Tyler Payne

Christ the Tiger

Tyler Payne — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:22:59 +0000

I announce to you your redemption. Behold, I make all things new! Behold, I do what cannot be done! I restore the years that the locust and worms have eaten. I restore to you the symphonies and operas which your deaf ears have never heard; and the snowy mountains that your blind eyes have never seen; and the freedom you lost through plunder. And I restore to you the good which your own foolish mistakes have cheated you of, and I bring to you the love of which all other loves speak – the love which is joy and beauty, and which you have sought in a thousand streets and for which you have wept and clawed your pillow.

From Christ the Tiger by Thomas Howard.

N.T. Wright on Orthodox Christianity

Tyler Payne — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:57:58 +0000

“If you put all the elements of Orthodox Christianity within the story of the post-Enlightenment story of a deist God sending a spaceman-Jesus to undergo some redemptive violence to satisfy his primal vengeance, to rise again to show the way back to heaven and away from Earth, and then to return to snatch people away as the Earth finally goes off to Hell…If that’s the narrative to which you’re (proclaiming) ‘Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection,’ you’re producing a violently distorted parody of biblical Christianity.

“The Holy Spirit is given not simply so that we can enjoy a deep and lasting relationship of trust and love with God through Jesus Christ, though that is of course true. The Holy Spirit is given so that those who are drawn into Jesus’ family in faith and baptism can be equipped to carry forward the work of new creation, the kingdom project that has been launched through the unique achievement of Jesus himself.

“It’s very noticeable how in the resurrection narratives and in the beginning of Acts, the disciples do not say ‘My goodness, Jesus has been raised, therefore we’re going to heaven!’ That’s never mentioned. They say, ‘Jesus has been raised, therefore God’s new creation has begun and we’ve got a job to do.’ And it’s precisely at that point that they are given the Holy Spirit to do that job, continuing the project of new creation.”

From N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham’s lecture during the January Series at Calvin College on January 5th, 2007.

Waiting

Tyler Payne — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:53:20 +0000

Return to us, Lord -
Christ is dead.

We watched Him climb Sinai
And we waited
Until someone realized
“The wait is shorter for the roller coaster” and
“Then we would know what we are waiting for.”

When He returned someone said,
“I thought I heard a knock.”
But when dad left
He said not to answer
And I didn’t want to get up anyway.

Return to us, Lord -
Christ is dead
And our idols are gone too.

We replaced a meek Savior
With something so discreet that
I didn’t feel it fall from my neck.
He saw it happen but chose not to tell me
That He had made it
In China
Because nothing is free,
Yet nothing is precious.

Return to us, Lord -
Christ is dead.

How did He die?
Most were sent to the camps
And no one told the others why
They were left out.

A Poem by Thaddeus McCleary called Waiting.

Science and Religion

Tyler Payne — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:48:46 +0000

As powerful as the scientific method is, it is restricted to seeking natural causes to explain the workings of the natural world. So there are areas of inquiry that science cannot address. The scientific method cannot tell us, for example, what is morally right or wrong. Science can inform us about how men and women differ physically, but it cannot tell us what the morally correct way is to act on that information. Science cannot speak to the existence of God or any supernatural being. Nor can science tell us what is beautiful or ugly, which poems are lyrical, or which paintings most inspiring. So although science can exist comfortably alongside different belief systems–religious, political, personal–it cannot answer all their questions.

From page 7 in Discover Biology, 4th edition textbook by Cain, Yoon, Singh, Cundy. W.W. Norton.

“Mission” & “Missionary” in History

Tyler Payne — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:23:14 +0000

The term missionary journey finds its origin in nineteenth-century German commentaries on Paul. It was probably influenced by the fact that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the rise of world missionary work couple with the economic exploitation of India, Africa, the Orient, and elsewhere by Europeans. (The commentaries of A. Schlatter confirm this.) As far as I know, the earliest reference to missionary journey in English is in David Thomas’s A Homiletic Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles published in 1870. The word mission was not used to refer to human outreach until the sixteenth century. Before that time, it was used to refer to the sending of Jesus by the Father and the sending of the Spirit by the Father and Son (John 17:18). The Jesuits were the first to use the term mission to refer to the spreading of the Christian faith. In time, the word mission came to refer to the sending of people across frontiers to propagate the Christian faith, convert the heathens, plant churches, and improve society (R. Paul Stevens, The Abolition of the Laity [Carlisle, PA:Paternoster, 1999],192).

From Finding Organic Church by Frank Viola.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving by Rob Bell

Tyler Payne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 08:07:54 +0000

God we thank you for this big, beautiful, compelling world that you have placed us in. We thank you that you meet us where we are at with this joyous, counter-intuitive, exuberant announcement that you are with us in our mistakes and our brokenness and our sins and our failures and our stumblings. You are with us. We are blessed because of your grace, your gift. We thank you for Jesus who shows us what this looks like in flesh and blood. As we work through looking for insight into what your Word might mean for us today, we ask that you meet us exactly where we’re at and remind us that we are loved and valued and embraced by you, our loving Heavenly Father. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

A Prayer by N.T. Wright

Tyler Payne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 07:50:28 +0000

Almighty God, we thank you for minds to think, hearts to understand, eyes to read your word, and the energy to put it to work in your world. We pray that now you will stand alongside us, and in the power of your Spirit enable us to use these gifts to your glory. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

A Trinitarian Prayer by N.T. Wright

Tyler Payne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 07:40:56 +0000

Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, set up your kingdom in our midst. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on us sinners. Holy Spirit, breath of the living God, renew us and all the world. Amen.

What Baptism and the Eucharist Do by N.T. Wright

Tyler Payne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:13:27 +0000

The Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist create a context not merely for a private spirituality, but for a people who are called in Baptism and equipped in the Eucharist for fruitful work in and for the world.

If you have been baptized, you have in fact died with Christ and risen with him, and you had certainly better work out what that means. Baptism is the thing which shows that we are linked to Jesus and his dying and rising and the power of his victory is ours because we are in him.

God’s inclusiveness is always a transforming inclusiveness, and that is precisely what baptism is all about.

The Eucharist is a narrative, like Baptism, it’s a story, it’s God’s story, it’s the world’s story, it’s Isreal’s story, it’s Jesus’ story, and it’s our story.

A Prayer on Waking Up by N.T. Wright

Tyler Payne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:09:21 +0000

May we be people with energetic lives and minds, who go out and take on the challenges of this world with the message of wisdom and glory and virtue that we find in Jesus Christ and by his Spirit. God be with us in this day and these coming days, and give us the grace to wake up from sleep, to live as children of day, to learn the language, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, to practice the instrument, and to discover by dying and rising with Christ, what it means to flourish as image-bearing human beings, Amen.