there is a great blindness when one remakes jesus into someone who would only approve of oneself, want to spend time with oneself, or agree with oneself.
there is a great blindness when one remakes jesus into someone who would only approve of oneself, want to spend time with oneself, or agree with oneself.
hmmmmm! Kinda makes you wonder.
Marko,
Two Welsh scholars did some serious study of this and demonstrated that everyone — including non-Christians — makes Jesus into their own image. The evidence can’t be explained as Christians being more like Jesus than others. Instead, everyone makes Jesus in their own image.
Authors are Leslie J. Francis and Jeff Astley and the study was in Journ of Psych and Christianity, 16 (1997): 247-259.
This is extremely frustrating… when it’s a fundamentalist on the other side of the aisle, and just as frustrating when we do this ourselves due to our own blind spots.
Heck, here I am reading Marko’s blog because I tend to agree with him/you. I’ve tried to read some more conservative blogs, but I can’t stomach them.
Albert Sweitzer wrote on this too. See: The Quest of the Historical Jesus; A Critical Study Of Its Progress From Reimarus To Wrede, (1906), Augsburg Fortress Publishers.
great point, scot, and thanks for the comment. no question, i am guilty of remaking jesus into who i want him to be. however, i hope i am never guilty of remaking him into, as i said in the posted thought, someone who would ONLY approve of me, would ONLY want to spend time with me, or would ONLY agree with me. i desire a jesus who approves of people who are widely different than me, spends time with people who are nothing like me, and agrees with people who think differently than me.
So basically you want a Jesus that acts the way that you want Him to. Interesting!
I noticed that you failed to capitalize the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, while properly capitalizing your own name, and those of your family.
Is this a simple mistake, or is it how you feel about the Savior?
If it is a mistake, are you going to correct it?
kathy, i don’t capitalize anything on my blog. i write everything in lower case. and, i’m pretty sure about this one: JESUS CHRIST MY LORD AND SAVIOR cares substantially more about my heart and life than about whether or not i capitalize his name.
About you not capitalizing things on your blog…
I work at Youth Specialties, a wonderful group of people committed to encouraging and resourcing youth workers. I’ve been married to Jeannie for 20 years, and have two great kids: Liesl (13) and Max (9).
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Isnt some of this stuff above capitalized, or is it me?
hey, iron edge 2 — are you genuinely curious? or are you trying to “trap” me, using this issue of capitalization? given the spirit of things these days, i’m guessing the latter.
but, i’ll play along.
the portion you quote is from the blog template, not from a post. the only capitalization you will find in a post is:
a. something i’ve cut and pasted from another source (normally in a block quote), or
b. the rare instance when i write a post in word, then move it into wordpress. word auto-capitalizes, and that’s fine.
“JESUS CHRIST MY LORD AND SAVIOR cares substantially more about my heart and life than about whether or not i capitalize his name.”
Since you presume to speak for Jesus, I guess I can too: 2 Corinthians 13:5.
seriously?
people are nit-picking over capitalization?
do their insecurities run so deep as to prompt finger-pointing over triviality?
where is gratitude for open-mindedness and vulnerability?
not very Christian of them, is it?
“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you–unless indeed you fail the test?”
Ken – Sorry, I don’t work well with subtle. What is the point of this?
Iron edge2′ is 15 years old, and it’s hard to “Pull the wool down over his eyes”, even if he doesn’t know all about blogs.
But, seriously, didn’t you capitalize “only” 3 times in your comment above ( Marko 08.06.07 @ 1:25 am)?
Some of us sheep care a lot about respecting the Son Of God. I’m sure that Jesus does care about the condition of your heart, but since I’ve read the Bible, I’m also sure that He, His Father, and The Holy Ghost are to be respected. My guess is that you properly capitalize titles when expected, when dealing with your own church members. To exempt The Lord Jesus Christ from this custom seems strange, and looks to this sheep to lack proper respect.
And is this comment loving, You bet!
A Pastor of all people should know who he is dealing with: the Lord God Almighty. Maybe you should review how you are representing Him to those who visit this blog. He is the one you, and all of us, are ultimatly accountable to.
Jeff,
Was I speaking to you?
lol. this might be one of the funnest posts i’ve read yet. seriously? capitalization? are we straining out gnats and swallowing camels here?
c’mon, putting marko in context and reading his whole blog, not just the proof text, we can clearly see marko loves and worships j(J)esus with a great reverence and respect. it’s crazy this is put into question because of capitalization. but he doesnt need my defense.
is there anything else on tv?
I’m actually laughing out loud right now.
Even if it is just in a post you should still capitalize Jesus out of respect. I mean, didn’t he die for your sins?
And as to accusations of ‘nitpicking’, i would’nt care if he had not capitalized anything else. But not capitalizing Jesus sort of shows disrespect, and were talking about the guy who created the world, and evrything in it. Nothing would be here if it was’nt for him. Dont you think he’s worth pressing an extra key to capitalize his name?
I personally find it offensive when people quote the gospel and they don’t type jesus’ words in
red. Also when people seek forgiveness of sins I think out of respect sackcloth should be worn and ashes sprinkled and they should barbeque the appropiate animal. But maybe I’m just a bit old school.
marko…your two posts with the most comments in the past week are about capitilizing and wood. If memory serves me correct you received less comments on anything about Compassion, Loose Change to Loosen Chains, Ark Almighty, etc…funny what people will throw their passion into. Maybe the american church wouldn’t be dying at such an alarming rate if we actually cared about what jesus cares about. But I guess captilization is more important.
I personally find it offensive when people quote the gospel and they don’t type jesus’ words in
red. Also when people seek forgiveness of sins I think out of respect sackcloth should be worn and ashes sprinkled and then they should barbeque the appropiate animal. But maybe I’m just a bit old school.
marko…your two posts with the most comments in the past week are about capitilizing and wood. If memory serves me correct you received less comments on anything about Compassion, Loose Change to Loosen Chains, Ark Almighty, etc…funny what people will throw their passion into. Maybe the american church wouldn’t be dying at such an alarming rate if we actually cared about what jesus cares about. But I guess captilization is more important.
ken, isn’t there anything else you can pour your energy into? Or is this your schtick; to cruise the internet find things that you dissaprove of, copy and paste to your site and then stand back righteously and pronounce that you know the true jesus?
Hey Chris,
Here, let me put it in the argumentation of the emerging church for you: Have you ever personally met me? Have you read everything I have ever written. Do you personally know every one of the ministry activities I oversee.
Uh-oh, since the answer is obviously no; well then, you haven’t earned the right to criticize me. I pray this helps put you at ease. Also switching to decaf might help as well. peace.
Ken,
Like others; I haven’t heard of you until you started trolling markos blog; so no I don’t know you. I would love to get to speak with you or at the very least be allowed to comment on your blog site but you don’t allow that feature.
Thanks for the emergent church argumentation, however from what I’ve read on your site you know little of the emergent church. You appear to take snippets and sound bites and then use them to bolster your stance.
I recall reading somewhere in the bible
“But the lord said unto samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the lord looketh on the heart.”
And to your decaf comment; I don’t drink caffeinated beverages the Mormon Church doesn’t allow us too! :)
Chris,
You speculate: “you started trolling markos blog…” Wrong. Marko drew me here himself by going over to Naked Pastor’s blog where I was defending my friend Ingrid Schlueter and whining:
“having been blacklisted by slice in the past, this week slammed by ken silva and another hate-blog…”
http://nakedpastor.com/archives/1304#comment-15551
If he would have commented here I likely wouldn’t have even seen it.
just wait til we start talking about abbreviations!!
Oh. It’s On!!
lol.
Ken,
So it was the naked pastors blog you were trolling?
And yet you don’t allow anyone to comment on your blogs. Hmmmmmmm! Kinda makes you wonder.
Marko, take heart. Seems to me that people like Ken and Ingrid really don’t matter in the grand scheme of your blog or others’ (even though they really hurt sometimes). What you think, Mark, and what you’re posting obviously matters to those of us who read here. Keep it up, brother!
To Ken and Ingrid and their ilk, way to engage in love like Christ, guys. You may make a case for disciplining your Christian brother or sister, but that’s not what this is at all. You’re judging, rude, and not showing proper discernment in your words or actions. Consider yourselves chastised. I pray the Spirit puts a conviction in your hearts so that you may be reconciled to everyone you’ve hurt, especially in the last few days.
Simmer down, people! Doesn’t the Christian community have anything better to talk about than the intentions behind Marko’s Capitalization? Seriously. It’s behavior like this that pushes people away from the church…
kEN
aT LeASt YoU cAn dISAgREE WitH mARKO HERE. oN yoUR bLog YOu jUSt GeT tO SpOuT oUT AbOut YOur jUdGEmENtAL OpINIONS. lUCkiLY ouR SAVIOR HAS FoRGIveN yOU AlReADy FOr ThOsE OpINiONS
ha!
marko you’ve made it to big time. the internet version of fred phelps has picketed you!
congrats!