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humblemumble7
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Name: harlan
Gender: Male
Interests: Current events, cartography, BoSox, good coffee, free WiFi, fried cakes, 24, church & culture.
Expertise: Thinking I am a woodworker/carpenter
Industry: Mouths
Message: message me
Member Since:
6/10/2006
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| I rode the T (subway) into town today to have lunch with a friend. It struck me as strange how everyone is kind of in their own zone when riding the T. No one really makes eye contact; everyone just minding their newspaper, book or iPod. At least when taking the T in the afternoon at non-peak hours... I find it kind of relaxing. It gave me time to enjoy my medium coffee and mull over some plans I have for helping out at Winter Teen Conference '07.
Ah, to be still.
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| Merry Christmas.
Joy to the World! Because it is the time of our Saviour's birth. Peace to all.
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| Listening to the new Sufjan Stevens Christmas album. Banjos. Yes... it is traditional and non-trad. Christmas music with banjo. Refreshing.
Sufjan Stevens is an indie folk artist. Spectacular song writing and arrangements. An album (and his other work) to look into if you are sick and tired of the usual CCM out there.
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| [more thought on Cities of God.]
Stark also points out how greek (Hellenic) culture was so crucial in the growth of early Christianity. Of course, Christian scripture was initially written in Greek. ... Paul himself was a Hellenistic Jew... growing in an environment in which Greek was the everyday language. An interesting aspect of Hellenic culture which may have eased the growth of Christianity is polytheism! Stark maintains that people were accomodating to new gods (and why many religions from the East fared well in Hellenic cities) and thus Christianity "did well." Also, incarnational theology (mimics some Greek/Eastern "gods") allowed Christianity to be appealing in the Hellenic cities as well. Wow. And still God above culture. | | |
| I've been reading a book by the author Starks called Cities of God. He's a sociologist (from Baylor) who uses his semi-quantitative methods to test some hypothesis on the early church. The book is filled with an immense amount of material on the early church's context. I didn't pause to think, until reading the 1st chapter, how significangt urban areas were in the spread of early Christianity. In fact, the word "pagan" means something like country-bumpkin... in the sense that middle/upper-middle urbanites were probably the first to convert to Christianity. Interesting how that Jesus' message is seemingly offering much to the slaves and oppressed... and yet these groups were not necesarily the largest make-up, by any means, of the first Christians. | | |
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