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.

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. 

joining the church

I will be publicly joining Zion church this Sunday morning. Everyone is welcome to come and celebrate my becoming part of the visible Church in Lincoln Nebraska. I'm actually transferring my membership from 2nd Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Yazoo City, Mississippi. This decision has been a long time coming, but I feel that it is the right one. It feels good to be part of the local body again. Hope to see you there.

More substantial posts are in the works. Stay tuned.

Catch up post

I know that I haven't posted in a while and I am sure that you are all on the edge of your seats hoping for more thoughts on Baptism. For now I have none. I have done precious little reading on the topic in the last couple of weeks. School and personal demands have been primary. But I thought that I might give a summary of some of my thoughts as of late, ranging from serious to silly...

Should we preach systematics? I have been contemplating recently whether or not pastors, when they preach, should refer to a systematic theology approach of understanding a text. Should we bring all that we know about a given topic to a text that seems to exemplify it, or should we preach primarily within that text, drawing out themes of redemption that are present while leaving other aspects for later sermons. This is not a yes/no question, but an important one.

Why can't men wear purses? I mean, seriously. I am a pocket person, meaning I always have lots of stuff in my pockets or otherwise connected to my person. It would be a lot easier if I had a purse to carry that stuff in. Why is this not socially acceptable? Some people might suggest a "man-purse" but that is just not the same.

Living for Christ? What does it mean to "live for Christ." It is a phrase that gets thrown around in Christian circles a lot. I just don't really know what it means. I could look up any number of definitions for this phrase and could probably supply a fairly theologically correct one myself. But it doesn't mean anything if it is not experiential. I guess I just don't feel like I really "live for Christ" most of the time.

The importance of voice and melody. For the last few years my musical interests have been in the indie-rock/indie-folk vein. This music is still amazing and I continue to fall in love with bands like this. But these bands often downplay the importance of powerful vocals and melodies. I feel like I may be moving away from this and more toward vocally driven music.

How old is the earth? 6-day Creationism vs. Old earth is still a hot topic. Being in geology this semester has stimulated my interest in the topic. I have a fairly massive post about this that I am working on. It should be out soon, provided I have the guts to publish it.

Revelation. I have been reading through the book of John's revelation again. It is such a fascinating book. Reading it again has been very good for me. It is so symbolic, I don't know how anyone could have anything other than a preterist reading of it. Seriously.

Those thoughts have been pretty much in constant rotation in my mind lately.

Thoughts on Baptism, Part one

I am going to attempt several posts this semester concerning my thoughts on paedo/believer's baptism. This has been a mystery for me for a long time as I will explain below. However, I am starting to feel the need to come down on this issue for several reasons. Because I hope to be joining Zion Church soon, I would like to be cultivating a theology of baptism that will show me how I will appreciate the sacrament. When a baby is baptized at Zion, I need to have a category for how I deal with it. Is it good? Is it acceptable? Is it praiseworthy? Is it done out of tradition or real biblical thought? Another reason for studying this issue is that I hope to attend seminary after school. This decision may or may not have an effect on my choice of seminary, but it definitely will affect how I relate with ideas and people within seminary.

I grew up in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) in Mississippi. I witnessed many infant baptisms as I was growing up and did not question its validity until around middle school. I found out that my parents were of a believer's baptist position and that they only went to a PCA church because of the strong teaching. Then I realized that I hadn't been baptized as a child. I was baptized when I was 12 years old--I was sprinkled in that Presbyterian church as a believer. I befriended my pastors and struggled with the concept of baptism throughout high school. I was pretty much sold on the idea of believer's baptism when I finished high school and started college so I looked for Baptist churches in the area. Eventually, I had to come back to the PCA for the same reason my parents had joined years ago. I begin to question baptism again after my freshman year in college because of the influence of teaching and friends. And here I am uncertain again.

So I have picked up some reading that will guide me through this topic. I had some material for this previously, and I have a couple of books on order from Amazon. This may be slow processing because I don't have very much time to read. But I hope to get through these books by the end of the semester:

The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism (Gregg Strawbridge). This came recommended to me by one of the elders in my Church.

Christian Baptism (John Murray). This is a short work but I hope to use Murray to really get an intellectual mindset for infant baptism. He is a very pithy and heady writer.

Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (Thomas Schreiner & Shawn Wright). I chose this because it seems to be a definitive work on the covenantal aspect of believer's baptism. It is endorsed by the likes of Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware.

I am also finishing a little essay by Bryan Chapell called A Pastoral Overview of Infant Baptism. As the name would imply, his concerns are largely pastoral and not exegetical, but I am using this as a guide to the key passages on baptism, especially in the Old Testament. Befor e I begin my analysis, here is a presupposition and a disclaimer:

Assumption: Covenant theology is largely true. I concede that there is more continuity between the old and new covenants than discontinuity. There is a flow of redemption that needs to be understood. So, any study of theological issues in the NT need to be understood in the context of the OT. I may find that there is some discontinuity in the area of baptism...especially that it is not the sign of the new covenant. But I must first admit that there is a connection between old and new.

Disclaimer: My study will not focus as much on historical example. I find history to be inconclusive when it comes to this issue. As far back as I can see, there has been disagreement about baptism. Even if one side could lay claim to precedence, it could not precede by much, and there are other historical factors that could be at work.

As I begin this study, I need to be very careful about man's opinion. I don't want to be swayed into either camp because I don't want to offend or hurt people. I have great respect for my parents and the people in my church in Sioux City. I also have respect for my friends and teachers in Lincoln. This is hard, but I want my arguments to be biblically grounded in truth, not what is most convenient for me. Any reading recommendations and solid advice are welcome.

What to do?

From time to time, I think about all of the things that I am studying and compare it with all of the subjects that I would like to know about...and my head explodes. There is so much that I want to know about...to think about...to do...

I want to be a secular musician, a hymn writer, a theologian (or at least a serious student of theology), to study Communication and Literature (my majors) at a graduate level. I want my hobbies to include photography, linguistics, and studying abroad. I want to immerse myself in all kinds of theological and philosophical books, but at the same time, I want to be a person who gives invested time to others. I want to be a beer/wine/cigar connoisseur and an art/music critic. I want to become well trained in the culinary arts. Some aspects of taking Geology this semester have made me want to spend some time at a dig site in the middle east...

That list only scratches the surface. One of the most freeing things about Christianity is that you can take any number of those things and live a fulfilled, Christ glorifying life. But you can't do it all. Lately I have been questioning why I want to do those things...any and all of them. A phrase from Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life keeps coming back to my head...

Just one life, twill soon be past
Only whats done for Christ will last

It's my responsibility to separate these desires. I must decide what my abilities and gifts are and how they can be used for the sake of the Kingdom. Everything else is just arrogance. It is my desire to feel accomplished when I look at myself in the mirror...rather than seeing a reflection of the glory of God shown in a sanctified servant of the Kingdom.