Archive for March, 2007

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Sounding Off

Friday, March 30th, 2007

Just a lot going through my brain lately …

For this week, I’ll focus in on the Alberto Gonzales thing. The press is actually calling it Gonzo-Gate. This is a scandal?

It just shows so many things. First of all, it shows the willingness of the press and the Democrats to latch onto anything they can get their hands on and make it an issue in regards to Bush. Their hate is strong.

Second, it shows the ignorance of the American people that they tune in and give it any credence whatsoever. It upsets me that people in America don’t happen to know the Constitution or presidential tradition well enough to see the idiocy in it all. There is this whole thing called the separation of powers in the Constitution that says the Executive Branch gets to fire and hire certain people for any reason whatsoever. They could not like their breath, their politics, whatever, they work for the Executive Branch headed by the President and his cabinet, whom he chose. President Bush could call up Alberto Gonzales, tell him to fire all 93 of those federal attorneys, and he is fully within his right to do so. If Gonzales didn’t do what Bush wanted, its a cabinet position, and Bush could remove him at any time for any reason. Ethical? Okay, that might be questionable, but there was no wrongdoing here, Constitutionally. It’s a smokescreen by the Democrats to make noise and waste the taxpayers money.

Bill Clinton got rid of attorneys that were investigating HIM. How ethical was that? Not very ethical. But did the Republicans get up in arms about it? Of course not. They know enough about the Constitution to realize it was his right to do so. That, and they knew the press was all giddy about a Democratic president and the story wouldn’t make page forty-two. And it didn’t. A lot of presidents have done this, but the Democrats have decided to make anything and everything an issue, even if they have to lie to do it.

Third, it shows the lack of backbone in the Republican party, especially Bush. Why does he validate it at all with any cooperation? He should lay out the facts of the Constitution and presidential tradition and dare them to take it to the Supreme Court, which is majority conservative now, by the way, and will strictly interpret the Constitution.

More on the Democrats in power next week, I think.

Peace.

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Example of Paul #6 — Untrained Speaker

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Even though I am untrained in speech, yet I am not in knowledge. But we have been thoroughly manifested among you in all things. 2 Corinthians 11:6

Paul would not be a very popular speaker today. He claimed to be an untrained orator. And even if he were trained, he refused to use the manipulation of persuasive words, eloquence and superior wisdom. He did not use words meant to convince you. He did not use flowery, highly trained speech. He did not base his teachings on proving others wrong.

Funny. Most modern ministers are taught to do all those things.

Although Paul was a highly educated man, he realized his education did not ease his acceptance of Truth, nor did it produce faith. On the contrary, he violently opposed Truth while acting in unbelief. If anyone knew the impotence of education, it was Paul.

What changed his heart? A direct example of the power and revelation of God. Being blinded and getting knocked off your horse tends to get your attention.

So his reasoning should make sense in light of his testimony. His desire was for people to have faith based on the power of God instead of the arguments of men, which, ultimately, is faith in man. Faith based on the wisdom of men always requires a better argument, for when those arguments fail, faith is destroyed; despair and discouragement set in. Coupled with the wisdom of men is a need for more and more information so we can prove that Christians are more intelligent than everyone else.

Paul’s witness to the Corinthians was based on his transformation, not his level of information. He enabled them to see the power of god working through him and expressed Truth in this way because he knew that when faith is based on an experience of the power of God, you are more likely to persevere through trials, temptations and challenges.

Modern ministers are taught worldly teaching methods based on worldly research. they are expected to be well-read and more educated than the congregation. We all know the people with “Dr.” before their names are really more spiritual! They are armed with arguments out the butt to counter any question that might come up and to prove everyone else wrong. They get degrees and ordained for this.

They don’t learn to live a life that expresses the absolute power of God because you can’t learn that stuff in a school. No one ever has. The result is a couple of generations of men who talk a great game but cannot back it up with a genuine walk of Power and Victory. The faith of those under them is shallow, fragile and situationally committed.

God will raise up a generation one day, and perhaps now is, that longs for others to see the miraculous in their lives instead of a people who always have to know the answers. His power and victory is the answer. We will never prove it in words.

Peace.

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Quote of the Week

Monday, March 26th, 2007

Stacy Trammell Walker gave us a documentary on St. Patrick this weekend. It was pretty amazing. The quote is from Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela’s Ashes, a great book on poor life in Ireland. This isn’t word for word, but pretty close.

“If Patrick were alive today, and someone invited him down to their apartment with a balcony on 5th avenue to watch the parade, Patrick would jump down from the balcony and say, ‘Stop! Stop this right now! This is not what I taught or preached. Go home. Pray and give to the poor.’”

Pretty cool.

Peace.

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Some quick movie reviews

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

So Blockbuster Total Access is the coolest thing ever. I love it. I’ve watched a few movies over the last week or two and thought I’d give a little taste of what I thought. Here goes:

The Departed. It supposedly won an award or something. I thought it was a decent story and pretty well put together for something that could have been rather confusing. They used the “f” word more times than I’ve seen in a while … even when it wasn’t in the subtitles! It was pretty violent, also, but I was on the edge of my seat here and there. DiCaprio did pretty well, actually. Everyone did.

Idiocracy. Although it was as dumb as it sounds, I actually thought it was a clever twist on the whole “being frozen for a couple centuries” sci-fi thing. The world had actually evolved into being DUMBER, and it was easier to believe. An average Joe finds himself with the highest IQ in the planet. The IQ test alone had me laughing out loud. Crude at times, so be warned, but very funny.

Seven Swords. Typical Chinese modern Kung Fu thing. Very Buddhist and supernatural about seven magical swords held by some Chinese masters sent to protect a martial arts town from persecution of the Empire. It was actually a book, and you could tell. They had too much story to tell and although they tried to get through it, it actually drug along at times. The story wasn’t bad and the action was cool in places. The coolest thing, however, was the Korean characters and the focus on their minority status.

Rocky Balboa. No one wanted to watch this with me. They rolled their eyes when I suggested I wanted to see it. Not expecting it to be great, I actually enjoyed it. If Stallone had done this as Rocky V instead of that horrendous thing a few years back (even though it had a cool fight scene at the end), it would have been a perfect conclusion to the series. It felt rather well thought out and full of real heart. Rocky is the only character Stallone has ever been able to really pull off with any genuine emotion, and he proved it again.

To End All Wars. This was an amazing movie. If I was one of those people who said such things, I would say, “every Christian should see this movie!” I don’t really believe that, though. This movie was from 2002. Amazingly enough, I had never even heard of it. A war movie actually flew under MY radar. The subject of the story is a Japanese war camp full of Allied soldiers during WWII. The story was great, the acting was very good, and the message was heart wrenching and beautiful. It probably never did very well because of the very Christian message within it. It does have some language and is pretty intense and violent at times.

I have about fifty more movies on my que. I’ll work my way through them as I can and give the lowdown on them. It’s been fun!

Peace.

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Mooney Report LXXXI

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

Greetings to all from Atlanta!

Things have been going relatively well here at the Mooney household.

First of all, my last day of teaching at Snellville Middle School was at the end of February. I’ve been applying to other jobs in the area, and I’ve even interviewed at a couple different places. This has been a completely different experience for me. Since I’ve dealt primarily in the field of education, dressing up and going for interviews in the “real world” has been interesting to say the least. I have an interview at a local school this evening that I hope will bear some fruit, giving me a job with less hours but still working with kids and teaching, mostly tutoring.

It has been a stressful time for Becca and I, as you can imagine, but God has really provided during this time, as He always does. We have a great community of believers here that have been incredibly supportive of my craziness.

Becca is still tutoring German and hoping to find more opportunities to do that. She really enjoys getting back into something she loves and feels good about.

The house church we attend on Friday nights has been developing more and more into the family atmosphere Becca and I have desired it to be. Even though Becca finished cooking on a regular basis, others have seen the benefit of it and have taken up the responsibility of filling and providing a meal for everyone before the meeting. It has been good. They are some precious people. Gina, my sister, and her husband, Ben, also have a sweet house church that we attend from time to time on Sunday evenings.

Over the last few months, a few young men have been getting together on Saturday morning for breakfast for fellowship. We have been going through the book Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. The book is excellent and has led to some great discussions on Saturday mornings. Sometimes Micah even goes with me. He likes hangin’ with the guys.

Micah has been doing great. He’s had a couple ear infections since Christmas, but he’s been much better over the last few weeks, which has made us glad. He is turning into such a little man. He is talking constantly, and every time you turn around he’s talking even more. He knows all the letters and numbers. We’re working on the colors. He communicates extremely well verbally now, even putting words and phrases together on his own. He just turned 18 months. He still loves Elmo, Dora the Explorer, Veggie Tales and Clifford. He knows complete lines from the Veggie Tales theme song … which is pretty amazing.

While having some time not working, when I’m not looking for a job or interviewing, I’ve been seriously committed to writing. This has been mostly on my latest book but also my blog. The result has been that I have finished, in the last couple weeks, a book that I’ve been writing for the last two years! I’ve been working on it for so long, that it came as a shock to finish it so quickly. But it also was further confirmation that if I can give some time to my writing, then good things will happen. The book is called The Better Way: A Case for Love. I am currently doing a first revision and will be shopping it around to publishers over the next few months. I’ve also considered self-publishing, but that is a big project. We’ll see.

At the beggining of March, we had three house churches get together and had a Relationship Round Table. It was basically a time when people got to write questions down and the group shared wisdom on relationships as we pulled the questions randomly out of a jar. We are planning on having another one in late April, but there are some scheduling conflicts now, so we’ll see what happens.

Becca and I began to look at using our frequent flyer miles to go to India again this summer, but it turns out it takes more to go to India than Korea. We were assuming an international flight was an international flight and they were all the same … alas, we were wrong. Becca has just enough and I’m a few thousand miles short. If anyone feels that God would have them donate some miles to help me get the ticket, that would be very cool. Either way, I’m sure God will provide a way if we are to go.

Thanks for visiting my blog and checking out the Mooney Report! God bless you all! We miss many of you dearly.

Britt, Becca, and Micah Mooney, Missionaries to the World!

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Quote of the Week

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

Listening to Ravenhill again yesterday during a run in the park … wow.

Ravenhill tells a story of a pastor who met with a famous actor in London. The pastor was lamenting why the actor performed to packed houses and his own assembly was so small. The actor had an idea as to why and explained, “I think it has to do with the fact that I make something artificial look real and you make something real look artificial.”

Peace.

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Example of Paul #5 — Marriage

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 1 Corinthians 7:7-9

It has become quite the assumption among most Christians that God wants them to be married. I don’t see a promise of a mate within the scripture, as if there is this one person God made for you and you just need to wait for that one person.

But the purpose of this series is to flesh out the example of Paul, to follow Paul as he followed Christ, and like it or not, this definitely qualifies.

I Corinthians 7 and 8 are both harsh towards marriage. Paul gives several guidelines there, but ultimately teaches that it is better to not be married if you wish to serve the Lord, based on his example.

We could balance much of this out with other teachings he had, namely the need for young widows to marry so they wouldn’t be busybodies, and the teaching to Timothy about how leaders in the Church should be the husband of one wife (I guess you could have more than one wife, just not be a pastor).

But again, what was Paul’s example? Did he follow Christ’s example? He absolutely did. Jesus was not married, so Paul was not married. Jesus teaches in Matthew of those who should be celibate for the sake of the Kingdom if they could accept it.

I find it funny that we are so ready to take the excuses that Paul and Jesus give us as a concession. Jesus offers it as to those who could accept it and Paul gives in if you can’t control yourself.

“Oh, that’s me,” people say. “I can’t accept a life without marriage or sex. I just can’t control myself. I need to be married.”

Biblically, that’s pretty weak, given that God’s grace is always sufficent and self-control is a fruit of the Spirit within us.

It is obviously God’s will that many are married. I would never dispute that, only the assumption that we should get married when Paul’s example teaches something very different. Our seeking to be married can be tatamount to idolatry because, with Jesus and Paul as our example, it is obviously God’s will that many should NOT be married.

Believe me, I can tell you firsthand how amazing marriage can be, what a blessing it is. Many of you have met my wife and know the saint that she is. Marriage is a gift from God, but so is being single. They are equally valid in the Kingdom. In fact, you could make the argument that being single is for the spiritually strong and marriage is for the weak, despite our prejudices against those who are single. With the divorce and remarriage rates as high as they are in the Body of Christ, isn’t it valid to challenge this romantic notion that everyone should pair up and get hitched? Based on what the Bible says, I obviously think it is.

Peace.

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Greatest Christian Artists

Monday, March 5th, 2007

I’ve been rather harsh with Christian “entertainment” recently. And while there is good cause to be critical, I’d like to take some space here to honor some people who have been labeled as Christian “artists” but are actually more than that. Their personal and public lives have the integrity that Christ intended, and you get the sense that were they in front of a crowd or at the back of one, they’d be the same people on fire for the Lord. Here is a short and rather incomplete list of what I’m talking about …

Keith Green. Wonderful voice, great musician and songwriter. Was more interested in evangelism and truth than anything else. You could hear it in his songs and in his voice. You can still feel his heart for the Lord and the salvation of others as you listen to his recordings.

Rich Mullins. The guy could have been a star and made a host of money. His songs are still hits for various artists. But he made sure he was paid a lower middle class income and lived on a reservation teaching music to poor kids. This guy was for real.

Michael Card. Ben said it best the other day. His songs are like listening to scripture. He is also an amazing musician and songwriter and vocalist. He still ministers, teaches. He has a radio program that you can check out on the web that I’ve heard awesome things about.

Smalltown Poets. Great songwriters. I remember when they were Villanelle and my brother and I put on a show with them at our old high school. As they waited for the show to start, we could hear them singing old hymns in perfect harmony, just praising the Lord. Humble and pure of heart is how I would describe them.

Third Day. Wildly popular, I’ve known these guys for years, although I haven’t spoken with them personally in some time. Before they broke onto the Christian scene, half of the band was headed off for mission work. They take their ministry seriously and still do after all these years.

Disciple. Heavy metal version of Keith Green. Although their lyrics aren’t quite the liquid fire they used to be, I would still put them in this class of real ministers who happen to rock. There are some deep messages on their last album.

Charlie Peacock. In my opinion, one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He had three albums there that expressed a real human struggle to know God as he is. I still have to listen to Secret of Time every now and then. And I shake my head at the truth expressed in his music.

Frank Peretti. His two books about spiritual warfare changed the perspective of thousands of Christians … and they were pretty well written books. The salvation scene in Piercing the Darkness from the perspective of the unseen realm was amazing. The Prophet was also pretty cool. His message at Atlanta Fest one year was one of the best I’d ever heard.

C.S. Lewis. One of my personal heroes, the Narnia books are amazing. But the Screwtape Letters? One of the most creative things ever written and full of truth … from the mouths of demons! His life is also an incredible testimony to grace.

Pocket Full of Rocks. I wouldn’t put these guys as “entertainment”, per se, but you really can’t tell the difference between entertainment and a lot of praise music being manufactured these days. These guys are the real deal. They worship with abandon and spontenaeity. And from testimonies of others who know them well, they are humble and on fire for worship.

With most of these people that I’ve listed here, I hope you see a pattern that their artistic expression is only an extension of a life lived sold out to the Lord. God is pretty creative, and we should celebrate creativity from the Body. But we should remember that our creativity isn’t just “entertainment” to be like the world. We are to be in the world but not of it. I think the people on this list are great examples of people who might use the creative language of the world but are obviously not of it through personal testimony and message.

Anyone else you’d like to put on this list? It is not comprehensive by a long shot!

Peace.

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quick message

Monday, March 5th, 2007

If you haven’t been able to comment before on my blog, try to comment now! I would love to hear more feedback from all those who say they read my stuff and would like to comment but cannot.

love you all,

peace.

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Sounding Off

Monday, March 5th, 2007

Over last week I saw a commercial for the new movie, Amazing Grace. I’ve heard good things about this movie and want to see it myself, but I am currently disciplining myself to not spend ten dollars each for a movie in a theater that will soon be two dollars each in a theater or five dollars to rent between my wife and I and able to watch at our leisure.

Back to the commercial. In big, bold letters it says, “EVERY CHRISTIAN MUST GO SEE THIS MOVIE.” Taking for granted that this is a quote from some review, this doesn’t cause a pause in anyone else?

Out of everything that we could say a Christian “must” do … seeing a movie is one of them? God help us.

Now, please understand that I’m sure that it will be inspiring once I get around to seeing it. God can use media at His behest, but out of all the things Jesus said were necessary to be His disciples, are we gonna now include paying money to see a movie among them? I guess part of my issue (and yes … I have issues) is that I would rather see about ten things at the end of that statement than “go see this movie.”

Every Christian must ….
feed the hungry?
give to the poor?
make disciples?
love one another as Christ loved us?
forgive as you have been forgiven?

There are others. What would you put there?

Peace.

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