I normally write more thought-provoking, lengthy articles and such. But pardon me while I rant a moment about this. From the Christian Post:

An eighth grader at a New Jersey middle school was sent home Friday after he dressed up as Jesus Christ for Halloween.

Alex Woinski, 13, wore a white robe, red sash, sandals, fake beard, and crown of thorns on his head after receiving encouragement from his friends, who said he looked like Jesus with his shoulder-length hair.

When Alex arrived at West Brook Middle School in Paramus, however, officials told him he could only keep the costume on if he removed the beard and the crown of thorns.

School officials said the costume was a disruption and denied its religious nature had anything to do with it.

“Children were [asking], where is the boy who is Jesus Christ?” Principal Joan Broe told a local CBS affiliate. “It was disrupting the education process.”

Alex, however, refused to heed the school’s orders and was sent home.

When asked what school officials told him the reason for being sent home was, Alex recalled to the local news station, “It was offensive to some students.”

Alex, whose mother is Catholic and father is Jewish, recently celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and says he has developed an interest in religion. He is reportedly studying the Bible.

Despite the reception he received at school, Alex was not discouraged from donning the costume to go trick-or-treating Friday night.

Yet it’s perfectly OK for people to dress as little devils, or for girls to dress as naughty nurses or devilish whores. . . . Pardon the harshness, but c’mon. This is ridiculous. It’s the same thing as using the Lord’s name in vain. Everyone says “Jesus Christ.” NO ONE says “Buddha.” It just doesn’t happen. Hmm…

I jumped the gun on my Halloween post, but that’s ok. Enjoy the day! I’m taking it off from blogging….

I was going to wait until November 1st to post about this, but I just couldn’t wait, and a friend’s post triggered some more thoughts on this. The 31st of October is All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween. That means that the following day must be All Saints’ Day (a remembrance of the martyrs and saints). The time of year was chosen way back when in part to counter pagan festivals which focused on spiritism or witchcraft. These were common in much of Europe as non-Christians watched the lengthening of the night and the loss of daylight.

Luther posted his famous 95 Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. His main points of contention were:

• The church’s sale of indulgences (the church sold certificates supposedly granting the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven)
• The nature of penance
• The authority of the Pope

This single act sparked what we now call the Reformation in the church, a radical change in theology, and a minor change in practice. Yes I know, many think practice changed drastically, and in many important areas it did. But overall, the changes were somewhat minimal in regards to the practice of our Sunday morning service.

So where am I going with this post? And why did I post it early? I stumbled across a great sermon today over at Jay Winters’ blog entitled How big was the Garden of Eden? He presents some great ideas about how to live free from sin, making an analogy to how Adam and Eve continued to hang out around “the sin tree” even though they had tons of room to roam in God’s “Divinely sanctioned nudist colony”, as Jay humorously calls the Garden of Eden. But it’s the last few sentences that really caught my attention:

So dream, dream and get away from your sin tree. Dream and participate in the life that God has for you. Dream and post your thoughts on a church door and fix the church. Take your boat and travel as far away from that sin tree as you can. Experience freedom. Experience God’s Word.

In some ways what myself and many others have been doing in the blogosphere is nailing our theses to the church doors. Luther did a great job fueling a Reformation that fixed the doctrinal issues, and it began to affect the heart issues as well. But Luther was a former priest and was deeply entrenched in much of the traditions. Now another Reformation is already underway, and it’s a Reformation of practice, not theology. And it’s followers are finding freedom, freedom as they experience God’s Word.

I’m stuck somewhere in the middle, trying to figure out how all of this will look, hence 390days.com — I’m still making sense of Christianity 2.0.

• Where are you? Are you walking in freedom and experiencing God’s Word in its richness or are you still making sense of the new direction our faith is headed?
• Is it OK to “look before you leep” in regards to Christianity 2.0?
• How does Web 2.0 enable Christ followers today to “nail theses” to the church’s doors worldwide in ways never imaginable in Luther’s day?