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The Upside Down World ~ The Blog

May 9, 2014
6 min

The Process is the Solution

I once knew a family that didn’t do Santa Claus with their kids at Christmas. The reason they didn’t do Santa Claus was because they felt it might lead their children to doubt the existence of God. You see, Santa is basically an old man living far away at the top of the world. He gives you what you want because he loves you. And nobody ever gets to see him. And many children think of God as an old man living far away in heaven who answers our prayers (gives you what you want)

May 8, 2014
5 min

In the End Times, We All Tell Our Story

Remember me raving a few weeks back about Humans of New York? Well, I want to share a picture and the quote that went with it which was recently posted on their Facebook page: “I had forty acres and a new home out in California. I was working as a stone mason. I could bring in $6000 cash some weeks. Then I was walking home one night and someone tried to kill me. I got brain damage. I lost my sense of smell, my sense of taste, most of my hearing, and now I can barely stand wit

May 6, 2014
4 min

Prayers of Faith

Earlier this year, I did a series of posts on why God doesn’t answer prayers. My reason for writing the posts was to push back against the common church narrative which says that if you just have enough faith, God will answer your prayers. I think this is such a problematic teaching as it basically teaches us that if our lives are hard and God is not answering our prayers, it is because our faith is inadequate. We didn’t believe hard or well enough to be rewarded with answere

May 5, 2014
5 min

There Are No Secrets In the End Times

So, did you hear what NBA team owner Donald Sterling said to his mistress? Did you happen to see Prince Harry in his birthday suit a while back? Have you seen the video of family-values Congressman Vance McAllister kissing a staffer (who was not his wife)? Or maybe you gawked at pictures of the mansion and private zoo deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych bought for himself with bribes and money stolen from government coffers. Within living memory, part of being rich

May 5, 2014
1 min

Your Daily Cud

A random thought to contemplate over your lunch break: Anyone in a serious relationship with God will at some point find it necessary to forgive Him. It may not be theologically correct, but it’s true. Pass It On! Tweet Email More Print Share on Tumblr WhatsApp #christianity #christianspirituality #spirituality #God #religion

May 5, 2014
1 min

Wounded Image Bearers

Pass It On! Tweet Email More Print Share on Tumblr WhatsApp #christianity #meme #religion #religiousmemes

May 1, 2014
4 min

Let’s Talk Prophecy and End Times

The parts of the bible which deal with “end times” prophecies are something I’ve always shied away from dealing with directly. Studying and researching those parts of scripture can be very entertaining, but it’s a dangerous past time. Nearly everyone who gives it a go winds up lost and led astray. And sadly, some of these people have managed to warp many people’s entire understanding of Christianity. Part of the problem is a pervasive, fundamental misunderstanding of what pro

Apr 30, 2014
2 min

Some Afternoon Encouragement

If you are feeling poor, worn out, full of grief, weak, despairing at the state of the world, hungry for change, wishing you could make things better, and you are misunderstood and rejected today, Jesus says that you’re doing it right. He says that the people who are sitting pretty, enjoying the rewards of a comfortable life now are already enjoying their passing rewards. But you will hold heaven in your hands. You will be comforted. You will rule over the earth. You will be

Apr 29, 2014
4 min

When the Cost is Too High

I knew a Christian man who had an employee who did something dumb and illegal without his knowledge. She was caught and arrested at his place of business. The woman had small children at home, a drug addicted ex and her kids would end up in foster care if she went to jail. He had seen what can happen to kids in foster care up close and was sick at the thought of them going through that because of something foolish their mother did. So he prayed over it and decided to take the

Apr 28, 2014
2 min

My Talented Readers: Jason Silver

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I spy on y’all. It’s true. If you comment or like things I write or interact with me a lot on facebook, I might go poking around the internet a bit to find out more about you. And then I report my findings to the NSA. OK, I’m totally lying about that last part. I don’t even know how to report things to the NSA. Mostly, I’m just wondering who the heck is reading what I write. And while I know nothing about at least 98% of my readers, thos

Apr 28, 2014
4 min

You Can’t Fight Reality Forever

Is the church dead? No. But plenty of people seem to be preparing the obituaries, going over which funeral plans are most suitable for everyone and making the funeral arrangements for that inevitable day. Inside Christian circles, the pessimism over the prospects for the church is palpable. There’s a real sense among many that some threshold has been crossed and that it’s all down hill from here. There are a few die hards who are still trying to “take the culture back for Chr

Apr 25, 2014
8 min

The New Reformation

It occurred to me this morning that perhaps Christianity has been going through a Tower of Babel experience. If you recall your kiddie bible stories, the tower of Babel tells us why there are many languages and peoples. If you don’t recall the details, after the flood, all the men got together to build a great tower. They were able to do this because they had gathered themselves together and all spoke one language. But God saw what they were doing and was alarmed at the poten

Apr 23, 2014
7 min

Fighting God

If you are a Christian who takes the bible seriously, there will often come a point where you feel hamstrung by the bible. You may be inclined to, say, allow women into ministry or accept gay marriage or get a tattoo. But there are those bible verses which clearly speak against them. So, out of obedience to God, you accept that God works in mysterious ways, his ways are always good and some things are just beyond us. In response to your faithfulness, other people get mad at y

Apr 22, 2014
3 min

Why the Cross Pleased God

So, I got a comment today on my engagingly titled post “Did God Really Demand the Death of His Son as a Sacrifice for Sin?” I was going to answer it in a comment, but I realized that most of y’all would never see it there. And sometimes the best conversations take place in the comments section. Especially when there’s a question from someone who thinks I’m wrong. My blog posts purposely distill a lot of background information into a hopefully interesting, informative and some

Apr 18, 2014
7 min

Did God Really Demand the Death of His Son as a Sacrifice for Sin?

As you are perhaps aware, today is Good Friday, and as I said yesterday, I’m more interested in looking to Easter Sunday than in thinking too deeply about the crucifixion this year. But I thought this would be a good time to share my take on the why’s of the cross. Why did Jesus die? Why did that result in the forgiveness of sins? etc. . . One of the more poignant arguments against Christianity is that the Christian God demanded that his son be offered up as a human blood sac

Apr 17, 2014
3 min

Waiting on Easter

I was raised Roman Catholic which means that I cannot go through Holy Week without feeling the urge to do something. Go to mass everyday. Attend the stations of the cross. And, of course, Holy Thursday communion (the mass most likely to make you cry every year). Even after I left Catholicism, Holy Week continued to be a time of increased spiritual activity. Get some palm leaves. Hold a fake seder. Do a special devotional. Consider doing footwashing with the kids. Cut back on

Apr 16, 2014
5 min

The Entrance Leads to the Whole

So, know anyone with some really bad theology? Like you hear them talk and all you can hear are the lies, errors and misrepresentations they are spouting and it makes you want to scream? OK, maybe you don’t actually care about theology that much. It’s probably better if you don’t when you get right down to it. But, we all know people who are intensely passionate about their opinions. And hey – if just putting your theology into the category of “opinion” offends you, well, pas

Apr 15, 2014
8 min

The Injured Easter Bird

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who decided not to go to church on Easter Morning. He’d been going his whole life, but a few years earlier he had decided that he was old enough to stop pretending that what went on in church was important enough to get up early for on his only day off. This year his wife had harrumphed when he announced that he wasn’t even going to keep up the bare minimum of appearances required to be a Chreaster (a person who attends church only on Chri

Apr 15, 2014
1 min

Late Fragment

I just love this poem. BTW, I wrote about this poem here, if you’re interested. And sorry about the silence around here. Our internet company has this ridiculous, oppressive policy of expecting their bill to be paid on time every month. Which normally we manage. But it’s been a long, crazy couple of weeks. If you’ve been following along for a while, you are already aware of the fact that this sort of thing happens from time to time. Like the one time I got 5 flat tires in a m

Apr 11, 2014
3 min

Becoming People of the Story

Christian theology, while it’s often thought of as an argument over who’s right and who is wrong, can actually be understood as the stories we use to explain the reality of God, the reality of human existence and how to live in right relationship with God, neighbor and self. Using the bible and varying doses of church tradition and reality, we’ve written thousands of different stories, each purporting to be THE Christian story. Except the idea that any of us has found THE Chr