Blessed Easter!

Mariology: My First Forage Into This Mystery

A quick read of several chapters in 'In Search of Mary' to try once more to understand something of the Roman Catholic view of Mary and perhaps some of the Christian (Protestant) view of her revealed that it was in the early 2nd century that three men (early Church fathers) began to call Mary 'the new Eve.'

Justin Martyr (d.c 165) appears to be the first of the Church fathers to state the Eve-Mary relationship in his 'Dialogue with Trypho.' He saw Eve as the one who introduced sin into the world by succumbing to Satan's sexual advance. Eve then became a threat to male Christian virtue, at least according to the author of 'In Search of Mary.'

The other two early Church fathers who called Mary the new Eve were Irenaeus and Tertullian.

And that's the extent of my notes...so far.

Revirginization Versus Abstinence

She [a born-again conservative Chrisian woman] wished she could step back in time and recapture her lost virginity. Thinking of how “I could have ruined one of greatest fulfillments of my life,” the first time having sex with a husband, she wanted to “have that opportunity again. I know my [future] husband deserves a whole person.”

So Watts engaged in a lot of prayer and thought, and now declares herself a virgin once again. “The most important thing was to realize what my values were and what I want in the future and the bigger goals in my life," she says. "That’s why I can call myself a renewed virgin.”

Across the country, "revirginization" appears to be gaining steam. Spiritual efforts to reclaim virginity emerged back in the early 1990s and now, prompted by abstinence-only school courses taught to thousands of girls nationwide, and by religious teachers, there are reports of more and more young women like Watts attempting a sexual do-over. Other women are opting for a more radical route to reclaim their virginity: surgical replacement of the hymen, the small membrane that stretches from the walls of the vagina and that typically breaks when a woman first has intercourse

"Looking Good for Jesus": Cosmetics Pulled From Stores

A cosmetics range with cheeky taglines that extolled the virtues of "Looking Good for Jesus" has been pulled from stores in Singapore after some Roman Catholics complained the items were disrespectful, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Promising to "Redeem your reputation and more," the product line included a "virtuous vanilla"-flavored lip balm and a "Get Tight with Christ" hand and body cream, as well as bags and other items sold by British retailer Topshop and produced by Blue Q, The Straits Times said.

Wing Tai Retail, which manages Topshop in the city-state, removed the range late last month after receiving complaints, the newspaper said.

Imagine wearing make-up that extols its ability to make you virtuous!

I, For One, Have Fallen For Jesus Christ

Hard to admit, but I am feeling a bit like a religious bigot. I could not see myself or anyone, for that matter, voting for a person who would believe that a man named Joseph Smith had found golden tablets from God out in the desert of the southwestern United States and built a homemade religion around himself. Mitt Romney may be a smart businessman, but he supposedly fell for that crock. I, for one, have fallen for Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Word.

Politicians Not Shy of Talking Up Religion

U.S. politicians are not shy of talking about their religion and regularly appear in church.

In recent decades, part of the American political drama has been scripted by the "religious right" -- mostly white evangelical Protestants united by strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage who have been a key base of support for the Republican Party.

Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee, who scooped up strong evangelical support but whose campaign is fading ahead of next Tuesday's nominating contests across the country, is a Baptist preacher who peppers his speeches with Biblical allusions.

Mitt Romney is a Mormon who was moved to address questions about his faith in a speech in December. John McCain has long sought to smooth relations after including leaders of the religious right among those he called "agents of intolerance" during his failed presidential bid in 2000.

The leading Democratic presidential contenders have also been open and candid about their faith.

That faith, and that of the Republican candidates, is Christian, although candidates have also spoken about the need for religious tolerance.

A false rumor that has circulated on the Internet about Democratic candidate Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, is that he is Muslim who has lied about his religion. The rumor appears to illustrate the importance some voters attach to a candidate being Christian.

Fashionable to Deride Evangelical Christians

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF writes:

At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith...

Liberals believe deeply in tolerance and over the last century have led the battles against prejudices of all kinds, but we have a blind spot about Christian evangelicals. They constitute one of the few minorities that, on the American coasts or university campuses, it remains fashionable to mock.

Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.

Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives.

DNA Sequencing and The New Creation in Christ

Speaking with a friend today at church, I mentioned that I have recently come to think that perhaps original sin resulted in a genetic alteration of humanity; and that at the moment of salvation, that genetic alteration is erased (or reversed) so that the person does indeed become 'a new creation' as Paul states in several of his epistles.

Then, later this afternoon, I wondered if with genome sequencing we might come to actually see this difference between Christians and non-Christians.

(I imagined this as I thought of Carl Sagan who in his book CONTACT has a character-scientist prove the existence of God by solving the unsolvable pi equation.)

If Christians have the DNA of Adam before he 'fell' (by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), then what is Jesus' DNA composition since He is the only human being who lived on earth without sin? Is our DNA like Jesus'? If so, why do we still sin?

Paul says that the good he wants to do, he can not do. And begs to know who will rescue him from this body of sin and death? So, Christians' DNA must not be completely transformed by salvation. Rather, the transformation must be ongoing.

Paul implies this throughout his epistles. Our salvation is not perfection. Perfection comes through trials and persecutions which lead to endurance and persistence which eventually lead to holiness and perfection. Perfection which will finally be a new DNA code; the same DNA which Jesus' risen body holds.

So, we shouldn't wonder that we fail, that we continue in sin. We should keep on running for the prize, fixing our eyes on Jesus, who is the perfector of our faith and our goal.

Michael Ventura: "Panhandle Christs"

Panhandle Christs
BY MICHAEL VENTURA

On I-40 you drive past Groom, Texas, in seconds – a tiny town barely managing to be a town anymore, like many of its kind, clinging to the highway for dear life. Just west of Groom stands the second-highest cross in our hemisphere (there's one slightly larger in Illinois). Its massive, shiny metal glints in the sun, 19 stories high, visible for miles in that flat land. One may wonder whether something so large is a monument to faith or to unadmitted doubt, or some of both; but one may be sure that nothing so expensive is created in a county so poor without deep need. This is thunderstorm country. On many nights Groom's cross must be lit and struck by lightning like the lightning announcing Yahweh's presence in Exodus 19:16 – a light-show counterpointed quickly in 20:21, where Moses draws near "to the thick darkness where God was." The vast plains of the Texas Panhandle are an apt setting to depict the lights and darks of the divine.

Surrounding the Groom monument in a wide oval are refreshingly, earnestly human statues: the Stations of the Cross. Groom's Jesus is Anglo, not Palestinian, shorter than today's average height but taller than Jesus likely was. (The Gospels never suggest his appearance was unusual, so his height was likely average for the time, about five feet.) Groom's cross dwarfs us, but its statues silently convey what feels almost like an appeal: "See, we were much like you; it isn't so hard to understand our sins, our faith, and our sufferings, not if you look into yourselves."

Day and night there are always a dozen or so trucks and cars in the parking lot and people looking up at the high cross and, more accessibly, into the eyes of the statues...

The Mystery of His Will: Summing Up All Things in Christ

I am presently reading The Pillar New Testament Commentary on THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS by Peter T. O'Brien. Surprisingly, I had not considered that the mystery mentioned by Paul in Ephesians (and other letters) is God's plan to 'sum up all things in Christ.' This summing up of everything is indeed a mystery, hard to fathom.
O'Brien writes:

His 'mystery', though not understood by men and women, had been planned by him, the Creator, from eternity.

I couldn't agree more. God, in infinite wisdom, planned everything. Nothing is outside his foreknowledge.
O'Brien continues:

Before the foundation of the world he chose a people for himself in Christ and predestined them to be his children (Eph 1:4-5)...God has not changed; nor is he abandoning his first creation (i.e the Jews) by forming a new creation in Christ (i.e. Gentile Christians together with Jewish Christians). Salvation and the unity of the Jew and Gentile in Christ have always been his purpose...And he who created all things in the beginning with this goal in mind will consummate his work of re-creation on the final day when he brings all things together in unity in his Son, the Lord Jesus (1:10).

All things? I struggle sometimes with what Paul means when he writes 'all things'. At the end, will everything become as it was at the creation? Except that everything will know and be of Christ?
The mystery of his will is the summing up of all things in Christ.

Our Theology is Simple; We Believe in Christ

By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The leader of a megachurch where a gunman opened fire a week earlier, killing two teenage sisters and wounding three other people, said Sunday that the congregation's trials of the past couple of years were nothing more than tests... Another test came a year ago, Boyd (present pastor) said, when founder the Rev. Ted Haggard was dismissed after a former male escort claimed Haggard paid him over three years for sex. Haggard publicly admitted committing unspecified "sexual immorality."

"This is not what this church will be known for," Boyd said.

"Our heart is to be a church that gives to people," he said. "We are a group that cares for people, any person."

That was written on the faces of members of a mostly smiling crowd who sang, clapped and waved as they watched the stage or several large-screen televisions simulcasting the service above them. Some cried. Dozens accepted a call to come to the front if they needed help to deal with the pain.

"All it has done is strengthen us," Boyd said at the service, attended by at least 4,000 adults.

Reacting to the shooting and the service, Josh Caldwell, 17, said: "It's definitely been really rough. But seeing the church continue to grow is an incredible experience. And seeing God move among us."

Boyd said the church's struggles could be compared to those faced by early Christians. "In times like this our theology is simple. ... We believe in Christ," he said.

A.W. Pink: 'God Governing the Nations'

Rantings Against the Abrahamic Faiths: Marcus Brigstock

Icons

Christ Carries His Cross As Far As He Is Able: Metal Statues Near Amarillo, Texas

Waterboarding is Torture

The Outside Affects the Inside

"One thing I learned is that the outside affects the inside, your behavior shapes your thoughts." A. J. Jacobs from a Newsweek interview regarding his new book "The Year of Living Biblically."

Jacobs spent a year living the 700 rules he found in the Bible. He wore white a lot, refrained from swearing, asked strangers if he could stone them for adultery and divorce, and honored the Sabbath, to list a few.