Best Invention Ever

As many of you know, I love to watch//read//think//talk//write about sports, and I have not done very much of that lately on this space, because I have been trying to use this space to share more theological thoughts, talks, and ideas. Every once in a while, though, all of these passions overlap, and today is just such a day. To begin, I want to turn your attention to google reader, which is an invention that does exactly what it promises. It delivers information and makes that information easier to access and use. Basically, google reader lets you subscribe to blogs you are interested in (which you can do without google reader), and keeps all of those blogs in one easy screen which updates as those blogs do. If you read more than two blogs this thing is an amazing time saver. I can do in one place, what I used to do in about 35, and I don't miss any updates. Beyond just placing my favorite blogs in one locale, they also give handy summaries of each new post (in some cases) which makes it easier to determine if I want to get into the post or not (this is super helpful for blogs with lots of new content). Aided by google reader, I am now able to scan a ton of blogs, on a ton of topics and themes (everything from sports, to theology, to comedy) and do it all relatively efficiently. In light of this I want to quickly post three links that I think overlap our areas of sports and theology.
1. Malcolm Gladwell's story on football, is one of the most stunning, horrific, challenging things I have ever read. Seriously. This story is enough to make hard/impossible to watch football again with a clean conscience. Read it at your own peril.
2. The best blog on my beloved Milwaukee Brewers is called Brew Crew Blog, and yesterday's post was one of the most transparent, accountable, pieces of sports writing you will see. This is one my favorite differences between blogs and print media or national experts (yes ESPN, I am talking about you). At the beginning of every season, all the experts make predictions for how the season will go, and almost always these predictions are awful. Occasionally ESPN and others are so bad that they joke about it, but nowhere will you see the same sort of honesty you read at Brew Crew Blog. Because the blog writers don't have to be experts, they can admit when they are wrong and actually look at the numbers. Advantage blogs.
3. In a sort of follow up to my post about Josh and Brett Favre, Bill Simmons (ESPN's Sports Guy) has maybe the best three paragraphs on the subject in his mailbag from last week. I would advise skipping right to the last question, unless you read Bill Simmons all the time, just before his picks, to read his thoughts.

The Lordship of Christ

In my discussions around why I do not vote, I consistently try to argue that somehow my following Christ as Lord rules out my voting. I am currently working through a book called The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch which is a dramatic call for re-thinking and imagining what the Church should look like. It is a fascinating book, and I may have more to share as I finish it up, but there is a great section on what it means when the Church confesses Jesus as Lord. I thought you may enjoy this bit:

"There will be different gods that rule different spheres of our lives, and the God of the Church in this view is largely impotent outside of the privatized religous sphere. Christocentric monotheism demands loyalty precisely where the other gods claim it, and this is true for us as it was for our spiritual forebears" (Hirsch, 97)

He then goes on to quote Lee C. Camp:

"'Jesus is Lord' is a radical claim, one that is ultimately rooted in questions of allegiance, of ultimate authority, of the ultimate norm and standard for human life. Instead, Christianity has often saught to ally itself comfortably with allegiance to other authorities, be they political, economic, cultural, or ethnic. Could it be that 'Jesus is Lord' has become one of the most widespread Christian lies?"

Damning America and Running for President

By now, all of you have no doubt run across the story of Barrack Obama and his Pastor Jeremiah Wright. While I was away in Mexico, this story was blowing up. To be completely honest, the first time I heard the story, I only saw the "God bless America...no, no, no..." bit, and thought to myself, if he's preaching out of Amos this sounds good.



Having heard more of his sermons, there are clearly things that make me nervous about Reverand Wright, particularly some of his conspiracy theories (the HIV one for sure), and there are a ton of theological points I would love to take up with him, but I do not think the right response is something like fear. Speaking of responses, here is Barrack's:


If you do not have the 36 minutes neccesarry to watch it, it is interesting read, and you can get the full transcript here: A More Perfect Union.
I am going to leave all of the political (and maybe historical) implications of the speech for right now and focus in on two theological/ecclessiological observations:
1. I wish Obama would have stood up and said, "My pastor's job is to speak prophetically. Whether I agree or disagree with him, his job is to share with me those things God wants me to hear. I can reject my pastor's teaching only with serious prayer in community, and only at severe risk to myself." This to me is a much more faithful Christian response than, "We all disagree with our spiritual leaders sometimes." Having said this, I do appreciate that Obama has not entirely distanced himself from his pastor of twenty some years. Also, how cool would it be if the skeleton in everyone's closet was that their Pastor was too unAmerican because he called out America for injustices?
2. As well contrsucted, and well written as this speech was, the central theme was that we should be nicer to each other and more tolerant. While I am in favor of being nicer to each other, this is the American gospel, and not the gospel of Christ. The gospel is not that we overcome differences and get past years of hostility by agreeing in a common goal, it is that in the cross and resurrection, Jesus tore down these dividing walls. It is that in Christ, things like nationalities and race are no more. My biggest problem with Obama's speech, was that while claiming to be a Christian, Obama can paint a picture of a more perfect union that doesn't need Christ to make it work and at the end of the day, at least Jeremiah Wright's sermon needed Jesus.

De-Christianization

This is precisely the sort of impulse I have been trying to fight in my election series. Here are some highlights from an email I received today:
Underneath the above picture was this caption:
At the tragic historical moment when...
Then there follows a series of grave attrocities, including Western World de-Christianizes itself, countries forsake centuries old soveriegnty, the Catholic Church undergoes its worst crisis of faith and morals, Protestant fragmentation, doctrinal chaos and Islamic immigration. Followed by this brilliant summation (which I mostly agree with):

At the twilight of this century, Europeans risk being reduced to minorities in their own countries.
THIS COMBINATION OF TRAGEDIES WILL SERIOUSLY AFFECT THE WHOLE WESTERN WORLD.
Thus, the re-unification of Christians under one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism (Eph. 4:5) in the one Church of Christ, the foundation and mainstay of the Truth (1 Tim. 3:15) is of paramount importance.

This conclusion is followed by, yeah you guessed it, Jesus in front of a US flag and a bald eagle. It all makes perfect sense.....ugggh.

Just what I always wanted

I just got my new US Passport, and with it came an amazing little brochure. Here's the cover of the brochure:


Its hard to believe other countries don't like us so much. On a happy note, I finally got the world!, which means all those Christmas and birthday wishes have paid off. I wonder what Miss South Carolina thinks about all of this.

What Matters Most

I just ran across this new ad campaign for Chase Banks. The over arching theme is, "Chase what Matters," and the slogan for this ad is "Complete Control Matters." I just found it interesting in light of the discussions around voting and our desire for control. I couldn't find the ad anywhere on line, so I scanned it in here:

A Christian Response, pt 3

We are just about finished with our brief, very broad stroked, discussion of voting and our role as Christians. I have begun, almost accidentally, with two key parts of a Christian, namely discipleship and idolatry, that really seem to be grounded in individual Christian lives and choices. It seems to me, however, that really the most important reasons for Christians not to vote stems not from the first two points, but mostly from what we will discuss here: the Church. There are a number of faithful, honest ways to imagine the Church, and Scripture uses a number of images (like body and building) to get at the heart of what it means to be the Church. Depending on your tradition, the Church may be a place, a dispenser of Sacraments, a collection of the elect, people filled by the Holy Spirit, an Institution, or any number of combinations of these and other ideas, but almost every church everywhere will agree that the Church is catholic. By catholic we mean the Church is universal, it knows no national boundaries. The Church is not American, Canadian or British, nor is it Roman or Greek. As a result of this, it is very difficult for the Church to get excited about specific national claims and ideas (for a very brief excellent article that struggles with this point, click here). The Church historically has made this mistake of tying itself to a nation, and that nation's success, and the results have been far less than fantastic (we are looking at you Germany).
Beyond being catholic, the Church also has very distinct practices and traditions. For example, when people decide they want to follow Jesus, we get out the water and make it official. We pray and we sing. We recite confessions and read from a very old book. As the Church, we want to remember that these are not simply things we do on Sunday morning, but rather they are the way in which the Church is political in the whole world. This is an extremely crucial point in our overall discussion of voting, so let me repeat it a bit differently, all of the ways we have of being together that are distinctly Christian, are all the ways we can faithfully be political in the world. It is not that instead of voting Christians do nothing, it is that Christians can think of nothing more faithful than actually being the Church. The irony is that while voting purports to be the way we should be active in the world, it actually stunts the Church's ability and imagination to help the world. Put another way, Christians do not vote to eliminate poverty, the Church provides food for the least of these. Christians do not sign petitions to make the government acknowledge traditional marriage, we confess our own sin and remain faithful to our spouses. Christians do not outlaw abortions, we adopt children into homes shaped by baptism. The degree to which we trust our government to transform the world, is generally the same degree to which we believe God is not already doing it.
One final note on voting as a practice foreign to the Church, namely that we tend to think of voting only as a good. In fact, though, there are a number of very serious assumptions underlying voting that make it very dangerous for the Church. The esssential premise of voting seems to be that the side with the most votes is the side that is most right, most true, most reflective of the community, etc... For the Church, those attempting to follow Jesus, this valuing of the majority over against the minority should send up huge red flags. The gospel simply is not concerned with who can get the most votes. The picture for resolving conflict and "electing" leaders in the New Testament church is radically different from this model of voting. Voting does not demand that I die to myself, or that together we might be wronged for the sake of the gospel. Voting does not force us to rely on the Spirit to come together in unity and to be of one mind.
Over these three posts, I have attempted to provide some framework for rethinking the assumption that it is the Christian's responsibility to vote. I have attacked this assumption first by challenging the notion that effectiveness is what ought to motivate Christian living. Second I have argued that voting really names a number of our idolatrous habits, particular our impatience with God and our attempt to control history, and finally I have argued that our Church membership is far more significant than our nationality. Beyond this, I have tried to articulate the point that there are a number of very Christian alternatives to voting. The point to be made in all of this is that not voting is not a strategy for withdrawal from the world, simply a challenge for the Church to more faithfully model lives of cross and resurrection.

A Christian Response, pt 2

This is part two of our series related to voting and being Christian. As we move into the second piece, lets quickly remember part 1, where we decided that the Christian life at its core is about following Jesus. This following Jesus is about letting Christ have control of all aspects of who you are and learning to follow Jesus' example. This qualification reminds us that faithfulness to Jesus is our primary concern, and means of determining successful Christian living. Because faithfulness is primary, arguments for voting centered around effectiveness and responsibility are left wanting.
As all of us know, we are not particularly good at this "following Jesus" stuff. There are a myriad of ways we trip ourselves up, or get tripped up along the way. One of the major ways we get tripped up is called idolatry. Idolatry in essence is making something that is not God into a god- letting something besides God, try to be what only God can be. Scripture is littered with stories of idolatry and countless admonitions against it, mainly because we are so prone to idolatry. Idolatry, though, can still be a bit abstract, so lets unpack it a bit. In Scripture, one of the first pictures of idolatry is the first sin, wanting to become like God, particularly in knowledge. Shortly after this we read the story of the tower of Babel, where humans got together and decided to try to build their way to God. Soon after this we discover that the people of Israel who had spent a generation in Egypt had discovered how to worship foreign gods. Two of the first three commandments are meant to keep God's people from idolatry (have no other gods and do not make idols). No sooner than this command is given, then the need for it becomes obvious by creating a golden calf. The people of Israel wonder if Moses is going to return, and in their impatience decide that having a tangible god is more important than following the real God, who rescued them out of Egypt. As we move forward through Scripture we discover that idols are not simply carvings or foreign practices, but can even be our desires. Our own desires can take us captive, particularly sexual desires and the desire for power. In really broad strokes, it seems that there are several important characteristics about idolatry:
1. God despises it.
2. We are prone to it as people.
3. Idolatry tends to feed off of our impatience, lust, and desire for control.
4. Idolatry often stems from our desire to "be like the other nations."
5. Idolatry tends to be more comfortable than the faithful following of Jesus.

Lets take just a bit to examine how voting might pair up with this broad list in terms of idolatry. Let's take these in reverse order. Number five, how comfortable is voting as a Christian in the US? Quite. The alternative is far more uncomfortable, having to tell people you don't vote, and then walk them through why following Jesus may mean you shouldn't is way harder than researching a candidate and making an informed decision. This however is not a litmus test for whether or not voting is idolatrous, its simply important to be aware of how easily we assume voting is a normal Christian act. Number four, how does this voting help Christians relate to the state and then to other nations? Voting is a very simple way for Christians to be "active" and "involved" on the world's terms. We can express our Christian "values" exactly the same way Muslims, Jews, Atheists, and everyone else can express their values, through the liturgy of election (Part 3 of this series will unpack this point in more depth). Number three, does voting look/feel like lust, desire for control or impatience? It seems to me that voting is easily characterized by these descriptions. Voting becomes a short-cut for us to attempt to gain control. As we talked about in part one, this gaining control, or becoming effective, is directly opposite of our call to follow Jesus with our whole lives. Nonetheless, it is widely assumed that voting is our responsibility, because it is the way we can change the world. We have repeatedly been told, even from the pulpit, that voting is how we create change in the US. We vote to change laws, we vote to change officers, and now even Obama has utilized this as a campaign slogan. In short, voting is how we attempt to control our world. While we all may agree that voting is probably a better way than military upheaval to bring about change, it may be idolatrous to assume to assume that we are called to bring about such change. In fact, following Jesus and being characterized by his cross and resurrection may stop up from attempting such a project on the grounds of idolatry. When signing a petition is more significant than praying, when sending missiles makes more sense than sending missionaries, and when voting is more responsible than dying to ourselves and our desires, than at exactly this point we have gone too far and are at least flirting with idolatry.

A Christian Response, pt 1

There are a number of people in my life, who I care deeply about, who are all struggling with some basic questions of faith in relation to the presidential primaries, and the upcoming elections. The questions are generally framed something like this, "As a Christian, how do I determine who I should vote for?" I want to give an answer to that question, but I want to do it over the course of several posts. My answer to the question is basically, Christians should not vote at all. This answer of course is deeply offensive to a number of people (shockingly, both liberal and conservative) and deserves to be unpacked a bit more. Before I begin, I need to express my debt to Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, and William Cavanuagh in particular on this issue. For a basic, fairly easy to understand argument about how Christians should interact with the state, pick up a copy of Resident Aliens, as much of what I lay out follows their basic argument.
Let's begin at the beginning, what does it mean to be a Christian? At its most basic, it means to be a follower of Jesus. As we unpack what this "following Jesus" means we run into popular biblical words like Lord, King, disciple and Christ. All of these ideas, while full of nuance and individual meaning, push us towards the old evangelical phrase that "Jesus has control of all areas of my life." To follow Jesus is to admit that there is nothing in my life that Jesus does not rule and control, and if there is, those areas must be confessed and repented of. There is more though, to follow Jesus also means not simply to allow Jesus to rule all parts of my life, but also to live like Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate teacher who challenges us not simply to do as he says, but do as he does, primarily because he does what he says. The ultimate example (as I have noted here) is when Jesus dies on the cross to save the world. Following Jesus then, means living a life shaped by his cross and resurrection.
The implications of this sort of following Jesus, this acknowledging Jesus' control in all areas of our lives, this following Jesus' example, and this being shaped by cross and resurrection, are wide ranging. To begin with, this following Jesus means that the measure for success and failure in our lives is faithfulness to Jesus. This claim is absolutely crucial so I will repeat it a bit differently, Jesus calls us primarily to be faithful to him. For us, this call to faithfulness most clearly attacks our strong desire for effectiveness. If we are honest, most of us tend to judge our own success or failure, primarily by how effective we have been. A diet is the best diet if it is effective in losing weight, a savings plan is the best savings plan if it saves the most money, a church may well be the best church if it has the most people, a discipline is the best discipline if I grow the most. Many of us have inheireted this framework (most of us unknowingly) from the philospher Immanuel Kant and his ultimate/categorical imperative which slowly becomes something like, "Your responsibility is to do the most good for the most people." This sort of effectiveness as the measure of all moral choices is pervasive in much of our political discussion, and is rampant in the arena of why Christians should vote. This becomes the "Christian responsibility." When we start from the place of our Christian responsibility to vote, and then begin to sort through issues and values (both of which we will deal with later) we have already set ourselves up to fail, not because we are unloving or poorly intentioned, but because we have allowed something other than faithfulness to Jesus be our determining factor. However, if we begin with faithfulness to Jesus, as opposed to anything else, you may find that the notion of voting is at best irrelevant, and at worst a bit repulsive.

More on American politics

Really good article on the reality of American politics and the role of Evangelicals. This guy's take that the religious right has been made to look foolish during the primaries is spot on. Here's an excerpt:

But the worst scenario is to expose yourself as just another cynical pol. Any success Huckabee has had, he obviously had without their help — in fact in spite of it — thereby exposing just how little clout, judgment or principle they have.

Those who claim to be in public life to promote and defend certain values can least afford to look craven. We may expect that from the every-man-for-himself plutocrats; but the virtuecrats are supposed to believe in something. So when Robertson et al ignored the conspicuous apostasies of Rudy and, in his earlier more liberal life, Romney, in order to jump on the bandwagon, they exposed a much less lofty agenda: they just liked their seat at the table, they didn't want to lose, and they didn't seem to realize that by signing on with a frontrunner, they were following, not leading; demonstrating weakness, not strength.

Enjoy the rest here:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1711615,00.html

Why I Hate American Politics

In a word: idolatry. Here's a fun game we can all play, spot the idolatrous statement. It is so easy to play, listen closely for when you hear candidates attribute to America things which Scripture teaches are reserved for God. I emboldened a few places for convenience. Here is an easy one from Mitt Romney's speech last night (if you want more of the speech here is where I got it from):




This is about whether or not Washington will finally deal with the challenges we face, whether Washington is up to the task of helping solve these problem, taking advantage of opportunities, making sure that our kids and their kids live in an America that's the greatest nation on Earth. It must be. It has always been.
The world depends upon our sacrifice, our commitment, and dedication to peace and prosperity and to liberty. This is the greatest nation in the history of the Earth. We will keep it the hope of the Earth. With your help, we'll do it together.
Thank you so much!

Really Cool

I am really tired. Its been a long two weeks, but now my schedule should become quite a bit more manageable/normal, which means i may be updating this thing more frequently. A couple of things that I should catch everyone up on. I am now officially 30, which is actually pretty exciting, I feel like a may finally be catching up with myself. Also, as of last Tuesday, I have dropped 6 pounds, and there is plenty more where that came from. In other news, Calvin is now 5, and this is very exciting news. Finally, I have thought long and hard about this, but I still have not figured out which new shows to watch and which ones to avoid. For sure the Office and House will be main stays that I watch consistently, but everything else is open. Part of me thinks "Chuck" and "Bionic Woman" both look watchable, but after Studio 60 I no longer trust NBC. I am also tempted to start watching "Back to You" but the time it is on is just brutal schedule-wise. All of this to say I am looking for advice on what shows everyone is excited about. Let me know. Finally, the best tribute to September 11th is here. I am partial to the film maker, but I think the music and the filming work perfect to name the tensions of remembering that day. Its really, really, really, good, and also only about two minutes long. I'm out.

Heading Out

So I am about one day away from vacation. I am excited about this, but also terribly apprehensive. My main apprehension is the drive, which measures somewhere between 21 hours and indefinitely. This coupled with the whole family being in the car, the recent flooding in Texas and having to spend any amount of time in Kansas makes me quite un-easy. All of this should be worth it when we arrive for a couple of weeks of relaxation, rest and family. We get to see a lot of old friends, and reconnect with extended family we have not seen in about a year.
This year also comes with a special treat, I get to bracket my vacation with two conferences. On the frontside, I am helping to host an informal conference on Christian Community which will hopefully bear much fruit for the long haul, while on the back end I get to attend the annual Gathering of the Eklessia Project, which is always three of my favorite days of the year.
Blogs over this next couple of weeks will no doubt be sporadic at best, although I do plan on recording some thoughts around the NBA draft tonight and the future of the Milwaukee Bucks, so check back for that.

Rogue Unicorns

This is one of the funniest things I have seen. Really, really good satire and music.

Consuming Health Care

It may be that I am the only one remotely interested in the health care/ health insurance/ medical ethics/ American consumerism racket that I have been posting on periodically, but I keep seeing it. In an excellent little blog by Brian Volk he explores a bit about health care in other countries and his changing understanding of North American care. One of the pieces of his blog that is so helpful is that unlike Michael Moore's new movie (which I am very excited to see still) Volk does not start from the standard, American myopia. Volk does not assume that Americans ought to have the best care system in the world, or that the best health care system in the world would continue to strive for the best consumerist options that make people look the best and generate the most cash. Still praying.

Hell Week Continued

Only two days left until my beautiful, wonderful, incredibly helpful, wife returns from gallivanting across the country, and it can not happen soon enough. We have done a remarkably decent job of keeping up with everything, the house is mostly clean, the kids have eaten mostly healthy meals and we have actually had a lot of fun. I am running on empty however, just too much to do, and too much to be responsible for. One of our fun things was seeing the movie Surfs Up yesterday which was actually a really good time. A couple of our youth went with and the movie was a lot of fun. The trick to the movie is that it follows the form of every skate/surf video documentary ever, and nails it. The point of the movie is a ton better than Happy Feet, Meet the Robinsons and Shrek 3, and it is immanently more watchable. On top of all of that, both Josh and Calvin loved, so that's a big bonus.
While I am in a praiseworthy mood, you must check out singer songwriter Joe Pug. My buddy Greg played a show with him the other night and called raving about how great he was. I took a listen, and Greg is right, this guy is the "real deal." Brillian lyricist, and vocally not hard to listen to. He only has a few tracks out right now, but you heard it here first.
My friend Lee is about to embark on a canoe trip with his father for a week. If you know Lee you are probably still chuckling to yourself (I am and its been days since I heard), if you do not know Lee, too bad for you. Anyway, follow the antics on his blog.

More on Insurance

Still praying, thinking, deliberating on insurance and the idea of making boatloads of cash while attempting to do no harm. Still no answers, although after a bit of browsing I am more encouraged that this debate is coming to the fore a bit. You should know that I was raised in a military family, which meant that I was provided with military insurance until I was 21 (I think), which covers pretty much everything and is a type of "universal care." In 1993-1994 health care reform was the debate topic for the National Forensics League so the questions have been on my radar for at least 13-14 years although I am no closer to a solution. Since turning 21 I have had I believe ten total doctor appointments, three of these were physicals and seven were either emergency or follow up appointments. I am married and have three children, all of whom have been to the doctors a number of times. I did my undergrad in Canada and participated in their universal health care by breaking my wrist and impregnating my wife. My wrist treatment, including the ER was great, and the birth of our first child went pretty well. On the whole the biggest difference between the systems was a general sense of entitlement that was lacking in the Canadian people. This is an overall trait, but speaks specifically to the way Americans consume health care (for an absolutely brilliant book on this, see Carl Elliot's Better Than Well : When American Medicine Meets the American Dream). There is a ton more here to develop and talk through, but one of the fun pieces is that Michael Moore is releasing a new documentary entitled "Sicko," I do not know how to embed this, but here is a link to the official trailer, and an interview with Moore and Bill Maher (this one is a bit racy in places, but Moore comes across as a grown up who is a bit humbled). The discussion has been started, and I will be weighing in as I can.