Churchill goes to Church?

“Democracy is the worst system of government in the world except for all the rest.” – (I do believe that was) Winston Churchill.

But to what measure could that be said of Christianity. It goes something like this: Christianity is the worst religion in the world except for all the rest. As the new year (as per Mr. Dyck) approaches I invariably try to find some theme or tone to shape the year’s spiritual content around. I started been wondering about these thoughts tucked away in Paul’s ramblings: 1Corinthians 15:12-19 “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” The rest of the passage really digs in on the reality of the resurrection. And it got me wondering why our faith is based on something so fantastic and really – flimsy! And then I started thinking about some of the other shaky/questionable things that run summarily for granted in the religious cacophony we call Christianity. Things like the existence/nature of God, and the veracity/authority of the Bible plus a whole bunch of other things. What occurred to me is that these topics have little space in our teaching strategies. So what the heck why not? Plow into them. And as I have been doing more research – I again recognize how foundational some of these concepts are to the great “TORAH and MISHNAH” of our religious experience and understanding.
So this fall we are starting with this theme: Flimsy, Feeble, Fragile Faith. The idea is to bring these issues back into the student’s consciousness and by doing so help them evaluate the spiritual and religious edifices they have built on top of their assumptions. Then and easily most importantly help them to take to act out on their convictions. So it’s not really apologetics, although that will be a piece of it, but actually more of a re-acquaintance with the tension that is the essence of faith. My hope is that the students will be motivated to take their thoughts captive and submissive to Christ but even more than…
Romans 12: Living sacrifices… I know that I want to spend a lot less time talking about sex and drugs and alcohol - giving prescriptions on morality. Instead I want to believe that if you hold up the standard of holiness for what it truly is namely, obedience and collusion with God’s will, that Students will rise to that challenge less fettered by the whims of fanciful bull poo that the world or the church for that matter tries to fill them with.
As for a theme I am sticking with last year’s “Do what you know” based on James. I would like to see us do an MDS project this summer or Spring with our Senior High kids and I think that might be a good climax to the concepts.
Of course this year will be weird cause I am not going to be around for a good part of it – on Study leave. I guess I feel kinda responsible for these kids and I am quite frankly worried. I’ll leave it at that.
Anyways, Gil tipped me off to what looks like a decent idea so I’ll pass it on to you. Here’s the link to a post-modern (scrape-your-tongue-at-that-word) conversation happening on line on theology and the like.
So yeah here’s the link: http://anewkindofconversation.com/.
I’m out.