The Myth Of Autonomy

There’s been some discussion here at iMonk recently about the value of personal autonomy. Many Americans believe that autonomy is achievable and that it’s the most honorable lifestyle there is.  They believe that people are autonomous individuals.  Even if I’m not as autonomous as I should be, because I lack courage or will, those people over there are — the survivalists, Amish, and Waldenites, for example.

There are a lot of words for it:  autonomy, independence, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, not being a burden, not taking hand-outs, taking care of my own, standing on my own two feet, freedom.  But autonomy is a myth, not a reality, and we’ll see why.  For the sake of convenience, I’m going to dub the adherents of the myth “autonomists,” even though Spellcheck won’t like it.

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Praising God in “Ordinary Time”

By Chaplain Mike

During the part of the Christian Year that some call “Ordinary Time,” we sometimes miss special celebratory aspects of worship that take place during the more festive seasons. For example, the music. One way I have found to fill this gap is to listen year round to J.S. Bach’s cantatas.

Bach wrote cantatas for every Sunday of the church year (notable exceptions being the Sundays in Lent). Many of these cantatas are compatible with texts for the day in the Lutheran lectionary, so one can use them to engage in personal worship that combines contemplating the Scriptures with Bach’s devotional choral masterpieces.

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Sunday’s Gospel: Fear Not, Little Flock

By Chaplain Mike

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Lectionary Readings
• Genesis 15:1-6
• Psalm 33:12-22 (22)
• Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
• Luke 12:32-40

Today’s Gospel
Today’s Gospel message takes the form of a personal testimony and tribute.

This weekend, we are visiting the congregation where I had my first pastorate. It’s a little Baptist church in the mountains of Vermont. The village had 200 people living in it when we were here, and I doubt the population has grown significantly since then. The church building is one of those white clapboard New England structures with a steeple, just like you see in all the calendars. It was constructed back in the 1860’s. The old one-room schoolhouse that stood on the property was moved and joined to the original sanctuary many years later as a space for children. Over the years, they’ve made some modifications to the building. They turned the sanctuary around and built a side entrance, blocking off the old front door of the church. They also jacked up the original building and dug a basement for a fellowship hall underneath it, extracting automobile-sized boulders from the rocky Vermont ground in the process.

The congregation was officially founded in 1814, just a few years after the town came into existence. Soon they will celebrate 200 years of God’s faithfulness.Continue reading “Sunday’s Gospel: Fear Not, Little Flock”

iMonk Classic: A Generous Catholicity

Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
Originally posted February 8, 2006

We like the creeds….except for the catholic parts.

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints…” -The Apostle’s Creed

“And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;… Amen.” – The Nicene Creed

I’ve been in probably 3000+ Baptist led worship services. With the exception of seminary and two years that I was on staff at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, I have almost never been in a Baptist church service or class where we used the Apostle’s or Nicene Creeds for any reason. (OK…the Founder’s Conference. You guys get some love.)

That’s because we knew they were trouble. And I know why. Let’s journey back to my youth among the Landmark version of Southern Baptists, a common variety in Kentucky in the 50′s and beyond, even to this day.

The anti-Roman Catholicism in my SBC upbringing extended to a general suspicion that “creeds” were instruments of Roman Catholic superstition. So while we were devoted to the King James Bible, the 1956 Baptist Hymnal and Southern Baptist Sunday School literature, the great creeds of the church could take a hike. A long hike.Continue reading “iMonk Classic: A Generous Catholicity”

Saturday Ramblings 8.7.10

Welcome to the Back To School edition of our weekly attempt to clean up the mess we make preparing delicious essays for you here at Internet Monk. Are all of the school-aged kiddos in your home ready to get back to structured learning? Do you have all the required school supplies? Backpack. Pencils. Erasers. Paper. Straws (for blowing spitballs at the teacher). And an extra helping of Saturday Ramblings.

Do you want your college-bound son or daughter attending a school were religion is prominent, where the vast majority of the students are very sincere in their faith? Of course you do. In that case, you will want to check out the most religious university in the nation, at least according to the Princeton Review. The winner is…oh, come on. You know I’m going to make you hit the link. See if your school is on the “most” list or the “least” list. And you know there are no atheists in college football stadiums come fourth quarter…

Ah, how we love trends. Those who can identify trends are trendsetters themselves and can be ahead of the curve. They are pioneers, not settlers. And at the end of the day, they are the ones who can leverage all of their knowledge to build the church that will meet the felt needs of their community. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to wash my mouth out with soap. Business speak makes me ill. I’m not saying that these five trends affecting the future growth of the church are not somewhat valid, but are we really so reliant on trends to shape our churches as that? Is there something more foundational than shifting trends we could use to build on?

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Open Mic: Why Do Women Want Moore?

By Chaplain Mike

This week’s Christianity Today magazine has a cover feature on Beth Moore. I have not read all of it yet, but while I am in the process, I thought I would give our Internet Monk community a chance to answer the question the title implies:

Why are people (especially women) so attracted to Beth Moore and her teaching?

CT labels her “the most popular Bible teacher in America.”

I will admit that I am not familiar with her teaching, but I do know that she is Southern Baptist, sells obscene numbers of books, that many, many churches are using her studies and videos, and that her events in cities across the country draw record crowds.

What has been your experience with Moore and her teaching ministry? What have you appreciated? What, if anything, concerns you?

Sisters, speak out! Since Moore’s ministry is directed to women, we need to hear especially from you.

NFL Football on the Horizon

By Chaplain Mike

I consider myself a fairly typical American sports fan. I can’t afford to be a season ticket holder, but I love going to games when I can, and enjoy watching on TV. I generally follow all the big events like everyone else—World Series, the weekly college and pro football games, the golf majors, Super Bowl, Final Four, and the playoffs in the major sports.

In my opinion, the best sport by far to watch on television is football. (That’s American football, for our international readers.) Football is a weekly festive celebration in American culture. With a passion pastors wish their congregants had for Sunday worship, people across the land prepare all week to root for their favorites players and teams and to watch the games that have come to define our weekends.

This week, NFL training camps opened, and the hype has begun.

Your Internet Monk writers think that such a significant cultural phenomenon ought to receive some attention from us. So, at the end of this first week of camp, we thought it would be good to post a piece that contains our unique forecast of everything football fans have to look forward to in 2010-11. Here is a preview of what the NFL will treat football fans to this year—the highs, the lows, the drama, the routine, the unexpected, the obvious observations, the subtle insights.

We present the official IM guide to all you need to know to prepare you for the upcoming season—

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Difficult Scriptures: Exodus 4:24-26

I am often asked what the purpose of Internet Monk is. What are we trying to do? Depending on who is asking, and on whatever mood I’m in, I might answer in a variety of ways. But the response I give most often is that we are a wrestling mat where ideas are tossed. Our community of readers then get down on the mat and wrestle with one another to come up with, if not a definitive answer, at least perhaps a better way to frame the question.

So I want to introduce a new, periodic feature for all of you iMonk grapplers called “Difficult Scriptures.” This is where we will introduce a verse or passage that requires more than just a cursory explanation to have it make sense. Then we will stand back and let you share your insights. Rules are the same as always: No eye gouging, no hitting below the belt. Feel free to disagree all you want with another commenter, but treat that person as you would like to be treated. Keep your answers concise and on topic. No fighting, no biting. Other than that, have fun!

Today’s scripture:

Exodus 4:24-26 (NLT)

24 On the way to Egypt, at a place where Moses and his family had stopped for the night, the Lord confronted him and was about to kill him. 25 But Moses’ wife, Zipporah, took a flint knife and circumcised her son. She touched his feet with the foreskin and said, “Now you are a bridegroom of blood to me.” 26 (When she said “a bridegroom of blood,” she was referring to the circumcision.) After that, the Lord left him alone.

What is this? God was about to kill Moses? Why? Other translations render this, “God tried to kill Moses.” How could God try but not succeed in killing him?  Just what does mean?

Qualified? Then You’re Not Qualified.

Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license.

Those eight words comprise an entire chapter of Gordon MacKenzie’s classic book on creativity, Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace. I’m not going to talk about creativity just now, although that is something I love to discuss. And this is not going to be one of those “If you can dream it you can do it” motivational pieces. What I am constantly amazed at is how God selects people for tasks without seemingly inquiring about their qualifications.

The Wright Brothers had no qualifications as pilots. They had never been in a flight simulator. They hadn’t passed any tests. They were not given permission by the FAA or the Kitty Hawk beach patrol to fly a plane on that North Carolina beach. They were just two brothers from Dayton, Ohio who were curious to see if they could get a powered heavier-than-air machine to fly. They had tried and failed for two winters before their successful flight on December 17, 1903. And after that, they failed a lot more times.

Continue reading “Qualified? Then You’re Not Qualified.”

Midweek Psalms: Introduction

By Chaplain Mike

Today I will begin a series of studies, posted each Wednesday evening, on Psalms 120-134. These are known, from their inscriptions, as the “Songs of Ascent.” Today’s post explores what that title means, and then gives a brief summary of my interpretive approach to the Book of Psalms.

SONGS OF ASCENT
The following quote from James Limburg in his Westminster Bible Companion commentary on the Psalms, gives a good overview of Psalms 120-134:

Psalm 120 is the first of a series of psalms running from 120 to 134, each of which is identified as “A Song of Ascents,” literally, “A Song for the Going Up.” This expression appears to refer to “going up” to Jerusalem; the same Hebrew word appears in the reference to the tribes who “go up” to Jerusalem in Psalm 122.4. This group of fifteen psalms seems to have been used for going up to Jerusalem for one of the festivals held there (see Deut 16.16), and thus these have been called pilgrimage psalms. These psalms were likely gathered together as a special collection to be used on such pilgrimages.

Continue reading “Midweek Psalms: Introduction”