More comedy…

I really liked these comics.  I thought I’d throw another on here for Sunday morning humor.

Comedy…

Seeking something…

This morning I met with a friend of mine for coffee. We discussed a few things, but particularly we were there to discuss me and whats going on with me. I am too worn out emotionally to discuss the details, but basically it involved what he calls life purpose or mission.

I think it is something we have all thought about. What do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to do? Why am I not liking where I am? Etc.

For me, I like several things but cannot narrow them down to a “career path.” Still, when I think about each thing specifically, I wonder if I would be happy (like I think I would be) in it. What I’m doing now certainly isn’t producing happiness or even much personal fulfillment. When I think about other job possibilities I think I would like them. But, I then begin to wonder whether or not once I am in them, if I would still enjoy them as a career. Is it meant to stay a desire or a hobby? I don’t know.

I don’t think that made much sense, but more or less it boils down to this:

I don’t like what I do; I am not sure what I would enjoy doing; I don’t really know what my life purpose is. I can back up and look at it from a broader perspective, and know very generally what it involves, but I am not sure if I am ready to embrace it. And, if I am ready to embrace it, I don’t know how.

I am kind of bummed out about it.

Seeking Life instead of Religion…

A big reason I started this blog was to write my thoughts on what I believe true Christian life really is. I haven’t done much of that frankly because each time I try to write it out, I blank. And, in recent months I haven’t had the frequency of dialogue that I once had regarding the subject matter. But, here I go.

I left undergrad at Texas A&M University thinking that I was going to be a professional minister in a church somewhere – in the states, on the other side of the world; it didn’t matter. I was going to be a great pastor because I was a serious Christian. I had many preconceived notions about what my career would look like; many fantasies about being the next great evangelist or revivalist. But then something happened: the blinders began to come off. I started to realize that much of what I was striving to do was not founded in any kind of leading from God, but rather from the leading of men (myself included) that stirred up some kind of religious pride in me that wanted to see me succeed and people recognize me for it. What does this have to do with anything?

Well, it caused me to take a step off of the path that I was on and look at it from a panoramic view. The blinders miraculously had been taken off and I began to notice things about religious Christianity that before I had never noticed.

Have you ever noticed that on the surface level of Christianity, its structure is no different that any other religion? It’s true. Think about it. Every religion has the same structure: sacred meeting places (whether they be buildings, walls, cities or other geographical sites), incantations to god (prayers – whether recited verbatim or made up on the spot; mutterings, wailings, etc.), worship of a deity, sacred texts, sacred stories that teach about salvation and righteousness, heaven and hell (or something similar to these), and typically some sort of holy man or guru of some sort. In this light Christianity is no different than Islam or Buddhism or Judaism. On the surface, what is different about our religion?

And obviously, as I contemplated this question, I came to the person of Jesus. He is certainly the difference. However, as I thought about the person of Jesus, that got me thinking even more about religion. Jesus was a Jew – an orthodox Jew at that. He wasn’t a Christian. He did nothing that was distinctly Christian in ritual – only that which was Jewish. I found that to be an interesting problem. All my life I have been taught Christianity – in thought and in ethic – as the way of life probably because of the underlying premise that we follow Jesus as our Lord and to do so is to be Christian. However, the disciples followed Jesus as Lord, but to do so for them was to be Jewish – at least in a ritualistic sense. So the problem became for me this: Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian; so why must I be Christian to be “saved?” Good question I think in light of the context.

To be Jewish was the right way, then it changed and now to be Christian is the right way. This became unacceptable for me. The dilemma could not be reconciled. Even with all of the clichéd answers that I have been given and taught to give; I could not reconcile this problem. (Even now, a barrage of those clichés comes to mind, and I am sure if I had a bigger readership, many would be placed in comments right about the time a reader got here.)

So what is the common denominator of my contemplations? Religion. Religion has always existed. It is intrinsic to man’s nature. Religion is nothing more than a mold or molds that man has created. Molds we have to force ourselves into to make sure we are correct or living rightly or orthodox. Molds created by man’s opinion. Man has always been religious, and until the consummation of the age, will continue to be religious. It is his way of becoming like god – becoming right or righteous. It is man’s end, his goal. And molds are the way he realizes it. The problem becomes this, however; we are not made to fit into molds. Molds are binding and crippling. They pen up. They restrict and hinder.

We are made to be free. Loose from all bonds and restraints. Free to run ahead on paths that are barrier free. This is the way of God. This was what was intended. Adam and Eve were created in such a way and you and I are still created that way today. The problem has become that we have taken into our own hands what it means to be like God. That product is a mold (a law, a ritual, a should or should-not).

Jesus said that he came to bring life and that abundantly.  For me, religion has never produced a life giving energy, but rather a life taking energy.  It hurts and it even kills. 

In recent months, my wife and I are doing our best to sort out what this life is.  Many thoughts are being shaped and many preconceptions are being trashed.  God is being very gracious and very kind in giving us this opportunity to sort this all out with him by our side.  It has fostered a new love between him and us, and it is life giving.  So we continue to seek it – knowing that we have not found it completely (maybe never will), but we treasure the journey.

Chapter 4…

Chapter 4: The Mystery of the Trinity

The central question of the fourth century in the development of doctrine was this: “Is the divine that has appeared on earth and reunited man with God identical with the supreme divine, which rules heaven and earth, or is it a demigod?” Jesus was certainly understood already to be divine and human, but this question and the ensuing debate argued whether or not Jesus was indeed the God of the heavens and earth (read: Creator and supreme being – none being greater, all being beneath), or was he a created demigod. Stated differently, did the creator God step out of heaven and become man, while simultaneously maintaining his lordship over all of Creation, losing nothing of his essence in doing so?

This is the “Mystery of the Trinity.”

Church father, Athanasius – bishop of Alexandria, is the brain behind most of the dogma that became catholic regarding this debate.

The heresy of the debate was primarily docetism which taught that Jesus was certainly God but only appeared to be man. Doceo is greek for “to seem.” Therefore, Jesus only seemed to have a real body and to have suffered a real death. The Gnostics championed this claim because they believed that matter itself was evil and that God could not have entered a material (evil) body. This heresy caused Ignatius to insist that Christ “was really born, and ate and drank, was really persecuted by Pontius Pilate, was really crucified and died…really rose from the dead.” This liturgical response “found its echo in Isaiah 63:9 – “not an intercessor, nor and angel, but the Lord himself” – Christ the Lord was Yahweh.”

Another heresy that ensued in this debate was that of modalism. If Jesus was indeed God, how was this accomplished. What was the method or the mode of incarnation. Modalism taught that there was one being and depending on the time in history, this one would manifest himself as either Father, Son, or Spirit. All three being the same with no distinction at all. An easy way to think about it is schizophrenia – multiple personalities. Sabellius (a heretic) used the analogy of the sun to describe his “trinity.” The sun is “conceived as one essence with three energies – the light-giving, the warming, and the astrological.”

Regarding the Spirit, there was little debate about the nature of the Spirit. The church seemed to use the term “Spirit” as the preexistent divine which was in Christ. Rather, this spawned a debate about what exactly the Logos was. More or less, the decision was dependent upon what discipline someone approached the term. Ignatius understood the Logos to be the spoken word, where as Irenaeus believed Logos should be understood as the divine agent of creation. Others understood Logos in a direct philosophical way – cosmologically usually, but also as the Indwelling Reason of the mind.

In the third quarter of the fourth century, the doctrine of the Trinity was hammered out. In many ways it was not a christological discussion, but a pneumatological one (of the Spirit). The church decided that the proper term to make the three one was ousia. Therefore, Christ was homoousios (the same in essence) with the Father. The Spirit of God was what accomplished this. However, the church had a term for the oneness of the three, but what would they use to describe the distinction that existed as well? That word was and still is hypostasis. These two terms are very hard to distinguish between, but Basil ultimately parsed out what it meant to be one ousia and three hypostases. Ousia had the connotation of a very general understanding (non-distinct); hypostasis connoted a specific distinction between the three personalities – Father, Son, and Spirit – yet, still brought an idea of relatedness.

Yet, Basil also commented that “what was common to the Three and what was distinctive among them lay beyond speech and comprehension and therefore beyond either analysis or conceptualization.” There you have it, the same apparent cop-out that we all still use in one form or the other even today. The mystery of the Trinity is beautiful – there is a truth in it that boggles the mind and a beauty in it that causes us to say, “Hallelujah.”