Theology is not unrelated to socio-political realities of existence; and that historically it has been used to maintain the social and political advantages of the status quo.
Tag: crap
The Levee
The New Orleans Levee is a critical parody that was introduced to a group of Seminary students in December 2006, when we took a course about disaster response in New Orleans.
Christian Evangelicals Plot to Remake America In Their Own Image
“What they don’t know — what even most conservative Christians who voted for Bush don’t know — is that ‘Christian nation’ means something else entirely to these Dominionist leaders. This movement is no more about following the example of Christ than Bush’s Clean Water Act is about clean water.”
via Christian Evangelicals Plot to Remake America In Their Own Image.
COTS (Coalition on Temporary Shelter)
When I attended a course in Detroit in 2008, we meet with representatives from various groups that are trying to change the life of individuals and communities for the better. An example of that:
COTS exists to alleviate homelessness by providing an array of services that enable people to achieve self-sufficiency and obtain quality affordable housing. COTS also exists to advocate for long-term solutions to the problems of homelessness.
More about COTS in Detroit can be found at www.cotsdetroit.org.
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Nigerian Oil
Every day at Bonny Island, oceangoing tankers line up in Cawthorne Channel like massive parade floats. Theyre each waiting to fill up with close to a million barrels of the coveted Bonny Light, drawing the oil from a nearby export terminal. Ships have been gathering at this 15-mile-long 24 kilometers barrier island since the mid-1500s, when slave trading between West Africa and the New World began.
A few Random Thoughts about Priests, Leadership, and Church
When we use the father concept about a priest. What kind of a parent is that? Is it the one that makes his children independent but still invites them to a steak on Sundays?
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The creeds that we confess are priestly, focused on sacrifice, structure, and systematic worldview, no room for spirit, peace, or justice (innri samþykktir þjóðkirkjunnar, anyone).
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LeBron James does not run Clevaland Cavaliers. However, that does not mean that basketball is secondary on the clubs agenda (or does it?).
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Decision making through dialogue, in the presence of a strong charismatic leader has a strong bend towards monarchy.
From a Bible Study @ Redeemer
There are no heroes in the story about David, so no one can cast a shadow on God. All people are flawed. Even the best of us.
The Story of the Earthquake told by Luther Students
We left that area in a single file line and walked about 20 minutes to Trinity House, where we had visited earlier that day and had met Maya. We sat in the soccer field with the boys who lived there passing the time singing and praying.
Others do who have no hope*
But we do not want you to be uninformed, dear siblings, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
One must wonder whom Paul refers to “others do who have no hope.” I think it is hardly possible to claim that all outside the realm of the Christian world are without hope. At least if the hope is related to an afterlife. One way to deal with the hopeless others is trying to explain that hope means something more specific or something different than hope, however I am not going there.
The other way to make sense of this is if “the others” is not an attempt by Paul to refer to everyone outside the circle of Christians. If that is the case we are left to figure out who they are this specific group of “the others” in verse 13. We can assume that they were a group known to the Congregation in Thessaloniki. I think Abraham J. Malherbe is on to something in his commentary, when he refers to De Witt, and claims that the others without hope are possibly Epicureans (Malherbe 283).
I would consider this especially intriguing in light of another reference to that group earlier in the fourth chapter where Paul seems to take their philosophy at a face value. If we accept that “the others who do not have hope” are in fact Epicureans, Paul seems to be making the argument that we should behave like them in our daily life, but when it comes to dying and grieving, we part company.
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Bibliography: Malherbe, Abraham J. The Letters to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
* This note is from an exegetical paper on I. Thess. 4.13-18
Kröfur í þrotabú íslensku bankanna
12.053 kröfum var lýst í bú gamla Landsbankans upp á 6.459 milljarða króna. Heildarforgangskröfur námu 2.857 milljörðum króna. Búist er við að um 90 prósent fáist upp í forgangskröfur, sem að mestu eru vegna Icesave-innlánsreikninganna í Bretlandi og Hollandi. Ekkert fæst upp í almennar kröfur.
Þá var 8.685 kröfum lýst í þrotabú Glitnis upp á 3.436 milljarða króna. Áætlað er að kröfuhafar fái á bilinu 20 til 23 prósent upp í kröfur, eða á milli 690 til 860 milljarða króna.
Heildarfjárhæð lýstra krafna í Kaupþing nam 7.316 milljörðum króna miðað við gengi Seðlabanka Íslands þann 22. apríl 2009. Heildarfjárhæð lýstra krafna er hærri en skuldir samkvæmt efnahagsreikningi miðað við 30. júní sl. Skýringar á að heildarfjárhæð lýstra krafna er hærri en skuldir má rekja til oflýstra krafna vegna innstæðna sem Kaupþing hefur þegar greitt, tví- og þrílýsinga vegna ýmissa innstæðna og skuldabréfaútgáfu bankans og krafna sem falla utan efnahaggsreiknings, s.s. skaðabótakrafna og ábyrgðarkrafna. Auk þess væri ítrustu kröfum jafnan lýst. Samanlögð fjárhæð vegna framangreindra atriða næmi a.m.k. 2.900 milljörðum króna.
Two short pieces from Haiti
While I was in Haiti I wrote two short pieces for tru.is, a website of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Iceland.
Both of them are in Icelandic but perhaps Google Translate can be useful in translating them.
Experience in Haiti
I have made almost 8 minutes video with pictures and sounds to describe my experience and feelings in Haiti. In it I use pictures from my travel partners, music and sounds. It is no longer accessible on the web. If you like to help there are many great organizations doing wonderful work in Haiti. One of them is Haiti Timoun Foundation.
Did Christianity Cause the Crash?
Your Best Life Now, which has fueled a TV show that Osteen claims is now seen in 200 million homes worldwide, opens with a story of a man on vacation in Hawaii. He was “a good man who had achieved a modest measure of success, but he was coasting along, thinking that he’d already reached his limits.” While sightseeing, he and his wife admired a gorgeous house on a hill. “I can’t even imagine living in a place like that,” he said. For this bit of self-deprecation and modesty, Osteen pities the man: “His own thoughts and attitudes,” he writes, “were condemning him to mediocrity,” or what is known in the gospel as the “defeated life.”
via Did Christianity Cause the Crash? – The Atlantic (December 2009).
The Story According to Dr. Brad Binau
Dr. Brad Binau told his story about the earthquake in Haiti and the aftermath during Sunday School Hour at Broad Street Presbyterian Church in Columbus January 24. It was recorded and published as mp3.
The Story According to Pastor Doug
Doug Hill pastor at Abiding Hope Lutheran Church in Littleton tells about his experience in the aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake during Sunday School Hour, January 24. Continue reading The Story According to Pastor Doug
The Story According to Halldor Elias
This text might change as I go through the story and continue to remember more and more details of what happened (last edit 2/12). The picture is of my hotel room two days after the earthquake.
It was Tuesday January 12, 2010 at 4:50pm. I stood in the Courtyard of Hotel Florita in Jacmel, Haiti and had just finished writing a response on my Facebook page. Continue reading The Story According to Halldor Elias
A Conversion Story
Young people today are probably more likely to be confronted by Christianity for the very first time through Ann Rice, Mel Gibson, or the Idiots Guide to the Bible then in a Church Pew, they decided one day to sit in.
Smá leiðrétting
Vissulega er auðvelt að álykta að tweet-ið sem ég skrifaði um ástand hótelsins hafi verið vísun í jarðskjálftann en svo var þó alls ekki. Enda skrifað 3 tímum áður en hörmungarnar dundu yfir. Hins vegar er nauðsynlegt að það komi fram að íbúar hér hafa sýnt einstakt æðruleysi og hafa kennt okkur sem hér ferðumst heilmikið um mikilvægi samkenndar, góðvildar og gæsku í ömurlegum aðstæðum.
Skrifað í Jacmel.
College In America
Interesting statistics about college in America.