Lest Blood Be Shed

Study highlights global decline

Well, for those with a theology focused on being in/getting to heaven, this really isn't important news. Human beings are killing God's creation. I truly believe that much of the apathy found in confronting this issue is directly a result of an 'end-times focused eschatology.' Why worry about the planet if the kingdom of God is in heaven? Everything done on Earth is ultimately meaningless if our 'reward' is in heaven.

The 'Kin-dom' of God is at hand. It is within all of us and throughout all of us. Our work here in the physical world is as important if not more important than that of heaven or hell. I think it would be better if people didn't even worry about heaven or hell. Our theology would be far more faithful to the imminent nature of God if we stopped emphasizing our ends and worked on the kin-dom of God that is at hand.

I really didn't mean to take a vacation from blogging; it seems to have worked out that way. I get all crazy when spring arrives and want to spend lots of my time outside. Some things I've been thinking about during my excursion into the real world: How has Manachiest fatalism infuenced Christian doctrine throughout the ages?; Should I get rid of my home phone number and replace it with a totally VoIP system using a new Asterisk box I built at school?; How does Galatians 3:27-29 fit into the post-modern critique of modernity, if it does at all?; What is the 'Theology of the Church'?

I'll actually be preaching this coming up Sunday (April 3rd) and I think my topic will in fact be about the theology of the Church. Primarily focusing on the four marks in defining what the Christian Church is; one, holy, catholic and apostolic.

I think I've gone semi-colon crazy!

What a sad day for Indiana. Here is what happened.

03/22/2005 H Third reading: passed; Roll Call 266: Yeas 76, Nays 23
03/22/2005 H Returned to the Senate without amendments
03/22/2005 H Representatives Alderman, Ayres, Becker, Behning, Bischoff, Borror, Bosma, Bright, T. Brown, Buck, Budak, Buell, Cherry, Davis, Dodge, Duncan, Espich, Foley, Friend, Frizzell, Goodin, Gutwein, T. Harris, Heim, Hinkle, Hoffman, Koch, Lehe, Leonard, J. Lutz, McClain, Messer, Murphy, Neese, Noe, Pond, Richardson, Ripley, Robertson, Saunders, J. Smith, Stutzman, Thomas, Thompson, Torr, Ulmer, Walorski, Whetstone, Wolkins, Woodruff and Yount added as cosponsors

On Tuesday March 7th, the true face of hatred in the Indiana "Christian" representatives. The spectacle was that of the right-wing rulers chanting "God hates gays"... We should be reminded by such hatred that was allowed to grow in places like Nazi Germany, Sudan, and many others. It is our call to action from the words from these terrible acts of hatred and oppression: NEVER AGAIN!

The Senate Joint Resolution 7 has passed the Juditiary Committee and will reach the House as soon as this week. I ask anyone who loves justice and righteousness to please email the House representatives of Indiana and tell them to vote 'No!' to this Resolution of marginalization and oppression. Even if you do not live in Indiana! The individual email interfaces can be found here. I have also created a web interface that will email every single house representative with your same comments here. Please fight this resolution of injustice, unrighteousness, fear and scarcity!

You can find my arguments against this Resolution here, here, here, here and here.

There has been a lot of interest in the geek-world about being able to have a complete telco (more than just a PBX) system on hardware that costs less than $80US. In that vein, it seems like Saint Joseph's College is the heart-beat of that movement and my blog which outlines a simplified how-to install the bugger is getting a lot of attention out in the blogosphere. Because of this (and some question I have received) I thought I would put together a more formal and informed "howto" for installing Asterisk on a Linksys WRT GS box (I think it works for the G but I don't have one to test).

This is the wiki entry for Asterisk on OpenWRT.

When most Christians speak about the Christ event and in particular about Jesus, they are often confronted by ancient creedal statements that have a hard time being translated into our "modern" understanding and cultural background. I want to focus on the humanness of Jesus found in these creeds. All of these patristic creeds that have come to use from former ecumenical councils are very quick to (rightly) assert the humanity of Jesus. Jesus is fully human but even more than that Jesus was a revolutionary, radical, disturbing, and loving human being. Jesus in his ministry took the full aspect of his humanity to proclaim the presences of God's grace and love. He spoke to God as abba, "dear daddy," to his followers as a servant and proclaimed God's grace not only to the "righteous" but the poor, the marginalized and the sinners of all time. Jesus is indeed fully human and he is a new humanity. "The intimacy of his relation with God and his solidarity with sinners and the oppressed are new and offensive. He is the human being radically free for God's coming reign and therefore radically free for communion with and service to the neighbor."

The humanity in Jesus is the humanity of God. It is a humanity grounded in God's grace and is in fact the point of the creedal affirmations and what we find contained within the biblical witness. He was "conceived by the Holy Spirit" and "born of the Virgin Mary." "Thus when Christians call Jesus fully human, their claim is not simply that he is a human being but that he is the norm and promise of a new humanity in relation to God and to others."

With this understanding, though, there have been some serious questions raised by feminist theologians. "Can a male be the savior of women, or does the particularity of Jesus' gender preclude him from being a universal savior?" Obviously, one can only come to this question after experiencing the culmination of a long and painful history of oppression that women have bore. "If true humanity is by definition masculine, then women must always be less than fully human."

It is nothing new to say that the assumptions of a patriarchal culture are sprinkled throughout the biblical witness but the message and ministry of Jesus (though not completely immune) challenges patriarchy. There are many ways in which this challenge is manifested but in particular of Jesus claiming God is like a woman (Luke 15:8ff), in Jesus' subversive friendships with women, in Jesus' advocacy of the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized. Jesus was a scandal to patriarchy. Therefore it is a scandal of the Church that many doctrines have been developed to support self-serving understandings of God and give in to oppressive attitudes and relationships with others.

"It is a complete distortion of the humanity of Jesus as depicted in the gospel story to claim that maleness is an ontological necessity of the incarnation of the Word of God, or that because Jesus was male, women should not be ordained to the office of ministry." Jesus could have been a female! Jesus was a female! For, if we look at the theological significance of the humanity of Jesus it was not centered at all on his male gender but rather on the in-breaking of the love and grace of God and more importantly of his "shockingly inclusive love of others." The triune God is seen in Jesus' humanity in the radical expression of self-giving, marginal-affirming, oppressed-supporting and community-forming love.

Quotes taken from the Apostle's Creed, Nicene Creed, and from Faith Seeking Understanding by Daniel L. Migliore

A few people have come to my site recently looking for marriage pictures. This time it wasn't from some crappy search engine like MSN. Being the vain person I am, I did the search myself to look for my site. Well, I found some really heart warming pictures. In the extended section of this article is a picture of a jewish canopy wedding... it makes me well-up (yes, I cry at weddings it is a beautify and holy moment!). I can ask only a few questions when I see these pictures, "What are we protecting ourselves from when we ban marriages? Surely, not anything found in this love?"

This is the entire Indiana Joint Resolution (SJ7/HJ10):
A JOINT RESOLUTION proposing an amendment to Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution concerning marriage.


SOURCE: ; (05)HJ9216.1. --> SECTION 1. The following amendment to the Constitution of the State of Indiana is proposed and agreed to by this, the One Hundred Fourteenth General Assembly of the State of Indiana, and is referred to the next General Assembly for reconsideration and agreement.
SOURCE: CON 1; (05)HJ9216.2. --> SECTION 2. ARTICLE 1 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF INDIANA IS AMENDED BY ADDING A NEW SECTION TO READ AS FOLLOWS: Section 38. (a) Marriage in Indiana consists only of the union of one (1) man and one (1) woman.
(b) Neither this Constitution nor any other Indiana law may be construed to confer marital status or any legal incidents of marriage upon unmarried couples or groups


That's it. It is so small yet it causes wars and hatred in and among communities. "It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Such a little thing..." Indeed it is a strange fate but I have faith that Goodness will prevail and the evil power of the one ring of patriarchy and hegemony will be destroyed.

Enjoy the wedding photos!