I almost always enjoy preaching. I even, in my own warped sort of way, enjoy short notice preaching and the few times I've thrown away a sermon between services I've gotten really jazzed on the impromptu replacement sermon. Maybe I'm addicted to some sort of endorphin rush or maybe I just like expounding the Scriptures. Some would probably correct me and insist that I just like the sound of my own voice.
But right now I'm feeling really uninspired about Sunday. I've had that feeling before and a little time pressure is almost always the remedy, but the experience is making me wonder just what it is that I actually like about preaching. And what is it about Sunday's lessons that leaves me feeling uninspired.
Sunday's lessons are all about how life can get you down and how we are to be "good people" in the face of what can only be described with modern grunt "meh." It's all about when bad stuff happens to good people and how to go on being good anyway. I hate moralizing. And I have heard way too many pedantic sermons on how bad life is and how we are to play nice that I could scream. There's no way I will allow myself to participate in that nonsense. I have too much pulpit integrity (or arrogance, take your pick) for that.
But there is an element in the Scriptures of "how then should we live," as Paul says. Don't assume I'm on the "free grace, no obligations or expectations" bandwagon. Grace is certainly free, but nonetheless demanding. But there is more to the Gospel than "stuff happens, now go play nice."
And I am very sure I preached a decent enough sermon on these lessons three years (or, gulp! was it six years) ago.
All this makes me wonder what it is I like about preaching. And I think the answer is that I enjoy the many facets of the biblical text, drawing them out, tuning them like a musical instrument, and making them sing for the congregation. The text preaches itself, at least most of the time. I love the feeling that I'm soaring to the heights on the back of the biblical eagle, riding along on a great swooping dance among the clouds, and taking the congregation along with me.
Oh well, if you are in Carnegie this week and find that the sermon soars to the clouds, you'll know that's not the preacher's doing... the preacher grunts along on the ground, wholly unimpressed with herself. Oh well, such an accurate self-assessment is at least a sound beginning.
29 July 2010
09 July 2010
This just in...
University of Illinois Instructor Fired Over Catholic Beliefs
Published July 09, 2010
| Associated Press
Print Email Share Comments (44) Text Size
URBANA, Ill. -- The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.
The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, has taught at the university for nine years. He says his firing violates his academic freedom.
A professor at the university who is also president of the American Association of University Professors agrees. Cary Nelson says teachers are allowed to express their own beliefs.
University spokeswoman Robin Kaler declined comment because Howell's firing is a personnel issue.
The student had a friend register his complaint and has remained anonymous.
(found at foxnews.com)
So much for freedom of speech in our public universities. I could understand this if the man were engaged in something illegal, but the University doesn't seem to understand that they are making a value judgment here. They are promoting the state religion (humanism) and drawing a clear line saying that this man's beliefs are immoral and repugnant to their humanistic religious philosophy. It is more important to them that they promote their ideals than that the basic American liberty to hold and express an opinion counter to the majority be upheld. Oh, if only this were an isolated incident.
Actually, we saw the reverse, the promotion of the closed-minded secular liberalist when little or no academic merit warranted it (or the occasional outcry when such an instructor was not given the undeserved tenure) in my undergraduate school. Granted, not all of the professors were hostile, not even most, but the ones that were seemed to trade on it. And that was fifteen years ago.
Published July 09, 2010
| Associated Press
Print Email Share Comments (44) Text Size
URBANA, Ill. -- The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church's teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.
The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, has taught at the university for nine years. He says his firing violates his academic freedom.
A professor at the university who is also president of the American Association of University Professors agrees. Cary Nelson says teachers are allowed to express their own beliefs.
University spokeswoman Robin Kaler declined comment because Howell's firing is a personnel issue.
The student had a friend register his complaint and has remained anonymous.
(found at foxnews.com)
So much for freedom of speech in our public universities. I could understand this if the man were engaged in something illegal, but the University doesn't seem to understand that they are making a value judgment here. They are promoting the state religion (humanism) and drawing a clear line saying that this man's beliefs are immoral and repugnant to their humanistic religious philosophy. It is more important to them that they promote their ideals than that the basic American liberty to hold and express an opinion counter to the majority be upheld. Oh, if only this were an isolated incident.
Actually, we saw the reverse, the promotion of the closed-minded secular liberalist when little or no academic merit warranted it (or the occasional outcry when such an instructor was not given the undeserved tenure) in my undergraduate school. Granted, not all of the professors were hostile, not even most, but the ones that were seemed to trade on it. And that was fifteen years ago.
05 July 2010
My shockingly obvious revelation of the day:
Kids aren't made to be kept.
My eldest is away at service camp, sort of a mission trip youth group trip kind of thing. I expect this to be a remarkable week for him, a chance to explore the world a little without mom looking over his shoulder. Maybe he'll learn a few practical skills. Definitely he'll have a fun time with his friends. I'm almost certain he'll grow up a bit more this week.
But I miss him. We birth (or adopt) them, we raise them, tend them, feed them, love them. Somewhere in the middle of all that, we forget that they aren't really ours.
Kids aren't made to be kept.
My eldest is away at service camp, sort of a mission trip youth group trip kind of thing. I expect this to be a remarkable week for him, a chance to explore the world a little without mom looking over his shoulder. Maybe he'll learn a few practical skills. Definitely he'll have a fun time with his friends. I'm almost certain he'll grow up a bit more this week.
But I miss him. We birth (or adopt) them, we raise them, tend them, feed them, love them. Somewhere in the middle of all that, we forget that they aren't really ours.
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