OutFOXed: War on Journalism

I've witnessed first hand what happens when people have their worldview shaped by the biased faux news network. You can watch the full documentary online. This documentary is surprisingly fair and balanced.

I Don't Fit In Church

Richard Beck is a professor and experimental psychologist. I find his blog very enlightening. Last week he created a post that explains why many people like myself are uncomfortable in church. The bottom line is that "church people" just don't like to dig for answers. They tend to be the types of people who are comfortable with short answers to over-simplified questions. I never leave a conversation at church with a feeling that we have even scratched the surface, let alone made any progress. Instead, I always leave church feeling unresolved and unsatisfied. Cliche phrases and buzz words make me curious but more often, they make me uneasy. Church doesn't appear to be a place designed for curiosity.

Richard has also written an entertaining post about the Left Behind craze called "Why The Anti-Christ is an Idiot".

Rapture Song

Does Jesus Kick Ass?

I'm still plodding through John Stott’s “The Cross of Christ”. I didn’t think it would be easy but I didn’t want this to be a lesson in futility. I decided to do a little supplemental reading to get a more colorful approach to the same perspective. I turned to the more culturally relevant style of Mark Driscoll. Mark shares Stott’s view but he is always good for an entertaining presentation and he shows us what it might look like to live out this barbaric view of God. “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World” is a collaboration of several fundamentalist authors dedicated to John Stott. You can read more of it online. In the section written by Driscoll, he contrasts his reformed view of Jesus that focuses heavily on the exaltation (divinity) of Jesus with the emergent view that focuses more heavily on the incarnation (humanity) of Jesus. He suggests a balance, but he feels the only valid reason for choosing Christ as Lord is Jesus' divinity. He also goes further to diminish our attempts to admire the beauty of Jesus’ humanity.

“Without a robust recognition of the corresponding deity of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus has the propensity to leave us with a marred false image of Jesus – little more than a limp-wristed, marginalized, hippie-esque, unemployed Galilean pacifist in a dress with feathered hair and open-toed sandals – a guy that the average man would be remiss to worship because he could beat up that Jesus.“
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“Perhaps my favorite picture (and that of my young sons) of the glorious exaltation of our great God Jesus Christ is what we like to refer to as Ultimate Fighter Jesus. In Revelation 19:11-16, Jesus rides into town on a white horse, with his steely eyes blazing red like fire and a tattoo down his leg that says “King of kings and Lord of lords.” He is wearing white like a gunslinger from an old western and carrying a sword, looking for some bad guys as the blood of a ready-fallen enemies drips to the ground below. Simply, Jesus was, is, and forever will be fully God; he is not someone anyone would want to mess with.” - Mark Driscoll “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World”

The historical Jesus was not potent enough to suit some Christians so they invented their own version of Jesus. The biblical stories of divinity contain provocative literary imagery. This imagery was used to speak about the importance of Jesus through the culture of Greek and Roman theology (divine beings visiting and interacting with people on Earth). I agree with these ancient myth makers that Jesus is important, he causes the blind to see (reveals wisdom), he heals the sick (restores outcasts to community), and he is the son of God (he was expected to be the replacement for Caesar and king of the Jews). But, I don’t feel that being Christian has anything to do with confusing those symbolic stories with historic past or future events. The imagery of Jesus' violent return to earth was a result of revenge minded violent zealots. These zealots were clearly part of Jesus' following, but as far as I'm concerned, they were not speaking for Jesus. Unfortunately, this view of Jesus has become the dominant view among modern Evangelical Christians. I feel it was inevitable given the acceptance of violent atonement theology by people like John Stott.

Flip This World

I like to think that my business is a bit different than most. I left the big corporate world to work in a small IT consulting company 12 years ago. For the last 6 years, I’ve run a privately held software development and web design company with 16 employees. The most exciting part of my job is that I know we are counter-cultural, yet we succeed where others have failed. There are no slick marketing campaigns, no fancy hype, no telemarketing calls, no spam email, no suits and ties, and no mistreatment of workers. We are able to do this because we made the conscious decision to reject the worldview of corporate America that views its customers and employees as consumable resources. Instead, we flipped the model upside down and we view our company as a sustainable resource used by its clients and employees to build better lives. We don’t view any business deal as a success unless it also makes our clients successful. We have frequently hired people cast off from the corporate world and we give them the tools to succeed. Our employees are well supported, blessed with company wide profit sharing, flexible work schedules, quality health care coverage and the best working environment I’ve ever seen. The strange thing is that in the end, of any company I’ve worked for, this is the most profitable.

Running an ethical business is just one small step. We can't stop there and assume we've succeeded in modeling Jesus' vision. The empires of commercialism, military domination, and religious ideology each want us to apply self-imposed limits on our options and reach. The empire wants us to assume there is no hope of banding together to make large scale changes that would throttle its powerful control. The ability to squash hope and limit vision is possibly the most powerful tool of any empire. Walter Brueggeman calls this "royal numbness and denial". To speak prophetically means to cut through this numbness and denial with words that will cause us to imagine something different. The power of the Bible is that it can expand our vision and restore our hope by giving us another way of seeing the world. But, that can only happen if we will allow the Bible's subversive voices to cut through the many superficial layers of numbness added during 2000 years of domestication. We will also need to look beyond our own lives and recognize the irony of joining a revolution when our own religion has been used by many to support the same ideals we are called to resist.

"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, could be accomplished alone; therefore, we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our own standpoint; therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness." - Reinhold Niebuhr "The Irony of American History" 1952

Christian Capitalism?

How can a person worship the God of Justice and follow Jesus’ radical message of subversive resistance to the values of Empire while operating a thriving business within a capitalist society? It is no secret that capitalism is built to reward greed at the expense of others. Gordon Gekko - the fictional character from the 1987 film Wall Street - is an icon and has inspired a generation of Wall Street capitalists by insisting, “Greed is good”. He might be correct in assuming that greed is the fuel feeding capitalism but history has proven that this mentality always fails to deliver anything satisfying.

I run a business, own property, buy products, sell services, employee people, construct lucrative business deals, and at the end of the day, I have to admit I benefit from our capitalist society. I often question my prosperity and the power I’ve been awarded to change lives through my business dealings. I am a capitalist, yet I view the Bible as a socialist document and I accept its principles as the driving force in my life. How does my biblical ideal for justice coexist with the reality that I clearly benefit from the unjust results of capitalism?

What Does The Bible Say About Greed? The Bible’s long narrative of the nation of Israel begins with the desperate cry of mistreated workers who have fallen victim to the power of Empire and its obsessive greed. The Exodus began with workers who dared to say “No more bricks!” The Israelite’s captured their response to the imperial values of Egypt in a 10 point list of subversive anti-Pharaoh statements about their new community (the Ten Commandments). This subversive text begins with the remembrance of their bondage in Egypt and how they were delivered in order to create something new. Located within that list of rules for building their new society, one item sticks out as something radically different. The centerpiece to this alternate-view of how to build a community is the fourth commandment (remember the Sabbath).

Walter Brueggemann suggests that fundamentally keeping the Sabbath must involve: “periodic, regular disengagement from systems of productivity whereby the world uses people up to exhaustion. That disengagement refers also to culture-produced expectations for frantic leisure, frantic consumptions, or frantic exercise.”

The purpose of the Sabbath, which literally means to desist or stop, is to withdraw from the forces of Empire whose goal is to exhaust everything it touches. We must realize that any society operating within the normalcy of Empire will inevitably crumble as it burns up the very resources which once made it strong. This is even true when the most valuable resources of a society are its people. The commandment to remember the Sabbath reminds Israel never to become like Pharaoh.

The more I understand the Bible’s subversive perspective on reality, I'm beginning to realize it can actually work. It seems evident that most people have eyes to read these ancient texts but they cannot see its truth. It is sad that we have yet to convince more people to open their eyes and implement these ideals on a national and global level. I have hope and I agree with Jesus that one day we will.

Leaving Microsoft

From Crackle: Room To Read

Intelligent Design on Trial

NOVA will air a special called “Judgement Day – Intelligent Design on Trial” November 13th at 8PM. The show will unpack the important case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District which was reported to be a 6 week trial of testimony regarding evolution and intelligent design. Here are a few excerpts from the transcription which is also available online.

Q: Why is this topic—and the teaching of evolution—so important?

Paula S. Apsell[Senior Executive Producer of NOVA]: Recent polls tells us that 48 percent—almost half of all Americans—still question evolution and still believe that some kind of alternative should be taught in the public schools. What happens when half of the population doesn't accept one of the most fundamental underpinnings of the sciences? Evolution is the absolute bedrock of the biological sciences. It's essential to medical science, agriculture, biotechnology. And it's critical to understanding the natural world around us.

We're a country built on our command of the sciences and technology. But we now face a crisis in science literacy that could threaten our progress in these areas and ultimately threaten our quality of life. So, at NOVA and at Vulcan, we feel that understanding the importance of evolution, and enhancing science literacy in general, are more crucial than ever.

Dr. Kenneth Miller [A biologist testifying on behalf of evolution]:The whole idea of intelligent design is a confession on the part of its advocates that they actually can't get any evidence at all in favor of a designer. So what they resort to is the notion that it's either evolution or it's design. And if evolution right now, today, cannot explain everything, that lack of a complete explanation amounts to evidence for the other side.

Thank you Michael Westmorland-White for posting information about the show. Michael is a Baptist minister in Kentucky who has just made a series of well written posts about Creation and Evolution that includes a detailed exegesis of both Genesis creation myths (you did know there were 2 right?). His blog represents all the best qualities of the Baptist faith tradition.

Walter Brueggemann - 19 Theses

I heard this a while back. After reading Brian McLaren's new book I think it is even more clear. You can download the full talk and Q&A via Mp3. In particular, I like how he talks about the difference between certitude (belief/doctrine) and fidelity (faith) in the Q&A session. Thanks to Paul Soupiset for posting this transcription and the audio.

1. Everybody lives by a script. The script may be implicit or explicit. It may be recognized or unrecognized, but everybody has a script.

2. We get scripted. All of us get scripted through the process of nurture and formation and socialization, and it happens to us without our knowing it.

3. The dominant scripting in our society is a script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism that socializes us all, liberal and conservative.

4. That script (technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism) enacted through advertising and propaganda and ideology, especially on the liturgies of television, promises to make us safe and to make us happy.

5. That script has failed. That script of military consumerism cannot make us safe and it cannot make us happy. We may be the unhappiest society in the world.

6. Health for our society depends upon disengagement from and relinquishment of that script of military consumerism. This is a disengagement and relinquishment that we mostly resist and about which we are profoundly ambiguous.

7. It is the task of ministry to de-script that script among us. That is, too enable persons to relinquish a world that no longer exists and indeed never did exist.

8. The task of descripting, relinquishment and disengagement is accomplished by a steady, patient, intentional articulation of an alternative script that we say can make us happy and make us safe.

9. The alternative script is rooted in the Bible and is enacted through the tradition of the Church. It is an offer of a counter-narrative, counter to the script of technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism.

10. That alternative script has as its most distinctive feature, its key character – the God of the Bible whom we name as Father, Son, and Spirit.

11. That script is not monolithic, one dimensional or seamless. It is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent. Partly it is ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because it has been crafted over time by many committees. But it is also ragged and disjunctive and incoherent because the key character is illusive and irascible in freedom and in sovereignty and in hiddenness, and, I’m embarrassed to say, in violence – [a] huge problem for us.

12. The ragged, disjunctive, and incoherent quality of the counter-script to which we testify cannot be smoothed or made seamless. [I think the writer of Psalm 119 would probably like too try, to make it seamless]. Because when we do that the script gets flattened and domesticated. [This is my polemic against systematic theology]. The script gets flattened and domesticated and it becomes a weak echo of the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism. Whereas the dominant script of technological, consumer militarism is all about certitude, privilege, and entitlement this counter-script is not about certitude, privilege, and entitlement. Thus care must betaken to let this script be what it is, which entails letting God be God’s irascible self.

13. The ragged, disjunctive character of the counter-script to which we testify invites its adherents to quarrel among themselves – liberals and conservatives – in ways that detract from the main claims of the script and so too debilitate the focus of the script.

14. The entry point into the counter-script is baptism. Whereby we say in the old liturgies, “do you renounce the dominant script?”

15. The nurture, formation, and socialization into the counter-script with this illusive, irascible character is the work of ministry. We do that work of nurture, formation, and socialization by the practices of preaching, liturgy, education, social action, spirituality, and neighboring of all kinds.

16. Most of us are ambiguous about the script; those with whom we minister and I dare say, those of us who minister. Most of us are not at the deepest places wanting to choose between the dominant script and the counter-script. Most of us in the deep places are vacillating and mumbling in ambivalence.

17. This ambivalence between scripts is precisely the primary venue for the Spirit. So that ministry is to name and enhance the ambivalence that liberals and conservatives have in common that puts people in crisis and consequently that invokes resistance and hostility.

18. Ministry is to manage that ambivalence that is crucially present among liberals and conservatives in generative faithful ways in order to permit relinquishment of [the] old script and embrace of the new script.

19. The work of ministry is crucial and pivotal and indispensable in our society precisely because there is no one [see if that’s an overstatement]; there is no one except the church and the synagogue to name and evoke the ambivalence and too manage a way through it. I think often; I see the mundane day-to-day stuff ministers have to do and I think, my God, what would happen if you took all the ministers out. The role of ministry then is as urgent as it is wondrous and difficult.

Repent and Believe

My recent reading has forced me to reconnect with a time in my life when I was brainwashed by biblical literalism. I do realize that at the heart of fundamentalism is a sincere desire to please God and follow Jesus. That should be applauded even though we forgot to consider if God would really want to be pleased (as if he was a human). Many have mistaken what it means to follow Jesus.

N.T. Wright makes a great point about how biblical interpretation keeps growing as our understanding of its ancient culture expands. Wright points to a phrase in Josephus’ work (Life of Flavious Josephus; 110) when he confronted a rebel during the Jewish / Roman War, Josephus wanted to convince this rebel to stop the futile attempts of attacking the Roman Empire and look for other ways to achieve his desired results. Josephus told the rebel to “Repent and believe in me”. In Greek that is, “metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesesthai”. There is no doubt that what Josephus was attempting to do for this man was save him from obvious peril. Josephus had seen the carnage left by previous attempts at rebellion against the Empire.

Wright goes on to explain that going back to Jesus' call for repentance and examining it in context is what allowed Martin Luther to re-examine the medieval Catholic doctrine of penitence. Luther realized it was off base. He recognized that this concept of repentance wasn’t consistent with the process of individuals confessing and being forgiven by a priest. He realized these words used in the first century meant a call to stop your misguided actions. Wright points out that Luther only got the exegesis half right. What Luther missed was that the call to belief (pistos) was not a request to adapt to a new set of spiritual beliefs Instead, it was a request to change your entire approach. It was about believing Jesus’ methods were better than the methods of “this world”. It meant agreeing to follow Jesus’ example by stopping the attempts to change the world using the ways of the world (violence, coercion, and war) and using the powers of God (love, forgiveness, justice, and mercy).

The more I criticize fundamentalism the more I realize I need to repent from using the ways of the world (ridicule, mockery, verbal attacks, etc) and believe that Jesus’ methods of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and mercy are better tools to accomplish my goals. This is a hard lesson for me and I recognize that I’m effected by the disappointment of learning I was brainwashed most of my life. I feel cheated that much of this information was available but intentionally hidden from me by the ignorance of Christianity in the deep south. I feel there is a path forward within Christianity. We can find common ground but it starts by ending the demonization of anyone outside our own viewpoint. Liberals must begin to realize fundamentalists are good people who have real fears about the immorality surrounding them. Fundamentalists need to stop using their particular interpretations of the bible (fundamental doctrines) as if they were the actual texts. It might even be good if they learned what the word “liberal” really means. If they did, they might even start using that term to describe Jesus.

Divine Child Abuse or Cosmic Suicide?

This is the last post about my disagreement with the basic assumptions of John Stott’s book “The Cross of Christ”. After this, I'll try to wrestle with ways to build bridges between Christians with different theological views.

John Stott doesn’t describe how the divinity of Jesus could physically happen so I’m left to try and guess how he might imagine it. I guess he wants us to imagine that God is a physical being (atoms, molecules, flesh) or that God must be able to temporarily become physical matter and interact and possibly even mate with a human (a type of shape-shifting to human form as needed). This is again something commonly found in Greek and Roman mythology as the gods from time to time intervene in sexual relationships with humans to produce divine sons leading their people to victory. Both Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar had divine birth stories defining them as sons of god and they had corresponding religious narratives created to honor and immortalize their political achievements. Most modern religions have correctly labeled that type of thinking as ancient symbolism rather than historical facts. Fundamentalists insist on hanging the validity of their faith on the historical accuracy of these stories which often leads to missing the more than literal meaning. I don't want the validity and fate of my Christian faith to hinge on something that will not last much longer. I think there is a better solution.

Finally, Stott wants us to assume that any statement made by any biblical author is actually something said by God. This is more than saying the bible is “God’s Word”. It is saying that the bible is "God’s words" (plural). Even most modern Evangelicals wouldn’t take this hard line literalistic approach. This means that if one of the gospel writers has his Jesus character say something, then Stott wants us to assume that the historical Jesus said it and phrased it exactly as the character in the story said it. Even highly symbolic language in books like the Gospel of John are supposed to be historical accounts. That is a huge stretch and it forces us to do intellectual back flips in order to fill in the resulting holes in the theory. It eliminates the important factor of the author's intent which is actually the most valuable aspect of any story.

We are left with a choice between divine child abuse or cosmic suicide. Stott favors the suicide option by stressing the fact that it is God himself who sacrifices his own life on the cross. The biggest problem I've had in getting through this book is that it makes too many metaphysical assumptions and concerns itself mainly with arguing for one formula of cosmic atonement over another. These types of doctrines reduce Jesus to the level of a silly comic book character and I feel like this book spends page after page trying to decide if kryptonite will kill Superman or simply render him ineffective. At least it reminds me of an interesting song...