Disqus - Latest Comments for mojodean

Re: Monday Brief - Complete with a Sermon Link

Name — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:32:17 -0000

HA! Aww...don't be angry!

Re: Monday Brief - Complete with a Sermon Link

mojodean — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:22:15 -0000

Agreed. It makes me happy for her, then jealous, then angry.

Re: Monday Brief - Complete with a Sermon Link

mojodean — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:21:51 -0000

Good point.

Re: Rejecting the faith of Depeche Mode

mojodean — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:21:00 -0000

Cous,

I think you are right regarding the true foundations of individualism and its relationship with the sinful desires of the flesh.

Thank you especially for the last two sentences. They made me smile in agreement. I spent a year beating Matthew 25 over the heads of my youth group last year and I hope it stuck in the hearts of at least a few of them.

Re: Support Your Public Library: Rack up the Fines!

mojodean — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:19:49 -0000

Yes dear, it would have.

Re: Support Your Public Library: Rack up the Fines!

mojodean — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:19:38 -0000

Good work. You win a free lifetime subscription to DSimmer.com.

Re: Support Your Public Library: Rack up the Fines!

mojodean — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:53:05 -0000

It might be the same woman, moonlighting at the Royal Oak library when the Bowen Branch is closed.

I /did/ own Eliot's complete works, but loaned them to someone for a Hillsdale class and never saw them again. I believe you commented on the weakness of my Eliot collection when you unpacked my books, and even suggested you could help remedy that prior to your NYC departure.

Re: The Problem with Wives

mojodean — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:59:28 -0000

Eventually clowns will be banned from this country, I'm sure of it.

Re: The Problem with Wives

mojodean — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:58:55 -0000

Your request has been granted. :-)

Re: Turning a Negative Into a Positive

mojodean — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:44:09 -0000

I've found that it becomes more comfortable the more I ride. At least that's what I'm telling myself 42 miles after I started riding again. We'll see how long I keep saying that.

Re: Monday Brief: Atlanta is Too Hot Edition

mojodean — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:21:44 -0000

I can answer all of these questions (and more!) over coffee/food/beer. Let me know if tonight still works, or if we need to look further out. Either way works for me.

Re: Monday Brief: Atlanta is Too Hot Edition

mojodean — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:20:51 -0000

Yes, I'm slowly taking classes at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge (Pittsburgh) Pennsylvania. I'm not a full-time student right now, but hopefully fall of 2010 I will be able to fully enroll in their distance program.

Re: Monday Brief: Atlanta is Too Hot Edition

mike d — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:05:00 -0000

Tell me more about what Chan, you, & your spiritual mentor (who is this, is he talking disciples) have to say about the Catechumenate. One of my charges at HCL is developing an adult ed program and I've been looking for good Catechisms and other instructional materials/ideas. Hence my request that you put me in contact with the guy that taught that class you were talking at Cranbrook.

Re: Monday Brief: Atlanta is Too Hot Edition

mojodean — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:18:55 -0000

It was a good read. I especially liked his chapter on the Catechumenate (my spiritual mentor has been very focused on that of late, and it's been a bit of an interest for me as well). Overall the book was geared toward an audience with little/no knowledge of the liturgy, but there was definitely some good material. Let me know if you'd like to borrow it.

Re: The American Dream: a Packrat Society

mojodean — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:13:39 -0000

Thanks for the link.

I prefer TwoShirts because (1) it is coming from a faith/social justice perspective, rather than just the old "Freebies" section in the newspaper and (2) because the technology driving the site is more modern than Freecycle. That being said, Freecycle is a cool site and I think it is great that you Johnson girls have used it.

Re: Detroit Curbside Recycling

cockrel — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:21:04 -0000

Thanks for the comments, questions, and quick RT! If enough support is generated, we will be extending the Town Hall! Please encourage your friends, family, and neighbors to participate!

Re: Detroit Curbside Recycling

mojodean — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:15:12 -0000

Mr. Mayor,

I wonder if the city might be able to work with existing recycling resources like RecycleHere to increase neighborhood recycling. Using them as an example, I know they do regular neighborhood collections, so (in theory) couldn't the city at least work with the neighborhoods outside of the pilot program to increase this neighborhood recycling? It would save the city money on recycling, it would work with an agency already in existence, and it would decrease the amount of waste being disposed of inside the city (saving the city more money in the process).

Re: Get your voice Heard - Town Hall Q & A

mojodean — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:48:05 -0000

I'd love to hear more answers about some of the other questions already asked in the townhall. If extending it until election day means we can have more interaction with our mayor, I think it is a great idea!

Re: Stephen Colbert vs. Bart Ehrman

mojodean — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:47:09 -0000

Colbert was great in this clip. Wondering why Ehrman came back. I love the simple Colbert logic.

Re: Crying Auto Tuned Baby

mojodean — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:41:44 -0000

Test

Re: My Take on Eugene McCarraher's Take on Capitalism and the Culture of Death

mojodean — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:48:37 -0000

The first two points you bring up tough to reply to in a blog comment. Both assume a whole lot. On the second, I'd say check out Marty's recent blog post on the topic: http://mmuntz.blogspot.com/2009/02/some-of-othe...

3. Anderson's article is laughable at best. He uses his article to falsely reference one post from the God's Politics blog, then proceeds to base what he perceives as the theology of the "Emergent Church" off of his own misquoting of someone's article. Taking a listing of churches giving money to social justice missions and turning them into "the hard-left "communitarian" church" is dishonest.

Consider Matthew 25:31-46. This verse is a foundational one for many of those Anderson criticizes. When "interpreting Scripture using Scripture" as proposed, we find a call to care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, ill and those in prison. Micah 6:8 calls us to mercy, justice and humility before God. McLaren uses a parable (which I will paraphase):

A man walks alongside a river and hears a man screaming for help. He quickly saves the drowning man as a small crowd starts to gather. Soon, another man needs help, and another, and another. The man, and now others, struggle to pull those drowning out of the river. Finally the man shouts to someone on shore, "run upstream! We need to find out what is causing these people to be drowning in the river!"

If we're supposed to care for the poor, the sick, those in prison, why wouldn't we look to fight the causes of their ill fortunes? And what prevents us from using the systems in place to fight them?

This is the problem with Anderson and others. First off, Anderson is an economist at the von Mises Institute, so the chance that he'll agree with anything that doesn't look like free-market Austrian economics is next to nil. Secondly, he's taking what he perceives as a false political view, "socialism," and building backwards until he reaches a false theology. But has he read Campolo, McLaren, Warren, Wallis and others? Where does he draw the dramatic conclusion of a worldview of the capitalism-defeating Jesus? That's not even historically accurate, let alone the view of the two people (McLaren and Wallis) that he goes after repeatedly.

Anderson's arguments are sensationalist in style but short in fact. But of course, he'd never make a "political alliance with an academic" as he is so sure the Rev. Wallis will do. He already is one.

Re: My Take on Eugene McCarraher's Take on Capitalism and the Culture of Death

mojodean — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:47:11 -0000

Thanks for the comment.

"Reformed Christianity is far more Biblical than any other Christianity" is a broad-reaching statement. According to whom? Who interprets the Bible? What about the 2-3 centuries before the Bible was fully-compiled? Why do many reformed thinkers/preachers argue for a rejection for any church tradition when for the first several hundred years of Christianity, they didn't have "the Scriptures" as we now know them?

I'm hoping Marty replies to this thread, because he has had a lot of good things to say about this recently.

Also: "make sure that those who control the money you take are serving the God of the Bible." What about Caesar? Caesar stood in direct contrast to Christ as himself the "son of the gods." It seems that every "Christian" government we've had has done as much wrong as good. Killing Native Americans? Enslaving an entire race? Or earlier in history: The Crusades? The Commonwealth?

I've got more to say on the topic but I have to run to work. Will share more in the next day or two.

Re: The Monday Brief: Accident Free For 117 Days

chuckstep — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:44:40 -0000

Definitely read the graphic novel. Short of the last twenty minutes the movie is almost shot for shot the same. I totally loved the movie.

Re: My Take on Eugene McCarraher's Take on Capitalism and the Culture of Death

Teague — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:38:44 -0000

I'll try to keep my response shorter than the original post this time.

I see the two major tracks of modern Christian politics as two different ways of passing the buck, conservatives rely on moral legislation to take the place of the responsibility of living noticeable different moral lives and leading secular society to a moral high ground by example, and liberal Christians look to social legislation to take care of people's needs rather than getting out there and doing it themselves. As Christians, I believe we should covet the responsibility to be moral and service leaders, and should move for a government which, in general, only involved in the essentials. I suppose that would be a kind of Libertarianism, I suppose.

With that, I also want to work to return churches to their previous (c. 1900) place as pinnacles of society and the spear head of community leadership. That would require a move toward close urban community, rather than suburbanism (the source of the individualism talked about, I want to say), and within that, urban outreach.

I've been thinking for a while about the presence of "Individualism" in modern society. I don't know where it came from (like I said, I suspect Post-war suburbansim) but it seems that somewhere along the way, it supplanted personal responsibility, a deep seated sense of being responsible "...for the sake of others." In short (for real this time), I want to say that the "Rugged Individualist" of American legend is more like what I'd want to see Christians become, individually independent, but individually responsible as well.

As a PS, I'd like to suggest you read "Till We Have Built Jerusalem" http://tinyurl.com/af8y88 It's kind of architecturally focused in some areas, but the body of the text deals with community and traditional urbanism in relation to personal responsibility and Christianity (there's a good deal on the rule of St. Benedict in there). If you have time, I think you would enjoy it. Your Corktown project would fit right along side what the author is writing about.

Re: My Take on Eugene McCarraher's Take on Capitalism and the Culture of Death

mojodean — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:32:04 -0000

I agreed wholeheartedly with your last statement. I also think it's important to remember that McCarraher is responding to two questions: "What do we need to do to affirm life?" and "how do we disinfect ourselves of the pervading love of domination, which corrupts everything we are and create?" Keeping these questions in mind does clear up some of the cloudy academic rhetoric he uses (which is very Butterlike, as you mentioned).

It seems his primary issue is the stark contrast between Christianity and individualism. And it's this individualism that drives America, regardless of political affiliation. Think about it. "Don't touch my money! It's mine, I earned it." "Don't judge me for driving SUVs! It's my car loan, I can do what I want!" "I can parent how I want..." "Don't touch my fetus, I made it, let me decide what to do with it..."

Individualism in many ways is just refined selfishness. Sure, Hillsdale will tell us otherwise, but selfishness has no value in Christianity. "The American Dream" seems to be (in today's incarnation) a 2+ acre lot in the suburbs with a two car garage, 2-3 children, financial flexibility and a good school system. Add "Christian" into that dream and it seems to add a nice, medium-sized church into that equation. Joel Osteen, anyone?

Recently a friend shared a discussion he had with a local car dealership that sells Bentleys. The dealer told my friend that, despite the "economic downturn," the common buyer of a Bentley vehicle is a pastor. What with an MSRP of 170k+, that's...Christ-like?

Another thought re: individualism and government control. What many conservative Christians have failed to realize is that they consistently argue for personal freedom/liberties in some areas (worship, gun ownership, prayer in schools) while arguing against them in other areas (FCC control, abortion perhaps, assisted suicide), provided the other areas are outside of their morality. To an outside observer, the perception of hypocrisy must come into play. Not only that, but many Christians in Reformed circles argue for a theonomic government, a view which I strongly disagree with, but a top-down Jesus state won't work either, especially since there is no Biblical backing for America being a "new Israel."

What I am trying to say is that we, as Christians, have spent 1700+ years trying to make our governments more like Jesus, all the while failing to remember that Christ didn't pick up a sword. Richard Hays, a professor at Duke Divinity, writes "If the church manifests the righteousness of God, it does so in just the way Jesus did: through suffering and death for the sake of others."

"For the sake of others" is the phrase that continues to linger with me. 401ks, personal freedom, wealth, liberty: all too often, it is "for the sake of me." That, I think, is the main point McCarraher is arguing and it is surely my own point of view.