Test jesus under plastic

Professor Emeritus C. John Weborg, 72 years old, is lecturing on his experiences on the combination of ritual and pastor identity.

When someone calls you to a death bed, do you know what to do? 
A pastor is someone who does rituals
People need someone who knows the words.

The Apostle Paul writes of apprehending what had apprehended him. [referencing Phil 3.9].  Ritual, using transrational thinking, using reflection, can sometimes help us apprehend what has apprehended us.

Quoting Aidan Kavanagh:
Ritual is a system of symbols rather than mere signs. Symbols being roomy, allow many different people to put them on, so to speak, in different ways. Signs do not. Signs are unambiguous because they exist to give precise information. Symbols coax into a swamp of meaning and require one to frolic in it.

Because he's retired, we get only a few guest-lecture chances to hear from John Weborg.  Every time is worth it.

Dr. Jim Bruckner, Dr. Bob Hubbard, Dr. Klyne Snodgrass, and Dr. Stephen Chester.

In order. :-)


via my Treo 700p

"One purpose of this chapter is to situate today's Christian theologian by calling attention to the church's global context and to remind us that no language or culture has a monopoloy on God, the gospel, or theology.  This is an important and timely prophetic blast against the monstrous regiment of systematic theologians, in whose company I count myself.

It is undeniable that the church has entered a new era.  ... The reign of the sovereign knowing subject, and of universal method, is coming to an end. ...  But does it necessarily follow that systematicians must go the way of the Elves, whose time had ended, setting sail (appropriately enough!) toward the West?"

Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer, writing in typical Smile: It's Theology! form. His chapter is in Globalizing Theology, co-editied by one of my current professors, Dr. Craig Ott.

This past week has accelerated me to the absolute top speed I have. I could tell sitting in certain classes that my brain was over-CPU crunched and starving for extra cycles. Last I night I had to leave Romans early just so I could recover enough to do three hours in Contextualization this morning. My reading list is ruling my life!

Meanwhile, this weekend I'll be traveling for GCM down to central Illinois to help at I-Life's Fall Retreat--leading two training sessions on mentor discipleship and leading the weekend-closing session including communion. I look forward to seeing old and new friends, talking about topics I'm excited about, and getting away from the books for a few days.

And should I get one of these??

Downside: camera is reportedly taking as long as 10 seconds to take a picture!  And it doesn't have Microsoft Exchange push, but I don't care.  It DOES have a few feature the iPhone doesn't, including gMail push, an amazing new "compass" mode for Google Maps Street View (you just move the phone to "look around"), and the thing that's kept me from jumping to Apple:  a full QWERTY keyboard!

ps - I realize I can't "get" a Google Android.  The open-source operating system will show up on multiple phones in the next year, T-Mobile's G1 being just the first new example.  And I agree with Don Reisinger--there's no reason not to expect Google to do well, even in the face of the iPhone.