Cultural Christianity

“All the principles of sceptics, stoics, atheists, etc., are true. But their conclusions are false, because the opposite principles are also true.” - Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“Well I got me a taste of the hideous waste
That was built around the worship of my beautiful face
And now I bow before the wrinkles and the lines
I’d love to leave behind, leave behind

Well I’d made some promises I did not keep
So I thought that I’d pretend
That I said them in my sleep
But now I can’t afford to buy back all the time
The precious time
When all the talk was cheap and all the
Words were mine” - 7 & 7 is - “L’Orbis/Jack Spoiler“

A colleague of mine in student ministry (the founder of that website over there in my link section) asked this question on his blog: Is Oprah Dangerous? Well Adam, you asked for a response, so here’s mine: The short answer is “yes”. The long, more detailed answer is “not really”.

Since Adam’s question is coming from a theological perspective, it is with a theological perspective that I must answer him. In the end nothing is really threatening to the Gospel of Christ itself: not The DaVinci Code, not The Golden Compass (in book or movie form) or its sequels, not same-sex marriage, Democrats in elected office, or the Old Earth Creationism. God is eternal, as is His Kingdom and nothing will ever stop that from being true. With that in mind, we have nothing to fear from Ms Winfrey, but this does not mean that her statements and theology should be taken lightly.

The danger about Oprah’s statements is that they have the ring of truth about them. That’s because many of them contain a good bit of truth, but then bring the seeker to a conclusion that is ultimately false. I think many Christians could benefit from thinking of the Kingdom of God not as some place that we’ll get to after we’ve “done our time” with the sinners on planet earth, but rather as something that we carry with us, and build in the here and now. We could also benefit from the mentality that are are many diverse ways to live in this world; indeed many good and right ways to live as Christians in this world. And we could also benefit from not obsessing overmuch concerning the rather violent and gruesome image of the Cross. (And, yes, I’m well aware of the cross up there at the top of the page. It’s not that we should forget the Crucifixion, but rather we must also remember that Jesus lived a full life as a human being and His work on the Cross was only one part of His mission here.)

But Oprah falls into the (really rather old) lie of “if we believe it hard enough, it’ll be true”. Objective, external truth exists and is the same whether we like it or not, believe in it or not, or even know about it or not; it’s simply true. But this is not to say that Christians cannot learn anything from Oprah, here, I believe that we most certainly can.

I alluded earlier to the concept that there are many diverse ways to walk the path of life that leads to Christ, and I hold true to this idea. I think many modern American protestants don’t really want to see people around the world convert to Christianity, but rather convert to modern American protestantism. This is not only unrealistic, but also inconsiderate. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if Jesus was hanging around down here and heard some of the things that today’s Christian leaders attach His Name to, He’d say something like “that’s really not what I was talking about, you know”. In fact Jesus made His statements, spoke His parables, and performed His miracles to a culture that is so far removed from our that you and I would find it quite alien. And while we can learn about history, and ancient Jewish culture, and thus gain a better idea of what Jesus was talking about; we’d still view the Gospel as 21st century Americans. The problem with this is obvious: neither Jesus nor any of the Apostles were 21st century Americans. When we bring modern perspectives to and ancient story, we have lost something.

Oprah didn’t like the idea of God being jealous, despite the fact that in the Bible, He clearly states that He is. The problem here, is that Oprah was reacting like (da-da-daa-daaaa!) a modern American to an ancient story. According to Uncle Webster, jealousy can be defined as:

1 a: intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness b: disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness

2: hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage

3: vigilant in guarding a possession <new colonies were jealous of their new independence — Scott Buchanan>

zeal: ˈzēl

noun

eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something

(Again, Webster’s.)

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” - Tom Clancy

It’s not really fair of me to compare this year’s The Incredible Hulk to Ang Lee’s 2003 film which was simply titled Hulk. It’s not fair, but I nevertheless found myself comparing them throughout the new film.

It’s only fair to point out that I’m one of the seven people not directly involved with making the film that actually liked the 2003 version. I found the rather lyrical visual style engaging, I enjoyed finally watching a comic book movie that looked like a comic book. Maybe that was why I was able to more readily accept that films rather cartoony looking Hulk more than I was able to accept this new one, which just didn’t look natural . . . or at least he didn’t look as natural as a nine foot tall green monster can.

Edward Norton is a fine actor, and given his performances in Fight Club, Primal Fear, and American History X the role of Bruce Banner would seem to have been tailor-made for him. But as Banner, Norton fizzles. How can a man who has mastered the art of dramatic duality fall so flat in this, the best distillation of that concept since The Strange Case of Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde? How indeed? Nevertheless, fall flat he does, or at the very least, his considerable talent was squandered by an inattentive production and writing team.

This is not to say that the film was bad; it had great effects, paid plenty of homage to the source material, while still retaining its own identity, and unlike Lee’s film, the phrase “Hulk SMASH!” did indeed find its way into the dialog.

If the movie was missing something then, it was missing believability. Not in the basic science (which is Happy Meal science, anyway) behind the premise of the series, but in the characters. I had a hard time believing in Liv Tyler as a scientist (and I still think that Jennifer Connelly made a way cuter Betty Ross, by the by). I had a hard time believing anybody, even a career special ops soldier like Blonsky (Tim Roth), would want to do to themselves what they saw in Banner. (And, yes, I know people do things just as crazy in real life, but the film didn’t give me any good reason to believe that Blonsky would.) And I had a hard time believing that the Hulk was really very incredible.

The Hulk is supposed to be an enormous three-year-old boy throwing a temper tantrum. This one just seemed kind of annoyed.  In the end, so was I.

“You can’t minister to people at a distance, you need to get right down in the cheeseburgers with them. If you’re going to reach out to the homosexuals, you need to be there with them, making friends with them, loving them, without contributing or endorsing it. You’re just there. That’s where Jesus went. He would hang with people like that and be Himself. That was the difference. Rather than getting all absorbed, He always stood apart because He was Himself in that environment, in love. I think that’s what attracted all the sinners to Him. He was going to tell them the truth, He wasn’t going to insult or hurt them . . .

We just insult God’s intelligence to think that we’re the arbiters of all this good and bad taste. I think Christians in this country are really hung up on a lot of things, because it makes life easy and manageable.” - Michael Roe, “The Cream Rises”

News story, make sure you listen to the media file found in the middle of the article.

You listened to the file, right?  Because it’s the first line in there that really made me want to blog about this.  Using the appeal to fear is nothing new from the Religious Right which wants nothing less than freedom and equality for all, so long as it follows conservative Christian guidelines.  The article made me think that they were overreacting, using some purple prose, maybe, but nothing really out of the ordinary.  But then I went back, read it again, and this time I listened to that file.  And this time, I had also just finished listening to Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s short story Elites on Escape Pod.

I suppose that appealing to a mother’s protective instinct is likely nothing new either, especially for an organization so overtly manipulative as Focus on the Family, but still, it bothered me.  Aside from the fact that in our post-Columbine nation a grown man (in a dress or not) isn’t very likely to be able to simply walk into a school unchallenged, simply because a man does choose to wear women’s clothing does not make him a sexual predator and it is irresponsible of Focus on the Family to imply that it does.  The fact that most transvestites are heterosexual seems to have escaped Dr. Dobson and his organization.   The fact that most homosexuals are appalled at the actions of groups like NAMBLA seems to have escaped them as well.  In fact a lot seems to have escaped them.  Bruce Hausknecht, a judicial analyst for Focus on the Family, had this to say in the article:

“With SB 200, we no longer have two ’sexes’.  We enter a brave new world with a myriad of ’sexual orientations.’ This bill, unfortunately, is in keeping with a national effort by ‘transgender’ advocacy organizations to accomplish an open-bathroom policy.”

I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Bruce, but we already have a myriad of sexual orientations.  Aside from heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals, we also have transvestites, hermaphrodites, and transgenders.  Of course, the last of these is purely a societal view, and groups like Focus on the Family like to believe that anybody who does not fall strictly into the first has some sort of disease.  And then we wonder why people seem to despise Christians.

It is in that light that I wish to pose this question to Focus on the Family (though even if I e-mailed it directly to them I wouldn’t expect and actual answer): just what facilities would you expect a hermaphrodite to use?  If a person has genitalia from both sexes, which restroom should they then choose?  Should they simply hold it until they got home or explode since they don’t fall into one of two generally useful but not entirely inclusive categories?

A different and better question that needs to be asked is precisely how this “tramples religious freedoms”.  It’s a question I’ve asked of some of my more theologically conservative friends, and I’ve yet to come across a reasonable answer.  This fearful attitude that the world is only one bit of legislation away from crushing the Church needs to go away.  For good.  After all, more so than this law, that attitude is unbiblical.

So I’d long told myself that sci-fi conventions were one geek line that I’d never cross.

I love science fiction.  Reading it, writing it, watching it.  It doesn’t even always have to be very good; I just love science fiction.  But to come to a place where they hold competitions on people in Stormtrooper armor . . . well, that’s something else.  I took a break today, as I mentioned in the previous post, to get away from the chaos a bit.  As I was walking back to the con site, I was accosted and forced at spear point (I wil maintain this lie until my death) by Indiana Jim, Scott Breakall, his wife and a few others to go to a showing of the new Indiana Jones movie.  It’s funny, when Chris invited me to this con, I was afraid that he’d end up being super busy and I’d be stuck wandering around alone, knowing nobody.  However within hours of meeting many members of the podcasting community (or as they call themselves, the Tribe), I felt accepted and even liked.  Now I’m being spontaneously invited to movies.

Last night, I was sitting in the bar, engaged in a conversation with Nobilis about theology and fast food (though not at the same time).  I sat in on panels this weekend about lasers, religion, space exploration, and more and have found this community to be open, engaging, and intelligent.  Finances dictate that I will not likely be able to attend very many cons for the foreseeable future, which is too bad; I like this community, and I want to continue to be a part of it.

It’s day 3 of Balticon 42.  I’m tired.  We were up late last night, later than I wanted to be, but I made some personal connections in the podcasting tribe that I’m hoping will be beneficial later.  Friday night, I went back to my room early, thinking that the quiet was a wonderful respite.  Now I’m in a Panera Bread, and it’s not much quieter at all than the convention is in most parts; but it is less chaotic.  It’s the chaos that’s been getting to me, so now, I’m some place that’s else.

But I know I’ll have to go back soon.  The power of the nerd compels me.

I should be in bed, but I’m blogging.  Why?  Because I’m an outlaw now, and outlaws don’t live by society’s rules.  I blame the schools.  I blame Indiana Jim and Tee Morris.  I do not blame myself.  I was an innocent bystander.  But, yes, while at a late night hangout with Scott Brekall and his wife, we did manage to get the police called on us.  Sure it may have been 3 am, and it’s possible that we were making enough noise for a small concert, but by golly we were talking about important things, like The Superfriends, arch rivalries, and how Jim’s upcoming Star Wars based podcast syncs up nicely with old Get Smart! movies.  Still, the police came, and I’m sure that they saw me wearing my shirt in outlaw black.  They’ll be coming for me soon.  When the postings stop, you’ll know why.

Either that, or I’ve just gotten lazy again.

So . . . yeah; I’m at a science fiction convention.  This has long been one of the geek lines that I’ve yet to cross, but now, the future is simply anyone’s guess.  There’s a party going on (there’s always a party going on at these things), but I’m back in my room because I’m tired.  I’m not about to fall over, but I’m getting there, and I figured it would be easier to come back now, than to drag Chris out of a party that was in full swing.

So now, for the first time since about 5 this morning, it’s quiet where I am.

If sex and creativity are often seen by dictators as subversive activities, it’s because they lead to the knowledge that you own your own body (and with it your own voice), and that’s the most revolutionary insight of all. - Erica Jong

So I give my new blog this pretentious name and promise blogtrocities in the name of faith, and what do we have so far: an intro, snark, and a recipe. Well my dear readers, all three of you, I have a bit to say on a topic theological and will now share my disjointed thoughts with you.

This topic came up recently in a forum for student ministers that I post on fairly regularly. The subject was on the fairly new policy of some schools to allow co-ed dorm rooms. I’m a pretty easy going guy, I think, and while I wouldn’t want my (theoretical) children to live in a room with a member of the opposite sex, I’m not dead-set against this rule as some are.

As a person who works in student ministry, particularly in the high school and junior high school ages, I don’t much care for it when people refer to teenagers as “kids”. Sometime after World War I, we decided, as a society, to give young people a sort of extended grace period in their transitions from youth to adulthood. Like all changes, there were some trade-offs in this, some good, some less so, but as a whole, I believe that it’s better for young people to have more time to figure out what it is that they’re supposed to do with their lives while we as a society have the capacity to allow them to do so. What this essentially means is that teenagers are not adults (as they essentially used to be little more than a century ago), nor are they children (as many still seem to insist that they are). So what are they? Something in between, and thusly should they be treated. The problem is this: so long as we tell teenagers to act like adults, but expect them to act like children, we’re going to be fighting an uphill battle. Ask any psychiatrist, drill sergeant, or leader of people and they will tell you that people have a tendency to become what those most influential in their lives expect them to become. So that’s my stance on the issue, okay? We all clear on that? Good, because the next thought should come to you very naturally: if high schoolers aren’t kids, then college students sure as hell aren’t. And frankly, it’s high time that we stopped treating them as such.

If you asked me if I thought that Christianity, as Jesus taught it, was good and true, I’d answer “yes” without hesitation. If you asked me If I thought whether what the average Western culture Christian church practiced was good and true, there’d be a lot more hesitation, and the “yes” would likely be some time in coming. Don’t get me wrong, the Christian church has done quite a bit for the benefit of society (the abolishment of slavery in Western cultures, the social elevation of women from property to citizens, and appropriately for this essay, the concept of higher education among those things), but here in America at least, we still have a very Puritanical view of sex. (Much more so that the Puritans, in fact, but that’s another rant.) And modern Western Evangelicals in particular have an almost jihad-like fervor to force these views on the general population, whether the general population wants/needs them or not.

While I believe that the Gospel is good and true, as I said before, one of the major factors that I see in the teachings of Christ is that you must come to Him yourself, and more to the point, Jesus taught that no amount of legal adherence could save a soul. No, the work of Christ is about wiling submission, and if a person does not decide themselves to acknowledge the deity of Christ, then no amount of rule following is going to make them change their mind. When the voters of Michigan decided a few years ago to legally define marriage as a union between “one man and one woman” there was not a surge of homosexual individuals who said “well, shoot, now I can’t marry my lover; I guess I’d better become a Christian”. People are not convinced to look into Christianity by being forced to follow our rules, they are drawn to Christ when they see those of us who claim to follow Him demonstrate His love and compassion for the hurting.

In the midst of all of these arguments, somebody pipes up with the comment that even if no sexual relationship is going on between the students, this is still the “appearance of evil”. For those of you not fluent in Christianese, the bit of doctrine alluded to comes from a single verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:22 which says, conveniently, “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” There. That’s nice, isn’t it? One small problem, it’s only the King James Version that uses the word “appearance” in the passage in question.

The King James Version of the Bible is pleasant to read aloud, but in terms of textual accuracy, translational reliability, and simple cultural relatability, it’s a mess. I checked several other translations (notably the NIV, the NKJV, and the NASB), and the result is the same: the passage tells the reader to simply abstain from evil itself, not its appearance.

As usual, I am predicting that I’ll need to clarify here what I’m not saying here. I am not saying that it’s a good idea for Christians to simply not care about how we are perceived by society, but if we are concerned about not appearing evil, then being involved in a sexual relationship is pretty far down on the average person’s list of what evil looks like. If we wish to avoid the appearance of evil, then I have a suggestion: the next time you’re thinking of how to deal with a particular issue, don’t think of it as an issue, but think instead about dealing with a single individual.

Individuals have a way of mucking up our pre-conceived notions. If instead of saying that X is bad, we ask ourselves “How would Jesus deal with a person involved in X”, or even better, “How would Jesus want me to deal with a person involved in X?” The answers that we would arrive at would often fly in the face of the way that we actually behave. Jesus advocated and demonstrated compassion and mercy in dealing with sinners and the people whom He had the least patience with were the religious muckity mucks who were full of themselves and thought they had it all together.

If we wish to know Him and make Him better known (and in the process, appear less evil, even appear good), then we must do the same.

Two friends of mine come over every week for dinner and geekery (we’re going through the entire series run of Babylon 5). We trade off cooking, but last week was my turn, so I decided to retry a recipe that I’ve had to reverse engineer from an entree I had in a now closed restaurant. The problem was, the restaurant closed down (and I don’t know why, ‘cuz it was really, really good) before I could go back and remind myself of what the cheeses were in this sauce. As such, you’re stuck with my improvisations.

And about the cheese measurements: yes, those are ounces by weight.  Trusting volumetric measurements of cheese is risky business, so I recommend going by weight whenever possible.  It’s how you will find cheese in all of my recipes (and yes, there will be more to come), and by gummy, it’s how you should measure it at home.

Dear Dumbasses:

It is okay to drive over 7 mph in the rain.

Really, it is.

Love,

Bryan