CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

From Milton Brasher-Cunningham's blog

I had just settled in at my table at Mad Hatter’s Bake Shop when Ginger and the news that Manny Ramirez had been traded by the Red Sox to the Dodgers (Manny’s playing for Joe Torre!) arrived at the same time. Over the past few days, Manny has made it clear he wanted out of Boston – more emphatically than his past yearly outbursts – and he got his wish. As he prepared to fly from coast to coast, Ginger was driving a homeless family from the day shelter to the church where they will eat dinner and sleep. On cots. Until someone comes back to drive them to the day shelter again in the morning.

The family was made up of a single mother, who is expecting, and her two-year-old daughter, whom Ginger wanted to bring home. Together, they live a life over which they have little control. The woman said the folks at the shelter offered to give her a weekend pass and she answered, “Where would I go?” She has no means of transportation, nowhere to stay, very little money, and a two year old. The life she’s living may offer her a way out of homelessness eventually, but right now it’s a hard and lonely road.

Part of the reason Manny wanted to be traded was he thought he could make more money as a free agent next year rather than letting the Red Sox pick up the option to extend his contract for two more years. For twenty million dollars. A year.

From Jan Richardson's blog

While I was at St. John’s University in Minnesota last week, I made a couple of visits to the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (known in those parts as the HMML). The Benedictine monks of St. John’s founded the HMML to preserve the medieval manuscript heritage of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and it’s always a favorite destination for a girl with a blog called The Painted Prayerbook. This summer the HMML is home to a tasty exhibition of original folios from The Saint John’s Bible, the first Bible to be written and illustrated entirely by hand in more than five hundred years. Featuring the Wisdom Books section of The St. John’s Bible, the exhibition marks the completion of five of the planned seven volumes of this contemporary manuscript. By the time that Donald Jackson and his team of scribes and artists complete their lavish, monumental work, the Bible will have absorbed about ten years of their lives.

From John Hamilton's blog

Having lived all my professional life as Southern Baptist clergy in the warlock’s cauldron of “The Conservative Resurgence” or “The Controversy” (which it is depends on whose side you’re on like the War of Northern Aggression or the Civil War), I have strong unhealed emotions about schism.

Lose-Lose Lose-Lose

The first is my profound belief that nobody wins, everybody loses. In denominational schism everybody’s a loser, especially outsiders who are weighing whether Christ makes a difference or not. Mike Warnke asks, if a 1000 member church splits in two, how many people will go to the two churches? Not 500 each, but maybe (if God forgives us) 100 each. Net loss of 800 little lambs and mothers with child, for each of whom we will give account to God.

Is there Any Sorrow like my Sorrow

The second is a feeling of sorrow. Dr. Ben Bruner, my deacon at First Baptist Church Richmond, was married to the great great granddaughter of one of the women who founded the Woman’s Missionary Union. She said, “It’s like an unending funeral.”

My wife Sandy and I went to only one annual meeting of the SBC, Dallas 1985. The news photographers were lined up to film the moderates walk out, if they lost the presidency. The moderates lost, and all the paparazzi got was a handshake.

R.I.P. S.B.C.

But that year the SBC died for us.

People crammed in the convention center two hours before the meeting began, shoulder to shoulder at 6:30 a.m. Someone began to sing “Amazing Grace,” “What A Friend,” all the old songs we loved. Then, the doors opened and we did a hardball political hatchet job or hated those who did it.

From Larry Vaughan's blog

This short essay is a perfect example of why I love Larry Vaughan's writing. Keep reading because you are in for a BIG surprise. This piece is not about what you think it's about.
...............Real Live Preacher

DWM, 44, loves reading, writing, and taking long walks in the rain. I enjoy deep conversation and music that matters. I’m tired of the head games, so if you’re into that sort of thing, just keep walking. I’ve been burned before so I’m a little gun-shy. I’m interested in a long-term relationship but I want to go slow. Let’s be friends first and see where that takes us. One of my pet peeves is people that try to hide their flaws. I’ve got no patience for pretenders. Don’t hide it or dress it up. Just let it breathe.

I’m not a fan of the Class System. Arrogance annoys me. If you think you’re better than others, please don’t reply. If you do something nice for someone and don’t tell anybody, you’re on the right track.

I prefer picnics to palaces. Bikes to BMWs. Inner strength and quiet confidence turn me on.

Politically I’m a little complicated. Al Sharpton and James Dobson both piss me off. I’m part capitalist, part socialist.

So who would I consider to be my ideal match?

I’m looking for inventive thought with deep roots. Someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously. But someone who is serious about things that matter.

You should know why you believe what you believe. And above all things, your passion should be dripping out of your pores. Apathy is not sexy.

A controversy concerning the use of the Koran in Congressional oath-taking ceremonies raised the question of the Bible's place in American life. Radio host Dennis Prager laid down the gauntlet in a much publicized column when he said, “Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.”

If the Bible is America's Holy Book, what exactly does that mean? It's true that the Bible is regularly used in a variety of public ceremonies, from swearing in of witnesses to oath-taking by public officials. It's believed that using the Bible in such a way guarantees truthfulness, although there's little evidence that such use prevents either corruption or perjury.

When we talk about the Bible as America's Holy Book, we're not talking about its content; we're talking about its symbolic status. Indeed, that's Prager's point. Therefore, since the Bible is essentially an object of veneration, we dutifully trot it out whenever we deem it appropriate. If necessary, we'll read it selectively in support of our pet projects. Take for instance the Ten Commandments: Many venerate them, but spend little time examining their meaning.

(Sixth Sunday after Pentecost June 29, 2008 Genesis 22:1-14; Matthew 10:40-42)

This past week the comedian George Carlin died, and for several days, cable news played and re-played clips of two of his best-known routines: “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” and “Religion is”—well, that one goes on to use a word I cannot say in church! The first posed a question about community standards and whether we really have or should have any at all as a public culture. He provoked a conversation about whether certain words "really mattered, at a time when every other word out of other comedians’ mouths did NOT begin with F.

Is it his fault my kids have grown up in a world where those words do? Or were we headed that way so clearly that he was simply naming the truth?

I think it’s probably more likely the latter. His social commentary pointed out a gap between generations that has become more profound in some ways. Younger people, and I include my own age-group and younger, tend to use more casual language, more often and in more situations. The old rules about what you can say where no longer seem to apply.

Except, perhaps in church.

But more importantly, in his later routine about religion, George Carlin raised questions that many other people share, probably most of them not sitting in churches this morning, and because they are not here to talk with us, it feels all the more important to give some thought to what they are thinking.

This past week, Dr. James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, used his organization’s radio broadcast to criticize a speech on religion and politics given by presidential candidate Barack Obama two years ago. Before commenting on Dobson’s remarks about Obama’s speech, I must admit that I stopped paying attention to Dobson a long time ago. While I had been introduced to him when I grew up in a fundamentalist church, a church that took every word he said as “gospel truth”, I came to find his rhetoric often divisive, unreasonable and unhelpful for making real contributions to the common good.

Yet this past week, when I learned of his criticism of Obama’s speech, I took a few minutes to listen to Dobson’s program and to re-read Obama’s speech. On the broadcast, Dobson and Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family’s Vice President of Public Policy, played snippets of Obama’s speech on religion and offered their observations. What is interesting is that Obama made this speech in June of 2006 and Dobson is just now publicly commenting on the address. What drew Dobson to make his remarks, however, is even more interesting.

Obama referenced Dobson’s name in his speech along with making mention of Rev. Al Sharpton in the same context. Obama referred to the two religious leaders as a way of demonstrating the diversity within the Christian faith in America. Dobson and Minnery, however, accused Obama of attacking Dobson, even suggesting that Obama equated Dobson with racial bigotry. Yet, no common sense person who reads or hears the speech would understand Obama’s mention of Dobson as disparaging of him. Obama does not come close to attacking Dobson.

Note:
Larry Vaughan was once the pastor of a church. He now does the Lord's work in an institution working with the sort of kids the Church cannot handle. He is a marvelous writer, and what follows is a great example of the kid of things you'll find at his blog, Ad augusta per angust.This piece was originally published there on June 4th, 2008.

When a patient comes into our hospital they bring bags with them. When they get back to our unit we have a staff person go through their belongings and check each item for safety (you can’t have your own razors or knives), appropriateness (your shirt can’t glorify drugs), and contraband (we’ll be flushing that blunt you have hidden in your shoe). Then we do a skin assessment. That’s a fancy term for getting nekkid in front of a nurse so she can record all of your scars, bruises, piercings, and tattoos. We do these two things so we know exactly what you are bringing to our facility.

Unfortunately we don’t have a secret detector.

In addition to their belongings our residents bring in another type of baggage. This one is invisible to the naked eye, yet the impact of its contents are deep and real.