Archive for 'Blog'
Orcas Watch: A healing silence
Posted on 03. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
For our 30th anniversay Patty and I received an invitation from Leonard Sweet to spend five days on Orcas Island on the Puget Sound. Across the still waters are a smattering of the San Juan islands, while Vancouver Island and snow covered peaks can be seen through a bluish mist. We saw bald eagles, a family of sea otters, a sea lion on a rocky outcropping and orcas sporting 100 yards away. But, it was not so much what we saw but what we heard that impacted us. It was the seameless, liquous sounds of silence. A recipe for the healing of the battered and badgered–the plugged-in and worn down. Kierkagaard would approve.
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Why Stories and not Sermons?
Posted on 27. Jun, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
But what if the film (or painting or novel) you are working on never mentions Jesus, or if it does, it is as an expletive? What if it does not proclaim the Gospel? What if it depicts evil straightforwardly and has barely a glimmer of hope? Why waste your time? Why not simply preach a sermon?
The disciples wondered the same thing. They got frustrated at all the confusing and oblique parables Jesus told. Like conservative Christians today, they wanted to know, why bother? So Jesus had to give them a lesson on mystery, on what to aim for if you want to impact a jaded or suspicious (i.e, a postmodern) audience. And, in doing so gave us an apologetic for art.
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Desiring the Kingdom: Humans are Lovers not Thinkers
Posted on 18. May, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Desiring the Kingdom was authored by James K. A. Smith, a philosopny professor at Calvin College and is one of the 10 most influential books I have read. It shines unrelenting light upon the deficits of the traditional perspective on Christian formation-discipleship. Its thesis can be summarized simply: Christians have been wrong for over 400 years in defining humans by placing the focus on the mind–we are thinking beings that are containers for ideas. He argues that being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head; rather, it is a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly. We are first of all lovers not thinkers. And then he gets dangerous.
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Virgin Mary: The Beauty of Surrendered Rights
Posted on 17. Apr, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
With the barest flick of the wrist the gauzy veil covering Setara’s black hair slips back as she sings in front of the panel of judges and millions of Muslim viewers. It was a defiant assertion of independence from binding, dogmatic constraints. While the rebel, Son of Liberty in me raucously celebrated, that loyalist Tory in me was dismayed and repelled. I was conflicted. As if I were in a rocking boat careening on the foaming waves of personal liberty only to slide down into the quiet troughs of dutiful submission. And, oddly enough, I thought of Virgin Mary who had to navigate a storm of her own to become the mother of God.
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A LIFE APART (Why Jewish Fundamentalism is thriving in America)
Posted on 21. Mar, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
A Life Apart is a captivating documentary on the culture war between ultra-orthodox, Jewish Hasids and America. In it there is this wonderful story that illustrates the movement’s haunting attraction. It was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year. Baal Shem Tov, its founder, was praying. He stopped abruptly and after a while the congregation grew restless. Suddenly, an illiterate young shepherd, unable to restrain himself, pulled out a flute and played a single, heartfelt note. The congregation was scandalized but, as the sound died out, the Rebbe began praying as though nothing had happened. When asked about it he said, “I sensed the gates of heaven were closed to our prayers, but that one, pure note, sounded by the shepherd boy, pierced through the heavenly gates and only then were our prayers permitted to follow.”
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Secret Handshakes
Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Secret handshakes are by definition reductionist. they are designed to help determine who can be trusted and who cannot. During wars–and codes were invented for wartime–it can be a matter of life and death. That’s why I hate secret theological code-speak. It is a ready-made, portable, litmus test which supposedly allows you to instantly (and infallibly) pigeon-hole the stranger in front of you. Rather than looking through the eyes of love we squint behind spectacles of theological precision. We narrow our gaze and hold back our affection. We restrict friendship, we weigh, sift and calculate. We exclude. The secret handshake dictates who will receive the right hand of fellowship and who will not.
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Racebased Adoption
Posted on 22. Feb, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
While I agree with the desire to increase the number of adoptions, what is distressing is the implication, in a blog I read recently, that because trans-racial adoptions may have some negatives, it would be better to let black, Christian families adopt black, orphan children. A question comes to mind, should the social sciences be allowed to dictate Christian ethics? What if anthropologists determined that Anglo missionaries have a destructive impact on primitive tribal cultures? Should that require a moratorium on white missionaries taking the Gospel to New Guinea? Obedience not race or sociology should control.
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The Pen is Mightier than the Camera
Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
As Bono remarks in commenting on Frank Sinatra’s luscious and sensual vocalizations, “It all begins with the word.” Images (and music) serve to enhance the word, they do not supplant it. Put another way, images are the hired help for words.One good image may be worth a thousand words, but one anointed word can save an eternal soul and transform an angry rebel into a saint–a white-hot lover who will worship God for ever and ever and ever.
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“Please don’t become social activists!”
Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
“Please, don’t become social activists!!”
This is not what I expected to hear from a “left-wing,” anti-capitalist who helped launch the Christian social-activist movement in the early 80’s. Ron Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, had been asked to be the devotional speaker for a conference on Faith and International Development at a local Christian College. Those opening words riveted me but settled like a foreboding fog over the mostly young and zealous audience. But it was just a warm-up for an intolerable “heresy” of scandalous proportions.
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HAITI Displaced Families Works Project
Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
I share this post with those of you who are interested in earthquake relief that builds self-worth, strengthens broken infrastructures, protects from dependency and, best of all, is amazingly simple. It was sent to me by Ted Boers, a friend who is successful businessman and has been working in Haiti for several years in land development and job creation for the poor. He is an entrepreneur and a man of intergrity and compassion. He has access to a 15 mile stretch of coastline in Northwest Haiti and is proposing a remarkably practical project to assist the families fleeing from the capitol.
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Haiti Orphan Plane Task Force
Posted on 24. Jan, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
The precedent for humanitarian emergency measures to airlift orphans and vulnerabale children was set decades ago. The only question is, do we have the will? We have been assured that we have a strong advocate in Congress. The word we were given was “don’t worry about Washington D.C. prepare the catcher’s mitt in Michigan.”
And so we shall. We are committed to rescuing no less than 10,000 orphans, in a State that has suffered the worst from our economic recession. And perhaps the weakest will lead the way. Perhaps we will help start a flotilla of planes filled with Haitian orphans who have lost everything, including arms and legs, but who will gain the protective nurture of loving families, with room in their hearts and homes for at least one more.
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Virgin Mary: The Beauty of Surrendered Rights
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"Spiritual--but NOT Religious!"
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The Glory and Scandal of Femininity
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Part One: Knowing that you are at war
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Shane: Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the heart of...
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Ron Duncan: You say that was an "aesthetic" judgement. Wouldn'...
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Tim Stoner: "Inferior" is not intended as a moral but an aesth...
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