Thumping good church service today. We learned about Psalm 52 and Doeg the Edomite (after beating some of the youth into submission on the new foosball table). However I was very surprised to see a death annoucement in the bulletin. Jonathan Chao died of cancer at the age of 65 on Monday of last week. I have never met a braver man, or one who more fully lived out the implications of the New Testament teaching that we are citizens of a heavenly country, or, for that matter, the Old Testament teaching that the LORD is my strength, whom shall I fear? Jonathan was a leader in providing training and resources for house church leaders all over China. He was not well thought of by the Chinese government. I don't really have the words to describe the respect I had for him.

Also, in closing we sang a hymn whose words I had not previously noted carefully. In honor of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, we sang Once to Every Man and Nation, which he apparently cited often in his speeches. Part of it (which hit me quite hard while I was singing) goes like this:

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scafold, and upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above His own.

Good inside look at the practice of music by professionals in small ensembles here.

My friend Kirk forwarded this to me:

LUTEFISK AND YAMS
by Ulf Gunnarsson

Hark and ware, oh Warrior!
Weird of Sven now hear you.
How good Lars he harried,
pestered him with questions.
Late at meadhall light burned;
Lars did strive to largen
belly with a bowl of
boiled fish his mission.

And some chunks of chicken,
cheese and bread and peasoup,
finally pounds of pancakes
paired with lingon berries.

Smallish snack he snuck while
woozy wife lay snoozing.
When inside there wandered
forth a fellow northman.

Lars did greet him greatly
for he knew the gruesome
tales of host who hasten
travelers forth from doorstep.

Lars did ask his name then.
"I am Sven," he mentioned.
"Sven I am," he stated.
"Do you like lutefisk and yams?"

"Nay." said Lars, "though largely
like I food most goodly, but
I do not like lutefisk and yams,
I do not like them Sven I am."

"Ah," said Sven most sagely.
"Would you eat them on a trip?
Would you eat them on your ship?"

"Nay," said Lars, "though largely
like I food most goodly, but
I would not eat them on a trip.
I would not eat them on my ship.
I do not like lutefisk and yams,
I do not like them, Sven I am."
"Ah," said Sven. "Then maybe
might you eat them on a raid?
Might you eat them with a maid?"

"Nay," said Lars most strongly.
"Like I food most goodly, but
I would not eat them on a raid,
I would not eat them with a maid,
I would not eat them on a trip,
I would not eat them on my ship.
I do not like lutefisk and yams.
I do not like them, Sven I am."

"Hmmm," said Sven, "Good fellow,
would you eat them on the field?
Would you eat them off your shield?"

"Nay!" cried Lars most wrothly,
"Like I food most goodly, but
I would not eat them on the field,
I would not eat them off my shield,
I would not eat them on a raid,
I would not eat them with a maid,
I would not eat them on a trip,
I would not eat them on my ship.
I do not like lutefisk and yams.
I do not like them, Sven I am."

Sven then looked most crafty.
He then slyly stated:
"Would you eat them served up cold?
Would you eat them if I paid you gold?"

"Well," said Lars, "since largely,
Like I food most goodly...
I might like lutefisk and yams.
I might like them, Sven I am."

Sven produced this Swedish
yam and lutefisk sample.
Lars did test this tasty
treat then longly pondered.

Stoutly Lars then stated:
"I despise lutefisk and yams.
I despise them, Sven I am.
I will not eat them served up cold,
I will not eat them if you pay me gold.
I will not eat them on the field,
I will not eat them off my shield,
I will not eat them on a raid,
I will not eat them with a maid,
I will not eat them on a trip,
And I will NOT eat them on MY ship!
I do not like lutefisk and yams,
I do not like them, Sven I am."
And he slew Sven.

Sorry, link below died apparently. You can try the mixmaster yourself here. Seems to work well at mixing blogs and news sites, but feel free to play around.

I have a funny feeling that posting this will screw it up, but I tried using the mixmaster today, at my wife's suggestion, putting my site info into the foxnews layout. I got a picture of Iraq with a big caption saying "The Victory According to Mark." You can see the current state of things here.

I love my youth pastor. I caught him at the church last night at about 10:00 playing Madden 04 on our church's new X Box. He told me the computer had beaten him badly and he wanted revenge. I told him he had to play me, since I've never played on an X Box. Of course I thrashed him soundly, thus leaving him dejected and having to explain to his wife why he came hime so late :)

Of course I also like the fact that at our outh bible study tonight he asked questions like "Is the gospel teaching or history?", expecting "history" as the proper answer. We got to discuss why, when Paul confronted Peter about not eating with the gentiles, he (Paul) accused him of not living according to the gospel. It's interesting trying to get from point a (the life of Jesus) to point b (the gospel requires Jews to eat with gentiles).

If anyone ever does a musical version of the life of Abraham, they need to include a rockin number where Abraham and Sara sing to each other, "You are my sister, you are my brother." Big dance number in Pharoah's palace. Can you picture it?

I'm still getting to know my bible. While this is true in a general sort of way, what I mean more precisely is that I've been using a new bible for the last 6 months much of it seems new and exciting to me.

Today during Sunday School, James (the youth minister) was talking about community and individualism from the first chapter of Philippians. Verse 19 in my NJB reads like this: " and I shall go on being happy, to, because I know that this is what will save me, (b) with your prayer and with the support of the Spirit of Jesus Christ;"

I turned my attention away from James for a minute to see what the footnote was and discovered a reference to Job 13:16. While I should have been paying attention, especially since I'm trying to be a good example for the kids, I felt compelled to look up the refernce. It just seemed lie a weird phrase to quote, plus the NJB edition I have is pretty spare on footnotes, and usually what they put there is interesting to me.

Of course Job is always interesting, and it came at me in a fresh way when I looked back there. Job apparently is speaking to one or all of his friends here:

Kindly listen to my accusation and give your attention to the way I shall plead.

Do you mean to defend God by prevarication
and by dishonest argument,
and, taking his side like this, apoint yourselves as his advocates?

How would you fare, if he were to scrutinize you?

. . .I am putting my flesh between my teeth,
I am taking my life in my hands;
let him kill me if he will; I have no other hope
than to justify my conduct in his eyes.

And this is what will save me,
for the wicked would not dare to appear before him.

I don't remember off the top of my head if this is one of the passages that Richard Hays talks about in Echoes of Scripture, but it sounds like it might be. Job's language here almost sounds like the reverse of the protestant doctrine of justification. I would previously have been tempted to think that Job was just not right on tis point, or at least that he was lacking sorely in the knowledge we now have from the NT. But I now have to think this is not the case.

Going back to Paul, in the passage he is talking about how his imprisonment has brought new confidence to the brothers, both those who loved him as well as those who despised him. Here is the obvious connection with Job. Paul endured his suffering with patience and with confidence that God would be the one to justify him in the end. Job's hope was the same. But both situations are not those of isolated individuals, but of people dealing with people trying to convince them they are idiots. I can only imagine that if Paul wrote a letter specifically to those who had "malice and rivalry", there would be quite a bit more of Job in it.

The lesson Paul picked up from Jesus and which becomes one of the themes of Philippians was that suffering and pain and death could be (and ARE, in Christ) not signs of God's disfavor, but quite the opposite.

Since Valerie has dropped out, I'd like to introduce folks to one of my new favorite blogs. Go say hi to a little aardvark. He's been talking about christian music lately. Seems like a cool guy.

Also, both of AKMA's comments for today are worth thinking about.

One of my favorite blogs is not posted on the side bar there because it is carefully disguised as a site that reports on the releases of new video games. Be not fooled. This is actually a real blog. When you have a minute you'll need to check out the most recent post (I think you'll have to scroll up a little to get the top), the results of a contest on the worst holiday experience. You'll be glad you did.

I like this one:

“I believe that the reason I smoke and drink every day and my wife is overweight is because we watched TV every day for the last four years,” Dumouchel stated in a written complaint against the company, included in a Fond du Lac police report.

I did something a bit odd just before the holiday. I wrote a fan letter. First one of my life. It just felt kinda weird doing it at my age, but I really wanted to introduce myself to Stanley Hauerwas and thank him for the impact his books have had on my life.

He sent me the most gracious response and answered all my (mostly implicit) questions and gave me a few book recommendations. I recommended Neal Stephenson to him and he agreed to check him out sometime :)

I'm sure everyone has been asking themselves, "What sort of D&D characters would the Dem. hopefuls be?" Wonder no more.

Unless someone tells me they miss it, I'm taking away the reading list from the sidebar.

Looks like I'm not the only one to notice these things.

Mr. Burns: "Oh, meltdown. It's one of those annoying buzzwords. We prefer to call it an unrequested fission surplus."

Of the religion and biblical studies books I read this year, only a few of them dipped below the threshold of "recommend very highly." As I look over the list, I find it quite impossible to rate them relative to each other, So I'll just give them to you in the order I have them written down here (pretty much the order in which I read them). Also, since I'm tired, I'm just putting titles down but not authors.

1 The Faith of Jesus Christ--A thorough and seminal study of Galatians 3 and following. Creates a whole host of theological questions we should be wrestling with.

2 Handbook of Biblical Social Values--This could be one good place to start reading what I now find to be the indispensible contributions of the "Context Group." The book is done in encyclopedia style with short essays on key social-science terms. I'd recommend it as a great resourse for pastors and other christian teachers.

3 The Resurrection of the Son of God--You probably either have read this one or at leastt heard about it. Inspired me to get into debating atheists about the resurrection, though that was often a less than fulfilling experience.

4 A Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John--tons of valuable insights, though the final section on the resurrection is downright heretical. Everything else was wonderful though.

5 Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew--This was by far my favorite Context Group book I read, and possibly the best book of the year for me. Honor and shame are the 2 most important concepts to "get" when trying to understand the people of the bible. If you only get one book based on my recommendation, make it this one.

6 Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down--a study of worship within the modern church within the modern culture. A great deal to think about here. The downside is that it will probably make you start asking too many questions about why your church does things the way it does and get you into trouble.

7 The Politics of Jesus--Despite the title, deals mostly with Pauline theology. Consider this, for instance:
A- Men have the right to self defence.
B- Jesus had the right to self defence.
C- Jesus voluntarily gave up that right.
D- The attitude of C above (though not strictly limited to that) is exactly what Paul was referring to when he spoke of imitating Jesus.
Yoder also anticipates quite a bit of what became the NPP.

8 Portraits of Paul: An Archeology of Ancient Personality--an extremely helpful book on ancient notions of identity and personality. Lots of classical and early christian works cited for examples.

9 The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament--A good general work touching on many aspects of 1st century life.

10 Matthew and Empire--a very well written and well argued defense of a political interpretation of Matthew. An excellent companion to the Neyrey book above. Would be a good follow-up after reading Wright's books on the gospels.

11 Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul--a difficult but very rewarding look at Paul's use of the OT. Only downside is that a fair amount of it isn't in English.

12 Paul Among the Postliberals--a study on the effects of the "New Perspective" on 20th century theology. Interacts with many of my favorite theologians. The section on Wright is a bit odd though. Still a fascinating read.

13 Truthfulness and Tragedy--If you have any interest in medical ethics, you'll find a lot to think about here. The broad idea is that we lie to ourselves and lie about God when we deny the tragic elements of our lives. Good stuff.

14 After Christendom? How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas--If the title makes you angry, this is the book for you. You'll be glad you read it.

15 The Victory According to Mark--Yes, Mark, you made it to my list. The strength here is the wealth of thought about how the gospel of Mark echoes so many ideas and images from the OT.

16 Resident Aliens--a good place to start seeing a radical view of the church. Simple but quite profound.

17 Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradition--A wealth of good articles expanding on Alasdair MacIntyre's work and applying it to the church. Yoder's essay on forgiveness was the best essay I read all year.

Wow, finished three today. Philip K Dick's The Simulacra was very good. Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death was one of the best books ever. Daniel Ottati's Reforming Protestantism was just awful.

I have floating around in my brain now some ideas for a paper on the subject of music as a chritian practice. Not quite sure where to start, other than reviewing MacIntyre's statements on practices. I'm just kinda continually irritated by the fact that in our culture music is not something that one practices, but rather something that is always in the background, or that one accomplishes by pushing a button on a machine, or improves through spending more and more money on equiptment. As Lenise and I were having a good time at a couple of recent holiday parties I was thinking about the fact both of the hosts found it prudent to "play" holiday music during the festivities. This was mitigated by the fact that at the first party we did actually have someone play a keyboard and sing together.

If anyone knows of any publications which deal with public participation in music activities, please feel free to forward them to me.