October 18, 2007
live at brothers k
Good morning, all. I am at an Evanston coffee shop working through sermon notes, returning e-mails, and waiting for a 9:30 appointment to arrive. I have a meeting to prepare for a meeting. Don't you love that? Oy. But this should be a good one and I am enjoying this coffee shop. I love that they have free internet. I like the coffee. The guys behind the counter know all their customers, and tease one another ("Jocularity! Jocularity!" ala Fr. Mulcahy). It's really quite perfect.
I am still hung up on the 2 Timothy passage. I am trying to get my mind wrapped around the various kinds of not-so-sound doctrine...the quick fix, get-er-done, pseudo-psychological gradoo that sometimes passes for theology lately. Jorge quoted Larry yesterday. This is a great way to begin to think about 2 Timothy. The quotation is in reference to what Ann Coulter said recently about Judaism and Christianity.
From my view she speaks truth the way many heretics do: by getting some things right while speaking distortions of the truth that are hard to pick out because they sound kind of true or only a little bit off.Yeah...that's what I think the author of 2 Timothy is getting at. It is the trouble with all kinds of "almost-but-not-quite" theologies. As my friend Jennifer used to say "Bad theology hurts people." So true.
Enjoy your day, all.
Posted by tripp at October 18, 2007 09:03 AMLooking for examples of partway true but ultimately missing the mark theology? You would have found all you need last Sunday night on "60 minutes". They profiled Joel Ostein as the most popular TV preacher in the country. He preaches Norman Vincent Peale's "power of positive thinking" repackaged for a new century. There's much that is fine about encouraging people with positive, hopeful, uplifting messages that their lives can be better. And it's true that the God we meet in Scripture is a God of abundance. (the never-empty jar of flour, the ever-expanding loaves and fishes.) But his message misses the Gospel by a mile because it contains no cross, and it constantly reaffirms his listeners as the center of their universe, rather than God.
Posted by: Carol at October 18, 2007 10:16 AMYay, Brothers K! Let's meet there sometime.
Posted by: Emily at October 18, 2007 03:22 PMMy mother, ever the Old Testament aficianada, taught me that the "picture" or "type" in Leviticus where the Hebrews were forbidden to mix different kinds of fibers in their clothing (and other similar admixtures) had to do with mixing truth and falsehood. We are to refrain from mixing in sin with righteousness - insofar as possible.
I think of that metaphor a lot in the face of our American heresies.
(Of course, the admixture being forbidden was, more immediately, for the Hebrews to whom it was forbidden, a picture of how they were to be separate from the surrounding peoples who did not believe in the Hebrew God. It is a Christian interpretation, however, that we focused on.)
Just sharing that tidbit.
Posted by: kate setzer kamphausen at October 19, 2007 11:29 AM