Nine week summer series addressing questions from the KirkWood family.

Video Message	Resources
Week 1: Tradition Isn’t the Truth	Monday Memo notes Explore More This Week 1. Here are some scripture reading suggestions for the week:  – The Gospel of Mark’s version of the story we looked into yesterday, which is a little longer: Mark 7.1-23 NRSVUE – Matthew 15 isn’t the first time in Matthew’s gospel that Jesus and the religious leaders have squabbled over cherished religious/spiritual traditions…check out one of these prior incidents: Mt 12.1-8 NRSVUE 2. A devotional from The United Church of Christ about tradition: Truth and Tradition 3. No less than four folks mentioned the following song to Pastor Chris after the service yesterday…the perfect song to go with a sermon about “tradition”?: Fiddler on the Roof (1/10) Movie CLIP – Tradition! (1971) 4. An article in Inc. magazine about the trepidation of tradition in the business world, easily pulled over into the church world: The Downside of Traditions
Week 2: How Can God Help Me if I’m Unwilling to Help Myself	Monday Memo notes Spiritual Practices This Week 1. Every day this week, ideally sometime in the morning, offer up a simple prayer of dependence. Tell God that you know you can’t do life well without Him. Verbalize your desire for God to lead and empower you in a way that you can’t do for yourself.  2. If you feel overwhelmed right now, remind yourself often that God is right there with you in your helplessness, and isn’t expecting you to move until you’re ready.  3. Spend some time reflecting on or journaling about where in your past you learned both resilience and helplessness. There’s a good chance you’ve come to feel capable about some things, and very incapable about others, along the way.    4. What can you get 1% better at this week? What can you start to do for just two minutes at a time? What new habit do you want to start forming? These ideas about how habits form are from the book, “Atomic Habits,” by James Clear – you can check out a summary here: Atomic Habits Summary by James Clear
Week 3: How Would the Existence of Aliens Change Our Theology?	Monday Memo notes Explore More this Week – This BBC article is a good summary of how religion might respond to contact with aliens. Note – it’s from 2016, so some of the scientific data is a little out of date: If we made contact with aliens, how would religions react? – Here’s a recent podcast with Nicholas Spencer, English Christian writer on science and religion, that touches on extraterrestrials, A.I., and a host of similar topics (60 min.)…if you like him, you’ll find several books on Amazon, his most recent two are from 2024: Nick Spencer: What the science of aliens, animals and AI tells us about humanity – Intrigued by “Fermi’s Paradox”? Wikipedia will tell you the origin story, plus survey the wide range of possible solutions to it: Fermi paradox – Wikipedia – This is the Netflix series based on the “dark forest hypothesis, a potential answer to Fermi’s paradox…it’s REALLY good: Watch 3 Body Problem – “Christ in the Universe” is a poem written by English Christian poet Alice Meynell (late 1800s/early 1900s CE)…in it, she envisions all of God’s children from the universe’s many planets gathering in eternity to share how God expressed Himself to them: Poetry Friday: Christ in the Universe by Alice Meynell – For those who like fiction, here are two sci-fi works that get mentioned most often when digging into astrotheology, both envision contact with alien civilizations and how religion/Christianity might inform that: The Sparrow: A Novel (The Sparrow Series): Russell, Mary Doria and The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength) by C.S. Lewis
Week 4: Will You Preach on My Favorite Verse Please – Luke 23:34?	Monday Memo notes Explore More about Forgiveness Forgiveness isn’t easy. Ask anyone who has tried to forgive a deep and grievous wrong… We weren’t able to talk much about the process of forgiving itself on Sunday…that wasn’t the focus of the sermon…but here are a few resources that get down to earth about how to forgive, and how it can be to do it:  – A host of great, short resources on the psychology of forgiving (scroll down the page to find them all): Forgiveness – A useful article from a Christian counseling center on the process of forgiving: Learning How to Forgive: 8 Steps to True Forgiveness – An article from the author of one of the great Christian books on forgiveness, the late Lewis Smedes: forgiveness.pdf – A powerful personal story about the hard work of forgiveness from Corrie ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor: Give Me Your Forgiveness – Corrie ten Boom
Week 5: Do I Have to Believe in Hell to Be a Christian?	Monday Memo notes Explore More this Week – Two short articles posted on the Presbyterian Mission Agency website about “Hell”: Presbyterian Mission Agency Hell and Presbyterian Mission Agency Hell II – Some thoughtful, short devotional entries from our friends in The United Church of Christ about, you guessed it, “Hell”:  The Door Is Still Open, The Fires of Hell, and Population Zero – Interested in that peculiar phrase in The Apostles Creed about Christ descending into Hell? We’ve talked about that previously – Jesus “Descended to Hell?” – KirkWood Worship 2022-06-19 and Presbyterian Mission Agency Did Jesus really descend into hell? – Curious about the so-called “Hell” language of Jesus? Here are a few passages to check out. You’ll note that all a) have as much, or even more, to do with a person’s present experience than what will happen post-death, b) occur in a parable, which is fictitious story told to make a moral or spiritual point, and thus is inconclusive about anything literal, or c) both:  Matthew 5.21-30, Matthew 25, Matthew 8.5-13, and Luke 16.19-31   – Once you start to look for it, you’ll find the language of universal redemption or God’s desire for it all across the New Testament:  1 John 2.1-2, John 12.47-50, 1 Timothy 4.10, 1 Timothy 2.3-6, Col 1.19-20, Acts 3.20-21, and Rom 5.18
Week 6: Help Me Make Sense of Human Free Will and God’s Sovereignty, Predestination, Omniscience!	Monday Memo notes Explore More This Week – A few short pieces from the PCUSA (Presbyterian Mission Agency) describing free will and predestination, including some of the Reformation history behind these concepts:  Presbyterian Mission Agency Actions and decisions matter Presbyterian Mission Agency Predestination Presbyterian Mission Agency Predestination II – Check out a longer citation from Anglican missionary and bishop Leslie Newbigin on the clear connection between election, community, and mission: Leslie Newbigin on the Logic of Election | The Strange Triumph of the Lamb – An often-misused text in regard to election and predestination is Ephesians 1.3-14, especially the first half of the passage. But if you notice, God’s election is of us – plural, not a single person – and always in association with or through Christ. You can check it out in both the NRSV and The Message: Eph 1.3-14 NRSVUE;MSG
Week 7: I Feel Overwhelmed by All the Evil in the World – Can You Help Me?	Monday Memo notes Explore More This Week 1. Read some lament psalms this week, if for no other reasons than to get more comfortable with using lament in your own spiritual life (if you want to find more than these four, just google “list of lament psalms”…there’s A LOT of them): Psalm 6 NRSVUE, Psalm 10 NRSVUE, Psalm 22 NRSVUE, Psalm 69 NRSVUE 2. Explore the vexing problem of evil in the world juxtaposed with our very good God:  Evil | Presbyterian Mission Agency Reframing the problem of evil | N.T. Wright at UT Austin Keep Your Eyes Watching God – United Church of Christ Philip Yancey on the Problem of Evil Theodicy – North Carolina Synod 3. Try out that Philippians 4.8 journaling exercise mentioned above for a week or two and see how it changes what we notice in the world around you.  4. Cut back on your consumption of information, especially sources that show a negativity bias.
Week 8: Christian Nationalism Scares Me – Why Do So Many Christians Buy into It?	Monday Memo notes Explore More This Week There are lots and lots of great resources available on Christian nationalism. Here are a few that Pastor Chris recommends:  1. Here are two resources from the PCUSA, the latter detailing how our denomination itself was involved in the “Christian nationalism” of the 1950s: Presbyterian Mission Agency The Rev. Jimmie Hawkins gives Synod School attendees a primer on what Presbyterians don’t believe Presbyterian Mission Agency Owning up to our own responsibility for the growth in Christian nationalism 2. Here’s that ELCA denominational statement, “We are Christians against Christian Nationalism”: wearechristiansagainstchristiannationalism.pdf 3. Here’s a statement on Christian nationalism from The National Council of Churches, to which the PCUSA belongs: The Dangers of Christian Nationalism in the United States: A Policy Statement of the National Council of Churches 4. Professor Marci Hamilton’s piece entitled “Whose Christianity do Christian Nationalists Want? It was the diversity of Christianity as much as other faiths, that inspired the founders’ concern for religious liberty” (she’s a prof of constitutional law at UPenn): Whose Christianity do Christian nationalists want? 5. A longer piece in The New Yorker entitled, “How Christian is Christian Nationalism?”: How Christian Is Christian Nationalism? 6. These are the two statistical studies of Christian nationalism that Pastor Chris cited on Sunday:  Views of Christian nationalism, Christianity’s place in politics PRRI 7. Here’s a recent documentary on Christian nationalism, which is available for free on Amazon Prime and a couple other streaming/online services: God & Country (2024) 8. And, last, here are a couple of accessible, readable, non-scholarly books on the subject. The first prioritizes how to interact with Christian nationalists compassionately, and the second is from one of the leading researchers of Christian nationalism in America, Dr. Andrew Whitehead of the University of Indiana, and is written specifically for Christians…If you want to preview either, search YouTube for interviews with the authors about their books:  Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor: Campbell, Caleb E. American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church: Andrew L. Whitehead
Week 9: How Should I Read the Bible in My Personal Spiritual Life?	Monday Memo notes Make It Personal and Explore More 1) If you want to try lectio divina – and Pastor Chris highly reminds that you  do (he uses this method most weeks when doing sermon prep) – these two links will describe this ancient Christian way of interacting with scripture more fully:  R.PracticesLectioDivina.pdf Lectio Divina: A Beginner’s Guide 2) Where to start reading the Bible? Lots of options. Reading the Bible cover to cover (beginning to end) doesn’t work for many people because Exodus through Deuteronomy can be ROUGH without some help to understand their ancient cultural setting. Also, reading lots of chapters a day (like trying to do the whole Bible in a year) may work for a few, but for more of us it ends up being too laborious and time-consuming. Plus, we don’t seem to get a lot out of it personally. We’d do better to follow the “less is more” approach. Instead, you could… – Do the daily readings in the revised common lectionary, typically 4 passages per day, one gospel reading, one from the rest of the New Testament, one from the Old Testament, and one from the Psalms: Daily Readings – Revised Common Lectionary – This is a different reading plan but similar to the daily lectionary above in that you get a gospel reading, a psalm, and Old and New Testament readings every day. Plus, they plan for you to take days off in the month: 15074 BRP.indd  – If you want to hang out with Jesus, start with a gospel, Luke or Matthew might be ideal (because almost all of Mark is contained in those two). Go at your own pace.  – This one is a great entry level Bible reading plan, especially if you’re short on time and want to start off in a more manageable way. It’s the 5x5x5 plan – you can read through the whole New Testament by devoting only 5 minutes a day 5 days a week: 5x5x5-New-Testament-Reading-Plan.pdf If you want to try Lectio Divina, most of the New Testament works well for that (the gospels, Acts, Paul’s shorter letters, James, the letters of Peter and John), as well as Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the prophetic books in the Old Testament (Isaiah – Malachi).  – Likewise, a simpler way to go would be to read a psalm or some proverbs daily. Both are very accessible parts of the Bible. They work well for lectio divina. And you can find them pretty easily – they’re right next to each other, usually at the very middle of a print Bible.  3) A good resource to have around is a study Bible that can help you with some of the cultural background that’s necessary to understand what’s going on in some passages. The first link is Pastor Chris’ favorite, even though the NRSV version is now out of print. The next two are to NRSV study Bibles, both are excellent:  – NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Context Changes Everything) – The HarperCollins Study Bible: Fully Revised & Updated – The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version With the Apocrypha 4) For some, it may help to get an overview of the entirety of scripture, from beginning to end, with the key points along the way highlighted, emphasizing how it’s all one big story. The first link below is to a book that stitches the actual biblical texts together into one big story. The second and third links are to short, basic overviews of the entire Bible:  – NIV, The Story, Hardcover: The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People: Max Lucado, Randy Frazee – The Book that Understands You: Kevin Adams – True Story of the Whole World: Michael W. Goheen, Bartholomew, Craig G.