pat loughery

Jim reads Luke 16 in the Message, the crooked manager.

Jim – i’m fascinated by this story because jesus praises someone withuot commenting on their morals. that runs contrary to what we think is right – that we’re in the morality business, the morality police. but jesus praised him for behavior he thought otherse should emulate, without commenting on his morals.
Jim tells the story of Hemet to ebay atheist. Then his book, Jim & Casper Go ot Church.

Introduces Eliza Sutton, who lives in Seattle. about 2 miles from here. a physician practicing at UW and teaching there. physician since 1990. internal medicine. 3rd year students and residents.

written about medical topics: , e.g. medical ethics – biomedical ethics. what is important to patients, rather than how doctors forge ahead to do “the right thing”. how society views physicians, insurance companies view physicians…

ran across the wallstreetjournal article – i wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t expect a warm ewellcome.

jim: where did you get the impressin?

Eliza: little things over the years, expecting to convert me.

I got to genesis 4, decided that the story didn’t make sense (i was 8 or 9), not appealing to me. the teachings in sunday school were all sweetness and light, but the story wasn’t all sweetness and light. i picked up the bible a year or so before ebay atheist. figured i’d read it becaue it means a lot ot a lot of people. i started on the new testament this time. why does this mea so much to people, etc.

jim: what motivagted you to take a local lutheran church, but take a 15 doctrines class.

a: i got a mass mailing for people with questions. on the ebay atheist blog people actualy discussed stuff, so i decided to go attend and see… a lot of people who are atheists do have a christian background;

q: tell me more about this 15 week class – you wrote very detailed summary of the course. e..g ‘last things’.

a: the

q: higlights and lowlights of the course

a: impressed with the pastor, how thorough hs belief was, how most any question he had some way to talk about his beliefs. i think i shook him on a couple things, e.g. on ‘last things’ he had talked about infant baptism, how salvationis important to heaven; his answer was, ‘we don’t know god does and he didn’t tell us’.

q: concerns:

a: more church members over weeks stayed, otehrs from community weren’t. they were apparently required; heavy attendance. one i didn’t like was about sin – how awful we all are; all of us in the class. sin sin sin sin sin sin sin – stuff we do all the time. i felt bad – these poor people; do they want this? do these people really accept this, or is it good? at the end of the message, message of salvation. ifelt cheap, that the whoel group was beign manipulated.

jim: all these writeups at conversation at the edge.

q: what did you gain through your associateion with offfthemap, conv at the edge, etc –
a: realizing that peoploe could have conversation and state beliefs and LISTEN to others’ beliefs.