Books as Community

In light of my last post about my amazon.com wishlist, it might be good to explain a little bit about my apparent obession with books. First of all, people who write books are a heck-of-a-lot smarter and wiser than I am. So, as someone with a future in the ministry, getting some sound theological exposure is always a good things. But, and maybe more more importantly, I see books as a way to have conversations with people you wouldn't otherwise get to talk to. You are able to hear a person out on certain topics. You get to wrestle with their opposing viewpoint. As you read, you are shaped by the words that are on the page. So, I consider books a way to interact with great minds. I see the names of the people sitting on my shelf as my mentors, professors, teachers, encouragers, and on and on. One day I might get to talk to some of the people who write what I read. But until then, I'll keep my friendship with them active by reading their books.

Amazon.com Wishlist Update

So, last time I said something about my Amazon.com wishlist, it was at something like 83 books. I've read a few of the books that were on my list since them and purchased many others. However, in spite of all that, my list has now grown to an unthinkable 163 books. So, if you want to do me a favor, go to my wishlist and buy me something. Go to the top of the page and sort it by "Priority" and buy me something at the top of my list that you can afford. That would be much appreciated.

The Usefulness of Blogs

For a while, I wondered why I even blogged, even though I don't do it on a regular basis. But last night, as I was writing a 10-page paper for one of my classes, I realized that I had blogged about a few things that were relevant to my paper. So, since it was my work, it was original, and fairly well-written, all I had to do was a little bit of copy-paste from my blog to my paper and--boom--I had an extra three to four pages. So, the lesson learned: make blog posts of a high enough quality that you can use them to make contributions to papers for class.

Youth Ministry as Liberal Theology Update

I think the research sited in my previous post is taken from a new book on the religious lives of American teenagers called Soul Searching. The conclusion is that most teens are "therapeutic, moralistic deists." I have to read the book for my internship this summer. It should be a good read. Anyone involved with working with youth in the church should pick it up.

Youth Ministry: thinly veiled liberal theology?

So, we were talking about liberal theology (of the Adolf Harnack variety) in Church History. It became readily apparent that, although I consider myself to be fairly generous theologically, liberal theology falls well outside the scope of Christian orthodoxy. It was quite absurd to me that these people even considered themselves Christians because their faith had virtually no resemblance to anything that came before it in terms of orthodoxy.

Dr. Johnson went on to tell of a survey (I need to get my hands on it) that evaluated student's beliefs and whatnot and found out that most Christian young people are essentially relativistic, moralistic, deists. Which, is uncomfortably similar to liberal theology. So, youth ministry as a whole is graduating liberal theologians from high school and sending them out into the world with a faith that bears no resemblance to the Christian faith of the last 2,000 years. This is quite troubling.

So what can we do? Well, we might have to be ready to accept the fact that youth groups might shrink in size. Giving the self-esteem, how-to-relate-to-your-parents, sex-is-bad, and other typical youth group lessons might need to be rethought. Essentially, students are simply being taught how to live moral, ethical lives and to deal with their problems as adolescents. But are they being allowed to experience God? Do they really think that God intervenes in this world? Do they pray? If they pray, do they feel like God hears anything that they pray? I'm starting to think that one of the best ways to combat this deism is through prayer. A deist will not pray because it will do no good. But if we believe that God is indeed the God of the Bible who enters into this world (remember that event called the INCARNATION?) and has the power to change and affect it, we must be people of prayer. Students need more than moral teaching. They need to become members of the historic Christian faith.

This is highly frustrating because doing this would undoubtedly cost youth pastors their job. So, we continue to make parents, pastors, and students happy. In turn, we turn out relativistic, moralistic deists. But hey, at least everyone's happy. Right?

Adventures in Missing the Point: Self-Esteem

So, I'm a fan of Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren's book Adventures in Missing the Point and I think that self-esteem should be thrown into the mix. Or maybe it is in their book and it's been so long since I've read it I've forgotten.

Regardless, I was thinking today about self-esteem for some reason. Maybe I read something about it or overheard someone talking. I don't know. What it comes down to is that, in youth ministry at least, it seems that in our attempt to respond to culture's message that we all have to have slim, fit bodies to have any worth, we have essentially told students that it is okay to be fat, lazy, and excessive in their eating habits. We feed them the line "God loves you no matter how you look, and so should any guy who is worthy of your time."

While that is true, it is equally true that God loves us despite our sin, yet we do not encourage students to be complacent about their sin (hopefully). Why is it any different when it comes to taking care our bodies, our temples of the Holy Spirit? Yes, God loves us regardless, but some of us need to do a lot better job of taking care of ourselves. I'm not saying that every girl needs to weigh under 120 pounds and that guys have to have a six-pack, but I am beginning to see that a well-rounded diet as well as a decent bit of exercise is necessary to maintain a holistic attitude towards growth as a disciple. As I try to think about ways in which to be holistic in my own discipleship and to get away from dichotomizing between the "spiritual" and other realms, I think that the church has missed the boat on self-esteem and encouraged lazy, gluttonous living.

Yes, Jesus loves you even if you're fat and lazy (or skinny and lazy - like me). But that doesn't mean that's the way it's supposed to be.