Bush believed he was fighting in Armageddon

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Stephen Sizer has this story about GWB’s comments to Jacques Chirac in 2003. Interesting that this never made it into any speeches here in the US.

Johnny Cash Christian comic

Anybody remember the Spire Christian comics from the 1970s? I found the comic of Johnny Cash’s testimony here.

readings on race and history

I’ve finished quite a few more books since last I posted. I’ve left a few hanging mid book as well. I want to tell you about Soong Chan Rah’s new book The Next Evangelicalism. Soong came and spoke at our church last month and I was quite taken with his message of race reconciliation, White privelege, and our culture’s fixation with travel and moving fast. I borrowed his book from a friend who’d just finished it and I took the time to read it slow. Professor Rah has experience with church planting, pastoring and teaching and was a student of Harvey Cox. He brings a much needed prophetic vision to Evangelicalism without really defining who Evangelicals are, aside from the majority who are white and priveleged. He lays down that, demographically speaking, whites are fast becoming the minority in American Christianity. Immigrant churches are growing rapidly and older white churches are in decline. His book picks up where Philip Jenkin’s book, The Next Christendom, leaves off. By in large I’d have to say the book is not fun reading. It is, in three words, a very educated rant. And you know what I think? He’s right! I hope his message gets through. The downside as I see it is that Evangelicals are really good at lip service and evasion. The majority of Evangelical churches are Southern Baptist and, yes, southern. They are White, Male led, and died in the wool conservative flag waving, homogeneous, blue blooded Americans. They love their homes, their property values, their good jobs, and their nice cars a little too much to want to hear that their history and way of life are secured by racism.

But it’s not just the conservative Southern Baptists. Rah points out that Emergents, for all their talk of being different, are just as stuck in old racial norms as the folks they claim to be an alternative for. I really enjoyed the chapter on the Emergent church. But the book left me feeling oddly. How does one get excited about and promote a book that tells a painful truth very few want to hear? And I think of my own church and social surroundings. While ours is a mixed church racially it is not mixed to the degree the book describes, without one racial group being larger than any other. We are, by-in-large, a white church with a handful of other races. But having grown up in a more mixed community I know that most people move here because there are other whites like them. People tend to look for a church that does not push them out of the social culture with which they are comfortable. This book is all about breaking that norm. Though it might feel like a long overdue trip to the dentist that changes your whole life, you should read it.

I’ve also been listening to Augustine’s City of God and Eusebius’ History of the Christian Church. I got halfway through each of these and had about all I could stomach for a time. You think Evangelical apologists today are pushy? They’re nothing compared to these church fathers. Were Eusebius here today I’d ask him how many decades of persecution were necessary to absolve the Jews for killing Jesus. He sets a precedent that’s downright sinful, right in the middle of the earliest account of our faith’s history! And Augustine, discussing virgins getting raped, come on! Show a little sensitivity. While there is much that is truly edifying in these books, and I will continue with them, they’ve also given me a healthy dose of why church tradition deserves nowhere near the authority of the canon of Scripture. Their writings often illustrate the failure of the Church to correct its own Fathers.

Finally, I’ve listened to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and now I’m on Native Son by Richard Wright. All I’ve heard about these books is true. They are some of the best literature of the twentieth century. I’ll try to say more about them once I’ve finished Native Son.

Are resurrections and miracles interesting long term anymore?

I heard about this woman, Val Thomas, on a podcast today (”Stuff You Should Know“) who died and after 17 hours rigor mortis had set in. And then all of a sudden, after the family says their good-byes, she just wakes up and is fine. So I was hunting around the web today for more information on this “resurrection” and it’s the same sound bytes repeated over and over again from nearly a year ago now. And I’m astounded by the fact that last I heard this woman is still alive somewhere and it’s just not news anymore. Doesn’t that seem like the real story here? We have a bonified resurrection, a miracle, and her story has dropped from the public’s interest.

This morning we were reading the story of Jesus feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. And we’ve all heard the story before and so we’re talking about it like we’ve heard it before, trying to let its significance sink in. It occurs to me that meals today don’t matter like they did then. People get fed in large numbers all the time. We don’t make bread from grain and catch fish we just buy it and more than likely we don’t even prepare it really, we just eat and don’t think about it. And when we do sit down to eat it’s only with just enough time to get the food in our gullets and we’re off again. What’s the big deal? Only someone who is truly rich could feel this way. These five thousand knew that this man’s words were inextricably wound with his miracle provision. He could provide more than food, he could sustain them.

I’m weary of this fast paced world that sucks all the life out of miracles.

work as a calling

Can I view my work as a calling? Let’s see. Well, I started working in Sheet Metal Fabrication back in 1996. At that time I really didn’t think much of it, but I showed up every day and folks put up with me until the end of 2000. Then they invited me back to this missional business this year. I look at this job with new eyes. I try to see the work of my hands sacramentally, loving the Lord with all my heart my soul, my mind, my strength.

See for yourself what I do:

I’d like to demonstrate how I solder endcaps on a 6” galvanized gutter.

I begin by securing the endcap to the end of the gutter with vise grips as shown here.

Next I apply the flux. The active ingredient is hydrochloric acid. I apply the flux just before soldering each side of the endcap. 

I usually heat the soldering irons (three pound) until the flames turn a bluish green color. That’s not a scientific observation. I have to carefully measure the amount of time each iron is in the fire and get to know how hot they are. Marking the ends of the handles helps me remember which iron is hottest. It doesn’t take long for an iron and the solder to cool. For this reason I keep two irons going at a time.

Here is the seam after I’ve soldered it. The lead and tin bar pictured a 50/50 combination follows the flux, melting at a temperature somewhere around 500°F. For this reason I can’t touch the gutter at the seam for awhile after soldering. I tip the gutter toward me in order to solder the bottom tab. 

Next I set the irons beside the pot and set the gutter up on it’s face on a wooden stand especially notched for this position. I put the irons back in the pot, flux the endcap and in a moment solder. This time I use one three pound iron and one 1 pound iron because the 1 pound can fit in the top hem where the three pound cannot. 

I find this seam the most difficult to solder. The solder drips and runs down over the tabs and sometimes does not cover the hole made over the second, or middle tab.

Finally the gutter is set on its back wall on some metal stands we have around for that purpose. 

I flux the seam. Because I’m leaning over the top of this gutter to see it, it is important to move my face away from the seam as I solder it. The fumes are quite toxic. I hold my breath and lean back. 

This part might seem obvious, but the way roof gutters work is that they collect water as it flows downhill and move it toward a downspout that then takes it off the building.  The back flange that you see here is pitched shallow on one end and deep on the other. So on this gutter the water flows from right to left.

The paperwork shows that the drop out belongs 7” on center from the left side of the gutter.

I turn the gutter over mark it, punch and cut the hole and then turn the gutter back over and hammer in the drop out.

Finally I flux and solder in the drop out, mark the gutter, have it checked by QC and shelve it on the rack.

This is a simple explanation of what I do the most of as a sheet metal fabricator. 6” galvanized gutters with 5” dropout are by in large the most popular gutters sold. They sell for $7 a foot. This is not the only job I do. I pull orders, drive a forklift, operate the brakes, the plasma cutter, and whatever else is needed.

I suppose what is most significant about this work is that I do it out of a sense of ecclesial calling. The business where I work supports the church where I live and over the years I’ve developed (along with everyone else) quite a long list of skills  tailored to the particular needs of the community. When I left Bible college I valued academics, teaching, and ministry to the poor as the highest calling. When I joined Jesus People USA in 1996 I learned that community here is about belonging and an openness to doing what is most needed at the time. Over the years this has been many very different tasks like dishwashing, cleaning, cooking, an electrician’s aid, sheet metal fabrication, sales, writing, book publishing, advertising, design, website building and maintenance, teaching, and now back to sheet metal fabrication. I’m learning that one skill is not more important than another, all are needed. I’m learning that my significance does not depend on tasks but on faithfulness: Faithfulness to God first, and a daily willingness to set my complaining, my ego, my bitterness aside and be willing for God to do with me what he will.

 

I notice that when I get used to doing a certain job a certain way for a long time, let’s say building 6” gutters with 5” drops, it’s a real downer when I’ve got to sweep off my bench in order to build a painted steel gutter that involves rivets and caulk. I’m a creature of habit. I love routines and knowing just what to expect. Steady work without surprises is rewarding that way. But I also know that I have a very dangerous job. It’s that one moment where my mind drifts and I’m not watching or thinking that is most dangerous. I could routinely flip that gutter while it’s still hot and get a nasty burn. I could splash some of that flux in my face or walk into a stray piece of metal.

 

I love it that God has given me work with my hands and a team of fellow Christians with whom I share a common mission. That is a luxury many don’t have. In my experience it is after I settle in, say five years later, that I begin to think I’ve got it down and I start to lose interest. I get less engaged, stop pulling my weight, start thinking about other things. What happens is that I start missing the point of work. Work is meant to glorify God. In whatever I do I have to be loving God in it, seeing it with His eyes, prayerfully and cautiously seeking His will in that moment.

How about you? In what ways is every little thing you do over and over “as unto the Lord”? Or how could it be?

Going Audio

I’m now listening to more books by audio than I read on page. I’ve heard the following:
“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair
“Thunderstruck” by Erik Larson
“A Place on Earth” by Wendell Berry
“The Little Flowers of St. Francis” by Brother Ugliono

Every one of these I either got from my local library or I’ve found free online. I don’t at all feel that audio books make text books less important to me. There are serious weaknesses, inflections in the text that would strike me differently were they read instead of heard. Regardless, I’m enjoying it. If anyone else knows of any good stockpiles of audio books in the areas of theology, church history, social history, or quality fiction (literature) please leave me a comment.

Stringfellow on Bonhoeffer, martyrs, and church conscience

The church, anyway, needs no compulsion to gain persecution, in any circumstances at any time in this age, because the power of death, incarnate in the political principalities, as in other ways is truly incorrigible. Death is the aggressor and though the apparitions and forms which the power of death assumes are variegated, that does not imply that death can be quantified. It is no longer the custom to cast Christians into dens of beasts, but that does not mean the persecution has ended. And, whatever else may be attributed to the impress of the Constantinian arrangement, its comity did not abate the hostility which the church, where it is exemplar and advocate of life, endures for the time being in this world.

 

In quite the same vein, too much is made of the witness of particular Christian so that it is regarded as exceptional (rather than exemplary) and so some few are installed as martyrs, as heroic figures, as super-Christians. An instance is found in the lore which has accrued to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I do not hesitate at all to venture that Bonhoeffer would be deeply provoked by the way his witness has been construed as so unusual that it is unedifying to ordinary people of the church, so bold that it excuses inaction rather than inspiring it. . . .

 

The point is, of course, that there are no martyrs at all in the church because of the veracity of the sacrifice of the Word of God in Christ for the world. There is nothing to be added to Christ’s sacrifice. No Christian in witness to Christ’s sacrifice volunteers any sacrifice of his or her own. The whole idea of there being any martyrs for the gospel is an embellishment misleading the church and its members and furnishing pretext to simply cop-out.

 

This whole syndrome in the contemporary church sponsors the notion that, though there may be occasional poets, fools, or super-Christians, with the alleged ending of persecution, all that remains between the church and political authority are some few issues which may prompt intermittent incidents of individual civil disobedience. There are still some Quakers on the scene, plus scattered Anabaptists, but, in general, in the contemporary church, in America and places like America, the questions of obedience and conscience are usually deemed to affect individuals, not the church as an institution and society. And the decisions such persons make are thought to be idiosyncratic and, moreover, arrogant—that is, implicating a claim of superior insight in the will and judgment of God. 

 

William Stringfellow, Conscience & Obedience: The Politics of Romans 13 and Revelation 13 in Light of the Second Coming, Word, 1977, pgs. 99-101.

 

When Jesus Meets Capitalism

Godtube becomes Tangle.com

I wonder whether millions of Christians are feeling the bait and switch of Jesus meets advertisers. Or has World of Warcraft suddenly got saved?

Armed Guards to protect the tithe

While reading about this latest shooting at a Baptist church here in Illinois, I came across a mention of the Christian Security Network. From their website I learned that they are a professional consulting firm with sponsorship from The Counter Terrorist Magazine. When you go to the Christian Security Network’s website you find that they are using each recent violent incident to sell their services. I find this all quite troubling. Sure enough, we Christians share this violent world with everyone else, but since when have our places of worship (regardless of the size) needed privatized Christian armed guards? Normalizing this sort of thing is a slippery slope. Are we saying that this sort of security is now just part of ministry? Protecting the sheep with guns? I can’t help but see in the Christian Security Network the seeds of fear, especially in their link with this magazine. The Bible says that “perfect love casts out all fear.” If instead of spreading a gospel message of resurrection and freedom from fear we are spreading a gospel of institutional power backed by the gun, how can we say we really trust God or believe in the slain Lamb anymore? 

I am praying for the members of this church in Maryville. This was a terribly wicked act. But I also pray that we not succumb to fear and taking our security into our own hands with guns.

i thought i knew a thing or two about community

Here are some random thoughts in no particular order about community.

Wikipedia now has an interesting article on the many splendored word community.

Last year I thought I knew enough about the word to want to write about it and talk about it. I spent a lot of time discussing it. A lot of time writing about my experiences in a number of articles that will never see the light of day. I had plans to publish these in a communal studies journal. I went so far as to begin an editorial process with another writer outside JPUSA and then I went through this period of doubt and scrapped the whole thing. They still sit on my laptop, perhaps one day I’ll dust them off.

I thought I knew a thing or two about community. I would pull out the words “I’ve never not known life in community” like it was a badge of honor, something that made me really different. But lately I’ve come to realize that I’m a human being on planet earth among many others with all the same particular needs and emotions and fears as anyone else. Any historical significance I assign to my story and assume has merit really only has merit to me.

I think at this point that I want to see life among all those who appreciate life right now rather than through some “meaning” rubric. I want to just work with my hands, eat my food, enjoy the presence of my coworkers and my wife and children, and then just leave the rest up to God. I don’t know why my life turned out like this. That whole “sacrifice your life for your pet project: your book, your company, your pet project, whatever” and if you work hard enough you may just win the lotto of the world’s attention is so annoying to me now. It’s God’s will that I be satisfied with the love of my family and closest friends.

I’ll never be the guy people feel drawn to for understanding community. No matter how long I ever live in it I feel like every day is some new beginning. People are so multidimensional. The way we interact is so simple and yet so different. I want to know everyone, be close to everyone, overcome every obstacle, bridge every gap, utilize all energy, solve every problem. But I often can’t just bring myself to say “Hi.”

One true thing—standing on the outside to observe only leaves me detached and full of the kind of wonder that seeks to devour the subject whole.

Intercessory Prayer, that action of willingness and dependence at the same time, is the only gift that makes community possible.