This is the warcry, stories from the battle front about a modern warriors search for Knighthood, stories of an epic loved affair lived out on a raging battle field.

The non religious fanatic

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

It is strange and almost humorous to watch Christer Sturmark argue against religious beliefs trying to sell the secular society as the only viable future of the world.

In todays article in expressen Sturmark attacks  religous beliefs with what can only be likened to a religious frenzy as he explains that humanistic values are the salvation for our society that has been opressed by religion for far to long.

I cannot help but wonder what country Christer Sturmark lives in seeing that the religious opression in Sweden that he is fighting consists mainly of a minister on Gotland running a school church liked by Christian, muslim and atheist alike (oh except for the one humanist that got angry) or the fight against the horrid gideon bibles in the Scandic hotel rooms (again one humanist was offended) and Scandic removes the bibles in 130 hotels while happily serving porn in every hotelroom. I would like to personally recommend Christer Sturmark to get one of Mackan Anderssons humanist kits so that he can evade the heavy religious opression in Sweden.

Further in the article Sturmark makes an argument that the 25 top placed countries in UNs human development index are the countries with least believers.  Sturmark also mentions young women dying in illegal abortions as a crime of the church and the spreading of HIV in Africa being the fault of the catholic church for not condoning condoms. Sturmarks own brand of twisted logic is disregarding other factors like monetary standard and that the general wellfare of the country  could have anything to do with how often human rights are violated. He also chooses to ignore the fact that the churches of the world stand for almost all social innovation and aid whereas the humanist might have made the most contributions towards a democratic society they are not in the lead of social welfare and aid to those who are hurting.

Sturmarks comes across as a anti religious fanatic using very religious language and I can only agree whith the opposition, Christer Sturmark is by his rethorics guilty of all those things that he is accusing the religious movement of doing.

The similarities between Christianity and open source

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

Being a full time missionary and a certified Linux proffessional I cannot help but watch how similar these two areas of my life are.

The passion and sacrificial nature of the followers and the resistance of the world

Both communities …

  • …Are run by a mish mash of volonteers and large companies (denominations).
  • …Have highly self motivated volonteers who are giving up on their free time to promote the ideas the communities stand for.
  • …Prozelyze, that is both communities try to spread their ideas to others.
  • …Believe that their ideas are good news.
  • …Battle sceptisizm and biased dissmissals on a daily basis.
  • …Go against the trend of the capitalistic society.
  • …Are told there is no such thing as a free lunch, when presenting the good news

I could go on forever making the list really long. What is interesting though is that the two communities one very modern and one very old are dealing with the problems in exactly the same way. Both communities try to remake their language to be less threatening, in church we call it seeker friendly in the Open Source community we ditched free software and political language about human rights and freedoms.

And while that has gained both camps popularity I believe both camps have lost something….

The call for contemplative silence

Friday, April 13th, 2007

Tuesday night when I was talking at Metro I described the tension between our ministry driven church programs and the call of God to an almost monastic life. It is my firm belief that God is calling us to worship Him before we do any thing for Him. It is also my belief that that worship must start in meditation, contemplation, prayer, praise as we explore our faith inwardly and express it outwardly.

It is clear that there is a need for silence and contemplation in our hyped up, always loud and busy modern world. This is why the Catholic church is still growin, why the Taize movement are captivating young people. While there is a postmodern rejection of religion people are seeking Spirituality like never before.

We must be careful in our efforts to be postmodern and relevant to todays society that we do not loose the mystery of the Christian faith. That we preserve the spiritual disciplines of Contemplation, meditation, silence, fasting, solitude and ritual without loosing the celebration, joy, modern sounds and images of todays society.