Since coming over to WordPress, I have been trying to update this site with many different features which were not available to me in Blogger. Unfortunately, it has not been an entirely simple affair because I have had to learn how to hack.

So hack I did. As a result you can see quite a few different features that are available in this blog. Did you know that you can e-mail and print posts? At the end of every post, there is a description that allows you to either leave a comment, link tothe post, trackback, email or print the post (without having to print the rest of the information on the sidebars).

My latest hack I added to this site is the voting form.

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What does the phrase, "False Religion" conjures up for you?

Of late, I have read this term quite often on different sites. It is often used to describe one or the other religion. Typically, it is used to characterize any religion except for Christianity. Perhaps, it is even taken to mean any religious creed or practice that are at odds with that of the speaker or writer.

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My wife and daughters are attending yoga classes. When one of our friends found out about this, she said, "I don’t do yoga, because it is non-Christian."

My wife, daughter and this friend discussed this a little and I was an interested listener.

"Why is it being non-Christian has anything to do with whether or not Christians should practice yoga?" my daughter asked.

"There are spiritual issues involved," our friend asserted, "When you go through the exercises your spirit is inevitably tainted

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If you are one of those who have been regularly following my blog you might have come across the posts regarding the struggles of my previous job and the subsequent roller coaster ride following my being fired by my former boss whom I called "Dragon Lady."

I must admit that there is a ring to the name even if, as one of my commenters advised, with whom I largely agree, that it might be counterproductive to my intention to bless, to forgive and to extend grace and mercy to her as part of my own spiritual discipline and development

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Recently I came across a  passionate post by Tim Challies of Challies.com bemoaning the fact that he read an impressive review of Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy, but wished he had wrote it himself. What captivated Challies was that the author of the review,  Bob DeWaay, "showed in many ways McLaren is the fulfillment of Schaeffer’s prophetic voice."

The post champions what he regards as the prophetic vision of Shaeffer in the sense that he had insight about the future, trends and especially about movements that distorts the doctrinal purity so cherished by those who regard Reformed Theology as the pinnacle of theological knowledge.

I actually was watching Hotel Rwanda on DVD while I was surfing the web on my laptop. Hotel Rwanda is a movie I really wanted to watch after reading a post recommending it to all Christians. At the time I read this post, I was impressed by its eloquence and the urgency of its tone and the obvious passion with which the message was delivered.

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Yesterday while having lunch with a client, she shared something about her observations on Christianity that I thought was interesting.

"It’s much easier to be a Christian," she mused, "it seems that Christians do not worry much about how they live their lives."

"That’s an interesting observation," I said, "Tell me more…"

"Well, it is harder to be a Buddhist," she said, "because buddhists have to be so careful that they do not break their rules, or they’d go to hell."

Hmmm… apparently Christianity is no longer a legalistic religion, at least not by one outsider observer. As it turns out, Buddhism which is supposed to be a religion of serenity, peace and compassion, is one that causes not a little consternation among its adherents.

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I got passed the Book Stick by Heather of Fumbling for Words. The meme is simple. There are five questions (the ones you see here) and you have to provide your answers to them.

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be? Hmmm…what book should I be? I suppose I need to be a book that has enduring qualities about it so as to compell Montag to want to hide me, and perhaps when he finally opens my pages to read it, he will find meaning enough not want to destroy books. That’s a toughie! However, I can think of one such book in a time of crisis that has done a similar job - the Purpose Driven Life is one such book, and its first words would probably be arresting enough to stop him in his tracks and make him want to pause a moment or two. Another such book is Making Sense of It All Pascal and the Meaning of Life by Thomas V. Morris, but I am not sure if it has the same kind of popular appeal as PDL. However in terms of presenting a clear message about the meaning of life, it certainly has it!

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? I think I was fascinated by Nancy Drew. She was so smart so she must also be beautiful as well (or so I thought). As a kid, I devored all of those mystery stories by Enid Blyton and Frank Dixon.

Longest lasting crush? Well in terms of "fictional character", the longest attraction in terms of admiration and impact on my imagination is probably the silver screen impression of a character I had read and stories told to me earlier on. This character is that of the Kwan Yin, Goddess of Mercy.

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SmartChristian, referring to Brian McLaren’s recent interview asks if McLaren has clarified sufficiently his now infamous quote.

In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren writes that he doubts "making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion" and that "[i]t may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts."

Steve McCoy at Reformissionary explores the clarification further. As McCoy points out, this quote has caught the ire of major Christian thinkers and is also the key reason cited by the organizers of the Kentucky Baptist Convention to pull their invitation to McLaren to address the convention.

Maybe it is because I am an Asian Christian. Or perhaps, I have strong Buddhist and Taoist roots. Or Read the rest of this entry »

When I wrote this post a few weeks ago, it was as a result of an article on Christianity Today that I saw highlighted by DJ Chuang. The article’s title tells the story: “All Churches Should Be Multiracial.”

DJ has a bit more to say about this:

…it’s just plain hard work. With church life being hard enough work as it is, with overworked staff and volunteers, plenty of other issues to consume time and energy and resources, there seems to be a learned helplessness that prevents more churches from aspiring to this ideal. The magazine’s editors and almost anyone you talk to can say that it’s the right thing to do, and it’d be great to see happen. But nothing happens by accident. (well, a few things do, but most accomplishments don’t… Becoming a multiracial church takes intentionality. Intentionality is not forcing something on people, it’s not meeting quotas.

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I am torn. I used to be really interested in conferences like these. While I have deep respect for Ravi Zacharias and his ministry, I am getting a little ambivalent about the purported challenge of religious pluralism.

Religious pluralism has always been around. It just wasn’t noticed by myopic, under-the-coconut-shell evangelical Christians until recently. And, because we forgot that ours is not a religion, we now need to justify that all other religions are false. And, we are stuck with a us vs them, truth vs falsehood type of mentality.

I wonder if it might be more appropriate to be like the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 who saw the common ground, affirmed the truth in traditions and philosophies other than his own, and showed how the reality of God’s grace and mercy can be appreciated (Hmmm…. come to think of it, his “gospel” message here might catch the ire of some folks!).

As I was saying, perhaps religious pluralism might not be so much of a challenge if we only learned to embrace the diversity of God’s great creation, and realize that He has made His people to have an innate craving and desire for His reality. So rather than approach “other” religions in an antagonistic manner, I wonder if it is more instructive and more appropriate to embrace the truth that is found in the religious expressions and philosophical reflections of all cultures.

To celebrate my finally landing a job of my dreams (more about that later), I ordered the following books:

The first one is Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy. Recently, I have been engaged in several conversations with folks who were discussing McLaren’s ideas. I had not heard of McLaren before I started reading blogs sometime last year, and since then, I have been very much encouraged, inspired and interested in what I have heard about what he is saying and doing.

I think it is a good thing, what McLaren’s trying to do - getting people to engage in conversations about what it means to follow Jesus in light of the history of the Church - one that is often been marred by a great deal of brokenness, distortions, dogmatism and much ineffectiveness in doing what the Church has been called to do, in the midst of a great deal of beauty and an abundance of grace and mercy. Read the rest of this entry »

At church today, my pastor showcased a married couple who has been in our church for a while. They bared their souls briefly with the congregation, about the brokenness and hardships they experienced in their marriage.

They were caught up in the”American dream” with the husband engrossed with building his business. Everything was revolving around him, including God. This was tearing his family apart.

It was only when they each found community that they embarked on the healing process. The husband talked about finding a group of men who bonded so well together that they were ready to die for one another. The wife spoke about meeting a group of women who shared their lives with her, cried with her, prayed with her and laughed with her. Read the rest of this entry »