Archives for November 2011

Luther then goes in to have his chat with God… another 30 mins later he comes out saying “At last I know why James’ epistle was included in the canon!”

Karl Barth goes in for his chat with God…………… 2 hours later God walks out shaking His head saying “I STILL don’t get his Church Dogmatics!”

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Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, and James Cone find themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi. Who should come along but Jesus, and he asks the four famous theologians the same Christological question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.”

Not prepared for Barth’s brevity, Paul Tillich stumbles out: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.”

Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.”

Finally James Cone gets up, and raises his voice: “You are my Oppressed One, my soul’s shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, and whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.”

And Jesus writes in the sand, “Huh?”

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What did the Calvinist say when he fell down the stairs?

A – Ughh! Sure glad I got that over with.

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Jewish chap, Reuben, goes to see his friend Mordecai. He shares distraught: “You wont believe this but my son has become a Christian.”

Mordecai responds in amazement: “You wont believe this but my son has become a Christian too.” They decide to go to the Rabbi, and when they tell him what’s happened, the Rabbi says shaking his head “You wont believe this but my son also has become a Christian too.”

Reuben, Mordecai and the Rabbi kneel in prayer and tell Jehovah what has happened – suddenly an awesome voice booms from the heavens “you wont believe this, but my son…..”

 This appeared in my Facebook newfeed from my RL and FB friends Luke Tarassenko and Simon Ponsonby. Too good not to share. Goodness or badness all theirs!

Here are snippets from Stuart’s post (blush).

WARNING: This is one of those self-indulgent blog posts on Christian blogging that’s a little random.

Anita Mathias is one of those lovely, reflective, spiritual bloggers, that I love to read, as you get a real shot in the arm of the stuff that’s really important.

I do honestly wish that I were a little more spiritual full stop in my blogging. I know full well that I’m rough around the edges and a little aggressive combative forthright at times. But I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not. I’ve often not got my spiritual head on and this spills over into my blogging. Yes I am Worzel Gummidge.

Anyway – as usual – Anita has a few blog posts that have given me pause for thought.

The first was entitled: One Way To Get A Lot Done When You Are Very Busy and cited Martin Luther as saying that the busier he was, the more time he spent in prayer. I noted that I wish I were like that, to which Anita responded:

Me too. I am sure it works though. So much of what we do is unnecessary. Perhaps with practice, the unconscious tunes in to the mind of God, and we stumble upon clever ways to do things, things we can eliminate, and the Gordian knots which can be slashed rather than unravelled.

My confession was:

The truth is that in the parable in 1 Corinthians it says:

If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.

At times (most of the time) I feel that I build on wood, hay or straw.

It’s not nice but that’s how I feel.

I wonder if any other Christians ever feel this way? Thinking specifically about blogging, I wonder if it furthers the cause of the Kingdom in any way. Truthfully, I don’t think it does, but I still feel compelled to blog. It was this sort of thinking that made me change my bio from a “Christian blog” to a “Christian that happens to blog”.

Today Anita blogged: Christian Blogging: Ministering Without Preaching and I had to laugh at point number 3:

The things which are glaringly obvious to everyone else, but which we are oblivious to. Bloggers, despite themselves, make these dreadful revelations about themselves—unwittingly revealing their emotional contours, their prejudices, their fears, their secret patches of pride, shame and sensitivity. Many personal blogs can be decoded by an alert reader. Anyone who chronicles the ongoing story of their personal or spiritual lives on the web makes these unconscious revelations, and must make peace with this.

I recently blogged that psychiatrists can determine our personality traits – or more accurately flaws – based on our social media interactions. I find that you often get a feel for a blogger that you follow; it’s like you get to know them to a certain extent.

I try to be honest here, but obviously there are some things I don’t divulge; although, having said that, I can’t think of anything I’ve not revealed one way or the other. Anyway, it makes me wonder how accurate the impression I give of myself really is. And how important is this for Christian blogging?

Doesn’t going honest just put people off Jesus? I mean, revealing that we are just as weak, biased and frail as anyone else, isn’t conducive to the Gospel is it?