Chaplain Mike and Jeff Dunn will be were on Steve Brown, Etc. today at noon Eastern. It will be available to listen to online later today, or you can catch it on many radio stations nationwide this weekend. Â You can check out the information for the broadcast here.
Thanks to Steve and Eric for making it a fun time.
I am a geek when it comes to the Wright Brothers and manned space flight, as much of this history goes through Dayton, Ohio (near where I was born and raised) and vicinity. I have several dozen books on Wilbur and Orville as well as the space program. I consider going to the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patt Air Force Base to be a highlight of any trip back home.
I can remember exactly where I was in July of 1969 when I watched on television men actually walk on the moon. I ran outside and looked up at the moon, then back in to see Armstrong and Aldrin walking on that same moon on our TV. Back and forth I went, amazed to think that those two men were actually up there right now, walking on the moon’s surface.
Twelve men walked on the surface of the moon during the Apollo missions. (The Apollo program lasted just a little over three years. Three years, twelve men. Yes, I get it.) Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, Jim Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt. Conrad, Shepard and Irwin are all dead. The youngest of the remaining nine, Duke and Schmitt, are 75 years old. Other than Neil Armstrong–and maybe Buzz Aldrin–most school kids today could not name any of these pioneers.
A word from Chaplain Mike:
This is the first of what I hope will be many posts by good friend Damaris Zehner.
Thanks, Damaris!
We Christians ought to have more enemies.
This post is not about fat and happy Christians needing more suffering to test their faith. It’s not about standing up for what we believe, regardless of who we offend. It’s not about drawing a circle around ourselves that leaves out everyone who doesn’t agree with us.
It’s about the commandment in the Bible to love our enemies and to forgive them.
I was reading that passage recently. It hit me: “Thereâ’s no one I call my enemy.” Maybe that’s a good thing. My life has been an easy and comfortable one compared to many people’s. I’m not persecuted, imprisoned, impoverished, or the victim of prejudice. And maybe I’m such a nice person that everyone likes me and I like everyone else.
Well, no. Let’s not go that far.
So therefore, if I have no enemies, I have no one I need to forgive or make an effort to love, right? When I arrived at that conclusion, I began to get suspicious of my thought process. I really don’t think that love and forgiveness are optional in the Bible. They are the irreducible way of the cross, as the Lord’s Prayer makes clear. If we have to learn forgiveness, what was someone like me to do, someone with a pretty good life and no enemies to forgive? Obviously, find some enemies.
According to Matthew 5:44, an enemy is someone who despitefully uses me. Has anyone done that? Well, yes, several people have done that. Have the people around me loved me as they love themselves? Have they sought my good? No, not all of them. Has anyone hurt me, insulted me, ignored me, disagreed with me in a hateful way? Certainly.
Are these people then my enemies? Enmity seems like a big word for such minor offenses. I’m almost ashamed to use it when other Christians are being tortured and killed. But if I allow a category of people who have hurt me in some way but who are not my enemies, then I have a category of people I don’t need to forgive. All these people who aren’t really my enemies: I can gripe about them, cut them down, avoid them, act sour or distant to them — but I don’t need to forgive them, because they aren’t torturing or killing me.
That’s a dangerous way to think. Is this kind of thinking really a problem among Christians other than me?
I believe it is. I noticed during the last election, for example, a torrent of hateful speech about our current president. Life-long Christians spoke with venom about Barack Obama and passed on gossip that had been proven to be untrue. Some even joked — I didn’t laugh — about killing him, which is treason in addition to sin. But if I had asked them, “Is Barack Obama your enemy?” most would have said no. They too had a category of people whom they didn’t have to love but also didn’t have to forgive.
It sounds funny, and a little paranoid, to say we need to identify more people as enemies. But once we have, then we can learn to forgive and to love as God has forgiven and loved us. We think it’s Christian to shrug off and minimize offenses, but if by doing so we absolve ourselves from the duty to be like Jesus, then we are doing wrong.
I posted a comment after an iMonk article recently, that there are only two categories of people: friends, whom I have to love, and enemies, whom I have to love. There is no other category; no “slightly annoying people whom I can handle on my own, thanks;” no “wrong-headed politicians who haven’t harmed me personally but whom I’m free to slander if I want.” If you can’t call someone a friend, then call him an enemy, but love him and forgive him, as God has commanded us to do.
And I’d highly recommend avoiding people who electronically or in the flesh act as if there’s a third category of people we’re allowed to hate. But be careful — if those hatemongers are our enemies, we have to love them, too.
By Chaplain Mike
When Michael Spencer discovered he had cancer, I made a deal with him. We set a goal to try and go to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game together this spring. Sadly, the weekend I had set aside to go ended up being the weekend of his funeral.
Michael died on April 5, the day after Easter. At his memorial service, the pastor said he thought the iMonk might pass on Easter Sunday, and how fitting that would have been. After the service, I approached him and said, “Pastor, you know why he waited until Monday, don’t you? Monday was Opening Day, the Reds’ first game. Michael couldn’t go to heaven without one more baseball game.”
Apart from the grace of Jesus and the love of my family, few things have brought me more joy than the game of baseball. You can be sure I will be writing about this on Internet Monk. Starting…NOW!
This essay was originally penned in 1996. Since then my boys have finished their baseball careers. Now I am working with my grandson’s Little League team.Continue reading “Take Me Out”
By Chaplain Mike
We are marking the Great Fifty Days of Easter with a series of devotional thoughts on the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
Today we look at the second narrative in Luke’s story of Jesus’ resurrection and appearances, from Luke 24:13-35 (Phillips).
Text
24:13-17 – Then on the same day we find two of them going off to Emmaus, a village about seven miles from Jerusalem. As they went they were deep in conversation about everything that had happened. While they were absorbed in their serious talk and discussion, Jesus himself approached and walked along with them, but something prevented them from recognising him. Then he spoke to them, “What is all this discussion that you are having on your walk?”
24:18 – They stopped, their faces drawn with misery, and the one called Cleopas replied, “You must be the only stranger in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard all the things that have happened there recently!”
24:19-21a – “What things?” asked Jesus. “Oh, all about Jesus, from Nazareth. There was a man – a prophet strong in what he did and what he said, in God’s eyes as well as the people’s. Haven’t you heard how our chief priests and rulers handed him over for execution, and had him crucified? But we were hoping he was the one who was to come and set Israel free …
24:21b-24 – “Yes, and as if that were not enough, it’s getting on for three days since all this happened; and some of our womenfolk have disturbed us profoundly. For they went to the tomb at dawn, and then when they couldn’t find his body they said that they had a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of our people went straight off to the tomb and found things just as the women had described them – but they didn’t see him!”
24:25-26 – Then he spoke to them, “Aren’t you failing to understand, and slow to believe in all that the prophets have said? Was it not inevitable that Christ should suffer like that and so find his glory?”
24:27-29 – Then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them everything in the scriptures that referred to himself. They were by now approaching the village to which they were going. He gave the impression that he meant to go on further, but they stopped him with the words, “Do stay with us. It is nearly evening and soon the day will be over.”
24:30-32 – So he went indoors to stay with them. Then it happened! While he was sitting at table with them he took the loaf, gave thanks, broke it and passed it to them. Their eyes opened wide and they knew him! But he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Weren’t our hearts glowing while he was with us on the road, and when he made the scriptures so plain to us?”
24:33-34 – And they got to their feet without delay and turned back to Jerusalem. There they found the eleven and their friends all together, full of the news – “The Lord is really risen – he has appeared to Simon now!”
24:35 – Then they told the story of their walk, and how they recognised him when he broke the loaf.
Jeff Dunn and Chaplain Mike are looking forward to sharing remembrances and appreciations of Michael Spencer on Steve Brown’s radio show this Friday.
Here is the announcement from the Steve Brown, Etc. site:
Friday, April 30 : Chaplain Mike & Jeff Dunn – InternetMonk.com – The life, work and legacy of Michael Spencer.
Steve Brown Etc. is recorded on Fridays from noon – 1 ET, then aired on stations across the country that weekend. Listen live and call in at 1.888.54.STEVE (1.888.547.8383).
By Chaplain Mike
I am thoroughly enjoying writing on Internet Monk.
This new venture has involved a huge change in my daily work and schedule, but I am thrilled to be pursuing this new avocation. Carrying on the legacy of Michael Spencer, who had such a unique voice and perspective to share, is a joy and challenge, and I find it exhilarating. Your company has been stimulating as well, and the conversations we’ve been having have enriched my thinking.
However, I have already realized the need for a periodic reality check. So here it is. Please hear me out. I want you to know that…
This is not where I live.
There is no “Internet Monastery” where blog writers conduct their daily lives. These discussions, as valuable as they may be, are just conversations. They occur in a funny place, a unique forum we’ve never experienced before — a faceless, fleshless place — a place of less than real relationships. It is, by and large, a good place, with many benefits. We learn from each other. We prompt each other to think. We ponder and evaluate our positions on various subjects.
It’s like a classroom on a day in which the prof leads a discussion, a forum in the public square, a group of strangers bellying up to the bar at a watering hole, hanging around the lounge at seminary, meeting people from other churches in the fellowship hall at a conference and sharing observations about the things you’re experiencing. You say a little something. You hear a little something. Then you go get coffee and move on. Eventually you go home.
Because it is not life.
Michael Spencer wrote about this in a 2004 post:
My continuing fascination with online “relationships (not romances)” continues. I’m in this big discussion with a lurker, and he’s mad as heck that I support the President, and he’s all up into the Tin Foil Hats and so on. Then he starts in with — “I used to like you!”
Puh-leeze.
You read a few pages of my script. You read what I hung out on the net. You made up your own mind about what I was like and what I thought. In your mind, you created an imaginary friend out of my essays. And then you found a subject where we differ — and BOY are you mad!
This is just so juvenile. People, people, PEOPLE! Get a life. The internet is not real life. OK, as the facilitator of one of the more successful blog communities on the net I know that there can be some level of friendships, but even then, they are artificial. My guys at the BHT are talking about getting together in “3D.” Why am I not all that excited? Because I barely know anyone, don’t want to ever know some, have passable feelings of friendship for a few. The BHT largely exists in my imagination. These real people in the room and at my job and next door — they are much more complex, challenging, rewarding and genuine.
I love my online friendships, but mostly because of what they do for ME. I do some listening and ministry for them I guess, and my writing helps them feel they are not alone or to think a bit. But my internet life is pretty self centered. I can’t say it’s made me more holy in the real world. It’s not my church or my family, that’s for sure. It’s a set of somewhat real, somewhat imaginary relationships that allow me to paint on their canvas a bit while they paint on mine.
So I wish some of these online fans/haters would get out of the house and into a coffee shop or a school or a club where they can have real relationships. Saying I am great or going to hell is fun, but it’s not real. OK?
This issue goes beyond the internet, blogs, or one’s view of a particular blogger. It’s the entire culture we’re dealing with in our time.
Im concerned that:
are not being formed by experiences lived out in daily events where we actually relate to others and learn to deal with matters in active, personal ways.
Instead,
I have to remind myself every now and then that most of this is bluster and noise. It’s not life. Frankly, I’ve turned most of it off. The pundits too often become propagandists. Spectacle and screaming trumps truth. A long time ago, A. W. Tozer warned against having a “Reader’s Digest” way of thinking: shallow, simplistic, edited down to its bullet points. What in the world would he say today, when we teach about how to have intimacy with others through bullet points?
Furthermore, on Internet Monk, I can’t let myself get all emotionally invested in some guy who declares me a heretic in a blog comment for my views on Genesis 1. It is just a public discussion, folks. It’s not my life.
My life happens in a small town in central Indiana. I live it with my wife, children, grandkids, and neighbors. My life involves talking with them, praying for them, helping them, being forgiven by them when I mess up. It’s eating meals together, talking about the little things we’ve done throughout the day, coordinating our schedules, staying in touch, keeping short accounts.
My life involves helping coach my grandson’s Little League team and remembering how to talk to seven-year olds again. My life involves singing in the choir at my church, going to practice, cutting up with the rest of the tenors. In my life, I occasionally serve on some committee for our local school district, attend the high school baseball games because the coach is a good friend, greet fellow townsfolk at Walmart or Starbucks, or visit a friend in the hospital whose spouse is having surgery.
Many hours of this life are spent doing my daily work as a hospice chaplain. I drive around the city, visiting folks in their homes, in hospitals, and other facilities. I have face-to-face conversations with them. Surprise! Most of these conversations dont involve swapping the kinds of slogans I get in forwarded emails. No, these talks take place in the context of actual living and dying. We talk about what’s happening to someone’s body right in front of us. We talk about the feelings raised by this, the spiritual issues, and what dad’s going to do when his wife of 62 years walks through death’s door and leaves him behind.
My fellow team members are a huge part of my life. We meet and talk and laugh together, respect the expertise each one brings to our work, consult on difficult questions, help each other in practical ways, and support each other when it all gets heavy. We also recognize that each person has a full and meaningful life outside the team, and so we try to be sensitive, caring, and available as friends for one another.
This is life. Real life. Daily life. Faces. Flesh. Conversations. Decisions. Relationships.
I’m worried about churches in our current electronic and cyber-culture. Reliance upon programmed approaches and technology can easily promote “sound-bite” theology, activity masquerading as meaningful interaction with others, and a culture that “takes stands” on the big issues of the day, but cares little for actually knowing and loving one’s neighbor.
So, for example,
I love Internet Monk. It has a place.
And I honestly appreciate all of you who read and participate. It’s an exceptional online community, a vibrant conversation.
But it’s not where I live. Nor should you.
By Chaplain Mike
We are marking the Great Fifty Days of Easter with a series of devotional thoughts on the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
Today we look at John’s story of that first Easter morning, from John 20:1-10 (MSG).
Text
Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, breathlessly panting, “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”
Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.
By Chaplain Mike
The fact is that the differences between churches do matter. The question is not, “How can we overlook these differences?” but “How can we achieve a church which includes the many facets of the truth?” True catholicity is not obtained by overlooking differences but by accepting them and understanding them as a vital part of the nature of the church.”
Robert Webber
Friend of Internet Monk, John H. Armstrong, president of ACT 3, is an adjunct professor of evangelism at Wheaton College Graduate School, author and editor of numerous books, with over twenty years of pastoral experience.
Here is IM’s third and final review of John’s passionate and provocative new book, Your Church Is Too Small.
The third section of “Your Church” suggests a new paradigm for the future of the church, one that will help us be more unified in Christ and more effective together in fulfilling his mission in the world—what Armstrong calls missional-ecumenism.Continue reading “IM Book Review: Your Church Is Too Small (3)”
By Chaplain Mike
MOD Note: Some knucklehead forgot to put the URL in for Dan’s blog. Here is the link: To Russia with Love. Thanks, Joanie.
One of my good friends, Pastor Daniel Jepsen (aka “The Dan”), is currently blogging about his mission trip to Tyumen, Siberia. The Dan and another local pastor (aka “The Calvinist”) are traveling to do some teaching at a Bible college there.
Daniel may be a contributor in the future here on Internet Monk, but through his travelblog, you can get to know him now and enjoy his observations on his trip around the world to minister to others in Jesus’ name. I know you’ll love his humor and insightful perspectives.
Here’s a snippet from one of his posts:
This is my fourth mission trip, which is not that many considering my age (actually, you can stop thinking about my age now). I have been to Mexico twice and the Dominican Republic once.
Here is what I hate about mission trips: you are totally out of control. You take life on its terms. All you can do is respond rightly.
Now, to some degree this is true whenever you travel internationally. But if you go as a tourist, you are free to complain to the motel about the room tempature, you can choose your activities that day, you can decide what you will eat for lunch. On a mission trip, you can do none of those things. Your agenda is set by others. You normally have no choice in your food. And, since you don’t speak the language, you are totally dependent on others to communicate for you. In many ways, it is like being a toddler again.
And that is also what I am learning to love about mission trips.
Go get ’em, Dan! For Jesus, that is.
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