Tag: spirituality

current events, enjoy life, life, religion

It’s Becoming a Wonderful World

I wrote this for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. I think it bears repeating.

Christians know and will sometimes actually say that Jesus won. But I don’t think many people fully appreciate how true that is. 2000 years ago, Jesus preached a radical message to turn the world upside down. In God’s Kingdom, the first would be last and the last would be first. Oppression would loose its grip, the suffering would be comforted, and we would be servants to the least. Jesus was speaking this into a world where power was absolute, life was cheap, illnesses could not be treated or cured and women had no rights or respect. In order to appreciate the victory that Jesus won, let’s just take a look at the world we live in today.

We now live in a world where the most powerful feel an obligation towards those most in need. The most powerful people in the world actually sit down together and make plans to relieve the suffering of impoverished people all over the world. The Romans barely gave a thought to the poor in their own empire much less starving people beyond their borders. The idea itself would have been absurd. Right now, Bill Gates – one of the most powerful, wealthy men in all of human existence has dedicated his life and wealth towards helping to alleviate suffering around the world. Do you realize how astounding that it? That is a victory for the kingdom way!

In the most powerful parts of the world today, human rights are seen as a non-negotiable good. In Jesus’ day, there was no freedom of speech. All of the apostles were martyred for practicing freedom of religion. Property rights existed only for the wealthy and powerful – no one else had much property to take! There were no laws in place to protect people from exploitation and fraud – these were normal ways of doing business. Slavery was accepted and the economy depended on forced labor. Continue reading “It’s Becoming a Wonderful World”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter14 Comments
being mom, family, humor, kids, prayer, religion

God : Me :: Me : The drama troupe I gave birth to

I can’t begin to imagine where they got it from – probably their father’s side – but I have some rather dramatic children. We still laugh about the time we told 5 year old Noah to put a book away and he contorted his face into a picture of agony, lifted the book above his head and bellowed, “noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!” like a super-hero villain whose plans … Continue reading God : Me :: Me : The drama troupe I gave birth to

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
Bloggy Linky Goodness

Bloggy Linky Goodness

OK, my week had eight days in it this week. But it’s a holiday, so you won’t notice anyways and we’ll just keep it to ourselves, k? BTW, can anyone tell me if hyper-dramatic 6 year old girls ever work the histrionics out of their system. Or is this just our ramp up for her teen years? Cuz if she keeps this up, her bedroom door might end up as damaged as mine is from all the slamming. Although maybe that would help – I haven’t slammed my bedroom door in ages because it’s completely borked now. The doors in this house just weren’t built to stand up to a woman with a difficult marriage and 5 or 6 kids. IJS

So moving on . . . it’s Bloggy Linky Goodness! I know you’re all so excited. And really impressed with my semi-consistancy with getting this up 6 whole times now. This is amazing stuff from the woman who forms tendencies the way other people form habits. Well, I do have one habit – I read everyfreakingthing. Which is good for you because now I can tell you which things out of everyfreakingthing are most worth reading. Here goes: Continue reading “Bloggy Linky Goodness”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
bible, religion

Let’s All Be Fundamentalists!

Statement of (The Upside Down World’s) Fundamentalist Faith: There is great disagreement within the church regarding whether the bible should be taken literally and if so, which parts must be taken literally. Unfortunately, this ongoing disagreement has often kept us from paying enough to those verses which we can all agree ought to be taken literally. So, although there is freedom in Christ which allows … Continue reading Let’s All Be Fundamentalists!

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter12 Comments
prayer, religion

Judging Christians

What would happen if we all stopped judging each other tomorrow? Would everyone start sassing the boss, not realizing they could be fired? Would families start roasting each other for dinner, knowing no one would judge them for it? Is judging properly the only thing that’s standing between us and a world of complete chaos (as opposed to the one we currently inhabit!)?

Or to put the question another way – what effect do we think we are having when we observe for others what is right, wrong, correct, mistaken, etc? I’m going to go way out on a limb here and guess the actual effect doesn’t exactly line up with our desires. Somehow people rarely react to being told what they are doing wrong by saying, “gosh – thank you so much for telling me. I’m going to get right on fixing that now and devote the rest of my life to making up for all the pain I’ve caused you.”

The reality is that being right is no big thing – anyone can do it. The kids I met in juvi knew the difference between right and wrong. But it’s really hard is to actually do what Jesus tells us to do: “don’t judge.” Now I know I just lost a bunch of y’all there. The last time I said we should take his instructions not to judge more seriously, if not literally, the comments had a good number of “but Jesus said judgmental things” and “we have to judge – it’s judging in a way that condemns another human that we can’t do.” All arguments I have made myself in the past. Only I actually tested the not judging thing. And found out that in order to judge properly, we need first need to learn how not to judge. Continue reading “Judging Christians”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter6 Comments
bible, culture, life, relationships, religion, women

A Christian Feminism*

When I first started looking at the issue of women in the bible, I wasn’t attached to any particular set of ideas about women and men. As a child of our times a more egalitarian ideal made a lot of sense to me. But I also knew that we get a lot further by conforming ourselves to God’s ways than to our own ideas. I wasn’t closed off to the idea that a subordinate role for women was something I would need to make peace with.

In fact, it was trying to make peace with a subordinate role was what motivated me to study women in scriptures. I figured that if I could learn more about what God had to say and why, the idea of being under men would not be a source of pain, but would be a source of life, as all things which come from God are. Like many, many women I’ve heard from over the years, I wanted to have peace about this subject, but something deep in me kept rebelling at the idea that God had given me the role of less-than all my life.

If you read what I have written previously, you’ll see that the more I studied the matter, the more it became clear to me that using scriptures to demand that women take their place under men was an abuse of God’s word. At a bare minimum, it was blazingly clear that there is nothing in scriptures which would bar full equality between men and women. So, you can make an argument for a subordinate position for women from scripture. And you can make many, many arguments for the equality of men and women which rely not just on a few verses, but stories and themes found all through scripture. Both arguments can be made, so the real issue isn’t which on is biblical – they both are, if you just look at it a certain way. Either way is faithful to scriptures. As always, all that is left now is our own choices.

Continue reading “A Christian Feminism*”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
religion

When The Good News Becomes The Really Good News . . .

In late July, 1549, the first Christian missionary reached Japan bearing the “euangelion” – the “good-message” – the “good news” – English “gospel” to the people of Japan. The missionary carrying the good news of Jesus Christ was Francis Xavier. The Japanese he found there lived in a society completely arranged around their religious beliefs – various ancient forms of Shintoism. Shintoism actually teaches that there were spirits outside of one’s own tribe spirits who can sometimes be the source of new truths, innovations and ideas. So this strange man from distant parts of the world was not dismissed out-of-hand. And Xavier had lived an exemplary life consistent with his beliefs which lent his teachings some credibility. He was given a friendly reception, but it took less than a year for this new religion he was preaching to be banned by the Emporer.

One particular belief held by all Japanese was “Tama” or reverence of ancestors. The ancestors were revered because they had created the current generations. The people have come from the ancestors at birth and when they died, they would become part of the ancestors. Of course the Japanese people were very interested in the question of their revered ancestors. Xavier recounts these conversations:

“One of the things that most pains and torments these Japanese is that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut.  For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives; and they often show their grief by their tears.  So they ask us if there is any hope . . .and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none.  The grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow . . . I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing many so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done and can never be undone.”

The good news arrived and brought what to the people of Japan? Sorrow that nearly kills them? Grief that has no hope of comfort? This is what Jesus sent us into the world to bring people – news that their dead babies are being tortured in hell with no hope of escape? Euangelion indeed. Suffice it to say that the conversion of the Japanese at that time wasn’t particularly successful. Continue reading “When The Good News Becomes The Really Good News . . .”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter7 Comments
religion

From Greek to Latin and Grace to Condemnation

When Willow Creek Community Church was celebrating their 20th anniversary, I was a regular attendee. At a celebratory anniversary service, Bill Hybels, the head pastor, shared the story of how WCCC came into being. One of the main driving forces behind the founder’s efforts was the idea that so many people were facing an afterlife of eternal torment because they had not come to faith in Jesus Christ. I remember him talking about all night prayer sessions in which this issue brought people to tears and God was begged to allow everyone to hear and be open to his message of saving grace. And despite all the stereotypes about wishy-washy, doctrine-free mega-churches, every single service at WCCC included a plea to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior lest one spend eternity suffering complete separation from God in hell. Other non-denominational Evangelical churches I have attended also included this message in each and every service they held. It’s on their website. It’s part of their statement of belief. Members are told of their responsibility to spread this message to those around them – even if it makes them uncomfortable and unpopular. After all, a person’s eternity is at stake.

Now, if the doctrine of eternal hell were true, one would expect that the early church would put this message front and center in the evangelization efforts as well. Surely those closest to the events, who had access to the apostles or those taught directly by the apostles would recognize how important it was to let people know that they were facing an eternity of torment if they did not convert to Christianity. Surely these people who weren’t at the mercy of translations but were learning the faith in their native tongues would have responded to this teaching as strongly as we do today. And yet, this is simply not the case. In fact, any discussion of the afterlife in very early church writings are surprisingly hard to come by. Continue reading “From Greek to Latin and Grace to Condemnation”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
life, religion

Forgiving God*

We’ve all heard that we need God’s forgiveness, but rarely do you hear people speak of our need to forgive God. More’s the shame because anyone who has ever had or will ever have a real relationship with God will at some point struggle with the necessity of forgiving Him. It may not be theologically sound, but it’s true nonetheless.

We are hurting people. I don’t know anyone who isn’t. Or wasn’t. This world is filled with wonder and joy, but it’s also hard. People die when they shouldn’t. We’re born to parents who have no business being allowed in the same room with children. There are terrible, painful illnesses that cannot be cured. We are told to forgive, but who do we need to forgive when the floods come? Who do we offer absolution to when our best efforts do nothing to improve our lot in life? Continue reading “Forgiving God*”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments