business. technology. theology. let’s discuss…
In: Church| Uncategorized
24 May 2009
I’ve gone back and forth over the years on whether or not to call myself a Christian. For awhile there was nothing that made me more proud. “I’m a Christian!” I would proudly declare to anyone within ten feet of me. When you’re young (in your faith) you often don’t know the hurt and pain that word represents for so many people. Depending on who you’re interacting with that term can represent a variety of things: arrogance, bigotry, war mongering, and hate to name a few. It’s definitely a mixed bag and this has led many people to drop the term entirely.
When I was around 18 years old it began to dawn on me that the term “Christian” was really quite unhelpful, “We need a fresh start, we need God to do a new thing and that term is only dragging this new thing down.” I said to myself. In the name of Jesus I renounced the titles Christian and Christianity, and with it most anything I deemed “old-fashioned” about the faith. God was doing a new thing, we were the generation that wouldn’t screw it up like our forefathers had! We called ourselves simply followers of Jesus or Christ followers. Brilliant. A few went even farther with the title followers of the way, citing an obscure reference to early Christians found in the book of Acts. This was the fresh start we needed. However, slowly but surely it began to lose it’s charm.
As more and more people jumped on the followers of Jesus bandwagon it began to look an awful lot like Christianity! There were moments of a stunning beauty and moments of utter evil because, well… humans were involved. Humans are sort of a mixed bag. We love Jesus but then we lie, steal, and cheat. We’ll feed the hungry on Sunday then verbally abuse our co-workers on Monday. We raise our hands in praise on Wednesday then raise our fists to strike our brother on Thursday. We are walking contradictions, hypocrites the lot of us. I began to feel that this whole “followers of Jesus” thing was rooted in the worst kind of pride, it was a pride that distanced itself from weakness and failure, a pride that believed, “I’ll succeed where everyone else has failed”, a pride that said “My church is the true church and my community is one of the few that gets it.” We’re the new elect, the new chosen of God, the new hope of the world.
That’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach, isn’t it?
If it’s true that Jesus was among the failures and outcasts of his society then it seemed us followers of Jesus didn’t really have a place at the table for Jesus.
All this to say I’m back under the label Christian. Yes it still sucks having all the baggage of the term, but I think baggage is part of the human story, my story, and I don’t want to distance myself from that. As St. Augustine said “The church is a whore, but she’s my mother.” Like most things I don’t think it’s the literal term that’s the issue here, at least it wasn’t for me. The issue was my heart and my pride. I’m fine with people using terms other than Christian and Christianity to describe their relationship with God but what I’m not fine with is the in-grouping and out-grouping that happens. It’s almost pharisaaical.
In: Art
11 Mar 2009Eric Lewis blew me away with this rendition of Evanescence’s chart topping song “Going Under.” It’s my understanding that abstract art is more about experiencing the art and artist than “getting it” or “finding the hidden meaning”. Lewis gives us so much more than a song here, he truly gives us an experience.
In: Theology| Uncategorized
5 Mar 2009I spoke at my church New Hope this past Sunday on the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. You can listen to it here. I had a long time to prepare and it was a true pleasure to spend time at the library, coffee shop, and Barnes & Noble researching, reading, writing, thinking, reflecting, and praying.
I had many sources of inspiration. One of them was a fantastic sermon I heard on the same topic by Rob Bell about two years ago… sadly it’s no longer available through their podcast. Also, the book Jesus The Jewish Theologian by Bradley H. Young, A New Kind of Christian by Brian McClaren, and Bible-History.com also served as wonderful sources of inspiration. I’m so blessed to interact with all these great thinkers and leaders.
In: Funny| Uncategorized
12 Feb 2009
Poor kid. I’ve been to the dentist and I know how he feels. Money quote: “You have four eyes.” Completely awesome.
In: Uncategorized
2 Feb 2009
Extremely interesting and insightful essay by Rev. Anthony Hughes where he discusses “…the differences between the doctrine of Ancestral Sin—as understood in the church of the first two centuries and the present-day Orthodox Church—and the doctrine of Original Sin—developed by Augustine and his heirs in the Western Christian traditions—is explored.”
I’ve read it through twice now and am still chewing on it’s concepts and implications for my own beliefs about God, Jesus, humanity, sin, atonement, and community. I know this article comes from a perspective/ tradition that most of my readers (myself included) don’t often interact with- which is why I thought it may interest us. Honestly it’s articles like this that have endeared me to theologians like Scott McKnight, Tony Jones, and N.T. Wright- much to the chagrin of some of my friends and fellow readers. Not because I agree with everything they write but because they are comfortable interacting with theologians from every ilk and era of Church History.
P.S. Depending on how heavy the commenting gets I may not be able to jump in as vigorously as on our last topic. In fact, just assume that I won’t be commenting at all on this thread… I need a break. Heck, maybe we all do and not a soul will comment
In: Art| Uncategorized
11 Dec 2008I thought this was lovely. Enjoy.
A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.
In: Uncategorized
4 Dec 2008Checked facebook before I headed to bed tonight and received the following message from “Brett Trilford” of New Zealand. Truth is stranger than fiction my friends.
My name is Brett. I love my wife Maggie. We’ve been married since 2004. I’m an entrepreneur. My two businesses are Fuor and Nectar. I love new ideas. That’s why I have this blog. I also love: coffee, reading, endurance racing, singing, ultimate frisbee, and extremely long conversations. And oh yes, Jesus. I love Jesus.