SAD & November

by Christine on November 15, 2008

This quote from Herman Melville‘s Moby Dick is me.. But instead of longing for whales, and Cape Horn – I’m longing for the southerly climes:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

{ 81 comments }

Are our Pets in Heaven?

by Christine on June 4, 2007

Yesterday we made the decision to put our dear dog Mashie “to sleep”. A wonderful euphemism for her death. Mashie has been a special part of our family for the last 12 years. She had been declining in health the last couple of months and yesterday she took a dramatic turn for the worst. We still went to church (although we skipped Sunday School), when we came home she was still ailing, and still dying. We took her to the Vet for an emergency visit. It turned out she had a tumor in her abdomen and it was hemorrhaging – she would not make it through the night.

Our Dog

My son (15 years old) spoke to Mashie by cellphone and told her he loved her. We kissed and hugged her and said our goodbyes. Then we wondered whether we would see her and her brother (Niblick – gone 2 years now) in heaven.

Today I saw this quote from N.T. Wright

This brings me to ‘heaven’. Yes, in the New Testament of course there is the hope for being ‘with Christ, which is far better’ (Philippians 1.26). But have you not noticed that the New Testament hardly ever talks about ‘going to heaven’, and certainly never as the ultimate destiny of God’s people. The ultimate destiny, as Revelation 21 makes abundantly clear, is the ‘new heavens and new earth’, for which we will need resurrection bodies. Please, please, study what the Bible actually says. When Jesus talks in John 14 of going to prepare a place for us, the word he uses is the Greek word mone, which isn’t a final dwelling place but a temporary place where you stay and are refreshed before continuing on your journey. The point about Jesus being our hope is that he will come again from heaven to change this world, and our bodies, so that the prayer he taught us to pray will come true at last: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven. That is God’s will; that is why Jesus came; that is our final hope. Of course, Christians who die before that time go to be with him in heaven until the time when the whole creation is redeemed (Romans 8.18-27 — have you studied that recently?). That isn’t a ‘symbolic meaning’, and I confess I don’t know why you should think it does.

The problem is, I think, that there are some Christians who have not been taught what the Bible actually teaches about the redemption of the whole creation. The Bible doesn’t say that the creation — including earth — is wicked and that we have to be rescued from it. What is wicked, and what we need rescuing from, is sin, which brings death, which is the denial of the good creation. When we say the creation is wicked we are colluding with death. Sadly, some Christians seem to think they have to say that.

I gain hope from thinking on the new heaven and the new earth. A physical place with our incarnate Lord. In this physical place, where the whole of creation is redeemed, surely there must be redeemed animals – and than surely redeemed pets?

Won’t that be the greatest joy – to see all our loved ones, including our pets? Of course, we will not be married, nor will be masters of our pets – but maybe, just maybe we will see them romping in fields of green – as the whole creation worships God.

{ 34 comments }

Narrative wins (most of the time)

by Christine on June 1, 2007

Most of my friends don’t have a clue what the Emerging/Emergent Church movement is – but they do share some of the same concerns that the Emerging church has with Reformed/Presuppostional Theology. My friends (and I) like narrative. As Paul Helm points out:

What happens is that in this effort to combine a narrative and a logical approach to theology the narrative approach invariably wins out. Stories are so much more fun than logical deductions and discriminations.

Donald Miller, known for his loved or hated “Blue Like Jazz”, and his influence in the Emerging Church movement says in this month’s issue of Christianity Today:

“Truth is rooted in story, not in rational systems. The Christian mission is not well served when we speak in terms of spiritual laws or rational formulas. Propositional truths, when extracted from a narrative context, lack meaning. “The chief role of a Christian,” he says, “is to tell a better story.”

The tension between the two is magnified on both sides – presuppositional apologetics vs. emerging metanarratives. I like Helm’s piece because it highlights the strength of Biblical Theology and Systematic Theology.

Yes, I would agree that great minds like Helm and even Miller (in very different ways) probably can’t hold the tension between the two. Me, I like my Biblical Theology with a strong dose of Systematics thrown in – my small mind has no problem holding the two as compatible.

Image Pressure

by Christine on June 1, 2007

Pressure on having the “look” faces both men and women. It’s also prominent in the Christian Music industry – read this heart-wrenching exchange between Christian music artists called Coming Clean. Here is an excerpt:

Awhile back, I asked CCM if I could write this story. I felt…still feel…uneasy about that photo shoot princess moment. Not because there’s anything wrong with feeling momentarily flawless…but because that photo and many like it, in no way represent my real life. I feel rather nauseous when I consider the young girl who sees that photo and has no idea that it took 5 hours and an entire team of makeup artists and stylists to make me look like a princess. She also has no idea that even after all that, somebody sat at a computer (with my enthusiastic blessing) and point and clicked away my acne scars, my 35 year old wrinkles and the roll of flesh around my middle that makes me look like I am perpetually stuck in my 2nd trimester.

This doesn’t affect women alone, note what Chris Tomlin says at the end of the article. Want to read more about doctored magazine covers – Check this out – it will make you feel better.

h_mensfitness_070528_ssvThe June/July issue of Men’s Fitness enhanced Andy Roddick’s bicep muscles — so much so that Roddick said he stopped in his tracks when he saw the cover while walking through the airport. The tennis star dubbed the hulking masses “22-inch guns” and wrote on his blog, “If you can manage to stop laughing at the cover long enough, check out the article inside.”

Death of Parenting….continues

by Christine on May 22, 2007

A 60-year-old women has twin boys. She wants her 6 year old son (also conceived using IVF) to have a siblings. What about parents?

Birnbaum said she underwent in-vitro fertilization (IVF) last year in Cape Town, South Africa, so her youngest son, Ari, would have siblings closer to his age and because she wanted older women to be able to deliver children “without a stigma attached.”

Do the math, when her twins are 12 – she is 72, Ari will be 18. Most likely will have to be their surrogate parent. The death of parenting continues in so many ways.

Bible Study for Foodies

by Christine on July 1, 2006

Bible study for foodies like me. Last night our small group studied 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 Bread

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

We talked about great meals or food memories that smelled great – that just the mention of the aroma, and we are hungry. Some of the memories were a neighbor‘s Bar-B-Q, bakeries on Sunday mornings, Thanksgiving Dinner and bread-baking (my memory – now that I’m low-carb it is a distant memory). Paul makes it clear that we as Christians are the “aroma of Christ” and His righteousness to God. But, to those who are perishing we are the smell of death.

This morning I came upon Thomas Chalmers‘ exposition on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness where he speaks of, “the merit of His well-beloved Son is to Him a sweet-smelling savor.” (HT: Michael Haykin)

“Had we fulfilled the law of God, heaven would have been ours, and it would have been given to us because of our righteousness. We have broken that law, and yet heaven may be ours, not because of our righteousness, but still because of a righteousness; and the honor of God is deeply involved in the question, What and whose righteousness this is? It is not the righteousness of man, but the righteousness of Christ reckoned unto man. The whole distinction between a covenant that is now exploded, and the covenant that is now in force, hinges upon this alternative. If we make a confidence of the former plea, we shall perish; and if of the latter, we shall have everlasting life.

”The merit of His well-beloved Son is to Him the incense of a sweet-smelling savor, so that the guiltiest creature who takes shelter there, has posted himself on the very avenue, along which there ever rolls the tide of divine complacency. We should invest ourselves then with this merit, and wrap ourselves firmly in it, as in a covering. We should put on Christ, who is offered to us without money and without price. We should present ourselves before God, with His invitation as our alone warrant, and the truth of His promises, which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, as our alone confidence. His place in the new covenant is to declare our forgiveness, through the blood of a satisfying atonement. Our place in the covenant, is to give credit to that declaration.“

Thomas Chalmers, from his introduction to Abraham Booth’s The Reign of Grace from its Rise to its Consummation (1768)

I am so thankful that Christ has covered me with the smells of July 4th Bar-B-Q’s, baking bread, and Thanksgiving Dinner and not the reek of rotting death.

Technorati Tags:

{ 69 comments }

Communion is getting dangerous

by Christine on February 12, 2006

This is really bizzare. We have the Alabama church burnings – 1 more today – and now this:

Bottles of fruit juice that appeared to be tampered with were found at same drug store where grape juice that sickened dozens of churchgoers had been purchased, police said….

The discovery comes after 40 churchgoers at Calvary Baptist Church were sickened last Sunday. Five people were sent to the hospital with nausea and vomiting after drinking the juice during a communion service, but nobody was seriously injured.

Read the whole story and be careful!

My Leisure Suit Education

by Christine on January 4, 2006

Christine Rosen who I like and respect has written a new book – My Fundamentalist Education. I came across an intriguing review in OpinionJournal. It doesn’t sound as if she is very charitable.

I grew up resisting the leisure suits, jumper dresses, no make-up and long braided hair of my fundamentalist friends. I prided myself in short skirts, stylish hair and tasteful make-up – and yet still a Christian. Pride is the word. I judged by outward appearances – they judged me by outward appearances. Whether it is dress, smell or color of our skin how easy it is to judge on outward appearances.

It sounds like Christine Rosen received an excellent education. She has gone on to write insightfully about sex differences, eugenics and religion. She has learned the Bible, was taught to love reading, honed her writing skills. Her fundamentalist education served her well. Faced with today’s public schools and politically correct educational mandates I believe she would make similar choices for her children.

Next time a visiting preacher has on a dated suit, a tie with a lapel pin that is so 60′s, and talks about his modestly dressed children I hope I can open my Bible and ask the Holy Spirit to open my eyes and heart to the Word of God.

Update: A good book about the legalism that Christine Rosen is rebelling against and that is food for thought for everyone is David Swavely’s Who are you to Judge?, reviewed here and here.

Are you Emerging? Take this Test

by Christine on December 1, 2005

I’ll admit it, I’ve been curious about the Emerging or Emergent Church movement. I have friends you dip their toes in these waters who walk the walk of a follower of Christ. But the hardest thing about the Emergent Church movement is figuring out what it really is, what it really stands for, where they draw their lines in the sand. I guess the difficulty is….. they wouldn’t even see the need for the previous sentence.

Anyway, Purgatorio as finally defined it for me You Might Be Emerging If…:, I laughed as clarity dawned.

{ 40 comments }

Nos Sobrii: What Does It Mean?

by Christine on December 1, 2005

A great blog post – Nos Sobrii: What Does It Mean?

In my Nos Sobrii column: Systematic Theology, Apple Computers, Church, Cooking, Hiking, Blogging. Maybe that is why all these things are hidden in my virtual drawer – I wish I could be be Nos Sobrii about less – so I could be Nos Sobrii in the first sense about one. But Kevin is right – “sobriety has the power to make us humble.”

Read the post and ye shall understand. What is in your Nos Sobrii column?

{ 6 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →

 111