culture is not optional

Quotes :: Feast means joy.

grant — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:05:26 GMT

Author: grant
Subject: Feast means joy.
Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 12:05 am (GMT 0)

"Feast means joy. Yet if there is something that we--the serious, adult and frustrated Christians of the twentieth century--look at with suspicion, it is certainly joy. How can one be joyful when so many people suffer? When so many things are to be done? How can one indulge in festivals and celebrations when people expect from us 'serious' answers to their problems? Consciously or subconsciously Christians have accepted the whole ethos of our joyless and business-minded culture. They believe that the only way to be taken 'seriously' by the 'serious'--that is, by modern man--is to be serious, and, therefore, to reduce to a symbolic 'minimum' what in the past was so tremendously central in the life of the Church--the joy of a feast. The modern world has relegated joy to the category of 'fun' and 'relaxation.' It is justified and permissible on our 'time off''; it is a concession, a compromise. And Christians have come to believe all this, or rather they have ceased to believe that the feast, the joy have something to do precisely with the 'serious problems' of life itself, may even be the Christian answer to them."

Albert Schmemann

Family life :: How Do You Tell Your Kids Who God Is?

grant — Sat, 10 May 2008 23:55:47 GMT

Author: grant
Subject: How Do You Tell Your Kids Who God Is?
Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 11:55 pm (GMT 0)

We're living with a family with two small children right now. A few months ago, the oldest child, who is 3, started complaining about having to pray. She informed everyone that God doesn't say anything back to her and she had a suspicion that God didn't really hear her when she talked to Him. She tried talking much louder, but this kept her younger sister awake at night. I tried telling her that God's voice isn't like our voices. It is often very very quiet, like a whisper. "Maybe it's even like that feeling you have when you're kind to your sister", I suggested. It was the only way I could think to relate my particular experience of God to something in her own limited experience. Having to answer this 3 year old theological dilemma really forced me to consider what is really happening when I'm praying, as well.

This is just one example of the many issues that have come up in the last year. Other issues that have come up for us include talking about God in language that isn't always "male" and trying not to offer easy cliches to slough off good questions. For example:

Q."Where is Jesus?"
A. "Up in the sky."

These kinds of answers can get kind of confusing for kids and adults alike.

So I was wondering what theological issues have come up for *cino parents and how have you dealt with them?

Politics :: RE: Obama's pastor

grant — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:28:33 GMT

Author: grant
Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 11:28 pm (GMT 0)

Check out this editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04rich.html?em&ex=1210046400&en=1ab063165842695f&ei=5087%0A) from the New York Times pointing out that the true dialogue on race in this country has not even begun in politics. I would go further and say that the issue of race is not nearly as large as that of theology. McCain's connection to John Hagee, whose end times views are wrapped up in moralism and literalism, doesn't really cause the same kind of outrage as Wright, who blamed Sept. 11 not on American immorality (homosexuality, abortion etc.) but on American foreign policy. But aren't these both issues of immorality?

Why do many American Christians stop short of carrying the issue of immorality to governmental practices and societal institutions? Now we are seeing the unfortunate results of a theology that reduces Christ's redemption to the saving of an individual from his/her sins. Conservative Republican administrations are exempt as long as the head of that administration is "saved". African-American Christians know the societal implications of sin. They know firsthand from the slave experience that "good Christian men" are capable of doing very unChristian things when they are caught up in an unChristian system (economic, political etc.).