Iran is messing with the Bahai

Okay, now I've checked my news for the week.I'm off for the weekend. I've memorized the Present Indicative forms of the word Pau (stop) in Greek, and I'm going to see Syriana tonight at the new cinema here in town. Not a bad day.
Peace,
Chris

Ancient scroll found "oldest book"

It is commentaries on a poem about Orphius, a Gnostic-ish god. The text might shed light on the origins of monothiesm...
Peace,
Chris

The Gym has been hijacked

Now I have yet another good reason to stay away from the Gym, it's not just filled with narsasists, but also suicide bombers.
Peace,
Chris

Days in the Cold chapter 7 is up over at Universal Bones

I also added chapters 6 and 7 to the links section, so late comers can read the book up to that point in the proper order. The book is 9,749 words long so far. That's about 24 book pages.
Peace,
Chris

Homosexuality

This is not an easy topic to discuss. My church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, is split on the issue (but not as badly as the Episcopalians who are getting all schismatic over the issue). It is an issue I would rather have my own personal views about and not be bothered about it. Then I posted Harry Reid’s statement about Gay Marriage. Judah has asked me to make a statement on homosexuality. He has asked me to lay down my cards and show if I’ve got a full house or I’m just bluffing. Thanks for keeping me honest dude!
I do not believe God will condemn practicing homosexuals, or people with homosexual inclinations, to hell.
In general I believe this because I don’t think what the Bible talks about is the same thing as a loving monogamous homosexual relationship. Those who surrounded God’s people in the Old Testament tended to employ sex as a part of worship of fertility gods and goddesses, so that type of sex was idolatry. Paul was surrounded by a Grecco/Roman culture, and…considering that the first phrase I learned in my current study of ancient Greek was "Kalos o pais esti" (beautiful is the boy), which is a phrase that is found on hundreds of pots given to Greek boys by their adult lovers, it is safe to say he was surrounded by a very specific type of homosexuality, Pedophilia. What I am saying is that the sexual acts God condemns are not the current sexual acts (or state of being for that matter) of homosexuals.
Let’s look at this is more detail. In every case in which the Bible seems to condemn homosexuality it is never the case. Let us walk through the verses.

• Genesis 19, Sodom. Raping angels is a no no (as is being raped by Angels, see Genesis 6 and my comments on Leviticus), further if one is to follow this story for its morals then one needs to offer their children up to be raped (same with Judges 19).
• Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 both deal with ritual purity, as does most of the book. Ritual purity tends to involve contact between holy and mortal (hence a Levite gets zapped for touching the Arc, and also why early Judaism viewed Genesis 6, the coupling of the "sons of God and the daughters of men" as "the fall" not Genesis 4) and powers of life and death such as semen and menstrual blood. Other examples of abominations include women wearing trousers and the eating of shrimp, buzzards, and "crawling things." What is especially troubling about these verses is Leviticus 20:13, which calls for killing of him who "lies with a male as with a woman."
• Romans 1: 26-27. Let’s look at what Paul was condemning, Bacchanalia or some such sexual-religious ritual. Read in context Paul is talking about worship. These, I presume former, Christians have switched from worshiping God to worshiping in a Pagan temple. They are punished for this in mid-Bacchanal, by having sex with people that they would not normally have sex with. In other words heterosexual ex-Christians go against their sexual orientation while blissed out on drugs, booze, fasting, and pagan ritual and have sex with people of the same sex.
• Corinthians 6:9 and 1st Timothy 1:10. If Paul wanted to refer to homosexuals in these verses he would have referred talked about "Paiderasste" but he didn’t he made up his own word "Arsenokoita," or literally manbed. To figure out what a manbed is it is best to look at 1st Timothy, since the manbed is put into a list with several other types of people, "immoral people" and "kidnapers." So what do "immoral people, manbeds, and kidnapers" have in common? Well, immoral people could perhaps be better-translated "male prostitutes" (the Septuagint uses this Greek word for male prostitutes). So Paul seems to be condemning male prostitutes, johns, and pimps.

Now, I have to say in all honesty I don’t know if Paul or Jesus (who I must mention says nothing about homosexuality) would condemn modern homosexuality. If Jesus or Paul were to be taken to the LGBTQ meeting at the University of Oregon, I have a feeling they may not react extremely well to the surroundings. After all they were both Jews from a very specific time and space, and though Jesus was and is God, he "emptied himself," (Philippians 2:7) and was in fact a Jewish dude in a specific time and place. Frankly, I believe if a pre-resurrection Jesus showed up in church and saw us worshiping him as YHVH he’d take offense (the resurrected Jesus on the other hand, is cool with it).
I must also admit my attitude toward homosexuals is shaped by my experiences as well as by scripture. After the Matthew Shephard murder I was introduced to one of his gay friends, the brother of a councilor at University of Wyoming High School Summer Institute. He was both Gay and a good Lutheran man. When I went to University of Oregon I met a plethora of homosexual people, many of them stereotypically flamboyant, some not. Two of them stick out in my mind. One was a guy in a creative writing class I was in, he was a bit pretentious, but no more an abomination than Leviticus’ "rock badger." The other was a lady about my mother’s age, who I had many a religious studies classes with. She had a loving partner and was a Calvinist, but was alienated from both her family and her church because of her sexual orientation. She believed, and I assume still believes, quite strongly in God. To her in Christ there is "no male or female," means God accepts her too.
All this said, I will admit in humbleness, that I could be wrong. Judah could be right; my understanding of homosexuality could simply be "the modern human view" instead of God’s. After all homosexuals who have sex outside of marriage do have sex outside of marriage. Perhaps, with me the Word of God has landed amongst the thorns of this world. I do not believe so, but it is possible.
Peace,
Chris

(for more information on this subject check out these web sites Religious Tolerance.org and bible.org)

re: Gay Marriage

I've finished Chapter Five of "Days in the Cold"

I've finished chapter 5 of "Days in the Cold" and I've also gotten pretty far in "Gnosis," I've finished chapter one and it is already around 5,000 words longer than "Days in the Cold."
Peace,
Chris

Check out the current Ozy and Millie story

The question is asked why do nerds love muscle-bound super heros that have more in common with a Jock than with a nerd?
Peace,
Chris

Goooaaalll

This article is about an interfaith football match. Perhaps a more spiritual take on the game than the red crosses on white flags I'm seeing throughout England?
Also I found out that The Lutheran has a blog.
Peace,
Chris

The Iran story wasn't true

Sorry that I linked to that.
Peace,
Chris

Okay... now Iran frightens me

Human evolution explained

A funny site. Check it out.
Peace,
Chris

The May Epistle of Chris Halverson

Greetings all. May has been a slow month here in Uttlesford county, where all the men drink tea, the women are English, and the dogs outnumber the humans at an obscene ratio. Of course after such an eventful previous month anything short of the Second Coming or finding true love would be under-whelming.

The most exciting news this month is that the sun, after a pro-longed absence, has returned. That said, as I sit here writing this while eating brunch at Costas (think Starbucks, except British), holding a large white Amercano, served in a cup the size of my head, in one hand and putting pencil to paper with my other hand, it is grey outside and rains on and off. Each time the sky turns on the spigot the ever proper British, nearly in unison, pull out their umbrellas from some hidden marsupial-like pouch (people watching in a foreign country often becomes culture watching). This human adaptation to its environment does not take me totally off guard; after all I’ve lived in Oregon where natives all have webbed feet.

With the coming of spring has come a change of wardrobe. Not only have we St. Mark’s volunteers began wearing T-shirts, but we’ve been so bold as to put on shorts and sandals as well (unfortunately the unpredictable Essex weather tends to force the shoes back on our feet rather quickly). I’ve imported the Left-coast sport of "Hacky-sac" and Yan, with his long Slovakian legs, has caught on quick. The local sports season is starting up too. We’ve already squished the grass down in the backfield to create a Cricket pitch and you can not miss the fact that the World Cup is on. English flags (not the Union Jack, but the English flag, white with a red cross) are everywhere. One almost wonders if a crusade is going on with so many crosses flying. Along with the joys the nicer weather has brought us, new chores have come as well, (isn’t that what Spiderman’s marvelous sage uncle, Ben, once said, "With great power comes great responsibility.") namely cutting grass. This is done on a weekly, or even bi-weekly basis. Last week I, yes I alone, like Hercules amongst the Aegeans, mowed the entire college grounds in a single day. It was a task I fear I shall have to repeat like Sisyphus, and shoulder like Atlas is said to shoulder the world (by the way if you read a lot of Tolkien and Lewis, the big two of British Christianty’s Literary canon you run across a lot of ancient myths…)

Another kind of mowing has been triggered by the coming sun. Yan and I, with hair as long and unkempt as Samson, have bowed to the blade and shorn one another’s manes. Or, to paraphrase Eric’s words in last month’s newsletter, after Yan and the clipper got through with me I once again, "look like a harbor seal."

This month I’ve had two visitors, both whom you may remember from my December Newsletter, Kate, a fellow YAGM volunteer, and Luke, a Lutheran violin maker who has came here to better the skills of his trade, both from London. I treated them to all the area had to offer, Archery, trampoline, a United Reformed Church service, and a good rummaging through of the book sections in Saffron Walden’s charity shops. Kate left 12 books richer, her booty including the entire Lord of the Ring’s trilogy and The Hobbit for a mere 5 quid! Bowing to peer pressure I bought a book myself, Tolkien’s history of Middle Earth, The Silmarillion.

Later on Sunday my guests joined St. Mark’s RYPpers for a worship service led by yours truly. Because of a projector malfunction, and my own luddite tendencies, the power point presentation that went along with my sermon on Jonah didn’t work. On top of that my sermon notes were on the computer, which decided to be temperamental. So it was truly Chris Halverson: Live and Unplugged. The poor RYPpers, St. Mark’s staff, and my Lutheran-American compatriots were subjected to 40 minutes of quips, melodrama, musings, and corny references to Monty Python. In the end, I think the RYPpers came away with a few good points from the book of Jonah; God is in control, God loves folk we might not think He loves, and the worm that ate Jonah’s favorite plant sounds suspiciously like the Knights who say Ni from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

We St. Mark’s volunteers have reached a strange point in our year. We’ve got our plans ready for returning to our respective countries worked out; our work here has become, while still challenging at times, routine and old hat. It is like, as Vik said to me recently, "When October rolls around, you’ve bought everyone’s presents, you’ve made plans for Christmas and New Years, yet you still have two months until Christmas comes. Your ready for it, but it isn’t ready for you." I thought of mentioning that my own Christmas shopping tends to be of a more slapdash mid-December variety, but none the less I think he was expressing a feeling that we all are kind of feeling.

I thought of our current situation in more theological terms (after all I can be quite theological at times). It’s like we are living in the "already-not-yet." Christ has already conquered Sin, Death, and the Devil, yet here we are living in a world filled with Sin, Death, and the Devil. Likewise, we have already lived into our time here at St. Mark’s and got our heads around moving on, yet here we are at St. Mark’s. Yet, we also think forward, realizing that when we actually leave this place the present reality and now-ness of it will come as a complete surprise and shock to our system in the same way the actuality of people saying "Merry Christmas" sneaks up on us "like a thief in the night."

How to conclude this caffeine fueled epistle? I suppose in the same way I have closed each letter I have written so far, with a story or poem.

Already Not Yet

"They say the sunrise from here is the most beautiful in the world," said Drake.

He said such a thing into a fog bank. Into clouds and sheets of rain. The three of them had been camped on the ledge for three days. Nothing but darkness, nothing but rain. Steven’s lungs had filled with sputum and phlegm, his wife, Mary, was begging Drake to abandon his quest to see the beauty that was all around them, yet invisible through the rough and deadly elements.

"If not for me, for Steve," she pleaded.

"Just wait for it. Please," he replied. His own worry for Steven was great, but his yearning for what he knew to be around him was greater still. He also was convinced that the mere beauty of the rising sun would warm his friend’s lungs and bring him to new health.

"One day," she said, "then we are going, whether the sun comes out or not.

"Fair enough," said Drake, clinging to the rock on which the camp was based.

PS I thought I’d give you all a heads up. I will be flying into Oregon on the 2^nd of August and will be giving a presentation about my time as a Lutheran Missionary in England at Centeral Lutheran Church in Eugene Oregon sometime between the third and 10^th and will be doing a similar presentation at Christ Lutheran Church in Cheyenne Wyoming between the 13^th and 17^th. Hope to see many of you there!

Peace,

Chris

A little more up at Universalbones

It's interesting, I've started writing another novel that I've been planning for a while (think tolkien's "subcreation") and its almost as long as all of "Days in the Cold" already and I've only been doing the actual writing on it for two weeks now.
Not much else to report. Mom and dad are still doing well in Alaska, they went bike riding and saw a moose recently.
I finished Jim Wallis' "God's Politics" not a bad book, though I don't think he really answered "Why the American Right gets it wrong and the left doesn't get it" he gives lots and lots of examples of folks getting it wrong or not getting it, but all he can say as to the why is that the Right is full of bad theology and secular fundementalists on the left dislike theology.
Wallis' view of a godly centerism would be pro-peace, anti-abortion, pro-family, anti-tax cuts for the rich, and pro-third world debt relief. Also it would be for implimenting policies instead of getting elected. The parts of his book I liked best was his concrete examples, witnesses you could call them, of Godly people who put their faith into action. Examples included Desmond Tutu, the 6 point solution for the Iraq conflict people, all those who contributed to the 2000 Jubilee year, and future Labor Party leader Gordon Brown.
Another shining part of this book is the chapter entitled "Dangerous Religion" in which Wallis picks apart Bush's religious rhetoric. He of course hits on the words "evildoers", "mission" "calling" and so on, but he also contextualizes this into a bigger picture, that Bush sees America as a proxy for God! In a 9-11 comemerative speech Bush showed this in the most blatent way, he refered to America as "a light shining in the darkness, yet the darkness will not overcome it." I felt quite insensed by this one and have to say to the Presient. Sorry, as for me and mine we worship the Lord, and that's Jesus, not the home of the free and the brave, the land of military might and high ideals, but a lowly carpenter's son born in the corner of the Roman Empire, a preacher of love and compassion, justice and humility, killed by his own people and by Rome, raised by God.
Peace,
Chris

Chris Halverson Unplugged

Had a bit of a scare during my RYPpers (Rural Youth Project) worship service. I have this whole "Jonah" sermon/power point presentation that I intened to give to them. Then the projector and computer broke. I had no notes, no cute slides of whales, nothing. Still I was able to preach for 40 minutes using only brains, bible, heart, and Holy Spirit. Among other things I've found my quirky sense of humor comes out a lot more when there are no notes (I referenced Monty Python probably 7 times... apparently the worm that eats Jonah's plant goes "Neep, neep")
Peace,
Chris