CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Gordon Atkinson's blog

When Philip Gröning wanted to make the documentary “Into Great Silence,” he asked the Carthusian monks at the Grande Chartreuse monastery in France if he might spend a couple of years quietly filming their lives. They said they would think about it and get back to him. 16 years later he received a letter from them. They had considered his request and were now ready for him to begin filming.

What kind of slow-moving world do these monks inhabit? 16 years in the modern world is time enough for two or even three careers. Why would these monks assume Philip Gröning was still interested in this project or even interested in filming anything at all? How did they find his address after 16 years? Did someone write it on a scrap of paper and keep it in a box all that time?

The monks of Grande Chartreuse mark time in their own way. Time in their world moves more slowly. Things unfold gradually. Nothing happens quickly, so when things do happen they are important things. Things that seemed important or even urgent one year might not be so important a year later. After 16 years, people may have forgotten them altogether. Consider for a moment how important a thing must be if it passes the deep consideration and patient process of the Carthusians of Grande Chartreuse. ... READ MORE.

I am the son of a Baptist preacher. Growing up as an evangelical, I only knew that Lent was some sort of Catholic thing. When I was a boy the Romano family lived across the street. Once a year John Romano would gloomily inform my brother and me that he was unable to eat candy because he was giving it up for Lent. We could only stare at him in sympathetic amazement. What kind of religious holiday requires you to give up candy? Our main holidays, Christmas and Easter, were marked by great indulgences of candy and sweets.

It is said that the Pharisee of old thanked God he was born neither a woman or a Gentile. I thanked God that I was not born a girl or a Catholic. Girls had to wear dresses, play silly girl games, and weren’t allowed on the football team. Catholics had to endure the rigors of Lent, whatever that was. In those days I thought nothing was quite as free as being born a Baptist boy.

Gordon Atkinson's blog

We knew something was wrong with Lillian’s eyes shortly after she was born. One of them was turned inward. We assumed it could be fixed. We thought we’d hand her over to a doctor, and he or she would fix her. The day they told us her eyes would never be right is burned into my memory. Jeanene and I sat staring at each other in disbelief. No parent wants to hear the word “never.”

But no operation can give Lillian what her brain needed to develop in a very important window of opportunity that opened and closed in the early weeks of her life. Depth perception. She doesn’t have it. She never will. Lillian sees a flat world, much like the world you see on

Gordon Atkinson's blog

Human beings have always gazed with wonder at the world around us. Whatever people in the past saw was their reality. What we see now is ours.

The best instrument ancient humans had was their eyes. They lived in a flat world, a world probably no larger than a hundred miles in any direction. Most would never travel to those borders, and anything beyond that was in the realm of the unknown and unknowable.

Above them were lights. A large light by day and thousands of smaller ones by night. They watched these lights carefully. They were obviously embedded in some sort of dome that covered the earth. The patterns of movement they saw... READ MORE.
 

Gordon Atkinson's blog

I've always steered clear of politics at my blog. Not because ministers shouldn't talk about politics. We're citizens too. We have the right and the responsibility to consider government and its implications. But I've had enough headaches and heartaches dealing with people who are angered or bothered by my theology and approach to the Bible. I don't have a lot of emotional energy left for politics.

But this has been a fascinating season for our country, has it not? Voter turnout is expected to set records. I always vote early, and this year we've had lines every day. I can't imagine how crowded it will be on Tuesday.

I think I've had enough political hype and finger pointing. And I'm from Texas, a state so red that neither party even bothers to run commercials. I've gotten my fill of over-simplified grandstanding just from watching CNN. So perhaps I was in the right frame of mind to be quite amused by the following video. You'll like it too, if you're ridiculously over-educated, as many people in this network are.

As an introduction to the conversation I recorded with Marcus Borg, let me briefly introduce his thinking and explain why he is such a controversial figure, certainly among conservative evangelical Christians, but for many mainline theologians as well. I'm doing this for the benefit of non-clergy who may read this and not know Marcus Borg.

A recording of the conversation is available at the bottom of this post.

It all has to do with how you read the gospels. Most Christians in the world read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as literal accounts of what happened in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

I grew up Baptist. Southern Baptist to be specific. I'm not saying that I grew up deficient in my understanding of more liturgical and sacramental traditions, but when I got to San Antonio and saw someone with ashes on her forehead on Ash Wednesday, I said, "You have a little smudge there."

She said, "It's ashes."

I said, "Okay, ashes, dirt, whatever. I was just trying to help."

Yeah.

I've come a long way in the journey of stretching and integrating many kinds of Christian devotion and worship practices into my life. Somewhere along the way I picked up a rosary and fell in love with it. Seriously, prayer beads are the answer for those of us with attention deficit issues.

Someone gave me my first rosary. I lost it. I made one and someone stole it. I made another and gave it away because I thought I heard the Spirit say, "Give that man your rosary." He looked pretty shocked, so later I wondered if maybe I was just having indigestion. I made another one but it broke and the beads went all over the ground.

This is my current rosary. It's sturdy and simple. I just got tired of losing my fancy ones. Instead of decades going around in a circle, I just keep going up and down the string through my big beads and set of 10 little beads. I have my own prayers that I pray.

One Sunday my Bible study class asked me to share with them the journey of my rosary. Wouldn't you know it, we had a visitor that week. He was looking for a Baptist church in town. Then the pastor pulls out his rosary. He didn't even bother staying for worship.

I was fascinated this week to find out that John Hamilton has been on a prayer journey himself, learning to pray the rosary. John is a fellow Baptist, so I was greatly interested. He writes about it here and here and here.

Baptists praying the rosary. What is the world coming to?

Heck, Reverend Mommy is even getting in on the action..

Do you use a rosary or prayer beads? If so, how did you start? And what is your practice? What does it mean for you and how does it help you pray?

If you've blogged about your rosary, leave us a link in the comments and we'll check it out.

rlp

From Gordon Atkinson's blog

I have begun a study of the what the Bible has to say about hell. I’ve read all four gospels and written down every passage that seems relevant. I have looked up every reference to “hell” and “hades” in the New Testament and read them. I’ve read the book of Revelation to see what it has to say. And I’ve looked up some other passages. My intent is to continue studying the rest of the New Testament until I feel I know everything it has to say about hell.

Maybe you can help me. I want to know why you believe what you believe about hell.

Hell was a serious part of the religious tradition I was raised in - evangelical Christianity. It was just part of the deal. You either believed in hell or you were some kind of liberal who was just too much of a boo-hoo crybaby to accept hard Biblical truths. As a liberal, it was said that you trusted your heart and your feelings more than holy scripture. And that was said to be a very bad thing, because once you start letting your own ideas and feelings determine your beliefs, you’ve basically invented your own religion.

Now there are three basic components to what might be called the traditional view of hell. And you have to believe in all three of them to hold that traditional view.