (ow!), so here y'all go. Five things almost nobody knows about me:

1) When I was six or so, my cousin chucked a plastic toy block at my head and knocked the corner off my left front tooth. We tried to repair it a couple of times when I was a kid, and the fake bit fell off both times, so I gave up.

2) I love to travel, but I've never set foot a different continent than the one I was born on. I've been to both Canada and Mexico a few times each.

3) I'm quite literally a bastard - my mom never married my biological father. However, my dad (who adopted me when I was five) and my biological father are both 100% Irish, so I'm 50% Irish no matter how you slice it. Which is why I try very hard not to hear my new nickname ("Mick") as an ethnic slur. ;-)

4) Tina and I have known each other since we started going to the same school in the 8th grade. However, we didn't start dating until we were freshmen in college.

5) I have a phobia about driving over suspension bridges. It's a really bad idea for me to atempt to do that. Freaks me out big time.

So, there you go. BrickDude, GoldenGirl, StaplerGuy, PassageChick, and BoredSeminarian: tag, you're it.

Reminder: Next DC Cohort meeting: 11 December

It's gonna be at the Harp and Fiddle in Bethesda at 7 PM. Details are here.

Just read this

This story is from Webb Kline, via Rick "Bartimaeus" Meigs. Do me a favor - read it, and, if you feel like it, tell me what you think. I don't want to prejudice you by commenting on it at all myself.

A waitress, who was really moved by both the concert and our mission presentation at the bar, spent a long time talking with my wife and me. She is in her mid 20’s, I’d say, and she knows she has made some bad decisions with her life. Looking for help from God to get her act together, she began attending her mother’s church until the pastor told her that she wasn’t welcome unless she left her live-in boyfriend and stopped living in sin.

She told me that she really didn’t want to live with him, knew it was wrong and that it was also a bad example for her son. But, she said that she saw no way that she could make ends meet for the two of them without his help. She is trying to better herself and is taking classes at the local university in addition to waitressing. She thought that she could go to church where she could learn how to find a relationship with God and learn how to follow him and hopefully find a way out of her situation, but instead she was now both bitter and distraught over what happened with the preacher incident.

But, what we are doing in building this mission to the Ukrainian kids really got her attention and showed her a side to faith she hadn’t experienced in her mom’s church. Immediately, she wanted to help in any way she could. She told us she felt like she could jump on a plane with us and head for Ukraine were it not for her son. I explained that he could go too, as it would be good experience for him, although a bit young. We organize short term family mission trips, where the families temporarily adopt kids from the orphanage to stay with them and interact with them while they are there. It helps the orphans immensely and is life-changing for the entire family.

Anyway, I explained the unconditional love, grace and forgiveness of Jesus to the waitress and she began fighting back the tears. You could see the burden lifted as she began to grasp the idea of a God who would accept her at face value. She is looking forward to talking more with us.

But, here is what I see, and this is the kind of thing I experience all the time in evangelism:

1. This girl didn’t need anyone to tell here what was wrong with her; she already knew.

2. What she needed to know was that if she waited until she ‘got it right’ that she would never measure up, and that God just wanted her to give her heart to him despite how messed up her life was.

3. What she went to church to find, she was refused because some judgmental goof ball was unwilling to extend the same kind of grace to her that God extended to him when he got saved. I run in to this ALL the time and it is one of the biggest reasons, I believe, that people find religion offensive.

4. If this girl becomes involved with us in our mission, whether here or in Ukraine doesn’t really matter, her focus will change from inward to outward. She will grow more concerned with meeting the needs of others and will find true fulfillment in that, just as we all do. In the process, the sins that hold her captive will begin to diminish their hold on her because she now finds something much more worthwhile to live for.

We don’t spend a lot of time in discipleship training because we find that if we believe in someone, they begin to believe in themselves and they begin making the changes necessary in their lives as the Holy Spirit convicts. In the end, we have true missional disciples, not proud self-righteous Bible scholars who may appear religious but have little or no compassion or passion for those who are perishing. Of course, we believe this is true discipleship as well as the kind of obedience which pleases God.

All we really need to do is to go into all the world and live out the Gospel in their midst and God will take care of the rest.

I will say this: I think Webb's got it right, pretty much. You?

Community (Part 2)

I have a feeling that this is going to be a long series, because I'm literally learning more about authentic Christian community every day lately. But for now, I'm not going to blog about recent stuff I'm learning, because first I need to chew on it some.

Instead, for now, I'm taking it an another direction - but one I didn't anticipate when I began writing the first post. It's also not a line of reflection with which I'm entirely comfortable, because it may make others uncomfortable, or even angry. But that's not until the next post. :-) For now, I'm just going to answer the question I ended with last time:

[I]s it an Acts-like Christian community if you just spend all your time with your fellow disciples? What about inviting, welcoming, and making room for the stranger, the unknown neighbor, the person in need? Is that important too?

Um...yes. It's pretty much the essence of the gospel, in my opinion. There's nothing more important for a Christian community than to do this. Without a primary emphasis on these missional relationships with the "other", there is, in my opinion, no Christian community. That was an easy one. Next question?

Next question is harder. I'm claiming that two key activities of a healthy Christian community are a) spending time with fellow Jesus-followers in your community, building mutual understanding, trust, and love, encouraging each other toward maturity, etc., and b) spending time with those currently outside the community, especially those in need, blessing and serving them. Those aren't in priority order; in my opinion, both are essential, and neither ought to be compromised. So my next, potentially uncomfortable question is this: what do the committed disciples in most churches actually spend their time doing?

Laziness

Hey folks, remember that series I was doing, where I attempted to summarize the book The Continuing Conversion of the Church? No? I suspected as much. I don't think I'm going to bother finishing that series, because I'm not convinced that I'm rendering anyone a service that outweighs the work involved. I suspect one or two of you were interested in that series, but I think I was managing to do a poor enough job of making those summaries readable that it wasn't really of benefit. However, if even one person comments on this post that they'd like me to finish that series, I'll happily do so. (Really! I remain a big fan of the book.) I'm just not of a mood to spend time on anything that doesn't serve someone, that's all.

Peace!

Wisdom from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man

I guess if there's anything I could say...anything that would mean anything...it would be...

Use sunscreen. Don't smoke. Eat your vegetables. Protect your friends.

And savor it. Savor it all. The good times and the bad. Because even with the bad times, people love you, and you're alive.

And being alive...is amazing.

- Peter Parker (actually former Jesus People leader and current sci-fi/comics writer J. Michael Straczynski), giving advice to his 16-year-old former self, in The Amazing Spider-Man #536

I kind of liked that. My friend John Bozeman and I have discussed JMS's former faith and how his journey has affected his fiction. As a big fan of his work (Babylon 5 is his most well-known TV project), I find those topics fascinating. There's definitely a wise and true and spiritual message in much of his fiction, but is it missing something? Who am I to judge? Interesting to ponder, though.

Next DC Cohort meeting: 11 December

I've been a little distracted of late (see below), so I failed to advertise the November meeting of the DC Emergent Cohort (which was a big event with big names and a whole lot of people - and an opportunity for some great conversations). Anyway, this is from Sara on the official DC Cohort blog:


Hi all! Our next gathering will be at the Harp and Fiddle in Bethesda on December 11 at 7 pm. They have a sweet little back room that has served us well and may become our regular space. Come on out for a little Advent cheer and conversation. I am working on a speaker, but if anyone has a burning topic they would like to discuss drop me an e-mail.

Other tentative dates to put on your calenders are January 15, February 12 and March 12. We will meet from 7 pm - 9 pm each time.

Blessings!!

Sara

Let me tell you about my fall...

That's a slightly ambiguous blog post title. Fall from grace? Well...maybe there was an aspect of that. Fall from innocence? Yeah, definitely some of that too. But mostly I felt like maybe it was time to fill you in - if you are one of the handful of readers of my blog who don't know me personally - about what's been going on with me this autumn. You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging much. You might have wondered why. Here's where I try to tell a really abbreviated version of that story, for those who might be interested. If you want more detail, you can e-mail me to ask for it, but there's some sensitive stuff involved, so I make no promises. But here are the facts of the story.

In mid-September, my dear friends lost their son.

Some events surrounding little Will's funeral crystallized for me a realization that I had been coming to for a while: there seem to be some deep-level conflicts between the reality of ministry in an Episcopal Church setting on the one hand, and my heart-deep understanding of the gospel and Christian discipleship - as I seem to be called to live these things - on the other.

As a result of this realization, I went from being a very active member of the Episcopal Church (and a specific Episcopal church, whose people I continue to love dearly) to being "agnostic" about whether or not I'm an Episcopalian. My good friend Fr. Rick helped me see that I don't have to come down hard on "membership" or lack thereof. So I don't. But practically speaking, I went from being very active and busy in that setting to having relatively few connections with the life of my Episcopal church. Thank God, and thank my wonderful friends: my relationships with my dear friends at that church remain loving, without exception.

This whole series of events was pretty traumatic for me, to be honest. Among other things, I lost twelve pounds in two weeks due to stress and non-intentional fasting.

So, I found myself going from being an active member of two churches to just one, more or less.

Just a few days after Will's funeral, one of the social workers at FACETS (where Tina used to work) e-mailed Deanna, one of the leaders of my little church, with an urgent need: a mom with two daughters, age 8 and 13, were facing homelessness that very day if they couldn't find a place to stay for about a month, until they got their Section 8 housing.

Some of the issues that led to my parting of ways with the Episcopal Church had to do with the radical hospitality that I believe is near the heart of the gospel. And my wife, whose heart is much closer to God's than mine is, just naturally opens herself and gives, without needing any trumped-up theological justification. And, though our house is quite small, we had a spare room. So we said yes.

To make a very long story short, this family got the key to their new place a few days ago - into the ninth week of their stay with us. For a variety of reasons, the stress level associated with this living arrangement built steadily, and was nearly unbearable by the end. We had actually decided, for the good of all involved, to stop sleeping in our own house, and had been house-sitting for some friends who were out of town (and to whom we are deeply grateful). The last night before they got their key, nobody slept in our house except our pets, so concerned were we all to avoid an emotionally unhealthy encounter.

So, in the end, our fumbling attempt at hospitality was a success in that we bridged this family from their previous (precipitously ended) living arrangement to their Section 8 housing. And we definitely learned a lot that will make us much smarter the next time we do something like this - and about our own naivete and inexperience, and the limits of our strength and tolerance and emotional endurance. My own emotional state is still healing. I'm praying to wake up tomorrow with a little less irrational anxiety clutching my chest - especially since the situation that had been prompting that anxiety is now in the past.

Most of that sounds really heavy - and to be frank, much if it was. These last couple of months have been one of the heaviest periods of my life. But please understand: none of this has really dented my faith. In fact, my faith - along with my family, and my incredible, caring, supportive friends in two church communities - have helped me to get through this time much more "whole" than was the case in previous, similarly heavy periods of my life. And even now, when my heart is still healing, I'm really not having trouble seeing the hand of God in all of this. All of it. Even though many of the workings of that hand remain a mystery to me. And (regarding that mystery), I wouldn't want it any other way. Which is not to say it isn't hard sometimes.

So here's the bright core of a heavy story. At the same time all of this has been going on, a realization has been slowly dawning on me. This is it: my wildest dreams, and my fondest dreams, seem to have an amazing amount in common with the dreams and the life of my little church, the Common Table. And as the people of this church, my dear friends, have supported and cared for Tina and me through this fall (and, to a much smaller degree, we've been able to support and care for them) - and as I've seen my church-phobic wife become an integral part of this church community - I've realized that my love for these people is stronger than anything else in my life, except my love for Tina.

I've realized that, in being a part of this community of disciples of Jesus, I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, being what I've always wanted to be, and doing it alongside my wife, which is something I'd sort of stopped dreaming of. This sense of call I've been trying to discern for nearly the past four years - I can't conceive of a better place to live it out than here, among these people. So, on this Thanksgiving day (OK, it ended about an hour ago) following this extremely challenging autumn, I am more deeply and thoroughly thankful to our loving God than I have ever been in my life. (And if I'm not, then I bloody well should be.)

Thank you, God, and please help me to become a better servant. And thank you - so much - for surrounding me with such an incredible community of people to grow, learn, and serve together with. Amen.

UPDATE: I made one tiny edit above. If you're clever enough to spot it (which seems unlikely), please note that it was late when I wrote this, and I really, truly meant to phrase that sentence differently in the first place - I was surprised to go back and read it and see that I really had written it that way. No, I'm not going to tell you, but suffice it to say that, in math, some operators are definitely not commutative, so it behooves one to point them in the right direction. :-)

The tragedy of divorce and the protection of marriage

Just a quick note regarding the sad passing of the anti-marriage amendment to the VA constitution this week.

"Marriage," in my opinion, has become an unfortunate casualty of our society's state of denial regarding the death of Christendom in North America. Church and state (or church and civil society) have gone through a divorce. There were irreconcilable differences. Like any divorce, it's had tragic consequences, but it's probably for the best. But we don't want to admit it.

We need to decide who gets custody of the term "marriage" - religion, or secular government - and stop pretending that the faith community's blessing of a union and the government's legal recognition of a union have anything to do with each other any more. In my opinion, faith communities should be able to bless any union they choose (and refrain from blessing any union they choose), and we should call that "marriage" (because in truth, God had the concept first). Government should cease and desist having anything to do with anything called "marriage", and should sanction civil unions, with the full benefits currently conveyed by the legal concept of "marriage", between any two consenting adults. Continuing to conflate the two concepts, which were only really related before the death of Christendom, just confuses these issues and leads to tragedies like the anti-marriage amendment we just passed in the Old Dominion.

Except that many of us *want* to confuse the issues. Because we're in denial. We hope and pray that Mom and Dad - church and civil society - will get back together - that it's really only a trial seperation.

Sorry, but I don't think so. Some relationships don't last forever. And we can't "protect marriage" by pretending that the Christendom divorce didn't happen - or by amending our constitutions to try to *prevent* loving, committed unions, instead of working on ways to encourage, strengthen, and preserve them.

Community (Part 1?)

OK, I'm going to try to ease back into this "regular blogging" thing. I think a key to doing it successfully right now might be for me to attempt something of which I'm seldom capable: brevity. :-)

So, this may or may not be the first of a series of brief - yet original - posts on something on which I've been reflecting a great deal: community. Specifically, Christian community - like "early chapters of Acts"-style Christian community. Note: one aspect of "brevity" is that although I've been reading some great blogs and books (especially the Good Book) on this subject, I'm probably not going to take the time to reference them. Sorry. Busy. Maybe later.

So here's my first brief thought: I think for that kind of community to form, you've got to spend some significant amount of time with the fellow disciples in your community. An hour or two on Sunday mornings doesn't cut it. That plus a committee meeting - to conduct business alone - once every several weeks doesn't cut it. How are we going to get to know our brothers and sisters well enough to form an Acts-like community on that kind of basis? How are we going to form that kind of trust, or open ourselves to that kind of vulnerability? How are we going to have the kinds of conversations that allow us to figure out not just how much we're getting done, but if we're even doing the things God is calling us to do?

I think my next brief thought will be a sort of antidote to this one: is it an Acts-like Christian community if you just spend all your time with your fellow disciples? What about inviting, welcoming, and making room for the stranger, the unknown neighbor, the person in need? Is that important too? Hmm....