ClarkeComments.com

Hello all:

Its time to do some promoting (non-compensated, I assure you) of some stuff I’ve come across as late.

Check out the Faith & Education Scholarship Fund. This Scholarship is just for members of Churches of Christ to attend a 4 year liberal arts college or university. There is no requirement that you attend a church college, and they seem to actually promote attending secular universities. This is a brand new ministry that has just started up. I got some of their literature at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures. If you have money that you can part with, send some their way…or if you know of a starving college student, send them their way. I’m hoping they’ll throw some money my way when I get back into a 4 year school. Unfortunatly its just around for undergrad work, maybe they’ll expand later, who knows?

Also…I bought John Mark Hicks and Bobby Valentine’s new book Kingdom Come while at the lectures. I’ve started it but haven’t gotten very far because of school. However, their lectures centered on the book, and I’m very excited to read it. The book is on the Spiritual Legacy of Harding and Lipscomb and the Nashville Bible School Tradition vs. the Texas Tradition. Very cool. Check it out, buy a copy.

-Clarke

Hello all:

I am hoping that I don’t end up turning this blog into being only about my experiences in school… because I want to write and discuss the Restoration Movement and Christian Unity, and… I don’t want to bore everyone to death. However, all I’ve done in the last few days is school work, work work, church work, and family. I’ve had very little time to do any thinking about stuff that I want to think about…and when I have, its been on other subjects….

I got a score of 95% on my first week in The Bible as Literature, which is the highest score you can get in that class. So far, so good.

Yesterday we had the funeral for one of our elders. I had asked for prayers for him a while back. He finally succombed, and he is now at Rest in the Lord. I lead singing for the funeral, and it was a stressful day, but I know it was alot more stressful for many others than it was for me. We only had two elders, and no one else qualifies, so our Eldership and Deaconate has been dissolved and we will start being run my committee until such a time as an Eldership can resume.

My son has been sick for the last few days, he seems to have the flu. I stayed home from work today because we were up until about 3am last night, and I was supposed to be at work at 7am. My wife is now sick, and I think I might feel it coming on.

I went to my first class session for History of Christianity. It was interesting….over half the students have zero background in the Bible, so the professor spent half of the four hour class going over the History of the Old Testament, trying to get these kids in a position where they can understand the geo-socio-political-commerical climate that Jesus and the Early Church were born into. It was frustrating, but somewhat interesting as she talked about some biblical symbolism and numerology. I knew about some of the numerology surrouding 3, 6, 7, and 40. But she talked about a lot more. While there I met a fellow city employee who is a member of an Independent Christian Church congregation…we talked about Restorationism for a couple of minutes on the way out to the parking lot.

Finally, I came across some references to Canon Law, which I had heard about in the past but not paid any attention to. Now that my focus is much more on religous subjects, this concept has grasped my attention. I am no believer that there should even be canon law, but I am still curious to know more…. at one time I contemplated being an attorney… and working in law enforcement makes this an interesting subject to me. I’m going to try and do more research as time permits.

So…that was my week. I’ll be heading to Pepperdine ina couple of weeks for the lectureship, which will throw a big knot in my school work, but I can’t wait.

-Clarke

Hello all:

Well, I started classes this week. Not quite what I expected.

I am taking three classes: History of Christianity, The Bible as Literature, and Introduction to Crime Analysis.

The Intro to Crime Analysis class is easy. I’ve worked in Criminal Justice and Public Safety for a while, so none of it is new to me.

The Bible as Literature, on the other hand, I’m having a tough time with. The class, in a nutshell, is looking at the Bible as Literature through the lense of German Higher Criticism. The text (and the instructor) make the assumption that the Bible is uninspired, written totally by humans, and that the author had many points in mind, including religious ones, when they wrote the text. I’m having a hard time seperating my beliefs from the class, and I am struggling. However, I did get some good comments from the instructor on our discussion (its all online) so maybe I’m getting the hang of it. We’ll see. I know one thing, I’ll be glad to be finished with this one, and its just week one. Higher Criticism of the Bible isn’t my ball of wax…

I’m not sure yet what to make of my History of Christianity class yet. It is my only class that I am taking in a classroom, and I missed the first session because I was at the Symposium. I spoke with the professor over the phone and she seems very friendly. I started reading the text last night for this class, and found that the writers are fairily secular, and its very odd reading a text book on the History of Christianity when they question the diety of Jesus.

I’m definatly taking all of this “learning” with a grain of salt, but hopefully it will be helpful to me later as a follower of Christ.

-Clarke