Tag: culture
-
Reflecting on James 2 1-13
We are studying James 2:1-13 for Sunday, November 29 (which is also the First Sunday in Advent); this is James’s critique of “partiality” in the church. [A few notes on this text are here.] Here are a few questions we might want to consider in our study of the text: Who seems to be the…
-
Reality, Shared and Unshared
I deeply appreciated this post by Seth Godin, which outlines a schema for distinguishing “shared objective reality,” “shared cultural reality,” “unshared objective reality,” (think of Copernicus) and “unshared cultural reality” (think of Picasso). His four-fold table arranging shared and unshared by objective reality vs. cultural reality clarifies a lot! I think he simplifies “shared objective…
-
Stepping Up
All kinds of groups can be “church” in the sense of being that place where we feel the people around us embrace us and accept us, and where we can count on people to care about us and support us. Most recently, last night at rehearsal one of the chorus members announced that she may…
-
Christ the King / Reign of Christ Sunday
“Crown Him With Many Crowns” on the organ, which we hardly ever hear any more, woke me up: That’s right, it’s Christ the King Sunday! In spite of proofing the order of service (which mentioned it), and going to choir practice (when we talked about it), and knowing full well that next Sunday is the…
-
Obviously Good Rules
Moses tells the Israelites that the Torah will be RECOGNIZABLY good, to outsiders, because “the peoples, … when they hear all these statutes, will say ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people!’” (Deuteronomy 4:6) That is, the Torah will recommend itself. In context, this self-recommendation seems to depend on the practice of…
-
Don’t Be a Mean Girl
I taught my daughter not to be a “Mean Girl.” Here’s what happened: Hannah Montana came on Disney Channel in the spring of 2006. It was a “comedy.” And I noticed that MANY of the laughs were achieved by Hannah or one of the other characters saying something mean. Funny, because mean. Possibly with some…
-
Thoughts on a definition of idolatry
Something caught my attention in Guthrie’s definition of idolatry as “giving absolute loyalty to something that is only a creature rather than the Creator.”1 It occurred to me that the definition provides a good opening for arguing that the practices of Hindu puja, that are so involved with representations of the many, many, many gods…
Matters of Interpretation 