Saturday, September 24, 2005
A Theology of Mental Illness
Demon Possession seems to be the way that the biblical writers perceived mental illness. Jesus healed it by casting out demons. King Saul was plagued by a demon. It was a frightening condition. The man at Gedarenes was chained, broke his chains and lived in the graveyard. Modern psychology...
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Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Where's My Megaphone?
Today I envisioned walking into strange churches on Sunday morning with a megaphone disrupting the regular service and describing to the congregations what I saw this morning. I saw a room of people packed in like a cord of wood. They are homeless, mentally ill and elderly. This is the new poor...
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Two Churches
I attend two churches. One church we attend with our friends who are new to church. Right now they only go about once a month. The other church I attend about two times a month depending on whether I go to Salem or a campout. The one church has professional style very upbeat music. The sermons are...
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Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Faith and Depression
When I was twenty and dealing with constant depression, I had the opportunity to anonymously ask a college Christian group leader whether or not Christians should have depression. Basically he said that Christians should never be depressed because they know the Lord and they should be trusting in...
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Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Praise where praise is due--McBreeze
In her blog, "Does Your Opinion Count, McBreeze wrote about her experience as a gay parent. Her partner and she are exceptional parents. They treat their children with a great deal of respect. Their children prefer to live with gay parents rather than straight parents even though they sometimes...
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Reestablishing a Relationship with God
in some ways seminary and working as a pastor killed my relationship with God. Although i still rely on him and wrestle theologically, it is hard just to read the Bible, pray and meditate. The intellectual should add to the spiritual, but it usually doesn't. Too often intellect is seem as a way to...
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Sunday, August 14, 2005
Defending the Faith
by tearing down everyone else's belief system does nothing for me. I believe because faith itself supplies me with sufficient reasons. If a Buddhist or Muslim would question why I didn't believe in their faith, I would tell them about my own, since I know little about their faiths. Even if I had...
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Friday, August 12, 2005
Strength Through Weakness
Our strength comes through weakness. Our strengths are weaknesses. The temptation in Eden was to conisder themselves to be God. We are made to be creatures in constant communion with God. We work dependent on God. We have a God given mission which we can only fulfill with God's instruction and help....
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Thursday, August 11, 2005
I will give you rest.
This is a wonderful promise that Jesus makes. It is even more wonderful if you live in a place and time where stopping to say hi to a friend is considered rude by the people behind you. In my city, everyone is in a hurry. We have too few roads for as many cars as there are. Children participate in...
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005
God is in control?
People think that if there is a God he must be in control. The world is a cruel and dangerous place, so God must be that way, too. But I do not believe that God is in control. Instead what is true, God is powerful. Thus he is able to intervene. However, he only intervenes according to his plan, and...
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