A spectacular time was had by over 33 people at MAC Youth Camping Trip in Spruce Woods this past weekend. The youth were incredible and everyone had a great time!!!! My wife and family came along and fit right in. Too much happened to put into words. The story of our amazing time is below in pics (which can be seen at http://poet.spaces.live.com).

 

Day 1: As part of my role on the board of the pregnancy care centre I am attending the C Quadrupled Conference in Toronto (CCCC – Canadian Council of Christian Charities). While here I have the opportunity to glean info that serves me not only in a board member capacity but also in my capacity as a pastor.

 

This morning I heard an excellent presentation by Alan Roxborough (teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary) and his unique persepctive of leadership in our new and chaotic age. It is a less testosterone driven style which emphasizes going into the community and not insulating ourselves. I purchased the session on CD if anyone is interested in borrowing it.

 

I just finished a session led by Brian McLaren ( http://www.brianmclaren.net/ ), a major figure in the emerging church phenomenon. The title of the presentation was Church & Culture and the style was part presentation, part dialogue. Very enjoyable, very reasonable. I will keep you posted.

 

Day 2/3: Sessions were awesome. More from Brian McLaren. Good sessions on board governance and legal audits etc. Great take-away. The time spent with friends (John, Linda and Henriette) was very good as well!

 

 

 

 

Reading Ecclesiastes today I am struck by the following verse:

 

"And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after the wind. Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." – Ecclesiastes 1:17-18

 

It is an enigmatic couple of verses and it sets the tone of the text balanced only by the author’s admonitions to "remember your Creator". The text mourns the state of humanity, most especially thinking humanity and finds hope and meaning only in God.

 

Ecclesiastes is a funny text because if you were to remove the references to God it would be a powerful existential work speaking of the condition of humanity. Existentialism, a movement literature and philosphy anchored in 19th/early 20th century writing, sought to show how we must define ourselves and our condtion (reality). That meaning can only come from within and not from outside (see the writings of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Camus and others). Without this self-definition one exists in a constant and increasing state of anxiety and hopelessness. There are echoes of existentialism in postmodernism (see The Matrix series, Ghost in the Shell, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep etc.).

 

What prevents Ecclesiastes from tipping into existentialism is the assertion that meaning comes only to the life pointed at God. Reading it feels like reading an antidote to a sickness that was still to come.

 

Recently Joseph Ratzinger published a book entitled – Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. I had heard rumours that Ratzinger was a profound theologian but had never read anything by him before this book (the first of a two-volume work on the life of Christ).

 

Based upon my initial reading of the text I can confirm that Ratzinger is indeed a theologian worth reckoning with. I am in the habit of marking up and highlighting books as I read them for future reference purposes – I should have simply highlighted the whole book and saved myself some time. Every page is filled with a lifetime’s worth of insight and study from a man who clearly has a deep faith.

 

Ratzinger prefaces his book by explaining the purpose and methodology of his approach. The point of the book in his words "is solely an expression of my personal search "for the face of the Lord" which is to say Ratzinger’s primary goal is to counter and possibly strip away much of the obscuring darkness that has ironically covered Christ as a result of 40 years of historical Jesus scholarship. Ratzinger employs primarily Canonical criticism methods in his approach but also draws on (or tries to extend) the historical critical approach and in doing so he readily acknowledges the limitations of both (particularly historical criticism).

 

The obvious question for any reader of this book, particularly those who stand outside of Catholicism, is – how accessible is this to non-Catholic readers? The first hint that the book is a broadly readable work comes in the forward when Ratzinger states "that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search "for the face of the Lord". Everyone is free then, to contradict me. The brilliance of this statement of course is that it both removes and acknowledges papal authority in one not unlike the apostle Paul telling believers when it is his opinion apart from God’s divine inspiration speaking and then leaving it to puzzled believers to try to understand what God meant by enshrining Paul’s "opinions" in the canon of scripture. It may be that Ratzinger was smiling when he wrote that statement.

 

Apart from the initial qualifier there are very few allusions to the papacy and reading as an evangelical pastor I found nothing overtly contradictory to my own theology (such as it is).

 

The reader is led through the life of Christ as portrayed in the Gospels and with the assumption that the clearest most accurate portrayal of Jesus comes only when they are included. Not only must the Gospels be a part of any search for Christ but the whole of scripture must be a part as well, and that only from the perspective of faith. With these rules of engagement in place the book itself is meant for the believer and may be seen as "foolishness to the Greeks" as it were. Ratzinger is comfortable with this.

 

As Ratzinger follows and presents Jesus life in light of His major discourses (Baptism, Temptation, Sermon on the Mount,  etc) he interprets them in light of the Old Testament. Further to this the reader notices that he also interprets the Old Testament in light of Jesus – Christologically. From this point Ratzinger then presents us with an interpretation of history Christologically – and not simply history post-Christ but all of history. In this way Ratzinger redeems and shows how Christ is not challenged by previous cultural mythologies that in some ways resemble His story but Christ in fact redeems and completes these mythologies which are revealed to be incomplete and shadowy prefigurings of Himself. For Ratzinger then, the only proper way to interpret Christ is through a Christological reading of scripture and history, or more plainly put – that when we interpret scripture and history in light of Christ we interpret Christ correctly and see the Father in Him and He in the Father. From this point we can then see ourselves in Christ (or where we should be).

 

Ratzinger is not restricted to Catholic sources but draws upon a very broad list including the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) and authors as diverse as C.S. Lewis and Rabbi Jacob Neusner (whose writings Ratzinger brilliantly turns on their head to support his own argument for Christ’s divinity).

 

As the reader winds their way through the text Ratzinger continually shows the harmony of the synoptic Gospels with the Gospel of John and finally with all of scripture in terms of affirming the divinity of Christ – this is what he is most concerned with, that the reader come away with a clear, biblical picture of Christ as God (and in the process a reaffirmed image of the Trinity).

 

There are no end of great quotes to draw from the text that demonstrate Ratzinger’s faith and understanding; here are a few that I like:

 

 

 

 

Once again there is a deep sense of irony in the above quote but by this point the reader is certain that Ratzinger is conscious of this and intentionally employs the irony.

 

As the reader approaches the end of the book they will realize that they have been given a redeemed image of Christ. Ratzinger fittingly weaves the text to a final interpretation of Christ’s use of the phrase "I Am" and the profound implications in terms of His equality with God and ultimately His nature as God. The final sentance of the book reminds the reader of the Nicene Creed’s agreement with this reading and with the statement of Peter from Matthew 16:16:

 

 

Overall the book is inspired and brilliant. It serves as a new commentary on the nature of Christ and as such takes its place alongside other such works. A warning to readers – this is not an exceptionally accessible book as it presumes a fair foundation in theological terms and some basic Greek.

 

Credit needs to go to Adrian J. Walker who translated the text from the original German to English. Walker does a wonderful job in that the reader does not feel his presence at all.

 

A final note to the non-Catholic reader who is concerned about the author’s Catholic perspective. It is wise to approach this book (and all books frankly) with a critical eye. This book is not written by just anyone but the spiritual leader of more than 1 billion people. This same leader who as pope has reaffirmed Latin Mass and Catholic doctrine which at the very least presents any person outside of Catholicism as incomplete in the faith and any church outside of papal authority as broken and out of communion with Christ (see the church document Dominus Iesus, authored by Ratzinger when he was Cardinal and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). This doctrine certainly comes through on occassion (as it must for obvious reasons) as we have seen in the forward comment regarding the magesterium as well as later in the text when Ratzinger interprets the "upon this rock" verse from Matthew as establishing initial church leadership and authority on Peter. These instances are exceptions however and barely make up a footnote in the primary message which is the reliability of scripture in providing us with a clear historically accurate picture of who Christ is.

 

I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of Jesus or simply desiring to develop their own interpretive skills. It is clearly a work of faith leaving the reader enriched and with the feeling that this work is merely the preface for the main act to come.

 

 

 

Christopher Hitchens, if anything, is certainly an interesting character. I have not really figured him out and don’t anticipate I ever will but I am curious. Hitchens is the latest in a breed of atheist intelligentsia who have decided that hating God is good for business. Certainly hating God has been good for Hitchen’s business whose latest book – god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, seems to be doing fairly well and currently sits at number 11 on the NY Times bestseller list (which is based upon sales), which it has been on for the past 19 weeks.

 

Hitchens uses logic as his primary excuse for attempting to disuade people from their belief in a God but his arguments (as cogent as they are)are merely a thin veneer over a strong, personal hatred for God – particularly the God of Christianity. Hitchens actually goes out of his way in his latest book to stress that he has no abusive history with the church and has no axe to grind (methinks the lady doth protest too much…).

 

When he’s not writing books about how rediculous belief in God is Hitchens spends a good deal of time in his New School tower sniping at various people for their own faith…constantly tearing them down. He has called Mother Theresa a fraud and a fanatic and has refered to Billy Graham "a self-conscious fraud", "a power worshipping bigot" and "a disgustingly evil man".

 

Much of Hitchen’s criticism of how religion has been used for oppression is quite legitimate but his ultimate argument – that if belief in God can be eradicated and belief in humanity somehow erected in its place things will improve for the human condition – is pure fancy and betrays a deeply flawed understanding of human nature. Hitchens believes that we can somehow save ourselves and despite all of his arguments it is his crude, merciless biting humour that betrays his own illogical hatred as the real source driving him.

 

In the end I wonder if Hitchens truly disbelieves in God or in fact believes in God and disguises his hatred with atheism and antitheism.

 

His pre-occupation with tearing down God is pathological and ultimately hurts him the most. His fierce advocacy for independance in all things is woven with a very real fear of other people’s dependance – particularly upon God. Pray for Christopher Hitchens.

 

Postscript: I should say that writers (particularly journalists) are intensely egotistical when it comes to our writing ( I should know). I wouldn’t be surprised if Hitchens actually manages to find this post and read it. Leave a comment if you do. Cheers!

 

Post Postscript: Check out this great article published in the British newspaper – The Independent, you’ll like it: http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2640860.ece

 

 

Today we drove out to the Pembina Colony where the Hutterites were having an open Fall market. We bought a pile of corn, some borscht (which we ate for lunch at the Scotts and was awesome).  We picked up some huge frozen chickens, some garlic sausage and chicken pies. It was a good experience and the colony was very interesting.

 

On the way to the Scott’s we caught a Plains Garter Snake sunning on the road. I felt like a cheap version of Steve Irwin trying to catch the thing but in the end (literally) it was caught and bundled into a platic container until we got home where he now lives near Nini the Leopard Gecko in its own small aquarium.

 

The snake’s name is Santos. It was either Santos or Gordon and we settled on Santos (has a more urban feel).

 

There’s a picture of Santos below along with pics of the frog pond we added in the front of the house. If anyone out there has an old aquarium they’re not using they’d like to donate to Santos that would be fine because he’s in a pretty small one right now. Just let us know.

 

 

 

One day I heard a rock and fountain

speaking together and this is what they said:

 

Will you leave me also?

(everyday)

Lord, to whom shall I go?

(yourself, yourself, endlessly yourself)

You have the words of eternal life

(I AM)

I have come to believe

(help my unbelief)

You are the Holy One of God

(go away from me Lord)

Don’t be afraid

(master it is good for me to be here)

You will be sifted as wheat

(I am chaf in the wind)

I have prayed for you

(I will leave you)

You will leave me

(never, never, never)

Do you love me

(you know I do)

Feed my sheep

(save yourselves)

I call you friend

(I call you Lord)

 

These are rough thoughts, bound to change over time and with experience.

 

I have been thinking a lot about love lately. I’m not sure why. I think it started a couple of weeks back when I was walking home from work and began thinking about mid-life crisis (MLC). The thing is I’m 39 and will be 40 in May and I suppose I’m in the danger-zone for something like a MLC. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t remotely feel old or even rebellious against age – in fact I’m pretty darn content these days, all things considered. Nevertheless the thoughts were there and I explored them.

 

The most common sympton of the MLC is an affair. The affair often stems from an inner sense that one is no longer as desirable as one once was which signifies a great problem in our understanding of love – its confusion with attractiveness and other temporal attributes. It occured to me that men (and women) who are struggling with a sense of being loved will often reach out to the first thing that loves and accepts them (or at least who they perceives loves and accepts them). It also occured to me that a great number of people these days will look outside of the marriage or relationship they are in for love. This often gets them in a boatload of trouble. Of course what is often being sought out is not love at all but a variation on the theme of selfishness and lust. A great deal of rationalizations are offered in response to infedelity including:

 

– a poor sex life

– lack of respect

– laziness on part of spouse

– we’ve changed (physically, emotionally, spiritually)

– boredom

 

The interesting thing about these and other motivations toward infidelity is that they hint at how we often define what love is. This is where I began thinking about the nature of love. What is it? Of course from a position of Christian faith I cannot help but recognize that scripture says "God is love" (1 John 4:8). In some ways this is incredibly frustrating because God is God and we are not and so if God is love then it is a standard we cannot hope to achieve. This is a poor excuse however because God is a trajectory He put us on…sanctification plays a part here.

 

So God is love. Still this leaves us with questions. We know God is love and we know that we are to emulate God and so our love is meant to be a reflection of His love. But what is it? This question is critical because much in our lives will depend upon how we understand the answer.

 

Plato spoke about love quite extensively in his various writings. Of course this was 2,500 years ago but it’s impact has been substantial. Plato’s theories are quite good but in the end the reflect an opinion of humanity as endlessly seeking after for the self. No matter how noble or high-minded the lover becomes ultimately in Plato love is a selfish extention of humanity.

 

Only in God does love become both noun and verb…otherwise, in humanity, love is a verb/adverb. As a verb love is an action or series of actions. It may even be descriptive of an action. But I think the character of true love is selfless action or outflowing.

 

If we take the husband or wife in crisis for a moment we would like to say a few things. First we would like to say to them that no matter how attractive (physically) their spouse is there will always be someone more attractive – always. This seems the height of unhelpful but the goal is to move the person beyond the physical…past lust to something higher.

 

The point is that if our love is founded upon or based merely upon physical attractiveness it is doomed. It must go beyond this to something deeper. This also underscores a critical defining characteristic of love – love is not depending upon anything outside of its source.

 

I went to a wedding the other day and it was a beautiful affair, it was outdoors and the sun was shining, the wind had died down the groom was handsome and the bride was beautiful and all was good. Here in this setting I heard the expected, a quote from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

 

This is as much a definition of God as it is of love…for our purposes we will focus on love. Our journey has led us to the cusp of revelation – that love is not dependant upon the one that is loved. Godly love is utterly separated from the attractiveness, actions or character of the one who is loved. All of the attributes that define love in the above verses are a testimony to this – patience, kindness, protection, hope, perseverence all speak of the independence of love; they are all attributes that describe character that is not impacted by its immediate situation. Further to this the verses speak to us about how love does not react to the negative with negative by keeping no record of evil, not being easily angered, and of course love is not self-seeking.

 

The nature of love is easier to understand than to put into action because action is dependant upon a reaction or a previous action – love is dependant upon nothing and is fed from within. This means that love remains in place despite the person being loved not because of the person. The broken character of the other should not remove our love for them, the inevitable deterioration of the other should not impact our love for them, nothing the other says or does or feels should impact our love for them.

 

But, you say, if this is true and we were to love this way then we would love everyone equally. Ahhh…see that’s the trick…that is the nature of God that "God so loved the world that He gave…" (John 3:16). Love gives. Love gives with no strings attached. Now wait a minute you say! God requires something…His love comes with strings…you have to accept His son. Of course this again is the nature of love – it needs to be accepted, or rather it can be refused. Love respects the one loved and would never force it – so it stands and offers itself completely which means it opens itself up to complete rejection. This rejection does not reflect the quality of the love, it remains the same but the one it is offered to loses the opportunity to be transformed. Love transforms. This is the secret of the Grinch’s transformation in Dr. Seuss’s classic – he witnessed true love that was not dependent upon anything when he stood puzzling about the nature of Christmas:

 

"How could it be so? It came without ribbons! It came without tags!

It came without packages, boxes or bags!"

And he puzzled three hours, ’till his puzzler was sore.

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!

"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn’t come from a store.

"Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!"

And what happened then…?

Well…in Who-ville they say

That the Grinch’s small heart

Grew three sizes that day!

 

Love is foolishly dependant upon nothing. Love makes absolutely no sense when you think about it because love would sacrifice itself for the sake of the other and this goes against our own instinct for self-preservation. Love is a contradiction.

 

If we are to love then we are to be as foolish. If we are to love this way we will begin to understand enigmatic sayings such as `Matthew 12:48-50 –

 

or Galatians 3:28 –

There are more to these thoughts but it`s all my little brain can come up with right now. I`ll add later.

 

LATER – Of course I should mention briefly that God is love and so God is the source of all love. We offer various and sundry interpretations on the theme and our attempts at love seem more like poor artisans attempts to fashion something beautiful in a medium they’ve never used before. We create small idols of our love and put them on our shelves and worship them…but they are mere projections of lust and selfishness usually.

 

We said earlier that love was powered from within and dependant upon nothing external to allow it to exist. But doesn’t love need an object? Is this not some external requirement? God’s love exists well within His triune self. God’s love can exist apart from anyone else because He can commune perfectly within Himself…it is a pure act of grace that He has chosen humanity, who stand outside of Him, to be recipients of that love…He does not require us to be recipients.

 

In terms of humanity, we are not created to commune with ourselves. Our love, to be a reflection of God’s, must come from a source other than ourselves, but within ourselves – we must rely upon God’s spirit within us to be the source of our love. We must learn to relate to and commune with God’s spirit within us to effectively love those around us.

 

The irony here is that there are many with God’s spirit who choose to attempt love without it (or choose not to love at all)…in these instances our love falls far short and wreaks havoc and we become confused because we did our best but it was not good enough. Still others who do not have the spirit of God have been able to see enough of Him in creation to create a reasonable facsimile of His love – enough to put us to shame.