(no subject)
Nothing original here, just an annotated audiography. Two really good things to listen to. I know they're long, but you have mp3 players, you have ipods, you drive places, you sit at computers for hours at a time. Check them out!
MP3 Link #1: "Women, Gifts, and the Body of Christ" by Mike Cope
This guy Mike Cope preaches at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas and teaches freshman bible classes at ACU. In this sermon he gets up at a Church of Christ and explains and defends the decision of Highland's leadership to have women participate more visibly in the service, praying, reading scripture, and even (gasp!) leading communion thoughts. I'm really happy they're doing this, and he articulates really well a lot of things I feel. He argues pretty well that this is actually a *better* understanding of Scripture than that typical face-value reading of these scriptures. I'm sick of people talking as if its obvious and accepted truth that the Bible is misogynistic, and this is why.
For more on this, read NT Wright's take here.
Its a little ironic to me that the popular tactic among critics of Christianity today is to take the most face-value, simplistic, fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible as the best interpretation, and then argue with that. Anyway, check out the sermon, its good stuff.
MP3 Link #2: "One" by Don Miller
Don Miller, author of several books, including Blue Like Jazz, gave a talk (sermon?) at the Imago Dei congregation in Portland. What I like here is his discussion of what has brought him to Christianity. A lot of people take as a given that anybody interested in "evidence" has to reject Christianity, but I think this is an unsophisticated understanding of the epistemologies at play. Hopefully this can serve as an explanation of what kind of evidence leads intellectual people to Christianity, and demonstrate the way in which Christianity makes sense of the vastness of human experience.
MP3 Link #1: "Women, Gifts, and the Body of Christ" by Mike Cope
This guy Mike Cope preaches at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas and teaches freshman bible classes at ACU. In this sermon he gets up at a Church of Christ and explains and defends the decision of Highland's leadership to have women participate more visibly in the service, praying, reading scripture, and even (gasp!) leading communion thoughts. I'm really happy they're doing this, and he articulates really well a lot of things I feel. He argues pretty well that this is actually a *better* understanding of Scripture than that typical face-value reading of these scriptures. I'm sick of people talking as if its obvious and accepted truth that the Bible is misogynistic, and this is why.
For more on this, read NT Wright's take here.
Its a little ironic to me that the popular tactic among critics of Christianity today is to take the most face-value, simplistic, fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible as the best interpretation, and then argue with that. Anyway, check out the sermon, its good stuff.
MP3 Link #2: "One" by Don Miller
Don Miller, author of several books, including Blue Like Jazz, gave a talk (sermon?) at the Imago Dei congregation in Portland. What I like here is his discussion of what has brought him to Christianity. A lot of people take as a given that anybody interested in "evidence" has to reject Christianity, but I think this is an unsophisticated understanding of the epistemologies at play. Hopefully this can serve as an explanation of what kind of evidence leads intellectual people to Christianity, and demonstrate the way in which Christianity makes sense of the vastness of human experience.