Family Influence

So I am a total NPR junkie. One of my favorite shows is "Wait, wait... don't tell me!" but my 2nd is "Fresh Air." Terry Gross hosts a two hour interview show, but it is not one consecutive interview. One hour is devoted to an important world or national or religious or... well, important... issue. The other is usually a fun person or issue. The other day she was interviewing Demetri Martin, one of my favorite stand-up comedians. If you haven't heard him, here is a sample.

In the interview, he was asked about where his comedy came from and the subject ended up on his family. His dad is a Greek Orthodox priest and his mom ran the family diner. I absolutely loved when he was talking about his father. Basically, he equated his father's sermons with a 20 minute performance. But, it was never performing. He said that his dad would get up with a few notes and through his storytelling he would share things that he genuinely believed were true in a humorous yet meaningful way.

He then began to talk about the power of being genuine.

Obviously his family had enormous influence on him. Great interview.

Christianities

Bart Ehrman is the head of the Religious Studies department at the University of North Carolina. In his book Lost Christianities (read my review), he talks about the many different forms early Christianity assumed. Ultimately, he argues, one form (not without its own sub-sects and theological disagreements) emerged as the dominant form. He refers to it as the "proto-orthodox," and rightly states that all forms of Christianity today are its descendants.

I know that many, many protestants would reject this notion. They would claim that they are simply a resurgence of first century Christianity, but their declaration is shot out of the water when they have to answer: which first century Christianity are they manifesting?

Now, while I firmly agree that what became known as the Roman Catholic Church is the common ancestor of all modern forms of Christianity (even those who display many characteristics of earlier heresies), I also maintain that the RCC's contention that they have never changed doctrine is not true (I am NOT calling anyone a liar. I am merely stating that this particular claim is not true and has been promoted by well-meaning but misinformed people, not dishonest, or those who choose to ignore certain evidence).

What was orthodox at one time became heretical in another, and vice-versa. I have come to see that all forms of Christianity today (not the magazine... specifically) have elements that would have been considered heresy in an earlier age... even the RCC.

I was asked about the two most glaring examples of this last night. First, most Christians adhere to a form of gnosticism (the belief that it is special knowledge that brings salvation). If we are saved by grace, and we avail ourselves to that grace through faith (Eph 2:8-9), and the only faith we are capable of having must be given to us from God (Rom 12:3, 1 John 5:4, 2 Peter 1:1) then we require a special, supernatural, not available to all, knowledge to achieve salvation. Plus, the belief that only those who have been specifically empowered by the Holy Spirit can properly interpret scripture is another form of this idea of necessary γνωσις (Greek for knowledge) to be a full Christian. Unfortunately, there are over 2 billion Christians in the world today, each claiming their faith, thus claiming the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, yet biblical interpretation is far from uniform among them.

The second was the early heresy of dualism (Manichaeism... later associated with the supposed Cathars) and its resurgence in modern protestantism. Dualism espouses the belief in two distinct "powers" at work in the world: an ultimate good versus an ultimate evil. Here, good and evil exist in and of themselves. Usually they are personified in God as the supreme good and Satan (or perhaps Osama bin Laden) as the supreme evil, but they are dealt with as if they exist apart from these personifications. Dualism would state that these are equally and opposing forces at work. Now, most Christians would deny that aspect and say that God is more powerful than Satan... good is more powerful than evil. But to assert that these are actual forces at work is to call into question the ultimate good itself. If it is more powerful, why hasn't evil been eradicated? Furthermore, if everything originated from God, how did evil come into existence? Did the entirely benevolent God create evil, and, if so, could God have created a world without evil, and, if so, why didn't He/She? The most glaring illustration of this pervasive, semi-dualistic thinking occurred during the presidential candidate forum at Saddleback. Both candidates were asked if evils exists and what was the proper way to deal with it. Notice the second half of the question already assumes an affirmative to the first part.

How to avoid these? We need to stop claiming a direct line to God. No matter how "sure" we are of our relationship to God and the separation of those we classify as not belonging to our group, we must not assume that communication with God is a dispensation to speak FOR God. God and God alone will do the eternal dividing (I certainly hope there is not one in the line for separation but all are destined for eternity with God and each other). God is the author of all truth and we are simply guessing (I will grant that there is a strong element of educated guessing, but we must never claim to have a divinely revealed truth imparted only to us... what if we're wrong?).

As I've said before, to avoid dualism we MUST stop speaking of evil as a noun! If God is sovereign, completely good, all-loving, all-powerful, then He/She (yes, there appears to be female imagery in the bible for God) would not have created an entity diametrically opposed to God's own nature. Evil is an adjective used to describe actions born from humanity's separation from the ultimate good. In a sense, just like cold does not exist but is the absence of heat, evil is the adjective used to describe people, places, and events that choose to exist outside of relationship with the creator God.

The things to remember about heresy are: that heretics always thought (and still think) they are the orthodox, orthodox beliefs and statements are born through confrontations with heresy, and we are all subject to accusations of heresy in some parts of our theologies. I would go so far as to say there has never been someone (other than Jesus) who was not guilty of holding a heretical belief or engaging in a heretical practice at some point.

Another day, another... well certainly not dollar

So today was the last day of work for my wife. She is officially unemployed. A few months ago, the company she worked for filed bankruptcy, and we were left wondering what was going to happen. They put the company up for auction and basically two different companies began bidding. One, a smaller company in the same field but would benefit from the structure her company had to offer and the significant client base they would have gained. If this company won, they might have even offered her a job.

The second company is the largest company in this field in the world. Pretty much, everyone knew they were bidding in order to quash their competition.

Guess who won.

My wife was the marketing and promotions manager so she was personally responsible for all of their online advertising, navigation banners, artwork, etc. Within three hours of the closing, the website was shutdown. In three hours they "blow'd up" all of her work for the past year. Luckily we will be moving in 5 or 6 months anyway so she would have been looking for a job then. Plus she gets unemployment benefits whereas she wouldn't have if she had simply quit.

So, she will be home a lot for the next few months, which is nice.

Mercy

I read an article today about a coach getting fired for winning 100-0 in a girls varsity basketball game. I have to say that, after reading the article, I agree with the decision. At first, I didn't know what I thought, but the coach's response is what turned me against him. He was completely unapologetic and didn't see anything wrong with running the score up so high.

This story is a little personal to me. I coached basketball. I even coached girl's basketball. One year, I was the coach of a 7th & 8th grade girls team. The year before we had all 8th graders who were all fairly experienced, so we did pretty well. The following year, those girls all moved up to the freshman team, and my team consisted of all 7th graders, most of whom had never really picked up a basketball. We had three weeks (twice a week) of practice before our first game, and I was teach them how to dribble the ball and shoot. The team we were to play first was one of the better teams in the league, made up of mostly 8th graders, their practices were consisting of strategy, defense, different offensive sets, and the like.

The day of the game was rough. By halftime, their coach realized that we were severely outmatched. The score was 53-0. He had already, by the middle of the second quarter, shifted his team into a 2-3 zone so that there wouldn't be as many steals, but my girls didn't know yet how to change directions while dribbling and they basically dribbled the ball right into the opposing team's hands. In the third quarter, the other coach told his girls to just stand there with their hands up. Still, we would lose the ball and they would take it down for a lay up. The final score was 86-1. Our one point came from a free throw that banked in so hard I thought the girl had thrown the ball baseball style at the backboard.

I did not (and do not) fault the other coach. He tried to lessen the margin of loss by putting in his substitutes, changing his strategy, and even putting restrictions on his players' scoring. But, if a middle school girl has a wide open shot to score, so that her parents can see, I would never begrudge her that. Our girls were a little upset, but I tried to encourage them by pointing out the fact that they had all just begun to play while the other team had been playing together for a while. I promised them that if they worked hard in practice, we would improve.

We never won a game that season. However, our last 5 games of the year went down to the wire. The girls' skills improved to the point where we could implement different offensive and defensive sets. They could finally put the ball in the basket. We had one game that went into double overtime against a team that had previously beat us by 20 points.

Oh, and the team we played first and lost to by 85, we played 2nd to last and lost by 3. Despite the losses, the improvement throughout that year was astounding and it was one of my favorite years coaching.

I thank that coach for having mercy on us in that first game. The score could have been much worse. But I also thank him for the harsh wake up call to the girls on my team that they had a long way to go. It lit a fire under them to really work hard in practice (and out of practice). Some of them went on to be very good players at the high school level. Sometimes we need to get our asses kicked, but the other side doesn't need to be a jerk about it (as it seems this particular coach from the article was).

Cliché?

I know everyone will be posting this today, but it should never become so commonplace that we forget the impact this man actually had.

Decisions

I read a great quote today about how to go about making decisions about the future.

"I always recommend to people that they follow
the Ignatian principle. Regardless of what is sensible,
and regardless of what you think you 'ought' to do,
which of the courses ahead of you makes you feel alive,
makes your heart open wider, makes you feel hopeful
and as if the future is opening up not closing down?
That is the route you should go."

It is this thinking that allowed the Jesuits, despite great opposition even from within their own church, to spread throughout the world.

Now, don't get me wrong. Some of the methods of some Jesuits were appalling. The way some Jesuit missionaries viewed Native Americans was racist and not in line with the values to which I believe God calls us. That being said, they were willing to go where others were unwilling. Many were martyred. The film "The Mission" is a fantastic story about Jesuit missionaries (by the way, I agree with Jeremy Irons' character rather than Robert DeNiro, but I understand DeNiro's thinking).

As Kristy and I think about the future, we are scared, excited, apprehensive, and gun-ho (BTW, this is correct... it is not "gung-ho") all at the same time. Now it is time to practice some of the other principles put forth by Ignatius of Loyola. We must, listen and look for the leading from God. But the fact that our next steps stir so much emotion is a sign that we might be headed in the right direction.

Coming Soon

I will have a new post up on Saturday and should be able to be more consistent once this semester is over. Saturday's post will be about advent, peace, war, and the promises and prophecies about the messiah.