My Lenten Reflection
“Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I think this sums up my frustration with some ideas of faith. here, Bonhoeffer is basically summing up Luther's "sin boldly" statement. Honestly, I've never really been able to quite wrap my head around this legalistic idea of faith that, as Kevin Smith explains in Dogma, is more or less God threatening to spank us when we screw up.
A Messy World
During Christmas we celebrate that God became human and entered this dirty, flawed and often shitty world. John's Gospel says the Word dwelt among us. God took on all the filth of being human. Jesus did not forsake the pain of humanity to enjoy the joy; he became all that is human.
Rainn and SoulPancake Ask the Hard Questions
The last few days I’ve been spending time perusing SoulPancake. It’s a great site that focuses on asking and answering questions. Both contributors and members post questions to the site for the community to discuss. In addition to discussing and questioning the site also features regular columns and Creative Challenges. Basically everything about the site challenges the community to examine what they believe and why and look at the world from new perspectives.
Discussion and Logic (and lack thereof)
Last night I went to Skinner's Pub with a few friends. We talked about politics and religion - oh, and the thread count of our sheets. We had some great conversation. One of my friends (he considers himself an unbeliever) said that one of the reasons he has a lot of trouble with Christianity is the lack of logic. He said that he finds it nearly impossible to follow many Christian's theology in a logical manner.