What would Jesus say to Santa?

I am speaking on this topic tomorrow morning. After a bit of pondering I have decided to preach on Hebrews 9:23-28.

By way of intro I will chat about how Christmas is the best time of year- the music, food, holiday, friends, family and santa.
I will then suggest that Judaism was the world's best religion- it had a lot of the same things: great feasts, holidays, family, impressive kings and priests.
When Jesus came along he looked at all that and said that he was better. Jesus looks at santa and says the same thing- Jesus says to santa, 'Ho ho ho- I'm better than you.' V23
Now santa finds it hard to believe that Jesus is better than him, so he asks Jesus to say how he is better. Jesus has two things to say:

I appear once for all- not just once a year.
V25-26

I put sin away- not on a list.
V26

When these points are explored in more depth, it becomes clear that we should be 'eagerly waiting' not for santa- but Jesus. V28.

Santa may be the best many people have this year for Christmas.
Jesus is better.

Happy Christmas all!

Dawkin's Christmas Carols

After the recent parliamentary debate on the undermining of the Christian contribution to British history, it is not entirely Politically Correct to bash Christianity. So those who feel misrepresented by Richard Dawkins in his 'God Delusion' can take some (!) comfort from his confession that he is in fact 'a cultural Christian' who likes singing carols along with everybody else.

Check out the story here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm

Obviously many people who do not embrace the truth claims of Christianity do sing carols.

One just wonders if it would be reasonable (no pun intended) to expect a higher degree of intellectual probity from a Oxford professor who has made his money and reputation from attacking Christianity as he has done?

Interestingly, those who follow, and rally round, Dawkins, are not so generous to the Christmas carol singing tradition - Dawkin's web site, which advertises itself as 'a clear thinking oasis' includes a forum for posting crude re-writes of carols.

Proving it is real

During the modern era people thought something was true if it was proven by scientific evidence, or was rational.
Christians who try to appeal to such evidence in their teaching now can sound rather out of touch with where people are at. In the postmodern era people initially gave in to extreme skepticism - nothing is true or possible to prove.
To those of us who talk with students about Christianity, it looks as if things have moved on. The wave of that extreme cultural reaction appears to have broken, and we are left with a new situation.
People are interested in reality, but it has to connect with their experiences and resist the challenges posed by accusations of abuse of power, manipulation and out-datedness. Detailed arguments and apologetics can shoot themselves in the foot by simply appearing to be out-dated and irrelevant.

The Internet is an important part of the force reforming people's attitudes to reality. It satisfies many as a way to investigate because it keeps the power in the hands of the viewer. It allows many points of view to be presented and a level of detail for comparison beyond anything previously experienced.

All that being the case - check out the amusing but clever take on Google Earth's ability to 'prove' the Bible story in a way that connects:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=41RIGL3SIT0STQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/11/wbible111.xml

Joking aside - do we live in a Google world where Google satellite shapes our view of what is real? It gets me to where I want to accurately enough when I seek directions - how many people unwittingly rely on it for their basic epistemological posture to life?

Second most written about person in world?

It is not difficult to guess who the most written about person in the world is - Jesus. He is today the topic of more articles, books and journals each year than any other person.

Here is a question though - who is the second most written about person in the world?

The answer is Martin Luther, the protestant reformer. If you are so inclined, you could purchase a hefty annual tome that lists the publications about him published that year. I have not gone that far, as I have discovered that merely the popular level English edition of Luther's works is more than most of us could read in a year. Running to close to 60 volumes, and that is only a fraction of his total output - much is still untranslated.

There are many reasons Luther is endlessly engaging. One such reason is that due to his huge literary output,and his willingness to share a view before considering it too carefully (!) we can see his ideas change and develop through time. Anybody involved in academia will know that spotting development in a person's thought is the sort of thing that makes academics salivate with excitement. It is the chance for yet another article or footnote!

I would be loath to add to such academic output, but over the weekend I was relaxing with one of Luther's last treatises: 'Against the Roman Catholic Church an Institution of the Devil.'

Once the large number of profanities in the treatise has been gotten over, the next thing that struck me was the development in Luther's attitude to councils.

Earlier in his ministry he fought to have his theology heard by councils, and wanted the catholic church to consider his views. By the end of his life he was saying that even if his opponents were willing to come to a council, it would be a waste of time. He said in this treatise that he would prefer to ignore the religious leaders and take his Gospel directly to the popular people.

It is interesting to ponder - to what extent was this development in Luther reflective of cynicism? To what degree was it realistic? Was he becoming too individualistic in old age - or was he facing honestly the full implications of justification by faith alone and his ecclesiology?

And most importantly, if he were alive today - would he have a blog??!

Apologies for adding to the excessive amount of written material on the second most written about man in the world. At least since this is an online comment, it is more difficult to burn - the fate many of his original works enjoyed when they first arrived in Cambridge!