The Crowded Handbasket

Internal Tags: Truth, youtube

I thought this was interesting in the light of the discussion about discipleship and leadership:

CHURCH PEOPLE NEED TO GROW UP!! As I have said before (most eloquently I might add)… the church is just a big nipple that people love to suck.

The church is a complete and total paradox. The church says that Christianity is about freedom and then in seeking to set you free it enslaves you. It tells you it wants to make you a “mature disciple and follower of Jesus”, but to do so you have to stop thinking, stop questioning, get in line and be a stupid sheep follower of our version of Jesus.

The church says it offers you the “meat of the scripture” and that anything the world offers you is “milk”. What you don’t realize is that the church is offering you processed meat devoid of any real food value and that the milk of the world might be much more valuable to your overall balance and health.

from Stupid Church People

I find the Olympic games fascinating, particularly those sports I would never watch any other time - yet obviously require a lifetime of effort and dedication.  In most cases, you cannot be anything other than a committed professional if you want to compete at the Olympics.

Recent talk has been about whether government funding of some sports has been worthwhile, given the lack of medals in that discipline - apparently it is only the winning that counts, not the taking part.

It seems that this concept of professionalism and success is pervasive in church.  I am not aware of any church that spends a minority of their income on buildings, materials and staff costs.  Most seem to spend large amounts of money on these things - chasing after Olympic style professionalism.  It seems to me that church should be more like a bunch of friends enjoying an impromptu game together than chasing after a podium position.  Am I wrong?

Internal Tags: olympics

I never thought the issue of Todd Bentley’s affair would result in what looks like an intellectual screen to filter out the spirit of adultery and what it actually is. Jesus was quite clear that adultery is not just a physical relationship, but is something that has its seat in the heart. Sex without thought is the debasing of humanity into a primitive animal state where desires are fulfilled at the bequest of one’s inflamed desire. Jesus’ point was that we cannot just look at this kind of affront to the importance of marriage. His point is that when your covenanted desire that should always be directed towards your spouse is directed towards another, you have violated that covenant and therefore, have committed adultery.

Adultery is not just misguided sexual fulfillment ratified through physical intimacy, it is a breach of the union with your spouse which has its seat in the heart. Jesus interprets the Law in order to reveal to us its spirit. And the spirit of the Law is in the properly directed inclination of the heart which is a much deeper level than what one simply does with one’s body.

I continue to hear that Bentley’s “unhealthy relationship on an emotional level with a female member of his staff” is not adultery. Why? Because it was not, allegedly, physical? This cheapens the notion of adultery and dilutes it in a way that dishonors the spirit of marriage and the spirit of the Law as Jesus would have us follow.

The entire notion of an “emotional relationship” is a new way to describe infidelity (e.g. adultery). It is as if we as a society have given an untenable dualism of body and mind rational traction again. The question is why? It is my contention that we have done so because we know how prevalent it really is that men and others are finding intimate fulfillment in sources other than their spouses or partners. While this is likely not totally novel, it is easier to do with the various means of private communication that are now available. It is because of these various media in which such intimacy can occur unnoticed, that we now have the qualifier of “emotional” in order to make this kind of affair somehow of a lesser degree of offense against a spouse than a sexual relationship with another.

As Blow & Harnett (2005) discuss, “Studies show that participants disapproved of infidelity that involved sexual intercourse, disapproved less of emotional-only infidelity, and were most disapproving of relationships that involved both sexual activity and emotional connection (Glass & Wright, 1985; Thompson, 1984).” Further, in the same article, “For example, for women there generally appears to be a greater emphasis on emotional connection than for men, whereas for men, there generally seems to be a greater emphasis on sexual experience.” What is clear is that emotional infidelity is more often a response to dissatisfaction with the primary relationship than sex-only infidelity, while emotional/sexual infidelity is the clearest indicator of dissatisfaction. Finally as most studies have focused only on emotional/sexual infidelity, more research needs to be done on emotional infidelity as a form of infidelity in and of itself. Nonetheless, it is now accepted that infidelity (e.g. adultery) does take three forms of sexual only, emotional only, and sexual plus emotional.

What is clear is that the psychological damage of such a relationship is as pronounced or more so than a non-emotional, physical affair with a member of the opposite sex - especially for women. The problem with the “emotional only” qualification is that it offers a screen which assumes that the impact of such involvement with a secondary relationship is somehow not “as bad” as other forms of infidelity. It is a justification for the behavior even as the claim of “it was only sex” seeks to justify the impact of the behavior by lessening the blow. But as a means to justify the behavior or not, it is clear that “just emotional” or “just sexual” are two forms that fall under the rubric of what we mean by infidelity.

Thus, the claim that Todd Bentley was somehow not an adulterer takes the bait of the relative justification of the act, rather than hold him accountable for his act of infidelity which is clearly in keeping with Jesus’ interpretation of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount.

Cross-posted @ Notes From Off-Center.

Internal Tags: adultery, christianity, infidelity, Jesus, marriage, Sermon on the Mount, sexuality, Todd Bentley

I just spent a few weeks away with my family and managed to spend almost all the time without thinking of anything particularly Christian.  Hurray for me.  However, one song that kept going around my head having heard it on the car cd player was this by Bob Dylan.

The first verse goes like this:

You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

And I was thinking whether that was true and whether everyone is enslaved to something or someone.  Is the academic enslaved to their studies?  Is the Olympic athlete enslaved to winning in their discipline?  The believer enslaved to their church/belief/thought-process?

And then I was wondering whether it is possible to categorise personal enslavement as good, bad and indifferent.  Or possibly wholesome, destructive and neutral.

And then I was wondering whether there was a simple category of ’serving oneself’ as opposed to ’serving someone else’ and whether serving oneself is necessarily good or whether self service is ultimately always destructive.  If it isn’t, how do you objectively determine whether a certain form of self service is healthy… or not?

Any ideas?

Internal Tags: questions