…Links for Your Linking Pleasure 34…

Halloween: Yes or No?
One person argues that the Puritanical fear of the occult and the general evangelical hatred towards the Roman Catholic Church is what originally created the fear of Halloween. Perhaps, he argues, we have come to believe our own propaganda?

A Theology of the Land
tallskinnykiwi talks about and quotes Christian farmers who are doing what they can to bring justice and equality to what Paul called “the whole created order.”

Pray for Glenn Beck
He surely needs it.

New Smashing Pumpkins album to be Free
If you love Smashing Pumpkins, you’d better read this.

The Jesus we Never Knew
:

Third Street Freedom Rally

Being that I’m working part time at night and desperately trying to sub (somewhat unsuccessfully), I’ve been using the time to record songs I’ve written over the years. You can listen to them at last.fm here.   I wrote this a while ago, you can take it for what you will…

The Third Street Freedom Rally Parade happens today
Marching with rifles and pistols
Down along the way
Carrying the second amendment
With them to their graves
American flags wave like
beauty pageant stars

Oh, but down the way another rally meets
Yelling explevities and down with the state
Singing old Lennon songs,
just give peace a chance
Their so young and in love
With the sunset and the shades of the moon

Then the rallies met with cold words exchanged
Partisan politics always was the game
Stop yelling just listen to the river
Stop talking listen to the sound of it all

But me, I’m somewhere in the middle
But me, I just can’t understand
I’m just a poet with a heavy heart
I’m just a man, what can I do?
What can I do?

When everyone stopped yelling all around
I told in my dreams to, oh,
Just sit down
Maybe if you were just to listen
you’d be calm
Stop yelling, and looking for a way
to be right.

See that tear streaming down your cheek
Just keep crying
It’s probably what you need
Better look for roses on the
other side of spring
Scattered six feet above where you are.

But me, I’m can’t just the words
To say exactly how it hurts
The pain, another life that’s lost
The shame, but I still don’t know for
what it’s for
I don’t know what it’s for, for, for

The third street freedom rally
parade happens today
Marching with rifles and pistols
down along the way
Carrying the second amendment
like hawks to their graves
American flags burn
Like the setting of the sun
tonight.

…Links for you Linking pleasure 29…

Before I get into some new music I am listening to, I found this article on the mp3 generation quite interesting (hat tip: Jason)

New Music that I’ve been listening to:

The Tallest man in the World is a singer-songwriter from Sweden with a certain Dylanesque qualities.  His music hooked me instantly.  I love the lyrics particularly in this song (“The Gardener”):

Horse Feathers is another singer-songwriter that is worth listening to, check him out:

Julie Clawson talks about confession as she heard it first hand at Mars Hill.  Rather than simply being about confessing your sins and feeling badly about it, she makes the point that:

“…for example, when we participate in systems that support injustices in the world we are disrupting Shalom. I would never go so far as to say that buying a banana grown by oppressed workers and with dangerous polluting pesticides is a sin in the traditional understanding of the word, but it is a failure to love and a disruption of the way things ought to be. So we can confess that we have participated in the wrong order of things, failed to support God’s Shalom, and then choose to return (repent) to the order of love and stewardship that God desires. It’s not about acts of individual sin, it’s about an orientation of love.”

I think this is important because repentance is about more than feeling about, it is a turn that we make in our lives.

Todd talks about being sub-contextual.

Money Lenders Inside the Temple

There’s money-lenders inside the temple
That circus tiger’s gonna break my heart
Something so wild turned into paper
If you love me, then that’s your fault
There’s money-enders inside the temple
This crystal city’s gonna fall apart
When all their power turns into vapor
If I miss you, well that’s my fault
-Conor Oberst, Lenders in the Temple

After recently reading Mark’s thoughts on Jesus Loves me and Wes’ thoughts on the Withering Fig Tree,  I decided I needed to write a theologically laden thought.

The thought begins on many long walks or in silent shadows when I think about the fairness of God.  I think of Saul stripped of his kingdom because he wouldn’t follow some very tall orders from Samuel.  Can Saul really be blamed that Samuel was late in getting to a meeting?  Can Saul really be blamed for the extreme pressure put on the leader of a country to make a decision in the heat of the moment?  I read the story which Wes so eloquently spoke on in his post:

“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it… In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’” Mark 11:12-14 & 20-21

I again come back to the basic question: Why would he expect a fig when it was not the season for figs?  Why does he expect the impossible?  Why does he utterly destroy it when what he wanted was a miracle?

Why does he expect so much out of season?

How can he?

Apparently Jesus doesn’t expect ordinary.

He expects a commitment of life in and out of season.

Apparently he really does take faith seriously

He expects a serious faith in all seasons of life.

This scares me sometimes.

Sometimes it brings me hope.

…follow these links…

There is more talk of Amazon Kindle on the web (thanks to Jim West for pointing me to it).  I think it is important for people to be up to date on issues of the e-paper revolution (see the BBC’s comments here).  Microsoft is no longer in this race to try and compete with google books.  Let me make a few predictions based on this latest information:

1) The richest person will be the one who combines the iPhone with the kindle and can do it at low cost.

2) Google and apple will team up to create an online library that can be accessed through their cellular device.  There will be previews of books and the ability to buy books online.

3) There will be more decentralized books being written and desiminated via cellular devices than ever before.  Writing will become more free-form in nature.  Novels will be writen for niche audiences and complex artistic books will be much cheaper to make and print for visual enjoyment (i.e. comics)

4) Just as news has become individualized, books will also become individualized and the amount of books will increase because of the relative decrease in start-up costs.

In other news….

1) Some are arguing that evolution can inspire faith.

2) Jesus manifesto is dealing with issues of dispensantionalism and eschatology.  Sam argues on there that the dispensationalist view of the second coming holds a paradox: the first time Jesus comes to save the prostitute and the second time he comes to kill them.  He struggles with how to make the two different missions of Jesus come together.  He brings up the point that our end-times eschatology influences of practice of church (for the intellecutal: ecclesiology).  Often a dispensationalist theology, he argues, makes us unconcerned with the present world.  Do you agree?

3) Visit here for up to date news on decisions for Obama’s cabinet.  I personally would like to see Colin Powell in his cabinet. What do others think about this?  Some think John Kerry will be the next secretary of state?  Really?  What do you think?

4) The New York Times writes on the difficulties Obama will face after his inaguration.  What is the main issue that you want to see Obama address in his first one hundred days?

5) FFF argues that education is a socialist regime.  I argued in my letter that Obama should provide more reforms and more resources for schools, but do you think the federal government should just take a step back instead and let states deal with these issues?

6) Brian Walsh argues if Barack Obama can be a post-imperialist president.

Evangelical Political Assessment

There is an interesting conversation going on at Evangelical Political Analysis.

Andrea talks about whether or not pastors are abusing their exemption from taxes.

Justin wonders if Obama is really a socialist.

Andre talks about how another Christian president might not be the answer.

In an especially interesting article, Kelly talks about why she is not totally happy with Shane Claiborne.

Ben Witherington on Rob Bell

I stumbled across a blog written by Dr. Witherington that I thought I might share with my readers.  Witherington first praises Bell as an “engaging dialogue partner” and one who “takes the bible seriously,” but comes back with a fairly hefty criticism that Bell “has not used good enough sources to really help him understand the difference between Judaism prior to the two Jewish wars in the first and second centuries AD, and the later Mishnaic and Talmudic Judaism.”  Witherington reminds him that “Jesus was certainly not a rabbi in the later Mishnaic sense.”  When pressed later on by commenting blogger only known as “Daniel” (not be confused with the author of this blog) as to why his disciples called Jesus “rabbi” if he was not a rabbi, Witherington responded, “The Hebrew and Aramaic words ‘revi/rabbi/rabbouni’ simply mean ‘my great one/master’ or ‘my teacher’ in early Judaism. They do not have the sense of ‘ordained rabbi’ that they come to have centuries later after the time of Jesus. Properly speaking all those passages you list should not have the translation ‘rabbi’ because they are misleading, and convey to a modern audience that Jesus fell into the same category as modern rabbis, which is false. A better translation would be ‘my teacher’ or ‘my master’.”

Witherington is especially critical of Ray Vanderlaan and his Follow the Rabbi site.  Witherington also roundly denounces Bell’s views on homosexuality as “unhelpful.” Commenting on the post, Michael Spencer of the blog internet monk agreed saying: “While I am basically optimistic and supportive regarding the emerging church, I have not been able to extend that optimism to Bell. Zondervan sees some star quality and is overlooking some serious problems. I appreciate Bell’s heart, but posing as an “expert” on the Judaism of Jesus is over Rob’s head. And your critique of his approach to sexual ethics is also on target. I join Rob in much of what he is feeling, but that is a problem with how we love and respect people. It’s NOT a problem with the Bible’s clarity on sexual ethics. It’s Hebrews 13:4.”