One sloppy post and...

Ahh what a truely painful experience...

I put a sloppy post on the father bob podcast blog (I had assumed Bob might pick Luke 9:50 without a reference) and before I know it Bob is telling the world that I'm advocating street work that is primarily about telling people about religion. I work for an organisation were i coordinated volunteers and staff doing street work and have stood infront of all of them to tell them that is exactly what we don't do. I have even directed potential volunteers, who were keen to do this, to other organisations. This is often a really hard thing to do in a Christian organisation.

Ahh time for bed.

A creature loses one side and then becomes a man...

It's rare that my jaw drops and I swear out loud as I'm listening to the radio. But this happened today as I was listening to a podcast of The Spirit of Things the episode "Spiritual Classics Pt 3: Judaism" and the interview with Mary Phil Korsak who has translated a Genesis titled “at the start”. I had always struggled to know exactly what was going on in Genesis 2 with the creation of man and woman.

In the Hebrew God creates a non sex specific being called "ha-adam" (sorry no Hebrew characters in blogger - i wonder if they answer why not in their FAQ?) which is means most literally creature of the earth and then not till the taking of the rib does genesis start using "Is" for man and "Issa" for woman and then the man gets called “adam”. (roughly speaking)

Now, what Korsak does in her translation that made my jaw drop (and swear out loud) was instead of God taking the earth creature’s rib God takes the creatures side (the Hebrew word is basically never translated as rib elsewhere. Eg: Exo 26:26 You shall make bars of acacia wood, five for the frames of the one side (rib???) of the tabernacle.) It is then with this side of the creature that God makes woman.

This just gave me a vivid image of one side (or even half?) of the earth creature being taken from it and made into woman leaving man as a creature with a missing half. This idea is then echoed in verse 24 “Therefore a man ("is") leaves his father and his mother and clings to his woman ("issa"), and they become one flesh.”

Now I’m not 100% about this and will have to do some checking but it put so many up in the air pieces together for me that I had to post.

Six Feet Under returns

Six Feet Under is my favourite television drama and after a break of over two years it has now resurfaced on channel nine with no promotion what so ever which meant that I missed episode 1 of the series. Six Feet Under was originally screened in Perth nearly 6 months after the rest of the country as it was bumped for an ultra low budget talk fest footy show. Once it was on it would be frequently interrupted, moved time slots with little announcement and on occasion shown out of sequence. I spent many hours reading the script on the net in order to keep up (I don't have the downloading TV show technology).

Imagine if the latest instalment of the Harry Potter series was delayed two years before it came to Australia and then the Australian printers printed the chapters out of sequence. Or, if the latest Radiohead album was released two years late and a couple of tracks were axed for the Australian release.

According to triple J's Hack Australians are the biggest downloaders of television and it's not hard to see why. Free to air television will struggle in this new age of technology all I ask is that they don't shoot themselves in the foot.

six degrees of iPod

About a year ago a friend and I invented the game six degrees of iPod. Whilst driving in the car to a holiday we're listening to his iPod on random and what we had to do was to link each songs with the next by six degrees. It was a lot of fun and I thought perhaps just the sort of mindless waste of time that would be perfect for the internet.

My friend Si had recently posted these two songs for a game of six degrees...

A Love Supreme - John Coltrane (A Love Supreme)
and
The Hardest Button to Button - The White Stripes (Elephant)

Which I joined up in six degrees like this...

John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" was known as his "Christian" album (due to it's religious themes) Bob Dylan (1) also had a "Christian" album "A slow train coming" Which Mark Knofler (2) played guitar on. Mark Knofler was part of a highly successful and quite crap band in the 80's Dire Straits (3). Michael Jackson (4) was also a highly successful and quite crap artist in the 80's. Fortunately Nirvana's (5) "Nevermind" with it's huge break through single "smells like teen spirit" knocked Michael jackson's appropriately titled "Bad" album from the US number one spot and Nirvana were hailed as the Saviours of Rock by the indie press. Nearly 10 years later The White Stripes (6) with there "Elephant" album and break through single "seven nation army" were also hailed as saviours of rock by the indie press. "the hardest button to button" was another single from that album.

If you want to play go to... sixdegreesofipod.blogspot.com

Game 1 is...

The Beatles: "Paper back writer" single
to
Nirvana: "Come as you are" Nevermind

Why did Jesus die? Part 2

Ok, after looking through the Bible with the hypothesis that penal substitution isn’t there I’ve discovered something kind of cool. Substitution is often read into verses where it just isn’t there but Substitution is in the Bible. This was exciting because I think when we tell the gospel as substitution or particularly penal substitution we are missing out on the full picture of Jesus. It would be a bit like telling someone about an elephant and only describing the trunk, missing out on the tail, the ears the legs the feet the skin. We all discover an elephant or Jesus in different ways. For example, if I was part of a tribe of people who gave sacrifices as way of showing repentance (like the Jewish people did) then I might connect with Jesus through the lens of the Jesus as the last sacrifice. If, like much of modern society, I did not have that way of looking at things I may not connect with Jesus in that way but another. Perhaps like I described in my new analogy for atonement post.

What my little escapade in to scripture has done is made me excited that the story of Jesus connects with people in so many ways of which substitution is only a small one. What we need to be responsible is for is how we tell that story and what lens we tell it through. We may only have to describe the tail and the ears before someone falls in the elephant – particularly if they have an aversion to the idea of eating with your nose. This is perhaps why some of the best analogies for Jesus life come from modern movies directed by non Xns who aren't thinking "must tell story through the lens of substitution"

So I've moved on from asking "Why did Jesus die?" now I am asking how am I going to tell the Jesus story in a way that will connect to the person I am telling it to.

Why did Jesus die? Part 1

Ever said something so simple that it just rolls off your tongue and then bang it's out there and you've suddenly realised that what you have just said is actually really huge.

Well this happened to me recently on a reframe discussion. I'd thrown in my 2 cents worth to a discussion about atonement that I thought substitution (penal substitution to be exact) was a pretty crappy analogy for atonement. Which was a just a rehash of my It's time to Substitute Substitution post and New Analogy for Atonement post.

After a little discussion someone suggested that hypothetically we could be forgiven through some other means other than Jesus death, one member was a little distressed at this suggestion. And asked

You (another member not me) wrote, 'God could mercifully forgive us whether or not Jesus came'. How? It feels like you guys are discussing the cross as some sort of symbol rather than something that achieved an ontological reality. Should I be concerned?

To which I replied

Regarding your question about 'God could mercifully forgive us whether or not Jesus came'. I guess I'd say because God has forgiven us (humanity) before Jesus died. (See Gen 18:26, Exo 32:32, Num 14:20, 2Ch7:14, Neh 9:17, 2Ch 30:18, Isa 55:7, Psa 65:3, Psa103:12, Jer 31:34, Jer 33:8, Eze 16:63, Mat 9:6/Mar2:7/Luk 5:21 for a start, there are more but I was being lazy) When you ask How? I'm not to sure of the mechanics. None the less God has said that he has done it. I know that this doesn't sit well with the traditional penal substitution thing and I have heard people say that God was forgiving in the old testamant with Jesus death in the future in mind but just wasn't letting us in on that yet. I'm not sure if I buy that.

Now this is all fine and Dandy but it got me thinking did Jesus die for my sins?

Dennis Bratcher (I have no idea who he is but I like his site) would say "no" see question 5 of his 10 questions article.

So what about verses like...

Matthew 20:28 the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Galations 2:20 Jesus gave himself for me.

1 Corinthians 15:3 Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

Well this is part 1 of my little journey to try and answer this question. For more details on how my brain will process this have a look at my Liberal Evangelical post. I thought it my be fun to honestly journey with this question rather than just post an answer that I have already thought through. So here goes...

World's Best Email Address

I am now the proud owner of what I think is the world's best email address...

iwantedsomethingshortbutthiswasalltheyhadleft@hotmail.com

Send me an email if you've got something better.

Don't Bitch Switch

At last I can walk with a clear conscious in my new sweat shop free shoes!

See http://www.nosweatstuff.com.au/ for your nearest stockist.

Marie Claire Recycles from Colors Magazine

Have you ever seen the credits for an article in of your faviourite magazine?

No?

Well open your favourite glossy, find a good article, press down really hard where the two pages meet the spine and then magically you'll see some extra small type explaining the where the article was sourced.

Why would a glossy magazine do this?

So that they can recylce old articles and pass them off like new.

Take this article my wife spotted (she's so cool!) from the March 2006 edition Marie Claire magazine. According to Marie Claire it's a "special report" on having a fat bum. Special report my Butt! How about recycled report? Or how about special report Colors magazine’s butt?

I’ll let you be the judge...

This is the opening page to the artcile in Marie Claire March 2006

This is the opening page to an article in Colors Magazine April 1998 (the Fat issue)

This is the second page of the Marie Clare article about the difficulties involved with "taking a trip", "using a toilet" and "being sick".

Here's the original "taking a trip" section from the Colors magazine article

Here's the original "using the toilet" section from the Colors magazine article

Here's the original taking a "being sick" section from the Colors magazine article

This is the third page of the Marie Clare article about the difficulties involved in "going to a movie", "getting through turnstyles" (joining the crowd) and "having fun".

Here's the original going to a movie section from the Colors magazine article

Here's the original "getting through turnstyles" (getting home) section from the Colors magazine article

Here's the original "having fun" section from the Colors magazine article

And of course the text is recycled too almost word for word. Read for yourself here... colors_vs_marie_claire

Elizabeth Town

With Cameron Crowe writing and directing and with Susan Sarandon as a supporting actor you’d think that the movie would be at least watchable, But no. Perhaps one of the worst movies I have ever seen (and Almost Famous is one of my favourites). Let me explain like this… Have you ever looked at the extras on a DVD and seen lots of extra scenes that got cut from the final movie because they were little tangents or didn’t really contribute anything to the overall narrative. Well Elizabeth town was much like an entire movie of extra scenes with the original narrative being completely gutted from the movie. And, you know how sometime movies have a huge ensemble cast and you feel like you don’t really get to know all of the characters. Well, Elizabeth town was similar only there were really only two characters. Once again Cameron Crowe has chosen a terrific sound track without which I don’t think I would have sat through the first hour or so to get to the final and most watchable part of the film – the road trip. I had no reason to like Orlando Bloom’s character Drew Baylor and whilst Kirsten Dunst’s character Claire was at least likeable I had no idea why she would chase Drew wherever he went. Dear Cam, If it’s not working out on the next movie at least do Almost Famous 2. I know it won’t be as good as the original but at least it won’t be this bad.