320. not being lazy...

Just wanted to let you know that the lack of posts isn't entirely because of laziness.

I'm actually trying to finish up two essays that I need to write in order to finish my application for Mars Hill Graduate School where I'm hoping to get into their Masters in Counseling Psychology program.

I have until January 15th to get my application in but I want to do it right and knowing my penchant for procrastinating, I've set a goal for myself to have both essays done by January 1st. That way I can do some actual proofreading, as opposed to the half-assed proofreading I do in my blogs. Speaking of my blogs, I've noticed that I've picked up a lot of bad habits because of my blogging.

For example, I don't know if you've noticed but I sometimes start sentences with conjunctions like "and" and "but." I don't think that's technically wrong, but I'm pretty sure that it's not going to look good in an entrance essay for grad school. I tend to play fast and loose when it comes to grammar in my blog and it's been harder than I thought it would be to go back to writing properly.

My bad.

And (see, I did it again!) so it's taking far longer than I thought it would to get my essays done.

And so, it might be another week or so before I get back to posting regularly again.

And I want to because I really want to continue my thoughts on the whole Bob thing.

Thanks for your patience and I'll see you next year!

319. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Here's to a safe, fun, and happy Christmas.



And yeah, that's right, I built that snowman!

318. found another one

[preface]

A few months ago, I created a new tag for my blog called Christians (see entry 303). The basic idea is this: I’m becoming more and more convinced that the work of Christianity has as much to do with redeeming the world - building the Kingdom of God here and now - than it does with getting people to pray a salvation prayer or understanding a set of spiritual laws. And so when I find a link that illustrates the kind of work that christians should be doing, I’m going to post it up and label it as “christian” whether the person featured is a christian or not.

[end preface]

It's been a while since I've put one of these up but I'm convinced I've found another "christian" - someone doing the kind of thinking and work that christians and the church should be doing. This time, it's a farmer who produces the best foie gras in the world. And I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding foie gras because of the way it's produced (geese or ducks are force fed far more grain or corn than they would eat otherwise which causes their livers to swell and get extra fatty and it's that abnormally large liver that becomes foie gras) but the way this guy does it, there's nothing forced about it.

Back in Genesis when God told Adam to subdue the earth, I don't think God meant the kind of unsustainable corporate farming practices we use today. I think God meant for us to do something like what this guy Eduardo is doing - working with nature to create something amazing. And for that, I'm slapping the "christian" label on him.

Check it out, it's a fascinating talk.

317. let me introduce you to Bob

Something strange happened last night.

My church held the first of a two-part seminar titled, "Space to Breathe: Worship and the Arts." It was one part experience (they made us do stuff) and one part discussion (they made us talk about stuff), both meant to help us explore what worship is or what it can be. Because worship is so much more than a (sappy) musical genre.

I went in not quite knowing what to expect, but excited at the same time because I have lots of questions about worship and I'm always excited about any way to get the arts back into the church. Having both in one seminar sounded almost too good to be true. And while I did learn some great things about worship and art, I also learned something far more profound and important about myself.

But I'll get to that further down.

Well the night began with a kind of improvised labyrinth. The chairs (we don't have pews) were arranged in such a way that they created paths that led us to three stations, each of which had a kind of spiritual focus. There was a tidy little handout that led participants through the labyrinth with one page guides that provided hints and suggestions as to what to do at each station. I forgot to bring my handout home with me so I may get this wrong but I believe the three stations were rest, reflect, and respond.

The first station, rest, was the simplest. It was just a little corner of the sanctuary where we were asked to sit and wait and acclimate ourselves to the spiritual nature of what we were embarking on.

And thats when the strangeness began.

I think I knew I was in trouble the moment the darkness and the quiet began to envelop me.

It wasn't a voice, it wasn't the awareness of the nearness of the Holy Spirit, it wasn't anything that felt at all spiritual. That is to say, it wasn't something outside of me that I felt. Rather, it was something really deep down inside of myself that was making itself known. And when I say "deep down inside," I don't mean physically because I'm only 5'5" so there's not a lot of deep to go down into. I mean deep down in my spirit/psyche/soul - whatever it is that makes me me and not just a sack of proteins and enzymes.

Now I don't mean to break the narrative, but it's going to be difficult to continue writing this if this "something" that I'm referring to isn't named. And so I'm going to call it Bob. And if you're wondering why I'm doing this, try reading the rest of this post substituting the words "this something" every time you see the word "Bob," and you'll understand.

Bob was down there wanting to push through to the surface and make himself known. I knew this was happening because for some reason, Bob was trying to go through my tear ducts. And maybe that makes sense because if the eyes are windows into a person's soul then if something from within that soul is trying to make its way back out, well why not through the window?

And I didn't fight it. I knew this labyrinth thing was a spiritual exercise and I wanted to experience whatever it was that was there for me to experience. I let myself shed a few small tears but somehow I knew that wasn't going to be enough for Bob.

I spent quite a bit of time at that first station. I knew part of the exercise was to rid ourselves of our need to rush from thing to thing. And I wanted to give Bob a chance to do or say what he wanted. After I felt as if I had given myself and Bob enough time, I moved on to the next station - the reflect station.

This station was set up at the front of the sanctuary. On stage were a bunch of candles - big ones, small ones, lots of those tiny tea light candles. It was quite an array. But I didn't get all that good of a look at them. At least not at first because Bob started using my tear glands as punching bags. And I let him wail away. I cried that kind of hearty, convulsive cry - the kind that babies cry because they have no other way of expressing what they don't know how to express. And I didn't know what I or Bob was trying to express either but it must have been important because it wasn't going to wait for words.

I told a friend once that unexplained crying episodes were kind of like taking a shit for the soul. Sometimes we stuff things down and do our best to keep it down but then we get all constipated and the soul can only hold so much in before it starts getting ill and so it gives us the teary version of diarrhea. All that nasty shit that we didn't want to deal with at the time, all that stuff we thought was over and behind us, it all comes spilling out through our eyeballs and our nostrils.

I covered my face and wept into my hands. I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself and disturb the other worshipers and so I wept in silence. And of course I wasn't expecting this so I didn't have any tissue on hand. Once I was done with my little crying fit I realized I had two handfuls of tears and snot. I suppose the normal course of action would be to get up, go to the bathroom and wash myself off but although I didn't understand what I had just been through, I knew enough that I wanted to stay where I was as gross as I was. I wiped a bit of my messy onto my pants and spent a lot of time just looking at the candles on stage.

I switched back and forth between just being there in the moment and trying to analyze what had just happened.

Normally after a crying fit, a kind of peace descends because, to return to my shit analogy, the bowels are empty and clean. But that's not how I felt. I still felt broken somehow. I knew that Bob wasn't done with me yet, not by a long shot. And so I waited and tried to analyze and when I realized that though there was still work to be done, that Bob was done for the night, I moved on to the next bit of the labyrinth.

I never really made it to the last station - the response station. I mean, I walked over there but saw that it was set up as a kind of makeshift painting studio - there were paints and brushes and heavy paper and the floor was covered with tarp. But I didn't feel like painting. I thought about just grabbing a brush and some paint and letting loose on the canvas but I'm no painter. If I had gone that route, most of my time would have been spent thinking and hemming and hawing and not putting anything down. And so I went to the bathroom, cleaned myself up and went back to looking at the candles.

After a while, I and everyone else made it over to yet another part of the sanctuary where we finished up the discussion part of the night. It began with talking about what we had experienced in the labyrinth. A few people shared their thoughts but I kept mine to myself - not because I didn't want to share but because I had no idea what Bob was trying to do or say to me.

And I still don't.

But I have a few ideas about what Bob might be trying to get at.

This has been a really strange year for me. Lots of ups and downs (to put things into perspective, losing my job was probably the least of my downs). I think part of what Bob is trying to relay to me is that I've spent far, far, far too much time trying to help and fix others and not nearly enough time on myself. Another thing I think Bob is trying to get me to deal with is my spiritual life. I need to work things out with God.

And maybe that last bit about me reconciling with God sounds a bit odd or surprising seeing as I've done a bunch of posts about church and Christianity. But that's theology which may be another way of saying theory. A friend of mine (and fellow Quest blogger) recently put up a post where he talked about how the academic study of theology is often far removed from the actual work that the Bible is telling us to do.

In a similar way, it's far easier for me to ponder my own thoughts about what's wrong with the church and Christianity than it is to deal with what's wrong with me and my own Christianity. Part of the way I've been able to get away with this has to do with one of the problems I see with contemporary Christianity. I think far too much of it is focused on individual spiritual development and not enough on the work to be done out in the world. I use that as an excuse to not deal with the junk in my own trunk. It's a classic case of speck versus plank. I busy myself with specks while ignoring the freaking giant sequoia growing out of my own eye.

Bob probably has a bunch of things he wants to work out with me and now that he's made himself known, I'm going to try and not ignore him as much. Because he's not going anywhere. And I probably can't deal with all of Bob here in my blog but I'll cover as much as I can. Because writing is the best way I've found for me to work through issues and because writing for an audience forces me to be real and cogent and it forces me to flesh out the backstory - the history that gave birth to the issue in the first place - and that helps me as well.

And so, I introduce you to Bob.

Bob says, "hi."

316. random bits

I've been working on another post in the Layman's Theology series but it's still a work in progress. Give me a few more days on that one.

In the mean time, here are a couple of random bits about me:

1. I have this thing where I rarely finish books. I don't mean that I start reading a book and stop reading somewhere in the middle (although that happens as well), I mean I read the book almost all the way through but stop just a few pages from the end. This happens with both fiction and non-fiction works.
   
   Thing is, if I've made it to the end of a book, I'm very invested in it and dread getting to the absolute end where the book will be behind me. I don't want it to end and so I just don't get to the end.
   
   Of course this poses a problem with works of fiction because while in non-fiction works, you usually have a very good idea about what the last few pages or paragraphs are going to be about (some kind of summary or recap of the author's conclusions), the end of a story is unknown. To get around this, with works of fiction, once I get near the end of the book, I'll flip forward and read the last few pages just to see how it will end. Then I go back to where I was reading and then read forward but still stop before I get to the bit at the end that I've already read (because if I read that far then I'll have finished the book which is what I'm trying to avoid).
   
   This is one reason I like reading short stories. Because they're shorter, I don't get as emotionally invested in the book and so have no problem finishing. For some reason, I don't have a problem reading the last short story of a short story collection.
   
   
2. I hate my feet so I wear socks almost all the time.
   
   Living in Seattle, this isn't a problem because the cold weather necessitates socks and shoes almost year-round, and so even though I don't wear shoes in the house, it doesn't look odd if I have socks on indoors. In Hawaii, I got around this by wearing shoes whenever I went to friends' houses and only wore slippers (flip-flops) at home when friends weren't over.
   
   Why do I hate my feet? Because I have ingrown toenails on my big toes - actually on most of my toes, but it's particularly bad on the big ones.
   
   I don't think it's bad to the point of being repulsive, but they're far from being properly pedicured (I can't cut them to the proper length anymore) and so I keep them covered up.
   
   
3. I part my hair on different sides depending on what day it is.
   
   I wake up in the morning, take a shower, and before I style my hair I check my computer or cell phone to see what the date is. If it's an odd-numbered day I part my hair on the left. If it's an even-numbered day, I part it on the right.
   
   
4. And speaking of bathroom habits, here's how I brush my teeth. I squeeze a bit of toothpaste onto my finger (about half an inch worth). I pop this bit into my mouth and mash it into my teeth using my tongue. As I'm doing this, saliva builds up and once things get wet enough I start swishing it between my teeth. After a few minutes of this, I spit out what's in my mouth and then start in with my toothbrush.
   
   Two reasons I do this. One, while swishing the saliva/toothpaste in my mouth, my hands are free to do other things, like shaving or styling my hair. Two, I like to think that this is kind of a poor man's mouthwash - that it gets the toothpaste into those hard to reach places like back teeth and between teeth.
   
   And lastly. . .
   
   
5. I once saw three movies in two different cineplexes in one day. But I can't remember which movies.
   

I have quirks galore, but who doesn't?

Feel free to share your odd habits in the comments section.

315. the body of Christ (part 2) - that crazy uncle

(you can find part one of this series here)

One of the striking differences between the way the Jews related to one another in the Old Testament and the way followers of Christ related to one another has to do with (for lack of a better term) social structure. In the Old Testament, there was a clearly laid out chain of command for both religious and social settings. In the New Testament, followers of Jesus had a much more egalitarian, communal, flat social structure.

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and posessions to give to anyone who had need.

Acts 2:44-45

That's not to say that there wasn't any kind of leadership in the first century Christian church. Early on the need to appoint people into organizational positions was dealt with (Acts 6:1-6). However, these positions were meant more to maintain order and fairness than to create structures of hierarchy and power. In my previous post about the church, I talked about one common metaphor the Bible uses in reference to those who follow the example and teachings of Christ - the body of Christ. Another common metaphor is that of a family.

Jesus constantly referred to God as father. Not just that, Jesus instructed his followers to refer to God as father as seen in the Lord's Prayer. On top of that, in Mark 14:36, Jesus uses the Aramaic word, "abba," when addressing God - a word that basically translates as, "daddy."

This is a radical shift from the Old Testament (and orthodox Jewish practice today) where writing or speaking the word for God is taken very seriously. There's a hilarious story told by Shalom Auslander on NPR's amazing, excellent show, This American Life. In his story, he is told by his rabbi that his name, Shalom, is one of the names of God (there are dozens of them) and that he must never write it again. According to orthodox Jewish teaching, any piece of paper with any of the names of God on it is considered sacred - it "must never be thrown away, it must never touch the ground, it must never be covered." Instead, he is instructed to henceforth write his name, Shalo', with an apostrophe in place of the final letter.

Shalo''s is a contemporary story set somewhere in the US. Can you imagine how much more seriously Jews in Israel in the time of Jesus took the name(s) of God? It's easy to understand why the religious leaders went nuts, started pulling their hair out when they heard Jesus refer to God as his father, his dad. And I don't think Jesus did that just to taunt the rabbis. He was modeling a new way of relating to God and to one another - a way that looked a lot less like a political power structure and more like a family.

One more item before I get to what I want to get at. Take a look at this bit from John 17:20-23:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Some say that this is the only recorded prayer of Jesus that has yet to be answered. Because if you look at the church at large today, I'd say it's pretty clear that we are not unified or one. And I wonder if many parts of the US (and the world) do not believe in Jesus because of our lack of unity.

Anyone who has been in the church for any length of time knows what this disunity looks like. Couple examples from my own experiences:

Before I started attending the house church I was a part of before moving to Seattle, I attended a couple different churches that belonged to the Foursquare denomination. Churches in Hawaii that were a part of Foursquare fell into two broad camps: the Hope Chapels and the New Hopes. Both camps were very successful - lots of people came (and continue to come) to know Christ through these churches. But the pastors who were at the head of these two camps had very different leadership styles.

In general, the Hope Chapel churches were very bottom-up. They believed in raising up leaders from within the church by helping them discover what their gifts were and helping them find ways to use those gifts in the church. The New Hopes were more top-down. They believed in recruiting top talent in various fields because they believed that the people of God deserved the best.

Both styles of Foursquare church had explosive growth in Hawaii - both leadership models turned out to be wildly successful. So much so that Foursquare headquarters wanted to make Hawaii into its own district but when it came time to decide who would head up this district, the head Hope Chapel pastor and the head New Hope pastor were both candidates for the position.

Long story short, they created two divisions in Hawaii - one for the Hope Chapels and one for the New Hopes. I've been away from Hawaii for two years now and away from Foursquare churches for even longer than that so I don't know how much collaboration and reconciliation has taken place since then but looking at the Foursquare website, I see that there is a Mid-Pacific Division with Hope Chapels under them and a Pacific Rim Division that has the New Hopes. Of course I don't know all the details but come on, Hawaii is not that big of a place - the Foursquare churches there should be able to fit under one umbrella.

Okay, example number two:

One of the largest churches (if not the largest) in and around Seattle is Mars Hill Church. The lead pastor of this church is Mark Driscoll and he's been known to be something of a lightning rod. He's got strong opinions on a wide range of topics and he's not afraid to voice them. Of particular note is his emphasis on his own brand of Christian masculinity which he has called, Ultimate Fighting Jesus. Driscoll's hardline stance on this and other topics has made him a target of harsh criticism from churches near and far.

Both these examples show the lack of unity within the Body of Christ and there are tons of others out there. And this is unfortunate because this is not what he had prayed for on the night before he was crucified.

But how do we work towards this unity?

That's a huge and complicated question but there's one answer I know is wrong. We don't work towards unity by striving for conformity.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 1:20 where Paul says, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." I find this verse striking because part of what it is saying is that God reveals aspects of himself through the world that he created. And this makes sense because just as one can learn things about an artist by examining the art that he/she makes, one can learn bits of what God is like by examining his artistry as displayed in the world around us.

Any cursory survey of the universe will certainly have this to say about God: he loves diversity. Nothing comes in just one shape or size or color. Stars, rocks, clouds, trees, birds, atoms - they all come in variations: yellow giants/red dwarfs (stars), granite/obsidian (rocks), stratocumulus/cirrostratus (clouds), oak/maple/fir (trees), lark/swallow (birds), lead/gold (atoms). There are over 900,000 known insect species and it's estimated that that's probably only about one or two percent of what's actually out there (stat source). Should I go on? On the grand scale of things, some theoretical physicists think that there are multiple universes (and there are multiple versions of this multiverse theory). Then on the smallest scales of things, there's a whole orchestra of elementary particles that make up any one of the 7*10^27 atoms in the average human body. It seems that God never makes anything in just one form or kind. Even God himself is understood as the Trinity - three in one.

All that to make the case that the way towards unity in the church is not through conformity. The goal is not for us to all look, think, worship, believe the same. The twelve disciples started their ministries after the resurrection of Jesus with their unique identities intact - they were free to be who God had made them to be - but they still worked together. They had their disagreements but the Gospel continued to be spread.

So if not through conformity then how does the Body of Christ work towards unity?

In the past, I've suggested that maybe we should "see the differing ideas within Christianity the way a botanist sees a garden - as a thriving system of bio-diversity. . ." (post 216). But that can be problematic because then you have to deal with the whole food chain thing - churches aren't meant to eat one another.

I think the metaphor of the body and that of the family are more useful.

I won't say a lot about the church as body because Paul has already worked that out in 1 Corinthians 12:4-31.

But the family metaphor is a really useful one because it's ripe for analogies. But it's also useful in the sense that perhaps one promising way towards unity is a kind of feigned civility - that face we put on at family reunions where we need to share a table with family members with whom we have some deep disagreement(s).

This idea of just putting our differences aside and just getting along is a nice one but the reality of the matter is far messier and more difficult.

A few months ago on my pastor's blog, he put up a post about Supporting Women In Ministry. And of course there are churches on both sides of the debate. Speaking for myself, for most of my life I've been in churches that allowed women to serve at all levels of leadership. But there are churches and denominations that do not support this view.

I won't lay out arguments on either side of the theological debate here. I site the example because it's one area where advocating for unity and body and family is particularly tricky.

See, as I often do when the topic of conflict and/or disunity in the church comes up, I try to make the God-loves-diversity-and-variety case I made above. I try to make a case for unity in the body of Christ. And so in the comments section of the blog I wrote the following:

I believe there’s room enough in the Body of Christ for both positions. Does this mean I believe scripture has no meaning? Well on foundational issues like the divinity of Christ, I believe the Bible speaks clearly and those choose to believe something else are probably outside of what it is to be a Christian. But on secondary issues I think there should be much grace and healthy debate. Maybe some will disagree, but I think the issue of women serving in ministry is a secondary issue that well meaning, sincere Christians can agree to disagree on.

Looking back now, I see that it was a pretty naive, insensitive remark - one that I could make without much thought because of the privileges I have been born with as a male. This point was driven home for me by some of the responses left by others (men and women) highlighting the dehumanizing, unjust nature of the position against women in church leadership. For example one of the other pastors at my church left this comment:

it always amazes me that so many men weigh in on whether or not women should be allowed in ministry. That you who are able to take for granted that you are called by God find it necessary to determine whether or not another person created in the image of God could possibly be given the same calling strikes me as astonishingly hubristic. That it could be said without exception or discussion that women are never gifted or called to lead a congregation is not a theological view that reflects any sort of care for women, or openness to the outpouring of the Spirit. To those who hold the opposite view, and claim to care for the women in their congregation, or to those who believe there is room for both views, I respectfully disagree. You have absolutely no idea, speaking of men here, what it feels like to have your very identity the subject of continual challenge and discussion. When I speak with someone who does not believe women should be in leadership, I feel that my humanity before God is not recognized, that my calling is invalidated, and that my ministry is seen as ‘less than’. I relate to the exhaustion of Catherine and others, and wonder if there will be a day before the Day of the Lord when we in the Evangelical church won’t have to have this discussion any longer.

I felt pretty stupid and small after reading that and deservedly so. Mine was a comment born out of the convenience of privilege. It was easy for me to put out there because neither side of the debate affected any part of my life.

And I don't know how to advocate for unity in this debate. I don't know that there is a unifying position.

And I wonder if that is what Paul is getting at in 1 Corinthians 13:9-13 (a continuation of the church as body passage I pointed to above). Until Christ returns and renews all of creation, we will see only partially, incompletely, dimly. And in this incompleteness, perhaps the only way forward is love - messy and awkward and broken.

Maybe it's like sitting at a large table at a family reunion. Maybe we put the relatives who vote Republican on one end of the table and those who vote Democratic on the other side. But we put them at the same table. Thanksgiving is coming up soon and I'm sure there will be tables around the nation where family members are dreading seeing that crazy uncle who smells like sour cabbage or the vegan aunt who will make everyone at least try a slice of tofurkey or the niece who's going to try and lure people into her latest multi-level marketing scheme or the cousin who's a registered sex offender or the in-law who just made it out of detox and so no one can have beer or wine. Do we make room for them? Do we not invite them? Or do we put them at opposite ends of the table (and do we keep the kids safely in another room)? Do we steer conversations away from minefields?

I use the table as an example because even as we are all divided and disagree, we all come to the table and take communion - a table separated by geography as well as ideology but somehow still the same table.

A few weeks ago Shane Claiborne came to my church and one of the things he shared was how he has disagreements with people in the Seattle area, alluding to Mark Driscoll who I mentioned above. He said that before coming into Seattle for this talk, he called Mark and spoke to him on the phone. Shane had wanted to have dinner with him while in the area but Mark was busy. However, he did assure Shane that he would let him know if he were ever in the Philadelphia area and that he'd make room in his schedule to have dinner then.

Driscoll and Claiborne are on opposite ends of the spectrum on a wide range of topics. I'd imagine that one of the few things they have in common is a love for Christ. If asked, they would both paint very different pictures of how they viewed Christ, but they'd be referring to the same person. Both see Christ incompletely - incompletely in different ways - but they are both looking at Christ. And I don't know what they'll talk about or not talk about if/when they ever sit across from one another at dinner (I'd love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation) but the fact that the two are open to the idea fills me with hope.

314. so what are you doing, Randall?

I blow a lot of hot air about Christianity and church and how there should be more of a subversive, counter-cultural element to them. I sometimes hesitate when putting up such posts because I'm afraid of a question - a question that hasn't come up yet, thankfully. And so I'm thinking that I should take this question on preemptively. Because I'm actually curious about the answer myself.

The question I've been fearfully awaiting is, "so you're doing all this writing about Christianity - what are you doing about it? How are you living that out?"

And I first think of these lines from the Billy Bragg song, "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards"

Mixing pop and politics
he asks me what the use is
I offer him embarrassment
and my usual excuses

Because I'm good at coming up with excuses: my band is my main priority right now, I'm unemployed, I haven't gotten all of my thoughts about Christianity figured out just yet, I'm waiting to find a life partner, I'm waiting to see if God wants me to be single for the rest of my life, blah, blah, blah.

I suppose the fact of the matter is that I'm honestly not sure how much my Christianity is lived out on a daily basis. And part of this has to do with the fact that while I'm do quite a bit of writing about myself in this blog, it's hard to know how accurate my self-reflection really is. Because there's no way to get any distance from myself because, of course, I'm stuck in myself.

Last week my church hosted Shane Claiborne who spoke on a wide range of topics. Among them was the idea that as Christians, we're called to "not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [our minds]. . ." Romans 12:2. Shane said that there should be something peculiar about us, that people should notice that we're different somehow because we don't behave the way the world expects to.

And this isn't a new idea. I heard this same message for years when I was younger. The difference in the way Shane talked about non-conformity is in how it actually looks. Back then I was taught about non-conforming through all of the things that I didn't do - not drinking, not dancing, not hanging out with the wrong crowd. When it came to things I should be doing, they mostly involved personal spiritual development - praying more, reading the Bible and memorizing verses. About the only social aspect I was taught related to sharing the gospel or learning how to defend the faith.

While I don't think he would disagree with most of those actions (or non-actions) Shane's version of non-conformity had a lot more to do with breaking different kinds of broader, more uncomfortable worldly patterns - advocating for peace not through war but through non-violence, figuring out ways to live more simply with less of an impact on the planet, building and living intentionally in community (he argues that we would do well to reexamine the lifestyle of the Amish for hints as to how to live out the gospel in America), and a bunch of other ideas.

Anyway, I remember someone telling me back in high school that most Christians went through two phases: questioning your faith and your faith in question. And though I don't have it all figured out yet, I've thought about and understand enough of Christianity to know that my life has definitely entered the "my faith in question" phase.

If I had to make a case for my own Christianity, there are a couple somewhat concrete things I can point to as proof of my faith. First is the whole Harold Experiment thing I blogged about a year ago. That was certainly a case of me trying to live out my new understanding of Christianity. A second thing would be the fact that one of my roommates, Darwin, and I are co-leading a C-group (Bible study) for my church. The title and theme of the C-group is Jesus' Heart for the Poor - we read and discuss Bible passages relating to poverty and the poor and once per month we try to do something grassroots/hands-on at a non-profit or other organization that works with the poor. And speaking of the C-group, I can't speak for Darwin but as for myself, part of the reason I wanted to help with this C-group was to try and live out my Christianity in a more tangible way. I guess I've been asking myself this how-am-I-living-out-Christianity question for a while now - certainly since I've moved to Seattle.

But is that enough? I suppose none of us can ever really do enough because there's always more to be done. But God only calls us to use the gifts (physical, mental, spiritual) he's given us as best we can wherever we are. Looked at this way, I'm nowhere near where I should be. There's lots more I can do.

I mean for one thing, I should be writing far more often than I am. If I could wave a magic wand and create whatever life I wanted for myself, I'd create a world where I could get some of this Layman's Theology thing published and to be paid enough for it that I could read and write (and perhaps even speak) full time. I think that would be amazing. But I don't have a magic wand and so one of the best things I can do in the mean time is to continue working on the ideas that God has given me. Which is to say, I should keep writing and posting. Which I haven't been doing, at least not nearly as faithfully as I should. And that's sin.

But is thinking and writing enough? I want to be out there more but I'm a pretty introverted person. So much of the work that needs to be done in the world seems to be work for the extroverted and the entrepreneurial, the people who like getting out there and meeting people, shaking their hands and hearing their stories while sharing their own. Acts like that scare the hell out of me. Meeting new people generally stresses me out - it's not how I'm wired.

And so I wonder if just reading and thinking and writing are enough for me.

I don't think they are.

But I'm trying - co-leading a C-group dedicated to talking and doing something about poverty is a way that I'm trying.

But is it enough?

No, it's not but I need to at least be doing what I can - I need to start with what I can do now (writing) and trust that God will continue the process of maturing and movement from where I am to where he wants me to be.

313. and now, for your viewing pleasure

I've never been a big fan of Halloween. It has nothing to do with Christian protests against the holiday. If anything, I think my ambivalence towards Halloween has to do with the fact that I spent YEARS trying to figure out who I was (some of that wrestling documented in this very blog) and so the thought of trying to be someone/something else, even for just a day, had zero appeal for me.

Anyway, I'm reasonably more sure about myself and so I wonder if that's why I chose to dress up this year.

Some friends of mine got an invitation to a "versus" Halloween party. The idea was to come dressed up in pairs or teams that symbolized some kind of versus theme. Some of the suggestions were: rock vs paper vs scissors or Eagle vs Shark or red vs blue.

My roommate and I came up with Boxers vs Briefs.

On a deeper level, we were actually representing Free Will (boxers) vs Determinism (briefs).

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

312. the body of Christ (part 1) - a radical hypothetical

[VERY IMPORTANT PREFACE]

Make note of that word in the title, "hypothetical."

A proposition or statement of, based on, or serving as a hypothesis; supposed but not necessarily true

I stress that word because I've been reluctant to put up this post because while it does serve as an extremely good, very fruitful thought exercise, it's NOT TRUE! As good as it is in stirring the imagination, it's theologically borderline heretical so please, please, please remember that I'm merely posing a hypothetical to make you think.

Maybe "hypothetical" is the wrong word. Maybe there's a better one for what I'm trying to do with this idea but I don't know it (feel free to leave suggestions in the comment box).

One last bit. I doubt I'm the first one to suggest something like this so if anyone knows of books or articles that share a similar idea, please let me know. Thanks.

[end preface]

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:27 (TNIV)

One of the central teachings of Christianity is the idea that Christ will come again. It's in the Nicene Creed: "He will come again in glory. . ." And Jesus himself speaks of his return in Matthew 25 and 26 (among other places).

Unfortunately, because of a particular brand of end times teachings known as dispensationalism, starting with the teachings of 19th Century preacher, John Darby and later popularized by the Left Behind series of books, the traditional view of the second coming of Christ has been upended. I won't attempt to take on dispensationalism in this post but if you want to read an excellent critique I'd recommend Barbara Rossing's excellent book, The Rapture Exposed (if you want the gist of it you can read her entertaining interview here).

Anyway, for the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that when I speak of the second coming of Christ, I mean it in the more traditional sense: that he will return once back to this earth to judge and redeem all of creation.

In the New Testament, Paul often refers to the church as the body of Christ. There are many examples but here's one clear one:

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. Colossians 1:24

Do you see where I'm going with this?

What if...

What if the idea of the second coming of Christ actually meant that the church (as his body) is supposed to be his second coming? What if that was what was meant by Jesus' return to earth? What if Paul wasn't using a metaphor when he called the church the body of Christ?

Let me state again that I don't believe this to be the case - I believe that the actual person Jesus will return in person ". . .to judge the living and the dead" (to complete the Nicene Creed quote I began above).

But.

But what if the church as the body of Christ was to be the re-incarnation, the second coming if Christ? What if we (as the church) were solely responsible to bring about the redemption and reconciliation spoken of by the prophets? How would that change the way we thought about church and how churches prioritized their budgets and their mission statements?

See here's the thing. I think there are segments of today's church who are playing a kind of waiting game. They think that because Christ will return one day that all they have to do is wait for that to happen. The only job to be done in the mean time is to save as many people as possible by getting them to ascent to the Four Spiritual Laws and pray the Salvation Prayer. After that, all that's left to be done is to hone their personal spirituality and to try and get their friends and family saved as well.

And I don't want to dismiss the importance of those things with my little thought exercise. I just want to point out that there are other aspects of being the church that are just as important as salvation - that the FSL and SP are not the end all and be all of Christianity, that there's more to be done before Christ returns.

By thinking about what the church would look like if it were the only bodily second coming of Christ we were ever going to have, I wonder if we can get a more holistic idea about what the church is supposed to be (even though he is, in fact, returning).

A few examples would do well here.

If the church were the second bodily return of Christ...

• We wouldn't be trying to create an alternate Christian entertainment subculture. Instead, we would be working to create viable works of art (in all forms) that existed and competed in the marketplace at large.
  
• We wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the claims of environmentalists by citing our mandate to subdue the earth. Instead, we would do our best to preserve the goodness of God's creation for all time and all generations.
  
• We would be far more active in trying to combat issues of poverty and suffering and injustice both locally and globally - because there's no way around the fact that they are our neighbor.
  
• We might see the church down the street as collaborators (instead of competition) and might work more closely with them by sharing resources and ideas. Because the task of being the body is far bigger than any one church or even one denomination can handle on its own.
  
• Despite the divisive nature of topics like abortion and same sex marriage, the church might work a bit harder at amicable solutions that do the most good for the people individually affected by these issues and work a bit less at shouting about which side is right.
  

Those are just a few examples and I honestly don't know how things would look in practical terms if my hypothetical were true (which, again, it's not) but here's the thing: I think the church would do well to organize its values and priorities as if it were true. Because we aren't called to sit and wait for the second coming. We're called to live our lives as citizens of the Kingdom of God here and now.

I've been saying over and over that my hypothetical isn't true but here's the thing. We really ought to be living as if it were true on both a large, church-wide scale as well as on an individual basis.

This is what it is to bring about the Kingdom of God. Being a Christian means representing the future, redeemed world today, here, now in this broken world.

Take a look at this bit from 2 Corinthians:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! . . .We are therefore Christ's ambassadors. . . 2 Corinthians 5: 17 and 20a

Take note of the phrases, "the new creation has come" and "the new is here!" Paul is speaking in the present tense. These things have already happened. When a person becomes a Christian, they become ambassadors of God's new creation. N.T. Wright puts it succinctly in the appendix of his new book, Surprised by Hope: "Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven."

And that's an amazing way to put it - "to colonize earth with the life of heaven."

But one very important thing needs to be made very clear if we aren't to misunderstand this way of reading the Gospel or what Bishop Wright is trying to say about it.

According to conventional wisdom, if you have a kingdom that you think is good and great and gosh, wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone were a part of it, the way you spread your kingdom is through force, violent and bloody. This is where the crusades missed the point entirely. According to what Jesus taught and the way he lived his life, the Kingdom of God spreads, not by force but by loving example - by turning the other cheek, by going the extra mile, by loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:38-44).

In a way, part of this hypothetical case is true. Part of the mission of the church is to become, in every way possible, the physical presence of Christ here and now on earth. But though we, as parts of the church, are citizens of heaven we are not yet wholely redeemed - we still only see part of the picture, not the whole. And so we'll mess up and we'll get parts of it wrong. We'll swing from being too strict to being too lenient when it comes to the law. We'll emphasize certain bits of scripture while ignoring other bits (because when's the last time you heard a teaching about wearing hats in church?). We are redeemed and made new but not entirely, not yet. And so we'll never get it all completely right.

And that's where my idea breaks down. But that's where the truth of the matter comes in and rescues me (us). One day Jesus WILL return to fix things front to back, top to bottom. And so while we'll get things wrong, he'll make all things right again.

Well, someone might ask, why not just wait 'til Jesus gets it right - why get it wrong in the meantime?

There's a parable in Matthew (21:33-44) that tells of a landowner who plants a vineyard. He puts some farmers in charge and then goes away to other business. When harvest time came, he sent some of his servants to get the fruits his vineyard had produced. Well the farmers greedily come to the conclusion that if they beat up and kill the servants that the will be able to keep the profits for themselves. The landowner sends more servants but the farmers do the same thing again. Finally he sends his own son thinking that they will have no choise but to listen to him but the farmers kill him instead. Jesus asks his disciples what they think the owner will do at this point. They respond that he will go himself to the farmers and dole out a beat down.

The parable ends with this ominous warning from Jesus: "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit," (Matthew 21:43). This statement is given to the Pharisees but I don't see why anything Jesus says to the Pharisees shouldn't apply to everyone else. Besides, earlier in Matthew Jesus says that our righteousness is to "surpass that of the Pharisees." So I don't think it's a stretch to say that those who aren't working to produce the fruit of the kingdom are doing so at their own risk.

And I know this gets into the thorny arena of faith vs works and other really theologically overworked issues. I have my own thoughts about this (which I suppose are hinted at in the above paragraph) but a fuller treatment will have to wait for another post. Suffice it to say that I would personally rather err on the works side of the debate.

311. it's a whole new world out there

Okay, there's no cute or easy way to say this. I lost my job this week.

As I understand it, the company I was working for had been operating under the assumption that a huge venture capital investment was basically in the bag. But the execs got a call from the VC people on Monday that said despite all promises to the contrary, they weren't going to fund us. Our exec fought hard to keep the funds coming but he said all the VC guy could tell him was, "it's a whole new world out there," referring, of course, to all the drama in the financial markets.

In this past month or so, listening to and watching the news, I had a really hard time understanding all the doom and gloom about the economy. It seemed like something that only investors and bankers and retirees or those who had signed one of those shady mortgages had to worry about, not something that would hit me. The pundits kept saying that this crisis would have dire and far reaching effects for great swaths of the population and I kept thinking to myself, "bummer for those people." I didn't think this credit tsunami would hit me.

Until it did.

So how am I doing? Well, I loved that job. It was probably the most fun I've ever had working somewhere, so I'm kinda bummed about losing it.

But.

But I'm also very grateful.

I'm going to have to go on a major financial diet but in general my monthly expenses are low. I've applied for unemployment and worst case scenario, I'll take some entry-level rudimentary McJob to get by until I find something more promising. So as bad as the job market looks, I know I won't need a lot to make ends meet and so while I'm not glad, I am grateful.

There are other people at my old workplace who aren't as lucky as I. I know some of them just had babies and that's a huge expense. And I'm sure many of them have fixed monthly expenses that are FAR higher than mine and so their job options are far more limited. Also, because of all the layoffs that are happening all over the place and the fact that the venture capital market is closed up now, they're probably going to face a very arduous tech sector job search.

While I was packing up the things from my cubicle I caught a glimpse at the guy across the hall from me. He was sitting in his chair, arms dangling at his side. He was staring down at the floor as if the unholy maw of a black hole were opening up in front of him.

Me? If I went into full-on lean, mean, borderline-ascetic budget mode, I could probably get by on an hourly wage of $10 or $11. That wouldn't be much fun but still, if that's all I need to get by, I can find a job that at least pays that.

And so I'm grateful.

But I am a bit wary about the job hunt.

I'm a strange sort of creature. I think most of my friends would say that I'm a pretty bright guy. I'm no Mensa candidate but I like to think I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

And I'm a relatively handy guy. I'm no Bob Villa but I know how to operate a few power tools and can perform some basic house maintenance/repair jobs. And I can usually find creative solutions to problems. At my last job I turned the rubber end of a plunger (the kind you use on clogged drains) into a headphone coupler. And back when I used to script/shoot/edit a weekly video for a church I attended back in Hawaii, I used almost every trick in the guerilla filmmaking handbook to create some really (I think) entertaining videos with basically no budget.

There are lots of little things I know how to do but none of them translates very well into a job.

On the other hand, I'm pretty open to doing almost anything. And like I said above, I don't need a lot when it comes to salary. I totally lucked out with my last job - it was a niche market of a niche market - and I doubt I'll find something as sweet again but I'm willing to do almost anything. My job hunt game plan is to spend the first month or so looking for another golden opportunity. The next months after that will be looking for something in the ballpark of meaningful work. After that I'll take any job that will have me.

I'm a strange sort of creature when it comes to the job market. I have a lot to offer an employer but my skill set doesn't fit into any neat category. And so I'm a bit wary about the job hunt.

But I'm also excited.

They say that when you're unemployed, your full time job is finding a job. And I agree. Craigslist and other job hunting websites are my first clicks in the morning. My resume is updated and polished up, ready to go (customizable per submission along with cover letter). I'm all about being a job search machine.

But that's not what's got me excited.

Although I plan on thinking of my job search as a job in itself, it's not really a full time job, you know? And that leaves time for me to get back at writing and that excites me.

Last night at my c-group (Bible study) when we broke up into prayer/discussion groups I shared the news about losing my job. One of the people in my group asked me if I had considered writing as a job and I told her that that would be too good to be true. Because I know there are jobs for writers out there but here's the thing. Writing is something that I love, but its only a specific kind of writing that I love - the random writing I do for this blog and the little short story things I toy with every once in a while. I love writing so much that I don't want to "waste" it on a writing gig that may lead me to hate writing. What I mean is, I love writing so I'll write whether I get paid for it or not. So if I do get paid for it, I want it to be on my terms. And that's not a very reasonable posture to take in the hunt for a job, but when it comes to writing as a possible career, that's that.

But like I said, I don't need to get paid to write. And so being unemployed will allow me the time I need to get back to writing - my writing, my way.

And you know, there's a feeble voice inside of me that is saying that this jobless situation could be exactly what I need - that maybe writing is my true calling and that I should take full advantage of the time that I have to do it - that my unemployment is actually a precious, divine gift from God.

And that has me excited.

In conclusion, I wanted to let you all know about my job situation. Some of you already knew either through phone calls or through my status update on Facebook, but some didn't. I also wanted to let everyone know that I'm doing well. I'm grateful, I'm wary, but I'm also excited. Which isn't too bad of a place to be.

Of course I can say this because I've only been unemployed for a few days now. I may be in an entirely different mind space in a few months but I'll deal with that when the time comes.



PS. prayers appreciated, thanks.

PPS. for anyone else caught up in the throes of or worried about this financial crisis, my pastor had been doing an AMAZING series about Faith and Money. Read his blog posts about it here or listen to his sermons here (look for sermons with the title, "Faith and Money."

310. "sermon" on the Kingdom of God

[preface]

So a couple weeks ago I spent a few days in Hawaii visiting friends and family and stuffing myself full of poi and lau lau and katsu curry and ramen and other foods I missed. One thing I was really looking forward to was visiting the house church I used to attend before moving to Seattle. And a few days before the Sunday service, Blake, the guy who heads up the church, asked me to give a little message to the house church about what I'd learned since moving away - what had God been showing me about Christ and church and Christianity.

And I was stoked that he asked me because before I left the house church, we had been wrestling with a lot of big questions about what it meant to be a follower of Christ and what it meant to be the church and what it was that we were supposed to be doing with ourselves here on earth. And I felt as if I've been able to come up with...not exactly answers but some really promising and interesting ideas along those lines and was eager to share it all with them.

Anyway, what follows are from the notes I took for myself in preparing for what I shared that night at house church.

And it's a good way for me to get back to the Layman's Theology series I started more than a year ago.

[end preface]

I remember a bit before I left for Seattle, we as the house church were talking a lot about the Kingdom of God or as Matthew puts it, the Kingdom of Heaven.

I remember we spent many nights talking about this kingdom - what does it look like, how does it work, is it already here or is it yet to come, what's our role or place in this kingdom?

I remember that we spent a lot of time thinking about the Kingdom because Jesus seemed to speak about it all the time. Almost all of his parables are about this kingdom in one way or another but he’s often frustratingly open ended when talking about it. He calls it a pearl, a party, a net, like seeds and like virgins. And all of the metaphors seem to be pointing towards something that Jesus sees quite clearly but either because we can’t understand or because he can’t put it into words that we can understand, these metaphors aren’t entirely clear to us (and the gospels tell us that they weren't clear to many he was speaking to at the time - even to his disciples).

And I remember being frustrated by this because I was in search of a new understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. See, I was raised with the idea that Christianity and being a Christian was only and all about getting people to accept Christ as savior so that they would spend eternity in heaven instead of hell. And while I understood the importance of that, I couldn’t help but think that there was more to Christianity than that - a lot more. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were somehow missing the point of the Gospel.

And so I remember being frustrated with this whole Kingdom of God idea because I felt that it was pointing us towards something vital and important - something that could expand our ideas of what it meant to be a Christian. But at the house church, although we had lots of discussions about it, we never seemed to be able to get at what this Kingdom was about - how it works for us today.

I ended up taking all of these Kingdom questions with me up to Seattle and partly because of an amazing church that I found there and partly because of some really key books¹, I finally came to a new kind of understanding about what being a Christian is about and how this Kingdom metaphor works.

And so here it is - my thoughts so far on what it means to be a part of the Kingdom of God.

First of all, it helps to get into the mind of the people Jesus was speaking to when he spoke about this kingdom. See, part of the reason it’s hard for us to understand the Kingdom of God is because here in America, we’ve grown up in a democratic republic. On top of that, because of contemporary critiques of colonialism and imperialism, we’ve come to view the word "kingdom" (and the ideas of conquest and oppression that it implies) with a great deal of skepticism.

But put yourself, for a moment, into the feet of those in first century Israel. For them, being a citizen of a kingdom was all they knew. Their entire history was made up of good kings and bad kings and being taken over by other nations and living under the thumb of foreign kings. In fact, as we begin this story, Israel is yet again living under the rule of a foreign, pagan nation - this time, it was the Romans. And so while it's hard for us to understand what life was like in these (earthly) kingdoms, it's important for us to try to keep this in mind if we are to see the radical, revolutionary nature of the Kingdom of God. More importantly, it's only in this context that we can begin to talk/think about how this Kingdom metaphor works for us today. But more on this later.

Now as an extremely religious nation, there were various segments of the Jewish religious leadership who had different ideas about why it was that Israel was being ruled by the Romans. They also had different ideas about why God wasn't getting them out of this situation.

Some, like the Pharisees, thought that the reason Israel was under foreign dictatorship was because Israel was not living up to the standards of God - they were failing to obey the laws of the Bible. There were others, like the Saducees, who thought that the best we could do in this situation was to coddle the Romans - to try and work them as best we could. Then there were others like the Zealots (some of the twelve disciples were Zealots) who wanted to band together and take back Israel by force and bloody revolution. And there were the Essenes who moved out to the desert and isolated themselves from society - they were the ones who wrote and hid away the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This is the immediate social/historical context of Jesus' time, but before I get into what Jesus did when he entered the scene, I want to bring up one other bit of history. This time, we go all the way back to Genesis 12:1-3.

¹ The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. ² I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. ³ I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” (NLT)

This is basically the moment that the nation of Israel is born. It is because of this promise that Abram leaves his home and sets in motion the events that will lead to the nation of Israel. To me, the key parts of this promise to Abram are the lines about blessing - at the end of verse 2 God says, “I will make you a blessing to others. . .” and then again at the end of verse 3, “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

I mention this because I think the main reason Israel got taken over so many times in the past and the reason why they were being ruled by Rome in Jesus' day was because they had forgotten this part of the blessing. They knew that they were God’s chosen people but they had forgotten that they were chosen so that they could be a blessing to the other nations...but again, more on this later.

So then, Jesus enters the scene and some believed that he was the Messiah - the one who would deliver Israel from the Romans and return Israel to a place of power in the world. These people are looking for an earthly, political revolutionary. What Jesus preached instead was an entirely different sort of world order. They wanted someone who would kick some Roman ass. What they found was someone who told them that if someone (like a Roman soldier) told you to carry their pack one mile, that they should carry it two miles. He told them to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecuted them.

And then just when he made his way to Jerusalem and people thought that he was finally going to take his rightful place on the throne and oust the Romans, he died on a cross.

Three days later, he rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples as well as to other witnesses. Some were still looking for a political Jesus - a Jesus to overthrow the Romans. Instead, Jesus tells them two basic things. Wait for the Holy Sprit and then tell everybody about me. And then he’s gone again.

And I’m not sure how exactly it happened (perhaps this is part of what happened at Pentecost?), but eventually the disciples and the followers of Jesus came to understand that this Kingdom that Jesus kept talking about wasn’t a political sort of Kingdom. It was, indeed, unlike any kingdom that had ever come before it.

His is a kingdom, not of physical, political power but a kingdom of love and forgiveness and reconciliation...wait, let me expand on that. The Kingdom of God can/should/will have physical, political effects but these effects do not come about through physical power (war). It isn’t a kingdom that comes about by force or violence but by sacrificing one’s self.

So then, finally, I can begin to talk about what I’ve come to understand about this Kingdom of God.

If you want a quick glimpse of what the Kingdom of God looks like, there are three places where it is especially clear. You can look to Eden before the fall of Man or you can look to the prophets when they talk about what the world will look like once God returns and redeems all of his creation. However, the clearest example of what this kingdom looks like is found in Matthew 5 - 7 (the sermon on the Mount). In those three chapters, Jesus outlines a radical new outlook on what it is to be a human being, on what our priorities should be and how it is that we live out our kingdom citizenship.

I said earlier that although it's difficult, the Gospels must be read through the lens of those for whom monarchy was the only political structure they knew. For them, if they were living under the rule of an unjust king, they had two choices - live with it or overthrow it. In the Gospels, Jesus offers a fascinating, new alternative. Jesus offers his followers citizenship in a kingdom not of this world but a Kingdom of God/Heaven. And Jesus spends his time on earth teaching and modeling how a citizen of this Kingdom behaves here, today, now.

What does that mean for us? As followers of Christ in America, although we live in and pay taxes to our government, we are actually citizens of the Kingdom of God - our lives, are to be lived out as citizens of God's Kingdom. And for me, the easiest way to understand what this means is to live now the way we would if the fall had never happened or the way we will when God returns to redeem his creation. The more we live this way, the more the Kingdom of God enters into, redeems, and blesses today’s world.

And that last bit about blessing is especially important. Remember earlier when I talked about how I thought the reason Israel had so much trouble through its history is because they forgot that they were chosen so that they could be a blessing to all the nations? In a sense, part of what happened through the cross and the resurrection is this task of blessing got transfered from the one specific nation of Israel onto all who called Jesus Lord - we Christians.

And while this will probably get me into trouble, I really want to emphasize this idea of being a blessing to all nations because I think large segments of the church today are in a similar position to that of the Jewish religious leaders in Jesus' time who thought too much about being God's people and not enough about being a blessing to those around them.

There are segments of today's church that, like the Pharisees, think that the reason why Christianity isn't the force they think it should be is because our nation has lost its moral compass. Then there are other segments (I'm thinking of the Christian entertainment industry here) who, somewhat like the Essenes, seem to think that what we need to do is to withdraw into a subculture - in this case, it's not a geographic withdrawal, but it is still an escape from or alternative to the culture at large. And then there are those like the Zealots who use the language of war when talking about the duty of Christians (think of those who wave those "God hates fags" signs or those portrayed in the movie Jesus Camp). Other parallels can be made but those most readily come to mind.

These segments (and, really, the church at large) can be seen as putting too much emphasis on being God's people and not enough on remembering that we are God's people so that we can be a blessing to all the nations. What I'm trying to say is that while it is true that Christians are God's people, our task as the people of God is to be a blessing. And this blessing comes about most naturally and readily as we live the kind of sacrificial life that Jesus taught and modeled for us - as citizens of the Kingdom of God.

¹N.T. Wright, Simply Christian
N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus
Shane Claiborne, Irresistible Revolution

309. today's black plague

Yeah, haven't been blogging lately.

But I will...soon.

In the meantime, just want to say that I'm writing from lovely, balmy Hawaii. More on that in a post to come.

And I wanted to call your attention to a website that aims to tackle the problem of XDR-TB - extensively drug resistant tuberculosis.

It's a pandemic waiting to happen and while I normally try to refrain from making the-sky-is-falling type statements, in this case it could very well happen. Here's why this issue has my boxers up in a twist:

1.The World Health Organization estimates that one person in three in the world today is infected with TB.
2. The average person infected with TB will likely spread it to 10-15 people per year.
3. This person might not even know he/she is sick.
4. The disease is most common in areas that lack the financial resources to prevent, diagnose, treat, and/or educate people about the illness.
5. Drug resistant strains of TB develop when treatment is mismanaged (not uncommon in these low-income, often third-world-type countries).
6. If this treatment mismanagement continues, a patient's TB can mutate into a from that is basically untreatable - it becomes resistant to any/all drugs thrown at it.
7. Because TB infects the lungs and can be spread through the air, it is HIGHLY contagious.
8. If XDR-TB becomes widespread (not unlikely) and makes its way into densely populated, industrialized nations (also not unlikely), we could very well become today's black plague or Spanish Flu. And a highly mutated form of XDR-TB that is able to infect people who were immunized against TB while young is not out of the question.

The really sad fact of the matter is when it comes to TB, an ounce of prevention is worth a king-kong-ton of cure. The vaccine is not expensive. But a poor country is a poor country and for them, even inexpensive drugs are out of reach (not to mention problems of infrastructure and distribution).

But we're not a poor country (not yet). The money spent in one day in Iraq (hell, a few hours of that would probably be enough) could wipe the problem of TB off the face of the earth.

Anyway, take a look at this video. Sign up on their site. Make your voice heard. Make a difference.

308. age as social construct...or not

I’ve never been one to give my age a lot of thought. By that I mean that I’m one who neither looks forward to nor dreads his birthday. I think it’s a fun excuse get together with some friends and throw a party, but that’s about all.

I like to think that age is nothing more than a social construct - that it’s just a number signifying nothing, that all of the benchmarks that we associate with certain ages is just societal expectation that somehow seeps down from the ether of the collective unconscious. It doesn’t really mean anything.

I can’t remember when I started thinking about age this way. Probably sometime in my late twenties. I suppose it was a way for me to justify the fact that at 29 I had nothing resembling a career trajectory. According to my resume, in 2001 I was working part-time at a nightclub running sound. I was also doing temp work at various companies. In theory, my main job during that time was trying to run a recording studio out of the basement of my parent’s house - we had put up new soundproofed walls and I had made some pretty big purchases to make this happen. But the truth is, I was an abysmal business man. I was relatively good at recording bands but I had no idea how to promote my services or how to generate cash-flow.

So maybe that’s why I came up with the idea that age is merely a social construct - because I needed a way to justify my dead-end life at the time. According to what the world was telling me, as a 29er I should have been working at a decent job for a few years - a job that utilized the college education I received, a job that promised promotions or, at the very least, served as a gateway into higher paying jobs.

But that wasn’t where I was at.

But I didn’t feel like a loser even though according to the world’s timeline, that’s kind of what I was - a bum sponging off the parental units.

And so I came up with the idea that age is just a social construct.

I lived with this delusion for quite a long time. I mean, for a while I actually believed it.

In fact, I think it’s only in this past year that I’ve come to see how wrong I was about this.

Let me say that part of the reason I was able to sustain this wrong-headed idea is the fact that I had parents who put next to no pressure on me getting into the workforce in any sustainable way. I mean, every once in a while they would point to openings for state jobs in the paper but I told them that there was no way I was going to work for the man. I didn’t put it that way, of course. Rather, I probably said something like, “I don’t think that’s for me. I have a few leads for bands that want to record - I think the studio is just about to take off if we just give it a bit more time.” Actually, I have no idea what I said to keep my parents at bay. I don’t know how they put up with my lazy ass.

Of course the other luxury that allowed me to dismiss the effects of aging is the fact that I’m a male. On top of that, I’m a male who has no desire to procreate. I mean, of course I want to copulate someday and of course I want to do that properly within the bounds of marriage, I just don’t want to have kids as a result. So as a man who doesn’t want kids, the whole biological clock thing is a non-issue.

And maybe this is a good segue into some of what finally led me to face that fact that age does matter.

It's dawned one me recently that the dating pool for those in my age group is tiny. I suppose part of this has to do with the fact that at my church the single women are primarily younger 20 somethings - most of those who are older are married or engaged or in a LTR.

I think the reason I came to realize this is in part because of the speed dating fundraiser I participated in (and helped plan, I might add) and in part because of how I've been thinking about love lately. And so because of these things, while I'm still mostly content with being single, I have felt a bit more of a longing to find that someone who is...how did I put it once...

Strikingly beautiful, that's the way to describe it - her presence. Not a beauty that wafts at you from across the room like a deep blue perfume, but one that slaps you in the face reminding you that you're alive and in dire need of some aesthetic in your crude singular life.

Ha. Yeah, that's kind of what I've been looking for lately - someone who can bitch slap me out of the comfortable charms of singlehood. And they're out there, at my church in fact - sharp, smart, really beautiful women. And it's not that they're new to the church, it's more that I wasn't looking before...but I notice them now.

But.

But it's in noticing them that I the fact of my age and how it's not merely a social construct has really hit home for me.

There's a formula I learned a few months ago. It's a formula used to determine the lower bound for age-appropriate dating. In other words, it tells me how young of a person I can date without playing the part of cradle robber. The formula goes like this:

Y = (A/2)+7 where A is age and Y is the youngest person that someone aged A can date.

So I'm 36. Plug that into the formula and turns out the youngest person I can reasonably, appropriately date is 25.

Don't ask me where the formula came from or how/why it works, but it does have a kind of logic to it. The older you get, the wider the gap between your age and the youngest person you can date. For example, when you're 22, the youngest person you should date is 18 - a difference of four years. When you're 50, the youngest person you can date is 32 - a difference of 18 years. Which makes sense because the older you get, the less likely you are to exhibit major changes in personality or outlook on life and so hooking up with someone 18 years younger than yourself when you're 50 is not a huge risk because despite the gap, the 36yo is more likely to stay themselves than someone younger. And so the formula seems reasonable to me.

Well, it seemed reasonable to me until I looked around at my church and saw that there weren't very many available women over 25...I mean, they are there (and some of them are wonderful and attractive) but remember that I'm insanely picky when it comes to asking women out - far more picky (see here and here) than I have any right to be, but that's a topic for another post. However, if I forget about this formula, I'd say that there are a couple people I might consider asking out.

Now at this point, some might say that the formula is stupid, that love is love, that age really is a social construct and I should feel free to ask out anyone over the age of consent.

[important side note]

Please don't think that I'm thinking about dating 18 year olds. When I say there are a couple women I'd consider asking out who are outside the range of that formula, I mean they are just outside that range. So put down the phone, no need to call Chris Hansen and report me to Dateline NBC.

[end side note]

But I think that the formula is a good one and I do think that it's a bit odd for a 36 year old to be dating someone under 25. And it's not just the eww factor. A 25 year old is still in that area of life where their character is only beginning to settle and set. Contrast this to the average 36 year old whose personality and character are, for the most part, the way they're going to be. Now, I'm anything but the average 36 year old (I mean I'm the drummer in a rock band for cryin' out loud) and I think my personality and belief systems are still in flux. If age were only a social construct I'd say I'm socially in my late 20's. But I'm not. My birth certificate is not a construct and it tells me that I'm 36 so dating someone under 25 still seems wrong.

And if I can rant and complain a bit, nobody ever told me about how the dating pool shrinks dramatically once you get past 30. I didn't see this coming so I didn't think to get out there and date while the dating was still good. I mean, in the end there's no one to blame but myself. I should have been more aware of where I was in life - I should have seen that opportunities don't wait around forever.

But then again, for most of my twenties and early thirties, I WAS out there looking and trying to date. The problem then was, I was desperate and lonely and somewhat depressed (and women can sense that and it's not attractive). On top of that, I had no game (I was awful at flirting and/or making small talk). And I was still pretty picky even back then. And I was still struggling to unlearn all the bad teaching I got on dating during my early twenties. Add all these factors up and you end up with me the way I am today: if I were any more single I'd disappear.

So here I am. I still don't have game. I'm not desperate or lonely anymore and that helps. I'm a lot more sure of myself and I have a pretty decent job. If I can be so bold, I'm a pretty good catch. I'm pretty sure I'd make a kick ass boyfriend.

But the fish in the sea available to/appropriate for me are few and far between. Factor in my insane pickiness and the odds of me meeting someone are getting mighty long.

But don't cry for me Argentina, the truth is I'm content as a single person.

So in the end, maybe all this thinking about age and dating is all a moot point. Yes the dating pool is shrinking, but I don't mind being single all that much. And that's par for the course.

307. why your vote counts!

[Preface]

I'm no political expert. I'm no statistician. But I am an American citizen and as such, I think it's shameful that only about 64 percent of eligible voters cast their ballot in the '04 elections.

What follows is a brief, very non-expert post about why I vote and why I think those who don't vote should vote - especially Gen Xers and younger.

Take these ideas with a huge grain of salt. They're based more on speculation than substance or research, but I think the ideas are interesting enough to put out there.

Maybe it's dangerous for someone as uninformed as I to be writing about voting, but my blog has very limited readership and so even if I'm crazily, wrong (which is not unlikely), I doubt it will have any huge impact.

I'm just saying all this so that in the very unlikely event that this little entry goes viral and Ralph Nader gets elected (more on this below), I want to make it clear that I never posed as anything other than a humble blogger who wanted to talk about why he thought more of his friends should get out there and vote.

[End preface]

The number of eligible voters under the age of 35 are notoriously low. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, only about 52 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 34 voted in the November 2004 presidential elections. As a comparison, about 68 percent of eligible voters between the ages of 35 and 64 voted. Move the years around a bit and the gap gets even larger: only about 47 percent of eligible 18 - 24 year olds voted compared to about 72 percent of those 55 and older.

The common excuses I hear from those among my age group are (in no particular order):

• my vote won’t matter
  
• it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, things will still be screwed up
  
• I don’t like any of the candidates
  
• I don’t know who to vote for
  

I’ll try and deal with those excuses one by one, but for me one of the most compelling reasons to vote is this one: BECAUSE WE CAN! Our forefathers fought brutally ugly, bloody wars to gain our independence so that we could elect our own leadership instead of being ruled by a Prime Minister thousands of miles away. On top of that, do you realize that women have been allowed to vote for less than one hundred years (Nineteenth Amendment passed August, 1920)? And African-Americans have only been able to vote within the last 50 years - after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. These rights only came about after years of work and sacrifice. Bloody battles were fought. Tens of thousands of people marched and protested, hundreds sat in jails, many more were beaten, and many died brutal deaths.

Because they wanted their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be able to vote.

If nothing else, we owe it to them to cast a ballot.

But first let’s deal with some of those common excuses.

• my vote won’t matter
  

Well, if you don’t vote, of course your vote won’t matter. And I understand that casting one solitary vote feels very small and ineffective. I also understand the feeling that regardless of who wins or loses, things never seem to get better.

But here’s the thing. Your one vote isn’t just your one vote.

Do you know why The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over ten years) passed in 2003 while nothing was done about the fact that almost all economic experts agree that the Social Security System will be out of money by the time Generation Xers retire?

Well, there are many reasons, but here’s one I don’t hear discussed very much. Remember those statistics I trotted out at the beginning of this entry? The one about how those over 50 are more likely to vote than those under 34? Do you think it’s a coincidence that a massive, expensive overhaul of the Medicare system that will benefit those over 50 got passed while the issue of the future viability of the Social Security System (which will eventually have a huge impact on those under 34) got nothing but lip service?

I mean think about it. If you’re a politician who wants to get re-elected (is there any other kind?), aren’t you going to work hardest for those who are likely to vote you back in? Put aside partisan politics for a while - forget about the Democratic and Republican parties for a minute. Just on the basis of age, if a politician wants to get re-elected, whose rights is he/she going to pull for - those who vote or those who don't vote?

The point I’m trying to make here is that even if a younger person votes for a candidate that ends up losing, their vote STILL COUNTS because just the fact that they voted gets noticed. If the statistics were flipped - if more people in the 18-34 block voted than the 50 and older block - I wonder if the future of the Social Security System (and other issues that will affect pre-boomers) would be taken more seriously.

To those in my generation and younger who don’t vote, how mad will we be when we get to retirement age and find that all the money that we paid into the system has been sucked dry? Do you think you’ll still feel as if your vote didn’t matter?

And now let’s take a look at these excuses:

• it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, things will still be screwed up
  
• I don’t like any of the candidates
  

The reason these are lame excuses is similar to the age explanation above.

What if the reason it doesn’t matter who wins or loses is because the same losers keep winning because nobody bothers to vote them out?

What if we don’t like the candidates because there are young, eager would-be public servants out there who don’t run because they feel like no one will come out to support them?

The way I see it, the only people who seem to reliably vote anymore are hard core Democrats and hard core Republicans. And so is it any surprise that even though the views of the majority of Americans lie somewhere in the middle of the two parties, often the only people that seem to run or get elected are those who are on the fringes of each party? Again, just as politicians will cater to the age group of those voting for them, they will also cater to those in their party who are voting for them. And right now, it seems like only the far Right and the far Left are getting out the vote. And so it’s no surprise that there are very few candidates who appeal to those in the middle.

Take the current presidential candidates as an example. In chasing the nomination, both Obama and McCain fought hard for those in their party who they knew would go out and vote for them and for the most part, that happens to be hard core Democrats and hard core Republicans. Of course now that they’re the nominees, they’re both repositioning themselves a bit more towards the center but that’s because it’s only now that more moderate voters come into play.

The point I’m trying to get at is that if you’re not seeing candidates that appeal to you, maybe it’s because they don’t think you’d turn out to vote for them even if they were to run.

I suppose, this is a chicken-egg conundrum. Are more moderate, more representative candidates not running because they don’t think the votes are there to support them? Or are we not voting for them because they’re not running?

And while the blame for this situation goes to both those who don’t run as well as to those who don’t vote for them (those who don’t vote at all), I put more of the blame on the non-voters; it takes thousands (if not millions) of dollars to put on a campaign; it also takes hundreds of long hours of hard, sweaty work; it takes putting one’s self out there in the most vulnerable way possible. In contrast, it only takes a few minutes to vote and it doesn’t cost a dime. So I don’t blame potential politicians for not running for voters who aren’t there because the costs for them are very high. I blame those who don’t vote because the costs are very, very low.

So again, I make the argument that every vote counts, even if that vote is cast for someone who doesn’t make it into office.

Which leads me to that last objection: "I don’t know who to vote for."

And here is perhaps my most dangerous assertion.

I think everyone should vote (especially, selfishly, those of my age group) if for no other reason than we need to get our voting statistics up if we ever hope to have our voice heard in D.C. (or in our local policies). And if you don’t know who to vote for, let me make this suggestion. Vote for the third party candidate.

For example, in the presidential election, you could vote for Ralph Nader. . In the 2004 election, 99 percent of the votes went to either George W. Bush or John Kerry. The remaining one percent was split between about seven third-party candidates.

If you want to vote but don’t know who to vote for and don’t want to risk voting for someone who might actually end up in office, try voting for someone on the ballot you’ve heard absolutely nothing about.

This way, the fact that you voted will "count" in the sense that it will be added to the tally for whatever demographic you represent. It will also have the added benefit of giving more credibility to third-party candidates which may (finally) break the two party monopoly in place today and make room for more new ideas.

In closing, I've always said that if you don't vote, you don't get to complain. If you don't like the way things are going in this country then vote. If you don't care a bit about politics, get out there and vote - casting a vote will pique your interest in the process if for no other reason than to see if your candidate made it in. And on a more personal note, if you've never voted before, it's kind of a rush. You're participating, you're out there at the polling spot with your fellow citizens. I can't speak for anyone else, but when I vote I feel more connected with and proud to be living in the United States of America.

There’s still time to register and participate in the historic 2008 elections. But don't delay.

Register now at www.declareyourself.com.