I played basketball for the last several years at a church league in Houston. (I will leave alone for now my thoughts on churches building their own gyms, lest I digress.) When the league started, the men running the league set firm rules about attitudes and behavior. If anyone crossed the line, they were asked to leave the gym and possibly leave the league.

In the early days, this worked wonderfully. As with any church league, the players were rougher and less skilled than players in other leagues I’d played in; yet they were generally more mouthy. A few players tried the rules and found themselves kicked out of the gym, and I believe one was removed from the league altogether. The total number of infractions, however, was small.

Fast-forward a few years. I suppose the men running the league decided they didn’t like asking people to leave the church. Maybe that sounds funny to many of you, as well. So instead, the games got rougher, more mouthy, and less fun. The last game I played in, the refs called a technical on one of the opposing players then called so completely in that team’s favor because of their whining that one ref came over to me and told me that he didn’t call a foul on another player that had smacked me in the head “because we had gotten the ball back.” Really?

I believe this pattern to be indicative of the American Church in general these days. No one is willing to call fouls or ask people to leave. At some point, we decided turning people away or calling people out was not good for PR, so we stopped. Now we face a church age in America where most claim to know Christ and expect eternal life, as well as their “best life now” without really understanding the other side of Christ’s message: “In this world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).

We must once again call fouls and, when necessary, even ask those who really don’t belong to leave, lest the entire church body is brought down. Many will think this harsh, but what options have we? To this we are called, are we not, to teach and preach the whole gospel?

I’ve noticed a concerning trend in Christianity today: consumerism. Yes, that shop-till-you-drop mentality has penetrated the Church at large. Don’t think so? Think about how many churches you or your friends have attended. Think about what you do today in church. You go, you sit, you listen, you get up, you leave, you sit, you listen, repeat. That’s your Sunday service in a nutshell. It reminds me of the way I used to look at the Catholic liturgy when I was younger.

That isn’t inherently bad so long as you then go out and live the gospel. But how many “Christians” today do that? Too many people with an icthus on their cars drive like maniacs and “revenge drive” when cut off in traffic. I’m perhaps blind or cynical or both, but I just don’t see it that often, even in myself. That troubles me.

Wiersbe again here:

Suffice it to say now that a true disciple is not a reservoir but a gushing fountain, an artesian well of spiritual blessing. He does not live to get; he lives to give. What he receives from the Lord, he shares with others; and in sharing, he receives even more. He is careful to guard the precious spiritual investment God has put into his life, but he also invests that treasure in the lives of others.

Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

Amen? So what’s happened? Why? Why you? Why me? Where is our love for Jesus Christ?

I’m currently reading Wiersbe’s Prayer: Basic Training. I have found a lot of good information in it, much of it unexpected in a book on prayer. In particular, I found this quote most enlightening: ”The best way to defend the Bible is to practice it.” Can anyone put it any better? This statement was the conclusion of the following illustration:

I sometimes get the impression that some zealous Christians today are so concerned about guarding the Word that they forget to obey it. They think they are serving God by their "holy crusades" of accusation and attack, crusades that are not always based on truth or motivated by love. I recall with a sad heart a young man who used to stand at the steps of our church building and pass out literature that condemned certain schools and preachers. I asked him why he didn’t pass out gospel tracts to lost sinners. When we asked him to go away from the church building, or else to come in to worship, he shouted: "I’m a fighting Fundamentalist and I don’t care who knows it! You people are not preaching the truth!" I appreciate any believer who wants to defend the faith, but his belligerent attitude made a mockery of the faith. The best way to defend the Bible is to practice it.

Wiersbe, W. W. (1988). Prayer : Basic training. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale.

Many have differing opinions, and I would love to hear yours. I find myself agreeing completely with Wiersbe here. I think we spend too much time in study and never put anything into practice. Look at all the people who call themselves Christians but are known by the evangelical community as “Sunday Christians.” Look at all those evangelicals who focus of the love of God over his wrath and whom the fundamentals call “watered-down gospel teachers.” Look at all the fundamentalists with their walled-garden churches and signs proclaiming the facts that they are KJV, pre-trib, pre-millenial, etc. Everyone is so focused on doctrine that we have our own versions of Pharisees and Sadducees—people who think they have it but have completely missed Christ in their midst.

Now, I like to think of myself as an equal opportunity offender. I tried to pick on everyone above, but if you are upset that I missed you, please comment, and I’ll throw your group into the mix. Seriously, though, I’ve noticed that when you work through serving together with someone who may not see things eye-to-eye with you, a lot of the academic details fall away and you find yourself not so far away from agreeing with your once-nemesis. It’s the label (e.g. denomination, political party, doctrine name) that divides more than it is the truth.

So let’s begin to get back to the practice of the gospel and take a holiday from arguing our fine doctrinal points. Certainly, continue to study and to learn the truth of God. Never cease from that precious duty, but don’t let it alone define your faith.

I recently read an article regarding Joel Osteen’s theology, then read Jude during a quiet moment:

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit.

But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Jude 17-23

This made me wonder, who will save the likes of Joel Osteen and Jermiah Wright? Who will snatch them from the fire? Though they claim Christ, “they are from our world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them” (1 John 4:5). Though they claim him, they deny the whole of him. One man loves the world and money, just as Demas did, who turned from the faith (1 John 1:15, 2 Timothy 4:10, Matthew 6:24). The other man hates his brother, and thus displays he has not the love of God (1 John 2:9).

Bent Rasmussen started a terrific discussion on Twine today regarding an article titled “Never Mind the Semantic Web.” After reading Bent’s comment and the article, I started thinking again about adding “semantic” markup in (X)HTML. My comment follows:

I read your comment before reading the article, and I originally agreed with your comment. Then I read the article, and I can’t help agreeing with almost every point. Almost. At the same time, I still agree with your comment. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Everything you said is spot on target. Maybe explaining my thoughts, having read both, would help.

After reading the article, I can’t help thinking that RDF really doesn’t belong within (X)HTML. This is a pretty big deal for me, but I can’t get away from it. From a truly semantic pov, (X)HTML describes a document. I realize that it has been exploded to do all sorts of amazing things, but it is, at it’s roots, a document format. Why force even more into an almost back-broken format? (X)HTML’s own tags can provide a load of semantic information about the document, and that’s really all it should provide.

Microformats are a great way of recognizing that and staying fairly consistent to that nature, but they really aren’t a very good solution. Creating RDF using n3 is much easier than XML, though both are fine, and are much easier to create independent of (X)HTML. Building a tool to create RDF data to store at a specific URI would allow so much more data to be placed out on the SemWeb much faster. Then, using the rel and rev attributes already in (X)HTML, you could extract triples to relate web pages (HTML) to web resources (RDF, etc.) and complete the graph without trying to force in so much more information than necessary into (X)HTML.

Maybe I’m a bit naive, but that seems like a really workable solution. And if you must find a way to represent all RDF as a (X)HTML, XSLT and XQuery are great tools for doing just that, keeping in mind you are now creating a document to display data for the resource. Standard templates/queries should be able to go a long way–sort of a reverse GRDDL approach.

Or am I just missing something huge and obvious? (I tend to do that sometimes.)

If you read my previous post on the Future of Web Applications, you may think I already thought this. Well, I wish I had, but at the time I hadn’t quite reached this point. After all, I thought embedding resources within (X)HTML would make everything more maintainable. However, maintaining data on a person, event, etc. is much more easily done in one place and then linked by others. Why embed something that may already exist elsewhere? And why make your web page, which may only haphazardly relate to the embedded content, the responsible source for maintaining that embedded item?

Rather, I’d love to see tools like WordPress and others provide tools for creating and managing this content locally or link to resources elsewhere, such as in your Google Calendar.

Amen.

I was looking back through an old journal (from March, so not really that old) and found an interesting entry that I thought I would share. I had just read Luke 18:1-8 and wrote about faith. Here were my thoughts from that passage that day. Read the rest of this entry »

Should your religious beliefs be held privately, or should they be expressed and lived out publicly? I can’t imagine that anyone who has met the Lord would be able to hold it in, but having been raised as a Catholic, I can remember that many in the church did indeed keep their beliefs held very close. Well, it came as a surprise to me when I read that the pope said, “Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted,” according to azcentral.com. I agree.

This is the sermon I will deliver to Artifact on Sunday, April 6, 2008.

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”
John 21:15

Read the rest of this entry »