Docklights
This, and the following, are from a night of playing with the camera trying to catch a sunset. More description is with the picture below.
You are currently browsing the archives for July, 2009.
Boo on the Dock
My daughter and I went out to catch a sunset, but there were far too many clouds in the west. Playing around with ambient light I had her pose for me. Then we spent the evening driving around until after 10:00 chasing lightning to no avail. So, we took some more pictures of downtown Green Cove Springs, but now I’m over my limit to upload to flickr for the month. They’ll be online soon, though.
The Bible: Utterly Ridiculous…a response
What follows is a comment I left on www.shauninthecity.com. It’s a blog written by Shaun King, the lead pastor of The Couragous Church in Atlanta. I follow Shaun on twitter and have found his “tweets” to be a bit brash, reactionary and unrefined…I guess that’s why I like his stuff whether I agree with him or not. Please check out his blog and consider following him on twitter; many of us need to be provoked out of our complacency. Shaun delivers.
Here’s a trackback to Shaun’s blog entry that prompted my response. What follows below is my response:
http://www.shauninthecity.com/2009/07/the-bible-is-an-utterly-ridiculous-book.html
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A “bit surprised” at his “fundamental misunderstanding of the Bible?” Really? A “bit surprised?” You didn’t actually expect him to have approached a study of the Bible without bias, did you? Bill Maher is an entertainer not a journalist, historian, scientist or anything else with even a modicum of impartiality. His purpose is to generate revenue for himself, the network, executive producers, production company and sponsors. Understanding that today’s culture responds to controversy, inciting knee-jerk reactions and being offensive then would be “ridiculous” to expect Mr. Maher to be anything except “inciteful” as opposed to “insightful.” Truth and objectivity are not a remote part of his equation.
Having said that, I will agree that Mr. Maher does provide valuable insight into the views those David Kinnaman describes as “outsiders” in his book “unChristian.” I value Mr. Maher’s opinion and am often discouraged at his accurate impression of modern American Christianity.
As for the use of the word “ridiculous”, I have to agree that, yes, the Bible is utterly ridiculous. Scripture says so itself in I Cor. 1:25. God’s love for us is absolutely “laughable, utterly absurd, etc.” And the love we have for even those that ridicule us should be absolutely ridiculous, beyond explanation to the point of confounding them.
Servant Partners
One of the challenges of featuring Love Insurgents is finding organizations that are also faith communities. There are many charities that have impact on people’s lives, earthly lives that is. There’s nothing wrong with that and, in fact, it’s mostly right. But, the point of Insurgent Love is to have eternal impact.
I once heard Joni Erikson Tada talk about one day being like a thousand years, the well known scripture verse. She spoke of it in terms of doing one kindness today to someone in need that results in that person receiving eternal life through Jesus. In that one moment that day has become one thousand years, even an eternity, for that person. Love Insurgents recognize that the point of their love and charity is for the recipient to ultimately accept the ultimate Love.
That describes “Servant Partners.” Here’s an excerpt from their webpage, “‘Go and make disciples of all nations.’ We emphasize not simply gaining conversions or church-goers, but rather forming faith communities of disciples who are growing in maturity and obedience to Christ Jesus.
Servant Partners‘ purpose is to “…seek Jesus together by living and serving among the world’s urban poor.” Servant Partner interns live, serve and love in urban centers that equip them to be life long Love Insurgents.
I’ll let them tell the rest of their story. Check it out at http://www.servantpartners.org