Facebook the new antichrist?

It had to happen. A pastor in America has banned facebook with his congregation. From Out of Ur blog ::

Reverend Cedric Miller of Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in New Jersey has banned Facebook. He's ordered about 50 married church officials to delete their accounts or resign and has called on married people in his 1,100-member congregation to delete their Facebook accounts. The problem isn't productivity lost to Farmville—it's adultery.
Miller said 20 couples from his church have had marital problems in the last six months after a spouse reconnected with an old flame on Facebook. "What happens is someone from yesterday surfaces, it leads to conversations, and there have been physical meet-ups. The temptation is just too great."

Its pretty sad that once again 'laws' are implemented in Church. I wonder if there could have been any other way around this for the Rev'd Miller. Such as some sort of accountability group, or discussion group on 'wise choices' for facebook.

Related articles

• Cedric Miller AFFAIR: Facebook-Banning Pastor Admits To Threesome With Wife And Male Church Assistant (huffingtonpost.com)

The heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg

The heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg,

Some times you will read a Christian book and it just fits with what you need to read. This was one such book for me. One aspect that I wanted to get a bit better grip on was 'liberal' Christinaity, or as Borg would put it 'progressive'. I have for a short while trying to read Bultman and Tilich. But I found them  hard going, to the extent I would just get bogged down in the first couple of pages and just give up. So for the first time I was able to understand what was meant by 'metaphorical' and 'Sacrament'.

For me the book gave important glimps into

: The idea of metaphorical and sacrement

: pluralism of religions

: panthiesm in Christinity

: The different meanings of 'Faith', not necessarily a literal interpretation.

: Salvation and Sin

: The Kingdom of God, mainly in regards to a political social justice and equality.

It is interesting that Borg attends the American equivalent of an Anglican Church. I can now understand how there is such a great divide between the Anglican communion.

I also think that this writing is valuable. Especially for people who come from a evangelical or fundemental background and find a litural understanding as unbelievable. That they find there only option; to throw in Christiantiy all together. This book is truely a way forwards for these people.

I'm looking forward to the getting my hands on his co-authored book with NT Wright, 'The meaning of Jesus'. It will I hope contrast and bring more clarity to evangelical and liberal theology.

Careforce and Technology

I've been following the happenings from Careforce for a while, so this is an interesting progression. Careforce gets a mention in 'The Sun' today with the Rohan Dredge who uses the bible Iphone as well as his young members.

"The applications have multiple versions of the Bible and a hand-held version is easy and convenient," he said. "There are also options on the applications to have live interaction while the speaking is happening.
"We could well explore that in the future."

I'm wondering if the 'live interaction' is twitter which Rohan (http://twitter.com/rohandredge) also uses?

Certainly this has been reported to be happening in US Churches according to the TIMES.

Now the real test will be if Careforce has free wi-fi access...

The renewal virus

Naked pastor put up and interesting post "Spiritual Infections"

...something I notice in charismatic type churches, or churches who have been connected in any way with the renewal movement: we are more transient. We’re looking for something. And if the church loses it or doesn’t provide it, we’ll be faithful for as long as we can, but eventually we’ll move on. When I was a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada, I never saw anything like this. There are many churches in this area that people move around in. Like certain birds, we tend to migrate around to wherever it’s hottest and most agreeable. Renewal and charismata does something to us. And it ain’t all good. It plants a discontent deep within us that can never be satisfied, at least for long. I know what I’m talking about because I fight this restlessness all the time. As messed up as it was, Corinth, the conference capital of the Roman world, would’ve been my drug.

A few relections on his piece::

::I think he is right. This transient nature has left especially in mainstream Melbourne Churches hardly anybody of that type in the buildings!
::Pentecostal Churches seem to be the biggest winners in terms of numbers to the migration.
::I wonder if the new explorations of liturgy has something to do with this renewal infection. Eg Todd Hunter who has gone from renewel to a jumping in with the liturgy of the Anglicans. I must admit I'm attracted to it, but only in terms of breathing new life into my spirit. Not some repetitious mumbling of words of which I grew up with.

The clergy and mid life crisis

I've witnessed it a few time. Once in my tribe and a lot in other churches.
It is similar to the the 'normal' persons crisis, except I believe it can be more destructive.

Usually some of the triggers can be:

Age, and physical aging.
The death of loved ones such as parents,
Children leaving the nest,
career dissatisfaction,

The Wiki has some of the Characteristics of mid-life Crisis::

• search of an undefined dream or goal
• a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
• desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
• need to spend more time alone or with certain peers

They exhibit some of these behaviors:

• abuse of alcohol
• conspicuous consumption—acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewelry, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc.
• depression
• blaming themself or their partner for their failures.
• paying special attention to physical appearance such as covering baldness, wearing "younger" designer clothes etc.
• entering relationships with younger people

• 
  

(I would also add to the list, blaming others)

I'm sure that all Christians who have been a round a while would have seen the above behaviors with Clergy.
That when the incident is over and the minister has left the church. It would have been fobbed off as "Sin".

Todd Hunter, Anglicans: Not for me

For those of you who may or may not know, Tod Hunter who was the National director of the Vineyard denomination. He took the mantel of John Wimber: which he shed pretty quickly. He then headed up the Alpha course in the USA. Now he has taken the Anglican plunge.
There is a pretty informative interview in Christianity today about his move over to Anglicanism, the emergent movement and the Vineyard. Much of the interview got me thinking about my own reflections on Anglicanism.
As a person that has moved from Anglicanism, there are things which I didn't understand when I was growing up about the liturgy. They were really never explained. I really struggled with a man wearing a dress, waving his arms around muttering things. Now probably have more appreciation liturgy and its meaning.
Yet the reason that Anglicanism annoyed me is the heirarcy, the institution. I would say the majorty of Anglicans in Australia actually enjoy it. Especially the ones I know. Yet from my observation it steals away what other christians within the church could be doing. There is an expectation that the minister does it all. Like it or not. It is the default setting, even if the minister in charge wants to change it. For me the wearing of vestments just emphasizes this. It is the reason that I could never go back.
Stangely I have more capacity to participate in liturgy (even out of the anglican prayer book), in our community, than I ever could within the Anglican Church.

NT Wright's spin on Homosexuality

I've been giving N.T. Wright a bit of a big wrap lately on the blog. Interestingly he has written a piece a few days ago on his position on homosexuality, at the Times online.

"Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behavior outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition. "

A few thoughts, on the whole article

• loved his description of the issues as 'a slow moving train crash" for the anglicans.
• This probably isn't an emergent position. I thought that he may have taken a more neutral response.
  
• N.T. appears to have a really wanted the anglican community to stick together.
  

Solace, Sunday @ the Forge 2nd intensive

On Sunday morning instead of been at Ranges we headed to Solace EMC in Fairfield as part of the 2nd Forge intensive. I had heard a lot about Solace so I was pretty happy to attend.

1) We attended the "Solace Sunday Stuff", a bit of a blurb on that from there web site

Sunday Stuff is hosted by Fairfield SPACE (and contributes time and effort into the facilities and connecting to other parts if Fairfield SPACE in return). Sunday Stuff is a gathering of people who pray, worship, learn from the Bible and fellowship together. There are no requirements to conform to a specific set of beliefs, but the gathering is centred on the life and teachings of Jesus.

I really did think this was one of the first times that we really participated as a family at Church. There was a real effort to intergate all ages which I realy appreciated. Kids been Kids was no problem. (Phew) I was also under the impression that Solace was a lot larger. It was about the same or a little smaller than us at Ranges.

2) I could see that they have identified similar issues as us. It would appear that Solace EMC Vineyard Cataylst Network, have a bit of an overlap. The ideas of being a "network" as well as "self directed groups" spring to mind.

3) Connection with the Anglican Church. Olivia was asked a few times about the formal relationship with the Anglican church (Not by myself). I felt that the answers were rather complicated in nature and that most probably there were a few difficulties. What was made quite clearly was that Solace EMC was incorporated independently of the Anglican Church.

4) Interested that they put the EMC on there name. Emergent Missional Church. A lot of pastors are thinking through this stuff but, not actually claiming it. Especially the "Emergent" side of the conversation.

5) Money, I'm not sure how many people are on "staff", but even if they employed one person full time I don't think that this congregation would able to support them. I wonder if some funding comes in from the Anglicans or the OP Shop?

I couldn't talk up Solace enough. Overall you feel that it is a safe place where people are encouraged to find where they fit with Spirituallity, and there is no rush. That the compartmentalness of large churches is just not part of there thinking. It would certainly be an option for us if we didn't have Ranges.