Our congregation doesn’t observe Lent as such but I do seek to lead them into the season by having the regular preaching of the cross become more focused on the Passion and Crucifixion as we move toward Good Friday.

Personally I am planning on observing Lent this year in the following ways…

1) A drastic cutting back on computer time. No reading the news online. No surfing. No following of links sent by friends. Keep up with BHT and a few other blogs for one hour on Monday morning (my off day)

2) Cook several times a week. My wife is a wonderful cook who delights us daily. But I should serve her in this way also and will look upon it as a Lenten discipline for the next six weeks. I may combine this with reading Capon’s Supper of the Lamb. Cooking food beats giving up food if you ask me :-)

3) Take longer scripture & prayer walks, daily. Praying through the book of Hebrews as I walk.

4) Pastoral development. Seek to be very deliberate in living out the “new” pastoral priorities that I and the other church leaders are working on – these are not really new but they are clarified and more deliberately organised around the priorities of proclamation, pastoral care and missionary bridge-building.
I think this should all be sufficiently “hard” and edifying as Lenten disciplines

Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog: The Da Vinci Code’s Sources: Did Dan Brown Really Borrow From Holy Blood, Holy Grail? | Carl E. Olson

Throwing the baby out with the bath water

Lent saved me. Actually God used Lent to get my attention and focus on Him. In 1996 I knew I was living far from God. Something was stirring within me and Lent was soon approaching. In my dorm room I made a bargain with God. I laugh at myself now that I was trying to bargain with God but it was an honest and sincere effort on my part. I prayed �God I have been living far from you. I will dedicate this season of Lent to you. Just take my life over.� What is awesome is that he did and I have not turned back since. I grew up in the PCUSA. We recognized and somewhat followed the liturgical calendar. Now it makes me sick because every year I have to explain to my Baptist friends what Lent is. Michael, Wyman and other Baptist can correct me if I am wrong but I believe us Baptist�s have made too much of an effort to rid ourselves of the Christian calendar because we want to distance ourselves from Catholicism.
Lent is a great time to focus, fast, reflect, sacrifice, and renew our commitment to Christ.

Brandon: What a great question. Seriously.

This is only my second year seriously observing Lent, so I may not be the most qualified person to answer your question. Nonetheless, here are some things that I would recommend:

1. Do whatever your church is doing. Many churches have traditional fasts that are recommended during Lent, so keep that. Alternately, your church may promote a particular kind of observance or fast during Lent. By doing this you keep in touch with your church community and make Lent an exercise in communal repentance rather than a solo run.


2. Do what your pastor recommends. Talk to him about your desire to observe Lent , and take your advice.


3. Do something difficult. The traditional Lenten fast (total abstinence from meat, dairy, and eggs) is traditional because it’s so hard. If you’re not going to do the strict, traditional fast (which most people, including me, don’t), then choose something that will challenge you just as deeply.


4. Don’t forget what the point is. Fasting is not an end in itself, but a way to “buffet the body” and become more obedient to Christ. Peter Leithard posted two thoughts on Lent this weekend that you should read: Pre-Lent and Exhortation.

Michael: As I was typing the word “Celebrate”, I knew that wasn’t the word I wanted, but I used it still. Alas, I should have used a different word!

Brandon: Clean Here >>>>

Use q-tip & ajax if necessary. You should be lent-free thereafter.

Brandon: For starters, “celebration” isn’t the mood of Lent at all. It is a season marked by the seriousness of Ash Wednesday, and the approach of Holy Week. The most common Lenten disciplines are fasting, prayer, reading and solitude. Some non-liturgical churches might have a mid-week Lenten service. Liturgical churches simply mark Lent in the regular Liturgy. But it’s not Advent, with its many culturally developed activities. It is a time of preparation and introspection.

Does anyone regularly observe Lent? Can someone tell me how to celebrate Lent correctly? I don’t want to just go to an Ash Wednesday service and give up something for forty days. If I’m going to do Lent, I’m going to do it right.

Today I went into the local book/video/music/coffee place to get some coffee. One of the baristas asked me, “Hey, you’re a Witherington guy, right? Did you see that beatdown Grudem gave him?” Wow.

Anyway, check out BW3’s upcoming books for 2006 and beyond. This guy almost writes as much as Wright. I think he has a goal of writing a commentary on every NT book. I’ve never heard him say it, but it sure looks that way.

PWinn: I tried to post this a couple of times over at IM, but it doesn’t seem to appear there, so here is my response to your comment at IM:

“PWinn, I share your disdain for the “Who’s the real Christian?” game. And I assure you, that’s not what I’m about. I’ve brought my share of shame to the name, unfortunately, so I don’t intend to start a finger-pointing routine. This is more of an inward look, as I am noticing more and more as I go.

I do plan to answer Michael’s question on my own blog, because it is certainly a good one.”

Leif’s nearly apologetic comment that he wasn’t a philosopher, logician or theologian causes me to ponder why we believe that some are better equipped to answer life’s big questions than others on the basis of mere education.

It’s like this: If I, a mere photographer, were to ask five philosophers, five theologians and five logicians one simple question, I would find myself peppered with fifteen contradictory answers and forty-five reading assignments that would put me to sleep.

So basically my point is: Why freakin bother?

Jim, I really, really like the “Posted, ostensibly, by” thing, totally, freakin, gifted. Can we like set up some subject filters?

The Works of John Donne

HT to Steve McCoy for passing on the very definition of Cubs Fandom.

IM is updated with comments on the rigney project: What’s In A Name?

Christopher- Endymion rolled after Bacchus last night. Bacchus got held up by a low hanging cable wire. They did not finish until after midnight. It must have been crazy with the two super crews going back to back. I am considering going and getting some coconuts in the morning.

All right, folks. Here it is: my first foray into recording this crazy experiment which will probably get my tires slashed (or worse yet—have no effect on anyone:-)

If you’re interested, read away and respond. If not, please ignore. And remember: I’m more of an absent-minded professor/shadetree philosopher than a logician or theologian, so be gentle ;-))

Alex, isn’t that true, though, of most terms? i hear “modern evangelicals” lump anything they don’t like into the category of “postmodernism” (e.g.: Open Theism, Relativism, Historical Revisionism). Or, the other category of “badness”: “secular”. Then, we have non-Christians that like to lump things into “religion.”
It seems to be a feature inherent with labels that become commodified and meaningless, not just of “modernism.” And that, i’d suggest, is a reality because of the hypermedia in which everything can be an advertisment. i believe that is what Deleuze and Lacan (they said it before Baudrillard) mean by simulacra and simulations (as opposed to Lacan’s Real and Imaginary).

Alex, I’ve blogged enough from time to time about tempering the postmodern critique of modernism (e.g., we don’t have to be overly suspicious of critical thought and rational deliberation and judgment just because we recoil at the ethical implications of the autonomous self, the neutrality and objectivity of science, the rational transparency of language and triumphalism) that you wouldn’t bring the hammer down so hard on me. “I don’t like x?” A term of abuse? Ouch! Me? I love x. X is schweet. I get all lovey-dovey around x. More »« Less

Aaron, this is my first year totally distant from Carnival in New Orleans. i always liked going to the earlier parades (Lil’ Rascals, Saturn, Apollo, Mid City) because of the small crowds. It feels different being in a place that doesn’t really know what Mardi Gras is like (except for the repeated footage of Bourbon Street by St Ann). Typically for Lent, i do something publically obnoxious (one year, while at a Catholic high school in New Orleans, a few of my friends and i obtained BBQ something and ate it in the school cafeteria on Fridays. One time, we got a priest to eat some, which was interesting to say the least). i also do something a bit more private (such as some kind of fasting), but so that nobody knows what i am doing (i believe fasting and things like that should be low-key and private) or when i am doing it.
Hmm.. and that brings up a topic: Should we publically fast?

I know this may seem shallow, but please pray for me. I’m really close to buying a van (used). I’ve never bought a vehicle before and I’m scared to death.

Joel (ostensibly): Could you or someone please provide some sort of historical argument that ends with the conclusion that “labeling” is somehow “a particular feature of modernism?” I have the sneaking suspicion that whenever anyone says that “x is a particular feature of modernism” that what she is saying is “I don’t like x.” There seems to be no cognitive import whatsoever in ascribing to a thing that it is “modern.”

“Modern” and “modernism” get thrown around as terms of abuse, without anyone ever bothering to explain how they function as so.

Happy Lundi Gras

Is anyone doing anything special or different for Lent this year?

Warp: Dennis (ostensibly) has a point about the nature of church membership in America. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that Saddleback is the antidote to this. Here’s what it (membership in America) looks like to me: the church untethered from the gospel of the newer testament, and functioning more on the model of the community activity center (with preference for middle and upper-middle class social values). Monday is 20s and 30s small group night, college ministry basketball night, and clothes for the homeless sorting night. Tuesday is choir praise band rehearsal, 40s and 50s small group night, and young marrieds bible study. Etc. etc. etc. Every day at the church the “ministry” schedule is full. This mentality is working its way down from the megachurch (where it functions well for what it is) to smaller churches.

Woof: Labels. Having to name something is a particular feature of modernism. We have to be able to denote our beliefs in one or two words, we have to describe “our time” (Gilded age, Enlightenment, Postmodern). In the spirit of resisting hypermodernity, I support Leif’s (ostensibly) experiment. I would suggest another experiment. Let’s stop trying to name the “proper” model for the church. The ‘postmodern’ church doesn’t say anything at all. Ditto ‘evangelical’. I would even say that describing a church as ‘missional’ is fraught with problems. In one sense, it’s important as a way of quickly communicating that a particular church is up to something different than what popular culture thinks the church is about (see ‘Warp’). But isn’t the ‘missional’ church just…the church? Isn’t it redundant? Again, I think it has a useful, temporary, negative function: to say what we are not in an ecclesiatically confusing time. But if we think that ‘missional’ contributes something positive to the meaning of ‘church’, then if we call ourselves ‘missional’, aren’t we inviting the same kind of sectarian, ultimately insular (isn’t that a paradox?) understanding that encourages smugness, “we’re of the apostle so-and-so,” type of outlook toward the church catholic? The church just is missional or it’s not a church in the newer testament sense, is it? There’s not a missional confession (let’s hope), so I’m wondering if drawing out this distinction as a positive attribute is healthy. Just thinking out loud.

Christopher, don’t go bringing the Bible into this discussion. :-)

BTW, welcome to the chaos. It’s good to have you here.

Jeff, i’ll be really odd and say 1 Corinthians, Matthew, and Galatians. Those seem to echo parts of Isaiah quite a bit ^_

Michael: The turning of the church into an “audience” is the legacy of the Warren segment of evangelicalism. I am not sure that’s a fair assesment of Warren (Billy Graham maybe). I think it’s not! When you see the massive amounts of volunteers (thousands) and people who are committed and actually doing something at Saddleback, I believe it would change your perception a bit. I would in no way defend everything Warrren does…. he’s a Baptist, and they do kooky things (jn), but he does not encourage people to just sit and be an audience.

Michael: Without question, the NT makes being a “church member” one of the primary functions of a believer. I just question whether what we call “membership” in “American Christianity” looks anything similar to what Jesus had in mind.

I am somewhat tainted, having personally attended Saddleback at least 20 times. I am actually very fond of Rick Warren (for a Baptist, he’s a pretty nice fella :-) I have seen him talk about Membership. He does a great job of getting people to realize that being a believer is more then just sitting in the audience.

Jeff, the Interpretation Commentaries, one volume by Seitz the other by Hanson and the Tyndale OT commentary by Motyer are pretty good. If I remember correctly, I read that N.T. Wright also recommended them as well :-)

Does anyone have a commentary on Isaiah they could recommend? I need one suitable for Sunday School lesson preparation.

Dennis: Membership may not be a “requirement,” but there are plenty of important New Testament texts that don’t make much sense without it.

I feel like I have travelled this too many times to blog much about it. I just can’t get on board with the idea that Jesus was starting a movement that is less than an intentional community with members, and boundaried ways in and out. Warren’s notion of freelance baptism may be allowable in some unusual situations, but I fail to see how the communities that we are reading about in the New Testament are operating with freelance baptism as normative.

Being baptized in the swimming pool by your Christian friend and then eschewing any local congregation of Christians requires an edited and spiritualized New Testament, with Jesus wasting most of his time training the twelve. Warren seems to have taken the the example of the Ethiopian Eunuch and allowed it to trump the Acts 2 community: Acts 2:41-42 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

It’s not that I’m not sympathetic. I have communion at OBI because my students are away from their churches. But it’s not normative, and it’s not the kind of communion the New Testament has in mind, but it sometimes happens and I’m not “bad mouthing it.”

Warren’s approach to Baptism is pragmatic. I understand his thinking, but he’s pulling apart what should be held together. If someone wants to be baptized, but not join a church, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked.

The turning of the church into an “audience” is the legacy of the Warren segment of evangelicalism. I appreciate all Warren has done for the church. This isn’t something he should be proud of. (BTW- there are more whack aspects of Saddleback’s baptism policy. Check out the “family/friends rebaptism” deal. Very strange.)

Aaron: My husband says we are not Baptists. We were Baptized in a fousquar church in Montana and he still feels that that is his church home. but there are only 5 churches Within an hours drive of our house and this church is the best among them. I would probably become a member if it was my decision alone.

I am off to Jury duty…1:45 hour away and probably wont have internet acess till it is through.

Bill: I agree. “Membership” is not a NT requirement, (at least not the american concept of membership) and baptism is commanded in the NT. So I guess I’d rather them be baptized then be a “club member” of any given church. I am not sure how it’s considered “cheap grace” to follow the command of Christ?

I can’t see how baptizing someone without making them a member is an example of cheap grace.

Yesterday morning’s sermon text was drawn from the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the “salt and light” passage in Matt 5:13-16. I have some hermeneutical questions for the bar.

1. Do you understand the salt to be a preservative or a seasoning?
2. If a preservative, what are we preserving and how do preserve it?
3. If a seasoning, what are we seasoning and how do we season it?
4. What does it mean that “everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:49)? How, if at all, is it connected with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew?
5. What does the “salt of the covenant” or “covenant of salt” (Lev 2:12; Num 18:19, 2 Chron 13:5) have to do with newer testament saltiness, if anything?
6. Leaven was not permitted on the altar, whereas salt was required. Yeast is a fermenter; salt is a preserver. Significance?
7. Despite these positive senses of salt and saltiness, there are the several instances in which salt indicates some malediction, e.g., Lot’s wife. So is salt merely a flexible metaphor, or is there more to it than that?

Bill, regardless of which of those questions is being asked, all of them are prime examples of what Bonhoeffer calls cheap grace. It’s what happens when grace is abused.

All: Well, I’m going to be out of touch for about a week as I will be in St. Louis with Jen looking at the places she’s applying to for grad school, looking at apartments, visiting professors, etc., etc. Jen has a few interviews, and she’s very nervous, so your prayers would be appreciated, both for safe travel and for Jen’s interviews.