Hermeneutics Quiz

I just took the hermeneutics quiz created by Scot McNight. It was an interesting assessment and I actually appreciated the way that it was set up. Like any 20 question quiz that is intended to define who you are, there were limitations. But I cringed far less during this quiz than I usually do when I mark answers.

The quiz is scaled from 1 - 100. Interestingly, I scored a 53 which is the very first number in the "moderate" category. I'm really quite surprised that I didn't fall into a conservative category, but I guess that it was a close call.

Mostly the quiz asks questions about the relationship between the old and new testaments (covenants) and whether we understand the Bible more systematically or communally. There were also some questions about how we interpret some "hard" biblical passages like women's roles and homosexuality. Take the quiz HERE

I felt like I was in an Indie film

Our department at the Lincoln Journal Star handles the obituaries among other things. I had a really interesting moment the other day with a middle-aged lady who writes obituaries for us. I was standing beside the fax machine waiting for a copy and she came up beside me.

Obit Lady: "I am a horrible person"


Me: " Why?"


OL: "Because I get these obituary requests, and I just laugh at them. I mean, I laugh at these dead people."

Me: "oh"

OL: "I mean, just the other day. I got an obit for a lady with the last name "Coffin" and I just couldn't stop laughing. I just kept laughin' and laughin' "


Me: "Oh...really" (seriously, what do you say?)


OL: "And then there is this" (she shows me a picture of a lady, recently deceased. It was an obit that I had just handed her from the fax machine.) "Look at this lady, she has this ridiculous red lipstick on....(she trails off) I mean she looks like my Grandma."


Then she sat back down at her desk.

Life as a tragicomedy. This lady works full time with us, so she is writing about dead people, seeing their pictures, and talking to their families for 40 hours every week. Her situation is understandable, she must find humor in her everyday life just like the rest of us. In general, though, its strange how the things that hurt us the most also have the ability to make us laugh the hardest. Some people say that we have to laugh to shield ourselves from the reality of completely harsh world. Obviously, I don't think that our situation is that hopeless. But the reality is that we live in a broken world, so I can certainly relate.

For those of us who love hymns

I have added some links to some great worship resources.  Check them out under my new "Worship Resources" category on the side.  Here are some brief explanations.

Cardiphonia: This is the worship site of modern hymn writer/re-writer Nathan Partain. Nathan is the Pastor of Worship and the Arts (an awesome job title if you ask me) at Redeemer Church in Indianapolis.  This site has lots of new hymns written by Nathan and others and has a lot of audio, lyrics, and lead sheets.  

Cyber hymnal: This is really cool (albeit nerdy).  This site has over 6,000 hymn titles.  On most of the songs they have the melody playing when you click on the title and info on the author as well as the composer of the melody.  Its kind of an outdated site...but its huge.

Semper Reformanda Records: This is the site of Brian Thomas, a worship leader at Kaleo Church in Seattle.  I like reading his blog about worship music and the site has some good links and audio.

Isn't worship music cool?  Enjoy.

Indecision

Most of my friends are reactionary people.  When it comes to theology, they are reactionary theologians.  This doesn't necessarily  mean that they are reckless or whimsical.  What I mean is that they inundate themselves with a steady flow of ideas and immediately or almost immediately react with either a positive or negative response.  They almost always end up qualifying their first reaction or sometimes completely abandon it, but in the short term, they readjust the lens of their worldview to reflect their new ideas.  In other words, they quickly resort to a decision about a given topic.

I am not this way.  I seem to almost always fall back to indecision.  I'm a perpetual fence rider.  I have been identified as the "middle man" in countless of my friends' religious and political discussions.  Lately, I have been thinking that I need to be more reactionary.  I do think that indecision does have benefits.  It helps you lead a more careful life, and keeps you from often making your brothers and sisters stumble.  But leading a life that is characterized by indecision has at least a couple of negative side effects:

1. It makes the world impossibly complex.  I sometimes feel like I am unqualified to talk about anything because I have not read every book on the subject.  My typical way of approaching theological issues is that I must read at least one book on each side of an argument.  Then I need to talk to pastors on the varying sides and see what they agree and disagree about.  This is certainly a wise choice of action in some very important matters, but if your life is characterized by this method of research, you will drown in a sea of complexity-- never feeling any accomplishment.

2. It leads to a kind of pride.  I don't like being wrong.  I often feel uncertain about saying something because I might change my mind in the months that follow and feel foolish that I identified myself with the wrong group.  Their is safety in indecision, no one thinks that you went out on a limb.

Once again, I am not saying that we should be carried away by every wind of doctrine.  I just think that we can interface with this Christian life a lot better if we allow ourselves to take hold of a new ideas and quickly categorize them.  Then we are free to move on with our lives while slowly digesting the decisions we have made.