Fellowship of the Beard – 7 reasons to have facial hair
I’ve had my ‘blues patch’ beard for almost a decade now, and even though it’s more common and popular now, many of my Christian friends ask why I keep such a beard, and even my wife wishes I would remove it so that I could have a ‘clean’ look. Since I’ve had to defend my preferred choice of facial hair many times, I’ve developed the following answers.
1. I hate shaving my chin
Actually, I hate shaving in general, but the chin can have some of the most gnarly and tough of all facial follicles, and with all of the angles, it’s easy to cut yourself or irritate the face. And I don’t even have a cleft. For women, I liken it to shaving your knees, not sure if that captures it, though.
2. It keeps me warm
Sure, California doesn’t get that cold, and my beard only covers my chin. I’ve had it cover more space, and whatever it covers is warm. That’s a plus.
3. I want to promote non-conformity, especially among Christians
One of the most pernicious, soul-killing forces in the world is the pressure to sublimate our true person in order to fit into society’s expectations, which are often superficial and crafted out of insecurities, not real values. The pressure to conform to a ‘clean’ image is even more pronounced in religious circles, and I think such conformity is contrary to how God raises up mature people.
In Christian circles, the negative view of the self and self-care, based in poor understandings of ‘self-denial’ in scripture, leads many to ignore or even hate their created self, as I discussed in Orthodox Heresies – 7 false doctrines of the Church. I want people to feel the freedom to differ, to express their uniqueness, and to enjoy being themselves, even as their brokenness is still contaminating and being removed from their created self as they are changed by God.
10 (Atheist) Questions about God – Part 1
One of my favorite atheist podcasts is from The Thinking Atheist. Seth, the proprietor of TA, is a former Christian who is now an outspoken atheist apologist. He is both thoughtful as well as, at times, maddeningly blind to his lapses into some of the typical straw men and caricatures of Christianity used by anti-theists. I guess we all do that to our ideological opponents.
In one of Seth’s recent posts entitled Ten Questions About God, he provides an incisive list of questions that he feels he SHOULD have asked himself as a believer, and he asks us to do the same.
I have given each set of questions a Difficulty Rating, from 1-10, where 1 is an easy no-brainer, and 10 is a question which I find very challenging to my faith, and have no good answer for. Â Ready?
Orthodox Heresies – 7 false doctrines of the Church
The burning of John Huss on July 6, 1415
I have a whole list of pet peeves, but one of my top annoyances to date is a list of Christian doctrines that are not only erroneous (IMO), but have driven people away from faith unnecessarily. I want to call these out and toast them.
But before I do, allow me to clarify – I am talking as an Evangelical about Protestant errors – not the many Catholic errors that instigated the Protestant Reformation, many of which persist to this day. We could go on at length about the many souls who have missed salvation in Catholicism due to its erroneous doctrines, such as indulgences, Papal infallibility, the cult of the saints, and the general way in which Catholicism obscures the gospel with a doctrine of works and the ideas of confession, penance, and purgatory.
So, let us turn a critical eye towards our own house. Read more
10 Biblical Points about Alcohol and Drinking
Many evangelicals and fundamentalists are tea-totalers, and a good number of them also look down upon Christians who do use alcohol. And while such judgmental Christians are disobeying the command of Romans 14:3 to “not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him,” this does not mean that they are wrong to abstain.
But the question arises, is the biblical perspective on alcohol entirely or mostly negative, or the opposite?
NOTE: You can hear my sermon on this subject at The Biblical Perspective on Drinking and Alcohol.
Mass Delusion – 10 Reasons Why the Majority of Scientists Believe in Evolution
Many evolutionary supporters claim that anyone who doubts evolution as a theory of origins is really daft or religiously driven. One defense they often resort to is the claim that “the majority of professional scientists believe in evolution – you think they are all wrong?”
The creationists answer to this question is a resounding “YES!” – but how could so many intelligent people be wrong about a scientific concept? I suspect it is not a conspiracy, but a DELUSION. And I believe that I can explain why this delusion is so appealing to scientists.
Dealing with Islam: Passive or Active Resistance?
The more I ready about incidents like that of the Nigerian teacher whose home was burned to the ground for disciplining a Muslim student, or any of the other ways that "radical" Islam is trying to intimidate the free world, the more I keep asking myself, what would I do if they were coming for me?
I’ll tell you what I would not do – I would not let myself be slaughtered like a sheep. I keep thinking of the movie The Mission, where Jeremy Irons and Robert Deniro play two Jesuits who have to choose to fight or passively resist – tough choice – it shows the value of both positions (and I think both are valuable and "right.")
Ten Principles of Church Membership
Currently, I attend a small country church of about 100 people. And I do mean country – many of the members are farmers, and I’d bet that more of them own shotguns than computers. But a strange thing is happening – as the fields yield to housing developments, more middle class suburbanites are coming to church, and the question has arisen – what kind of church do we want to be in order to serve both our existing and new populations? This is not an easy question to answer.
But while we are thinking about it, a number of things have come up that we do NOT want to do. Church membership rolls are an interesting thing to study, and our view of them will color how we view people and ministry. But needless to say, our membership commitment means nothing if we are not a vital, active part of a body of believers. While you can become a Christian without belonging to a local or intimate body of believers, you can’t become a mature Christian without vital church involvement.
The 10 Recommendations
Aaron, nice post. However, while you are addressing some extremes that need attention, I would like to also present some extremes we should correct, along with some balanced principles which I think xians should be pursuing. But my concern is not so much with making unbelievers happy with us (although that may happen as some imbalances are fixed – and of course, that is a laudable goal), but with making believers mature.
List: 50 Spiritually Significant Films
- All Quiet on the Western Front - facing the horrors of war
- * American History X – racism and redemption for a racist
- Angels in America – heartbreaking and creative look at the struggles and tragedies of gay life, including losing a loved-one to AIDS, and suppressing your sexuality for religious reasons. Even though this is in some ways a “gay apologetic,” it is much more.
- Big Fish – a son comes to terms with his salesman father’s absences during his childhood, and the stories his father spun to make his life seem exciting to himself and his son
- Bonhoeffer - a true Christian hero and martyr of the Nazi era
- * Braveheart – a classic about fighting for your freedom – if you fail to fight, but would rather be enslaved, is it worth it?
- * Chocolat – Nice morality play about the stigma of being a single woman in a town run by a religious legalist, and his fall from legalism to being human – same theme as Babett’s Feast, but more entertaining
Critical Factors in Gay Recovery
I was reading up on one of my favorite subjects, reparative therapy of homosexuality, when I came across a decent introductory article on the subject at Parents and Friends of EX-gays (PFOX). The author evaluated the many therapeutic approaches to gay recovery therapy, and found the following six factors as critical to success:
1. Personal choice and motivation to reorient is necessary
This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not. Until I seriously want to change something in my life, I’m just going to fail.
2. A detailed history is important
This is to overcome using an oversimplified model like "all gays are that way because they had a bad father." People fail in gender identity formation for a lot of reasons, which need to be explored in therapy.
How to provoke your children
Scripture instructs us parents not to provoke our children to anger:
Ephesians 6:4
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.Colossians 3:21
Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
But what exactly do we do to hurt our children this way? John MacArthur gives us a nice list, which I’ve summarized below.
The Renaissance Christian Movement
Found a new great site from Australia called Faith Interface, and they have a really well thought out article on what I hope is a movement - Christians leaving behind the frailties of 19th and 20th century Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism for a more mature, balanced, intellectual, and powerful faith.
I highly recommend you read all of The Renaissance Christian, but you can also see my list of the main points below.
10 Commandments of Ethical Witness are peace-loving but controversial
The Christian Muslim Forum, an interfaith group, has released what it calls Ethical Guidelines for Christian and Muslim Witness in Britain (PDF). Interestingly, some more conservative Christians don't like a couple of the provisions because they fear that it could be used to stifle criticism or even moral condemnation of spirituality that contradicts what some would call basic human rights.
If you'd like to hear a spirited debate about the guidelines between a moderate Christian, a moderate Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, and a conservative Christian, check out the excellent debate at Muslim, Christian, Hindu debate on evangelism.
What some are calling Ten Commandments of Mission? are after the jump, with my highlights and brief commentary.
Why do some Christians become atheists?
I am exploring the mystery of why people leave faith for my upcoming book, and am also doing some great research by reading the following:
- Walking Away from Faith: Unraveling the Mystery of Belief and Unbelief
- Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do about It
- unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters
- They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations
However, in response to a pretty good atheist podcast at Reasonable Doubts (Explicit), I was asked to consider this question:Â “When a Christian becomes an ‘apostate,’ (unbeliever), how do Christians explain it?”
Vision or prison?
This wonderful cartoon from ASBO Jesus got me thinking about the whole vision thing. As a pastor, one of the chief difficulties is inspiring volunteers to pursue a vision. Here's my comments.
- Inspire, don't threaten.
- People are more important than the work or the timeline
- To inspire, YOU must be inspired, and keeping yourself motivated and 'inspirational' while going through life's normal ups and downs is a tough discipline.
- WITHOUT a vision, church is boring and lethargic. People like to be part of a ship that's going somewhere.
- Forging a vision that works first involves forging it with a team, not just yourself.
- God uses our own passions and experience from which we draw our vision and inspiration, but it is also GOD's vision and timeline that matter, and discerning which is which is tough. Having a team (see #5) helps lend some objectivity to help figure out what is 'me and God' and what is just 'me.'
- Aim at nothing, hit nothing. But if you do aim at something, be happy no matter what you hit, you are almost sure NOT to hit exactly what you were aiming at. Learn from it.
CREW announces its annual 15 Most Corrupt Politicians
The non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has realeased its annual list of the Most Corrupt Politicians. The list includes 9 Democrats and 6 Republicans. They also have a followup report on previous years called Where are They Now? (PDF). Here's the list:
- Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
- Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL)
- Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA)
- Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA)
- Sen. John Ensign (R-NV)
- Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)
- Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)
- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
- Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV)
- Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA)
- Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
- Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA)
- Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN)
- Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
- Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
