We have of the universe only formless, fragmentary visions, which we complete by the association of arbitrary ideas, creative of dangerous suggestions.
–Marcel Proust
Monthly Archives: September 2011
The Far-Reaching Ripples of Postmodernism
Every generation has its stereotype- the industrious gentleman of the 1910s, the degenerate flapper of the ‘20s, the family centered husband of the ‘50s, the free love hippies of the ‘60s, and so on. The layman historian naturally embraces such distillations because it makes his job that much easier, and we naturally sympathize with his generalities because it makes for easy conversation pieces. The problem is that these stereotypes skew or at least introduce biases into our perception of what life really was like ‘back then.’ Not everything in the 1920s roared, and not everyone in the Middle Ages was religious.
My Home is God Himself, Hymn
Lyrics adapted from Frances Brook
Music arranged by Henry Thomas Smart
My home is God Himself; Christ brought me there,
And bade me dwell in Him, rejoicing there;
He bore me where no foot but His hath trod,
Within the holiest at home with God.
O holy place! O home divinely fair!
And we, God’s little ones, abiding there.
The Must of Regeneration and the Meaning of Life
Recently I read an article in the NY Times called, “The Meaningfulness of Lives.” The author argues that the meaningfulness of your life consists in whether or not your life tells a compelling narrative. What makes a compelling narrative is subjective and objective value.
quote of the day
Regeneration and Continuing in the Really Life
Our experience of regeneration determines our subsequent experiences of life.
The experience of regeneration initiates something that continues for eternity. Regeneration orients us for the rest of our life and becomes the standard by which we evaluate all other life experiences. When we are awakened to what transpired within us at the time of our salvation, we begin to value “that which is really life.”
Watchman Nee Hymn
Watchman Nee’s hymns are some of the deepest and moving I have ever heard. I wish more believers today enjoyed not just his ministry of the word but also his wealth of hymns.
I recorded this on my iPhone in one sitting without looking at the number of stanzas, so please forgive the fact that I don’t play the whole thing through.
1. Lord, when the Father ne’er was known, / The Father came through Thee below,
That we who lived in ignorance / Might through Thyself the Father know.
Principles in Contextualizing the Gospel
God’s desire that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4) requires that Christians sympathize with God in this desire. God does not act unilaterally to carry out His purpose. Rather, He relies on man’s agreement, consent, and obedience. If Christians respond sooner, then God’s purpose will be accomplished sooner. For this reason, the Bible tells us that we can actually speed up the day of Christ’s return (2 Peter 3:12).
Why God is Spirit- Drink and Flow
All Christians will agree that the Bible reveals God. What has interested me lately is what kind of God?
With a surface reading of the Bible, it seems that God has a drastic mood swing between the Old Testament and the New Testament, bordering on a fundamental change in personality. But the revelation of God in the Bible is consistent, although it’s progressive. The trouble to many people is uncovering what that central thread is which ties it all together.
Why we don’t need to rebrand Christianity or reimagine church
With the ongoing mudslide of many mega churches and the grassroots attempt to rebrand Christianity, many believers are focusing on Biblically external corrective measures for the church.
However, the survival of the Christian faith and believers living a society-impacting church life, historically, has not depended on professional marketing or hip adaptations of Christ’s teachings to make them more relevant. These have hurt more than helped.
God’s word has prevailed during the last 2,000 years because of its essence- spirit (John 6:63). God doesn’t need us to breathe fresh life into a failing institutional system. He wants us to breathe God in as the Spirit through His word. God gives the Spirit without measure.
Ten Years Later
chords that are broken will vibrate once more
On Language, the Bible, and Blog Posts
Although all humans share the creative use of language, it seems that not all of us are using it. Especially in today’s social-media saturated generation, where the ephemeral nature of conversation is touted, the art of writing well or of producing something to be read at length is vanishing. This is most alarming to writers, but also to the rest of us who still want to communicate beyond chat boxes, text messages, or the 140 characters of a tweet.
Hagia Sophia- what religious architecture fails to attain
“Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
-2 Corinthians 4:6
I’ve been commenting here and there on how existential views of man or theological concepts have shaped religious building works. Architecture is very philosophical and theories abound as to why or how we should build and what our built environment says about us. Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Modern all, at their core, are tectonic theories about life.
The Ineffable Lightness of Being
“Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light; who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
-Colossians 1:12-13
Your portion as a Christian is “in the light.”
Gothic architecture may have been founded on similar theological notions, but the religious, creative mind of the day, in its attempt to materialize this truth in concrete terms, stripped it of its full import. Beautiful stained glass windows diffracted light into a kaleidoscopic metaphor of God and a whole new genre of religious art flourished. Medieval man’s experience of this ‘lux nova’ was confined to basking in the colorful glow of physical light. The resultant concept was that man could rise to the contemplation of the divine only through the senses- a physical experience of an immaterial abstraction.
The far reaching ripples of this objective or physical experience of God lap upon the shores of modern Christianity.
Culture in Colossians
“We ought not to suppose that what is divine is like gold or silver or stone, like an engraving of art and thought of man.”
-Acts 17:29
I found these style descriptions on a promo website when the W Hotel in Dallas was under construction. I think they were trying to say that the W appeals to all style dispositions, no matter how your chromosomes are wired. Obviously they have made selective reductions in the style spectrum. Which one are you?
Sonship- an Organic Theology
I wanted to say more about the organic emphasis in what’s termed sonship or adoption. If not in popular theology, at least in the Bible there is a definite emphasis placed on our growth in and experience of God’s life. As amazing as reconciliation is, the Bible itself says that there is something “much more.”
“Much more we will be saved in His life, having been reconciled.” -Romans 5:10
