8/31/13

Jesus: Yesterday Today and Forever

This week I watched an old sermon from Sam Wells when he was at Duke on one of this week's lectionary Bible passages: Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." I wanted to share a great quote, but then I heard another and another. This sermon is just full of brilliantly phrased affirmations of deep truth. So check it out! Below is one of the quotations, and the video of the full service at the majestic Chapel at Methodist-related Duke University.

"We long for unchanging, rooted, things we can trust eternally, forever; but we also need things that change in time, accompanying us at every point. What Hebrews is saying is, Jesus is both of these things. Jesus is eternally trustworthy forever. But Jesus is also a being in time, who meets us in our laughter and joy, because in his resurrection he knew laughter and joy, and meets us in our grief and fear, because in Gethsemane he knew grief and fear. There’s nowhere we can go that Jesus can’t meet us, and nothing we can feel in which Jesus can’t come close to us. To say, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” is to say the Jesus of Galilee, the Jesus to whom I say my prayers, and the Jesus I shall see face to face on the last day, are all the same person, and are a person I can trust like no other being."

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8/26/13

The Plight of Middle-Eastern Christians

Here is a good article (from the British 'Telegraph') about the plight of Christians in the Middle East, following in particular the story of St. George's Anglican Church of Baghdad (the only Anglican church in Iraq).  In previous times ruthless dictator prevented mobs of Muslims or groups like al-Qaeda from targeting churches and Christians (or anyone) with violence.  Then came the social unrest that Western journalists (quite naively) dubbed "the Arab Spring" (the Western intellectuals and journalists that I was listening to on NPR believed they would see an opening up of the Middle East to democracy, freedoms, human rights...basically working from the assumption that every culture in the world must inevitably be progressing toward becoming like us).

Now the "Arab Spring" has turned into an Arab winter, a nightmare with tens of thousands of civilians being  killed in continuous unrest and violence because of the power-vacuum left by the fall of repressive dictators. In the midst of all of this, tiny Christian communities struggle for their very survival as many are targeted by their Muslim neighbors.  As the Telegraph article highlights, with quotes from the well-known Rabbi, Lord Sacks, this crisis amounts to a religious form of "ethnic cleansing" but has not been given the attention it deserves among Western journalists and policy-makers, instead it has gone "almost unremarked" (like the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks?).

I have spoken about the plight of our Middle-Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ from the pulpit (and online) and I believe we all need to be speaking out and praying on behalf of Middle Eastern Christians, while there is still time. 

I am praying not only for their safety and an end to the violence (which will help everyone, not just Christians) but also that believers may make a good witness to the love of Christ in the midst of the chaos: as one of the Easter litanies of our Book of Worship (397) puts it,
"In the peace of the Risen Christ, let us pray to the Lord...that isolated and persecuted churches find fresh strength in the Gospel..."


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8/17/13


How about a little Chess Humor (which has nothing to do with Gloria Deo's usual subject matter) in celebration of the 8th anniversary of this blog!  I remember enjoying checkers as a kid, but as a chess fan, I definitely get this one (those "chess-people" can be a bit snoody, eh?).

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8/10/13

How to be unhappy with church...

This is a must-read for anyone looking for a new church, for anyone unhappy with their church, for anyone in leadership (clergy or lay) of a church.  Basically anyone.

In a style reminiscent of the Screwtape Letters (where all the spiritual advice is in reverse, from a demon's point of view), this piece tells you how to be dissatisfied with your church (so go, and do opposite-wise).  It is kind of funny, but a much-needed word for the church in America.  Read it all here.

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8/5/13

The Fall of Detroit (and more to come?)

A colleague recently shared this with me.  I have heard things are bad in Detroit, but these numbers really bring it into focus.   The really scary thing is, as the article says at the end, that Detroit is by no means alone; our whole country - families, municipalities, states, and of course the Federal Government - has been spending more than we make for years, living above our means.  This practice (like the parallel practice of over-consuming natural resources to serve our Almighty Economy) is unsustainable, and will eventually stop...one way or another.  The only way our society can get its financial health back, is by deliberately accepting a lower standard of living: choosing to spend less, use less energy, save more, and reduce debt so as to live within our means and do without what we cannot truly afford.  This we can begin to do in our families, and begin to demand of our politicians - even if it means (gasp!) a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to right the ship of state.   


If it is objected that such fiscal responsibility (living within our means), if broadly embraced, would be bad for the economy, then I contend that the economy itself as it is currently structured is irrational, broken, and fundamentally contrary to human flourishing, and in need of reform at a fundamental level.

(Caveat: the following information appears to be taken from Newspapers and other presumably reputable sources, so I am trusting it; but we all know that not all "reliable information" is truly that - even when it comes from the most revered of institutions).
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1) At this point, the city of Detroit owes money to more than 100,000 creditors.
2) Detroit is facing $20 billion in debt and unfunded liabilities.  That breaks down to more than $25,000 per resident.
3) Back in 1960, the city of Detroit actually had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation.
4) In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit.  Today, there are less than 27,000.
5) Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.
6) There are lots of houses available for sale in Detroit right now for $500 or less.
7) At this point, there are approximately 78,000 abandoned homes in the city.
8) About one-third of Detroit’s 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.
9) An astounding 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.
10) Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working at this point.
11) If you can believe it, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
12) Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent.
13) The city of Detroit is now very heavily dependent on the tax revenue it pulls in from the casinos in the city.  Right now, Detroit is bringing in about 11 million dollars a month in tax revenue from the casinos.
14) There are 70 “Superfund” hazardous waste sites in Detroit.
15) 40 percent of the street lights do not work.
16) Only about a third of the ambulances are running.
17) Some ambulances in the city of Detroit have been used for so long that they have more than 250,000 miles on them.
18) Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.
19) The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade.
20) When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of 58 minutes to respond.
21) Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.
22) The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average.
23) The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.
24) Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.
25) Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“.

It is easy to point fingers and mock Detroit, but the truth is that the rest of America is going down the exact same path that Detroit has gone down.
Detroit just got there first.
All over this country, there are hundreds of state and local governments that are also on the verge of financial ruin
“Everyone will say, ‘Oh well, it’s Detroit. I thought it was already in bankruptcy,’ ” said Michigan State University economist Eric Scorsone. “But Detroit is not unique. It’s the same in Chicago and New York and San Diego and San Jose. It’s a lot of major cities in this country. They may not be as extreme as Detroit, but a lot of them face the same problems.”
A while back, Meredith Whitney was highly criticized for predicting that there would be a huge wave of municipal defaults in this country.  When it didn’t happen, the critics let her have it mercilessly.
But Meredith Whitney was not wrong.
She was just early.
Detroit is only just the beginning. 
When the next major financial crisis strikes, we are going to see a wave of municipal bankruptcies unlike anything we have ever seen before.

And of course the biggest debt problem of all in this country is the U.S. government.  We are going to pay a great price for piling up nearly 17 trillion dollars of debt and over 200 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities.
All over the nation, our economic infrastructure is being gutted, debt levels are exploding and poverty is spreading.  We are consuming far more wealth than we are producing, and our share of global GDP has been declining dramatically.

We have been living way above our means for so long that we think it is “normal”, but an extremely painful “adjustment” is coming and most Americans are not going to know how to handle it.

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8/1/13

Why do we do that in church...?

Here is a great post on Basic Principles for Liturgical worship from Derek Olson at the Haligweorc blog.  Why do we say and pray (and sing) some of the same things each and every week?  Why do other parts of the service change?  What are we trying to accomplish when we get together on Sunday mornings? 

There is actually a deep logic and reason for the things that we Methodists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and others do each and every Sunday, and this post discusses and explains some of them really well.  The Post examines these basic aspects of liturgy: Adoration; Formation; Repetition; Variation; Continuity; and Stability.

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