A video homage to my favorite writing guide / by Maira Kalman

“Why no apologies to the lady [J.K. Rowling]? First, it’s always tough to say you’re sorry. But deeper than that, I think the problem is that so much of the religious right failed to see the Christianity in the Potter novels because it knows so little Christianity itself. Yes, there are a few ‘memory verses’ from Saint Paul, and various evangelical habits like the ‘sinner’s prayer’ and the alter call. However the gospel stories themselves, the various metaphors and figures of the Law and the Prophets, and their echoes down through the past two millennia of Christian literature and art are largely unknown to vast swaths of American Christendom, including its leaders.”
Jerry Bowyer, Harry Potter and the Fire-Breathing Fundamentalists

I recently received my first issue of The St. James Daily Devotional Guide for the Christian Year, Autumn 2007, September 2nd – December 1st, Volume 11, Number 4. Yearly subscriptions are $14 for four issues. Look for a review shortly.

Joe Novenson, pastor of Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, recently started a sermon series on stewarding, not simply the financial stewardship that quickly comes to mind, but stewarding all of life; stewarding in the sense of all of humanity made whole. In other words, what does it mean “to live consecrated, dedicated, in the direction of, [and] for the honor of being a steward for Jesus’ sake?” The key verses for the series introduction are Romans 12:1-2, which for being my favorite passage of scripture is ironically not always characteristic of how I find myself living life. Perhaps that is the real reason Romans 12:1-2 is the theme of this blog (i.e., a constant reminder of the need to flush out what it means to “present [my] body as a living sacrifice” in accordance with my “spiritual [or reasonable] act of worship”)? Below is an excerpt relative to that quetion from around the 3/5th’s point. You can also download the MP3 and listen to the sermon in its entirety.

Look at the word ‘body.’ I think Paul is driving home two lessons with that word. On the one hand I think he’s teaching us that we are to offer our bodies in the sense that this too is important to God. Our bodies. You see, during this time the Greco-Roman mystery religions and their philosophies demeaned the body. It was not pleasing to whatever the deity was, it wasn’t part of spirtuality and Paul is saying, “Poppycock!” Everything is to be brought to God. Everything. But there’s a second point he is making — to bring your whole self. I believe he’s using the word ‘body’ to imply no partial donation, but offer yourself. I get this from the way he’s used it through the rest of Romans. In chapter six verse thirteen he uses this same language of ‘offer’ and ‘body’ and he tells you what he means. Listen, don’t offer the parts of your body to sin, rather offer yourselves to God. So on the one hand he wants you to know that this is as important to offer as any other part of life, and “I want yourself, all of you.” This presses on us in America because we say things like, “Well, at least I go to church.” “Well, yeah ‘least I give money, nobody else gives money.” “Well, yeah I volunteer in the nursery,” but we don’t understand that the point he’s driving home is that it is a wholistic response instead of a partial one.

Now let me go further. He then says this is your spiritual worship, and I also put in the word when I read it, ‘reasonable.’ There’s a bit of a controvery here. The Greek word that’s used here for, translated as the NIV that’s in the pew Bible, or the pew, is ‘spiritual’, but here’s the Greek word, listen: logikos. I’ll Anglo-cize it: logic-kos. We get our word ‘logic’ from it. So the King James says ‘reasonable’ and you can see why; they translated it in light of the root meaning of the word. The NIV says spiritual ’cause they’re looking at the context. Can I try and settle the controversy?

The only thing that is reasonable for a human to do is to offer themselves, and that, therefore, is a good spiritual act of worship. Let me illustrate it. It’s reasonable for you to breathe as a human and it makes you healthy, because it’s according with your design. It’s reasonable for you to eat as a human, because it makes you nourished and that’s according to your design. It’s reasonable for you to sleep because you’re a human and that’s called resting, because it’s according to your design. It’s reasonable for humans to give — offer themselves to God — it’s called spiritual because it’s according to your design.

Now I want to push it; the converse is true. It is absolutely unreasonable, irrational; further, unthinkable, absurd . . . listen to me, it’s insane for the church of Christ to live for itself. Paul’s implying this, “Roman church, you’re in danger of spiritual psychosis!” Listen, if you’re here and you’re not a Christian, this is why we confuse you. You may not be a follower of Jesus, but you’re not a fool. You know we live for ourselves and hang Bible verses on it. You may be the only sane person here, because you live for yourself reasonably. We have no reason to remain dictated to by the self!

“Have we finally succumbed to what Jacques Ellul, the eccentric French Reformed thinker, prophesied in the 1960s—the politicization of all aspects of life? Ellul foresaw the Information Age and the media’s need for a steady flow of information to feed the populace. Media would therefore gravitate to covering centers of power. Politicians would be willing accomplices, because they’d gain fame and clout. All of this has happened, creating what Ellul’s prophetic book, The Political Illusion, predicted: the idea that every problem has a political solution.”
Chuck Colson with Anne Morse, Promises, Promises