All tagged pain
To help you read your Bible better I explore three major genres: narrative, poetry, and discourse. Along the way we'll think through how God communicates and why each grouping is unique. I also consider the Catholic social teachings of solidarity and subsidiarity and why they are superior to current political configurations. Come laugh and think with me!
Pulling down statues? Fairly easy. Totally erasing the past? Now that's a more difficult task. But that's precisely what we are witnessing across America. How can we discern what is going on? What "poker tells" are at hand that let us know the deeper agenda at work? And why does so much of what we are witnessing have a cult-like quality to it? What is a Christian response to the unrest?
We've been mandated to swallow a societal vaccine. What are some of the trade-offs involved? How is the topic of worldview involved? What is some of the collateral damage involved? Might the required vaccine actually be worse than the disease? How so? I tell a joke and sing a song and try to think out loud with you about questions I'm not much hearing in public. Come, think and reason with me.
Why all the public tantrums in western culture? People have been malformed. We have had it so good that we have, for a generation or two, protected one another from the very things we need to help us grow and mature: failure, loss, pain, embarrassment, hierarchy, conflict, and risk. Christian spirituality, because it is an earthy spirituality, a for-this-life way of living, cannot sit by idly and ignore the malformation of our children or society. What can be done?
Low churches do things that end up causing unnecessary problems. Why is that? Life is weird. And? "Sometimes when you win you lose." The Low church lowest common denominator approach of "appeal to the most possible without causing offense" isn't working. People are not hungry for vanilla. Gallup Poll says more people are leaving Church than ever before. In this fifth episode in my series I tell some personal stories and suggest some possible remedies.
We all know Jesus was crucified, but what did a crucifixion symbolize for ancient Romans? What kind of capital punishment did Dracula impose, a method that the Romans believed was not enough? What are some amazing theological truths about Jesus' crucifixion? What does the common biblical hermeneutic do to both our reading of the New Testament and our understanding of Jesus? Come and go deeper with me about Christ's passion!
When I was a teenager I was in an horrific automobile accident. It was awful, injurious, and painful. How did God use it to re-direct my life? What things have I, across 40 years, taken away from that accident? What might those things mean for you?
Per Buddha and Jesus, respectively, what is the central problem confronting humanity? How do each of them perceive reality? What did each of them teach we should do to solve our problems? How alike are they? And, instead of demonizing other religions, why do I respect other religions? And if they were in a UFC fight who would win, Jesus or Buddha?!
Life is both beautiful and interspersed with pain. How should we process the latter? How might Christians process intense pain? Is God causing everything? Does prayer matter? What about mercy ministry to those enduring intense pain? How does gratitude help? What kinds of things should we say and not say to those with intense pain? I worked through these kinds of questions following major back surgery.
