Tue - March 13, 2007
RSS Feed
Here is the RSS feed for
the new blog. I'm making progress on the site, slowly but surely. I've learned
that there's no way you can just do "a little" css. I keep breaking things and
then I have to fix them. I'm having fun, though.
Posted at 01:15 PM |
Sat - March 10, 2007
Update your Bookmarks
Okay, all three of you should probably update
your bookmarks. I'm shifting my weblog to the front page: davebarnhart.net. I'm going to
be playing with the structure of the site for a while, so things may look pretty
funky.
Posted at 07:43 PM |
Thu - March 1, 2007
A Plug for Mark
For the last several months, I've been working on
updating our church's painfully outdated site. It was impressive 5 or 6 years
ago, but now it sits there, like a car up on blocks in the front yard, weeds
growing up through the rusting fenders. Whenever a visitor says, "I saw on your
website that..." those of us on staff cringe. Part of the problem is that the
site isn't interactive. It is full of static information that never updates.
But our new site - oh wow. I have to give a plug to our designer, Mark Steinruck, because he has walked us from the conceptual phase all the way through completion. I can say, with no hesitation, that when this launches we will have the best website in the state. He's been great to work with, and I'm especially pleased because he has done some awesome work for which I get to take credit (since it has been "my" project). If anyone needs a church website designed from top to bottom, Mark's your guy. He understands churches and he asks excellent questions about how (and why) you want to use the web. He gets it.
I said earlier that playing with Expression Engine has made me keenly aware of the weaknesses of my own site (I mean, besides hideous design), so I'm planning on an overhaul in the near future. My intention is to make it more hideous.
Anyway, I'll come back tomorrow and post a link to the new church site.
edit: Here it is!
But our new site - oh wow. I have to give a plug to our designer, Mark Steinruck, because he has walked us from the conceptual phase all the way through completion. I can say, with no hesitation, that when this launches we will have the best website in the state. He's been great to work with, and I'm especially pleased because he has done some awesome work for which I get to take credit (since it has been "my" project). If anyone needs a church website designed from top to bottom, Mark's your guy. He understands churches and he asks excellent questions about how (and why) you want to use the web. He gets it.
I said earlier that playing with Expression Engine has made me keenly aware of the weaknesses of my own site (I mean, besides hideous design), so I'm planning on an overhaul in the near future. My intention is to make it more hideous.
Anyway, I'll come back tomorrow and post a link to the new church site.
edit: Here it is!
Posted at 09:11 PM Permalink |
Mon - February 26, 2007
And What if We Discover an AIDS vaccine?
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the
social ramifications of the HPV
vaccine. This is, of course, a knot of medical, legal, and ethical
issues - parents' rights, the common good, greed, and so on. But people who
think cervical
cancer is a deterrent to adolescent sexual
activity are simply nuts.
When I was an assistant youth director (which is about as low on the totem pole on a church staff as you can get) I once excitedly mentioned a news article about a breakthrough in AIDS research. I said to the youth director, who was the parent of two teenagers, "can you imagine if they discovered a vaccine for HIV?"
"Oh Lord, I hope not," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"Then nothing will stop them from having sex."
Them. What did she mean? Teenagers? Unmarried people? Human beings?
I stared at the wall. What could I say?
When I was an assistant youth director (which is about as low on the totem pole on a church staff as you can get) I once excitedly mentioned a news article about a breakthrough in AIDS research. I said to the youth director, who was the parent of two teenagers, "can you imagine if they discovered a vaccine for HIV?"
"Oh Lord, I hope not," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"Then nothing will stop them from having sex."
Them. What did she mean? Teenagers? Unmarried people? Human beings?
I stared at the wall. What could I say?
Posted at 06:59 AM Permalink |
Fri - February 23, 2007
John the Baptist, Christus Victor, and Beauty
I'm plowing through several books at the
moment:
John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition by Walter Wink. I've read some of Wink's other stuff, like The Powers that Be. I think he has a refreshing and credible view of social and demonic forces, which fits very well with
Christus Victor by Gustaf Aulén. Since I've been interested in alternatives to Anselmian atonement theory, I figured it was time to read Christus Victor instead of just talking about it all the time. Ahem. Seriously, getting some distance from Anselm has helped me appreciate the concept of substitution and juridical theology a little bit better. It still irritates me that people will latch on to a crystallized metaphor and use it as a shibboleth - but I suppose that tends to be the human way. For me, substitutionary atonement is a much more beautiful metaphor if I also have other ways of speaking of what Jesus Christ accomplished. Otherwise, theological conversations tend to go like this:
"Three years she grew in sun and shower..."
"No she didn't!"
"What do you mean?"
"As it is written: she walks in beauty like the night. She can't have grown in sun and shower if she walks in beauty like the night."
"But she's also like sunrise over a still lake."
"Like the night!"
"Can we bracket the night for a few min..."
"Heretic!"
I'm also working on On Beauty and Being Just, which would be a quick read if it were not so beautifully written. It is like a rich red velvet cake - you have to eat it slowly. It wants a tall glass of cold milk to wash it down.
John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition by Walter Wink. I've read some of Wink's other stuff, like The Powers that Be. I think he has a refreshing and credible view of social and demonic forces, which fits very well with
Christus Victor by Gustaf Aulén. Since I've been interested in alternatives to Anselmian atonement theory, I figured it was time to read Christus Victor instead of just talking about it all the time. Ahem. Seriously, getting some distance from Anselm has helped me appreciate the concept of substitution and juridical theology a little bit better. It still irritates me that people will latch on to a crystallized metaphor and use it as a shibboleth - but I suppose that tends to be the human way. For me, substitutionary atonement is a much more beautiful metaphor if I also have other ways of speaking of what Jesus Christ accomplished. Otherwise, theological conversations tend to go like this:
"Three years she grew in sun and shower..."
"No she didn't!"
"What do you mean?"
"As it is written: she walks in beauty like the night. She can't have grown in sun and shower if she walks in beauty like the night."
"But she's also like sunrise over a still lake."
"Like the night!"
"Can we bracket the night for a few min..."
"Heretic!"
I'm also working on On Beauty and Being Just, which would be a quick read if it were not so beautifully written. It is like a rich red velvet cake - you have to eat it slowly. It wants a tall glass of cold milk to wash it down.
Posted at 06:57 AM Permalink |
Mon - February 19, 2007
Understanding (Link)
It can be so very refreshing to hear someone
left-leaning and bright who gets
it.
Posted at 07:28 AM |
Sat - February 17, 2007
Preachers and Credibility
Warning - academic speak follows:
This post set me thinking about credibility and how preachers attempt to achieve it. I think there are many social discourses (discourses refer to more than language - dress, dialect, etc.) operating in and around discussion of "the emerging church" which go unacknowledged. How does one become an authority on a movement or trend? How does one signal to others that they are part of a group? Do you get tatted up both arms, spike your hair, dress in some exotic flavor? Do you go the academic route and grow a beard and get eyeglasses with tiny frames? Do you produce an impressive CV? When I bring up such issues, people tend to be dismissive. Dress and credentials and all these "superficial" things are not important, they say.
Except that they are. Everyone is attempting to pull off being a certain kind of person, trying to achieve an image they have of themselves. Failure to pull off being a certain kind of person (even if that kind of person is "authentic") will result in harsh social penalties and a loss of credibility.
Like Holden Caufield, we may lament that the world is full of phonies. But also like him, we play the game. If social discourse is phony (which it is not), then we are all phonies. The validation of authenticity is only an affirmation that we have succeeded in pulling off what we present ourselves as - "a genuine person," maybe. What kind of clothes does a genuine person wear? What kind of music does a genuine person listen to? The fact that we label successful discourses "genuine" highlights the power of social discourses. Put another way, people we label as "phony" have simply failed to pull off being something we believed they were attempting. Perhaps we were wrong in reading what they were attempting? But the fact that we make such judgments at all is proof that we believe and act within social discourses.
Social discourses decide if we have credibility, and who we have credibility among. As a preacher, I've been brushed off because I've worn a robe and because I've not worn a robe, because I have used church-language and because I've not used church-language. Most frustrating is when we do not read the social context correctly and we fail, or are perceived to fail, pulling off a certain social discourse. Then you're just a poser. These are language and power games.
And I'll confess, I have instantly dismissed others for similar reasons. I'm one of those people who has not gone to hear a particular preacher or speaker because their hair is wrong. Oh, don't look so shocked. When you've been channel-surfing, you've seen the televangelist with the hair helmet and in less than a second you made a judgment about how much you wanted to hear what he had to say.
Part of being in a group is accepting certain judgments about other groups as part of the group's philosophy. For example, some pastors in the church accuse academics of living in ivory towers. Academics accuse pastors who are not part of the intellegentsia of being "out of touch," or "premodern," or "trendy" - sometimes all at the same time! It's not uncommon to hear pastors being dismissive of seminary education. Nor is it rare to hear professors lamenting the state of the church when they have such blockheaded student-pastors to work with. I've inhabited both worlds and I've seen how these social discourses play out. You can lose credibility if you sound too smart. You can lose credibility for not using the right words. You can lose credibility for not having credentials. You can lose credibility for having credentials.
The reason this post got me thinking in this direction was I wondered what kind of things signify credibility to people suspicious of the establishment? (This wondering of mine is tangential - I'm not implying Taylor is necessarily "suspicious of the establishment"). How does someone achieve credibility among a group (street cred) especially when it comes to conversation about what is or is not properly "emerging?" What external social discourses signal to people hungry for reform or revolution that we should engage in conversation, that we are like-minded revolutionaries?
Preachers who agonize over reaching the world for Christ at some point have to struggle with credibility. And I'm not sure what is most threatening to preachers - the idea that their message might be irrelevant or that they may not have credibility. When it comes to signaling those frustrated with the institutional church that, though I am a representative of that institution, I'm also working to change it, where do I begin? Do I amplify my criticism of the church? Do I change what I do in worship? Any change I make to physical appearance, speech, music, even worship practice runs the risk of becoming "just another gimmick," and I fail to pull off being what I attempt to become. As pastors, we pull off or fail at a certain social discourse.
As groups, particular churches also participate in social discourse. What kind of church is this? A white yuppie church? A black prosperity gospel church? A contemporary church? A blue-haired church?
Again, it is easy for sincere people to misunderstand - you don't get to opt out of participating in a social discourse. This isn't about "fooling people" or being "authentic" or "wearing a mask." Social discourses run very deep, and you can no more opt out than you can decide not to have race, or socioeconomic class, or gender, or politics. You may do one or two social discourses very well, but you always broadcast social information.
How do preachers, pastors, and teachers achieve credibility?
This post set me thinking about credibility and how preachers attempt to achieve it. I think there are many social discourses (discourses refer to more than language - dress, dialect, etc.) operating in and around discussion of "the emerging church" which go unacknowledged. How does one become an authority on a movement or trend? How does one signal to others that they are part of a group? Do you get tatted up both arms, spike your hair, dress in some exotic flavor? Do you go the academic route and grow a beard and get eyeglasses with tiny frames? Do you produce an impressive CV? When I bring up such issues, people tend to be dismissive. Dress and credentials and all these "superficial" things are not important, they say.
Except that they are. Everyone is attempting to pull off being a certain kind of person, trying to achieve an image they have of themselves. Failure to pull off being a certain kind of person (even if that kind of person is "authentic") will result in harsh social penalties and a loss of credibility.
Like Holden Caufield, we may lament that the world is full of phonies. But also like him, we play the game. If social discourse is phony (which it is not), then we are all phonies. The validation of authenticity is only an affirmation that we have succeeded in pulling off what we present ourselves as - "a genuine person," maybe. What kind of clothes does a genuine person wear? What kind of music does a genuine person listen to? The fact that we label successful discourses "genuine" highlights the power of social discourses. Put another way, people we label as "phony" have simply failed to pull off being something we believed they were attempting. Perhaps we were wrong in reading what they were attempting? But the fact that we make such judgments at all is proof that we believe and act within social discourses.
Social discourses decide if we have credibility, and who we have credibility among. As a preacher, I've been brushed off because I've worn a robe and because I've not worn a robe, because I have used church-language and because I've not used church-language. Most frustrating is when we do not read the social context correctly and we fail, or are perceived to fail, pulling off a certain social discourse. Then you're just a poser. These are language and power games.
And I'll confess, I have instantly dismissed others for similar reasons. I'm one of those people who has not gone to hear a particular preacher or speaker because their hair is wrong. Oh, don't look so shocked. When you've been channel-surfing, you've seen the televangelist with the hair helmet and in less than a second you made a judgment about how much you wanted to hear what he had to say.
Part of being in a group is accepting certain judgments about other groups as part of the group's philosophy. For example, some pastors in the church accuse academics of living in ivory towers. Academics accuse pastors who are not part of the intellegentsia of being "out of touch," or "premodern," or "trendy" - sometimes all at the same time! It's not uncommon to hear pastors being dismissive of seminary education. Nor is it rare to hear professors lamenting the state of the church when they have such blockheaded student-pastors to work with. I've inhabited both worlds and I've seen how these social discourses play out. You can lose credibility if you sound too smart. You can lose credibility for not using the right words. You can lose credibility for not having credentials. You can lose credibility for having credentials.
The reason this post got me thinking in this direction was I wondered what kind of things signify credibility to people suspicious of the establishment? (This wondering of mine is tangential - I'm not implying Taylor is necessarily "suspicious of the establishment"). How does someone achieve credibility among a group (street cred) especially when it comes to conversation about what is or is not properly "emerging?" What external social discourses signal to people hungry for reform or revolution that we should engage in conversation, that we are like-minded revolutionaries?
Preachers who agonize over reaching the world for Christ at some point have to struggle with credibility. And I'm not sure what is most threatening to preachers - the idea that their message might be irrelevant or that they may not have credibility. When it comes to signaling those frustrated with the institutional church that, though I am a representative of that institution, I'm also working to change it, where do I begin? Do I amplify my criticism of the church? Do I change what I do in worship? Any change I make to physical appearance, speech, music, even worship practice runs the risk of becoming "just another gimmick," and I fail to pull off being what I attempt to become. As pastors, we pull off or fail at a certain social discourse.
As groups, particular churches also participate in social discourse. What kind of church is this? A white yuppie church? A black prosperity gospel church? A contemporary church? A blue-haired church?
Again, it is easy for sincere people to misunderstand - you don't get to opt out of participating in a social discourse. This isn't about "fooling people" or being "authentic" or "wearing a mask." Social discourses run very deep, and you can no more opt out than you can decide not to have race, or socioeconomic class, or gender, or politics. You may do one or two social discourses very well, but you always broadcast social information.
How do preachers, pastors, and teachers achieve credibility?
Posted at 11:37 AM Permalink |
Thu - February 8, 2007
Why Relevance is Irrelevant
It used to be easy for me to get caught up in
arguments about "relevance" in preaching and teaching the Bible. As preachers,
do we make the Bible relevant to today's listeners, or, as Barth argued, do we
make today's listeners relevant to the Bible? How do we bridge the gap between
cultures?
I'm weary of it. It's a stupid discussion.
I sat in English class in high school and I listened, transfixed, as my literature professor opened the word - Shakespeare's word, not God's. As old, mad King Lear dashed through the rain with his jester and disguised protector, I, a teenage student who couldn't yet grow a beard, felt my heart break with Lear's as he wept over his loss of control, the indignity of ageing, and the death of his daughter. I remember watching Hamlet and smiling at the ironies of life, drama, and how the two intertwine. In college, my English professor sat on the edge of a student's desk and interrogated us about Wuthering Heights. "What is love?" he asked. "Would you trade places with Catherine? Why?" Those English professors taught me more about preaching than a hundred preachers arguing about "relevance."
Is King Lear relevant to today's world? Is Wuthering Heights? Sure, a million students sitting in class text-messaging their buddies about this weekend's keg party may disagree, but for anyone who has been touched by the stories the question is... irrelevant. And, at some point, those who are too cool for school will be able to hear King Lear with new ears, even if they have to wait until their son-in-law takes away their car keys and puts them in a nursing home.
"Relevance" is something that obtains in a listener when there is perceived distance between the listener and the story. When you glance at your watch during the particularly tedious fight scene or boring dialogue in a movie, when something jars you out of identifying with the protagonist, you've reached a place where you make a judgment about relevance. Even if you decide that a story is relevant, you arrrive at the decision because something caused you to step back and look at the work as a whole, then look at your culture, and note that there were more points of agreement than disagreement. If we judge something "relevant," it's because it fits - but just barely.
I saw some news footage of interviews with people coming out of the theater after seeing Star Wars: A New Hope in 1976. The media took notice of Star Wars because science fiction had been considered a niche genre. Two teenage girls came out giggling, saying the movie was terrible, because it was "too make-believe." For whatever reason - they were not able to suspend disbelief, they didn't have the required amount of testosterone, they had tiny imaginations, or they were absorbed in their own worlds of gossip and fashion - the movie did not achieve relevance. For me, of course, it was a picture of the way reality should be. I figured every kid wanted a lightsaber.
Sometimes we run up against the same disconnection with the Bible. Because of the perceived difference between Biblical culture and ours, because of the alien feel, we cannot enter into the story. We stand outside it. To some extent it is good to be aware of the difference.
Yet for some reason I can read The Kite Runner, or Dune, or the Joy Luck Club, and enter into an alien culture and even an alien person. Yes, yes, I know - that's not the same thing as understanding a culture (as if most people even understand their own culture) yet I walk away from these books transformed. Something in me changes. For many people, reading The Red Tent opened them up to the Bible in a way they had never experienced.
If we cannot do the same thing with the Bible - enter into the text and be transformed by it - it is not the Bible's fault. The Bible has transforming power. What's needed is a storyteller or a teacher who will open the Word and interrogate you with it: would you switch places with King David? with Paul? Why? Do you find this proverb convincing? Is this author speaking literally or figuratively? What's going on in this text? To fully enter into a text, to fall in love with it, you have to be willing to ask these kinds of questions. Some Christians won't because they find the questions threatening. But reading the Bible should destabilize our carefully-constructed world.
I loved listening to the commentary on the DVD of The Seven Samurai. The film professor talked about Kurosawa's technique, the anarchic fight choreography, the way the musical themes introduced certain characters, and all the innovative stuff that influenced directors for years after. He clearly loved the movie. I imagine that if you asked him if The Seven Samurai were relevant to today's culture, he might look at you as if you were insane. Talk to anyone about the thing in their life that alters their universe and ask them if it's relevant. I've listened to mechanics that can talk about an engine with such passion that it makes me want to give up preaching and go take apart a car.
I suspect that if some in our culture are "too cool for school," refusing to enter into Star Wars or Shakespeare or Spaghetti Westerns, they will not find relevance in the Bible either. For such people, even if they were to see a movie or read a book about their own life, they would most likely make the same judgment: this story is not relevant to me. Their problem is not with the relevance of the story. Their problem is that their fear of transformation prevents them from entering into the story. They will not become vulnerable.
At the same time I believe there are preachers who know intuitively that people should love the Bible, but they can't quite figure out how to spread the love. So they stand outside of the text, trying to make it fit, instead of entering into it themselves. I've done the same thing, not just with the Bible but with other areas of life. I've tried liking something because I felt I should. Eventually I give up. But when I come back to it later, and enter into it without carrying with me the image of who I believe I'm supposed to be - if, in other words, I can leave behind my baggage - I sometimes find, to my surprise, that this text, or music, or film, really rocks in an unexpected and delightful way. The problem is not relevance. The problem is me.
I think that when some preachers talk about relevance, what's really at stake is their own credibility - but I'm saving that for another post.
I'm weary of it. It's a stupid discussion.
I sat in English class in high school and I listened, transfixed, as my literature professor opened the word - Shakespeare's word, not God's. As old, mad King Lear dashed through the rain with his jester and disguised protector, I, a teenage student who couldn't yet grow a beard, felt my heart break with Lear's as he wept over his loss of control, the indignity of ageing, and the death of his daughter. I remember watching Hamlet and smiling at the ironies of life, drama, and how the two intertwine. In college, my English professor sat on the edge of a student's desk and interrogated us about Wuthering Heights. "What is love?" he asked. "Would you trade places with Catherine? Why?" Those English professors taught me more about preaching than a hundred preachers arguing about "relevance."
Is King Lear relevant to today's world? Is Wuthering Heights? Sure, a million students sitting in class text-messaging their buddies about this weekend's keg party may disagree, but for anyone who has been touched by the stories the question is... irrelevant. And, at some point, those who are too cool for school will be able to hear King Lear with new ears, even if they have to wait until their son-in-law takes away their car keys and puts them in a nursing home.
"Relevance" is something that obtains in a listener when there is perceived distance between the listener and the story. When you glance at your watch during the particularly tedious fight scene or boring dialogue in a movie, when something jars you out of identifying with the protagonist, you've reached a place where you make a judgment about relevance. Even if you decide that a story is relevant, you arrrive at the decision because something caused you to step back and look at the work as a whole, then look at your culture, and note that there were more points of agreement than disagreement. If we judge something "relevant," it's because it fits - but just barely.
I saw some news footage of interviews with people coming out of the theater after seeing Star Wars: A New Hope in 1976. The media took notice of Star Wars because science fiction had been considered a niche genre. Two teenage girls came out giggling, saying the movie was terrible, because it was "too make-believe." For whatever reason - they were not able to suspend disbelief, they didn't have the required amount of testosterone, they had tiny imaginations, or they were absorbed in their own worlds of gossip and fashion - the movie did not achieve relevance. For me, of course, it was a picture of the way reality should be. I figured every kid wanted a lightsaber.
Sometimes we run up against the same disconnection with the Bible. Because of the perceived difference between Biblical culture and ours, because of the alien feel, we cannot enter into the story. We stand outside it. To some extent it is good to be aware of the difference.
Yet for some reason I can read The Kite Runner, or Dune, or the Joy Luck Club, and enter into an alien culture and even an alien person. Yes, yes, I know - that's not the same thing as understanding a culture (as if most people even understand their own culture) yet I walk away from these books transformed. Something in me changes. For many people, reading The Red Tent opened them up to the Bible in a way they had never experienced.
If we cannot do the same thing with the Bible - enter into the text and be transformed by it - it is not the Bible's fault. The Bible has transforming power. What's needed is a storyteller or a teacher who will open the Word and interrogate you with it: would you switch places with King David? with Paul? Why? Do you find this proverb convincing? Is this author speaking literally or figuratively? What's going on in this text? To fully enter into a text, to fall in love with it, you have to be willing to ask these kinds of questions. Some Christians won't because they find the questions threatening. But reading the Bible should destabilize our carefully-constructed world.
I loved listening to the commentary on the DVD of The Seven Samurai. The film professor talked about Kurosawa's technique, the anarchic fight choreography, the way the musical themes introduced certain characters, and all the innovative stuff that influenced directors for years after. He clearly loved the movie. I imagine that if you asked him if The Seven Samurai were relevant to today's culture, he might look at you as if you were insane. Talk to anyone about the thing in their life that alters their universe and ask them if it's relevant. I've listened to mechanics that can talk about an engine with such passion that it makes me want to give up preaching and go take apart a car.
I suspect that if some in our culture are "too cool for school," refusing to enter into Star Wars or Shakespeare or Spaghetti Westerns, they will not find relevance in the Bible either. For such people, even if they were to see a movie or read a book about their own life, they would most likely make the same judgment: this story is not relevant to me. Their problem is not with the relevance of the story. Their problem is that their fear of transformation prevents them from entering into the story. They will not become vulnerable.
At the same time I believe there are preachers who know intuitively that people should love the Bible, but they can't quite figure out how to spread the love. So they stand outside of the text, trying to make it fit, instead of entering into it themselves. I've done the same thing, not just with the Bible but with other areas of life. I've tried liking something because I felt I should. Eventually I give up. But when I come back to it later, and enter into it without carrying with me the image of who I believe I'm supposed to be - if, in other words, I can leave behind my baggage - I sometimes find, to my surprise, that this text, or music, or film, really rocks in an unexpected and delightful way. The problem is not relevance. The problem is me.
I think that when some preachers talk about relevance, what's really at stake is their own credibility - but I'm saving that for another post.
Posted at 09:52 PM Permalink |
Sun - February 4, 2007
The Gospel According to Leo
L (singing):
Zaccheus was a wee little
man...
D: Did you learn about Zaccheus today?
L: Yes. He climbed a tree.
D: Why did he climb a tree?
L: He wanted to see the Savior.
D: And what happened then?
L: He came down the tree.
D: Where did they go?
L: They went to God's house.
D: They did? Did they have supper there?
L: Yes. They ate peanut butter and crackers.
D: What do you want for dinner?
L: Peanut butter and crackers.
D: Did you learn about Zaccheus today?
L: Yes. He climbed a tree.
D: Why did he climb a tree?
L: He wanted to see the Savior.
D: And what happened then?
L: He came down the tree.
D: Where did they go?
L: They went to God's house.
D: They did? Did they have supper there?
L: Yes. They ate peanut butter and crackers.
D: What do you want for dinner?
L: Peanut butter and crackers.
Posted at 10:06 PM |
Speaking of John...
Ben
Witherington has an interesting article arguing that the Beloved
Disciple (and the author of John's Gospel) is actually
Lazarus.
Fascinating stuff.
Posted at 07:21 PM |
Thu - February 1, 2007
Everyone, Anyone, No one, Whoever
Anyone
who reads John's Gospel or his letters could easily be buried under an avalanche
of generalizations. Both John's Jesus (the words marked red, if you have a
red-letter edition) and John himself (the words in black) use the words
no one, everyone,
anyone, and
whoever
all the time. John talks this way because he wants us to understand this Jesus
stuff is BIG. Jesus is more than a prophet - he is the Son of the Living God.
Mere words fail to express all he is, so we have to grasp it through metaphor -
he is the Bread of Life, the Gate, the Road (Way), the Truth, the Life, the
Light, the Good Shepherd, the One Sent into the World, the Vine. And if it
sounds confusing, John says you either get it or you
don't:
John 14:6 - No one comes to the father except through me.
John 6:44 - No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.
1 John 1:23 - No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also.
1 John 3:6 - No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.
John 3:3 - No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above (or "again")
John 14:23 - Those who love me will keep my word and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words...
John 13:20 - ...whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
1 John 1:6 ...whoever says, "I abide in him," ought to walk just as he walked.
John 8:52 - Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.
3 John 11 - Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.
John 6:45 - Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me
John 6:37 - Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.
John 6:54 - Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day
John 7:17 - Anyone who resolves to do the will of the God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own
Some of these sayings give me a sense of relief: everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also. Yippee, it's a two-for-one deal! Whoever does good comes from God. Good news for righteous unbelievers! Whoever receives one whom I send receives me. Excellent news for those of us who like to host parties for prophets! Other sayings fill me with dread: no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Ouch.
These sayings are not exhaustive. There are plenty of other everyone/anyone/whoever sayings in the Johannine writings. What I find interesting is which ones Christians have used to create maps of salvation. It seems a lot of our theological energy goes into creating Venn diagrams of who is in the Kingdom and who is out of it. We also spend a lot of worry about which circle we are in.
For example, the obvious one is John 14:6 - No one can come to the Father except through me. This seems to clinch it as far as the exculsivity of Christ for salvation - except that there are also a couple of other "no one" statements that seem to go along with it:
No one comes to me (Jesus) unless drawn by the Father
No one who abides in him (Jesus) sins.
These kinds of sayings make theologians go into apopleptic frenzies of rhetorical acrobatics. If you begin from the assumption that all these statements are meant to be read as logically true (no x is b kind of statements) then if one of them seems contradicted by the evidence (nobody who abides in Jesus sins, yet everyone sins) then you must find some other way that they are true (or figure that we are all damned). Perhaps, you will reason, John didn't mean that Christians don't sin. In fact, many Protestant theologians would argue (and have) that because Jesus "stands in" for the sinner, God does not hold our sins against us. Therefore "no one who abides in him sins" should properly be read as "in spite of all evidence to the contrary, no one who abides in him sins." As Luther says, we are simultaneously sinners and saints.
Now, it's pretty clear to me that John did not mean "in spite of all evidence to the contrary." John meant that Christians don't sin. I don't think he meant this sentence as a propositional truth. He was not establishing theological principles. He was intentionally holding the Christian community to a ridiculously high ideal. He goes on to lay out a simplistic religious worldview: those who go on sinning are children of the devil. Those who do what is right are children of God.
I've said that these statements are ridiculous and simplistic. I don't use these words disparagingly. They are overly simple and they invite ridicule: just try calling someone a child of the devil and see what happens! But the statement makes perfect sense to say to a community of moral libertines who say, "hey, Jesus takes away our sin - let's party!" To Christians who spiritualize the Gospel to the point of making it irrelevant to moral conduct, John's statements are a slap in the face. We can't go on selling drugs and worshiping fertility gods and call ourselves Christian just because we think Jesus takes away our sin.
John Wesley took the statement from 1 John 3:6 to mean that we could, through the process of sanctification, come to the point where we do not intentionally sin. Most Methodists back off of the extreme statements Wesley makes in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. We modern Methodists say that perfection is a process, like maturation - that we approach perfection in love the way one approaches the speed of light. While I think this is true, I don't think Wesley would buy it. When folks objected that no one can achieve a sinless life, Wesley said, "you're only saying that because no one ever has!"
I think that we need to look at some of Saint John's other statements in his Gospel and letters the same way - by placing them in context. Part of the job of contemporary theology is to go back and critically examine our theological history, including the errors of some of our fathers and mothers in the faith - not out of sense of arrogant superiority, but out of humility and a deep regret for the damage bad theology has caused. Specifically, I think it would be more helpful to approach some of these statements not with the question, "how can we make these words logically resolve so that we preserve the propositional truth of scripture?" but instead with the question, "what does John want us to know and believe?"
(edited 2-3-07)
John 14:6 - No one comes to the father except through me.
John 6:44 - No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.
1 John 1:23 - No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also.
1 John 3:6 - No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.
John 3:3 - No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above (or "again")
John 14:23 - Those who love me will keep my word and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words...
John 13:20 - ...whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
1 John 1:6 ...whoever says, "I abide in him," ought to walk just as he walked.
John 8:52 - Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.
3 John 11 - Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.
John 6:45 - Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me
John 6:37 - Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.
John 6:54 - Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day
John 7:17 - Anyone who resolves to do the will of the God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own
Some of these sayings give me a sense of relief: everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also. Yippee, it's a two-for-one deal! Whoever does good comes from God. Good news for righteous unbelievers! Whoever receives one whom I send receives me. Excellent news for those of us who like to host parties for prophets! Other sayings fill me with dread: no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Ouch.
These sayings are not exhaustive. There are plenty of other everyone/anyone/whoever sayings in the Johannine writings. What I find interesting is which ones Christians have used to create maps of salvation. It seems a lot of our theological energy goes into creating Venn diagrams of who is in the Kingdom and who is out of it. We also spend a lot of worry about which circle we are in.
For example, the obvious one is John 14:6 - No one can come to the Father except through me. This seems to clinch it as far as the exculsivity of Christ for salvation - except that there are also a couple of other "no one" statements that seem to go along with it:
No one comes to me (Jesus) unless drawn by the Father
No one who abides in him (Jesus) sins.
These kinds of sayings make theologians go into apopleptic frenzies of rhetorical acrobatics. If you begin from the assumption that all these statements are meant to be read as logically true (no x is b kind of statements) then if one of them seems contradicted by the evidence (nobody who abides in Jesus sins, yet everyone sins) then you must find some other way that they are true (or figure that we are all damned). Perhaps, you will reason, John didn't mean that Christians don't sin. In fact, many Protestant theologians would argue (and have) that because Jesus "stands in" for the sinner, God does not hold our sins against us. Therefore "no one who abides in him sins" should properly be read as "in spite of all evidence to the contrary, no one who abides in him sins." As Luther says, we are simultaneously sinners and saints.
Now, it's pretty clear to me that John did not mean "in spite of all evidence to the contrary." John meant that Christians don't sin. I don't think he meant this sentence as a propositional truth. He was not establishing theological principles. He was intentionally holding the Christian community to a ridiculously high ideal. He goes on to lay out a simplistic religious worldview: those who go on sinning are children of the devil. Those who do what is right are children of God.
I've said that these statements are ridiculous and simplistic. I don't use these words disparagingly. They are overly simple and they invite ridicule: just try calling someone a child of the devil and see what happens! But the statement makes perfect sense to say to a community of moral libertines who say, "hey, Jesus takes away our sin - let's party!" To Christians who spiritualize the Gospel to the point of making it irrelevant to moral conduct, John's statements are a slap in the face. We can't go on selling drugs and worshiping fertility gods and call ourselves Christian just because we think Jesus takes away our sin.
John Wesley took the statement from 1 John 3:6 to mean that we could, through the process of sanctification, come to the point where we do not intentionally sin. Most Methodists back off of the extreme statements Wesley makes in A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. We modern Methodists say that perfection is a process, like maturation - that we approach perfection in love the way one approaches the speed of light. While I think this is true, I don't think Wesley would buy it. When folks objected that no one can achieve a sinless life, Wesley said, "you're only saying that because no one ever has!"
I think that we need to look at some of Saint John's other statements in his Gospel and letters the same way - by placing them in context. Part of the job of contemporary theology is to go back and critically examine our theological history, including the errors of some of our fathers and mothers in the faith - not out of sense of arrogant superiority, but out of humility and a deep regret for the damage bad theology has caused. Specifically, I think it would be more helpful to approach some of these statements not with the question, "how can we make these words logically resolve so that we preserve the propositional truth of scripture?" but instead with the question, "what does John want us to know and believe?"
(edited 2-3-07)
Posted at 10:26 PM Permalink |
Tue - January 30, 2007
Wed - January 24, 2007
The Poor You Always Have With You
Confession time: I'm one of those
well-intentioned, socially-concerned preachers who seems to love beating up
white, middle-class, guilt-laden listeners with images of "the poor." It's a
moral failure, I'll admit it - not just a rhetorical one. It probably ranks up
there with using other stock images: the working single mom, the rich fat cat
driving his luxury car, the malnourished child in a developing country, the
soccer mom in her SUV, the homeless lady pushing a grocery cart. We use them as
a kind of rhetorical shorthand. We dress up socioeconomic anxiety in Christian
clothes and make it do tricks.
I've become more circumspect using such images as I've actually gotten to know some of these people, rich and poor alike.
Here's one image of "the poor" - A guy works two jobs to make ends meet and raise his two kids. He has no health insurance. His extended family has either died or become addicted to drugs. He drives a 1988 Honda hatchback with 200,000 miles on it. He admits he has made some stupid financial decisions, like using one of those payday cash advance places (the profits from which help supplement the income of several state legislators). One day the transmission goes out on his car. Because he cannot make it to work, he loses both jobs. Because he loses his income, he cannot pay his electric bill. The milk and meat in the refrigerator spoil and makes the whole house stink. He doesn't ask his church for help. He just stops going. Prayer doesn't seem to be doing the trick anyway.
Here's another image - A guy "between jobs" conveniently runs out of gas in the church parking lot. He says he is trying to make it to the next state where he will become gainfully employed. Though he reeks of cigarette smoke (what do those cost now - 4 bucks a pack?), he says he doesn't have enough money to buy gas. He holds in his hand a well-worn Bible. As he talks to the preacher (who looks like an easy mark) he makes abundant references to how he believes God will provide, but he's running out of faith because the last three churches were stuck up and didn't believe in helping someone who was hard up. But certainly, he implies, this preacher will be different.
Anyone who spends any time in a church and feels any sort of conviction that the gospel should be "good news to the poor" has to run up against the very practical problem of who is the poor and what kind of Good News should it be? Idealists say that you should reach for your wallet because Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, to "give to whoever asks of you." It is your responsibility, they say, to give, and God's to mete out punishment or reward. What the person does with the money you give them is between them and God.
I would cling to that ideal if it didn't feel like a cop-out. Scam artists have an interesting strategy. They use a mixture of guilt, pity, fear, and annoyance. I've found that if I address my own emotional reaction to the situation, I can sometimes find a real person under the scammer. I told one con artist (the "out of gas" variety) that I would be happy to drive him where he was going. I've offered to buy such people lunch if they will simply sit down with me and tell me their story - the true version. I have very rarely had anyone take me up on my offers. I figure that if I am supposed to see the image of the Living God in people, I may have to wrestle it out of them. God never takes offense at the challenge of greater intimacy. But I think God would be royally pissed if I gave him money just to get out of my face. Fear and pity are not the same as love.
On the other hand, I think it is also a feature of living a (mostly) privileged existence that we're always afraid of getting cheated. I try not to act out of such fear, but pastoral care for the scam artist is a tricky thing. The people who see churches and pastors as marks do need something. Sometimes they are really poor.
Working with the - shall we call them the sympathetic poor? - can be just as frustrating. Some folks learn helplessness and figure why try to live on a budget when life will simply kick your legs out from under you? Why bother trying to save something, or get out of debt, or expect anything better for your children than you got? Sometimes they find ingenious ways to sabotage themselves. Conventional wisdom says that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Often I've felt like throwing my hands in the air and giving up, because if the man keeps eating the bait and leaving the fishing pole at home then how can you teach him anything?
Then again, perhaps it is not my place to teach, but to learn.
Anyway, I would like to issue a challenge to preachers, especially those preaching to middle-to-upper-class congregations. The next time Satan tempts you to trot out an abstraction of "the homeless" or "the poor" to make your homiletical point, try to have someone in particular in mind. Who is the poor? Give them a face, a situation, a name.
I've become more circumspect using such images as I've actually gotten to know some of these people, rich and poor alike.
Here's one image of "the poor" - A guy works two jobs to make ends meet and raise his two kids. He has no health insurance. His extended family has either died or become addicted to drugs. He drives a 1988 Honda hatchback with 200,000 miles on it. He admits he has made some stupid financial decisions, like using one of those payday cash advance places (the profits from which help supplement the income of several state legislators). One day the transmission goes out on his car. Because he cannot make it to work, he loses both jobs. Because he loses his income, he cannot pay his electric bill. The milk and meat in the refrigerator spoil and makes the whole house stink. He doesn't ask his church for help. He just stops going. Prayer doesn't seem to be doing the trick anyway.
Here's another image - A guy "between jobs" conveniently runs out of gas in the church parking lot. He says he is trying to make it to the next state where he will become gainfully employed. Though he reeks of cigarette smoke (what do those cost now - 4 bucks a pack?), he says he doesn't have enough money to buy gas. He holds in his hand a well-worn Bible. As he talks to the preacher (who looks like an easy mark) he makes abundant references to how he believes God will provide, but he's running out of faith because the last three churches were stuck up and didn't believe in helping someone who was hard up. But certainly, he implies, this preacher will be different.
Anyone who spends any time in a church and feels any sort of conviction that the gospel should be "good news to the poor" has to run up against the very practical problem of who is the poor and what kind of Good News should it be? Idealists say that you should reach for your wallet because Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, to "give to whoever asks of you." It is your responsibility, they say, to give, and God's to mete out punishment or reward. What the person does with the money you give them is between them and God.
I would cling to that ideal if it didn't feel like a cop-out. Scam artists have an interesting strategy. They use a mixture of guilt, pity, fear, and annoyance. I've found that if I address my own emotional reaction to the situation, I can sometimes find a real person under the scammer. I told one con artist (the "out of gas" variety) that I would be happy to drive him where he was going. I've offered to buy such people lunch if they will simply sit down with me and tell me their story - the true version. I have very rarely had anyone take me up on my offers. I figure that if I am supposed to see the image of the Living God in people, I may have to wrestle it out of them. God never takes offense at the challenge of greater intimacy. But I think God would be royally pissed if I gave him money just to get out of my face. Fear and pity are not the same as love.
On the other hand, I think it is also a feature of living a (mostly) privileged existence that we're always afraid of getting cheated. I try not to act out of such fear, but pastoral care for the scam artist is a tricky thing. The people who see churches and pastors as marks do need something. Sometimes they are really poor.
Working with the - shall we call them the sympathetic poor? - can be just as frustrating. Some folks learn helplessness and figure why try to live on a budget when life will simply kick your legs out from under you? Why bother trying to save something, or get out of debt, or expect anything better for your children than you got? Sometimes they find ingenious ways to sabotage themselves. Conventional wisdom says that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Often I've felt like throwing my hands in the air and giving up, because if the man keeps eating the bait and leaving the fishing pole at home then how can you teach him anything?
Then again, perhaps it is not my place to teach, but to learn.
Anyway, I would like to issue a challenge to preachers, especially those preaching to middle-to-upper-class congregations. The next time Satan tempts you to trot out an abstraction of "the homeless" or "the poor" to make your homiletical point, try to have someone in particular in mind. Who is the poor? Give them a face, a situation, a name.
Posted at 09:39 PM Permalink |
Mon - January 22, 2007
Sermon Series on Prayer
I start a sermon series on prayer this Sunday
evening. I'm struggling a bit with my perspective. It's hard to preach about
prayer without sounding like I think I'm
good
at it.
Good
at
prayer?
I can't figure out if the idea of being
good at
prayer is presumptuous or just absurd. Maybe
like I'm good at tossing
mountains into the sea. Maybe like I'm good at breathing and pumping
blood.
Plenty of people have written about prayer, about what parts of it are talking and what parts are listening to God. The other night at Trinity, Tony Campolo spoke beautifully about prayer bringing us to the "thin place," as the Irish monastics said, about "driving back the animals," about bringing us into the presence of God. He quoted an interview with Mother Theresa in which the interviewer asked her, "how do you pray to God?" She replied, "I listen to God." The interviewer, flustered, asked, "and what does God say to you?" She replied, "God listens to me. And if you don't get that, I can't explain it to you."
Those who regularly pray develop the sense that the best work of prayer is simply to center us, to bring us before God. But let's face it: most of us wouldn't ever begin to pray at all if we didn't feel a need to ask God for stuff.
So for me to even attempt to preach about prayer, I feel I'll have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not "good at" prayer. When it comes to daily spiritual disciplines, I feel I'm doing great (for me) if I hit four days out of seven. I always feel like a hypocrite when I talk about the importance of daily spiritual discipline, because I'm lousy at it. But I also know the difference between a day begun with prayer and a day without. My grandfather read the same half-dozen psalms every day. He began every day by saying "this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." When he came home from the war, all but one of his high school buddies had been killed. I think that verse meant something different to him than it does to me. It drove him to give thanks daily to God. When you look at his Bible, you see the darkened thumb prints from where he turned the pages on those same few psalms every morning. It's like looking at a path that someone's feet have worn in the grass, walking from the house to the well and back, every single day for years on end.
Anyway, when I am on a spiritual disciplines roll, I like to use A Guide to Prayer for All God's People. It follows the lectionary, and each day begins with a psalm. Today's psalm, 131, floored me. I sat there staring at it for a long time, trying to catch my breath:
My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother.
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forevermore.
I know I've read these words before, but they didn't stun me the way they did this morning. I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all that theology stuff - I just have faith." But the image of the weaned child captured me. I could see the baby who has finally learned that it won't die if it doesn't get the breast. I heard, "shush - all shall be well." That's what I would like to get out of prayer. To bring my laundry list of requests to God, to bring my hunger and my anxiety, my theological questions, my frustration, and to be stilled.
I also hear something about spiritual maturity implied in those verses. A weaned child is not an adult. She cannot drive or take out a mortgage or maybe even speak. But she knows she won't die if she doesn't get what she wants immediately.
Here is the tentative schedule for the sermon series:
1. Pray Then in This Way: The Lord's Prayer
2. Have Mercy: The Jesus Prayer
3. Be Still and Know that I am God: Centering Prayer
4. Active Prayer: Praying and Doing
I know I blew it with the Hell series, but this time I really do plan on getting these puppies recorded. And I do still intend to go back and write a synopsis of the Hell series. After all, I may want to repreach it someday.
edit: How appropriate that my Dad just posted a piece on accountability. I should have mentioned that I always do better with spiritual disciplines when I have a someone else to check up on me. We just started a Covenant Discipleship group for our Singles ministry, and I'm helping them launch. Accountability groups provide me with the motivation to get my spiritual act together and to pray regularly.
Plenty of people have written about prayer, about what parts of it are talking and what parts are listening to God. The other night at Trinity, Tony Campolo spoke beautifully about prayer bringing us to the "thin place," as the Irish monastics said, about "driving back the animals," about bringing us into the presence of God. He quoted an interview with Mother Theresa in which the interviewer asked her, "how do you pray to God?" She replied, "I listen to God." The interviewer, flustered, asked, "and what does God say to you?" She replied, "God listens to me. And if you don't get that, I can't explain it to you."
Those who regularly pray develop the sense that the best work of prayer is simply to center us, to bring us before God. But let's face it: most of us wouldn't ever begin to pray at all if we didn't feel a need to ask God for stuff.
So for me to even attempt to preach about prayer, I feel I'll have to start with a disclaimer: I'm not "good at" prayer. When it comes to daily spiritual disciplines, I feel I'm doing great (for me) if I hit four days out of seven. I always feel like a hypocrite when I talk about the importance of daily spiritual discipline, because I'm lousy at it. But I also know the difference between a day begun with prayer and a day without. My grandfather read the same half-dozen psalms every day. He began every day by saying "this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." When he came home from the war, all but one of his high school buddies had been killed. I think that verse meant something different to him than it does to me. It drove him to give thanks daily to God. When you look at his Bible, you see the darkened thumb prints from where he turned the pages on those same few psalms every morning. It's like looking at a path that someone's feet have worn in the grass, walking from the house to the well and back, every single day for years on end.
Anyway, when I am on a spiritual disciplines roll, I like to use A Guide to Prayer for All God's People. It follows the lectionary, and each day begins with a psalm. Today's psalm, 131, floored me. I sat there staring at it for a long time, trying to catch my breath:
My heart is not proud, O Lord,
my eyes are not haughty.
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul
like a weaned child with its mother.
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
both now and forevermore.
I know I've read these words before, but they didn't stun me the way they did this morning. I'm sure when I read it before I read it as one of those trite sayings people of faith sometimes make: "I don't worry about all that theology stuff - I just have faith." But the image of the weaned child captured me. I could see the baby who has finally learned that it won't die if it doesn't get the breast. I heard, "shush - all shall be well." That's what I would like to get out of prayer. To bring my laundry list of requests to God, to bring my hunger and my anxiety, my theological questions, my frustration, and to be stilled.
I also hear something about spiritual maturity implied in those verses. A weaned child is not an adult. She cannot drive or take out a mortgage or maybe even speak. But she knows she won't die if she doesn't get what she wants immediately.
Here is the tentative schedule for the sermon series:
1. Pray Then in This Way: The Lord's Prayer
2. Have Mercy: The Jesus Prayer
3. Be Still and Know that I am God: Centering Prayer
4. Active Prayer: Praying and Doing
I know I blew it with the Hell series, but this time I really do plan on getting these puppies recorded. And I do still intend to go back and write a synopsis of the Hell series. After all, I may want to repreach it someday.
edit: How appropriate that my Dad just posted a piece on accountability. I should have mentioned that I always do better with spiritual disciplines when I have a someone else to check up on me. We just started a Covenant Discipleship group for our Singles ministry, and I'm helping them launch. Accountability groups provide me with the motivation to get my spiritual act together and to pray regularly.
Posted at 10:12 PM Permalink |
Sat - January 20, 2007
Children of Men - longer review
Children of
Men is not the kind of movie you want to see
if you are looking for a light pick-me-up movie. After my friend and I walked
out of the theater, all I could do was shake my head and say, "wow." Theology
overflows in this movie, but beyond the fact that the main character is
named
Theo, many religious folks who see this movie will not recognize the Gospel
hints dropped along the way.
It has been a long time since I actually felt suspense in a movie, since I actually cared about what happened to the characters involved. CoM put me on the edge of my seat in the most intense - and ludicrous - car chase I have ever seen. I loved the fact that the main character does not come off as a superhero. He does not know Kung Fu. He never picks up a gun. He stumbles through his mission like a normal person, and for that reason I could not help but identify and sympathize with him.
Anyway, I've been unable to stop thinking about it, off and on, for three days. To me, that's the mark of a great movie. Or a great sermon.
It has been a long time since I actually felt suspense in a movie, since I actually cared about what happened to the characters involved. CoM put me on the edge of my seat in the most intense - and ludicrous - car chase I have ever seen. I loved the fact that the main character does not come off as a superhero. He does not know Kung Fu. He never picks up a gun. He stumbles through his mission like a normal person, and for that reason I could not help but identify and sympathize with him.
Anyway, I've been unable to stop thinking about it, off and on, for three days. To me, that's the mark of a great movie. Or a great sermon.
Posted at 01:59 PM Permalink |
About
Dave Barnhart
Why Vulgar Homiletics?
Personae:
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contact: dave at davebarnhart dot net
Why Vulgar Homiletics?
Personae:
All Consuming | Del.icio.us | Last.fm | MySpace | Zaadz
contact: dave at davebarnhart dot net
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Published On: Mar 13, 2007 01:15 PM
Published On: Mar 13, 2007 01:15 PM