The Gospel Coalition Interviews

The Gospel Coalition webpage now has interviews up.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/interviews.html

Don't miss "What Makes the Gospel Coalition Different?" by Tim Keller and Don Carson.

Keepon, The Robot

Someday robots will rule the world...


http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~marekm/projects/beatbots/

Christian Music

The distinction between "Christian music" and "secular music" is truly an unhelpful one. A couple exceptions (people who do find it helpful): the Christian music industry, parents who don't want to be involved in their children's culture...these are stereotypes, I'm sure, but I think there's something there. These three lyrics came to mind this morning as I was thinking of some songs that contain honest reflections of the world.

We spend all day getting sober
Just hiding from daylight
Watching TV
We just look a lot better in the blue light
Well, you know I gotta get out
Bit I'm suck so tight
Weighed by the chains that keep me...

And this girl listens to the band play
She says "where have you been?
I've been lying right here on the floor"
Well, I got all this time
To be waiting for what is mine
To be hating what I am
After the light has faded
- Adam Duritz

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

In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he'd never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips

Now there's a loss that can never be replaced,
A destination that can never be reached,
A light you'll never find in another's face,
A sea whose distance cannot be breached

Well Jesus kiss his mother's hands
Whispered, "Mother, still you tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared."
- Bruce Springsteen

Trouble - Ray Lamontagne

If you haven't checked out Ray Lamontagne, you should. Here's one of my favorite songs of his. I like the relationship between trouble, worry, and the woman who saves him. All three might be the same thing...

"The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World"

Succinct and clear. The best thing I've read/heard in regards to Christians interacting with postmodernism. If you know of something better, let me know.

The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World
by Tim Keller

The Gospel Coalition

If you haven't already done so...take a trip over to The Gospel Coalition web-page. It is up and running with stuff to listen to, read, and watch.

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/

The Gospel Coalition may be something that blows over in a few years, or it may be the start of an impacting voice in evangelical churches. The site has pretty pictures of the first Gospel Coalition conference...but, it's more a site for folks interesting in reading (or listening to) focused thoughts on the gospel's place in church ministry.

The organization started out of a relationship between Tim Keller and Don Carson. It grew from those two into a coalition of (mostly) pastors. And, then, morphed into this gospel coalition. From what I've heard stated, it's likely that The Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel will alternate years for their conferences. The web-site above will grow in its documents and aids to those interested in the practical application of the gospel in their ministries.

...if you have to pick just one of the lectures, go with Tim Keller.

Viewer Mail - Answering the Atheist

My buddy Andy and I used to convene in high school study hall every day and discuss our late nights with David Letterman. One of our favorites was Thursday night when Dave would answer the viewer mail. Paul Shaeffer would sing..."letters, we gets stacks and stacks of letters....letters". The story is semi-true, I'm not sure how excited we actually were for viewer mail, but since Andy's wife has plagued my comment section with deep, dark atheistic questions I thought it was an appropriate intro.



So, here we go with our first instalment of viewer mail...

'Life happens: we decimate the rain forests and kill the native species; the earth's crust destroys our coastland and kills lives. It's the flux and flow of life. There is no cause or reason. It's the looking for a reason that fosters the anger and resentment.' Where do you categorize this type of atheist? And how do you answer him?

I've been reading some of the philosophy genre lately...in thinking about my answer, I can already see that effecting/affecting me. Anyway, without any further stalling on such a question...

Categorizing & Answering:

In my mind, the issue of "cause" seems to be the weak area of this atheist's argument.

"There is no cause or reason." To me it seems that a causeless, reasonless world has no anger and resentment in it because nothing has existed to cause the anger/resentment. I'll attempt to explain my thinking behind that statement. By the very act of saying "it's the looking for...that brings anger", the person has entered into an causal argument stating that the cause of B is A. In this case, the cause of anger and resentment is in the looking-for-a-reason. Therefore, if my second rate logic works, how could there be any anger/resentment in the world when we've removed some sort of evil causing it? Whether this "evil" is a tsunami, an earthquake, or looking for a reason for suffering...there has to be a cause.

Let's assume for a moment that the cause exists, but it is unknowable ("There is cause and reason, it is unknowable. Anger is a result of searching for the cause."). In this case, perhaps we would feel emotions of anger when we experience the frustration of tracking down something unknowable. Still, I would want to ask similar annoying questions. For example, our new and improved statement seems to have tracked down a knowable cause of anger and frustration...and, again, this anger stems from trying to pinpoint any causes. But, if our statement were true , we would not have been able to discover the unknowable cause of our frustration toward discovering causes. In other words, we still have a causal statement, it has just been expanded with a "it is unknowable" footnote.

If my two short paragraph's semi-coherent statements are convincing...and, if the atheist admits that some sort of "cause" exists in the world, then the discussion moves to a different level. What is the cause? The where does evil come from question should be as difficult for an atheist as why does suffering exist is for a theist.

That is the long answer to your question. The short answer is that I would just try to confuse him or her with alot of philosophical mumbo-jumbo until they were confused and walked away.

Anyway, I'm not sure any of that actually works logically. Another option would be giving them a 4 Spiritual Laws Tract. How would you answer the question?

Anger At God

We want to decipher God. We want to figure Him out. We want to turn him into a video game, a book, or a Rubik's Cube. We want something that we can finish, unlock, and put on the shelf.

Once we understand something we can make sure it follows the rules. If it does abide by the rules we experience comfort. If it breaks the rules we experience anger. Think about sports. There’s anger that enrages thousands when the referee misses the call.

The question emerges: Does/can God miss the call? We certainly act like he has the ability to. Our rage and bitterness is frequently focused on God rather than the sin that should be the focus of our anger.

More questions: Why? Why are we so easily angered at God? Perhaps it stems from partial belief? Let’s examine two extremes of the spectrum…

A) A true atheist. If a true atheist exists, they are incapable of feeling any true emotions toward God. I don’t believe in Santa Claus, therefore, when my car breaks down or my wife gets sick or when a friend dies…I am incapable of being angry at Santa Claus. Any anger at God assumes the existence of that God.

B) Who else is never angry at God? We need to stretch ourselves here…we need someone who is the total opposite of an atheist…someone 100% confident in the existence of God. Hopefully, without cheating, I can use Jesus as an example. Equality with God seems in some way to be the opposite of atheism.

So, does someone 100% confident in the existence of God get angry at God? Was Jesus ever angry at God? Did He have reason to be?
When Lazarus died…
When His Father was sending Him to a cross…
When He wept…
…was He angry at God? Did He have reason to be?

What does this tell us? I think it tells us that any anger at God must exist because we live our lives somewhere in the middle of this unbelief scale. There seems to be some sort of tension here, and I think it comes out in many of the Psalms. On the one hand, there's alot pointing to a brutal honesty of our emotions toward God. But, on the other hand, a contentment with our lack of understanding of God does not seem to be encouraged (James' "count it all joy" passage comes to mind).

I've been thinking about Psalms 116 a little bit lately. Here are two verses from this optimistic Psalm (make sure you check out the context sometime):

I believed, even when I spoke,

'I am greatly afflicted';

I said in my alarm,

'All mankind are liars.'

The two quotations seem as though they are statements the author is not proud of, in one sense. But, he still admits that he believed when he spoke. Even honest discontent still reflects a belief in God. Perhaps we can call this "anger" at God. If so, the emotion doesn't seem to be the problem, I think the problem is the follow up to the emotion. Do we feed the emotion with Truth or do we follow it up with an extra dose of self-pity? I think it's a hard question to answer, because the question seems to imply some limits to our negative emotional expression toward God. ...all sorts of slippery-slope troubles seem to tie me up in these thoughts.

For the sake a semi-short post, I have two thoughts. Anger at our situations, frustration at God, whatever we call it, needs to be expressed. It's honest...if God already knows how we're feeling, why should we try to mentally hide anything from Him. But, these emotions need some reminders of who God is...and I think they specifically need reminders of the cross. If anger at God is only possible along side of a level of unbelief…then, that unbelief begins at our understanding of the cross.

Romans 8:32 - He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

God had to be up to something when He sent His Son to the cross. Sometimes we act/think as though God was up to nothing when He sent Jesus to die.

A second passage that seems relevant is Paul's quotation of the Psalm mentioned earlier.

II Corinthians 4:13-14

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, 'I believed, and so I spoke,' we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

Although I haven't done alot of study on this passage, there seems to, at the least, be an emphasis on an overarching awareness of God's love through the cross in our speech. I think it's safe to infer from Psalm 116 that any expression of frustration or anger toward God be reigned in with thoughts of God's love through Christ's death.

So, in regards to anger at God. I think it stems from a lack of understanding of God. And, since a full understanding of God and His ways is impossible...maybe the best thing we can do in times of intense hardship is meditate of the love expressed through the cross, have faith in a God bigger than us, and, if possible, relax. There is much good in seeking to know God more. But, red flags should appear any time we think we have God figured out. He’s not a puzzle. He’s not a riddle. And, I think it is safe to say that He never misses the call.

Abortion in the Movies - If it's good enough for Al Mohler's blog...

...I borrowed this link from Al Mohler's blog. It's a great article about abortion and the movies. Here is the link:

You Won't See Termination 2 at the Movies

It's about how Hollywood can't seem to bring itself to promote abortion. And, I think the article is on to something. I think movies are a good example of that circular pattern of the culture feeding on the media and the media feeding off the culture. As already mentioned on this blog, movies give us an insight into what the culture is up to. I think this example offers us insight into the fact that few people in this generation view abortion as any sort of a happy ending. And, as the article states, if it's not a child...if it's a mass of cells, why shouldn't an abortion provide a potential happy ending.

As a school project, I entered overacheivish mode and did a 50-page project (huge fonts, lots of double space, etc.) categorizing bioethics in the movies. With several exceptions abortion is almost always viewed negatively (If These Walls Could Talk was one of few exceptions). You can see similar negative trends with cloning, which is intricately tied to the problem of abortion in my mind. The natural aversion to modifying and killing humanity is worth paying attention to. Will this aversion lessen in another 40 years because it's something left over from our parents generation? Or, will we still squirm when it comes to cloning and abortion because it's part of our make up, our conscience, what is written on our hearts?

Sunbeams

These types of thoughts have been very appealing to me lately, especially in a political sense. Since, I haven't had time to post any of my own attempts at thought-provoking-ness lately, maybe these folks will fill the space better than I would.

"An assumption deeply integral to capitalism...[is that there's] not enough to go around: not enough love, not enough time, not enough appointments at the food-stamps office, not enough food stamps, not enough money, not enough seats on the subway. It's pervasive. We learn mistrust of each other, bone deep: everything is skin off somebody's nose." - Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But...the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'" - Martin Luther King Jr.

"If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be." - Antonio Porchia

(quotes taken from The Sun - Issue 374, February 2007, pg 48)

"I...like...totally made...like the worst song ever"

Want to hear what is possibly the worst song ever? Check out this doozy...



"What's great is...like I didn't realize it at the time..but, it's like...I totally evolved and went to the next level..." - Avril Lavigne

Sunshine - Matt Costa

They don't make music much better than this. This song is a wonderful blend of tension and contrasts. The optimism of the melody faces off against the realistic view of life that the end is on its way. But, in spite of it all, Matt says nothing negative about the life-taker, instead the cycle of it all points toward the beauty of the situation. It's pop music at its finest, no matter what your radio's silence may tell you.



Sunshine

Sunshine
I'd really like to tell you
Oh my sunshine
Even though your skies are blue
You're drying up my bed
How can I get any rest now?
Sha la la la la la la la

Someday
You will get the best of me
Oh someday
Probably when I'm old and grey
I'm lying in my bed
And I will soon be put to rest now
Sha la la la la la la la

Sunshine
I'd really like to tell you
Oh my sunshine
Even though your skies are blue
You're drying up my bed
How can I get any rest now?
Sha la la la la la la la

Someday
You will get the best of me
Oh someday
Probably when I'm old and grey
I'm lying in my bed
And I will soon be put to rest now

I'm lying in my bed
And I will soon be put to rest now (Ooh ooh) [x2]
Sha la la la la la la la

How to Process a Movie Pt. 4

Movie Watching Opportunity #3

3. A good movie offers the opportunity to understand the way others are thinking.

Art when done well offers an avenue into the deepest parts of other people’s minds (and hearts). It’s an incredibly unique opportunity to see what motivates other people, to see what drives them, what gives them purpose…in one way it’s the most amazing and exciting thing about seeing a movie. Imagine a person reaching both hands up to their chest, sinking their fingers into their skin, and opening up the doors to their true self. It’s an amazing way to understand the culture around us.

When the doors to the self are open, we find new ways to communicate spiritual truths to people. We see where they are hurting and can understand ways to love them and discover appropriate paths to travel on as we reach out to them. We have an important message to deliver and any clues as to the best means of presentation are valuable. The illustration of Paul on Mars Hill is so common here I hate mentioning it. But, if you haven’t pondered Paul’s methods in Acts 17…well, I guess you should.

There’s something else worth mentioning here. When movies are honest, they portray a view of the world that is surprisingly similar to the Bible’s view of the world. This is why so many honest movies are dark and have a depressing flavor. A movie that doesn’t portray some sense of the shadowy corners of humanity should immediately cause red flags to spring up.

How to Process a Movie Pt. 3

Movie Watching Opportunity #2

2. A good movie is an opportunity to discover effective methods of communication.

Whether we agree or disagree with the methods, movie creators are able to communicate on a deep level. Christians should be vitally concerned with communication. With a little discernment and awareness a movie can give us insight into the methods of some of the most skilled communicators of our day . When we ask ourselves “how does this presentation speak to people?” we are a step closer to being a better communicator.

For example, in the 70s Stephen Spielberg made Jaws. Because of technical problems he was forced to keep the viewer from seeing the shark until late in the movie. Luckily for him (and us as viewers) this omission of the “monster” in his monster movie greatly heightened the suspense of the film. By the time the shark is revealed our curiosity has increased exponentially compared to what would have happened if Spielberg had immediately showed us his movie villain.

What good does this knowledge do for us? It can remind us that sometimes it’s good to save the heart of our message until the end. Instead of immediately stating the big idea, it is sometimes acceptable to raise the anticipation. Perhaps we can see a little of this in the parables or in Proverbs. If you don’t give all the immediate answers it forces people to think about what you’ve said.

A second example…MTV. Pick almost any MTV movie and/or the television channel. Three second clips. Then, on to something new. Flashy. Restless. Impatient. And, yet it communicates.

Observing MTV allows us to study another communication tool. I’d argue that this flashy style is useful occasionally, but continued use of this method (or any method) will have negative consequences. There’s a point in using two examples here. Even though we’ve taken one step further in discernment (in that we have examined a communication technique), we still aren’t able to take our discernment antennas down. Some styles of communication are appropriate in different situations. You don’t see MTV producing Schindler’s List and you don’t see PBS creating music videos.

Christians are people who should be very concerned about their message and how to deliver it. This could be the most overlooked / under-rated benefit of movie watching that there is.

How to Process a Movie Pt. 2

Movie Watching Opportunity #1

1. A good movie is an opportunity to meditate, mull over, and ask hard questions about what we believe.

Notice the phrase “what we believe”. Theology shouldn't come from movies. Instead, a movie should be like that nasty professor who always asked you those difficult questions about your faith that made your brain hurt. A movie can provide us with an hour and a half of hard questions that (when handled properly) should send us to our Bibles for sharpening.

The easiest way to explain this principle is by providing some questions that reflect this type of thought process. For example:

Does this movie allegorize Scripture in any way?
In what ways does this movie align itself to Scripture?
In what ways does this movie veer away from the Bible’s Truths?

When we question movies in this fashion they can sharpen our knowledge of the Bible (especially when discussed with other people) because we are now thinking as we watch. Our brains are now searching for truth and error for 2 hours instead of laying dormant for 2 hours.

Again, this point highly implies that we have a knowledge of the Bible as we head into our movie of choice. A sign that something is amiss is a desire for entertainment without a desire for Truth. In this scenario your entertainment will soon become your truth.

How to Process a Movie Pt. 1: An Incredibly Long Post

There’s a way out of those awkward conversational pauses that we always seem to find ourselves in. In high school it seems I was more comfortable with this easy cheat, but as I became older I felt as though I should play by the adult rules. Lately, I’ve been reverting to my old ways. The cheat is “movies”. Ask a person what movie they’ve seen lately. It gets 95% of the population talking.

The question is: Why does it get 95% of the population talking? The answer is not a hard one, it’s because everyone is watching movies. Not only are people watching movies, but they’re being affected by them. This is no small influence, either. People light up when they have a chance to reveal the movies they have under their belt. A movie conversation is made of the same high-caliber stuff as a how-are-the-kids conversation.

There’s a problem, though. And, it’s a big problem. People don’t think. We make our trek to the movies, and return from our quest with a good plot outline and possibly some good quotes. We now have the ability to say We loved it or We hated it. But, the ability to say why we loved it or hated it seems to be missing. Sure, we can give answers like “special effects” or “it was funny”, but is this sufficient?

This is a problem for a good chunk of society. But, for Christians this should be an even deeper problem. If we assume that God is real and He’s intended His truth to be revealed through the Bible, then a Christian should consider carefully what they put in their brain (Romans 12:1-2; Philipians 4:8; 1 Peter 1:13-21).

The solution to this problem is not more drivel on how Christianity and morality and all things chipper and happy are seen in movies like Casablanca, Silence of the Lambs, and Napoleon Dynamite. My problem with this type of writing isn’t specifically with anything that’s been written. I enjoy the postmodern activity of ignoring all the artist’s intentions and rendering my own meaning. I’m concerned with the fact that few of these writers take seriously the activity that they are engaged in. Too often they look at the process of finding the spiritual in movies as a type of game. My argument is that movie-processing is more than a game, we should never turn off the device that filters what goes into our brain.

I view the brain as a storehouse. The senses are the loading docks for this storehouse. And, there’s this guy…at least it’s a guy in my mind…and he examines everything that makes its way into this storehouse. By nature this guy is a pretty lazy dude who doesn’t like to work.

This character exists in all of our minds. So, perhaps one person views a Die Hard movie coming in on the loading dock and their storehouse manager says: throw it over there in the action movie pile. Harry Potter…toss him over there between the kid’s-movie pile and the fantasy pile…yeah…right there near where Lord of the Rings is sprawled out. We allow this guy to be lazy as the information enters our minds and therefore our brains look like a lazy teenager’s messy bedroom.

This storehouse doesn’t need to look this way, though. The great thing about our brains is that these movies I mentioned can be sent to more than just one part of our mind. For example, as Lord of the Rings enters the brain-storehouse it can be flagged fantasy. But, if the guy (or gal) waiting on the loading dock is properly prepared, they can immediately send it to a dozen other departments at the same time: friendship, loyalty, good vs. evil, appeal of power, mission, leadership. If our loading dock character stays busy after they’ve directed the movie to its appropriate locations then, it can continue flagging it at later dates.

Our job is to train the loading dock character properly. This guy’s training is a two-part task. One, he needs to know what he’s on the look-out for and, two, he needs to know how to process it. Both are difficult tasks. But, both tasks are essential and should be part of our daily lives anyway.

Think about politics. We typically don’t allow the guy on the loading dock slouch time when a politician is speaking to us. We’ve sharpened up what we stand for politically and we place all the information that we attain in the appropriate brain compartments. We don’t listen to Presidential candidates and think…oh, that was a nice speech, I’ll put that in the nice speech corner. No, instead we put it in the Republican corner or the Democrat corner. We fine-tune the filing system by stapling a note stating the items we agreed/disagreed on. We can further filter things by stacking them according to health care, social security, military policy.

My encouragement is to get that lazy guy directing traffic at the loading docks to stand up and get ready for action. We need to make sure he’s alert and prepared. Here are some basic principles that he/she should be aware of.

1) We need to make the most of our time. (Eph. 5:15-16)
2) We should do everything as though we’re serving the Lord. (Col. 3:23)
3) We should seek cross-worthy thoughts and activities. (1 Cor. 2:2)

These three principles are intricately related to our whole life…which includes movie watching. I’m pleased to inform you that these questions do not suck the “fun” out of the movie watching process, instead it propels you to exciting new levels.

A good movie is an opportunity. The next three-ish posts will list of some of the opportunities the movie-watcher is provided with.

Why D minuses Don't Matter to "Christian" Art

There are few things more overrated than Christian entertainment. Of course, it’s only overrated in the Christian bubble…and, of course, it’s hard to argue with the many spiritual defenses without straying too far into the boundaries of judgemental-land. I have two theories why the Christian arts are so weak...

Theory #1: The Ratio Theory
This theory rests on the premise that most “secular” art is of low quality as well. However, because there’s such a huge mass of secular art there’s still a lot to choose from. Let’s look at music as an example. And, allow me to make up some figures. Let’s assume that for every 10 albums put out in a year 1 of them is a winner. That’s a ratio of 1:10…or a percentage of 10%. ...stay with me, arithmetic is not my favorite genre, either. But, if 1,000 albums come out in a year, then 100 of them are of high quality.

Let’s feed this same ratio into the Christian music industry. Let’s assume that 500 albums are produced in the Christian world…this means 50 albums are of high quality. This means there’s half the number of quality albums, making this music harder to find. I think there’s something to this theory, but it needs to be counterbalanced with Theory #2.

Theory #2: The Grandmother Theory
This theory states that there is a ridiculous amount of grandmother-izing in the Christian music industry. A Christian musician makes an album or a Christian author writes a book and suddenly the grandmother comes out in everyone. All of a sudden Charlie’s in jail after robbing a liquor store for his crack habit and grandma is on the phone to Charlie’s parents telling them that he’s not that bad, he’s still a good boy…etc. Similarily...a “Christian” puts out a CD that sounds like Mickey Mouse in a Britney Spears costume and suddenly it’s worth listening to because “the lyrics are good” or because “it’s pretty good for the Christian world”.

Both these theories put together make for a low percentage of quality art in the Christian world. Generally, I find that it’s not worth my time to wade through the scummy waters of the Christian entertainment sub-culture and/or train myself to like the truck stop coffee they typically offer.

I’m not forsaking my Christianity by saying this…I’m all signed up for whatever promotes “Do all things for the glory of God”. I think this is fully possible in the “secular” world. I find that it’s much harder for me to justify my time when I spend it listening to low grade Christian music than it is when I listen to folks like Pete Yorn, Wilco, or my favorite, Bruce Springsteen. Some people would argue that the reverse is true for them.

The next few posts are going to be about processing art and entertainment. Movies will be the activity of choice, but I think the principles are true of any artistic medium.

Honey Nut Scooters

I realize most people exit this stage of humor development around 4th or 5th grade... But, I noticed Honey Nut Scooters at the store the other day and bought it, just because it made me laugh and because it reminded me of an old Phil Hartman SNL skit. For what it's worth...

Jesse Malin - Glitter in the Gutter

Until further notice the best rock and roll record of 2007 is Jesse Malin's Glitter in the Gutter. This album gives me a buzz I haven’t felt since the first time I watched Top Gun. Its perfect pop coating allows each tune to go down easy while still pumping disgruntled fists with vain rock-and-roll promises that everything is going to be alright. Jesse Malin tugs, pulls, pushes, shoves…takes you by the hand and says “Hold on tight, this is a crazy ride”....and he does it without all the pretencious smarm of the last few sentences. It’s probably the best rock and roll record in 20 years…but, who’s keeping track?

http://www.jessemalin.com/

10 Best Albums of 2006

1. Modern Times - Bob Dylan
2. American V - Johnny Cash
3. Post War - M. Ward
4. We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions - Bruce Springsteen
5. This Old Road - Kris Kristofferson
6. Continuum - John Mayer
7. Suprise - Paul Simon
8. Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
9. Stuck Between Stations - The Hold Steady
10. Sam's Town - The Killers