- Why study history? Here are sixteen excellent reasons. “9. Nothing actually ever changes in history; change is an illusion; some systems or practices always remain the same. We study the past the same way we would study the present, to understand a single system which is continuous over time.” [via kottke] 04/28/2008
- Shawn questions the legitimacy of the Subversive Blogger Awards. You should read his post and the comments — it’s good conversation if nothing else. What do you think? 04/28/2008
Getting a foot in the door
April 24th, 2008 | 
hired., originally uploaded by jakebouma on flickr.
A while back I wrote a post called On writing a book which revealed that one of my life goals is to write a book. One of the toughest parts about pursuing this goal is getting your foot in the door. It’s the proverbial chicken-and-egg conundrum: publishers want to see legitimate writing experience, but one can’t get experience without the help of a publisher.1
Well, thanks to the grace of God and a friend by the name of Erik Ullestad, I’ve been officially hired/contracted to write for Augsburg Fortress Publishers, the publishing house of the ELCA. It’s nothing glamorous; I’m writing devotionals for the webzine of Augsburg’s confirmation curriculum. But it’s a start.
My foot is planted firmly in the door.
- Now, I realize there are other ways to get “published”, e.g., online magazines, blogs, and other various freelance endeavors… but you get my point. ↩
- There’s a debate (or “blogalogue”) between N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman over at beliefnet on the subject of theodicy entitled “Is Our Pain God’s Problem?” N.T. Wright:
Near the heart of Jesus’ proclamation lies a striking redefinition of power itself, which looks as though it’s pointing in the direction of God’s ‘running of the world’ (if that’s the right phrase) in what you might call a deliberately, almost studiedly, self-abnegating way, running the world through an obedient, and ultimately suffering, human being, with that obedience, and especially that suffering, somehow instrumental in the whole process. What ‘we would want God to do’ – to have God measure up to our standards of ‘how a proper, good and powerful God would be running the world’! – seems to be the very thing that Jesus was calling into question.
[HT]: Exploring Our Matrix via N.T. Wrong 04/24/2008
Type-ified
Head here to make your own. [ht: soupablog]
Related: I’ve been Simpsonized.
Why I do youth ministry
“So, why do we call Jesus the Passover lamb?”
Several hands reached for the ceiling and I called on a blonde, spirited seventh-grade girl named Kara. Like many of her peers, she had raised her hand before actually formulating a response.
“Because, um, Jesus was… like…”
I waited patiently for Kara to finish her thought. Her face was starting to wrinkle and contort in hopes that the answer would soon arrive. It didn’t. I looked around the room for another vertical fleshy stick, and as I began to point at another student, I was abruptly interrupted.
“OH!” Kara blurted, with her eyes lighting up and back her straightening as she experienced her eureka moment. “So. Just like how they used to sacrifice a lamb during Passover and put the blood on the doorposts to, like, protect them from evil [Exodus 12:1-13], that’s like how Jesus sacrificed himself and gave up his blood to, um, save us from sin [John 1:29]. And that’s what Jesus meant when he said ‘This is my blood, shed for you’!”
I nearly broke into song as I said, “YES! That’s exactly right.” And I thought to myself, This is why I do youth ministry.
Subversive Blogger Awards, round two
It’s time for round two of the Subversive Blogger Awards.
American author Henry Miller (1891-1980) once said, “The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”
Subversive bloggers are unsatisfied with the status quo, whether in church, politics, economics or any other power-laden institution, and they are searching for (and blogging about) what is new (or a “return to”) – even though it may be labeled as sacrilege, dangerous, or subversive.
For round two of the Subversive Blogger Awards, I am tagging the following five blogs/bloggers:
1. Sarcastic Lutheran by Nadia Bolz-Weber (e.g., Why she isn’t that kind of Christian)
2. The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus by Jon Birch (e.g., Hamster Wheel Church)
3. Missio Dei by Jonathan Brink (e.g., Top 50 Possible Reasons Why You’re Not Emergent)
4. Nate Ritter (e.g., Ideas that Change the World via Twitter)
5. novus•lumen by Jeremy Bouma (e.g., The Good of Affluence: A Critique and Evaluation of Capitalism)
The rules of participation are pretty straightforward:
1. If you are tagged, write a post with links to five subversive blogs.
2. Link back to this post on JakeBouma.com so people can easily find the origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the “Subversive Blogger Award” somewhere on your blog (images below) with a link to the post that you wrote.
That’s all there is to it. Keep in mind that this award is meant as an encouragement to bloggers to keep doing what they’re already doing – being subversive (however you interpret it). May we never forget that Jesus (and His message) was the original and ultimate subversive.
Here are the images you can use for your blog, courtesy of Josh Brown and Red Cowboy Designs. All I ask is that you download them and upload them to your own server.
Blog on.
UPDATE: Nate Ritter has graciously designed an additional badge for the award which you can find below. Feel free to use it in addition to or on place of the original badges.
- I added a kickass new podcast to my list last week: Watching Theology (link opens in iTunes). The podcast explores “the theological, philosophical, and thematic content of a single film.” The episode I listened to was on Casino Royale (2006), and it was fantastic. Related: Pat Loughery’s podcast list. 04/13/2008
- This quote is pertinent to the topic we discussed at youth group tonight: “Who is the focus of the Church? Who is the person we are concerned about? The person we exist to serve? For Jesus there was no question. In the Kingdom, the humble are lifted high and the most vulnerable have pride of place. That is why you cannot ask Jesus into your heart alone. He will ask, ‘Can I bring my friends?’” From With God in the Crucible by Peter Storey. [via] 04/13/2008
Shift conference: Complexity and simplicity
Brian McLaren, originally uploaded by jakebouma on flickr.
It’s day two of the Shift conference at Willow Creek in Chicago, and it’s been going pretty well. Yesterday there were three main sessions, with Brian McLaren, Mark Yaconelli, and Shane Claiborne, and they were all great. At points throughout the sessions, I laughed, cried, and gained some insight and wisdom.
I’ve decided to not post any of my notes from the past day and a half, because much of what I’ve been mulling over boils down to the question of the seemingly simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the gospel and its implications. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, keep reading. This morning at Brian McLaren’s Onramp to Postmodernism discussion, there was a Q&A session in which I decided to go up and ask for his insight into the matter. I really liked his response, and I recorded both the question and his answer for your listening pleasure.
Click here for the mp3 of my question and Brian McLaren’s answer (03:58, 3.7mb)
I looked up the quote he’s referring to (read: “Googled”), and it comes from former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Do you know what he’s saying? Do you understand how awesome that is? I totally dig that.
Anyways, there are several people blogging and Twittering from the conference; Gavin has a roundup (actually, I met the guy thanks to Twitter). I started using hashtags to track tweets from the conference, so check the hashtag page for #shift08 to see all of the various comments and perspectives, and be sure to keep up with my Twitter feed as well.
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