There was a thing that happened on the internet, in DC and in the poorest countries on earth last week.
A lot of people were hurt. A lot of people felt the need to draw line in sand. There are a few dead bodies on mountain tops.
I’m not one of them.
There are two reasons I’m not overwhelmed by this:
This post was written before the tragedy that happened on the night of 3.12. Jesus would definitely be present in such a place of mourning.
300,000 people from around the world have descended on a few miles of my home city for the sprawling series of parties, conferences and concerts known as South by Southwest. For two weeks, our once sleepy hippy town hosts the elite of software, film and, of course, music.
Careers are made or destroyed. Bands set up in alleys. Beer flows like water. A torrential downpour of water. It is the kind of place to see and be seen.
Which begs the question, is there room for Jesus at SXSW?
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
Perhaps we should have titled the Ecclesia National Gathering “The No Pants Gospel.”
Scot McKnight is on a tirade right now, trying to get people to slow down and think through what they mean when they say “Kingdom.” He pointed out two, somewhat generational definitions of the word.
For the “Skinny Jeans” crowd, there is “kingdom work” which more or less means doing social justice (ie – Tom’s Shoes, wells in Africa).
For the Pleated Pants crowd there are “kingdom moments” where something miraculous happens (ie – healings, reconciliation, victory over evil systems)
This can be pretty offensive to people giving their life for their definition of the Kingdom. But Scot has a point. Skinny jeans leave the church for their wells. Pleated pants use the church to manufacture experiences.
McKnight went on to team up with Bill Webb (of Slaves, Women and Homosexuals infamy) to radically reenvision how we read the BIble.
Looking at the “divorce texts” they showed how the gospel writers and Paul each framed Jesus teaching a little differently. They made three points:
In other words, the Bible is a great story, but it makes for a lousy rule book.
Mandy Smith answered the lingering question, “how then do we read the Bible?” Mandy’s answer: “let the Bible read you.”
If the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing bones and marrow, we should treat God’s Word like a surgical tool.
We cannot approach the Bible to justify our personal need to be involved in social justice.
We cannot approach the Bible to justify our personal need for an exciting, life-changing experience.
We must approach the Bible as the Word of God, carrying the authority of God. We must set aside our own agendas and approach it naked of our hopes and dreams.
How do we read the Bible? Only with the expectation that learning to live in the Kingdom where God reigns will hurt.
I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. But this endless arguing about how old the earth is doesn’t make any sense to me.
And like any child of the 90s, I think Bill Nye is great.
I’m an outsider on this conversation. The churches I grew up in had their own unique variety of fundamentalism. While I occasionally overheard the debates about “creation vs. evolution,” I was never indoctrinated to think “we don’t believe in dinosaurs.”
My question is always “how can we live as missionaries in present day America?” The Bill Nye and Ken Ham debate is a great example of how damaging such arguments are to this cause.
It’s hard to take young earth creationists seriously for three reasons:
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