A conversation between Dwight and me

Dwight: I don't know if it weren't for tradition if I'd ever come up with the idea of sacraments
David: sacraments
Dwight: a formal religious act conferrring a specific grace on those who receive it
no
David: that seems reasonable
Dwight: I think baptism would be around
lords supper?
not so sure
I'm not anti-eucharist, but... it seems that tradition is where you begin arguing from
Jesus said do this in rememberance of me
sure
but making that "confer grace"?
David: well, both baptism and lords supper were things we were directly instructed to participate in
Dwight: and discipling all nations
and confessing our faith
are those sacraments?
confessing and baptism seem to be on the same level at least
David: oh yeah, that whole go forth and make disciples
hmmm
Dwight: which is better translated "as you go"
rather than "go forth"
"as you go, disciple all nations"
(the go is not imperative)
David: hmmm
are any of these things necessary for recieving grace though?
Dwight: I think there are 2 kinds of people in the world... those that have been forgiven and those who know they have been forgiven
David: those who accept forgiveness?
and those who don't?
Dwight: I think that Jesus died and rose and all sin was dealt with then
some people know it
some don't
some hear about it and reject it
but then they just flow into the don't know it
David: you speak of know then in an experiencial sense?
Dwight: or something
?
know it as in have heard the gospel and believe
I'm not a decision theologist
David: I think we're talking about the same two types of people
Dwight: those who accept forgiveness=?
and those who don't=??
I'm saying those who don't reject what they have heard and everyone else
David: Ah
I see the distinction
in the end though, ignorance is no excuse
Dwight: yeah, I'm not sure about the end
I think some people say "ignorance is no excuse" to comfort themselves that they never proclaim the gospel
David: this is also true
I'm willing to operate under your distinction
Dwight: so then proclaiming and baptism seem to be obviously from scripture "sacraments"
except some people add "visible element" so proclaiming is out
David: explain again. what is a sacrament?
Dwight: Eucharist has a visible element, but what conclusively says "this confers grace"?
a formal religious act conferring a specific grace on those who receive it
is from dictionary.com
David: what does it mean to "confer grace"? does that equate with salvation?
Dwight: I dunno
In most other Western Christian churches, the two rites, Baptism and the Eucharist, that were instituted by Jesus to confer sanctifying grace.
(another b) definition
)
sanctifying grace
so not salvific?
David: the necessity of such things would seem to go against the whole, grace through faith alone thing
Dwight: right...
although I'm not too worried about bare necessity...
David: I don't think one would be damned if one's circumstances prohibited partaking of the eucharist or baptism
Dwight: yeah...
David: I'm not sure circumstance could prohibit proclaiming the gospel, unless one maybe lost one's tongue or something, but even then ones presence itself would bear witness (i.e. as one persecuted for the sake of the gospel)
and there are other ways beyond speaking
the definition did say "specific grace", so maybe there's something else
that its refering to
Dwight: yeah, salvific vs sanctifying?
or something
David: salvific being the "you're not going to hell" bit, and sanctifying being the "making you clean" bit?
Dwight: yeah
but that is from a dictionary, not form the bible
David: so are the sacraments necessary for a man to be purified?
Dwight: I dunno?
David: Job was a righteous man, and he did not have the sacraments
Dwight: but is righteous the same as sanctified
David: maybe righteousness is the end of sanctification?
Dwight: not justification?
David: so righteousness and purity would be different things. righteousness being the end of justification and purity being the end of sanctification
salvation is that by which a man is justified, thus making him righteous.
Dwight: was job justified?
David: "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
but then in what sense was he "righteous"
Dwight: faith?
David: like Abraham?
Dwight: sure
Abraham was definately not works righteous
why would job be?
David: and we say that Job wasn't either?
Dwight: you did
"all have sinned"
David: that would, by necessity, include Job, correct?
Dwight: pretty sure
David: then why is it problematic that God allows all those bad things to happen to him?
Dwight: is it?
wait?
would it be a problem if he was righteous and bad things happened to him?
because I think he was faith righteous
was
was
(not focusing on the past tense, but on the being)
David: I don't find it problematic. frustrating, maybe. sad, and unfortunate, but I don't think theologically problematic

Article I wrote for the Collegian (school publication)

"Christmas Shopping, Crucifixion, and God in a Meatsuit"

Last year my brother and I made a travesty of Christmas shopping. We hadn’t planned it that way, but it just sort of happened. We headed out in our ponderous tank of a van, and we both wanted Relient K’s new album “Mmhmm,” so we went to Best Buy and David bought it for me. “My gift to you,” he explained, “is that you can just give me this and not have to shop for me this year.” We got our mom—together—a board game that we both would enjoy, and by the time we got our friend Jason the Cliff’s Notes to John Gardner’s Grendel, wishing him a “very postmodern Christmas”, there was no going back.
Incidentally, my mom had already gotten us the Relient K album.
But Christmas gift-giving has always been kind of weird for me, and not just deliberately like last year. If you’re more distantly related to me than “grandparent,” I’m not likely to have the means to get you a gift, and it’s always been like that. I remember in sixth grade there was a “Santa’s Workshop” where we kids could purchase gifts, and my mom gave me $10 for it. It didn’t go very far.
Every year my parents gave me a handful of cash to buy presents for them. I’d get them some useless thing like a tiny pewter dragon or Beanie Baby—I don’t know what I was thinking with that, my dad is not a Beanie Baby person, but the darn things were in vogue and I needed to get him something—that they’d never get themselves. It was like they were getting their own Christmas gifts through some impoverished extraneous middleman, but I’d do it anyway, because that’s how you tell people you love them at Christmastime. I don’t really speak this gift-giving language, but I try anyway, like a foreign exchange student or something. Every year I basically study abroad in the mall, trying to find a gift that says “I loves to you.”
But I really do like the season, even though I don’t speak Consumerism. I like the time off from school. I like just being around my family, sitting on the sofa playing video games or scrawling up the rules for some crazy card game while my mom is reading for fun. I like the lights. I like the Christmas songs.
So I guess Christmas for me has never really been about the gifts. No, wait, actually it has.
See, Christmas for me is about the birth of Jesus Christ: when God gave the gift of Himself to us. God is omnipresent, so it’s not like He’s never around or anything, but at Christmas, I feel His presence in a special way—His Christmas presence. Sorry, couldn’t resist. But sometimes I forget, and the season is God’s reminder for me of when He put on a meatsuit, just like all us humans wear when we’re not wearing anything else. He sent Himself to Earth to let us know what He’s all about.
But this means more to me than just God identifying with humanity, expressing Himself in a way we can understand. Jesus came with a purpose in mind; He wasn’t born merely for the sake of being born.
You’ve got to know a little background to grasp this. At the time of Jesus’ birth, mankind was in dire straits. Ever since God had brought all of Creation into existence and granted man the gift of life, man had been selfishly trampling his fellow man to fulfill his own desires without a thought to even thank his Creator for giving him life.
By all rights God should have killed us for the mess we made of His Creation. Imagine if you were making a painting and you let it paint part of itself, but instead it went out drinking and got beer stains all over the canvas. You’d be perfectly justified in throwing out the painting, and it would be a fair punishment. That’s man’s situation when Jesus was born: guilty of offense against his Artist.
Jesus came on the scene with a purpose: his birth was God’s plan to pay the price for our offense. He arrived on Earth to serve our death sentence on a Roman cross. He was crucified, rose again on the third day, and offers eternal life—freedom from the death penalty that we all deserve—to anyone who will trust Him to give it.
That’s the gift that Christmas is all about to me: eternal life. You don’t earn your way into heaven with good deeds. Fact is, we’re all on the naughty list, and God isn’t going to sacrifice His justice to cross us off for free. Instead, He sacrificed Himself and crossed us off literally (can you tell I like puns?).
The gift’s yours for the opening. Do you want to live your life no longer as a criminal convicted of marring yourself, God’s artistry? Do you want to get free of performance requirements, free to do good things not out of some desperate need to do good, but just because you want to? If you trust Jesus to give you eternal life and free you from your past mistakes, He’ll deliver.
And just to bring it full circle, if you do your good deeds to show God your appreciation for His gift, you’re just giving God back the free will that He gave you—pretty much the same as when I use my parents’ money to buy them matching Christmas mugs.

Last night I finally figured out how to do the Charleston.

good news! the raging-ache sore on my lower lip has all but healed. it hurts me no longer. woot.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Does Coach Z have a "blorg?"

Last week I bit my lip. It opened a tiny gash on the inside of my lip, and it hurts whenever something touches it. It's right up against my teeth, so something touches it almost nostop. It's my raging ache. It hurts, and I hate it. I feel so sad.
Someone just threw up out in the hall.

Sonnet by David Ferrell

As desert heats scorch flesh and parch the tongue
And Heaven’s fiery wrath burns all but sand,
Beneath the gaze of which all lives among
The waste are turned to dust, we see a man

Who stands beneath the sun. They call him mad
And draw their life from mud and lie in shade.
“Don’t call down Heaven’s Wrath upon your head,”
They say. “All that you do shall be repaid.”

Indeed, yet still the man endures the strife
Of Heaven’s gaze that burns down from the sky.
For He knows Heaven’s tears gave mud its life
And in both shade and sun all men will die.

Those tears will come, when this man’s work is done
In life’s cruel desert walking towards the Son.