Post 17 (11/30)

I thought it was interesting that nationalism was prevalent early on as a myth that America was the chosen nation. You see a lot of that in many slogans you see around America, such as from the song "God Bless America" which has replaced the "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at baseball games. I thought this was a relatively new thing, but apparently this attitude was seen early on as well with the Puritans, who saw what we now call the United States as the promised land.

Post 16 (11/23)

Talking about both Luther and Calvin today, I was curious to see more of how their views align and differ. It turns out, they are pretty similar--not to say that Calvin was Luther v2.0 or something, but they were pretty closely aligned with the exception of the Lord's Supper. Luther taught consubstantiation, while Calvin wrote in a letter about Luther, "How foolishly he erred when he stated that the bread is the body itself." Meanwhile, Calvin believed in the presence of the living Christ in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper by the action of the Holy Spirit. Calvin believed God was there in the sacraments in a spiritual sense; Luther believed it to be a physical sense.

Post 15 (11/18)

The first half of class we watched a video of a Shane Claiborne interview. I had never heard him speak before, but had heard he had some good things to say. A lot of what he does reminds me of what the early first century church practiced: being intentional about living in community. Along with that, he says, comes all the good and bad things about a person: people bring gifts and baggage. He said it’s a choice to live deeper in community which makes you laugh hard with each other, cry hard with each other, hurt each other more, and be vulnerable with a group of people. He asks how can we worship a homeless man Sunday, ignore one Monday. He adds, we need to stop complaining about the church we’ve experienced, become church we dream of. He is looking for that more perfect church--and he believes it's by living with the poor and the outcasts of society.

Post 14 (11/16)

After class today, I went and looked up more facts about Catholicism around the world and found these facts in addition to some tidbits Dr. Bolger shared in class today. I found that according to David Barrett, by 2025 1/6 of the world's Catholics will be in Africa (230 million). Also, the world's largest seminary is in Nigeria (not, apparently, in Pasadena, California). According to Dr. Bolger, some countries (like Angola) are now over 50% Catholic. Now there is some hope that one of the next Pope's will be from Africa now that it is such a huge percentage of Catholics. In fact, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been one of the leading voices in this movement.

Post 13 (11/12)

Okay, I'll be honest, the story Bishop Graham Cray told about the surf churches in England got me excited. That's so awesome that they set up this church that people can literally walk right off the beach in their surf stuff to attend; that is so different than your traditional church. That they still have some members (about 40, according to the bishop), but he said that during the peak surf seasons it is crowded. That's such a cool and unique way to spread the Word, and perhaps something that could lead a lot of people to Christ.

Post 12 (11/9)

In preparation for Bishop Graham Cray, a prominent leader in the missional church movement in the United Kingdom, Dr. Bolger went over some background figures and notes so that we could be better prepared for his lecture Wednesday. One thing that hit me was the sense of a Consumer Society--a society that becomes so personalized, everything is tailored for one person. Your shopping, your health care, your faith, and more will all be personalized. Cray says the U.K. will be personalized in all ways be 2020. With this, you feel a lack of community, and it allows individuals to be just that--they can become disengaged from any long-term commitment to a society.

Post 11 (11/4)

I found it interesting when the first video we watched mentioned that the Pope and Emperor had a sort of alliance. Though the movie called it an "uneasy alliance" between Charlemagne and Pope Leo, the church and state acted together. In theory that is different than today in the United States, but really it might not be all that different than say James Dobson and the religious right's relationship with George W. Bush. Though Dobson and other influential leaders are probably not on a pedestal as high as the Pope's, they are still influential to a lot of people who follow them, and provide many votes for politicians who see eye-to-eye with them.

Post 10 (11/2)

Well, I'm going to get a little sidetracked. Today we talked about the spread of Orthodoxy throughout the world, so I just wanted to share a few notes from my experience at an Eastern Orthodox church a few Sundays ago:
-It was very liturgical; much more than most churches I've been to
-2/3 of the service was in Greek; perhaps that's why a lot of people showed up 1/2 way through the service, which is interesting because they had a "Church Etiquette" brochure which stressed the importance of showing up on time
-After about an hour of Greek singing, prayers and rituals, all of a sudden the priest gave about a 10 minute sermon in English and then the service was basically over after a few announcements
-I noticed that they really had a place for children in the service--as Acolytes, in communion, etc.

Post 9 (10/28)

Augustine was the person who first had the idea of the visible and invisible church around the fourth century. The visible church is describing the members of a local church. The invisible church are God's elect and true believers. Augustine believed there was a mix of the visible and invisible church--in other words, there will be no perfect church: some people don't have the right motives. They were there to be seen. Ultimately, I don't think that we have to worry about that--it's up to God. He knows our hearts better than we do, so we should probably be more worried about ourselves than wondering what your neighbors motives for going to church are.