A Permanent Move
April 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Greetings to whoever is still listening to this conversation. This is Joe here, back from a long hiatus, only to say goodbye again.
As you know, the conversation on this blog has been a one-sided one for the last few months, due to my absense. Essentially, I took the time to reevaluate my blogging desires. I believe Larry had more or less done the same even a few months before that.
During this time, we have come to the conclusion that this blog has run its course. It ’s time to break up the band, so to speak. Time to go our separate ways, never to communicate with one another ever again. Ok, you know that is ridiculous because we live right next to each other! What I am really saying is that we are now going to keep our own separate blogs.
Larry can be found at redemptiongroanings.blogspot.com
He has been keeping this site for the last few months now. I am sure you will continue to find much of the same sound insights he has up there now. I will, of course, be a faithful subscriber and reader.
I will be found at JoeCrispin.com
What you will find out here, well, that you never know. For I have essentially chosen to blog in one place only, with whatever topic that comes to mind. I hope it turns out to be enjoyable and encouraging.
I must say to you Lar, that it has been a pleasure to have blogged with you for more or less a year and a half. Before beginning this blog, neither of us were into the blog scene. And now, I believe blogging is a part of our lives. I am certainly learned much through keeping this blog, and I enjoyed doing so with you my good friend. Even if our readership wasn’t huge, the dividends were great. So I give thanks for your efforts and all who joined in.
Of course, there may come a day when we return to this site and join up once again. Maybe even with a few others. I am not sure. But until then, may the Lord grant us the grace to blog well in our separate spheres to His glory!
Checking out for now,
Joe
What makes a person viable?
April 21, 2009 | 1 Comment
What makes a person viable?
In the debate about abortion, many people say that taking the life of this person is no problem, because he/she is not viable (meaning, capable of surviving outside the mother’s womb):
But I don’t know of anyone who would say it’s ok to take the life of this person, who is also not viable:
This is my daughter Halle, and while I love her to death, I was reminded this past weekend how non-viable she really is. Michelle went away for the weekend and I was left home alone with her. It dawned on me that if I chose to leave the house, lock the door and not come back, then Halle would be dead by the time Michelle returned home on Sunday afternoon.
Even at nearly two years old, Halle cannot survive without the care of adults. In that sense, she is not viable. Yet if I really did leave her alone in the house to suffer and die, our society would condemn my actions as cruel, inhumane and unthinkable. Indeed, it would be.
And it is equally cruel, inhumane and unthinkable to take the life of the child in the top picture who is, like Halle, also not viable.
Halle deserves to live, though she is not yet viable. So do the unborn.
Another Reminder to Groan
March 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment
I have a continual need to be reminded that this world is not as it’s supposed to be. Sometimes a photo really is worth more than a thousand words:
Here, some children are recovering their belongings from their flooded home in Caldas, Colombia. Hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes after heavy rains caused the river Mandalay to overflow its banks early Friday in Caldas, northwestern Colombia.
Thank God, one day the entire cosmos will be set free from its bondage to decay, and enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God!
Cold Stone and the Image of God
March 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Cold Stone and the Image of God
A few weeks ago I went to Cold Stone Creamery and saw the image of God on display. Nobody was preaching a sermon or leading a Bible Study, nor was there any earth-shattering event like a bolt of lightning or a burning bush. But for a few minutes I watched one young woman reflecting the image of our Maker before my very own eyes.
When God created the universe, we’re told in Genesis 1:2 that the world was formless and empty. The rest of Genesis 1 explains how God brought order out of the disorder and chaos to fashion a world in which man and woman could flourish. God took the raw materials of creation and, figuratively speaking, got His hands dirty making something of the material world.
Then, after creating Adam in His image, ‘The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it’ (Genesis 2:15). Being made in God’s image means being made to create; not out of nothing, like God did, but by making something of the world which God has given to us. Genesis 1 depicts God bringing order out of chaos, and then He tells the man, ‘Now you do in the Garden what I have done throughout the world.’
To work is to take the raw materials of a particular domain and to draw out its potential, molding those raw materials into something which enables the human society to flourish. Over the centuries, many commentators have taken this charge to work and keep the garden as dealing with more than just agriculture, but the formation of human culture and civil society.
Which brings me back to Cold Stone on that Wednesday night a few weeks ago. The young woman making my cup of Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate chip is bearing the image of our Creator God, whether she knows it or not. What has she done in making me that sundae? She’s taken some raw materials (mint cream, one chocolate brownie, and chocolate chips), she picks up her tools and begins to make something out of those raw materials.
She cultivates them, digging and molding and fashioning them into something more than was there to start with. Mint cream is good, and so is a brownie and chocolate chips. But in molding them together, she’s brought out some of the potential of those raw materials. She’s made a little bit of culture. She is doing in her domain what God had called Adam to do in the Garden of Eden thousands of years before her.
If the girl who ‘dug up’ my dessert happened to be a Christian, then surely she would also want to lovingly share the Gospel with her co-workers and customers, and to work with integrity and faithfulness as a way of adorning the teaching of Christ as her Savior. But even in the simple act of making my delicious dessert, she has reflected the glory of God. Her job is, therefore, full of dignity and value in God’s sight. She should experience joy in the awesome privilege of imaging forth her Maker in the domain He has called her to, whether she had any opportunities to share the Gospel that day or not. For God is a lavish Creator, and He created us to be creators.
I used to go to Cold Stone just to fill my belly; but now I also admire the God who is being reflected in our most ‘ordinary’ acts of making something of His world.
Is anyone else getting hungry?
Love and Free Will
March 20, 2009 | 1 Comment
In Paul Young’s The Shack, the author puts these words in the mouth of Jesus:
“To force my will on you,” Jesus replied, “is exactly what love does not do. Genuine relationships are marked by submission even when your choices are not helpful or healthy.”
This is a common argument among theologians and scholars, who claim that in order for God to genuinely love His created people, He must never impose His will on them but must always preserve their freedom to either embrace or reject His love. But this seems to me untrue, both on the grounds of Scripture (John 6:44 or Romans 9:16, for instance) and common sense.
Imagine you are this child’s parent. You have expressly told him NEVER to go near the street without an adult, but there he is. How do you respond? What does real love and a genuine relationship with your son compel you to do in this moment? Do you say, ‘Well, since love must allow you freedom of will even when your choices are not helpful or healthy, I guess I must let you venture out in front of that car coming to end your life.’
No loving parent would do such a thing. If this were your child, you would impose your will on that child and forcibly remove him from the road, so as to save his life. That is what genuine love does with rebellious children.
I am glad that is how God has loved me. Instead of allowing me to destroy myself for the sake of preserving my autonomy, He sovereignly, decisively moved upon my will and drew me to Himself, opening my eyes to see glory in the face of Jesus Christ, when once He looked foolish and ugly.
O how precious is the sovereign, omnipotent love of Jesus Christ. Without it there would be only everlasting torment and misery.
The Great Enemy of Gospel-Centeredness
March 19, 2009 | 2 Comments
Yesterday, thanks to the wise words of a friend of mine, I was reminded of something I had written last year on the Seeking Him blog. As I have searched my own heart, this seems to me to be such a great danger that it is worth being reminded of again and again. Here’s what I wrote (a year ago yesterday, oddly enough):
Beware of being a Pharisee about the Gospel.
I know these two things appear contradictory, and they are. A Pharisee is by nature not gospel-centered, and truly embracing the Gospel crushes the roots of a Pharisee. Yet I have seen in my own heart the subtle way that a genuine desire to promote the glory of the Gospel can turn into a cold-hearted, arrogant condemnation of those who don’t meet my standards of gospel-centeredness.
When I say beware of being a Pharisee about the Gospel, I mean beware of looking down upon others and casting judgment upon those people who you think are not as gospel-centered as they should be. In reality, none of us are as gospel-centered as we should be. But I’ve sensed in me a tendency toward pride, an attitude that we have now ‘arrived’ because we know the centrality of the gospel for all of life. We hear sermons and grumble that they are not gospel-centered enough. We look down on certain church leaders or authors or small-group members because ‘they just don’t make the gospel central enough.’
The Gospel tells us that there is absolutely nothing we can do to merit the favor of a holy and just God…and even passion for the gospel can be something we use to try to win God’s approval and make ourselves feel superior to others. Nothing is farther from the true spirit of the gospel than to use the gospel to elevate yourself or your knowledge above those of other people.
In the same way that many ‘Calvinists’ turn off other Christians to those doctrines because of their condescending attitude toward those who don’t believe like them, so also can genuine lovers of the gospel distort the gospel by being condescending toward those who aren’t as ‘gospel-centered’ as they think they are. Few things will make the gospel as unattractive as a person who uses it to feel superior to others who they regard as ‘unenlightened’.
So beware of this, brothers and sisters. I have been placing a high emphasis on the centrality of the gospel lately, urging others to make the main thing the main thing. With all my heart, I believe that is right, and should be contended for at all costs. Yet I have seen in my own soul this tendency toward becoming a Pharisee about it. It is ugly, and it is an awful distortion of true gospel-centeredness. It will only hinder the spread of the gospel we so long to see cherished.
For the sake of the gospel, let’s resist it at all costs!
A World without Happy Endings
March 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A World without Happy Endings
Last night Michelle and I watched a movie called The Visitor (a few instances of foul language toward the beginning of the movie, but otherwise no objectionable content). I enjoyed this movie mainly because of how much I did not enjoy the ending of the movie.
The movie is about a college professor in Connecticut who goes to New York for a conference. When he arrives at the apartment that he still owns despite almost never returning to the city, he finds a foreign couple who have been illegally subletting the apartment (You can watch the trailer here). The movie was appealing to me because of its focus on life in the city and racial relations.
Without spoiling the rest of the movie, I would just say that I found the ending very unsatisfying. When the credits began to roll, I thought to myself, ‘That was a lousy movie.’ But in hindsight, I found great value in watching a movie that did not end the way I wanted it to end. It was a reminder that we live in a broken, fallen world, where pain and heartache are the norm.
Happy endings are rare in this world, and I am grateful for how The Visitor reminded me of that. Such reminders whet my appetite for the exceedingly joyful ending that awaits this world because of the redemption that is found in Jesus Christ. Our vapor of a life in this world may be full of unsatisfying endings, but for those whose hope is in Christ, all the groaning is a prelude to glory.
It’s Not Exactly the Empty Tomb, But…
March 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment
It’s Not Exactly the Empty Tomb, But….
I woke up this morning and the main page of espn.com had this picture:
The headline below the photo read:
Hear ‘Em Roar
Penn State beat No. 23 Illinois 64-63 on Thursday night. Was it the win that puts the Nittany Lions into their first Dance since 2001?
This is not exactly as miraculous as the empty tomb, but it is pretty amazing nevertheless. And as I read the report of the game and thought about the Nittany Lions possibly going to the Dance, I had a deep feeling of satisfaction. I was pretty excited when the Phillies won the World Series a few months ago, but this was a much different kind of excitement (not necessarily better, just different).
Since graduating from PSU in 2000, I haven’t followed the hoops team too closely. I always know how they are doing (mostly bad), but today I could only tell you the names of two or three players on the team that won last night. Still, I found satisfaction in watching them get some national recognition last night.
As I thought about this, I was reminded of a definition of community that I came across a few weeks ago as I was preparing a sermon on Acts 2:37-47. ‘A community is a group of individuals who have been bonded into a body through an intense common experience.’
I think that explains the depth of excitement in seeing PSU hoops get a little positive recognition for a change. For five years of my life, I spent 6-7 months of 40 hour weeks working for the Penn State basketball program, in hopes that some day the words ‘Penn State basketball’ might mean something beyond the walls of our locker room. All those hours shared by the young men who came before me and after me (players, coaches, managers, etc.) has knit us together in such a way that I still rejoice in their successes, even though I don’t know most of the people involved anymore. I was (and am) a part of the community that is Penn State basketball.
And this makes me very excited to see the deep bonds that form among the people who I am now working with as we lead and serve the church that I am privileged to work for. Long hours working for a college basketball team can be a somewhat intense experience, but laboring to see a church become all that it can be for the sake of the Gospel of Christ is an experience far more intense. And I am exceedingly grateful to be cultivating a bond with the men I am now working with, a bond that will endure throughout eternity.
When things get difficult at the church (which inevitably happens even in the best churches), I will look back on today’s basketball enthusiasm and hopefully be reminded that all the hard work for Christ’s church will eventually produce a bond of love with those who I’ve worked with that far surpasses what any sporting event can give.
Now let’s hope the Nittany Lions done’t blow it tomorrow afternoon!
I’m Glad My Life Doesn’t Revolve Around the Eagles…
March 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment
If it did, I’d probably be darn near suicidal!
I can’t help but mention the departure of Eagles Safety Brian Dawkins for Denver over the weekend. I was a sophomore in college when Dawkins started wearing Eagles green…that was a long time ago! He plays football the way it’s supposed to be played…a classic Philly player.
But now Dawkins will not finish his career in Philly, where everyone seems to think he belongs. I don’t think the Eagles are solely responsible for this, as almost all Philly fans seem to think right now. Dawkins could have done something incredibly radical for the sake of Christ (Dawkins professes faith in Christ, and from what I’ve been able to find he actually walks the talk, unlike so many athletes): he could have taken a big paycut and turned down the big bucks in Denver. It’s not like the guy is really hurting financially, you know? When it comes to his Christian witness, I wonder if Dawkins now looks like every other athlete, going wherever he can to get the most millions?
Let’s be very clear: Dawkins had no obligation to turn down the big payday in Denver and sign for less money in Philly; he is free in Christ to go to the team that offers him the best financial package. I imagine that being a Christian athlete and signing these extraordinary contracts is very challenging, and I obviously have no idea how Dawkins will spend all that extra money. So please don’t hear me taking shots at Dawkins. He is a great player, by all accounts a great man, and he poured out all he had for the city of Philadelphia for 13 years. He will be greatly missed.
It’s just a shame that in our day sports are first a business, with loyalty (both by players and teams) being far less important than the almighty dollar. Maybe one day, it won’t be that way anymore.
Surely there are some Eagles fans out there reading this; what do you all think of Dawkins’ departure?
Re-Learning God’s Way
March 2, 2009 | 6 Comments
Re-Learning God’s Way
A few weeks ago I shared this quote from Neal Plantinga:
“Thoughtful Christians know that if we obey the Bible’s great commandment to love God with our whole mind, as well as with everything else, then we will study the splendor of God’s creation in the hope of grasping part of the ingenuity and grace that form it. One way to love God is to know and love God’s work.
Learning is therefore a spiritual calling: properly done, it attaches us to God. In addition, the learned person has, so to speak, more to be Christian with. The person who studies chemistry, for example, can enter into God’s enthusiasm for the dynamic possibilities of material reality.”
On the Seeking Him blog, this led to a prolonged discussion of the merits of different forms of educating our children (ie. home-school, public-school, private school.). But the quote is more focused on learning about all subjects (no matter where that learning is done) through a God-centered vision of all things.
So, readers, here is what I want to know from you: if you could go back to school and re-learn a subject given what you now know about God, what subject would it be? Leave a comment and let me know.
My answer is anthropology.
Don’t Forget to Groan
March 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Don’t Forget to Groan
My personal blog is called Redemption Groanings because so many in the world are forced to live like this:
The carpe diem, ‘eat, drink and be merry’ mentality is strong only in places and hearts of people who try to insulate themselves from the way most people in this world have to live.
Disclaimer
March 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment
A Disclaimer
This blog is titled Redemption Groanings: One man’s musings as he waits for the restoration of all things.
This morning at church I was reminded that it’s important for me to make something very clear about what I am trying to do with this blog: What I write on here is, more often than not, simply my own thinking aloud about issues that affect my faith in Christ. Whether I am writing about Miles Davis, Barbie, or the lyrics of a class hymn of the church, I am not aiming to make dogmatic assertions about things, but simply working out different things in my head. I find it helpful to do that in a format that others can read and interact with, because, as we’re told in Proverbs, ‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’ This happened just the other day, when my friend Erin sharpened me to think more carefully about what I had written about Barbie. Her comment caused me to re-phrase some things in a way that I hope was more God-honoring. Such correction is invaluable to me as I think things through.
So when I write about the dangers of Barbie or the presence of jazz on the New Earth or a potential lyric change in a great hymn of the faith, please don’t assume that I have everything figured out and that what I’ve written is the absolute truth as I see it. Redemption Groanings is simply the overflow of my thinking through how to bring my Christian faith to bear on every aspect of life. That thinking is still very much in process, and I am appreciative of those of you who comment, because it helps me to refine my thinking. For I am no expert on the things I write about; I am just one man musing about life under Christ’s lordship.
Thanks for taking the time to read my musings, both the refined and the unrefined.
Where is Home: Heaven or Earth?
February 28, 2009 | 2 Comments
Where is Home: Heaven or Earth?
I had some reservations about reading Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright. Any book that announces in its subtitle that it is ‘Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church’ makes me a bit cautious. Rethinking things this essential often means saying something heretical about them. Not to mention the book has a glowing endorsement from Emergent superstar Rob Bell, and I was really thinking this book could be shady.
But when I read it at the end of last year, I found it to be a worthwhile and engaging read. I did not agree with everything in the book, but it seemed to me that there was a lot more wheat than chaff. So now I am re-reading the book again (since, if you read yesterday’s post, I don’t remember enough of what I read).
One of the points that Wright makes early in the book is that the hymns of the Church sometimes advance a view of the final hope of the Christian’s ultimate destiny that is contrary to the Scriptural account. Among others, he cites the great hymn How Great Thou Art as an example. The final verse reads:
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Wright takes issue specifically with the phrase, ‘When Christ shall come….and take me home…’ This, he says, promotes a significant misunderstanding about what Christ will do at His second coming. As Wright puts it,
“Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life — God’s dimension, if you like. God made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever. And when we come to the picture of the actual end in Revelation 21-22, we find not ransomed souls making their way to a disembodied heaven but rather the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, uniting the two in a lasting embrace.”
This idea does not seem to be captured by the words of How Great Thou Art, which describes Jesus coming and taking His people out of this world to our home, supposedly somewhere up in the sky with Him. It gives the impression that salvation is found in escape from this present world, not the healing and renewal of it. So Wright suggests that a more biblical way to state the last verse would be to say, ‘When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation/and heal this world, what joy shall fill my heart.’
It’s not as if I expect the words to this great hymn to be changed (although the original Swedish version does not talk about Christ coming to take me home), but I like Wright’s suggested change. I think the re-wording makes a statement about our final salvation and the scope of Christ’s redemptive power demonstrated in His death and resurrection that seems largely absent from our singing and our thinking about God’s final goal and purpose for the world.
Thoughts? Is Wright being over-dramatic here? Is this a matter of semantics and not a really big deal? How do these two different pictures affect your thinking of the final hope of Christianity?
Leave a comment and let me know what you’re thinking about this…
Becoming a Better Reader
February 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Becoming a Better Reader
Last year I read 54 books, probably the most I’ve read in any one year of my life. But what I found in reading that much is that I did a pretty lousy job of retaining what I read. As 2009 came and I thought about setting new reading goals, it dawned on me that I felt like I needed to re-read many of the books that most engaged my thinking last year. I was in such a rush to read a book per week, that I have only a fuzzy idea of the content of many of those books.
So, with the help of John Piper, I have devised a way to be more active when I read and hopefully read books in a way that will profit me for a longer period of time. I have read that when Piper reads a book, he makes notes in the front and back blank pages of the book indicating the page number of quotes and thoughts that were significant. In addition, he breaks the page into tenths to indicate where on the page the quote or idea is found.
For instance, I’m currently (re)reading a book called Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (yes, I am aware that he has some questionable beliefs; we can still read authors like that, so long as we use biblical discernment!). On page 18 Wright gives a succinct definition of the Kingdom of God. I thought it was worth noting, so in the front of the book I wrote, ‘Kingdom of God defined, 18.6.’ That means I can find that quote on page 18, around 6/10 of the way down the page.
Also, as I finish a chapter I am writing a sentence or a phrase or two in the front of the book so I know what the main theme or idea of that chapter was. Another book I’m reading is Robert Coleman’s The Master Plan of Evangelism. Inside the front cover I have written, ‘Chap. 1 — Jesus invests in a few, not crowds.’ That will now jog my memory as to the content of that chapter.
Whether you find these particular tips helpful or not, I encourage those of you who love reading to think about some specific ways that you can retain what you have read. Because a book with great content isn’t really worth much if you can’t remember anything that you read six months later.
Barbie and the Spread of Bulimia
February 25, 2009 | 5 Comments
Barbie and the Spread of Bulimia
The latest edition of Newsweek has a story on Barbie turning 50 years old next month. I wish I could celebrate this 50th anniversary as much as I did the anniversary of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. But while Kind of Blue seems to me to be a cultural good of great enduring value, I don’t think I can say the same for Barbie.
In the article, Eliza Gray writes,
“In her half century of existence, Barbie has become something of a Rorschach test for views about modern feminine identity. Either she’s a sunny, self-confident, good-time girl—Doris Day in miniature—or, more commonly, she’s the original bimbo, a relic of postwar paternalism that teaches its young owners to worship at the altar of blond hair, peach skin and formidable cleavage atop a waistline the size of a pinkie ring.”
Count me in with the latter view. Where do the Paris Hilton’s and Britney Spears’ of the world find their origin? I wonder if the answer is in the creation of the Barbie Doll, which has shaped little girls into becoming young women who think they need a certain bra size and waistline in order to be considered ‘beautiful’.
It is interesting that some people criticize the Christian faith because of its’ alleged oppressive attitude toward women. Beliefs like the headship of a husband over the wife and the distinction of church elder being a position only for men are said to reduce the value and dignity of women. But I cannot imagine anything more degrading to the innate value and dignity of a woman than to tell her that unless she has ‘blond hair, peach skin and formidable cleavage atop a waistline the size of a pinkie ring’ she is second-class. Yet I fear that’s exactly what is happening every day in this nation. Millions of girls are learning to regard themselves as worthless, primarily because they do not look like the Barbie doll that American culture tells them they should. That’s oppression, if you ask me.
Is it possible that anorexia and bulimia are so prevalent in our society because of the cultural product known as the Barbie doll? Let me not overstep my bounds too much; I am not wanting to make a blanket condemnation of all parents who have ever bought their little girl a Barbie doll. But as a father of two little girls of my own, I want to take extreme caution and be very sensitive to how my girls view themselves based on the toys they play with. Reading this article reminded me that a seemingly innocent doll can make a big impact on the thinking of little girls.
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