Have You Seen This Van

How Right is Wright?

After spending some time dialoguing about N.T. Wright with my brother over the weekend, I was reminded of the immensely volatile discussion regarding his views on 'justification,' especially in light of how the denomination in which I minister (PCA) handled the subject at our last General Assembly.

Admittedly, I do not claim to have fully wrapped my brain around Wright's theology--his intellectual prowess is too great for me to access. However, after reading some more of both Wright and his opponents I have realized that one thing that Wright seems to be attempting to accomplish is a more biblical understanding of the importance of our character and behavior after we have bent the knee to Jesus' lordship.

In the traditional formulations there is a definite conflict between justification that inititiates our salvation, the justification in the sense that James uses it, and the justification that will take place at the great white throne.

Whether he arrives at a biblical conclusion I don't know. However, he does seem to synthesize these in a better manner than I have seen before. Does he go too far? Perhaps. But I don't believe his position abandons orthodoxy as many reformed theologians contend.

One thing that I have never been satisfied with is the way our tradition handles our 'works.' I am in the middle of a study compiling all of the passages just in the New Testament that reference our works, the judgement at the end of the ages, the potential of falling away, the urging and primacy of remaining faithful to the very end. The evidence is very clear that the biblical authors spill the preponderence of their ink on the life that follows the initiation of salvation than the events leading up to and including that moment.

It seems that in our reaction to a merit-based earning of God's approval, we have swung the pendulum so far that we have crashed through a window and have opened it up to a potential risk of reducing the importance of our remaining faithful to our call. I am suggesting that there might be another way that neither reduces God's sovereign grace (and our our desperate need due to our sin) nor our call to faithfulness until the very end. Pelagianism and semi-pelagianism fail at the former and I think our tradition has largely failed at the latter. I don't yet know if Wright has found it, but at least he has confronted the issue.

I am including a link to the clearest, most succinct, and most accessible article by Wright on the topic.

http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_New_Perspectives.htm

I would like to know your thoughts. . . .

Major Milestone Realized

With great enthusiasm, relief, and exhalation, we have finally reached a goal that began nearly 7 years ago while on staff with New Beginnings Community Church in Memphis.

Over the weekend, in the presence of many friends and relatives, I took my ordination vows and formally became an ordained pastor. There were many highlights to the weekend:

• being with friends and family who were willing to travel hundreds of miles to be celebrate with us


• an incredible party, with incredible food--beef tenderloin, crab cakes (that someone said were like a. . .well nevermind, they were really good), jumbo shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, stuffed potatos, marinated chicken skewers, Corky's ribs, etc., etc. at our home that was facilitated by folks from our church and friends we have made in the community. To top it off, our good friend from the community provided a fabulous chocolate cake with chocolate and coffee flavored butter filling.


• a beautifully orchestrated worship service that featured our good friend, Claudia Wootton, leading a very talented worship team.


• breaking bread and serving communion for the first time

I really stand in awe at what it took for God to sustain us through the entire process and to bring us to this point. I can genuinely say that I eagerly look forward to ministering the gospel of the kingdom in the community he sends us to.

For those of you that have been along for any part of the ride, thank you for your encouragement, prayers, and support.

The Greater Hope--And on Prime Time TV!

It has been a little busy around here. Last week I fell and sprained my wrist and bruised some ribs, had my phone/PDA stolen and all of my contacts erased, got a ticket for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, watched as my 4-year old West fell from the kitchen table and split open his nostril while trying to play Tarzen on the blinds' cord, missed a $150 check on my checking account causing 6 overdrawn charges of $35 from 6 cups of coffee at $1.75 each from Starbuck's, caught the flu and was laid out for a few days, fought with my wife and felt a great distance for 3 days, escorted a neighborhood friend of my children back to his father and mother to apologize profusely for the cuts on his black eye from the pounding he took from one of my sons, and took a verbal lashing from a guy at Home Depot who when I calmly asked which checkout line he was standing in, angrily replied, "WHICHEVER LINE COMES OPEN FIRST!"

I tell you this less to receive your empathy, although I wouldn't reject it, and more to give you something to laugh about. For the reality is, and this is NOT rhetoric, all of the above seemed less hopeless after I witnessed the following clip on UTube taken from an E.R. episode.

You will be amazed at what NBC allowed to be viewed during Prime Time on national TV. You will be even more amazed at the fact that you know there is an answer to this desperate man's plight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNuSBGa1mLM

Our First Snow in Atlanta. IT DOES SNOW HERE!

A very large snowflake on our deck, West on our deck, Bud by our mailbox, Bud with a snow man, and West catching one of the several hundred flakes that fell with his mouth.

Well, we had our first Atlanta snow and we were all very surprised. The forecast called for cold rain mixed with sleet. By 9:00 PM Wednesday, however, we had already exceeded our January monthly average for snow--in only 4 hours!

I must admit I got my boys hopes up about their school closing on Thursday. When we went to bed it was 31 degrees and supposed to drop a few more degrees. Unfortunately, it actually warmed to 33 and melted the streets.

Nevertheless, it is possible that we could quadruple our monthly average with another storm that is supposed to come through tommorrow. Believe it or not, there is a potential for three whole inches!

If that happens, Atlanta will shut down.

Kicking the 'Golden' Dead Horse One More Time

Well the movie’s debut came and went and from an entertainment economic standpoint “The Golden Compass” did not live up to its billing. After 5 weeks in the theatre, its gross revenue in the US was just north of $55 million. In comparison, “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Chronicles of Narnia” earned $47 and $65 million, respectively, in just their opening week.

By the way, this wasn’t due to any boycott of the movie but rather due to an unfair, pre-mature marketing of the movie as the alter-ego of Narnia and T.L.O.T.R. (Note to self: If I ever decide to become a movie producer, avoid and eradicate all comparisons to blockbuster productions prior to the release of my work).

Although the point is nearly mute now, for those that would be interested, this is a message I posted on a Christian forum hosted by Crosswalk booksellers:

“Regarding (the dead-horse becoming) Golden-Compass issue I would suggest that it is, at least to some extent, naive to think that by avoiding a movie one can avoid competing and even hostile world views to historical Christianity. Unless you live isolated in a bubble on a desert island somewhere (which you most likely don't if you are reading this) than you cannot escape living in a reality which has a supreme Creator but is also pervasively tainted by the effects of the fall. Jesus says, "You are either for me or against me." There is nowhere in between. There is no middle-ground. Therefore we are constantly bombarded with messages (verbal, non-verbal, print, visually, reality, etc.) that either promote the kingdom of God or oppose it.

At the same time, we must also know ourselves very well (in addition to those whom we have relationships with and for who we care for) so that we don't place an insurmountable stumbling block in front of us. There are a vast amount of decisions that you and I have to make every day based on kingdom principles. God has seen it in his good pleasure to not tell us the answer to every predicament we will find ourselves in (that conversation would never end, by the way). Instead, he offers a Way which if followed doesn't answer all of the questions but rather redeems our motives. Contrary to what many evangelicals would like to propose apologetically to a relativistic culture and, in spite of the existence of absolute truth, most issues are not black and white. Life is far too complex for them to be. This is a good thing. It requires us to use the God-given brain and heart that we have. In every decision we make we must consider the fact that we as Christians are still divided in our loyalties, we have a mixed bag of motives, we live this side of heaven for the purpose of propagating the kingdom of God in a kingdom opposed to that reign, and we must understand how to communicate with that kingdom.

BTW, even if you are isolated on a desert island, unless that desert island exists somewhere post-second-resurrection, you still are having to deal with contrary-to-God tendencies and proclivities--in other words, you and I have yet to turn our entire lives, thoughts, actions, inactions, etc. over to God in order to love him with all of our heart, strength, and mind. In other words, we still are communicating (hopefully very, very inconsistently) that we don't fully and wholly believe and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and therefore are communicating something anti-kingdom of God!”

Ban on Gift Cards

For the New Year I have decided to call for a ban, or at the very least a moratorium, on the use of gift cards as a viable option for gift giving for Christmas. However, I am not doing so for reasons which you might surmise.

When it first became an option for a birthday or Christmas gift, I was vehemently opposed to the idea of giving gift cards. It seemed so impersonal. It seemed so shallow. It seemed so thoughtless. I thought to myself, "Only a gift that is offered after thoughtful contemplation of the recipient’s tastes, likes, and/or needs is a considerate one.”

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the essential nature of gift cards, that is, putting the actual choice of the received gift in the hands of the recipient, was nothing new. Mankind, especially Grandparents in my case, had given gifts in the form of cash for years. I don’t remember one time when I thought to myself “My, how insensitive my Grandparents are!” Surely it is not merely a matter of generation difference that qualifies one as an appropriate giver of such a gift?

This year, however, the want of gift sensitivity increased even more with the dawn of the e-card (at least it was a new phenomenon to me). That’s right, now you can just email a document to someone which they print out and use like cash with the designated merchant. Why not? It’s cheaper than Western Unioning cash.

Consider the forerunner to the gift card—the department store registry. Predominantly in bridal form, the idea is that the bride herself (the groom only begrudgingly participates in this procedure) is able to choose a comprehensive selection of items she wishes her wedding participants to give her for her wedding present. Therefore, at least to some degree, the actual choice of the received gift is put in the hands of the recipient. This in fact is more advantageous than a gift card for once one takes just a few hours to select her desired items, her labor is complete in the matter. She has nothing else to do except wait to see what will be chosen from the selection pool.

Not only is it not due to the insensitive nature of gift cards, that I am calling for their ban at Christmas, it is also not because I am anti-market or anti-capitalist. It is not because that merchants benefit more than the consumer in that they actually earn interest on the cash they receive before the merchandise has even been removed from their inventory—in other words, before they have paid for it. It is not because some merchants charge an administrative fee if the card lays dormant for more than a specified amount of time. Finally, it is not even because some estimates suggest that nearly 20% of all gift cards go unredeemed. That means that the value of a gift card sold is actually 120% of the price for which it is sold.

No, the reason is that essentially for many it is merely an exchange of equivalent quantities of credit. In the case of a friend of mine, his family had to assign specific merchants as the issuer of the gift card to each family member so that Christmas didn’t become merely the exchange of $25 Starbuck’s gift cards from each to the other. The only true beneficiary to such a transaction is Starbuck’s. For in a family of 6, Starbuck’s bottom line increases by $150. However, for each individual family member the net value of their giving/receiving transaction is $0. Now you tell me, who really has the Merrier Christmas?

I know, I know, essentially the net value of gift/receipt transactions for each individual at Christmas is generally $0 even when actual gifts are used. However, nearly all of the mystery of gift-giving disappears the moment the little, flat, rectangular present is wrapped. Imagine ten, twenty, or thirty of these little presents stacked around the Christmas tree. The only remaining mystery is whether it is a MARTA bus pass or some sort of merchant gift card.

Finally, Santa Clause will become an irrelevant, extraneous, has-been little elf. Can you imagine jolly old St. Nicholas picking up little Johnny or Suzie into his lap, smiling and ho, ho, hoing in his deep, guttural laugh, and then asking the question, “So, little boy, from which merchant and in what denomination do you want your gift card issued this year?”

I’ll not have it.