becoming

兩年前曾在不同場合提過Unchristian一書，喜見天道有膽出它的中譯。值得一推！

近日聽到一個信徒，比較自己教會和我教會的講道，有點抱怨地說：

「我還是喜歡聽講道，但你不是講道，你講聖經…」

聽了之後，我也不太懂該怎樣反應。

我明白背後那一大堆「講道要生活化」、「查經可以去主日學」的邏輯道理。也明白今天講道者的不濟，很多時候，實在真的難辭其咎。

我只覺得，今天信徒普遍對講壇信息的要求，既危險，連多麼不合真理也不自知。

危險，因為正正是那些討人喜歡、「頭痛醫頭，腳痛醫腳」的所謂「生活性」講章，造成了今天信徒，個個成了只能給你20分鐘的「聽道植物人」：我們期待講員給我答案，而沒有興趣被信息挑戰去自己從聖經中找答案。

不合真理，是因為坦白一點說，講道的目的是為幫助你認識從聖經中啟示的神的計劃，而不是神在聖經中，說了甚麼去幫助你和你的計劃：是你要怎樣加入神的工作，不是祂要如何配合你。

我們會批評某些傳道、同工講道能力之低，卻漠視自己原來連最基本的聽道目的也攪不清楚。

是否時候，眾教會要認真考慮在初信栽培課程中，加入一堂「聽道學」？

誰說「聽」，不需要學？

Why a little church history is a dangerous—and necessary—thing.
Carolyn Arends

…The story of Christianity ultimately leaves me shocked at the risks God takes with humans. Even the greatest lights in church history were dishearteningly imperfect. For all his heroism, Luther attacked the Jewish faith so polemically the Nazis later misappropriated his writings for their anti-Semitic cause. Reformer Ulrich Zwingli advocated justification by faith and concern for the poor, but he also endorsed the executions of two of his brightest disciples because they became Anabaptists. Simons was an inspired Anabaptist leader, but he overzealously excommunicated many who did not live up to his pious standards.

Yet God did great things through these flawed people, much as he did with Abraham, Isaac, Peter, and Paul. As long as there is a human element in his church, it will be prone to corruption. But as long as his Spirit moves, there will be reform and renewal.

When our kids are ready, we will give them context for their religious heritage. For now, they do not understand that the church they file into on Sunday mornings is a place as dangerous as it is holy. But if God is willing to keep taking a chance on it, so are we.

[Read it all here]

You can see how dangerous it is for us not to read the Bible or to understand “a little church history” ourselves. Our projection and idea of God could never match the real one revealed in human history. We can never appreciate how gracious He really is, unless we have a deeper and fully understanding of how we are, both individually and corporately, as human beings.

我們在天上的父：

就是要謝謝你，

作我們，在天上，的，父。

Okay, I get it — give your kids Scott’s Emulsion cod liver oil, and they will turn into freaks.

So much for advertising.

James K.A. Smith:

In Good Game, one of the things Shirl Hoffman emphasizes about “good” sport is that play is “autotelic”: that is, it is its own reward, its own end. The joy is in the playing.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this instrumentalization more powerfully than Nike’s new World Cup ad in which the world’s football great are shown to be motivated by either the quest for glory or the fear of shame. Rooney and Ronaldo are (probably correctly) portrayed as playing for the acquisition of women and wealth and worldwide adulation–goods external to the game itself. The commercial is a case study in everything Hoffman shows is wrong with sport.

[HT: Fors Clavigera]

[The game] is simple, using the left and right [arrow] keys for movement, and the [space] key to interact with people and items when their name pops up at the bottom of the screen. The goal is to get through the day. A day like any, every other day. Your path appears to be predefined; get up, get dressed, say goodbye to your emotionally oblivious wife, and go to your cubicle at work. Wash, rinse, repeat. And yet, if you break out of routine any way you can, whether it be simply by going left instead of right or taking more drastic steps, you’ll find that there are ways you can experience his small world differently. You’ll have to play through the day multiple times to see all the content, but it still probably won’t take you very long at all…

…The protagonist has no face, no personality, and yet there’s something about his situation that makes him instantly identifiable, someone to feel sympathy for. I almost felt a sense of desperation the longer I played as I tried to find something, anything, that would change his life for the better… or even at all.

Play it here.

[Every Day The Same Dream]