The Pacifism of Jesus: Reclaiming Christianity’s Challenge
What if our worldly answer to this question, to resist, actually creates evil in us? What if the result is not just the defeat of the Nazis, but the bombing of Dresden and Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What if the price is to make us more like them, to be conformed to this world?
It may seem odd, even totally counter-intuitive, but following the words of Jesus should be hard. If it is a ticket to earthly dominance, to preservation of the status quo, we have to ask, “Is this really the gospel?”
System two is the analytical functioning of the brain that is required to rethink assumptions, challenge ideas, and construct new behaviors and beliefs. System two must be active to learn. Research shows that the brain shifts gears from system one to system two when it is forced to work; when it is challenged and uncomfortable.
God, through the sacraments, offers life, joy, and hope. These are moments when heaven comes to earth, where—as N. T. Wright likes to say—heaven and earth overlap. Creation is good, but new creation is better. New creation is the union of heaven and earth.
The sacraments, however, are not intended for mere comfort, nor are they offered as a ticket to “heaven.” They call us into deeper discipleship. We follow Jesus into the water in order to follow him into his kingdom ministry. We eat the broken bread in order to be broken for the sake of the world. The new creation life—the kingdom life—of the sacraments calls us to be instruments of that life in the present creation.
The Church must never forget that Jesus is the feast. Music (traditional or contemporary or hipster or whatever) is just a tool. A passing tool. A tool that will inevitably look like bell-bottoms to some future generation. But Jesus never fades, changes, or disappoints. Jesus always satisfies. May our churches embrace a confident, wide-range, biblical, and whole-hearted embrace of all sorts of styles of music as we seek to exalt and point to the One who calls us to feast on him.
So, as we enter into this new season: root for your favorite teams, enjoy the company of friends and loved ones as you do, but always keep in the forefront of your mind who you are, who you serve, and what your primary responsibility is. For there is no game on the face of the earth that is worth a man’s soul.
Job interviews missed for lost phone, spilled jam
The recruitment firm said it asked hiring managers in Britain, Singapore and Hong Kong to reveal some of the oddest excuses they’ve heard from potential employees who missed job interviews.
The excuses included a “lost iPhone” reported in an email clearly labeled as sent from an iPhone, a laptop computer that “exploded in the middle of the night” and left its owner “too traumatized” for a job interview, and a mishap involving apricot jam that affected a potential new hire who feared they wouldn’t “feel as confident in my other clothes.”
The ‘Shawshank’ Attraction: Famous Movie Prison Now a Big Tourism Draw
The prison featured in the 1994 movie “The Shawshank Redemption” is getting a new lease on life as a tourist attraction after escaping demolition.
The Ohio State Reformatory, a mammoth structure built in 1886, drew up to 80,000 visitors last year alone, was the site for celebrations marking the hit movie’s 20th anniversary last week that included a 40’s themed cocktail party.
Airport ‘loses’ elderly passenger, apologizes
“We’ve researched the details of this Denver customer’s travel and can verify that she checked in for her flight at Newark Liberty International Airport two hours prior to her scheduled departure, but a processing error in that check-in process did not alert our employees at the gate to her special need (wheelchair) in boarding the aircraft.”