My Life as Seen From the Second Row at a Kenny Loggins Concert

Sometimes you find yourself hanging over the guard rail at an Extreme Home Makeover in Kansas City yelling for Ty to come out of his trailer…and, then you start talking to the person next to you and you reveal that you’ve never watched a full episode of Extreme Home Makeover…and, then, suddenly the joking stops, the smile leaves the face of your new found friend as they say “What are you doing here?”.

And, other times, due to free tickets, you find yourself in the second row…dead center…at a Kenny Loggins concert…(yes, Mr. Footloose himself)…and he says, “Okay, everyone knows the drill here”…and, as the spotlights hit the crowd he looks down at you and holds out the microphone to the crowd… …It’s amazing the thoughts that can run through your mind in the .5 seconds it takes you to think “Please, don’t make eye contact”. …Things such as: Kenny, I’m sorry. Kenny, I should have been listening you in the eighties. The crowd can’t be singing “Please, celebrate me home”. Kenny, I should have done more YouTube research before I came. If I sing “Please, celebrate me home” and those aren’t the lyrics will Kenny be able to notice? The horrible grammar of these lyrics apparently makes sense to the 5,000 people behind me. I’m glad the old guy in front of me isn’t singing. Kenny, this doesn’t mean you are a failure. We’ll never be friends after this.

Luckily, a couple songs later he sings “Your Momma Don’t Dance” to which I knew all the words.

Link to D.A. Carson Interview

Here's a quick interview with D.A. Carson:
http://www.reformation21.org/articles/don-carson-talks-about-culture.php

It's in reference to Carson's latest book, Christ and Culture Revisited. It's a fairly short interview, insightful, and uses plenty of big words. Here's one question/answer that I found especially thought provoking. Enjoy...
___________________________________

DT: You mention several key issues which force us re-evaluate Christ's role in culture (secularization, democracy, freedom and power). In short compass, can you explain what you mean by this and how this helps us to understand our own (postmodern) culture?

DC: Inevitably, we in the West, not least in America, tend to adopt a host of "givens" that are part of growing up here. Most of us think freedom is a good thing. But is it always a good thing? A friend in Slovakia once told me that only three weeks after the Berlin wall came down, for the first time in his life he saw pornography sold in the street. Was the enhanced freedom an unmitigated "good" thing? I'm not denying it was good in many ways, but some of us have given "freedom" such an iconic value that we fail to see how, in the name of freedom, we may become slaves to sin. Most of us are thankful to God that we live in a democracy. But I have met Christians who live in parts of the world under one form or another of tyranny who are much less daunted by the violent "beast out of the sea" that they face than by the "beast out of the earth," the danger of deceptive teaching and materialism, that we face in the West: they pray for us that we will escape the tyranny of the seduction of easy, triumphalism, and materialism. Certainly what Paul wrote about the government of his day being appointed by God, he did not have a democracy in mind: what bearing do such differences in the structure of power have on our responsibility as citizens -- as citizens of the US, and as citizens of the new Jerusalem?

Anne Rice is a Christian?

I know this is old news...but, Anne Rice is a Christian? ...weird. If this intrigues you, as it does me, this is an interesting place to start:

"Essay On Earlier Works"

Tonight on the blog post...dedications...

Tonight we're turning on the love light as I send a special dedication out to the man who sits atop the maple mountain. Sentiments are dedicated, not theology... Enjoy. We can hug later.

Preaching As Concept Creation, Not Just Contextualization

Even if you disagree with his list, John Piper makes an excellent point in his first few paragraphs. ...also, the list is good.

Preaching As Concept Creation, Not Just Contextualization

CJ & Discernment

I've been wanting to post some follow-up thoughts to my last post on emergent-ness. Instead of taking the time to do that, I thought I'd pass on this link a good post C.J. Mahaney did (at his brand new blog) about pastoral discernment. He uses Rob Bell's NOOMA videos as an example. He also provides plenty of links for further thoughts on the problems of Rob Bell's theology. It's worth reading if you are interested in such things as discernment, Rob Bell, or even theology...

http://sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/Rob-Bell2c-the-Pastore28099s-Task-of-Discernment2c-and-My-Heart.aspx

Ranting, Raving, and Blaming the World's Problems on the Emergent Movement

I subscribe to the Emergent Village podcast. It typically just annoys me and puts me in a bad mood...and, generally does everything that a good political debate does for my soul. For some reason I keep hitting the play button, though. Since, I've plowed through a couple episodes this week, I thought I'd share my disgruntled spirits. Maybe you'll end up thinking that the world is coming to its end as I do.

Before I get into ranting and raving, here are a couple quotes from one of the Emergent head honchos...Tony Jones***.

From: http://www.emergentvillage.com/podcast/aar-panel-part-1

"This is a message problem, this is not a method problem. The gospel has been gotten wrong and we need to start trying to get the gospel right."

"Listen...this is a thorough-going reconsideration of the gospel in America. This is about whole new ways of thinking. This is about epistemology...How do we reconsider the gospel and everything that goes along with it?"

"We were of the minds that everything should be up for consideration."

And, because I'm old fashioned a Bible verse:
Galatians 1:9
"As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed (anathema)."

I'm not going to try to tackle the argument that Tony Jones is preaching a different gospel than the one preached in the Bible. I'm merely going back to the point I made last time I harped on the emergent movement...hopefully with more clarity this time. And, if I can boil things down to one question, I think it would be:
"Is the emergent conversation characterized by wisdom?" I think there are some red flags that many are paying little attention to.

For example, when the Bible is so clear about the consequences of tampering with the gospel...wouldn't wisdom lead a person to be cautious with statements such as "we've gotten the gospel wrong...thorough reconsideration of the gospel in America...everything should be up for consideration". I suppose there are some instances where these statements can be said legitimately...but, in my mind there are so few instances...that I cringe when I hear someone say these things without disclaimers.

But, as much as I'd like to give Tony the benefit of the doubt...it does seem as though the emergent troops are questioning everything. For example, inerrancy of the Bible, the doctrine of hell, penal substitution...virgin birth. It's no wonder that people argue that emergent is just a reworked liberalism.

One of the problems is that the "conversation" is packaged in a cleverly appealing way to evangelical minds. I'm quite comfortable agreeing with the emergent folks that most Christian grew up in fairly pathetic churches. It's easy to take pot-shots at these churches and get a reaction...and feel a commonality with someone. But, it's easy in the way that a dirty joke is easy...anybody can do it. Simply bonding over a shared problem isn't a guarantee that together you can beat the odds and find a better way.

More caution flags show up in the hyper-individualism of the relationship-friendly emergent church. As a good Protestant, I'm pretty individualistic myself...but, again, I think "wisdom" tells us to forsake tradition with great hesitancy and last resort. What's ironic about emergent is that the tradition from 100 years ago is meaningful to them...and the traditions of our parents are the death of the church. Along these lines, I think a small army of bloggers thinking together can form a very deceptive community in which you think you truly understand things...when in reality you are simply dumbing down Christianity in the same non-scholastic way that old-time fundamentalists are accused of doing. There is something to say for academic scholarship.

More red flags...lack of cultural diversity. A person can argue that most churches are racially segregated...and, they are, to their detriment. However, my church is still preaching the same gospel as the Korean church down the road...and the Afro-American church next to it. We have this is common.

...also, my least judgemental criticism of the emergent church is probably the inherent temporariness of it. Can a movement perpetually be in the process of moving/emerging/complaining about the entity that is inspiring their movement? Are they emerging into the very thing that they will emerge from again down the road? What's the goal? Where are they headed? Are these questions still fair in a postmodern's mind? If everything is up for grabs...then, where's the urgency stemming from?

It's only fair that I add my own disclaimer...the emergent/emerging church is growing (I have a hunch it's currently at its peak, I could be wrong, though). And, with the breadth of the movement I can't lump everyone who considers themselves to be emergent or emerging into the Tony Jones variety. There are some voices that I would find myself agreeing with for the most part. But, in an overarching sense, emergent is not something I would want to be associated with. It's good to ask questions and think things through, but there's a wise way to do it and a foolish way. ...it's my opinion that much of the emergent movement is heading about things in a foolish manner.

*** Tony Jones

Sewer Mains

"...longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate..." (Luke 15:16)

”And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)

“...apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5).

Newsprint Boats

I ain't never been to Vegas but I gambled up my life
Building newsprint boats I raced to sewer mains
Was trying to find me something but I wasn't sure just what
Funny how they say that some things never change
- Ryan Adams, "Oh, My Sweet Carolina"

Worship

Here's a quote from Mr. D.A. Carson from the book he edited called Worship by the Book. In talking about corporate worship he says, "...however much we seek to be contemporary for the sake of evangelistic outreach, there must also be a drive in us to align ourselves with the whole church in some deeply rooted and tangible ways. What it means to be the church was not invented in the last twenty years. The demands of corporate rootedness must be melded with the demands of living faithfully and bearing witness in a particular culture and age." (pg 45)

I think I used to picture an incredible corporate worship experience as a moment when I became so lost in the words and music of what I was singing that I lost all reference of those around me and just felt close to God...just me and Him. I don't want to downplay that idea too much, but there does seem to be something about it that defeats the purpose of being together corporately. I think corporate worship might be as difficult and as rewarding as pretty much everything else in my life that is both difficult and rewarding. It's difficult because I'm doing several things at once. I've focused on my attention toward God and the words that point me to him...but, I'm also aware of the people I'm encouraging with my participation...I'm aware of the people encouraging me...I'm aware of the church through history...I'm aware of the persecuted church of today...other cultures worshiping Christ...and, all of this...this accumulation of fellow worshipers causes me to further my awe of God and this time of worship becomes even deeper.

I'm sure this is simplistic. But, it's a side of the coin I haven't thought much about until lately.

Good tunes

Here are three of my favorite songs of the last couple weeks:

Coconut Skins - Damien Rice



- I can't say I'm positive that I know what this song is about, but that's the way some of the best of them are. I think it's about doing something with your life...that's how I take it, anyway. In the words of Stephen King: Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'.

Keep Fishin' - Weezer



- I heard this song for the first time a week or two ago. It's been pretty much my favorite Weezer song ever since. I've obviously been caught posing as Weezer fan...obviously, I'm embarrassed...but, I'm ready to right my wrongs and pay more attention to their Maladroit album. Also, this has to one of their coolest music videos, but with the last few sentences in mind, I may not be an expert.

When That Evening Sun Goes Down - Van Morrison

- ...no video for this one, but the whole Tupelo Honey album has gotten more airplay in my old fashioned CD player than anything has since the new Bruce Springsteen album. The whole CD is incredibly optimistic and upbeat. It's what you would get if you striped a summer popcorn-flick away of all of its cliches (theoretically...something could possibly be left over). When That Evening Sun Goes Down is my current favorite on the album.

Once last thing...Martin Sexton's Camp Holiday Christmas album kicks the pants off the high (and pretentious) octaves of Josh Groban's new album Noel (...sorry, I couldn't figure out how to do the fancy "e").

Luke 23 & the God we want

Here's something I noticed in the crucifixion story in Luke today. Luke 2 is more appropriate for the season...but, what can you do...

Verse 35 - "...the rulers scoffed at him, saying, 'He saved other; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!'"

Verse 39 - "One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!'"

Verse 40 - But the other rebuked him, saying, 'Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?'"

Two people (the rulers & the criminal) thought they had Jesus figured out according to what made sense to them...therefore, it made sense to them to kill him, after all, if Jesus was God, he should be able to get himself off the cross.

The proper response seems to be the "other" criminal who fears God. I think it's easy to fall into an attitude of God-should-do-this/God-should-do-that...because it makes sense to us. The better response seems to be a fear of God. "Fear of God" can be sort-of a vague term, but I think something that has to be understood with that phrase is 'awe'. Maybe it's a little like reading about DNA or the human genome project...Scientists have a map of the human genome...they study it and are constantly finding out more about it. But, no scientist is going to claim that they comprehend it or that they understand how all the proteins and chemicals work. Our genes our too complex for us to understand at this point. If God is real, I have a hunch that he is much bigger than DNA or genomes...our awe/fear of God should be a significant part of our life.

I think its fair to infer from this passage in Luke that a false understanding of how God works (stemming from pride) is part of what allowed these people to justify the killing of Jesus. I suppose a good question to ask ourselves is "In what ways are we 'killing' God in our lives due to our false (proud) understanding of Him?" It's also interesting to note that the fear of God that this criminal had led him into a deeper relationship with God...I think we would typically assume that the opposite would happen.

I read a Patrick Morley quote in college that has stuck with me. His idea was similar to this: "Are we serving the God we want...or are we serving the God who is?". I think it's a healthy question to ask.

The End of Embryonic Cloning?

Although it definitely won't get as much press as Dolly the sheep received, one of the key figures in embryonic cloning (and creator of Dolly) appears to be abandoning the embryonic method of cloning. This is good news, because it means that perhaps the use of embryos for stem cell research will decrease in popularity...if other scientists follow his lead. It also points to the ridiculousness of the whole idea from the very beginning...even if it worked...and was morally unproblematic, where would all the eggs come from to create the embryos for the cloning?

Here's an article about Ian Wilmut's change in research:
Dolly Creator Prof Ian Wilmut Shuns Cloning

Dedication..."The Neon Bible"

I'd like to dedicate this song to Joel Osteen and his new best-seller. Also, don't forget to check out The Arcade Fire . They are Canadian...and quite good.

Neon Bible Lyrics
by The Arcade Fire

A vial of hope and a vial of pain,
In the light they both looked the same.
Poured them out on into the world,
On every boy and every girl.

It's in the Neon Bible, the Neon Bible
Not much chance for survival,
If the Neon Bible is right.

Take the poison of your age,
Don’t lick your fingers when you turn the page,
What I know is what you know is right,
In the city it's the only light.

It's the Neon Bible, the Neon Bible
Not much chance for survival,
If the Neon Bible is right.

Oh God! well look at you now!
Oh! you lost it, but you don’t know how!
In the light of a golden calf,
Oh God! I had to laugh!

Take the poison of your age,
Don’t lick your fingers when you turn the page,
It was wrong but you said it was right,
In the future I will read at night.

In the Neon Bible, the Neon Bible
Not much chance for survival,
If the Neon Bible is true

Emerging Info

I'm proud to say that my last post stirred up a little controversy...both here and at another page. I wish I had the time to interact with some of the discussions and debates before they become old news (Mike...don't argue with librarians...dictionaries don't lie). But, instead of attempting anything constructive, I thought I'd point out two resources that I think are helpful in understanding the emerging church. The first one (pdf) is emergent friendly, the second one (mp3) is not...I'm trying to be balanced.

Scot McKnight - What Is the Emerging Church?

Mark Driscoll - 2007 Convergent Conference (Driscoll's talk is Session 3)

"...often against people who are really onto something."

Read Tony Jones' post...in which (as in all emergent dialog) there a good vibe overpowered by an over-all sense of "something's not quite right here"...

http://tonyj.net/2007/11/06/daddy-whats-a-heretic

And, to quote Tony's blog...What is a heretic?
“It’s what someone says,” Mike told her, “when they’re trying to hurt and silence someone else. It’s been used a lot in history, and often against people who are really onto something.” (That’s a paraphrase. Mike said it better.)

Perhaps, "Mike" is on to something...maybe heretic isn't a bad word. Maybe gnosticism is a good thing, maybe Christ wasn't God...maybe the whole Trinity thing is a farce...perhaps Mary wasn't a virgin when she conceived Jesus. Or, maybe the word heretic is a sobering word...maybe a person should use the opportunity of being called a heretic to see if there's any chance that they've wandered into dangerous waters?

And, just to formalize my feelings...I think I'm officially tired of all things emergent. So what if they've given evangelicals some good questions that we've been missing over the years... I'm tired of them saying "I wonder what would happen if the Bible wasn't inspired" and then saying "I never said the Bible wasn't inspired". "I wonder...what if Mary wasn't a virgin?"..."Oh, I actually never said that Mary wasn't a virgin." This would potentially be tolerable if it wasn't followed up with "Why is everyone picking on me? I didn't do anything...look at these evangelicals...all they want to do is fight...join the emergent side...we're actually not a side, we're just the misunderstood folks who everyone is picking on."

I'm sure emergent-ism will pass soon...not soon enough for me, though.

Hebrews 5:11-14
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Jason Schwartzman's band "Coconut Records"

Jason Schwartzman has an album out...and, it's pretty good. Jason is famous in Wes Anderson circles for Rushmore...and, now The Darjeeling Limited. When you bought the album you used to get a Polaroid taken by Jason himself, but now you don't.



Check out this link for a sweet Jason Schwartzman interview...
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/pmcc/view/jason_schwartzman_coconut_records_and_more

Also, his MySpace site has a good interview with Jimmy Kimmel...
http://www.myspace.com/coconutrecords

Need Help With "The Pianist"

Somebody's going to have to help me out with The Pianist. It's been on my need-to-watch list for a while, so I realize I'm having this discussion a little late in the game.

It conveyed that the Nazis were bad...but, I've seen that before. It was mostly about this guy locked up in apartments, being alone. But, it didn't have that I'm-alone sense that Castaway had. Maybe it was about how music can bring even enemies together? But, there was only really one scene that pointed to that. It seems with all the buzz that came along with the movie that there must be some underlying theme that passed me by.

Why I Pretty Much Hated "The Devil Wears Prada"

There was a moment at the end of The Devil Wears Prada when I felt as though the whole movie might have been redeemed. The movie is about the allure of power...success...and, I suppose fashion fits in as well. The young novice character (Anne Hathaway) gets a job working for a super-influential clothing designer. Guess what? Our novice knows nothing about clothes, nor does she give a rat's patootie for fashion. Guess what else? By the end of the movie her rags turn to riches (cliches seem appropriate here) and she becomes one of "them"... By "them", you know what I mean...those rich folks in the high rises, snooty, consumed with their jobs and absolutely nothing else. (To be fair at this point, I should point out that Meryl Streep does a good job with her character.) The good guys are Hathaway's friends at the bar, the bad guys are the ones making money. So, our rookie fashion character is slowly pulled to the dark side...and, there's this scene where Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway are in the car together and Meryl Streep tells her devoted protege that they are quite similar...they're made out of the same material, if you will. It's at this moment that I thought the movie was coming together. If the last 1.5 hours of light-hearted display of transformation into a snooty fashion figure were for a purpose...and, if this purpose was to show how easy it is to be sucked into a vice....then, we were on to something good. What if Meryl Streep had used her cunning to trap Anne Hathaway into a situation she really could not get out of? What if Anne Hathaway at this moment discovered that she did love her career and her power and her new wardrobe more than everything else in the world...and she decided to continue down this road?

Because it is easy to get trapped in a situation that is pretty horrible because a bunch of little slippery steps have caused you to slide into this spot you never thought you'd end up in. And, in a movie depicting this, I can see how this process could be displayed as it was in The Devil Wears Prada. So, at this moment of the movie, I was hoping for a little severity. I was hoping that she was stuck in the bed she had made...I was hoping that she discovered that she was just like Meryl Streep's character...I was hoping for a little of Al Pacino / Keanu Reeves in The Devil's Advocate and less of what I'd been fed up to this point.

Well, Anne Hathaway gets out of the car, tosses her cell phone in the fountain, and gets a regular job of her dreams. ...There are basically no repercussions to her actions over the course of the movie. She gets what she wants and all is good in the world. In my mind this ruins what was shaping up to be merely an average movie anyway. How bad is a situation that has no repercussions? I mean, really, are we concerned at all about realism if you can screw your friends and your family, work yourself to death and then pause and go back to normal. If the non-repercussion part of the movie is real, then, the rest of the movie that portrays Anne Hathaway as heading for trouble is a lie. I don't see how both can be true.

Like I said, it wasn't that great of a movie to begin with. And, as always, I'm reading too much into this little popcorn flick. But, as an easily annoyed person, this one bugged me with its basic lie and its flippant ending.

Vegetative States - Jesse Ramirez

This isn't exactly unbiased reporting...but, it makes you think.

Awakenings: The Schiavo case revisited
(...it's not really about the Schiavo case)