tagged 
faith, Christian in Life of Faith
faith, Christian in Life of Faith | On Faith and Church |
Saturday
01Nov
One-Sentence Guideline for Christians
Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 10:18AM From Connie Schultz, panelist on last night's Bill Maher show:
I was raised by a born-again Christian who taught us that being a good Christian meant fixing yourself and helping others, not the other way around.
Okay, folks, there's your sermon for today; no need to attend tomorrow.
Seriously -- spend ten minutes, or ten hours, thinking about this sentence and its implications for your own life, and for the life of your faith community. What percent of that life is spent in this sentence, and what percent is spent in its inverse?
Many non-Christians see today's Christian community as promoting two things: "God wants us to get ours" and "God hates everyone not like us, so let's join him in that." Unfortunately, we haven't always done a good job of reversing that perception. We need to do a better job of that -- and of calling out the getters and the haters.
::
More on Connie Schultz at Wikipedia. Here's hoping I can be half that pungent in MY writing.
Friday
31Oct
Irony Is Lost on Some People
Friday, October 31, 2008 at 01:22AM I wrote a big, long introduction to this, trying to find some way to explain it -- but I just can't explain it. Perhaps their good intentions can be their excuse.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/30/145245/63/817/647006
Sunday
20Apr
The Incarnation -- A Fake-Out?
Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 11:18PM We're working through Brian McClaren's book Everything Must Change at church on Sunday nights, and it's been a good study of a challenging book. (There are still some weeks to go -- come join us.) Today's section contained a point that really helped crystalize a thought for me, and challenged me as well. Here's the gist of it.
Sunday
02Mar
Faith Versus Belief
Sunday, March 2, 2008 at 08:33PM I've started re-reading the book Stages of Faith (Amazon link) by Fowler. It's an important book, and I'm sure I'll post some more on it as I work my way through it. For tonight, though, I want to touch on an opening idea: the difference between faith and belief.
Sunday
24Feb
The Question of Utility
Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 08:02PM I've been reading an interesting book (if you're a policy wonk like me) called The Utility of Force. It's by a British general and military historian who explores the changing ability of military force to be useful politically, or as the author puts it, to "have utility."
It got me thinking about the word "utility" and its application to other things. Instead of saying "Is this useful?" you ask "Does this object have utility?" To me the first question is more about the object's usefulness to you, while the second is more about the object's usefulness to anyone. There is also the question of exactly what the utility is -- a hammer has a somewhat limited utility, while a computer has an almost infinite utility, depending on the software available for it.
So, here's the question of this posting: Does a church have utility? And if so, to whom and for what?
