Day: November 5, 2009

Prayers for Ft Hood

A terrible act of brutality has played out this afternoon, where at least one (possibly up to three) Army personnel shot and killed several people – the current count is 12 dead and 31 wounded. So far we only know that (one of?) the shooter is dead, an Army psychiatrist Maj. Nadal Malik Hasan, and there are two other suspects in custody.

In the meantime, please pray for those injured today, and the families of all those wounded and killed. There’s plenty of political fallout that will come from this, and they’ll be caught up in it – pray that God grants them peace in this time of trial, and that he can use this to direct them back to Him.

Edit 8:20 PST: It was just Hasan, apparently, and he was only injured. He is still alive and is in custody. He apparently also has been doing some website posting praising and admiring suicide bombers. A coworker of his at Ft. Hood described him as making comments about the US “shouldn’t be over there,” and saying that “the Muslims should stand up and fight the Americans.” He apparently also refused to be photographed with women, so perhaps there is a little irony in that the police officer who shot him to end his rampage, and was wounded in the process, was a woman.

Culture Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope

Over at Boar’s Head Tavern there’s been a discussion going on about cultural “wars” between Christians and, well, everyone else. How far should Christians go in confronting the culture at large? Should churches be involved formally in politics, social agendas, or lobbying? Should a pastor use his pulpit to preach only Jesus – or should he also preach what Jesus might do in today’s political climate? The question may seem simple, but the ramifications are not – and looking at history’s various churches and their failed attempts at striking the right balance only makes us wonder that much more. Where is the dividing line between too much and not enough? Where should the people be involved, where the organization should not?

The first question then is “what purpose does the church, as an institution, serve?” If we understand what churches actually supposed to do, we can understand better how to go about doing it. In the times of Acts, there was no clear distinction between the Church as a body of believers and the church as a formal organization. We do see that the Christians met together regularly, and from what I can tell in Scripture, the gatherings served four major purposes. I draw these primarily from the specific examples of the early church in Acts, and I think a good summation can be found in the post-Pentacost gathering described in Acts 2:42 – “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Continue reading Culture Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope