Archives for July, 2006
How to DJ your first set even if you don’t know what you are doing
Disowning Conservative Politics is Costly for Pastor
I guess my wisecrack about people loving the GOP more than Jesus is true in some settings.
The requests came from church members and visitors alike: Would he please announce a rally against gay marriage during services? Would he introduce a politician from the pulpit? Could members set up a table in the lobby promoting their anti-abortion work? Would the church distribute “voters’ guides” that all but endorsed Republican candidates? And with the country at war, please couldn’t the church hang an American flag in the sanctuary?
After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.
“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”
Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.
It isn’t just Republicans mind you, it is the same for those who vote Democrat. While maybe not as militaristic in Canada, it is there. It wasn’t that long ago that churches fell over themselves to host Stockwell Day during his race to lead the Canadian Alliance.
Mr. Boyd said he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the religious right. He refuses to share his party affiliation, or whether he has one, for that reason. He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into “idolatry.”
He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch’s worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing “God Bless America” and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses.
“I thought to myself, ‘What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?’ ” he said in an interview.
Courageous stand by Greg Boyd and one that I hope others learn from. (thanks Don)
Technorati Tags : GOP, Democrats, politics, USA, church, theology
Flu
I made it within ten blocks of work last night when I asked Wendy to pull over and I could toss my cookies on the side of the road. She took me home and I endured a night of fever, freezing, throwing up, and a very extended dream about Star Trek Voyager. Yes, I think I just admitted to now dreaming about Star Trek and no I can’t remember much about it. I have to work tonight and then I get three nights off so maybe I can do this blogging thing when I am feeling better.
Technorati Tags : Star+Trek
Have you checked out the new Netscape?
The new Netscape is no longer a browser but a news portal and is like Digg but on a more massive and wider scale. If you haven’t played around with it, you should. I don’t know if it will compete with Google News but it does have some endearing characteristics.
Technorati Tags : Netscape, news, Google, Digg
Contextless Links
- What happened to Lake Peigneur?
- Lebanese president gives full backing to Hezbollah :: So much for Hugh Segal’s third way.
- Wal-Mart loses $1 billion after a retreat from Germany :: A good lesson on how American cultural practices look really strange in other parts of the world. Context, context, context.
- Strike and Power in the New Middle East :: A New York Times infographic tries to make sense of the conflict. I told you it was complicated.
Another view of Lebanon
David Gushee’s gracious response also, in his “Open Letter to Dr. Martin Accad” that Christianity Today published, gives me the desire to be picked up from the roadside despite my wounds. At the end of this weekend I have more hope, because I have discovered life in a part of the church’s heart that I had thought dead. Thanks, David, and thank you to the new friends I have made.
A third way
Senator Hugh Segal captures a lot of what I have been thinking about in a recent column for the Toronto Star. Below is a portion of the article.
Ever since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and the more recent Oslo accords, Canadian Middle East policy has been based on two core pillars: Israel’s right to exist within secure and defensible borders and the right of the Palestinians to their own state, also within secure borders.
Further, there must be mutual recognition of statehood between the two countries. Terrorist attacks against Israel must cease and Israel must withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory.
Clearly, recent events cry out for a third pillar, one that Canadians would broadly and earnestly support: the real independence of Lebanon.
Lebanon has clearly tilted toward democracy. Lebanon’s decision to send Syrian forces back to Syria — with broad public support among the Lebanese — was a signal to the world of the country’s maturity and determination.
Canadian policy should promote a broad new Lebanese reality in a regional context. Lebanon’s policy choices cannot be made in Damascus, Jerusalem, Washington, Tehran, Paris or Riyadh. Domestic and foreign policies should be decided in Beirut, by governments chosen by the Lebanese. This non-radical proposition will only trouble those who seek to exploit Lebanon Lebanese for their own purposes, at horrific cost to the non-combatant civilian population.
Neither Syria, Israel, Tehran or Hezbollah are innocent on this front. There is little reason for Canada to be naïve on this issue.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his G8 colleagues are right to cite Hezbollah’s incursion into sovereign Israeli territory as the spark for the present crisis. However, Israel’s total response to date may be less measured than a fortnight ago. And it is hard to negotiate a ceasefire with Hezbollah’s leadership for whom only the eradication of Israel constitutes the basis for peace.
But Hezbollah’s attack is as much about keeping Lebanon from political independence as it is about attacking Israel.
An independent Lebanon with international guarantees would have little need for Hezbollah. And the Hamas militants who seized Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit were working as hard to suppress truce proposals that might well have come from the elected Hamas authorities. In both cases, provoking Israel to respond, or perhaps over-respond, was the extremists’ means of shutting down democratic and conciliatory forces in their own societies.
Israel has responded in her own defence. But Israel’s best long-term defence will be a peaceful and economically strong Middle East.
Lebanon is vital to that outcome. Jordan and Egypt have determined that they can coexist with Israel and their Arab brothers and neighbours. Lebanon has the right to make the proper decision for Lebanon on this issue as well as on its relationship with Syria.
Segal’s right. We have to do more than just create a buffer and hope Hezbollah doesn’t get longer range rockets. We need to let Lebanon be Lebanon.
Blowing Mark’s mind
Mark was sick all last night with a bad fever and slept most of today away. Tonight I called him over at his traditional bed time and said, “You can’t go to bed tonight until you have a float!” When I told him that a float was a glass of Coke and chocolate ice cream he yelled out, “Dad, that blows my mind!” He was still tired enough that even after a big glass of Coke and ice cream, he was ready to head back to bed.
There isn’t much point to the story except that after reading Warren Kinsella’s blog the last couple of days that I don’t want to take a day with the family for granted. There is something about working where I do as well that reminds me of how much I take for granted is and that is something that I forget at times.
Can you afford to be poor?
Barbara Ehrenreich asks the question can you afford to be poor? She points out the ghetto tax.
A new study from the Brookings Institute documents the “ghetto tax,” or higher cost of living in low-income urban neighborhoods. It comes at you from every direction, from food prices to auto insurance. A few examples from this study, by Matt Fellowes, that covered 12 American cities:
- Poor people are less likely to have bank accounts, which can be expensive for those with low balances, and so they tend to cash their pay checks at check-cashing businesses, which in the cities surveyed, charged $5 to $50 for a $500 check.
- Nationwide, low-income car buyers, defined as people earning less than $30,000 a year, pay two percentage points more for a car loan than more affluent buyers.
- Low-income drivers pay more for car insurance. In New York, Baltimore and Hartford, they pay an average $400 more a year to insure the exact same car and driver risk than wealthier drivers.
- Poorer people pay an average of one percentage point more in mortgage interest.
- They are more likely to buy their furniture and appliances through pricey rent-to-own businesses. In Wisconsin, the study reports, a $200 rent-to-own TV set can cost $700 with the interest included.
- They are less likely to have access to large supermarkets and hence to rely on the far more expensive, and lower quality offerings, of small grocery and convenience stores.
Update: Chicago is ordering big box stories to increase wages to at least $10/hour.
Technorati Tags : poverty, poor, Chicago, wages
Sleep
Making the move to working nights was really hard. The first week was really hard. At the max I was getting five hours a day of sleep. After that first week I started to sleep in a dark corner of the basement and I am finding that I am averaging 8 to 10 hours of sleep a day, despite the 30+ degree celcius temperatures during the day. For whatever reason I am getting more sleep and feeling more rested than before. The only thing that really wakes me up is Maggi’s walk by lickings. I am just sleeping on some fold out mattresses on the floor and the right (maybe that should be wrong) height for Maggi to show that she is glad I am at home.
The best thing is that I can stay up later (earlier?) now as well. Before Wendy used to pick me up at 8:00 a.m. and I would literally be asleep at 8:10 a.m. Now I can stay up to noon now and still feel rested.
How many Scot McKnights are there?
Network Theory
Not so pro-life
Praying with the Church by Scot McKnight
I bought Scot McKnight’s new book, Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today and have read it through twice while at work and have gotten a lot out of it. Like Scot and others, I come from a tradition that didn’t engage a lot with some of the other prayer traditions of the church. While I have explored them more as I got older, the book has opened my eyes to some of them more and I found the book to be a valuable addition to my spiritual journey.
Why?
One of the characteristics of this blog is that almost NO ONE leaves comments. Mike O is one of the patron saints on this blog because he is one of the few that leaves comments. Part of it is that I never reply to comments. This last week there has been WAY MORE comments left here. I am not sure why but thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.
Technorati Tags : comments, jordoncooper.com
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
- Messy Faith: Daring to Live by Grace by A. J. Gregory October 28, 2008
- Rediscovering Church: The Story and Vision of Willow Creek Community Church by Lynne Hybels October 26, 2008
- The Teeth of the Tiger, A Novel by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell October 26, 2008
- The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy October 26, 2008
-
Search
Recent Photos
