The succession of . . . → Read More: Michael Lewis please see St. Paul….]]>

Michael Lewis is best know for Moneyball, but his is one of the best financial writers around. His secret is that he can take the numbers and tell a story. He can translate from financial Joe to average Joe. This is his latest article on the California or State financial crisis.

The succession of financial bubbles, and the amassing of personal and public debt, Whybrow views as simply an expression of the lizard-brained way of life. A color-coded map of American personal indebtedness could be laid on top of the Centers for Disease Control’s color-coded map that illustrates the fantastic rise in rates of obesity across the United States since 1985 without disturbing the general pattern. The boom in trading activity in individual stock portfolios; the spread of legalized gambling; the rise of drug and alcohol addiction—it is all of a piece. Everywhere you turn you see Americans sacrifice their long-term interests for short-term rewards.

Michael Lewis doesn’t tread into final causes of such things, but I might suggest reading St. Paul, Romans 1:21-24:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts

Read the article, that is a big storm coming…

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

Being a Protestant and being a Lutheran Protestant basically means I’m a follower of Christ with Pauline eyes. Most Lutheran ministers would probably point at Romans as there “go to” text. When I collapse back to basics, I go to Ephesians. (I know, all you higher critics laughing about the . . . → Read More: What you find in a run on sentence…]]>

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Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

Being a Protestant and being a Lutheran Protestant basically means I’m a follower of Christ with Pauline eyes. Most Lutheran ministers would probably point at Romans as there “go to” text. When I collapse back to basics, I go to Ephesians. (I know, all you higher critics laughing about the pseudo-Pauline Pauline. And you friends laughing about when did he ever get past the basics or who let him out of confirmation class.)

Paul is logical, but really that is secondary. Paul is primarily a mystic. Those great chapters in Romans 7 – 11 are similar, but I think we often let the logic roll over the mystic. Paul tells us we have all the spiritual blessings in heaven, and he tells us what those are: 1) standing spotless and 2) adoption into God’s family. But then we press for surety of this, because let’s be blunt, right now we don’t see our spotless garment nor does any government recognize our adoption certificate. And Paul’s surety – we have the spirit. Logically, its a circular argument. Its a mystical argument. In baptism you have the Spirit. God has promised. God keeps his promises.

Also Paul wonders into predestination like those Roman’s chapters, but the predestination here to me is clearer. We are predestined in Christ. We receive our eternal status because we are joined to the eternal one. And this is because all things are moving toward unity in Him. We are being conformed to the likeness of Christ. You don’t get more mystical than that.

And that causes trouble with the logical world. You either get it, or you don’t. It also causes all kinds of trouble in the church. Because we are all being conformed at different rates and paces and on different paths. Just when the church wants to say this is the path, the Spirit seems to blow in a different way. Mystics and dogmatics don’t get along well. Dogma is often the worn path of the mystic. To be a Pauline Christian, to be a Lutheran, is to maintain that tension between the dogmatic better way and the Spirit led path. All the time resting secure in our adoption. Knowing that God’s grace has us covered with all the spiritual gifts of heaven that matter – primarily forgiveness for those “Spirit paths” that are actually detours.

I love this fight, because I think it is an example of things we divide over, but the Biblical view is don’t. Here is the short-hand. If you have ever been part of Protestantism not of the Lutheran variety you . . . → Read More: Calvinist/Arminian, Orthodox/Pietist, Paul meet James]]>

Scott McKnight continues to follow “The New Calvinism” backed up by a Barna group survey.

I love this fight, because I think it is an example of things we divide over, but the Biblical view is don’t. Here is the short-hand. If you have ever been part of Protestantism not of the Lutheran variety you were probably in a group that is “Reformed”. The reformed have two theological camps: Calvinists who roughly emphasize the sovereignty of God neatly expressed in TULIP and Arminians who emphasize man’s free-will response to God’s grace. (Ok, there is probably a third camp that just says roughly we don’t care about those things, just give us the Spirit and tongues.) Lutherans have roughly the same divide between the high theology of what became known as Lutheran Orthodoxy and the pietists represented by the Moravians, a guy by the name of Spener and I’d go so far as to claim a certain Wesley who “felt a strange warming in his heart” coming away from Aldersgate Moravian meeting. This argument goes all the way back to Paul and James. If you are willing to read the complete Paul and not just selectively – its Paul vs. Paul.

What we are talking about here is theology. These are ways to understand our experience. If you were not a believer, and then one day you heard someone talk about Jesus and “felt a warming in your heart”, said the famous Jesus prayer and changed your life around (ex-President Bush’s alcoholism experience is a great example) – your subjective experience feels like Pietist/Arminian. If you are more intellectual, were baptized as an infant, and have always been part of the church – your subjective experience feels like Calvin/Orthodox. The Calvinists and the Orthodox have all this intellectual firepower. It all makes sense, but it leaves large numbers of people feeling cold. The Arminian/Pietists have all the feelings and the best convert stories and struggles, yet there are times when the feeling leaves before the need and nagging little doubts.

Go read Acts 15 and you’ll read about the first theological encounter and how it worked out. Paul and James agreed to disagree. Why could they do that? They were both following Jesus Christ to the best of their ability. Why does Barna find protestant pastors roughly evenly split? My guess…because as a pastor you’ve got a primary way of thinking, but we aren’t following a theology. We are following Jesus. I may think there are all kinds of problems with thinking as an Arminian, but they have the better songs. Being able to live together in one church – doing what Paul and James did – is important. Orthodox keep everything from being a syrupy mess. Pietists keep the church open to wonder – that we don’t have God in a box. Both are important.

Paul makes complete sense, and then he doesn’t. In some ways it is easy to understand Peter when he said of Paul in 2 Peter 3:15-16 – “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand…”

The daily readings have been taking us through 2 Corinthians, and I’ve ignored them here . . . → Read More: 2nd Corinthians, Visions and Thorns]]>

Text: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Paul makes complete sense, and then he doesn’t. In some ways it is easy to understand Peter when he said of Paul in 2 Peter 3:15-16 – “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand…”

The daily readings have been taking us through 2 Corinthians, and I’ve ignored them here by and large. The overwhelming sense of 2nd Corinthians to me has been of unease and unsaid recognition. (The Eastern District convention took its theme from 2 Cor, and we as a church have read it from the lectern this year, but it is still difficult.) Paul took these people to the woodshed in 1 Corinthians, and I wonder if that experience colored their entire communication from that time on. They (or some of them) question Paul’s authority. Paul defends it, but with a desperate mood – like he knows they won’t listen. As a parent you know that when you pull the “because I said so” card out, the child is probably not listening. You’ve lost the argument and now you are hoping against hope that the child still has a healthy fear of you as their parent. And so Paul says – “I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions…” Paul is pulling the becuase I said so card. I’ve seen the surpassing glory of heaven.

But he backs down from there. Instead he points at his troubles. “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamaties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.” The authority of a Christian comes not from the glory first, but the glory after the cross. When our lives and our witness take a cruciform shape, then we are strong. The authority of the World will not brook insult. It owns the sword and it uses it. The authority of the Word resides not in power, but in weakness. In our weakness, in what the world says shouldn’t be, it is there that God is able to work – because only the power and grace of God could sustain it though the thorns.