12.14.04
Posted in culture at 10:52 am by
I think it can be broken down to this: Progressive and liberal Christians want to have conservative Christians to say to them, “I respect your viewpoints, and I maintain that there is a place for you within Orthodox Christianity.”
I think that’s it. Simple, eh? Then we want to be treated like those conservative Christians believe what they say. That’s it. I don’t need conservative Christians to quit being conservative. I just want to be a part of the ‘Christian’ club sometimes…or at least treated like I’m a welcome member.
Beyond that, arguing till we’re blue in the face is pretty fun, sometimes. I don’t mind having a discussion about evolution, or gay marriage, or whatever the issue of the day is as long as we can come back to that one unifying principle. That my social and political beliefs don’t negate for me the possibility of fellowship with people.
Of course, this principle goes both ways. I just haven’t bumped into too many progressives that would claim that conservative Christians weren’t really Christians at all.
I think it might come down to doing critiques of the worldviews of opposing parties. I mean, we seem to expect everyone to have a worldview with no inherent flaws in it. Logical inconsistency is the bane of our existence. That’s true for most folks. In fact, I’d dare to say that there’s not a person alive with a completely coherent worldview. Why, then, do we act with shock and dismay when people point out logical flaws in our worldviews? Worse yet, that shock and dismay turns into a belligerent bickering about how we must be right after all.
Why not take those inconsistencies in stride? That’s really all I want for Christmas to take the inconsistencies in my world view in stride–and for others to follow suit. That and peace on earth.
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Posted in faith at 12:00 am by
Friends, it would seem we’ve been invited to a reunion of sorts. It sounds like a rip-roaring good time. The festivities will take place in Branson, MO.
Yep, you guessed it, Worldview Weekend is having a family reunion in none other than the vacation capital of Branson, Missouri. Sounds like a good time. Some of our good friends will be there. Here is a list of all of their biographies.
Here’s an excerpt from Kirk Cameron’s biography:
Kirk is best known as the lovable teen heartthrob Mike Seaver, of the award winning series Growing Pains. He entertained audiences worldwide as the charming troublemaker. He is also known to every Christian as “Buck Williams” from Left Behind: The Movie — based on the NY Times runaway best selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
Somehow, I must have missed the ‘getting into heaven / being a Christian criteria’ of knowing the name ‘Buck Williams.’ (I’ve never read Left Behind.) No matter, this weekend should be the perfect opportunity to catch up on some (obviously) overlooked fine literature such as the Left Behind series. Perhaps, I’ll even catch a DVD of Kirk himself.
Better even yet, we’ll be able to have a weekend with Star Parker. You heard it right folks. A successful businesswoman of color! Best of all, it seems that they were able to find one who was willing to rally against the welfare state. (Because, after all, most people of color are lazy asses on welfare and are ruining Christianity.) Here’s an excerpt:
The stunning story of how Star Parker left her life of drugs, abortions, and welfare abuse to become a leading advocate for the family because of her transformation in Jesus Christ will challenge and inspire you. Star’s story reveals the power of Jesus Christ to change lives. Star’s story demonstrates how thousands of lives can be changed through one person that rejects the humanist worldview and puts into practice a Christian worldview…Star Parker’s personal transformation from welfare fraud to conservative Christian crusader has been chronicled by ABC’s 20/20; Rush Limbaugh; Readers Digest; Dr. James Dobson; The 700 Club; Dr. George Grant; the Washington Times; Christianity Today; Charisma, and World Magazine. Star has been a guest on The O’Reilly Factor…
Praise God. Someone who will speak out against the evils of caring for the poor. This world really is going to hell in a handbasket. We need people like Star Parker to set us straight. Furthermore, it’s fantastic to hear that people of color, who are all hopelessly mired in a world of drug addiction, alcoholism, welfare, and rampant sexual immorality can–with the grace of God and the economics of white people–be saved from their own devices.
Now friends, these are just a few of the all-star performers at Worldview Weekend’s family reunion. Whaddya say, everybody? Shall we pack up the LandRover and head out to Branson?
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12.13.04
Posted in culture at 1:21 pm by
I didn’t quite make it to all my David Wilcox topics. That is about par for the course, for me. I’m rather notorious about not really finishing things I’ve started. I like to get too carried away in newer things, often to the detriment of those projects that have been started but remained unfinished. Case in point: it took about a year for me to ‘finish’the parquet floor in our kitchen. (Of course, the floor isn’t officially finished, but for our purposes we’ll call it done.)
Anyway, before I turn this entry into yet another unfinished project in lieu of a bevy of stories about home improvement projects gone awry, I’d best get on to the topic at hand.
David Wilcox has a song about a good person. It’s pretty catchy. The story unveiled in this song basically has to do with a guy who is a Bible beater. By ‘Bible beater’ I mean the kind of person who uses their Bible to beat the ‘hell’ out of people, literally. The hook of the song goes something like this:
‘You’re a good man in the worst sense of the word.’
I got to thinking about the types of folks that that phrase describes. Truth be told, the first people that came to mind, for obvious reasons, were the kind that David talks about in his song. Fundamentalist fire and brimstone types. These ‘turn or burn’ folks can be frustrating indeed.
But then I started thinking about another of David’s songs (or it may have been one of his poetic between song ramblings…it’s hard to separate the two–for those of you who’ve never been, a Wilcox concert is kind of like a 3 hour unending song.) In this other song, David explicates the process of trying to see the world from another’s viewpoint. In that song (or between song ramble), David describes a process where two people with dissenting viewpoints try to verbally express the other’s viewpoint without misrepresentation. A difficult task, to be sure.
When I think about things from a fundie’s point of view, although I don’t share that view, I can see where they’re coming from. To them that turn or burn message is one of supreme love. From where they stand, they see a life or death issue at hand (and in truth, I do too.) Now I can argue till I’m blue in the face about the hidden messages that their ‘turn or burn’ fare are sending, but at the end of the day, they really truly believe that this message is a message of love.
I just disagree.
But, for a person to be a good person in the worst sense of the word? Is that accurate, even if that person is trying with all their might to send a message of love–however twisted their goggles must be to view their message as being perceived as motivated out of love? I don’t know.
How much worse would it be if these folks, misguided though they may be, weren’t sending the message that they felt loving? A difficult question, indeed. It all fuels my belief that it’s not so much the motivation of modern (not in the modern/post modern sense, but more in the ‘current’ sense) evangelism that is wrong it’s that the message is all wrong. Unless of course the motivation for evangelism is conquest rather than love, but that’s another blog entry.
So, I guess what I’m trying to say, is that there’s hope, I hope. The trick is convincing the modern Church that their message, though it may once have been the ‘good news’ is no longer the good news. Of course, convincing the current audience of modernism that their message and not the gospel itself is what has lost meaning seems daunting.
Ideas?
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12.12.04
Posted in culture at 10:29 pm by
Adam at Symposium made a nice observation to my post about truthful conversations. He said this:
So if I want to have a truthful conversation with God, Do we need to break up?
Of course, I can’t answer that question for any one person. I do have a suspicion, though, that it may be best for lots of Christians to break up with God for a while.
I’ve been thinking about the purpose of having this blog for a while. Lots of people think I’m just an angry young man who spouts off about whatever is stuck in his craw at any particular moment. I tend to think of this place as more than that. I think this is a place that people can confront the truth as they see it without any predetermined zeitgeist that must be applied to that truth before it can really be considered true.
The truth with no strings attached. Why? Because, I have a passion that people would be able to know God. Now, I think it stands to reason that I should define exactly what I mean by the word ‘know.’
To me, to know God, is more than to simply know about God, and less than to know all there is to know about God. I recognize and understand God through the person Jesus of Nazareth. I believe he was and is God. That said, I think a lot of people would do well to break up with God for a while.
Now that I write that, “I think a lot of people would do well to break up with God for a while,” I’m not sure I’m right. I think that more accurately, it could be said that many Christians would do well to break up with Christianity for a while. Sadly, I think that breaking up with Christianity has little to do with breaking up with God.
Breaking up with Christianity, to me, has more to do with separating oneself from the social norms and expectations that define Christianity. Social norms that cram Christianity into a much smaller and distorted box than the ‘Christ-likeness’ box. Christianity, nowadays, is more about pre-packaged thought, than real live beliefs. Unfortunately, that pre-packaged thought is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a thought. You see, much of Christianity bears little resemblance to the original.
Call me angry at the fact that Christianity has little to do with Christ. Yep, I’m guilty as charged. I’m fucking angry about that. Because I believe it matters. So, yeah, I do think most Christians would do well to break up with Christianity for a while. Perhaps then they’d be able to get to know God in all of her majesty.
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Posted in homebrewing at 9:25 pm by
This may interest the those of you who are interested in homebrewing. If not, well, I’ll document the whole escapade regardless, so, at least you’ll be able to laugh at me if my recipe goes awry.
So, here it is. Now for all of you die hard brewers who do all-grain batches, you’ll be disappointed, but hey, I’m a rookie.
With no further adieu, here’s Fuller Avenue Orange Ale:
Steep @ 150 degrees farenheit:
1/2 lb. Crystal Malt (20L) (Though, if I had to do it again, I might use a lighter malt)
Remove grain bag and bring to boil, then add:
6 lbs super pale liquid malt extract
1 oz. Northern Brewer Hop Pellets (10% AA)
Boil for 45 minutes then add:
1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (4.5% AA)
1 tsp. Irish Moss
1/2 oz. Dried Orange peel (Not just any dried orange peel…the kind they sell at homebrew shops).
Boil for 10 more minutes (55 minutes total now) and add:
1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (4.5% AA)
After 60 minutes of boil, kill heat & bring wort to 80 degrees F. Top up to 5 and 1/4 gallons of wort. (For this batch I did NOT remove the orange peels from the primary fermenter…we’ll see how it turns out.)
Pitch yeast:
White Labs Liquid California Ale Yeast
Fermentation Schedule:
Ferment for 7 days in primary fermenter
Rack to secondary ferementer and ferment in glass carboy for 11 to 14 days.
Prime with 4 oz. corn sugar and bottle condition for 2 weeks.
I had a pretty violent primary fermentation this time. So, be warned, it could get messy. I don’t know how much of that, though, had to do with the fact that my batch was a little on the big side. Thus, there wasn’t much head space.
My OG was about 1.041. But, with a bit smaller volume I wouldn’t be surprised to see an OG of about 1.044-7 on this recipe…like I said, I made a big recipe. If you try this recipe, let me know what you think! I’d love the feedback.
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12.10.04
Posted in culture at 9:54 am by
Just to clarify, don’t let the title of this entry make you think that I’ve got this all figured out. I heard a song though, by David Wilcox, last weekend that shed some light on the topic. Of course, it works backwards, too. That is, I could’ve just as easily entered the title of this post as how to be a good wife. However, that sounds a little condescending coming from a man.
The point is the first thing you need to do in any good relationship is to break up. That’s how David puts it. The concept being that if you break up, you’re free to have true conversations. By ‘true conversations’ I’m talking about those conversations that are about the truth.
It always bothers me that people make ‘the truth’ out to be this glorious achievement. As if you’ve reached the pinnacle of holiness if you can somehow be honest with folks. The truth is that ‘the truth’ isn’t very glorious at all. Lies are glorious.
For example, I’ve jumped out of a helicopter and skied down a mountain from the very top. Lie. Never did it. Sounds glorious and wonderful, doesn’t it. Very self promoting, I think. The truth is that I like to ski. I don’t do it very well. When I ski down a mountain, it isn’t from the top. Also, I tend to resemble a camel in snowshoes when I ski.
I’ve actually told that lie. Probably to countless friends, each of whom I can’t even keep straight. It made me seem like I had the bravado that I really don’t have in real life. (Unless, of course, you count my daily decrys of fundy failures as bravado…I tend to think of that, though, as beligerence.)
But, my friends, when you get into a relationship which there’s some value needed to stabilize the image of the person to whom you’re attached, you tend to tell lies. Initially, those lies are little lies. You probably don’t even think of them as lies.
But, those lies can mutate. Usually, though, they don’t mutate into bigger lies–at least they haven’t for me. For me, those lies turn into conversations like this one:
Jen: How was your day, Honey?
Brandon: Mmmph. Good. (Doesn’t look up from laptop.)
There’s very little, if any, truth in that conversation. No connection, no real talk. Jen pursued me in that conversation and rather than revealing the tapestry that I’ve been created to be, I’ve revealed the 15 dollar dimestore welcome mat.
If you’ve read this far, you know that you don’t really need to break up in order to have that conversation. You just need to focus. Focus on the truth, no matter how bad that truth sucks. And, that’s the thing. The truth is rarely glorious. It’s usually boring. And, it’s the most important boring thing relationships have to offer.
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12.08.04
Posted in culture at 8:42 pm by
Frank’s Nursery is going out of business. We got a steal on a Christmas tree there. It was fantastic. Well, fantastic until we got it home.
First, you’ve got to understand something about Thelma, cat number two. For some reason she’s been forever stranded in ‘kittenhood’, I think it’s kind of like a reverse aging disease, she’s stuck in incessant immaturity. We wouldn’t want it any other way. Paige, on the other hand, Paige is mean. She’s a crusty old woman, you know, the kind who flips off the bell ringer on the way out of the mall. So, problem number one is that Thelma–with an everpresent oral fixation–must chew on each branch of our new plastic tree. That’s fine, around the bottom of the tree, but our Thelma insists on climbing to near the top of our 7 and a half footer. As I write this, she’s perched on top of the mantle, crouched and ready to spring into the center of the tree. See photo:
It will be a miracle if she makes it through the holidays alive.
Second, this is the first year in my life that I’ve ever had a plastic tree. I think I used to be morally opposed. That is until last year. Last year I spent something like 80 bucks on a hacked off tree. I spent an hour and a half lighting the fucking thing up, and yet another hour decorating it further. Once all that was done, we had a tree, but that tree required care, watering, etc. Once the holidays were over we had a huge mess to clean up (needles in crevasses we didn’t even know existed.) Then, what to do with the spent tree. There were places you could go, but they require a vehicle equipped to handle an aging christmas tree. We drive cars. One fell bump and every damn needle falls off the tree. Those two facts make for messy car rides. So…my christmas tree last year sat in my back yard for 5 months, until I was ready to take a saw to it and turn it into small enough pieces to fit into my waste bin. Those parts of trunk that I couldn’t break down below the 1 inch diameter waste bin limit, are firewood…that remains unburned…in my garage.
I needed no more of this chicanery. We decided to go plastic this year. The whole process was much easier. However, and here’s the part where my problem comes in, both my dear Jen and I have eyes a bit bigger than our living room has space for christmas trees. Our tree barely fits up and down into our living room. However, up and down isn’t really the problem. Our biggest issue is that we’ve lost about 300 square feet of living room to our gargantuan tree. Turns out those things really spread out! (hang on a second…)
Dammit, Thelma! Get away from the tree!
Sorry. We now resume regularly scheduled blogging. My last christmas tree issue this year is that we may have gotten a tree that’s a bit too bright. We got one of those pre-lit trees–Jen does all she can to keep me from swearing too much during the decorating process. Turns out, those trees have one holy shitload of lights on ‘em. Truly spectacular. I now have to wear sunscreen in my living room in hopes that I will knock down some of the UV’s I’m picking up from my tree.
Seriously, though, We hit the switch on the tree and our living room looked like Vegas, baby. So, if you’re ever driving down Fuller Ave. NE and you look and see a little yellow house with one big friggin’ Christmas tree. That’s probably us. In fact, if you look in the picture window, you’ll probably see the bottom half of our monstrosity…if you’re lucky.
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Posted in culture at 12:33 am by
If my old church wasn’t ready to make ME (a heterosexual, white man) feel welcome, that church (and thousands of other churches like it) are up shit crick without a paddle. How in the world are these churches ever going to handle people like this person that Brian writes about over at The Faithful Skeptic. Here’s an excerpt of what Brian’s talking about:
One of the officers was talking about prostitution in our town and kept referring to these women as hookers, whores, and street-walkers. I understand that officers can become jaded and not see the humanity of the people they work with, but I kept thinking how cruel it was to refer to this girl as a whore.
The whole post is really worth the read, my excerpt hardly does it justice. Here’s my question. The church is supposed to reach out to everyone, right? I don’t know about you but I certainly can’t imagine this girl staggering in from a night out on the street and getting a whole lot of “Hi, so great to have you this morning’s,” or “Hey, you want to come to youth group?”
The assumption of church-goers (myself included in those ranks) has historically been that society’s fringe populations have not gone to church because they weren’t interested in church. I think that’s bullshit. It’s a cop-out. My guess is that many people don’t go to church because often the most vocal Christians are assholes.
I know that probably all of the churches that I’ve been involved with wouldn’t be prepared for a prostitute to come to Church. The Church isn’t a place where people can feel safe anymore. New people come in and the established congregation fears those who aren’t exactly like them. They relegate them to the fringe.
I find that all depressing. Somebody let me know when you find a church the prostitutes and drug addicts go to on a regular basis. Then, I think I’ll have found a church home.
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12.07.04
Posted in culture at 11:28 pm by
No, I’m not talking about being mad at God. That’s another post. I’m talking about being mad at my church. I’m also not talking about being mad and having that mad-ness take place AT the physical location ‘church.’ I’m talking about being mad at the whole organization, or at least the people in it.
David Wilcox has the marvelous ablility to make one just think. That I did while I sat at the concert this past weekend. I really would be hardpressed to tell you what the song he sang was, but something hit me while he sang it. I haven’t REALLY let myself get mad at the people at our–and I’ll just say it–old church. You all remember, the same old church that we thought, “We’ll give it a try” to a month ago.
So, you know what? I’m mad. No, I’m fuckin’ pissed. Not so much that no one there really cared to give me the decency of acknowlegement, but I’m mad that they go on in mediocrity and don’t even know that there’s a fucking problem when time after time families are telling them that there in fact is a problem.
You see, my old church was a mega-church. Now, some out there would tell me that a church of 300 regular attenders can’t be a mega-church. I say you’re wrong. A year and a half ago, I wouldn’t have believed it either. But, now it’s apparent. We’ve gotten to know a total of 10 of those people in our church.
It’s not that we haven’t tried. We got involved, did everything we were supposed to do. But, at the end of the day, we know 10 other people after a year and a half, in a church of 300. If that’s not piss poor, I don’t know what is. The core church-goers don’t really even know eachother–though, they talk a good show.
I don’t think it can be blamed on any one person. I think the biggest issue, more than any other, is that this church is satisfied with only the most cursory of relationships. That’s created a church that will rot at the core. That combined with a real lack of administration at EVERY level makes for a disaster waiting to happen.
I truly am committed to the concept of a real live church community. I just really need to see one in practice. Hopefully someday. Soon.
Oh, thanks all, for letting me just be mad for once.
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Posted in culture at 9:27 am by
So, anyway. Back to the love and fear post. I don’t pretend to believe that I know all that there is to know about love and fear, and as evidenced by yesterday’s post about love’s multidimensionality, I don’t claim that fear is the only oppositte of love.
Perhaps it would do us well to discuss the nature of sin. New Testament writers didn’t think of sin as narrowly as we do. I believe that they thought of sin as a general category. Sin is, to them I believe, less about the things you choose to do, and more about how you do those things. Broadly, sin is defined as missing the mark.
I imagine that love is one of those great targets we aim for. The problem with fear is that people don’t really see it as an oppositte of love. They see fear as a natural response to bad things. In fact, in many Christian circles fear is seen as a virtue.
Let me explain. Let’s see, ah yes, and example. You all remember the Christian Exodous people, right? If not, google them, I’m sure you’ll find something. Their whole culture is built on a phobia. They believe in a God who wants them to completely separate from all society and form their own little theocracy. Why? You name it, gays, liberals, etc. They are a whole sect of Chicken Little’s screaming that the sky is falling. Fear is their God.
Some of you folks will be on your first visit here and wondering to yourselves, hmmm… but didn’t God say that we should fear her. And, the answer is yes, she did. I believe that something is lost in translation there. Fear, in that case, means that we revere God, because of her greatness.
Unfortunately, though, we needn’t look so far to find a group of Christians gripped by fear. They exist everywhere. Some of those Christians even look like they’re really engaging culture. But they engage culture at arms length. They claim to like culture, but refuse to believe that it could really have anything to do with their faith. They talk a good talk, but their actions belie their fear.
Fear hurts people and communities of faith. It spreads us apart, rather than bringing us together. I think we could do with a whole hell of a lot less of it.
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