I have your Gmail
Just ask and you shall receive
But ask in haiku

I’m in the market for a good study bible. I’m interested in the ESV, as I’ve heard good things about it. I like the NIV but have trouble reading it freshly, since it’s the version I’m most familiar with, and we already have a decent hardcover NIV Study Bible. I really like the NRSV, but have had trouble finding one with study notes. On the other hand, a lot of study bibles have two tiny columns of text that are so narrow they’re difficult to follow.

I want something in leather, something that will stay open by itself and has some heft without being overly bulky, and that has reasonably wide columns and generally good typography. Preferably NRSV or another good translation, with study notes. Any recommendations?

I clicked the “Updates are available” balloon on my laptop today and was informed that the massive 75MB+ Service Pack 2 was ready for installation. Wow, this is a major upgrade. I chose to install it and reboot, and I was greeted with several changes:

• QuickLaunch shortcut for Internet Explorer added to the menu bar
• Security Center console, which came up automatically and tried to block AIM, my browser, and just about everything else that runs on startup
• Information Bar in IE that tries to block file downloads and popups, until you turn it off (which I did immediately)

It’s nothing I wouldn’t expect from Microsoft. I suspect that this will result in more people being less dumb about their computers’ security, but it’s mostly a hassle for me. I haven’t had an unwanted popup in months, and I have never had adware on my computer (according to Norton Internet Security Professional, which Microsoft rips off in almost every new feature in SP2). I’m convinced that security risks are mostly the result of web developers being evil, and web users going to the evil sites. Somehow I avoid them, though.

A hassle for me. Hopefully it will make the world a better place. Ugh.

What bugs me is how Microsoft ignores user settings with IE. Since when is it OK to add QuickLaunch shortcuts without asking? And why doesn’t the Messenger shortcut to my Hotmail account open in my default browser (which is not IE)? Using Microsoft products is like living with control-freak parents after you’re grown - you don’t want the interference, but there’s not much else out there should you reject them and their intrusions.

There are too many weenies in the world, and not enough people willing to take action.

For Film & Spirituality yesterday, we watched Dogville, starring Nicole Kidman. This fantastic film is set in the early 20th century in a small Colorado town (small as in under 20 residents). I won’t spoil it for you, but suffice it to say the love interest is a weenie and doesn’t do what he should to protect the woman he supposedly cares about.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading Tom Clancy’s Teeth of the Tiger, which features the son of his well-known character Jack Ryan (Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games - played by Harrison Ford) and his twin cousins. The premise is that Islamic terrorists attack the US again, but this time a para-governmental agency, completely off the books, is poised to strike back at “The Organization” responsible for the attacks.

The theme, repeated almost so often that Clancy must think we’re stupid, is that some people need to be killed even when there’s not a legal way to do it. So the book is about a squad of assassins sent out to dismantle the terrorist organization. Exactly the opposite of what happens in Dogville.

The movie really had me ticked off, right up to the end, that a guy could be such a weenie and stand by while evil was perpetrated on the woman he loved - or any innocent person, for that matter.

The downside of not being a weenie - and Clancy brings this up a lot, too - is that you tend to get overzealous. “What if we kill the wrong guy?” the assassins ask each other over and over. “We’ll make sure we get the right bad guy” is the reply each time. In the present political situation, with the Iraq war and the US Presidential election, I have to admit that, while the basis for starting the war is pretty weak, I am glad that there are still some non-weenies in the world. More specifically, I am glad that the current occupant of the White House - whatever else you may think of him - can’t be called a weenie.

You’ve heard the quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” (Edmund Burke). My search for the exact wording of that quote led me to this one from Ayn Rand: The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.

So here’s to those who have risen to the defense of the innocent.

God presides in the great assembly;
he gives judgment among the “gods”:

“How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
Selah

Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;
maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” (PS 82:1-4)

So I guess I should end with a question. What are the challenges of rising to this call?

Today at our Contxt bible study (that is, in our living room), we discussed how we obtain our knowledge of God. We made pie charts graphing how we obtained that knowledge in the past, and how we currently obtain that knowledge or intend to from now on.

We found that we all had a heavy input from our parents’ faith early on (50% or more on each graph), with a strong emphasis on Church of Christ tradition. Now, one thing you must understand about CofC tradition is that it is not seen as tradition, but rather the correct interpretation of scripture. I suspect that all modern Christian traditions see themselves this way.

Our future graphs were far more balanced. Some of the sources of knowledge included:

• Scripture
• Traditions outside our own, but still within Christianity
• Nature
• Extrabiblical texts, e.g. church fathers
• Contemporary theological works
• Other Christians we know and trust

There were others, of course. We had a very stimulating discussion about mystery and the parts of Christianity that don’t really make sense. For example, you have to admit that the communion thing isn’t something people would just think up on their own. It’s weird.

How do we deal with the weird, specific parts of Christianity? Every religion has them, and often we think of others’ beliefs as weird without recognizing such weirdness in our own beliefs.

I came to the conclusion that the weirdness can only be explained through the story of the people among which it developed. Attempts to rationalize religious beliefs apart from their history is futile. For example, try finding an explanation of the necessity of Jesus’ suffering that doesn’t rely heavily on the Jewish sacrificial system. If you find one, it probably paints an ugly picture of God, or contains a lot of logical leaps.

I came to the conclusion that scripture plays a smaller role in my spiritual understanding than it has in the past, and a smaller role than I want it to have. I’m not entirely sure how to go about fixing this, because I think to some extent that we simply read in scripture what we want to see, so reading more isn’t always the solution. My friend David is getting into the Christian mystics and early church literature more lately, and I think that may be a partial answer.

I’ve always loved the story of the prodigal son. It’s a story of hope, reconciliation, and unconditional love. Steve Taylor’s Rereading the Prodigal (via Jonny Baker) also offers a deeper perspective into this terrific story. But recent events in my family have brought both new insights and new questions about this timeless parable of Jesus. For instance, I now realize how submissive the father was to the will of his son. After the son demanded his inheritance and freedom it appears that the father let him go with little resistance. I’m sure he pleaded with his son to stay but I don’t think he exerted any force to make him stay. The father gave his son free will with no strings attached.

On the opposite side of the story, the son also had the free will to stay in the foreign country or to return home. It’s very possible that another version of the story could leave the son consumed with his own pride and foolishness, refusing to return home to the father who loves him. Recently I have found myself wondering how that story would end. What would become of the younger son? The older son? The father? How would they all cope? Would it destroy them or would they overcome? Do you know any families where the prodigal refused to return home?

[Personal Observation: From this perspective it looks like God condemns no one. Each individual simply decides to stay from or return to the Father, a condemnation or salvation of his or her own choosing.]

I invite you to share your insights, especially those who feel that they relate to the various roles of the story. Also, I’ve posted the biblical text of the story to the point where the younger son makes his decision of whether to stay or go. If you’re feeling creative, finish the story as you picture it if the son refused to return home (make sure you read Rereading the Prodigal first).

Luke 15:11-16

11 There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

Missional Church quotes the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (see p. 120):

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines.

But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners.

As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.

They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

To sum up all in one word - what the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world.

It is interesting that the book quotes this passage in a section describing how the church is a “nation,” explaining how the church is described in highly political terms, yet is not a nation-state, but an alternative way of life.

The scariest part of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: Jim McDermott’s casual statement that no one read the USA Patriot Act before it was signed into law. He explained that congresspeople don’t have time to read all the bills they sign.

That’s how we get stuff like Ian Spiers’ harassment in Seattle and AKMA’s in Massachusetts for “stealing” wifi.