The Pulpiteer

At my new appointment in Carson City I find myself in a small town that has seen a tremendous share of tragedy in the past 6 months. There have been three deaths of students in the community since the spring, and two deaths of people in their early 30′s in the past couple of weeks.

Tragedy hits not only here, but around the world. There are bad things that happen. There are unfair things that happen. Christians have traditionally had a couple of different ways to address these in terms of faith and God. One way of looking at them is that God is the cause of everything that happens and that nothing happens outside of the will of God. God in some way is the cause behind the tragedy and death. Furthermore, this stream of thought states, we all in some way deserve it because we are sinners who have broken God’s law. So we need to learn from these tragedies because God is teaching us something. There is some reason for the death of a 12 year old that somehow serves God’s purpose. And, even though we don’t see it now, someday we’ll understand how a child dying or a father leaving behind children serves God’s grand plan and brings God glory.

I very strongly disagree with this understanding of God. Continue Reading »

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Alright, so I guess a few people may read this blog now, so I am going to try to do a better job posting. I have some theological thoughts I’ll put up soon, but before that I had to write about something even more serious. Elijah and I have had some pretty good playtime lately. He’s getting closer to 2 and developing a personality right along and it’s been pretty fun. This week we’ve spent some time on his new bed, which he’ll have to move to eventually when the baby gets here. We’ve played by building pillow forts and hiding from mom under covers and things like that. We’ve also discovered that there is a dragon cave at the head of the bed between two pillows, and in the cave is a dragon named Albi – just like the “Flight of the Conchords” song below. The major difference is our Albi is not racist, well… not anymore. Oh, and also Albi is really a green stuffed giraffe, but who’s keeping track.

What usually happens is I build the dragon cave and stick Albi inside and ask where he is. Elijah quickly finds him, throws him out, and then destroys all that I have built. Sometimes I’ll yell, “oh no Albi!” and today Elijah yelled out “Albi” too. Anne heard him in the other room and it was funny since she didn’t want the giraffe to be named Albi the dragon. Then, when mommy came in to check in on us Elijah started headbutting the headboard because Daddy laughed when he did it. Mommy became concerned.

It was good fun. Here is the video for the Albi song below.

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