Well, the 2008 Presidential Race officially begins this evening. That means that as a responsible person...I must begin to attempt to learn who these candidates are and inform myself on their stances. If I am honest I would admit that I don't particularly like to vote in our 2 party political system, for I am always feeling as if I am voting for the lesser of two evils.

I am not the only one that feels this way and different people deal with this fact differently. Some choose to tow the party line, and not deal with candidates specific beliefs and convictions, only worrying about whether "their team" wins. I do not have loyalties with either the donkey or the pacaderm, so I don't have a team, and therefore I don't have team loyalties. In fact, I believe that many times both groups are going in the same direction, one is just going faster than the other. So, without allegiance, I attempt to focus on the specific people running for office. It is admittedly harder this way. I have to pay attention to the way politicians have voted, what they have voted for. I have to read their publications, listen to their speeches, giving fair treatment to each, while listening with a discerning ear. In this age of "spin" it is hard to get a grasp of who each person is.

Others deal with our flawed system by not participating at all. Rather than giving their support to a candidate that they "disagree with less" than the other candidates, they just don't give their support. I can understand this, and I have actually done that before. However, as I a follower of Jesus and a believer that through him God is redeeming this world, and wants us to be a part of it, I can not sit on the sidelines. I am compelled to participate, even though I know that my vote is only one, I can make a difference. So, even though the system we have only gives us two real choices, (since no independent has a realistic chance), I participate in this flawed system, with the hope and prayer that my participation can make a difference.

So, I will begin researching, reading, listening, and comparing. I will do some of it here, and would love for others' advice, input, and info. Maybe together we can work out who is the best of the available.

Today is the day that St. Ambrose is remembered within the history of the church. It is the day that is historically remembered for his being consecrated as a bishop. Ambrose was a key figure in the first few hundred years of the church. He is known as one of the Eight Doctors (Teachers) of the undivided church.

Ambrose was a leader brought up by God in a time when leadership was badly needed. There was a controversy in the church between two groups, the Athenasians (who believed that Jesus was divine and human, and a part of the triune God head) and the Arians (who believed that Jesus did not share the God head, but was the first created being). This was and is important when talking about Christian theology, for it is what we do with Jesus that defines our faith as Christian or not. (Christian belief holds that Jesus is divine and human and shares the divine godhead with the Father and the Holy Spirit). If we believe that Jesus was not divine, but only a created being, then we attack the sacrifice he made on the cross, the atonement he offers through his death, and the overall plan of God's redemption. (BTW, an example of present day Arian theology comes from within the Jehovah's Witness camp)

Ambrose stood for Athanasian theology as a bishop, in a time when it was difficult to do so. It was difficult because the emporor Constantius (son of Constantine) was Arian and was doing everything he could to ensure that the Arian theology won the day. Ambrose stood up to Contstantius, even to the point of placing himself in possible physical harm, until the Holy Spirit through Ambrose and others founded the church in the correct way of thinking of Jesus of Nazareth. If you are interested in reading more of the history, click here.

We in the present day church owe Ambrose and those like him, a debt of gratitude for it is because they fought the battles they did, that we stand on orthodox (right thinking) theology today.

We also must learn from Ambrose, for there are battles still to fight. Within postmodernity, the age in which we live now, there is this philosophy that permeates our culture. This philosophy is one of "relativism", or in other words, "there is no truth, but what is true for you". This philosophy is a response to the arrogant age of enlightenment, or modern age, that told us humans that we could know ultimate truth through the use of our own intellect, scientific methods, and hard work. The problem was, the more we studied, the more we found out that the "rabbit hole" went deeper. So, postmodernity (after-modernity) responded by saying to modernity, "there is no way to know truth, so there is no such thing as truth".

This philosophy is seen through out our culture, in the general thought of "each person creates their own truth", so there is no such thing as real truth. We who follow Jesus of Nazareth know that this is not the case. Unfortunately we in the church have responded to this "wrong thinking" in the wrong way. We have many times responded to this postmodern philosophy with weapons from modernity. We try to "prove" the truth of the Bible to postmodern people; laying out our arguments and our logic, which we find not only falls on deaf ears, but many times pushes people away. We pass out our tracts and our research papers, give our reason lined speechs, all with good intentions, but not recieving the respond to truth that we expect. Why is this? How do we fight this battle of offering the truth of Jesus to a postmodern world?

Well, first, I think we must go back to the story of Jesus laid out in the Bible and specifically what, or more correctly, who is truth. Truth is not a set of logical ideas, or a plan of salvation, that we can give to someone to convince them to believe. Truth is a person, Jesus. Jesus called himself, the "way, and the truth, and the life." If we want this age, that is so skeptical of logical proofs, packaged doctrines, and precise theologies, to set aside the idea that there is no real truth, and pick up the truth of Jesus, we must first offer them the person of Jesus, not the defense for him.

Obviously there is much to be said about how we offer the person Jesus, but I am going to let that sit for now and thank God for Ambrose and his example to us to live for and in the truth.

It is advent season again. The time of expectations. The time when we expect, anticipate, and keep our eyes open for the coming of Messiah. Being interested in Biblical history as I am, I have often tried to place myself in the context of a good "God fearing" 1st century Jewish person's context when it came to expecting Messiah. I wonder if I would have seen this man Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. The tendency among those of our time when looking at the Jewish sect in the 1st century is to look with a judging eye, as if to say, "how could they miss it?" However, when we look closer at the context, the prophecies they knew by heart and the present socio-political situation that they lived within, it is hard for me to blame them. They expected Yahweh to work, they just didn't expect it would look like it did.

Of course there are immediate correlations to our own lives. We have ideas and expectations to how our lives will play out. However, anyone who has lived for long finds out quickly that life doesn't always play out as we think it is going to. Not even for Christians. Plans change, dreams submit to reality, and expectations are broken. I wonder if this is the same for our thoughts of God and how he works in our lives?

To be honest, I have been struggling with where I am in my life. I had thought while I was in seminary that I would go to a church and spend twenty years pastoring, preaching, teaching, growing with the community. Well...I have pastored two churches and been a hospice chaplain in the last six years. Not exactly the stability that I had hoped for. I know God is teaching me through this time, and I know there are things I need to learn and ways I need to mature. However, it is still hard to see the hand of God in unmet expectations. Maybe I'm like the Jews that couldn't see Jesus in the face of their misplaced expectations. Thankfully, he didn't give up on His Plan because they had misplaced expectations. That gives me hope as well.

I read an interesting article by the late John Howard Yoder about christian civil-disobedience. Yoder was a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame and the preeminent Mennonite scholar of his day. I came on to Yoder through the work of Stanly Hauerwas.

Anways, the article, which was thick and not an easy read, talked of the different philosophies supporting civil disobedience. Christian Civil disobedience is when a Christian decides to disobey a law of the land because it is in conflict with what he knows God desires. Yoder does a good job of laying out the reasons for civil disobedience. They are: when the governing agent inteferes with God's call of the church; to avoid sinning by following a specific law; to speak against the flow of the governmental system; to respond to the Holy Spirit's work in one's conscience.

I don't want to give an evaluation of the paper, but if you are interested in reading it click here. Instead, I want to mention a few things that this paper stirred up within me.

1. Sometimes I believe we are called to stand against governments of this world, not in violence or by using the weapons of the world, but as a visible representation of the kingdom of God at work in this world. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. comes to mind, with his leading many in non-violent protests against immoral laws.
2. In many ways, we as the church (I must speak of the American church here, since I am only familiar with the American church) have so colluded with human authorities (i.e. government) and the philosophy that pervades from them and about them, that it is hard for us to see where we are to be different and where we are to object. Where does American start and Christian begin? Sometimes I question where our ultimate allegiances lie as Christians in this country. Are we Christian Americans or American Christians? Does patriotism and love of country inpede following Jesus in a way that helps bring in the kingdom to this world?
3. Many times we choose the wrong battles. Over and over agian many Christians stand up against things that seem to miss the point. We hold our banners protesting Gay Marriage, while silently supporting a war that is not only not justified, but based on lies and=]
economic factors. We line up to sign a petition to keep a statue of the ten commandments in the court room foyer, while not even recognizing that people are being killed by the thousands every day in places like Darfur. If you have a theology of spiritual warfare, you will understand that the enemy loves to get Christians distracted on peripheral issues, so as to take the attention off of the areas that will be successful for the Kingdom.
4. We have been strongly influenced by Plato. With out getting too deep here, we as a society are very much influenced by the dualistic Platonic philosophy of the separation of spiritual from physical. Thus we can compartmentalize things into the "spiritual relm" and the "physical relm", helping us to not see the need for one to affect the other. Luther had the "two sword idea". This nees more explanation later.

Any thoughts so far?

I was listening to a lecture today by Dr. Mark Alan Powell as I drove a patient of mine around to do some errands. It is not a usual thing for me to drive patients around, but this was a special situation, and the PT needed help. So as she went in and out of stores picking up items for the home, I sat in my car and listened to a lecture, which is one of my favorite things to do (besides watching Ohio State football of course).

Without going into the whole lecture, let me talk of one point made about the modern protestant understanding of Jesus' presence with the Christian. Powell correctly noticed that it is common within protestant circles to use language something like, "Jesus lives within my heart", when describing the relationship between a believer and Jesus. Powell notes that it is more correct to say, "I am in Jesus", as the apostle Paul said, rather than "Jesus is in me". Of course there are going to be those that quote the verse, "your body is a temple of God", but Powell anticipates this by showing that the context of that verse most definitely shows that Paul was speaking primarily about a congregation of people, not an individual.

The point Powell made was that Christianity has been in many ways influenced by the focus on the individual when the scripture is most undoubtedly focused on the communal. Powell correctly recognizes that within scripture the emphasis is on the plural not the singular. Meaning that to be a Christian is a communal act, opposed to a private individual set of beliefs.

What does the church look like that lives this out?