Flower Patterns

A child offers her father a flower to show her love for him, and the father punishes her for not following the pattern of showing love that he hid in a document. I forget whose illustration that is, but it's good. This one is mine: two children offer their father flowers. One gives a daisy, the other a violet, and he punishes them for disunity.

We would rightly say that such a father had serious problems, and his family was dysfunctional. Why, then, do we think God works that way? Why do we think he is looking for technicalities to keep us out of Heaven? After all, this is the God who sacrificed his beloved, one and only Son to save us.

My ear was blistered last night by a brother who told me, rather violently, by phone, that I and others with me have strayed away from the pattern of the early church--and are risking judgment--by having worship services that are not identical. When I challenged him to show me the pattern that he asserted existed in the Jerusalem church in Acts, he hung up. It made me sad for him, as he's missing the point of the story.

God wants our worship, not our obsessive-compulsive searches for hidden codes of conduct.

Virtual Theology

I've been playing with Second Life lately, trying to figure out the virtual world's potentials, seeing how closely it matches Neil Stevenson's and William Gibson's visions.

I found a Christian church, and walked up to the front door. There were people in side, or, at least, avatars. And they were in a fervent discussion. I drew near enough to be able to "hear" the discussion. It was about the necessity of baptism for salvation.

Cartesian Wells

"... and it appeared to me that, in order to ascertain the real opinions of such, I ought rather to take cognizance of what they practised than of what they said, not only because, in the corruption of our manners, there are few disposed to speak exactly as they believe, but also because very many are not aware of what it is that they really believe; for, as the act of mind by which a thing is believed is different from that by which we know that we believe it, the one act is often found without the other"

— René Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth