Over the last couple of days I’ve been sharing some quotes from Robert Farrar Capon’s Kingdom, Grace and Judgment. It is an interesting look at the parables of Jesus from an Episcopal priest. I’ll warn you that the reading isn’t always easy, but there are some real nuggets in this man’s heart.

I love it when people inside the box are thinking and, it would appear, living outside of it. Here are some of his thoughts about how religious thinking has become so embedded in Christianity that it has distorted the reality and power of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The kingdom defies every box we try to smash it into. It invites us to live in the extravagant love of God as he comes into our lives and transforms us.

That’s why it is so important to me that we learn to live in Father’s reality apart from our religious paradigms and thus experience the fullness of his mystery at work in our hearts.

Here’s more from Robert Farrar Capon’s Kingdom, Grace and Judgment. Here is some thoughts he had about the Ascension:

Isn’t that awesome? As believers, we do our most damage when we assume we’ve got it all figured out and lose the immediacy of Jesus leading us day by day in the Father’s life. The grand strategies are beyond us. God only shares with us the pieces we need to live this day in his life. And if we just keep following him with that freedom and simplicity we will, six months from now, two years from now or four decades from now, be exactly where he wants us to be doing exactly what he would have us do to most extend the reality of his life and kingdom.

It is such a freedom to not have to sort out things we were never meant to know or perhaps are even incapable of knowing. Some things Father has retained for himself, and it is simply enough for us to live in the security of his hands, instead of living in our false conclusions about the future.

Someone loaned me a copy of Robert Farrar Capon’s Kingdom, Grace and Judgment with the warning not to let anyone see me reading it because some think he is a heretic. Of course that piqued my interest right away. I don’t know about the heretic part (or at least I haven’t come to it yet) but this Episcopal priest has some interesting things to say about the parables of Jesus.

I’ll warn you, however, that this is no easy read. He’s overwhelmed with word comparisons, and makes some wild conjectures about things Jesus might have been thinking at various times, but I love some of the places where he lands on interpreting the parables of Jesus.

At the beginning he has a fascinating discussion of what he calls right-handed power, which is using the force you need to get the result you want. And yet the One who has all the right-handed power to force his way on us, has decided that relationships of love are far more valuable to him than terrified slaves. Capon writes…

He then defines left-handed power as, “power that looks for all the world like weakness.” But it is the power that Jesus vests his kingdom as the dying, rising and disappearing Messiah. And yet he warns us that we all prefer right-hand power.

The discussion fascinates me, because I think he puts his finger on something very important. The kingdom of God comes in the mystery of his power transforming lives, not in our power to compel others to act the way we want them to. Right-hand power conforms, but left-hand power transforms. I like how he plays this out in the ministry of Jesus. He was touching people at a relational level, not an I’m-God-and-I’m-here-to-make-you-do-it-my-way. The one will produce slaves or hypocrites, but not children transformed by the Father of all!

There are some other nuggets in that book I’ll let you in on as well over the next few weeks…

The deaths of Terri Shiavo and Pope John Paul II have dominated our news over the past two weeks. What are we to make of these two events as we think outside the box of organized religion?

Later this week Brad and Wayne will be taping their third edition of The God Journey and will be examining these two events and what they tell us about Christianity in the 21st century.

We have now opened up four channels for people to participate with us in the conversation, sending in their comments or questions before we begin. Our favorite is a Voice line where you can record your questions or comments for play on the webcast. To find out how you can participate with us, please see The God Journey Blog. We’d love to know what some of you are thinking about these events.

As previously announced, we released our second webcast last night at thegodjourney.com.

The Adventure of a Lifetime discusses how thinking outside the box means pushing away from the safe, but boring confines of routine, and growing in a dynamic relationship with Jesus. Brad and Wayne also discuss the gay marriage debate, triggered by a recent court decision in California that overturned California’s ban on gay marriage.

The response to our first show has been a bit overwhelming. We appreciate your feedback and your patience as we continue to grow with this medium and provide the means where others can join the conversation.

Blessings to you all!

What a fabulous time we had together for seven days in Hawaii celebrating our 30th Anniversary. Yes, we got it in a bit early because Sara will be busy with year-end school stuff when our actual date rolls around in May. Thanks for all your prayers and blessings! We had an incredible time relaxing, reading, hiking and seeing the sights on Oahu. We also met a lovely sister there whose family who felt called away from the box of organized religion a couple of years ago. If you want to see more photos you can check out our Ofoto album of the trip at here .

Sara and I leave tomorrow for a celebration of our 30th wedding anniversary. We’re doing this a bit early. Our anniversary date isn’t until May, but Sara’s schedule is really crazy then as the school year winds down. So, certain that we’re going to stay married until May, we’re taking advantage of this time to celebrate Easter for a week at an exotic locale where we can hike, snorkel, golf, read, eat and talk each other’s ears off. That means the office will be closed until April 1.

Any books or CD orders that come in between now and March 31 will be shipped on that date. I’m sorry for any inconvenience that this causes, but we’re a two-horse operation here and haven’t got anyone to cover for us while we’re gone.

It also means this blog will be quiet, very quiet! Nothing new will happen at The God Journey and I won’t be participating in the Lifestream Yahoo Group during this time either.

Sara and I are looking forward to some serious vegging time! We both can use some real time of renewal and refreshing. We’ll be back in touch when we return on April 1.

We pray your Easter season will be filled with the knowledge and assurance of Christ’s finished work on your behalf—both in dealing with our sin at the cross and in his resurrection from the dead, the firstborn of a whole new race of redeemed humanity. What a joy it is to live in his reality and for it to become more real every day.

Blessings to you all!

This is the other letter I told you about yesterday. If you didn’t read that one you might check out A Daughter Finds Her Way Home, This one I received from a brother in Texas:

Every now and then I get a letter that just blows me away. I received two such letters this weekend and want to share them both with you—one today and one tomorrow. While I’m grateful God used something I wrote as a tool in someone’s life, I know well that the kind of work this letter describes has his fingerprints all over it, not mine. I share letters like this because I know this sister is not alone. There are many like her who have lost the simplicity of relationship with a loving Father to a religious overlay of self-effort. If that’s you, perhaps her story will inspire you and you, too, will hear God’s voice wooing you back to himself.

A new issue of BodyLife, is up on the Lifestream website. This one has to do with sexual freedom in the midst of a sexually obsessed culture.

Interestingly enough there is a new study out by the National Institute of Health and the Center for Disease Control pledges about teens who take virginity pledges. On the upside the study found that those who take virginity pledges delay their first sexual encounter by 18 months over those who do not take the pledge. They tend to marry and younger ages and have fewer sex partners. On the downside, those who take an abstinence pledge are just as likely to get sexually transmitted diseases as their counterparts because they experiment with risky alternative sexual activities that they don’t consider are included in the pledge and are less likely to use condoms.

Abstinence educators have dismissed the study and its conclusions as politically motivated. That’s sad, because there is much to be learned here. I hate seeing this turned into a political football, and both sides do it, rather than learn something from this study that will actually help us in our struggle to communicate sexual realities to our children. Do we unwittingly put kids of faith at risk of contracting a destructive STD, because we think telling them to say no is enough? A few years ago someone introduced me to the failure rate of abstinence. I was shocked to hear the term because I though abstinence until marriage is pretty foolproof. But the failure rate of abstinence is how many Christian teens in a hot and heavy moment on a Friday night fall of the abstinence wagon. And because they have to convince themselves the encounter was unplanned for guilt purposes, they rarely use any kind of protection. I’ve talked to a lot of kids in their twenties from Christian homes who confessed to this kind of struggle in their teens and their parents had no idea.

The study only points to something Paul makes said in Romans 5-8, that where law increases sin increases all the more. The focus on a pledge alone, without a relationship to the living God that sustains that pledge and transforms the life from within will have a limited effect. The mind set on abstaining from the flesh is still a mind set on the flesh and it can only produce death. We certainly have to give our children more tools than a vow of abstinence if we’re going to help them value one of the greatest gifts God gave and use it with absolute safety in the way God designed it.