Kneading Bread

“What Have We Done?” as performed by The Northern Conspiracy on Good Friday (April 6th, 2007) at MHC | Shoreline.

This was performed at Mars Hill Church (Seattle) on Good Friday, although a little repetitive it does a good job of looking deep within and admitting honestly the reality of our Christ-following.

Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus. Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less.

Oh my soul, Oh my Savior. Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more.

As the nails went in, I was standing right there.

As you breathed your last, I shook my head and I cried.

Oh my God, what have we done. We have destroyed your son (x2)

Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus. Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less.

Oh my soul, Oh my Savior. Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more.

And the blood ran down, and I was standing right there

And the water poured, I shook my head and I cried.

Oh my God, what have we done. We have destroyed your son (x4)

(repeat v. 1)

Today’s Taste and See article from John Piper addresses the recent Supreme Court ruling on partial birth abortions, it has this (hopefully prophetic, that we are indeed “waking up”) quote:

This use of catch phrases is surely tired. “Right to choose.” “Equal rights for women.” The grandchildren of the sixties are waking up to the vagueness and danger of those phrases. Right to choose what? Anything? All laws that protect children limit the rights of moms (and dads) to choose. You can’t choose to starve them. You can’t choose to lock them in closets for three weeks. You can’t choose to abandon them. You can’t choose to strangle them five minutes after they are born.

Read more (includes an emotionally rough quote from Justice Kennedy)

I stopped posting about what I like to call “chrisitians behaving badly,” but today I must post again (pedophile pastors and swindling sextons get a little old after a while.)

At the American Repertory Theater down in Cambridge a monologue was interrupted by a surreal act of “christian” [cowardice, avarice, malice, spite, bad taste, mass-hysteria], I don’t even know what to say, except I’m sorry. A group of “christians” walked out on a Performance of Mike Daisey’s invincible summer, but did so in a most disturbing fashion.

From Mike’s own blog posting (comments on the ART’s blog):

Last night’s performance of INVINCIBLE SUMMER was disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to physically attack my work by pouring water on and destroying the original of the show outline.

I’m still dealing with all the ramifications, but here’s what it felt like from my end: I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles–they looked like a flock of birds who’d been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment…it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table,  stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.

FYI, there’s some foul language in the clip, if you’re so inclined to avoid that, please do.

Thanks to BoingBoing

For when outsiders hear the sayings of God from our mouths they are astonished at their beauty and greatness. Then when they discover that our actions do not match our words, they turn from astonishment to blasphemy, saying that our faith is some kind of myth and error. For, on the one hand, they hear from us that God has said, “It is no great accomplishment for you to love those who love you; it is great if you love your enemies and those who hate you.” And when they hear these things they are astonished by their extraordinary goodness. But when they see that we fail to love not only those who hate us, but even those who love us, they ridicule us and the name is blasphemed.

Second Clement 13:3-24

note: The letter known as second Clement is overwhelmingly considered to not have been written by Clement of Rome and was more than likely a simple homiletic exhortation to an Egyptian Christian community sometime in the second century. It contains a strong emphasis on works, coupled with mysticism of the flesh that could indicate the presence of teachings that would eventually be associated with gnostic movements later,in the second and third centuries.

Any postings from outside of scripture do not mean that I endorse the reading of these materials as supplemental to scripture, in this case they are informative of early Christian thought (would one want to think of what would happen if Joel Osteen’s books were the only surviving Christian material from our era?)

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More than just a non-sensical title – a vase made by bees and designed by an artist*, how cool!

Bees are so industrious when they are at the job. Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny introduces With a Little Help of the Bees in Milan. It is a vase built by bees. we quote Dezeen: “Libertiny made a vase-shaped hive that the bees then colonised, building a hexagon comb around it. The wax sheets used to make the hive were embossed with a honeycomb pattern to help the bees on their way. Libertiny calls the process “slow prototyping” – it took 40,000 bees a week to make the vase. Since the bees get aggressive when they are interrupted, Libertiny had to guess when it was time to remove the vase.” (Thanks to treehugger)

*talk about collaboration

This lovely title page from “A treatyise of the iustificacyon by faith only, otherwise called the parable of the wyked Mammon.” Was posted over at The Conventicle – I have a softspot for this… old books and theology! This is just beautiful…

This is from yesterday’s game (final 7-2, Sox).
He should be grateful, in Philly they’d have thrown something a whole lot harder.

The single most impacting individual on my (young) theological mind passed away last night, I had hoped to meet him in person, but I will have to wait.

From Lee Irons (via ref21):

Today I learned that my favorite seminary professor passed away peacefully last night after a long illness. He taught me much about the covenantal and typological structure of the Scriptures. Most of all I will miss his sweet joy and his childlike trust in the inheritance-earning merit of Christ. It is wonderful to know that his longing to imbibe the glory of God in the New Jerusalem is already beginning to be satisfied. Though now asleep in Jesus, he will rise in the parousia-day of Christ, changed into his indoxated likeness.