Thursday, May 10, 2007
Discussion Themes
This site is made available so that you might ask questions or post comments about the discussion themes that are located on our website sikestondisciples.org.
If you have questions, I will try to answer them or at the very least refer you to someone
who can.
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20 comments:
I have heard that you are going to have a worship service at Kentucky Lake. Is that correct?
Are there places you would recommend for a contemplative retreat? I live in the Paducah area and would only have 3 or 4 days that I could spend on retreat.
To answer the questions posted:
We will have special Pentecost services. If look at the website under Mary's Musings the information there will explain what we will be doing.
Our worship times will remain the same during the summer. 8:30 & 10:30 a.m. on Sundays.
There is a worship service being planned at Kentucky Lake with this Sunday being the first one. It is informal and is mainly directed toward our members who stay at the lake on Sundays. There will be more information on the website as the leaders become more comfortable with the service they are providing.
I have personally stayed at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Louisville. I would highly recommend it. The Scarrett Bennett Center in Nashville I believe also provides retreat opportunities.
I have read that 8 thousand people praying/meditating in earnest can change the world in regards to violence and hostility towards one another. If we don't take this notion serious, why not? If we do, why haven't we changed the world yet?
I do believe that 8,000 or more who are praying/meditating can change the world. There are monasteries and convents of the world's religions who have devoted their entire existence to that very thing. If the standard for judging whether or not the violence in this world has been changed means we are left with Utopia, then by those standards what's the use? For we most definitely are not living in a Utopian world. But I would argue the other way---what would the world be like if there were not those among us who diligently pray and meditate on the world's behalf? Perhaps it is akin to the glass being half empty or half full.
The Disciples of Christ have joined with others as we are called to 10,000 Disciples Praying. While our call to prayer has been for the church, it has morphed into prayers for the world. If you are interested, the website is http://www.disciples.org/10000/main.asp.
Quoting A. W. Pink: Most Christians expect little from God, ask little,and therefore receive little and are content with little.
To be content with that saddens me, but is probably a very good observation.
The utopia you speak of could be just one day of no harm. No bad news to report any where. If people got a taste of that utopia would they be more willing to evolve toward that life or be afraid of the change?
If Christ said that the poor would always be among us, that there would always be false prophets, then I would conclude that there will always be among us those who would find utopia deadly dull. Borrowing from Obi-Wan Kenobe there is a dark force, and it will not be denied. There are plenty among us, just average joes/jills, who find the same ole, same ole deadly dull and will look for something that is more exciting, that will break the monotony. All too often that something has a sharp edge to it. A sharp edge that has consequences either for the person or others around him/her. In a very real sense we cannot control one another (in utopia we wouldn't want to) and so we are left with reality.
Are we so in need of breaking monotony that the lack of violence would create in us a sense of lacking?
Is not loving without reservation or need of a recipricating act just as dangerous? Not physically but emotionally, which is the mechanism that seeks the thrill in the first place.
Loving more, seems to be a better way to put thrill in one's life by standing on the edge of our emotions, ready to fall or fly.
One would not need to resort to violence in order to break the monotony--I am saying that what might seem to one to be the most loving way to live would be for another to be a hell on earth. It is the defense of our different perspectives that we are most often ready to passionately interact with another. The person who obtains their thrill in a physical way and not an emotional one might not have a clue about your perspective on a emotional rush brought about by the challenges of love. While I believe it is true that there is a mental/emotional/spiritual rush when one takes seriously the depths of love that Jesus and Paul calls us to, I am very consciously aware that I am living in a world where there are many, many others who do not hold that same perspective. Who are Machiavellian enough that they would be more than willing to let me have my 'love rush'. What I have to determine is whether or not I believe in the mysterious power of love even when faced with the reality of a violent world. I happen to believe in the depths of love, all the time being fully aware that when confronted with violence against me or someone I love I can never be positive just how I would react.
I have had an ongoing conversation with one of my church members that is very interesting. She has recently read the Da Vinca Code and as with every Christian who has read it was left with many questions. I encouraged her to read some of the Christian author's rebuttal to claims made in the book. (I also read the book in the fall of 2003 and found the book to be very entertaining, completing it in two days. Dan Brown is a gifted author even if he did play fast and loose with some of the facts.)
Anway, this book reading has set her off on a trek that she is finding very rewarding. She is delving into the history of how the Bible was canonized and about the founders of the early church. She has a very inquiring, questioning mind and is somewhat astounded about what she is learning.
I would encourage any comments about the Da Vince Code or early church history that you know. May the blogging begin.
I am interested in this concept of the "sacred feminine." Is that part of any religion? Has it been part of one, or did Dan Brown just make it up for the DaVinci Code?
I also want to comment on Polycarp. He knew the apostle John when he was young. Some of his writings have been preserved, and he quoted the New Testament scriptures extensively in those writings, so the scriptures that we are reading today were also read and referenced by this man who lived so long ago that he knew the apostle John. Polycarp is sort of a bridge between the apostolic age and the church later, as it grew. Polycarp had such a strong faith in Christ that he was burned at the stake in his 80s-90s for his faith. What kind of faith does it take for such an elderly man to die a horrible death for his faith? What can we learn from him?
The sacred feminine is a term that refers to the notion, and history, that there have always been civilizations that value the 'goddess' over the 'god'---the feminine over the masculine. Goddesses have been worshiped, especially 'the mother'. These civilizations are especially found in Europe. It is believed that they were overrun by more aggresive male (patriarchal) civilizations. Goddess worship was then forcibly extinguished. Some believe that since that time, but especially in Christianity, the honoring of females has been subverted by oppressive male domination. Female role models in the Old and New Testament have been neglected and have been left in the background. They stayed there until women became recognized Bible scholars and insisted that the women of the Bible be emphasized. Some want to go even further and have the pedulum swing all the way in the other direction---in essence doing the same thing that the male domination did only to the other extreme. It is in this vein, I believe, that is the overriding impetus to make Mary Magdalene an equal with Christ, a marital partner (DaVince Code). She was vilified over the decades by the Church, there is no doubt; however, there is no need for us to go to the equal extreme in the other direction.
In The DaVinci Code the idea is presented that the scriptures that were canonized were chosen in part to suppress the role of women and to institute the male-dominated church. If our scriptures were written to suppress women, why were there so many strong women? Also, why were women the first to encounter the risen Christ? If this had been written with the suppression of women in mind, the first witnesses to the resurrection would have been male, because in the general culture of that time women weren't regarded as reliable or important enough to be witnesses to such an important event.
Another thing to consider is that if the resurrection story was only made up to try to make Jesus appear divine when he wasn't, all 4 gospel writers would not have unanimously chosen to have women be the first witnesses to his resurrection. A woman was not even allowed to be a witness in court in that society, so if you invented a story like this, would you have chosen to have women discover the empty tomb? The reason the gospels have women discover the empty tomb is simply because that was the truth.
What do you think about the Jesus Seminar? How did these biblical scholars decide to include a gnostic gospel, the Gospel of Thomas? How did they decide that Jesus was not resurrected? What is their agenda?
It has been 9 months since I last visited this blog. Well, that is not entirely true, I visited about 10 days after this question was posted, wrote a reply, and due to an error on my part did not post it correctly.
Then life started happening to me and the blog was not a priority in my life. It took back seat to funerals, college courses taught, my mother’s death, pastoral duties, etc. But once again this question has entered my life. A friend of mine, a congregational member to be exact, called my attention to an article that she had read in our denomination’s magazine. She wanted some clarification. This spurred on my latest investigation.
My seminary days began many years after the Jesus Seminar was formed and several years after Luke Timothy Johnson’s book The Real Jesus (Dr. Johnson’s rebuttal to the Jesus Seminar) was written. I had not read Johnson’s book until this article prompted me to, and only after having asked a colleague of mine who had mentioned the book in several of our conversations.
My seminary professors, unbeknownst to me, taught from the Johnson platform as outlined in his book. And it is to them and to Dr. Johnson that I borrow extensively in answering these questions (with a lot more depth than I would have in July). It is especially poignant and timely since it is during this Eastertide that I now attempt to answer them.
The Gospel of Thomas just doesn’t seem to want to go away. Why would the Jesus Seminar choose this Gnostic gospel in their determining who is/was the historical Jesus? My assumption is that in large part it is due to the fact that Thomas does not have a resurrection story, and the Jesus Seminar reports that the resurrection stories are fabrications. As much as I prided (the worst kind of sin according to C.S. Lewis) myself on my intellect, I learned early in my life that I could not expect that my intellect alone would help me through the real difficulties in life. While it might advance my career, it might impress my children, it might garner me awards, and give me a deeper understanding of the Bible through the different ‘methods’ of analysis, it would never satisfy the longings of my soul. Only a relationship with and faith in Jesus Christ could and would do that. I didn’t need a historical Jesus to do that; I needed a Jesus who is present in my life, alive and substantive.
The Jesus that the Jesus Seminar has reduced the gospels to is not the Jesus that has transformed my life---truly taking the weakest part of me and using that to be bring honor to his name and joy to my life. It seems to me that academia is the end result for them. That on the other hand is not the end result for me.
I will posting and keeping track of this blog from now on. Please feel free to post a comment. I will respond.
I just tonight came back to this blog for the first time in many months also. I am not the person who asked the question about the Jesus Seminar, but I am the one who asked about the magazine article, and your response here is very meaningful to me, and probably the best response that I have seen to this question.
That being said, I am intrigued by the book you mentioned, The Real Jesus, and plan to read that very soon. I have done a lot of reading about early Christianity and the early Church, and it has all been not only interesting but has also strengthened my faith, and this books sounds like it will too.
You can see that once again I have neglected this blog. I will be sending out an email newsletter and will have the blog address on Mary's Musings. I think that I will be able to keep a better eye on it when I do that.
What are your thoughts on the notion that ancient manuscripts found in the Himis Monastery in Tibet, talk of a man called Saint Issa from Israel? The time frame is supposed to parallel the missing years of Jesus's youth. A Russian, Nicholas Notovitch, published notes from this manuscript under the title The Unkown Life of Jesus Christ.
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