Well over the weekend I finished reading "If the Church were Christian" by Philip Gulley. This is one that I have on the Kindle and honestly I prefer to read 'real' books but I do find that for whatever reason I read faster on the Kindle. Not sure why that would be, perhaps the larger print allows my old eyes to read more quickly. LOL I would recommend reading this book as Rev. Gulley does a great job of challenging our thinking and I am a firm believer in reading things that force me to think a bit.
My only criticism is a common one for me when reading some of my favorite writers. I dislike the attacks that are often launched on conservatives of both theology and more so politics. For the record I also dislike greatly attacks launched against liberals in both arenas as well. I much prefer to see the strength of one's position stand on it's own merit not witness the writer trying to buttress his stance by tearing down his opponents. Gulley seems to be graceful (for the most part) to those whom he disagrees with theologically but not nearly so much to those who stand opposed to him politically. To me this is if not inexcusable, certainly undesirable. This is one reason I enjoyed Rob Bell's book "Love Wins" so much, as Rev. Bell does very little degrading (at least in this book) of those who disagree with him.
I do understand the desire to attack and 'extract' revenge in some degree on those whom have attacked you spiritually and emotionally. Many of the more liberal thinking Theologians out there have suffered scathing assaults from more conservative individuals and human nature is inclined to striking back (I am certainly prone to this as much as any and work to control this instinct). More conservative Christians seem all too often 'afraid' of the thinking of freer minds and feel threatened. Many times this fear ends up prompting verbal attacks rather than rational conversation and dialogue (again simple human nature). It would be a wonderful world if both sides could remain civil and actually communicate with logic and rational thought, sadly a brief look at the world in general reveals to us that this is the exception in human affairs rather than the rule.
Often times I feel very lonely in my own personal stance of left of center theologically and firmly right of center politically. It seems to me that I'm an exceedingly rare bird in my own unique combination of positions and beliefs. Since theologically I do not desire to be affiliated with either side I have taken to calling myself a "Radical Moderate". Personally I think all sides have something to bring to the table and I hope that my fellow ELM students recognize that in our classes if the teacher is only presenting one side or the other, that I will champion the opposite side in order to make sure that both sides are represented and considered.
After completing Rev. Gulley's book I have started reading a book for our August ELM Class on Baptist Polity. The book is "Down by the Riverside, a brief history of Baptist faith" by Everett C. Goodwin. It is a good little book which would be great reading for any of those who profess a Baptist faith of any stripe. One really should know from whence one's particular faith came and what the underlining theologies and stances are. It seems to me that many in the Baptist faith today have no clue about just what Baptist originally stood for and have certainly strayed from the original thinking (not that this is a bad thing just that we should be aware of it). Of course the one thing that Baptist have always embraced above all else is freedom of thinking and belief both for the congregation as well as the individual.
At the same time as starting the book on Baptist history, I started reading another book on the Kindle, "The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N. T. Wright in Dialogue", this is a fascinating dialogue and I'm really enjoying it. Here is a link to it on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/The-Resurrection-Jesus-Dominic-Dialogue/dp/0800637852 I have taken a break from this one though as I had ordered a book the other day on Amazon, and it arrived Tuesday. I was very excited and I immediately fell into reading it, setting the others aside for the time being. This is a book covering the Arian controversy and is interestingly enough written by a Jewish scholar, the book is "When Jesus Became God" by Richard E. Rubenstein. It is engagingly written and a good read especially considering that for many history isn't the most exciting topic. There is no doubt that this book covers an incident which shaped the Christian faith in ways that very few are even aware of and the point of view of a Jewish author makes it all the more interesting.
On a whole other note, this Tuesday night I started what will be a five month training regime to prepare for my 53rd birthday. I have resolved to go into my 53rd year on this earth in the absolute best shape of my life. I have tweaked my training a bit, and hope that this routine will carry me to new heights. Unfortunately, I have had to eliminate back squats from my training as my back just won't allow me to do them anymore. It has been difficult for me to let go of this movement as it is the last of the three powerlifting movements that I had in my routine. Long ago I had to drop deadlifts due to my shoulder and then I dropped traditional bench presses, and now squats are gone. All semblance of my old training in my youth is now gone, but it's for the best in the end. These days I don't care how much weight I'm moving it's what is my fitness level and do I look like I can move a lot of weight. As one of my internet friends (who is older than I) likes to say "I don't want to be the strongest guy in the weight room, I just want to look like the strongest guy in the weight room". Personally I run no risk of ever looking like the strongest person in the gym, but I do strive to remain looking like one of the better built individuals regardless of age.
At any rate after a couple of months of a bit less intensity in the weight room, and letting my diet relax a tad, I'm back to being hardcore. I love the training part, I don't love the diet part nearly so much but that's the price you have to pay, one simply requires the other. My new routine consists of three days on and two days off and then repeating, it's day one - Chest/Back, day two - Legs/Abs and day three - Shoulders/Arms. I generally don't have a dedicated arms day in my routines so this is a bit different for me personally. Looking forward to the journey, which is just one more leg in what will be a lifetime of training.
There is a connection between spiritual, intellectual and weight training, in all one must experience some discomfort in order to grow (often great discomfort). Spiritually you need to challenge yourself and then recover with prayer and reflection. Intellectually you again need to seek out new knowledge and then sit back and incorporate this into knowledge gained in the past. In weight training you go into the gym and challenge your body physically and then you go home and rest and feed your body nutritionally. All of these endeavors leave one a stronger and better individual, as pat an answer as it may seem one must continue to grow spiritually, intellectually and physically. To ignore one or the other will ultimately leave you suffering in some aspect of life or another. Too often in this rush, rush, crazy, crazy world we neglect all three and look where that has left us...
May you all be richly blessed and richly bless those around you.
Roy
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| This is such an awesome picture! |
