Apostate Café

Three upcoming documentaries that I want to see:

• Rebellion of Thought — A critical look at the role of faith in a post-modern culture.
• For the Bible Tells Me So — A look at how people of faith handle, or sometimes tragically fail to handle, having a gay child.
• Lake of Fire — An examination of the abortion debate from Tony Kaye, the director of American History X.

This past Tuesday at home church it was my turn to present the Phos Hilaron. Sunam TAs on Tuesday, so she walked to hX from school. I was to bring Nolan and dessert. It didn’t go well. We got there late; there was a cooking disaster resulting in a store-bought chocolate cake having to substitute for Sunam’s homemade peach cobbler; our pastor’s wife was in the ER for kidney stones; Nolan was tired and cranky; I was tired and cranky; and I forgot my notes. So my presentation of the Phos Hilaron was hardly splendiferous, but here is what I would have said, had my mood been better and my notes been present.

The solitary flame has been a symbol of our faith since the time of the old covenant. In the wilderness out of Egypt, the glory of God would appear over the tabernacle as a flame at night. The book of Exodus (Exodus 27:20-21) commands that a lamp always burn in the Tabernacle of the Testimony; in contemporary Judaism the Ner Tamid (Hebrew for the eternal light) hangs above the Torah Ark, and the Catholic church prescribes that an altar lamp burn continually before the tabernacle.

During the time of Christ, the Festival of Tabernacles (or Feast of Booths) had symbolic components involving water and light. It was during the celebration of the Festival of Tabernacles that Christ boldly claimed: "If you are thirsty, come to me and drink! Have faith in me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you (John 7:37).”

Through a fortuitous and circuitous chain of events, I have learned that the Church of England has Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England available for download, free of charge, in PDF format. And for those who aren’t all up-ons with their Anglican lectionaries, Common Worship is an update of the Alternate Service Book of 1980, and is a companion of the CoE’s 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Our home church (hX) has started using the Phos Hilaron (AKA O Respledent Light or Hail Gladdening Light) to start out our time of worship. Each week the light-bearer bringing in a lantern, offers reflection on a passage of scripture, and then we recite the Phos Hilaron in unison. (Reflection, get it? Bwah hah hah.) Anyway, next week it is Sunam’s and my turn to be the bearers of light, so I have been researching the Phos for the last few days.

Over at InterVarsity Press, Dan Reid has a blog post about building the kingdom of God. In particular, who exactly is supposed to be building it? Hint: it ain’t us. I think he makes a good point. Read the full article at:
http://www.ivpress.com/blogs/addenda-errata/archives/2007/10/building_gods_kingdom.php

And don’t get scared off by the "that way lies pelagianism" line in the first paragraph… it is a pretty readable posting. There is a great Karl Barth quote at the end.

A tip of the hat on this one to Andy over at Think Christian. He comments:

Acts of Christian service should be understood as “signs and anticipations” of God’s Kingdom—important actions, but they do not themselves constitute the Kingdom, which is God’s alone to bring about… if you think about it, it’s a pretty important distinction: is it our job to bring about God’s Kingdom? Does that distinction change the way we go about doing acts of Christian service (and does it change the type of service we should focus on)?

The Fall 2007 Image Journal cover story has several artists and writers discuss the question, "Why Believe in God." Among those who address the question is Wim Wenders, who has this to say:

I’ve been away from God for a large part of my life, so I remember his absence. No, that’s the wrong way to say it. He wasn’t absent, I was. I had gone into exile of my own free will. I meandered through all sorts of philosophies, surrogate enlightenments, adventures of mind, socialism, existentialism, psychoanalysis (another ersatz religion). Some of these I won’t deny or badmouth. I’m happy to have been there—and back.

I remember how tentatively I started to pray again. I remember how that slowly changed me. I remember how I wept when I realized I had finally come home, when I felt that I was found again.

And how that feeling slowly transformed into a certainty.

Yes, a certainty.

But can I now answer: I believe in God because I remember how lost I was when I didn’t care? Or: I believe in God because I couldn’t take his absence anymore? Or: I believe in God because I cannot imagine any alternative? Or could I even conclude: believe in God because in my life God has become such a reality that the very question is like asking myself why I breathe?

Nod to Touchstone Magazine.

There is an article in the latest issue of Books & Culture about one of my favorite bands, Tool. A Bigger Tool Kit (Theology from a prog rock band) by Roger Freet contrasts the meditative lyrics of "Wings for Marie" and "10,000 Days (Wings part 2)" from Tool’s 2006 release 10,000 Days, with the virulent anti-God lyrics of "Judith" from A Perfect Circle’s 2000 release Mer de Noms. I think it is an interesting read, but I particularly like this point from the conclusion:

An artist who explicitly rejects God, as many have done, nevertheless remains a "sub-creator," as Tolkien said, a creator in the Creator’s image. We should be suspicious of our tendency to insist that God only shows up in the right places.

Read the full article at http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/005/12.34.html. My only slight niggle with the article is the claim that "[t]he band has been touring nonstop since May 2006 with shows booked through this September." Perhaps there was a long lead time on the article, but drummer Danny Carey tore his bicep in February 2007, and a large portion of their spring / summer 2007 tour had to be canceled. They were supposed to play in State College, but that ended up not happening. Which is a major bummer — they put on a great show.