Regulater

I am not going to write about New Year's.


Okay with that out of the way, I am also not going to write about diapers.


But I am going to write about christian rap. Briefly. What is this? Why is this happening? How is this possible? Some genres automatically and without exception require certain subject matters. I would say most genres. I am all for breaking the mold, but sometimes it's cheesy. "Cheesy", I know is very subjective. I will not give the christian rap the dignity of writng anymore about it. Peace out my brethren. And don't wait (to repent) because Jesus shall regulate. Whatever.

Journaling

I cannot keep a journal. I just can't do it. I don't know why. It's not a discipline issue. It's not that I think journals are for sissy's. It's not that I don't really want to . I just can't do it. It just like returning phone calls. I see the reason why I should, I see the benefits, and the pitfalls of not doing it, but I just can't do it. It's not like lifting weights. That's just stupid. Self-inflicted pain, not for me. Unless it's in the form of a break-up song, then I am all for it. Speaking of self-inflicted pain, Isn't the buying of pets masochistic in a certain way? I mean, you know it's going to die within 15 years. You know it. There's no allowance for the disillusionment and denial of 72 years that human existence supposedly has. Maybe there is. Maybe that's why people buy pets. But what about rodents?

God is not a Rock, and He Cannot Die.

If the benefits and defects of objectivity as well as the benefits and defects of subjectivity are not properly discerned, what is actually at stake then is truth.

It is allright for Christians to ask what truth is. It is not alltogether abundantly clear. (What truth is) I wish to argue from here on in that epistemology must start with the presupposition that truth is a person, not merely personal, but a living real person, and that that person is God. In other words, truth is God. The inverse is also the case. God is truth. The phrases, "truth is God" and "God is truth" are both true, but mean different things but we will not explore that distinction here. Let us begin with ascertaining how God is who God is and what this means about the nature of objectivity and subjectivity.

We can study God as an object, although He is not an object. An object does not move. An object does not change. An object can be infinitely complicated, and impossiple to master, but it is less complicated than a subject because it is immoveable. And although an object can be infinitely complicated, the fact that it is dormant leaves God out as a possibility of being an object. Although, the dictum, "God does not change" is true, it cannot mean that he is an object simply because objects do not have life. And if God does not have life, what makes him worthy of the title of God? It is by God's providence that we can study him as an object, but because we can study him as an object does not mean that he is an object. He comes to us this way, because he cannot come to us as he is. His glory would consume us. What God wants us to know objectively about himself he has shown us, but that does not mean that he has revealed everything there is to know, or that there aren't things about God that we can never know, or that there aren't more things he wants to disclose. The things we can know about God objectively cannot be objectively determined to be any certain amount of things. It would seem reasonable to assume that there is no way of really being able to determine how much there is to know about God if he is indeed infinite. We must go back to the observation that what we know about God is what God wants us to know, and with this for now we shall be content.

If God relinquishes the title God by virtue of his being only an object, then he is necessarily not merely an object, and therefore can be studied as a subject being that he is a person. At this point it should be noted that if God is a subject, that he can be known subjectively, and if subjectivity is not to be trusted by virtue that it is subjective, then God cannot be known this way. This seems to be the position of the modern; who assumes that subjective knowledge of anything is not real knowledge. But we know that people are not mere objects, right? Or are they? And they can be known. But is it not a different kind of know?; a kind of know that is difficult to explain, but it doubtless a kind of knowledge? Simply put it is a subjective knowledge, and precisely because subjectivity is given to moving, shifting, and changing, is what makes it dependent upon the winds of change. But because this is true, does not make it necessary that subjective knowledge is untrustworthy as real knowledge. It is indeed untrustworthy as the only kind of knowledge. (so is objective knowledge). It is still a legitimate kind of knowledge. And without this being true, God cannot be known.

If God only revealed Himself as an object, (and maybe this is the case), we would not be able to have a personal relationship with him. I suppose this suffices for logical, but certainly not compelling. Because if I believed that God could only be known objectively, then I would not be a Christian, because at this point, it would not matter what that object was called. And is it not plausible that this very object is the god of the religion of modern man?. On what basis, should this god have compassion, or justice, love, or anger, or even a will? And on what basis should compassion, justice, or love be considered virtuous or anything at all? Why should anything be considered anything? The downfall of objectivity alone is that there is no objective reason to think that anything can be known objectively. It is a presupposition. And if one presupposition has the ability to be objectively more reasonable than another, then on what grounds is it a presupposition? May we call a presupposition what it is? May we call it faith? And if there be no objective ground for objectivity, then isn't objectivity alone a faith, and therefore hardly objective? The next question is the post modern paradox. How do we know what we believe is true?

There is a question that is often not asked that ought to precede the above question. It is: Why do we care if something is true? Plants, and animals, do not seem to care about truth. They seem to accept it. Why do we question it? It's because we're not objects, we're subjects, capable of change. The fact that there is no other answer to the question of why we care about truth, means that we must accept that we do, and that we must accept that without an answer we are incomplete, or at least we feel incomplete. If the answer cannot come objectively because the answer is God, because God is truth, then we must be okay with faith. And if our basis is not reason, but faith, what will make it compelling is not our ability to make sense of it, but our ability to complete the incompleteness. If the thing we believe ends up filling the void, then it is true, and it is God.

Some of you are asking: What separates this from postmodernism? To this legit question I say: Because postmodernism asserts that the subjective nature of knowledge means that no one can say that their belief, or their way of life is the only legitimate belief or way of life. I say that it can because it fills the void. I also to not affirm the postmodern assertion that knowledge is only or totally subjective. I only affirm their critique of objectivity, that it cannot lead to complete knowledge. But even with that said, incomplete knowledge does not equal insufficient knowledge. And I have stated this before, the fact that objective knowledge is not the only kind of knowledge that we can depend on, does not mean it does not exist at all or is useless. It is indeed real, and given, and revelatory. But objectivity is not the trunk or the foundation.

Next question: If objectivity is useful, how, since it cannot be completly depended upon? It is important to acknowledge the existence of objectivity in the universe because it's denial would drive the one who denies it insane. Suppose that everything is subject to change. What then is language? What is God? What is life? What is anything? We communicate in objectives, without any objective knowledge of what those things are. Without objectivity how could we communicate? How could we live? We need to learn the skill of acceptance. To be able to say, I believe this but I can't prove it, and I am okay with it. But the question of truth is a bigger question than objectivity is able to handle. We communicate objectively, and to a certain level, truly, but only to a certain level. The refusual to question things on the other level, the level we cannot know is not to deny truth, but it is to affirm the truth that just because something is true does not mean it can be known or should be known. It also helps us understand that our objective communications are a shadow of the truth, not the truth itself, and leaves room for the truth to be revered as it should. As he should. All that we can know is what God allows us to know, and we should be thankful for every bit of it we get, because it all makes us more acquainted with reality, but if we think that we have the right to know everything, and that we are not fulfilled until we do, then we are horribly and miserably mistaken. For on some level, the acquisition of knowledge is unavoidable. We can learn without us even knowing it. But we do not learn so as to know. We learn so as to become more and more in awe of how big knowlege/truth/God really is. This is also known as becoming more and more acquainted with reality which is akin to becoming more and more real, which is akin to knowing God, which is akin to being complete, which is the proof of our faith.

What use has the Bible? To say that the Bible is where we should start in our knowledge of God is faulty and almost silly for numerous reasons. There is a simple observation to make in contest with that assertion. In order for that to be true, do you not have to presuppose the very thing that moderns attempt to presuppose which they cannot? That is, that one can have objective knowledge about objective knowledge. It is fine to have the presupposition that God has revealed wants he wants us to know in the Bible, and to also presuppose that that knowledge is irreversibly true, as opposed to general revelation. It is not fine to presuppose that all general revelation must fall in line with the special revelation of the Bible, because the Bible itself is not so objective as to be a measure of anything. If it were objective, would it not be more universally interpreted? This is not to say that there is no objective truth in it, it's just to say that the simple observation that there are many interpretations of the Biblical texts makes the Bible a hard case as a sufficient objective trunk or foundation. And maybe, it doesn't even want to reveal truth objectively. What if it simply wants to reveal truth, sometimes objectively and sometimes subjectiviely? What if some of the knowledge of the Bible is so precious and beyond, that it can only be known in a way that cannot be explained and legitimized only by a certain way of life? The uniqueness of the Bible is not found in it's being the trunk of philosophy, or the center of revelation, or truth. But the uniquness of the Bible is found in the distinctly Christian presuppostion that it is a recording from God/truth himself dedicated to expounding on the way that things really are, and as such can be completely trusted in this way. Since God/truth cannot lie, cannot be mistaken, and cannot have bad intentions. Every word in it is true as God sees truth, and no other book can bear such a description. But it's not stagnant. It's meant to be wrestled with. And a thing that must be wrestled with is a thing that cannot be used to bully, convince, or prove. Because the one who seeks will find. And the one who is lost wasn't seeking.

To some God has given a map, to others a compass, to others a GPS, and to some a blackberry. To some a cell phone. To some nothing, but the sun, and the stars. But it all leads to the same place. And it all goes throught the ultimate display of truth, Jesus. Somehow, someway, the path to God goes through Jesus. Anyone who is honestly seeking will find him. They will find the cross, the resurrection, and that He is coming again. Because if God is truth, and Jesus is God, and therefore Jesus is truth, and if people who seek find, then no one who is honestly seeking the way, whether he chooses to do it by compass, or by map, or by intuition, can fail to meet Jesus. This frees us as Christians from the self-made need to defend truth, or faith. These things are never at stake. What's at stake is humanity. Everyday human beings attempt in big and small ways to dehumanize humanity, for the sake of power, control, or security. Is it possible that by constantly defending what needs no defense we're helping in the dehumanization process? And maybe our efforts in defense need to turn to concentrating on defending the dehumanized, and rehumanzing them, setting them on the path towards truth, towards God, towards Jesus Christ.



Final question: How do we know God? Is it subjectively or objectively? It's funny, because God is neither a subject or an object. He is not a "logy". He is God. He is that which we know is, but cannot describe. Any description we use falls infinitely short of describing the real God, because any description of him is far too close stripping him of his infiniteness. We must speak of God this way. But we still speak of God. And so while our language about him affirms the existence of objectivity, as does language about anything, it does not say as much about God as it does about us. When it comes to describing the completely spiritual, (God) all language is metaphor. God is big. But "big" is as good a word as we can use to try to explain his, well bigness. As soon as you say God is... you've veered off the path of literalness and into the field of metaphor. It must suffice, but it must also be recognized as the case. We cannot know God as he is, subjectively or objectively, but we can know God subjectively and objectively. We will have no words to describe the reality of this knowledge, but this will not make that knowledge any less real. God is knowable through his Word, and subjectively through the Bible, and his Son Jesus. And God is knowable through what we see objectively through Creation. We experience the knowledge of God, and therefore God in his Son Jesus. We know him by obeying his Son. And the Bible is the Testament of the Son of God. But beyond that there are no blueprints to the knowledge of God, no roadmaps, no theology. It's through Jesus that we know God, and Jesus alone. This is our faith. If we seek truth we shall find truth, and we shall find Jesus everytime, regardless of the starting point, a sincere search leads to the Son of God.

Music

I think that music is underestimated in our culture. It seems (to me) that for most people, music is a filler, a noise provider when silence is unwanted. A few people are enthusiastic about music, but most have their "favorite group" or "favorite song" with little appreciation for the art. This is dangerous. And it is so because music is powerful. And it's power is spiritual. Which makes it more dangerous than heavy machinery or nuclear weapons. It is also dangerous in this particular culture because we do not generally think of music as having a spiritual quality. This makes us more susceptible to being manipulated by it without our even knowing it. It seems that that we think we can listen to something and not be affected by it without ever thinking that the very reason we enjoy music at all is that it makes us feel some way that is desireable to us. This is why different musical genres are closely associated with different social groups. As I said before, there is a group of us that doesn't care that much about the music as long as it fills the silence and doesn't annoy us. But a good many of us have certain styles we like and often listen to . The fact that we are offended when our musical tastes are considered less than tasteful is a testament to the fact music has a big part in our self-identity. Indeed, it does help shape who we are because we are not aware of it's power. We are extremly unscrupulous of it's message, and not just lyrically, but its musical message. And when moments arise where we feel a certain way, but do not understand why, it is curious to me that we consider the food we ate or didn't eat, or the circumstances of our day, before we consider what we have been putting into our souls via the music we've listened to.
For the record (and this leads to a bigger discussion for a different day) I do not believe that certain muscial styles are bad in and of themselves. But anything can be bad with bad motives behind it, but this is a matter of motives, not the thing. So you can listen to certain styles because you want to feel a certain way and if this is a distraction from things that you ought to be doing, well then this is wrong. (Again, a discussion on morality is for another day. For now it suffices to state my opinion without defense. I know, but it's America). Also, anything, except prayer, can be a vice if it is done in excess. But also, most things can be used for good, and this is certainly the case with music, even if it purports negative emotions. Negative does not automatically equal bad. It simply means not positive. What is clearly bad in this case is to be ignorant of the spiritual nature and the spiritual power of music. It is when we are in this frame of mind, that music can be a controlling agent, and a dangerous one at that. Because the more ignorant we are of its power, the more power it has over us.

If the world were flat

The Catholic Church at one point called the belief that the earth was round a heresy. Say what you want about Catholic officials, but they generally are not stupid people. Same goes for the vast majority of brilliant people throughout the overwhelming majority of human history. I think this says something interesting. It's something to chew on. I'll get back to it, when I'm not busy packing coffee into bags and beds onto trucks.

The Distinctiveness of Christianity

Chrisitianity is not distinct in it's faith in a god-man who died for people's sins, and rose again. In fact, around the time of Christianity's beginnning, there were dozens of legends very similar to the early apostles story that was spread around the known world in the first century. And this story was not unfamiliar to the people Paul took this story to. What was really unique about Paul's message was not that a man who was God rose from the dead, but that this particular man was the promised messiah for the children of Israel. This Messiah did not only come to save the children of Israel, as they were accustomed to thinking. This Messiah came to save the whole world by his death and resurrection. In summation the crux of Christian faith goes beyond the mere acceptance of the historical actuality of the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in the first century. The crux of the Christian faith is found in the distinct belief that the Jesus was the promised one to Israel, the culmination of the Jewish faith, and as such Christiany takes on the distinctly Jewish understanding of a directly ruled universe in which a personal but all-knowing and all-powerful God makes a people with whom he has a personal relationship.

Christianty is not Christianity if it does not first hold the basic tenants of a Jewish worldview. The Pauline heresy, (as Jews might refer to it) or Christianity, (as modern Christians might call it) is that all of the promises given to Isreal, the history of Israel, the Torah of Israel, the prophets, the poems, and all of the literature, point to and find there meaning in Jesus of Nazareth. Also, true Israel is not the genetic descendants of Abraham. True Israel is the people that "struggle" with God. The word Israel itself means "struggles with God". True Israel deals with God very differently than do the pagan religions, other organized relgions, or the religions of the east. They do not deal with God in terms of human promises, or human rituals, or rites of passage, but they struggle with God personally, and eventually succumb to his will. In the Old Testament we see God choosing a specific race for himself, a race to whom he would entrust his eternal wisdom. But ultimately, as is revealed in the New Testament by Jesus embodied, and Paul in writing, true Israel is the people who have a relationship with God. And according to Paul, the only way in our day and age to have a relationship with God is through faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, the suffering servant, who paid for his people's sins by his death, and made way for his people's life by his resurrection. This is why it is important for Christians to understand and and find their roots in the foundations of the Jewish worldview; because essentially, the worldview of the Jews is really the thing that is distinct.

The Jewish God, like Allah, is personal and all-knowing, but Allah gives us doubts about how personal he really is. When we read the Koran we realize that Allah does not pursue Muslims in any way. He simply requires their servanthood and worship through rituals. But he doesn't wrestle with them, struggle with them, plead with them, wait for them, or save them like the God of the Bible does for his people. Their salvation is up to them in the end. The Jewish God, like the deities of the East, is spiritual, mysterious, and omnipresent, but unlike these gods is still personal and transcendant. Unlike the pagan deities, the Jewish God is one, and is not pleased by sacrifices and offerings, and although willing to listen to his people's cries, is not coerced by their rituals. Unlike the Catholic God, the Jewish God is unseen, and no attempt is ever to be made to give him an image. Unlike the Catholic God, the Jewish God will not tolerate prayers made to anyone not him, including ancestors. Unlike the protestant God, the Jewish God transcends even his own law and retains his mysterious nature. The Jewish God, and therefore the Christian God, is distinct in that He is one, transcendant, but personal, not concerned with rituals, but aggressively in pursuit of a relationship with people.

The difference between Christianty and Judaism lies not at the base of the two worldviews, but on the fringes. As Christians, we believe as Jewish people do that God is one, personal, transcendant, mysterious, and merciful. We differ in that we believe that true Israel are the people that God has a relationship with whether Jew or Gentile, and that Jesus of Nazareth is these people's Messiah, and that faith in him alone makes them the people of God.

But if we continue to move Christianity towards the philosophy of the day, further and further away from it's worldview grounded in Jewish thought, we will not be really Christian, although the label might stick. In some sense we are already seriously out of touch with who we are because we have lost touch with our Jewish heritage. It is important that we regain an understanding of the Jewish religion so that we can find ourselves again, and thus find ourselves not wrestling with ideas, theologies, and God's creation, but God himself. And just as was the case with Jacob, when he wrestled with God, God will break us and change our names. Israel was originally a name given to an individual. That individual's name beforehand was the aforementioned Jacob. But God changed his name from "uprooter"/"wrestles with earth"/"struggles with man" to "struggles with God". Do not forget that Jacob did not know it was God with whom he wrestled until it was over. And do not forget that Jacob walked away with a limp. And do not forget that at the same time, Jacob walked away,with a truly life-giving and meaningful experience. He literally wrestled with God.

The Bible says that Jacob "wrestled with God and man and overcame". May we the former Jacob's, the former uprooters, be able to say that we are now Israel, the people who wrestled with God and man and overcame.

I realize that I make a plethora of assertions without references or arguments. I will leave this writing as is for now and will come back to it at another time with all my references, and arguments in order to make a case for what is now, to you the reader, simply an hypothesis. As for now I think it will suffice to present my ideas in this way and allow the ball to start rolling in your minds. Discuss and be merry for tomorrow we might die, or live until Monday. Who knows?

The other day my friend Aaron reminded me that rain is good because rain resolves. Rain is redemptive. I am not sure exactly what Aaron means by "redemptive" because it is a term he uses often, but I think I know what he means be saying that rain is good and redemptive because it resolves, or as I would like to say it, rain is good because it draws our attention to distinction, and distinction leads way to otherness, which is holiness, which is redemptive. Rain, or all weather for that matter, is something that everyone within the community experiences together at the same time, albeit not in the same way, but nonetheless it is a shared experience, and an experience that is out of everyone's control. And I believe that anything in our day and age that can draw our pluralistic culture's attention towards unity is redemptive. To be more precise, it is not necessary that the thing bringing the unity is a good thing, for it to produce unity. And it is the experience of togetherness that is the thing that is holy. Such is always the case in my humble opinion. And it is this truth that makes things like coffee and music catalysts for redemption. And this is why the Coal Mine Cafe', along with many other places in the world, brings these things together. The difference between the Coal Mine Cafe' and most of the others,is that we are not charging anybody. This is not because we have some anti-capitalistic chip on our shoulders, but because we don't have to charge anybody. Steamtown Church owns the building, coffehas been donated, as well as the furniture, and music equipment. Perhaps we could charge for the electric, but what the heck. (Heck is a stupid word.I don't know why I said that, but you know what I mean.)

I think that whoever comes to this week's offering of the Coal Mine Cafe' Open Mic Night will be impressed. They should be impressed by how good the coffee is, how cozy the room is, how talented some of our home grown musicians and artists are, and how sincere we are in our vision of a free redemptive cafe; a cafe that not only wants to serve coffee, but people, not only wants to provide music, but community, not only wants to facilitate discussion, but bring about real change, change only possible when people love and understand one another. How do you get people to understand each other? You get them to talk to each other. How do you get them talk to each other? You provide a universal, all inclusive, truly redemptive experience, that can be shared over a cup of coffee, and good music.

To Be Awesome

In order to be awesome there are only three things that you must do. If you do these things it will not matter what kind or how many blunders you make for the rest of your life, you will still be awesome. Here they are in no particular order. 1) Get Awesome. 2)Stay Awesome 3) Tackle a running deer at full sprint and then stab it until it dies, and then drag it through the woods, gut it, cook it and eat it. That is all.

First Post

This is it. My blogging experience has officially begun. And I just wanted to tell everyone that when I am famous and awesome, that I will not think myself to be any more awesome than I already think myself to be. But seriously, sometimes I get in these funny moods. But do not despair, those of you who were hoping for a blog in which you could sound off some of your own thoughts, this blog is not a shameless self-promotion. It's about ideas of all kinds, and my hope is that my observations about things "big" and "small" will be a springboard for much discussion. So read, discuss, make comments, and observations. And peace be with you all.