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Got this in an e-mail from my buddy Brack from College… He found me through the internet somehow a month ago. I’m glad he did because I was sort of an over-zealous religious ass to him in college a few times and apparently he’s forgiven me! Thanks, Brack. He’s a killer guitarist as well. But I digress...

The email was about DaVinci Code, and how it may be a threat to the church and Jesus and stuff like that...
 
Anyway, when I was thinking about this e-mail, and then thinking about recent conversations, then thinking about how cool I thought it was that my old church (which I miss and love) in Melbourne chose this book as the book for their book club, and how much flack they’ll get for it from people who never read it and don’t know anything about it, and then thinking about how crappy that is, and then thinking about how I feel about women in ministry (which has changed DRAMATICALLY in the last 5 years), then thinking about Jesus and what really matters and who I really am and who we’re really supposed to be and what we should really stand for…
 
Anyway- “stream of consciousness” Rob, that’s what they call me…
 
So I thought I’d respond and throw a few things out I hope some of you disagree with. If you’re in the area, I’d like to make the first Organic Live Bible Study on this topic… here’s the original notes I jotted down about it.

Click read more for the stuff...

I’m not so particularly against the book as most- I believe that the church can use it to her advantage as much as screwtape-
 
I’ve found some great insight in discussions about “what if Jesus WAS married and had children? That WAS the first command God gave mankind, right? “be fruitful and multiply- fill the earth and subdue it.”
 
Here’s the thing for me… It seems to me like most Christians think that if Jesus was married and had a child, it would somehow diminish his deity. I don’t get that. Orthodoxy says Jesus was fully human and fully divine. I think the church likes to forget/ignore the fully human part and infuse some sort of inhumanity to his humanity. I honestly think that it’s a heretical view of sex=flesh=sin that drives the whole thing. God made sex. And it was good. J If Jesus had sex in marriage, it wouldn’t decay his divinity, and would actually make him a better Jew!!!
 
I don’t’ see any evidence (historically) that Jesus had a child or wife. But if it DID surface somehow that he did and had to hide it to keep his family safe. It wouldn’t destroy my faith. (Same thing if it was discovered there was life on other planets, or if evolution really did happen like the scientists say it did).
 
Is anyone else concerned that the church is making God too small by making him fit in a box the size of our own understanding?
 
Here’s the real question: If Jesus was married and had a child, since the bible is incomplete (as it says it is Jn 21:25),  if we did find out that this did happen and there was somehow a way to prove it was true with a relatively high certainty, would that mess with your idea of Jesus and why??? If Jesus had sex with his wife would that seem to you to be somehow less than holy/divine? Seems like that's more cultural than biblical... which brings me to another church culture anomoly that drives me stinkin' batty:
 
The Women in Ministry thing:
 
I DO believe that the church is WRONG in it’s historical/common treatment of women- not ordaining them, making them subject to men in the church regardless of their knowledge and faith- making wives subordinate to their husbands in a way that is MORE than the husband to the wife based on the toolkit between the legs and not the toolkit between the ears. Wives submit, but husbands love as Christ loves the church- husbands have the greater call to humility and sacrifice.
 
We hear very little about the other women in the bible that were instrumental in beginning the church, and there’s some question about the validity of verses that limit a woman’s position in the church as well..
 
http://www.bibletexts.com/versecom/1co14v33.htm
http://www.bibletexts.com/terms/women01.htm
 
 
Anyone interested in these  topics- I’d love to podcast on ‘em… Particularly if you disagree with me. Get gizmo so we can do it (free software, but you need a high speed connection.) or make it to the bible study at Taco Tuesday for Organic- a safe, but controversial discussion to start things out right.
 
Taco Tuesday coming soon (name stolen from the Stupidchurchpeople.com guys)!

E-mail me or check out www.organicchurch.com for more info!