partsofspeaking

The Christian faith is based on the doctrine of the Incarnation--God became a man in flesh and blood. This is necessary to death, burial, and resurrection. It is necessary for the period of the gospels. It is part of the rituals of the church--we are baptized (a bodily act, one that for Baptists involves the whole body) because He was; we commemorate the gospel in the physical act of eating at the communion table. We sing songs about the body and blood of Christ. The body we celebrate is a male body. It was the body of a stonemason (the real meaning of technon, or what we have always thought of as carpenter). It was a body that could survive beating and a 40-day fast. God came as a man, not a woman, for a lot of good reasons. It is not lost on me that the new paganhood, the occult, celebrates, or worships (maybe fears) the female body. The female body is likened to the physical earth, the planet, which births, produces, is fecund and fertile. It is receptive, passive, fertilized; i...

Our society is obsessed with failure--probably because we are obsessed with success. Although we can't define "success." We can only define what we want. Getting what we want is not an objective definition of success. I think I want a high profile position. There is so much more to be and do.  Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear of victory As he defeated – dying – On whose forbidden ear The distant strains of triumph Burst agonized and clear! As often is the case, Emily gets it right. 

Being impeached does not mean getting rid of the President. The Democrats should know that--Bill Clinton was impeached but stayed in office. Sixty-seven percent of the Senate has to vote him guilty to remove Trump from office. That ain't happening, people. I don't know if Trump did this Ukraine thing--I don't have trouble believing he did something like that. Not a fan here. But impeachment? Please. They just need something to fill 24 hours of cable news.

I am going to be representing my institution for an award from the Board of Regents of Georgia. I was the only nominee; but hey, I'll do my best.

Overheard in a conversation "We have to dig a little deeper to find the low hanging fruit."

I have been going to what is euphemistically called in most churches "the contemporary service." I sit by myself in a crowded but relatively dark gymnasium-turned-auditorium, able to focus better and not obligated to be friendly until afterward. The church I attend (which I love immensely) has a "traditional" service in the sanctuary but it is just as loud in its music as the contemporary and very bright, and we have to shake hands. I'm an extrovert in general, but after teaching a Bible lesson I want some solitude. Mainly, I get to see young people from my college at the contemporary service, and their coffee is much better. Today we had communion. In this venue, the congregants walk to the front and get the elements rather than being served. Good Baptists, we get our wafers and grape juice, return to our seats, and wait for the Scriptural commandment to take of the elements. Because I was seated at the front, I got mine quickly and scooted back to my seat to...

In being assigned to teach Old Testament passages as a lay minister, I find it hard to talk about idolatry of the pagan, Baal-worship kind. Not many people in America go to temples and bow before statues and believe the spirit of the statue can do anything, much less do Christians. So while I don't think this is original, it occurred to me today that identity is the new idolatry--although it's really not that new. It is what the Jewish people of Jesus' time were struggling with. They weren't in danger of offering their children to Molech. They seem to have gotten over that after 70 years in Babylon. But they were obsessed with their national identity, and it became the idol that stood between them and Jesus' revelation. Today the identity idol is related to race, biological sex, and sexuality for a lot of people. Granted, heterosexuals are "the norm" (statistically and biologically), so we don't have to think about it as much. The majority doesn...