A Look at the Year Ahead

I started this blog a couple of years ago, only posting on Fridays and only posting on spiritual/Christian/faith matters. I've obviously expanded on that over the last year or so and will continue to do so, but in the next little bit, I want to think aloud about some questions of faith that have been nagging at the back of my mind over the last little bit, and I will do so over the next little while.

For instance:

• Is it possible to be an adherent to another religion (or no religion) and to consciously or unconsciously be a follower of Christ?
• Is the Bible a book of commands that have to be followed to the letter or is it a story with commands for a specific time and place that we need to be a part of and how do we do that?
• If we are enjoined to "Love the sinner, hate the sin," what about God? Is He exempt from that, i.e. Hell?
• What if Christians were to take a non-consumerist vow or a shopping sabbatical, similar to what a group did in San Francisco?
• What are the pros and cons of a congregation of 1,000, or 5,000, or 20,000? What are the pros and cons of a congregation of 50, or 20, or 10?
• The church of Christ started out as a pacifist, non-violent movement dedicated to the idea of "Christians only, not the only Christians." Is that call still a valid one or has it gotten lost?
  

Any way, those are some of the thoughts rattling around that I'm planning on dealing with in the next little bit so stay tuned for those.

Two last notes.

1. Over the last couple of months, Lee Camp has been teaching a class on the Sermon on the Mount at Otter Creek Church of Christ. We recorded it, and now Lee has given his permission for it to go out beyond the confines of the congregation. You can find it at http://theclass.podomatic.com It's extremely interesting and very challenging in many, many ways. Ones I found of particular interest was the one right after the big controversy with the Tennessean article (which you can listen to here) and the last one in the series where he talks about David Lipscomb and the Kingdom of God. Incredibly interesting.
2. Also, I had someone ask me to do deep geeking on the Heroes previews that I posted yesterday. So I did. Scroll down past the videos to see it. Enjoy or ignore.

Have a great weekend.