We’re doing well to get the sermons onto the web site. But this isn’t far away for us at OOC. How many people have iPods at the Orchard, anyway?
From NPR:
All Things Considered, August 1, 2005 · A few pioneering houses of worship are spreading the word from the pulpit to the iPod. Members of the congregation can download Sunday’s service and listen to it anytime during the week.
I thought those of us who attended last month’s Movie@Milligan House, Hotel Rwanda,would be interested in this article on Rick Warren‘s (he of The Purpose-Driven Life/Church fame) visit to Rwanda, at the request of President Paul Kagame. The writer, Alan Wolfe, raises some concerns about the trip:
Mr. Warren’s message to the Aspen audience was similar to the one he offered Rwandans at Kigali’s Amahoro Stadium in July: Spiritual emptiness allows evil acts to occur. If only evil were so simple.
Well, is evil that simple or isn’t it? I don’t doubt that the situation is indeed complex. However, I am leery of people who try to complicate simple matters, because if a matter is indeed simple, it’s only harmful to obscure the simple facts. So I read on:
Tackling Africa’s problems inevitably means addressing questions of economics and politics. Is there a Christian position on export diversification, energy subsidies, currency convertibility ratios, agricultural overcultivation or civil-service reform? That Rick Warren is serious about overcoming Rwanda’s poverty is unquestioned. That he and his volunteers have any expertise or interest in economics and politics is unlikely.
Now, I don’t know whether Mr Wolfe is a believer, but it seems his comments betray a certain lack of faith in the power of the gospel. It presents a chicken-egg dilemma: Which comes first, economic and political stability that leads to an openness to faith in Jesus, or is it a Christian understanding of man and the world that leads to a new way of approaching social systems? In the United States and some other Western nations, the evidence points toward the latter. Moreoever, we as believers — even those of us who take a wholly practical and pragmatic view of the world’s problems — should, it seems to me, have hope in the power of the Holy Spirit to change people’s lives. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to do?
2 Corinthians 5:16-18 (NIV)
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…
In worship Sunday, Ron alluded to the outrage and anger that people have about the hurricane-relief response, and I’ve since talked with a few other Christians who’ve had a similar reaction. But it begs the question: Outrage and anger at whom? Ron didn’t specify, but presumably he was referring to the failure of leadership of New Orleans and Lousiana elected officials, and not to the misplaced blame being heaped on President Bush, like some cheap political opportunists (read: NY Times, CBS, CNN, and the other alphabet networks) have.
Since the confusion over whom is to blame can lead people to drastically different conclusions, and Ron didn’t clarify something to the effect that “Christians in good conscience can honestly disagree with each other on this issue,” one presumes that there is a singular right response on whom to blame. Thus, I would’ve appreciated it if this would’ve been made clear.
For some good insight into what led to the rescue problems, here are some good articles:
And the outrage icing on the cake: Mayor Nagin is now offering five-day vacations to Las Vegas for New Orleans’s overworked police officers.
As Christians we are to stand up and speak out for justice. In this case, it means speaking out against intrenched corruption and deceit in government, as evidenced by the manifold failures and chicanery of New Orleans and Lousiana government. It also means defending those who are wrongfully accused, like President Bush. It starts with knowing the facts of the matter instead of merely rolling along with the cultural tidal wave of indictment.
Oh, and in slightly related news: Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson publishing house, gets reamed for donating 100,000 Bibles to the relief effort.
Finally, some PCA-related links:
I received an email from erstwhile OOCer Erin Layton pointing out a mention of PCA church planter Mike Kytka in the latest entry of the Riverfront Times series “You are here.”
The series appears to be brief conversations with random people at area bars and clubs on moral questions, and runs the gamut of worldviews. But, since it grants a “place at the table” for seemingly any worldview, it duly includes a Christian perspective, provided twice now by Kytka. Here’s a snippet:
“This may come as a shock to you,” he began in response to my question, “but I don’t believe there is any reason to be moral or good if God doesn’t exist. If there is no lawgiver, we should party, live for pleasure and work for goals without any reference to moral or spiritual guidance.”
It’s worth checking out — as much to read Kytka’s POV as to learn about the broken reality of the world we live in.
For those of you coming to tonight’s Movie@Milligan House (and for those of you who aren’t), here are a few resources for additional reading:
Ok here is an idea.
Over the years, I have always thought that there needs to be a new confession of faith. In particular, one that spoke to the modern situation. This is not to say that current confessions like Westminster are inadequate, they are not. It is to say, that there is always room to reword, reorganize, rethink things afresh.
But maybe this time around things could be accomplished in a different manner. Enter www.oldorchardconfession.org (no, no website yet exists). A wiki that is set up offer collaborative accomplishment of the task. Instead of hundreds of pastors crowding church halls, what about mutiple lay people from around the world, all with some level of access to the wiki? Or maybe just from our own midwestern region? A regional confession could definitely be of value.
Such confession would provide the answers of Christianity to modern questions. Plus, using the wiki format it is not a document that has to be finished “now”. It could take years (decades?) to complete, and that would be ok. And maybe it would address more than the usual topics. Maybe it would address marriage, children, family, work, play, etc.
I realize it is a proposal that would take a lot of work. In particular, a lot of organization at first.
Maybe confession is the wrong word for what I propose. Anyway, it is just a thought.
Who’s interested?
I can see the personal ads being overcome with headlines such as this. Why not? If you live in Canada, the advantages to being “married” should make it a slam dunk. Get married to whomever (man, woman, gay, straight), and then when you find that special person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life (or at least a couple of years) , get an annulment and marry him/her. It’s brilliant! No more filing “single” on your income tax returns, no more checking the “Miss” box on the application. Now you can be married, with all the benefits that brings, but without the waiting for the perfect mate to come along. I say all we single folk band (wedding band, that is) together and make this happen right here in the U.S.A.
The Opinion Journal’s bookshelf column today spotlights theologian David Bentley Hart’s “The Doors of the Sea,” a book that is, as the review says, “a rhetorically powerful and conceptually dense restatement of what Christianity has to say, over the centuries, about the suffering and death produced by nature itself–that is, by events outside human agency.” According to the review:
From a Christian point of view, Mr. Hart notes, such events are quite easy to explain, if difficult to accept. They are dramatic instances of the fact that the world is profoundly out of joint, damaged in deep ways by the fall of Adam and Eve and the rebellion of man. This fall, brought about by the exercise of human freedom, has altered the very physical order of the cosmos so that what God had intended to be a world of harmony and peace, free from suffering and death, is now a world running red with blood.
Anyone have it or read it?
Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane
Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane
I’ve seen the whole world six times over
Sea of Japan to the Cliffs of Dover
Oh
I’ve seen the whole world six times over
Sea of Japan to the Cliffs of Dover
Oh
Overkill
Overview
Over my dead body
Over me
Over you
Over everybody
This song, Too Much Information, by the Police, was written 24 years ago. What could Mr. Sting now say with the revolution of the Internet and the rise of the Infoglutarian? The lyrics should probably be sung at the speed of an old 78rpm record if not faster.
Like it or not, most of us who write or read blogs are infoglutarians. We “eat” information on a regular basis and our appetites are insatiable.
There is a lot to say about the Infoglutarian. We can talk about the accelerating growth of information over the last two hundred years. We can talk about the burn out professional bloggers, TV anchors, and radio personalities have faced. Many have succumbed to info depression. Some have left their respective fields all together because they could not “keep up” with the daily information stress. We can talk about how to practically handle, aggregate, dispense, and consume information.
There is so much here, that a book could be written. Speaking of books, does anyone know if Dr. Winter’s book on boredom makes a connection between the information glut and personal boredom? Anyone know of other books that address this topic?
What does the future hold for the Infoglutarian? I recently read an article about the participatory Panopticon. In brief, with the emergence of mobile camera phones and imminent emergence of such cameras in glasses or embedded in our skin, everything can and will be recorded. I’m overwhelemed thinking about the idea.
Your thoughts? And does anyone want to help write a book? 🙂
Off the coast of Dubai, a new development is being started. 300 mini-islands arranged in the shape of the seven continents.
I just made a posting faux pas. I forgot the source which pointed me to this link.
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