given the blog-eruption between eugene and the slog, i thought i’d jump on the bandwagon and share some thoughts- some of which may ostracize me from my ‘evangelical counterparts’- but hey, i’d love to distance myself from the oppression so many evangelicals have been guilty of perpetuating since… well, ever since evangelicals got their start. but that’s another conversation.
first off, the obvious: “welcoming but not affirming” is just plain contradictory, especially when we’re talking about sexual identity. i do understand the intent behind this “doctrinal stance,” but it doesn’t take a genius of hermeneutical gymnastics to recognize it won’t fly in reality. certainly less than no one feels welcomed when their sexual identity is not affirmed. (more…)
chris and i hosted our monthly neighborhood gathering this past saturday and had a great time of catching up with neighbors, meeting new ones, and just generally discussing random topics from politics and religion to technology and bad haircuts. one of the surprisingly random things that came up was the interesting concentration of theological education in the room, given the fairly random distribution (or so we thought) of people. considering that seattle is the most secular city in the nation (thank god), either our neighborhood is an anomaly, or there’s something about rainier vista that attracts seminary graduates? it’s probably (i hope) the former. (more…)
so i’m a couple days late on the 25th anniversary, but other bloggers’ reflections like garrett’s and wayne’s have prompted my memories of detroit… i was just in pre-school when vincent chin was brutally murdered in the hate crime that galvanized the APIA movement, but i do vaguely remember my parents being pretty upset about it. we had already moved to north carolina, but my parents were born and raised in detroit, where i was also born. my dad graduated from a michigan school and worked at ford motor for some time. it’s strange for me to think that what happened to vincent chin could have just as easily happened to my dad- being mistaken for a “jap” and bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat for “taking american jobs.” (more…)
leah, master of quest’s global presence initiatives, passed this link on to me. interestingly, i was amused to see that canada and texas have roughly the same GDP- a similarity that reminded me of a bad joke about canada’s honorary status as the 51st state. i think it was (not surprisingly) told to me by an american while i was at regent. “what do canada and texas have in common?” he said. “they both think that they’re their own country”… yeah. speaking of texas, that reminds me of another conversation i was told about by a korean friend who was visiting texas for work. (more…)
in a culture obsessed with the mcdonaldization and santa clausification (as used by cornel west) of seemingly everything, it’s no surprise that the church often becomes an efficient franchise of distribution centers vending out sugarcoated religious goods and services to the masses. so is the emerging church just the newest trend in this long line of repackaged and remarketed developments, or is there some real substance to the candles, goatees, indie-rock, tattoos, and pseudo-philosophical language? the answer is, of course, yes. (more…)
Rotating bodies, confusion of sound
Negative imagery, holding us down
Social delusion, clearly constructed
Human condition, morals corrupted
Trapped in reaction, lawlessness, war
Dissatisfaction from bowels to core
Devil’s technology, strategy for
Human mythologies, urban folklore
Sick of psychology, counterfeit cure
Wicked theology, robbing the poor
Scheme demonology mislead the pure
Strictly strategically studying war
Light shown in darkness, image exposed
Few can see through the new emperor’s clothes
i came across this phrase that someone searched to find my blog- “deliver me from my complacency” and it felt like an honest prayer. it also reminded me of this quote from J. Andrew Kirk in this obscure book, writing about Liberation theology in the urban priority areas of England:
One of the major weaknesses of the current academic approach to theology is a failure to deal critically enough with its own assumptions. In particular, the methods, agenda, and purpose of theology have all remained largely unquestioned by the community of professionals, as if there was as tacit agreement that the price of admittance to the guild of scholars was a commitment not to break ranks…it has not faced the challenge that the context in which it is done, a context which abstracts intellectual work from the whole of life and the theoretical from the practical, actually distorts the task. (more…)
