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Name: Jamey
Country: United States
Metro: Roanoke
Gender: Male
Interests: hermeneutics, exegesis, metaphysics, epistemology, quantum physics, motorcycles, antiquity,
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Education/Research
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Member Since:
10/2/2005
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| Two of my favorite phrases are "at least" and "primarily." There is no certain affinity towards the 'l' in 'at least' nor a certain affinity towards the 'p' in primarily. I do not like these phrases because of the way they roll off the tongue, like the way a mother that names her child a cursed name (for a name is much more than a sound). These phrases are so dear to me because of their significance. The word 'significance' contains a word: the word 'sign.' These phrases are signs of important realities.
'At least' signifies the reality of how much could be known. 'At least' whispers the grandeur of the universe and the limited understanding of the human mind to capture it all. 'At least' explains that there is so much more to discover while at the same time affirming that something has been discovered. 'At least' is not agnostic like the words 'perhaps' or 'maybe.' 'At least' has not arrived so much as to say anything without its condition. When I say the grass is green, there is a piece of arrival and arrogance in such a statement because there is much grass yet to see. If I say that grass is at least green, I have not arrogantly claimed the arrival of my mind to the state of all grass, but I have at least made a statement about what has been noticed about the state of the grass that these eyes and thus mind have seen. Do we see the beauty, the synthesis, the reality behind such a small phrase? This phrase is also the opposite of the anti-wonderful, arrogant, arrived word, 'just.' Just is at least the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" invention of a society scared of meaning. We cut out our heart to save us from a heart-ache. If we make everything smaller, if we belittle meaning then pain will escape us. If we detach the depth of meaning from our world, then we detach the significance to our lives. What happens when we lose something of little significance? Nothing of any significance, right? I don't cry when I lose an insignificant piece of paper; it has no significance. I think my societies abundant use of the word 'just' is a sign, a testimony, a martyr (Greek word for witness), to the robots that we have chosen to become.
J.R.R. Tolkien gives a profound illustration of this reality in the Silmairllion. Middle Earth was originally flat. The flatness of Middle Earth gave an edge, an other. Middle Earth became the 'at least' but there was obviously much more. The God punished Middle Earth and made it round. This caused the opposite effect. Now, Middle Earth was relative to itself. Middle Earth went from being 'at least' to 'just.' This is an intense punishment but a punishment we seem to want, too. We love being the center of everything, we love being I-centered, egocentric. The God of the Cosmos, which is also the God of Middle Earth, does the same thing to us in various ways. He gives us exactly what we want: a controlled world without wonder. We want control, not wonder; this is at the very heart of the anti-lover. The lover wants wonder, not control.
I think this is at least connected to the new abundance of interest in the 'paranormal.' Even our churches have lived in the round world. They do not go beyond what the world has done. The church is little different from the average American business. We bribe you to come to church. We seem to focus on the more the merrier for the same reasons that Sprint and Verizon do. The church is now contained in the 'normal,' and we have to go to werewolves and ghosts for the 'paranormal.' We are like the inhabitants of Middle Earth, we are getting bored of our relative world and we want to know that there is an edge.
The word 'primarily' is very similar to the reality behind the phrase 'at least.' Primarily includes the reality of 'at least' but also expounds it. 'Primarily' implies the complexity and connectedness of all things but also the right and wrong. If 'at least' is natural then 'primarily' is revelational. 'At least' whispers the complexity and 'primarily' prioritizes them. We may acknowledge the complexity of the universe with humility but if we miss the priority of all the things in the universe, we will lose the humility. Most scientists admit the complexity and wonder of the physical universe but in making science the primary means of discovering truth, they lose the ability to love (love is not scientific, only sexual pleasure and reproduction is). Few people deny that their life is complex, but few people put priorities correctly. My priorities are out of line most of the time and they change from moment to moment. My primary purpose in writing this blog is not to explain what the priorities are, I am primarily attempting to explain the realities that two of my favorite phrases point to. This is what makes a good movie good. This is what makes a good paper a good paper, a good blog a good blog. A paper, a movie, could be very complex but as long as the primary purpose of the paper or movie is not lost, it will be good. This is what makes a basketball player good. He recognizes that winning is primary and not his points. No one really attempts to disconnect winning from scoring points but many players put scoring points above winning. Jesus' discussion with Mary and Martha is at least a giant testimony to this reality.
Some use these words by accident because they truly see a wonderful world. Some use these words by rule and they are learning of the wonders of the world and the ignorance of their own understanding. May we all bounce from each of these categories and abstain from the robotic normal universe that our mind controls and limits. May we correct ourselves from the protection from meaning and loss. May we not only acknowledge the complexity but also seek an authority for the primacy.
Lord,
Help us to seek love, to seek meaningm
Help us to depend on Your Authority for our primacy
Help us,
Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy Will be Done,
In Jesus Name,
Amen.
James S. Sturgill
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| My favorite quote is "A good lover gives you more energy to love everything, that is what God does. A bad lover drains away your energy into himself, like a vampire. A good lover is like a fountain. A bad lover is like a whirlpool." This quote is a reality that runs through my head a lot. Recently I have been contemplating this reality in regards to suicide. The suicidal person not only drains away your energy but he drains away his own energy, even his life energy. The suicidal vampire turns on himself and in this last living act, he not only drains his own life energy but he even drains away the life of those that were around him. Even in his death, he is a vampire. This is also contrasted in the fountain. The fountain loves so much that he not only gives abundant life (zoe in Greek - the word Jesus uses in John 10:10) but also physical life. Cinderella not only attracts other happy people, she also attracts butterflies, birds, and deer. Fountains make children. Celibate fountains can also make children. When celibates share the abundant life with couples, it inspires there love and when a couple's love is inspired physical life is an effect. Speaking the truth makes children. A wonderful man once wrote that giving life, parenting, is the highest purpose on this earth. He was not excluding celibates, either. He, himself, was a celibate. He spoke of life inclusively. Humans can give life both in its zoe form and its physical form, just as humans can both steal life in its zoe form and in its physical form. God is the greatest picture of this reality. He does come to give life but not only life but abundant life. God not only created Abel, he also created Cain. God not only created David, he also created Saul. God creates physically and abundantly. God is a fountain. Before the 1930s, no Christian denomination supported fountain control, I mean birth control. When we speak truth, when we give love, when we admire or create beauty, we give life, both physical and abundant. When we speak lies, when we act egotistically or selfishly (the opposites of love), when we belittle or destroy beauty we take life, both physical and abundant.
Lord,
Your will is that we be little Christs, little fountains,
May your will be done.
In Jesus Name,
Amen.
James S. Sturgill
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| I believe that the Christianity is ultimately about knowing God. The more we know God, the more we will love Him. John 17:3 is a very powerful verse in regards to this. It says, "and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Eternal life is found in knowing God but not only knowing God but knowing Jesus whom he sent. Using this, I want to elaborate on a natural understanding of God and then the supernatural understanding of God.
If someone told me that chogo is like yotigua but better. I would not know very much chogobecause I don't know what yotigua is. This is the way we understand God, too. God tells us that he is like us but different. God tells us that he is like food but different. God tells us that he is like water but different. God tells us that he is like bread but different. If we do not have a natural understanding of us, food, water, and bread, then we can't know anything about God, either. We must have a natural understanding in order to understand the Supernatural because this is the way that he explains himself to us. (there is tons of Biblical and philosophical evidence for this if one would want I could give it) When we are taught to see things in a supernatural light as oppose to a natural light this not only disrupts our ability to see natural things but it also disrupts our ability to see supernatural things. If one confuses yotigua with chogo both yotigua and chogo are lost. When we are confused with what bread is and God compares himself to bread, both are lost. What happens in many church environments is that the churched people not only lose an understanding of the natural world but losing the natural world also makes them lose the supernatural world. The people who understand and thus enjoy natural things can also enjoy understand and enjoy supernatural things. There is another level to this, too, however.
I have attempted to give 2 levels of people: those that have a natural understanding and thus can understand the supernatural and those that don't have a natural understanding and thus cannot understand the supernatural either. There is a third group, too. This third group has the natural understanding and then the supernatural understanding but then they find that the supernatural is also paradoxical. I believe this is why John 17:3 doesn't only say, "and this is eternal life that you may know God." Many people throughout history have been natural and have a pretty good understanding of the nature of God. Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics, Plotinus, these guys made true statements about the nature of God that most Christians would be unable to understand. They knew a lot about God. They had the first part of John 17:3 down but they didn't have the second part. They knew that God is all powerful. They knew that God is all wise. They knew that God is all knowing. They knew that God couldn't have a beginning nor an end, however, they didn't understand Jesus whom he sent. These philosophers are not alone, though, the disciples didn't either.
Last week the Gospel reading in the lectionary was from Mark 10:35 - 45. This is where the disciples inquire about being high ranking leaders in the Messiah's kingdom. Jesus responds to their question with,
"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
The disciples understood that God was all powerful, they understood that God was all wise, they understood the supernatural aspects of God found in nature but they didn't yet understand the servitude, the sacrifice of God. It is good to worship an all powerful, all knowing, ever present God but it is Christianity when we worship an all powerful, all knowing, ever present God that serves and even dies. Jesus is not contrary to reason, Jesus is beyond reason. Like the Gentiles, we usually understand power as being served and having people die for you. As Christians, we should see power as serving and dieing for other people. God is not simply a powerful God that beckons us to worship him. God is a powerful God that empowers us, that serves us, that feeds us. Aristotle missed this. Peter initially missed this. Most natural people miss this. Most unnatural church goers miss this.
This three tiered hierarchy can be applied to comfort, too. The unnatural person seeks persecution, discomfort, for the sake of their own righteousness. This is typified in the Pharisees. The natural person seeks comfort for the sake of comfort. Like the party animal. The Christian, the supernatural, seeks servitude and thus persecution for the sake of other's righteousness and the universal good. The Pharisees served others in order to feel better about themselves. The natural people served themselves to simply feel good. Jesus served others at the cost of his own comfort for the good of the entire cosmos.
Most of our ideas about heaven demonstrate our distance from Jesus. We long to be served in heaven. We long for a break. We long to sit at God's right hand like the disciples asked. We are asking for tropical weather on the North Pole when we think this way. We are escapists. This self satisfying, egotistical idea of servitude is the very opposite of Jesus and thus the very opposite of his presence in Heaven.
I can explain this three tiered approach via my own feelings. Once upon a time, I wanted to die as a martyr for my own justification and glory. I despised people that enjoyed the pleasures of the world at this point, the natural people. Now, I enjoy the pleasures of the world with them, and I am asking God for the grace to die for one person, at least, daily. I want to be a husband. I want to be a husband that is guided by the perfect bridegroom, Jesus. I want to serve and find true power, love, and knowledge in this Godlike servitude. In this desire, I have to often pray, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." I fight against my anti-Jesus and pro Gentile understanding of power and love every moment of every day. I want to know the natural God but not the persecuted Jesus. I want half of the equation for eternal life found in John 17:3. I don't want all of it. I must beg God to give me the grace to make me like him and to allow me to know his son whom he sent.
Lord,
Help me to be Christ-like first
Help me to seek you, first.
Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy Will be Done,
In Jesus Name,
Amen.
James S. Sturgill
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| Could you imagine being German during WW2? Could you imagine the pressure? Could you imagine how hard it would be to oppose your country? Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher that wrote about the false being that is found in the herd mentality, and he became a leader in the Nazi party. He considered it less human to be taken up into the herd and yet he was taken up into the herd of Nazi-ism.
My senior year, the senior football players went to a Baltimore Ravens game. I knew several players for Baltimore but I wasn't a fan. After walking with the waves of purple and yellow and standing in the middle of the crowd, I found myself becoming a Ravens fan. I cheered for the Ravens for several years after that, too. Even, 9 years later, I have a certain affinity toward the Ravens.
Do you remember elementary school? Do you remember how all of the students would pick on one student? I remember. I remember the dilemma in my thoughts. I remember not understanding why this certain girl had germs. I also remember when I gave in. I even remember when I was the brave one that asked her out and waited for her to say yes so I could then laugh at her and make the rest of the class laugh. This was evil and it was something I didn't really like but I gave in to the gheist, I wanted my burden to be lifted. (gheist is a German word that means spirit of the people)
With there being so much vagueness around the Evangelical understanding of 'saved,' I like to expose this vagueness by asking, 'how do you know you got 'saved?' Several times, I have had people respond, "my burden was lifted, I felt lighter." My next question is, "did your family go to that church?" Then, "was there strong connections to people who had already made that decision?" So far, every time I have asked this question, the answer has been in the affirmative. Yes, their family was at the church. Yes, there were strong connections with people that had already made that decision.
I have also talked to people that have attended churches where speaking in tongues is a normal occurrence. They acknowledge this pressure, too. There are hundreds of testimony's where people have come out of a charismatic church and they acknowledge that they were faking the speaking in tongues. The pressure from the gheist, from the crowd, from their family many times, was simply too great to resist. They removed the burden, and spoke. (in this paragraph I am not arguing against speaking in tongues, I am primarily attempting to prove how the weight of the crowd, the gheist, can make someone do something that they claim is provoked by the Holy Spirit) After they spoke in tongues they felt lighter. The family was so proud and they were relieved, they explain.
When mentally retarded people attend a service, many of them are not intellectually capable of understanding the thought behind the sermon, but as human beings they are certainly capable of 'feeling' the gheist. Many times at a church where conversions are pushed, the mentally retarded people will get 'saved' almost every Sunday. They are not so easily deceived with words, they understand gheist. Mentally retarded people understand presence better than words. Recently I have seen 3 different mentally retarded people at football games. All three really get into it. As fan,s we many times look at them like they are taking it too far, but I think this is the irony, they are simply clay in the hands of the potter: the potter gheist. We are making them this way. They cannot help it. If you were to go to a football game with a mentally retarded person and explain to them that it is just a game, I bet they would not be able to understand. The gheist speaks louder than words.
I wonder how a mentally retarded person would have acted in the presence of a Pharisee? Jesus said this of the Pharisees, "they tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to remove them." The Pharisees knew how to convict a crowd. A mentally retarded person would walk away from a Pharisee weighted. The gheist of the Pharisees differs from the gheist of a crusade type service in that one is offering a medicine. The crusade type service offers a medicine but it is the type of medicine that requires the mentally retarded to return time and time again. It is almost like the gheist is convicting us of the flu and then giving us the sugar pill to fight it. I know as a person that attended these types of meetings and churches, I went back for my medicine hundreds of times. I obeyed the gheist hundreds of times but my sickness was never cured. In many ways this is more evil than the Pharisees, the Pharisees simply but the burden on your back. These people put the burden on your back and then get you excited about a sugar pill that is supposed to remove it. When this doesn't work, they put more of a burden on your back by telling them that they didn't mean it.
What am I getting at? What is the point of this blog? My main point is this: if your explanation for 'salvation' is that a burden was lifted, this is a poor explanation. People's burdens are lifted when they get divorces, when they go to football games, when they join the Nazi party, when they make fun of a girl at school, when they falsely speak in tongues, when they quit anything hard, and when they do what the crowd wants. Many churches put lots of pressure behind their gheist. They would never say this out loud but watch the mentally retarded people in the service. If you want to see the gheist, look at the human beings in the room that understand gheist better than words or thoughts.
I love the truth that G.K. Chesterton so wonderfully mediates and I love Chesterton for being a wonderful mediator but truth is most of the time hard to live up to. Chesterton condemns what he calls, "modern skepticism." Modern skepticism, according to Chesterton, is when someone doesn't believe anything and is thus free to bash everything. I consider myself a modern skeptic football fan. I like to bash all football teams in the presence of one of their fans. Understanding that Chesterton's criticism is correct, I must now attempt to replace the false belief that I have bashed.
There are many gheists but there is only one Holy Spirit, how do we know when we are following the Holy Spirit and not a godless gheist? I don't have a litmus test for this question but perhaps I do have some clues. John 14 names the Holy Spirit, " the spirit of truth." Throughout the rest of John 14, Jesus explains how this will work. The Holy Spirit teaches us. We will know the Holy Spirit because we know Jesus. We can recognize the Holy Spirit because we can recognize Jesus. From this I see two clues suitable for this replacing. The first clue is that of a spirit that loves truth and thus also loves teaching. The second clue is that of a spirit of Christlikeness, which must be defined (this is getting long).
Two conversations quickly come to mind when I think about the first clue. I was with a pastor one time and I asked a question about the nature of God. The pastor said, "hmm, that is interesting." Then this pastor asked a man nearby, who was a member of the financial part of the church, "am I going to get more gas money from the church this year since gas prices have gone up so much." Another conversation I had with a seminarian, the seminarian got close to my face, put his finger in my face and said, "I don't care what is true!" I remember another time, I ate lunch with a pastor and I was talking and talking about the things I was learning. He would smile and say, "that is good stuff." Toward the end of the conversation, I gave him somewhat of a quiz about what I had said and he couldn't respond. He has not paid attention to almost any of the Bible and theology that I had been talking about. At this point in my life, I would have been affirming what he believed, too.
When I read sermon outlines from churches that have so little teaching in them but are loaded with convicting people to tell other people about Jesus, I see so little love for truth. I see so little love for teaching in this gheist: so little love for truth. Whenever I talk with people that attend these types of churches, they demonstrate an extreme lack of understanding. Almost everything in the conversation somehow turns to one of two things: how important it is to convert people or how bad the other faiths are. Both of these conversation topics are conversation topics you might hear in a Muslim jihadist camp or even a Nazi group meeting. Truth and thus teaching are mostly missing from these gheists.
The second clue is that of recognizing Christ. Christ came as a suffering servant. I remember going to a pastor's fellowship and the sermon being about why a pastor should drive a Lincoln. I promise, this is no lie. There were probably a hundred pastors in the service and the amens were flying. I remember Jesus telling several followers, "if you follow me, remember I have no place to lay my head." Jesus was not about money. Jesus did not come in power and might. This is why he is a stumbling block to the Jew. The Jews wanted to overthrow Obama, I mean Rome, but Jesus didn't come to destroy the physical kingdom of the Romans. Jesus died. Jesus shows love for individuals and a weariness of crowds. Many of our gheists show a weariness of individuals and a love for the crowds. The Jesus I see in the Gospels is pretty much the opposite of the Jesus I have found in the gheist of churches that I have attended or parachurch organizations that I have been a part of.
At my church we have three mentally retarded people. One is a child and two are adults. They are so calm during the service. One of them walks down the isle before the service starts, shaking hands with everyone with two hands. He takes his second hand and puts it on the top of your hand. He then bows and slowly says, "peace, peace." His face is so peaceful when he says it, too. The other mentally retarded adult sits in the back and remains quiet. If you go to him, he will quickly say, "hi, how are doing." He knows nearly everyone's name, too. As he speaks he also lowers his head. The mentally retarded child, generally puts his head on his father's chest during the service and every now and then put his head up and touches his father's face gently. I have never seen this child taken out of the service for bad behavior. I will agree that my church has not demonstrated a love for truth and thus a love for teaching as it ought, but the spirit of Jesus is certainly manifested in the mentally retarded people that attend my church. If mentally retarded people catch the gheist, and the mentally retarded people at my church are very meek, humble, and personal, then my church's gheist is Christlike. I sense very little forcefulness at my church. One of the most repugnant actions is that of forced love, rape. This repugnant action in its spiritual sense is absent from my church, praise be to God.
Lord,
Help us to recognize Your Spirit,
Help us to confuse man's gheist with Truth,
Help us to use Truth to form our gheist,
I thank you for the mentally retarded people's sense of gheist,
I thank you for the mentally retarded people that attend my church,
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy Will be done,
In Jesus Name,
Amen.
James S. Sturgill
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| Kids that are abused often blame everything. They cannot differentiate between who is hurting them and who is not hurting them. They get angry at everyone. Everyone becomes the enemy. If they hate their dad, they will also hate their teacher. The more traumatic the event or events that cause their hatred, usually the more hatred that is spread. The more we mature, the greater our ability to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Dad may have a bad will but the teacher may not, therefore hate the dad's will and not the teacher's. Dad may have a bad habit but the teacher may not, therefore hate the dad's habit not the teacher's will. The teacher may have a bad habit but the dad may not, hate the teacher's habit but don't hate the dad. The teacher may have a bad habit and the dad may also have a bad habit, in our maturity, we must hate both habits. The dad may have a bad habit, the teacher may have a deep sense of pride, and I may be greedy, in my maturity, I must hate the dad's habit, the teacher's deep sense of pride, and my own greed. When we hate what needs to be hated and don't simply hate, we can also plan how destroy the specific evils. You don't destroy a habit with one lesson and you don't destroy a bad will with simple punishment. We need to discern what evil we need to hate, hate it more, and then plan how to destroy it. If we seem to have a problem finding an evil, pride is always at work and ignorance can always have some sort of fault, too. When addressing pride and ignorance, though, it helps to get specific. One last thing that is important, one cannot hate a human person. Persons are in the image of God. The Holy Trinity is not three substances, it is not three things or three essences, the Holy Trinity is three Persons.
Lord,
Help us find evil,
Help us fight evil,
Help us not to mistake good for evil,
Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy Will be done,
In Jesus Name,
Amen.
James S. Sturgill
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