“MY FRIENDS, I MUST ASK YOU AN IMPORTANT QUESTION TODAY: Where do you stand on God?

“It’s a question you may prefer not to be asked. But I’m afraid I have no choice. We find ourselves, this very autumn, three and a half centuries after the intellectual martyrdom of Galileo, caught up in a struggle of ultimate importance, when each one of us must make a commitment. It is time to declare our position.

“This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.” [WIRED/14.11; note: read the full article here: not for the weak of faith]

The preceding thought is the lead from an article in a recent issue of WIRED magazine. Needless to say i found it a rather provocative assertion: that faith is a curse, that faith, belief in God not sin or the human condition is the root cause of human suffering, evil and all that is wrong with the world. The foil to faith is, of course, reason and science. The New Atheaism touts that if we will only abandon God, any unreasonable belief in Him, reason will lead us to a better world, a brighter tomorrow.

Of course, any historian easily recognizes the repetition: the Enlightnement made similar promises only to lead to the horrors of the first World War [mustard gas], Hiroshima, Stalinist Russia, etc. Freud has an interesting read on the subject called Civilization and Its Discontents that describes the horrors of a purely technological/rational society. Of course the enlightenment gave rise to the Romantics, like Blake, who revolted against a purely rational world-view, deeming it unliveable. Even a champion of Skepticism, David Hume, realized a totally empirical, rational epistemology left one inextricably mired in solipsism, loneliness.

I don’t really want to dive into that old debate. What really was interesting to me about this article was the amount of evangelical energy there seems to be emmanating from the atheist camp. They are on a crusade for converts, there is no doubt.

To be quite honest i have no beef with that. More power to them. The lesson I take from it has more to do with their tactics. They, like many fundamental Christians, tend to take the approach [implicitly, sort of] that if i belittle the other guy and show him where his beliefs fail, conversion will soon follow. Let’s argue them into our position, to side with us.

In their defense, their postion that the means to truth is through logical argument, pretty much requires they argue with us believers. I kind of feel sorry for them. Arguing just doesn’t work that well, when you are trying to win someone over. I know, i have tried. We kind of tried with the Crusades too. And we are still paying for that one.

It seems to me that the better tack, where it concerns evangelism is love. It is just more practical, ergo reasonable? Maybe the New Atheists should try that.

i wanted to include a few links to some poems i have at the genesisARTS site. let me know what you think.

SENIOR HIT DAY [this poem recounts a tradition we had at my high school where the senior football players got a free hit on a skinny little freshman of their choice. luke mickelson picked me. the deeper issue it addresses is how do we deal with "hits" we take in life? betrayal? disloyalty? jesus took some pretty big hits from those close to him. and i think he did it by just letting himself get hit. he just let it happened, didn't brace or try to protect himself. he just took the hit.]

PHONE BOOTH [this poem came out of a genesis workshop where we were exploring the concpet of grace. the apostle paul maintains that it is the grace of God that, though he is weak, enables him to be strong. i thought that the phone booth, superman's locale for transformation, is a pretty good metaphor for grace, in that sense.]

LEPERS [i wrote this poem as part of talk i did at h2o one thanksgiving. the premise of the story is the band of lepers Jesus healed. only one returned to thank him. the poem kind of extrapolates on the question Jesus asked, "where are the other guys" and implicitly, "why did you come back to thank me?" i think the reason he came back and the power of saying thanks is that it helps us to not grow bitter at the time we have lost being "lepers," being without.]

last week someone asked me to recount a story i had told on a sunday morning. i could not remember it at the time, so i told them i would post it here when i remembered.

i forget the context of the story [it is really more of an anecdote], or why i was telling it on a sunday, but this is what i rememeber…

i have a daughter named grace, who just turned four. every night when i put her to bed, we read a bible story, pray and then i will sing her a song or two: usually jesus loves me, jesus loves the little children or country roads [we live in WV after all].

this particular night i asked her what she wanted me to sing. she paused for a moment and then responded “amazing grace.” after a slight pause, she ammended her request.

“and then sing ‘amazing daddy’”

what can i say?

having never blogged before, and attempting to acclimate myself to this new [for me] medium of communcation the biggest surprise has been how self-conscious i feel. there is something very revealing about a blog, or at least it seems to me there should be. and yet, i feel a little bit like that well-known dream, about to give a speech in my underwear.

i am curious how other, more seasoned, bloggers overcame this trepidation. how can i expect to adapt to the notion that a part of me is to be broadcast to the world? [i hesitate posting pix of myself or my daughter, for i know the power of photoshop]. and yet, what good is this blog if it is not the real me?

for some reason, the picture of king david, practically undressed, leading a parade to jerusalem, comes readily to mind. risky.

i believe transparency, honesty, is a key element of faith; i believe it is to be a hallmark of our relationships with God and others. but you, i am not sure we have a? relationship, or do we? for me blogging [and mySpace "friends" for that matter] raises some complex issues with repsect to the nature of relationships and community and, ultimately, my ability to be transparent in this forum. 3.

i thought that i should include a section in this blog about design, since that is one of my main jobs with the church; it has quickly become one of the favorite things i do although i feel i am really behind in terms of my technical ability. i am trying to think of an example of a design i have done that i like and could actually share here, but none comes to mind.

for every teaching series we do i create the visuals [sermon backgrounds, worship backgrounds, etc.]. here are a few of my favorites: