A false virtue…
Christians are to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (I Peter 3:15). Has anyone recently asked you to give the reason for your hope? If the research is right, few Christians are asked and few can answer.1 But the problem might not be the person in the pew. It might be that modern day Christianity has made a virtue out of a vice. To fix this problem, you’d have to pull your car over and peer into the rear view mirror. What – your faith has no rear view mirrors?
Arf???
Henri Poincaré’s flash of insight arrived as he boarded a city bus. Albert Einstein’s epiphany came as he imagined a boy riding alongside a light beam. When C. S. Lewis arrived at Whipsnade Zoo, he got a surprise – he believed in Christ as the Son of God.1 In each case, insight started with a surprise, not a search. Surprised? Welcome to the “doggie head tilt” – the first step for reframing religion in today’s world.
Praying for China
They say if you throw a frog in a kettle of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But if you throw it in a pot of cool water and slowly turn up the heat, it’ll boil to death. If Japan’s economy is a frog, it’s already boiled, says Shumpei Takemori, a professor of economics at Tokyo’s Keio University.1 China’s economy is following the same flight path as Japan’s – just a few years behind. There’s only one problem with the pictures of frogs and flight paths. Only one is true. As the Summer Olympics open this Friday in Beijing, it will help those who pray for China to know which one is right.
Family and home.
“I don’t care what they do in their private life… as long as they can get the job done.” A lot of people today see no problem in disconnecting their private life from their public one. But it disturbs many Christians. Rightly so. Yet believers might be contributing to this dilemma. Beginning in the nineteenth century, some Christians began to consider the family and home “the most sacred place.” What’s wrong with that?
The most immediate adversary
On the twenty-fourth of May 1844, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse tapped out a four-word message before a hushed gathering in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court in Washington: “WHAT GOD HATH WROUGHT.” It was the first telegram sent over Morse’s invention, the telegraph. Yet for all the fanfare, people like Henry David Thoreau predicted a cost in conquering “the first enemy.” What enemy? What cost?
Two questions
Do you imagine the world is getting better or is it going to hell in a hand basket? Second, do you imagine your church is getting progressively better or declining? These are broad questions, but my hunch is that nineteen out of twenty American Christians would say the world is deteriorating while their church is improving. But what if it’s just the opposite? The answer can be found by remembering the ends justify the means.
I received little of my dad’s DNA. He was an engineer and every time he tried to explain to me what he did for a living, my eyes glazed over. The same thing can happen when we talk about “connecting Sunday to Monday.” Too often it’s a fog of abstractions. But that’s not the case with David Greusel, a principal with HOK Sport Venue Event. He’s an architect who sees his work as a calling…
I received little of my dad’s DNA. He was an engineer and every time he tried to explain to me what he did for a living, my eyes glazed over. The same thing can happen when we talk about “connecting Sunday to Monday.” Too often it’s a fog of abstractions. But that’s not the case with David Greusel, a principal with HOK Sport Venue Event. He’s an architect who sees his work as a calling…
A Very Good Year
by Mike Metzger
June 23, 2008
Benefiting humanity.
When Henry Kissinger reportedly asked former Chinese leader Chou En Lai whether the French Revolution of 1789 had benefited humanity, Chou replied: “It’s too early to tell.” It’s too early to tell which events in 2008 will change the world. But next year – 2009 – marks the 250-year anniversary when several threads began to be stitched together in a network that would benefit humanity. 1759? Yes, it was a very good year.
Verbs and nouns
“You don’t really have to eat, do you?” Mack asked. “We don’t have to eat anything,” Papa replied. “Then why do you eat?” Mack inquired. “To be with you, honey. You need to eat, so what better excuse to be together.”1 In this story, “Papa” is God – who is a big, black woman. If you find the picture of God as a female to be distasteful, you might not have acquired a taste for heaven. That’s because God might be a verb rather than a noun.
