Sturtz Stuff

In the Antigone, a play by Sophocles, contempt of death enables a weak maiden to conquer a powerful ruler, who, proud of his wisdom, ventures in his unbounded insolence to pit his royal word against divine law and human sentiment, and learns all too late, by the destruction of his house, that Fate in due course brings fit punishment on outrage. There is part of the play when Antigone ,the title character says, “Leave me my foolish plan; I am not afraid of the consequences. If it brings death, it will not be the worst of deaths- death without honor.” [1] Seems like Antigone’s foolish plans were truly not that foolish after all. In Margaret Wheatley’s book Turning to One Another there are two sentences that jump off the paper. The first one is: “Determination, courage, genius and foolishness all appear simultaneously when we care deeply about something.” Isn’t “foolishness” the oddest word in that sentence? When we care deeply shouldn’t we be MORE serious than usual? Doesn’t our serio...

The Book of Jonah - It is not about the Fish   Kurt Vonnegut was an influential twentieth century author and WWII soldier. He was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. While a prisoner he survived the Allied firebombing of the German city of Dresden.   In one of his books he suggests that humans can conduct wars as horrible as anything that you have ever seen or read about and the only thing that we can do about it is just not look. Vonnegut suggests that it is actually very easy for us to detach ourselves emotionally from lostness and oppression that are near or far from us. That raises some issues for me and perhaps for you as well. It makes me wonder if God cares about the people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, or Syria ? Is God interested in pagan people who do not believe in him? Is God bothered by inhumane governments? Does the Good News of Jesus have anything to do with the social and political problems that face the world? When we think of oppres...

Psalm 127:2: It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved. Many of us overwork. We work all day and sometimes late into the night. With our hand-held technology our work follows us home. Yet many of us experience work the same way as the Psalmist. Working all the time is like living on a diet of anxiety and long hours. It makes your spirit puny. The end of Ps.127:2 hints at another option. The “he” is a reference to God. No matter how hard you work, all rest and rejuvenation comes from outside. Significance is generally not found in work, but in the one who renews our spirits and restores our soul. It is not that we quit working, but that we quit looking to our toil and work for significance and renewal. That comes only from above. The first line of Psalm 127 reveals a critical life truth: “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

            The Latin phrase Lex orandi, lex credendi is typically translated as “the law of prayer is the law of belief”. This brief blog entry will discuss how this small phrase carries a lot of theological import in the task of theology. Understanding The value and significance of worship cannot be explained as superstition alone. [1] The phrase Lex orandi, lex credendi suggests that before there was a cannon and creeds there were beliefs, traditions, values and significance transferred via the life of the early church. Thus the liturgy of the church is a witness to what the Church has believed alongside Scripture and tradition. [2]   The author of Jeremiah 6:16 states: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Lex orandi or “law of prayer” suggests that to understand the worship of the Church one must look ...

Some time back CNN reported on the economic hard times of many in America. One such story was about Dan Kostrikin who at age 44 was having to look for a roommate to help make his home mortgage payment. The Torrance, California, executive recruiter had been enjoying success and all the freedom his single life afforded him. He remodeled the home he bought in 2008 just as he wanted it. He traveled outside the country a few times a year. He ate out for almost every meal, treated himself to the pricier cell phone plan and belonged to a really posh gym. Those comforts, however, slipped away as many companies stopped hiring, making his commission-only job next to impossible. With only one executive placement in four months, Kostrikin says he's only eating at home, changed his cell plan and gym membership, suspended cable television service and his only travel plans amount to walks on the nearby beach. While all of these changes have been adjustments, the biggest one is yet to come...

Found this interesting - that our culture notices how messed up the world is yet feels hopless that anything will change. Our culture like the TV show admits things are messed up yet can only offer some laughs about any possibly of an alternative. I would highlight that I am not sure how the author's statement that the "doctrine of original sin does not state that human beings are composed only of evil" fits with John Calvin's own statement of total human depravity when he says "For our nature is not merely bereft of good, but is so productive of every kind of evil that it cannot be inactive. Those who have called it concupiscence [a strong, especially sexual desire, lust] have used a word by no means wide of the mark, if it were added (and this is what many do not concede) that whatever is in man from intellect to will, from the soul to the flesh, is all defiled and crammed with concupiscence; or, to sum it up briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing bu...

I found this old post by John Marks Hicks. He reflects on a question that I too have considered. I have "grown up" in the Stone-Campbell movement (the Independent Christian Church stream). I greatly appreciate the spiritual heritage that has been handed down to me. There are many Sunday School teachers, my parents, ministers that passed along a rich faith in Christ. Yet, it was not until stepping out and pursuing a seminary degree that a deep and rich grasp of Church history was explored. It is regrettable that within the Stone-Campbell movement, a movement often very concerned with history,  "Church History" is often considered something suspicious if not completely irrelevant. Thus I enjoyed this post by John Mark Hicks because I think he expresses something that I have found as well. That Church History for me is something illuminating, liberating and humbling. Here is the post I have a vested interest in that question. Partly because I have a Ph.D. in Refor...

I put this post here because somewhere along the way we in the Stone-Campbell tradition seem to have replaced the very biblical vision of heaven coming to earth. Instead we, like the Left Behind book series, seem ready to check out of this world and go to some other place. Here is the post. . . . What does it mean for the creation to wait with earnest expectation for the revelation of the children of God in which it will be delivered from its own bondage of decay so as to experience the freedom of the redeemed and resurrected children of God? Romans 8:19-23 Moses Lard (1818-1880), the conservative editor of Lard’s Quarterly and the Apostolic Times, answered this question in his Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Romans (1875). Here is his answer in part (pp. 269-273). The word “creation” includes so much of all creation as fell under the original curse on account of Adam’s sin. Under that curse the earth certainly fell; for God cursed it directly and in so ma...

Some wonderful reflections upon the Lord's Supper by Mark Hicks . You can read the whole thing here . John Mark suggests three ways to view the Table: 1. Jesus on the Table–the sacrifical victim who nourishes us with new life 2. Jesus at the Table–the hospitable host who welcomes all to the table 3. Jesus serving the Table–the master who waits on tables

  But I am also sure that, to the extent I have learned to speak truly, I have done so because I have had to teach others how Christians in the past have spoken. In truth, I have only come recently to understand that what I have been doing for many years has been teaching people how to talk. I was startled by a remark a friend made to me recently. He is a graduate student in anthropology with whom I was writing a paper, in which we tried to challenge the presumption that "global Christianity" was an adequate description of what it means for the church to be "Catholic." He told me that, when he is asked by his colleagues what it was like to write with me, he has to say it is not easy because, in his words, "Hauerwas only knows how to write Christian." I must confess that I found his response gratifying, though I am not sure that he is right. I am sure I did not know how to "write Christian" when I began to teach and write. If I hav...

This was written by a former professor of mine. He still teaches at a Christian college and spent 20 years as a full time preacher/minister. I thought he made some good points worth sharing. The politicians have once again baited the religious among us. The religious among us have swallowed the bait, “hook, line, and sinker” as the southern way of describing the overly gullible might sound. It is amazing to me that this game keeps being played, right now over birth control, but the subject hardly matters, we keep playing the game! What frustrates me about “the game” is that it inevitably has those who have taken the mantle of speaking for Christians sound as though they expect the federal government to do the job that God gave the church, not government. A reasonable reading of Paul’s comments in Romans 13 would suggest that citizens of the kingdom of God ultimately understand that “Rome is not the answer.” The emperor was quite guilty allowing (and probably...