Special Effects in Film

I'm no where close to being a snooty hipster who only appreciates indie films. I'm the sort of guy who thoroughly enjoyed the first Transformers film, but not for the reason most people assume. Cars changing into robots was cool and all, but I'm just not impressed by special effects anymore. I liked it because of how the Transformers were portrayed as actual characters, even if they were a little one-dimensional. That's why when I ask people how a movie was and they say things like, "You've got to go see it. The special effects are amazing!" I think, 'Yyyyyeah, I'm gonna go ahead and sort of pass on that one.' That wasn't always the case, though.

I think back to seeing Jurassic Park as a kid. The plot was serviceable, but the real draw for breaking all those box office records was seeing real life dinosaurs. It was an effect that Steven Spielberg brilliantly assisted by paralleling the audience's own experiences with that of the film's characters. Through the images this almost emotional kinship was created with the on-screen actors where it felt like they were living out what I was feeling. It captured my imagination in a way that I didn't think possible. Sadly, those days are long gone.

It's not so much a result of age as it is the novelty wearing off. I'm no longer impressed that Superman actually appears to be flying. In fact, I'm suffering from the reverse affliction. Instead of marveling that such scenes look real, I now feel greatly disappointed when they don't. (As an aside, this is why I find the pre-Pierce Brosnan 007 movies to be nearly unbearable.) Putting aside the whole issue of terrible plot and wooden dialogue, the supposed technological breakthrough in the Star Wars prequels looked to me like human actors against a cartoon background a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Not even the exalted Avatar impressed me. Let alone blew me away. Yes, there was a certain aesthetic beauty about it that I really appreciated it and I recognized that it marked the next major jump in special effect not unlike The Matrix a decade earlier, but the whole time I kept thinking how it didn't look as real as everyone claimed. It's like video games. Every time a new generation of system comes out everyone expresses astonishment at how lifelike it looks and how you can hardly tell it's not real, but even the most amazing video game graphics still look computer-generated.

Somewhat ironic given the praise heaped upon CGI has been this: two of my favorite films from the '00s have been Batman Begins and The Dark Night. Visually, they seemed plausible because Christopher Nolan intentionally kept the CGI to a minimum. What the audience sees is generally real people, places, and vehicles. Going back to Star Wars, I truly don't think the model ships in the first trilogy look any less realistic than the CGI ships in the second despite a technological discrepancy of more than 20 years. If anything, the opposite is true. Compare a X-Wing from 1977's A New Hope to a Naboo Fighter from 1999's The Phantom Menace. Granted, throughout the new trilogy George Lucas had the starships become grittier to thematically represent the fall of the Republic and the conquest of evil. So the X-Wing had the advantage of representing a more realistic, fallen portrayal of the universe that set Star Wars apart from the technologically Utopian visions found in much science fiction. Nevertheless, the Naboo Fighter fighter is obviously computer generated and just plain looks cheesy. An uncorrupted reality doesn't mean a cartoonish reality. What I'm getting at is a movie philosophy that Werner Herzog described this way: "In the film industry, much of the the energy has turned into digital effects. Not so much into great story telling. And I’m more in this tradition. I want audiences back in a position where they can trust their eyes again." That's an artistic view I appreciate.

Hollywood is reaping the consequences of its own success. Terrific movies like those in the new Batman series have simply raised the bar. Special effects-laden films are no longer enough. I now want a solid plot, non-stock characters, thought-provoking themes, and solid acting in addition to the prerequisite special effect quality (if required by the film's premise). Anything less is disappointing. That is, I've been immunized against mediocrity. That's part of why I watch so few movies these days. When my wife and I occasionally shell out a minimum of $12.00 to see a film in theaters I expect nothing short of excellence.

There was a time when seeing groundbreaking special effects justified my going to a movie, but that's just not the case anymore.

My Completion of the Canterbury Trail: My Journey (Part III-f)

It was Mother's Day. My fiancé missed her family and we could still see our breath. On a whim we decided to change our plans and attend a Bible college in the South. Within 15 months I'd gotten married, moved from Minnesota to Georgia, battled ongoing medical problems, transferred to a new college, lost my sense of calling to the pastorate, changed majors twice, knocked out 37 credit hours, worked five different jobs, renounced my political affiliation, underwent a drastic theological shift, learned to worship God with my mind, reframed virtually my entire conception of what the christian life is supposed to be, and found the church that restored my faith. Safe to say it was the most chaotic and formative period of my life. While all of those things were significant, I can't say that any of them were totally unexpected. What came next was the unexpected part. After realizing I couldn't be Catholic or Orthodox and I sure as heck wasn't mainline or fundamentalist Protestant, I began giving serious thought to my place in the narrative of church history.

Many people insisted that I should simply embrace mere Christianity. Aren't all these other classifications, labels, and structures man-made? Don't they put layers of religion between a believer and Jesus? In my experience, this notion of stripping it down to nothing but following Jesus sounds wonderful in theory but proves to be rather impractical. Over the last generation educators have moved away from the epistemological conception that knowledge is individual, objective, and accessible. Knowledge is rather a social construct conveyed through the imperfections of language and community. The same is true regarding matters of faith. Just as all that is known about Alexander the Great comes via secondary sources, so does everything we know about Jesus of Nazareth. While some Christians may wish to see their faith as a personal connection straight to God free from the corruption of traditions and structures, the reality is that religion too is conveyed through social constructs. In the case of Christianity, that social construct is the Church. I would be remiss to marginalize the Spirit's ongoing role of illumination in Christians' lives, but it remains the case that God has used the Church to document, preserve, interpret, and disseminate the Good News of Christ as the climax of God's redemptive work in history. So while there is much I applaud about mere Christianity, including the ecumenism and the effort to have one's faith revolve around essential beliefs, no Christian exists in a vacuum. Faith always exists within a context and a community, which includes structures and traditions. There must always be a point of access to Christ and that is through particular traditions. To be clear, I'm not saying that a person must necessarily be Catholic or Mennonite, emerging or Lutheran. There may be the occasional miraculous act of divine intervention, but for almost all believers the Church is the conduit through which Christians learn about Christ.

The other reason mere Christianity doesn't work is tangible fellowship. It may work for people to be just plain followers of Christ on a theological level, but it rarely works on an ecclesiastical level. That is, they may desire full fellowship with all Christians but that sentiment rarely cuts both ways. Catholics won't allow a person to partake in full fellowship unless he or she is Catholic. Ditto for the Orthodox. That leaves Protestantism, but in my case the mainline churches wouldn't have me because I insist upon the bodily resurrection and fundamentalist churches won't have me because I'm OK with watching R rated movies. It was that train of thought, as well as the existence of persons like Mark Noll and Philip Yancey, that caused me to reconsider evangelicalism.

Three years ago I conceived of Protestantism as existing on an ideological spectrum. Mainline Protestantism was on the far left, fundamentalist Protestantism was to the far right, and evangelicalism was the giant umbrella term for everything between the two polarities. If one were to use academic institutions to illustrate these positions, General Theological Seminary would be the left, Bob Jones University would be the right, Wheaton College would be dead center, Fuller Seminary would be left of center, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity would be right of center. My present view is that while the whole conservative-liberal ideological spectrum did an adequate job representing Protestantism during Modernism, it's increasingly insufficient in representing the complexities of Protestantism within Postmodernism. Nevertheless, at the time it was immensely valuable in detaching evangelicalism from absolute conservatism in my mind, thereby making it a plausible option for a hard-lining moderate such as myself.

When I first began telling my peers that I was evangelical almost everyone did a double-take. One friend jested, "Bro, what are you, 57? Why in the world would you want to call yourself an evangelical?" Since then, similar comments have been a constant. Gen Xers and Millennials roughly my age simply cannot fathom why someone such as myself would embrace that descriptor. In no particular order, here's a list of 20 common objections to considering myself an evangelical Christian I've heard from friends and mentors:

1. Evangelical = Republican. Evangelicalism is the cultural religion of conservative, white, middle-class Americans.
   
2. Why use evangelical when Reformed, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, or the like has more precise meaning?
   
3. The term's contemporary use doesn't correspond with its historic ideals, let alone what it meant just two generations ago.
4. The term evokes a christian tradition that is seriously deficient in its appreciation of mystery, beauty, art, etc.
5. The tendency for evangelicals to think of themselves as a people without a history.
   
6. Being evangelical is intellectual/academic suicide.
   
7. Many who, by definition, are evangelicals are unfamiliar with the term.
8. The movement's alignment with capitalism, democracy, patriotism, individualism, consumerism, and the like.
   
9. The ecological antipathy among evangelicalism's current ruling generation.
   
10. The widespread perception that evangelicalism is homophobic.
    
11. A diversity of renewal movements are explicitly trying to break from evangelical cultural norms, so the last thing they want to do is adopt that moniker.
    
12. The confusing relationship between contemporary evangelicalism and the Protestant Reformation.
    
13. Disagreement with evangelicalism's big umbrella policy.
    
14. For all its interdenominational talk, evangelicalism has led to little tangible unity.
    
15. Disagreement with the systematic, microscopic categorization of everything.
    
16. The term obscures rather than explicates the complex realities to such a degree that it does more harm than good.
17. Legalism instead of grace; the perception that being spiritual is about how much you can give up and isolate yourself from the rest of society rather than finding freedom in Christ.
18. The perception that evangelicals are angry.
19. The cheesiness, which is captured well in this video.
    
20. The lack of authenticity.
    

I get the impression that 10 or 15 years ago it was really edgy for students at Bible colleges to claim they weren't evangelical. Made 'em feel like they were stickin' it to The Man. Now it's basically just the norm. At their most charitable, most of my friends see evangelicalism as a quaint holdover from the past. Maybe they think about Billy Graham and it warms their hearts to picture younger versions of their grandparents attending evangelistic crusades or fighting their parents over whether that newfangled rock 'n roll should be played in the church. Most of the time, however, the common response seems to be one of sharp reservation. They don't want to be associated with evangelicalism for all those reasons I listed above.

Given all the obvious baggage and the common perception that there are few if any positives to being evangelical, it's not exactly a surprise that younger people aren't gung ho about the term. Honestly, I too resonate with most of those criticisms. While I would quibble with a number of those points--a lot of them are the result of gross ignorance and blatant oversimplification--I'm as angry about that garbage as anyone. The prospect of being evangelical caused me a great deal of emotional turmoil, so I understand people's reservations about the term. Yet as I've studied evangelicalism's history I've uncovered a rich tradition with many core values that I heartily embrace. This is why an ongoing goal of mine is to clarify the classic meaning of the term "evangelicalism." Without an understanding of the movement's history, no one can possibly understand the term's value. Without an understanding of its value, no one can see its applicability to the present. And without an understanding of its applicability to the present, no one can want to see themselves as part of the movement. So what I want to do is lay a conceptual foundation for this movement.

When I call myself an evangelical I do so in the historical sense. My use of the term refers back to the theological rigor of Jonathan Edwards, the ecumenical spirit of George Whitefield, the social activism of William Wilberforce, the missionary impulse of Hudson Taylor, the evangelistic passion of D. L. Moody, the intellectual balance of Harold Ockenga, and the transnational humility of Billy Graham. What saddens me is that these are among the very things that Christians my generation desperately long for. Unfortunately, after Newsweek declared 1976 to be the "Year of the Evangelical" the term underwent a radical redefinition along conservative lines--politically, culturally, and socially. Through the efforts of such figures as Francis Schaeffer, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Pat Robertson, "conservative evangelical" has become something of a tautology. Perhaps the easiest way to illustrate that shift is to contrast Billy and Franklin Graham.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s evangelicalism was born again. No pun intended. A new generation of leaders recast it as a moderate position that avoided the mainline's theological pitfalls and fundamentalism's cultural insularity. Put more favorably, the vision was for a movement that recommitted to historically orthodox Christianity while engaging all spheres of society intentionally as Christians. This generation of evangelicalism was both inspired by and reflected in Billy Graham. He became so associated with the movement that religious historians are half-serious when they joke that the best definition for an evangelical is a person who likes Billy Graham. Beyond his preaching the gospel to more people than anyone else in history, Graham helped start publications like Christianity Today, encouraged intellectual rigor at seminaries like Fuller, Wheaton, and Gordon-Conwell, was a major player in the ecumenical dialogue between evangelicals and Catholics, supported the controversial Jesus People counter-cultural movement, decried apartheid in South Africa, and was the first evangelist let behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. Most significant for our purposes here, however, is that he avoided affiliation with either major political party and remained intentionally apolitical with one notable exception: the Civil Right Movement. There he put his full support behind the movement by refusing to preach to segregated audiences, personally bailing Martin Luther King, Jr. out of jail, inviting King to share his pulpit, and supporting civil rights legislation. He was basically the opposite of the boy who cried wolf. Graham so rarely weighed in on political matters that people took careful notice when he did. In all these ways he embodied the evangelicalism of the WWII generation. Now contrast that with his son, Franklin. The younger Graham has been a vocal supporter of the Christian Right, regularly endorses Republican candidates, insists that American Christians be supportive of their government, and has long been critical of his father's hesitancy toward politics. He shares his political thoughts so often and in such a partisan manner that, unless he's singled out for saying something particularly offensive, his voice is usually lost in the cacophony of the 24/7 news cycle. Like his fellow evangelical Baby Boomers there is much about Franklin to be commended, not the least of which is his humanitarian work, but he nevertheless pretty well embodies the conservative take-over.

I wish my peers had a more global perspective on evangelicalism. In England, for example, evangelicals are anything but uniformly conservative. The more theologically conservative he or she is the more politically liberal he or she tends to be. They've never felt the need to take such a dogmatic stand on inerrancy. Few hold to a premillennial rapture. They don't have the same hang-ups about alcohol and tobacco, nor do they possess the absolute commitments to nationalism, capitalism, and democracy that are so common on this side of the pond. By and large they're not antagonistic toward postmodernism. And they tend to be far more ecumenical and less rigid in their non-essential theological claims. If nothing else these things should cause Gen Xers and Millennials to acknowledge that being evangelical doesn't necessarily mean one is in cahoots with Focus on the Family.

So what is evangelicalism? At its heart, what are those specific characteristics of the whole movement that transcend the peculiarities of U.S. context? There's a general consensus among historians that evangelicalism is a renewal movement that began within Protestant Christianity. It arose during the First Great Awakening in the thirteen colonies and has since gone global. Known for its tendency to defy definition, English historian David Bebbington has proposed four distinct hallmarks of evangelicalism that are widely accepted among historians, sociologists, theologians, and the like:

1. Biblicism - The biblical text is the divinely-inspired Word of God and final authority for the matters of belief and practice.
   
2. Conversionism - There exists a need for a personal salvation experience.
3. Crucicentrism - The cross is the focal point of Scripture to which OT scriptures points to and NT scriptures reflect; it is the culmination of redemptive history.
4. Activism - Faith must be lived out in all areas of life and society.
   

Mark Noll agrees, "These core evangelical commitments have never by themselves yielded cohesive, institutionally compact or clearly demarcated groups of Christians. But they do serve to identify a large kin network of churches, voluntary societies, books and periodicals, personal networks, and emphases of belief and practice." The decentralized networks are precisely why sociologists classify evangelicalism as a movement rather than an organization.

Building upon the work of Bebbington, Noll, and other historians, theologian Roger Olson has proposed a paradigm for how one ought to conceive of the movement. Rather than a closed set based upon a definition, he suggests an "evangelical core" with no rigidly defined circumference or boundaries. Thus, the closer he gets to those four commitments the more evangelical he is and the the further he is from them the less evangelical he is. One is an evangelical if he or she is impacted to a significant degree by the "gravitational pull" of those four hallmarks.

Many of Olson's conservative peers demand that there be a concrete theological boundary for "true evangelicalism." They want a way to measure who is "in" and who is "out." While conceding that evangelicalism is sufficiently ambiguous so as to allow for a diversity of beliefs, they insist that it must be narrow enough that it provides some important theological parameters. If they're honest with themselves, however, they must acknowledge that what they're actually trying to do is create territorial markers. That is, they're insisting upon theological ideals that have never been the historical reality. That's fine, but they should admit that's what they're doing. Personally, I see history as painting a picture somewhere between Olson's "gravitational pull" and the conservatives' theological parameters. My view is a bit like Snapback on American Gladiators. Evangelicalism has retained enough deference to tradition that it has remained tethered to historic orthodoxy while allowing for a great measure of theological elasticity.

A contributor to Modern Reformation once suggested, "Evangelicalism makes a better hall than a room; a better street than a home." I remember thinking, 'Easy for you to say.' This writer is quick to confess his adherence to Reformed Theology and has found a home within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Evangelicalism is where he went on vacation, but his tradition and his denomination were where he resided. But what if one has no such place to call home? Upon my arrival in the South I'd finally admitted that I couldn't in good conscience fully embrace any theological tradition. The main reason I'd given up what I sensed to be the Spirit's calling to the pastorate was because I couldn't find a single denomination that would accept me (and I have great reservations about autonomous non-denominational churches). For three years my faith existed within the metaphorical hallway that is evangelicalism. Quite the opposite of being forever in disharmony, I found peace in seeing myself as part of a movement that transcended all those differences. Unlike the Baptist who becomes convinced of paedobaptism or the Presbyterian who no longer affirms Calvinism, my theological views on adiaphora were free to change as merited by new evidence. I could attend a Methodist church, then move across the country and attend an Evangelical Free church, and all the while never stop being evangelical. Going back to the analogy that began this paragraph, I won't argue against the premise. What I would say is this: from my perspective it's better to be in the hallway, freely able to visit a lot of rooms, than be locked in a single room; it's better to be constantly traveling the streets on the way somewhere than be under house arrest. I for one found it better to be a lonely evangelical who is intellectually honest than an accepted Calvinist suffering from cognitive dissonance. As one whose theology has continually shifted over the years, I value flexibility over stability.

I can think of two more reasons why I was willing to embrace the evangelical movement. The first is its extensive legacy of social activism. Few today realize this, but nearly all the great social reform in American history originated within evangelicalism, including abolition, educational reform, child labor laws, domestic violence reform, women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement. This isn't to say all the efforts have been equally successful or prudent, as evidenced by the fact that that list also contains the Know-Nothing movement and Prohibition. Evangelicalism is prone to act too quickly without enough forethought. That's beyond dispute. Yet for as critical as I am of that shortcoming I'd rather be among people who care too much than those who don't care enough. Passion can be redirected. Apathy cannot. Second, I concur with their theological presuppositions. Noll wrote a book entitled Between Faith and Criticism, which is basically a historic survey of evangelical, biblical scholarship in America. In it he identifies three presuppositions that underlie all evangelical beliefs:

1. "Commitment to an open universe. Evangelicals believe in the reality of the transcendent and the possibility of the supernatural."
2. "Evangelicals are 'realists' in the sense that they believe that the world enjoys an independent existence apart from its perception by humans, that essence precedes existence, and that mind is capable of perceiving existence beyond itself with at least some accuracy."
3. "[E]vangelicals are not psychological determinists. Whatever they may learn from Freud or Jung..., psychological explanations do not provide ultimate explanations for human actions and existence."
   

That list certainly doesn't comprise all my theological presuppositions, but it's a good start.

I would also add that I don't see evangelicalism's historic meaning as a lost cause just yet. Though I'm not his biggest fan, I see someone like Rick Warren as a new generation of evangelical leaders who is challenging some of the current socio-political paradigms and is gaining media coverage as he does so. As I see it, much of the activism of groups like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are suffering from fatigue and disillusionment. Gen Xers and Millennials have witnessed a lifetime's worth of time and resources poured into political battles yet have seen few positive results. They're critical of the movement's failures. For example, evangelicals were instrumental in bringing a pro-life president into the White House for two terms along with a GOP majority in both houses on Congress for 6 of those years. Still little changed. While there remains support for the lives of the unborn, I'm sensing that younger people are asking if the political route is the most effective means of achieving their goals. Many are asking tough questions. Have we prostituted the Body of Christ to a temporal, political organization? Has our political identity become a stumbling block for our evangelistic efforts? In other words, the paradigm that evangelical = conservative = Republican is being challenged. I think there's a growing awareness that it's unwise to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In conclusion, why in the world would I call myself an evangelical? It's not that I've ever desired to be such. I never set out with that objective. Like it or not, I just am. Whether it's Bebbington's four hallmarks, Noll's three presuppositions, or the cultural kinship between Edwards, Whitefield, Wilberforce, Taylor, Moody, and Graham, or all those social reform movements, those things are descriptive of who I am and want to be. I say descriptive because I'm not big on labels in order to find a sense of identity, but I do like descriptive terms. For all its convoluted meaning, the term "evangelicalism" describes the characteristics of a historic movement of which I am a part--a movement that is but one chapter in the narrative of Church history. My unconditional allegiance is to Christ and His Kingdom alone. I have no loyalty to evangelicalism nor Anglicanism, nor do these terms capture the totality of my faith, but these adjectives are effective in describing the type of Christian I am.

Mini Blog #19: Predictions

'Tis the season when sports commentators are making their predictions about the upcoming NFL season. If a guy's predictions prove to be accurate, you can count on it that come mid-winter his peers will heap praise on him for his mastery of the game. If his picks are way off, his peers will remain silent. It intrigues me how making predictions can't go poorly for these guys. Their reputation can be greatly improved, but will take no hit. They're either football geniuses or were up against unforeseeable circumstances. As a sports fan, I think they should get equal treatment regardless of how their picks go. Likewise, the same should be true of bloggers. In January 2007 I predicted that the Democratic Party would experience a landslide victory in the 2008 election and, with control of both the executive and legislative branches, would pass a massive healthcare reform bill. Nailed that one. Around that same time, prompted by all the coverage about the upcoming surge, I also wrote a post about how the Iraq War was a "quagmire." In light of the fact that the last combat brigade just left and the situation looks pretty stable, it looks like it's time for me to eat crow. Totally whiffed that one. In both posts I exuded confidence and wrote authoritatively. Why do I bring this up? I want to be an honest writer who acknowledges and takes responsibility when I was wrong. I want to learn from my mistakes in an effort to continually improve. What I've learned from the Iraq situation is this: it's utterly foolish to write as one with prophetic insight, especially on such complex matters. Predictions can be offered and that's fine, but they should only be done in humility and evaluated is a fair manner.

My Completion of the Canterbury Trail: My Journey (Part III-e)

In an earlier post I wrote about the pastor who counseled me. One of the things I most appreciate about him is his discerning integration of psychology and theology. Though the first thing I ever really said to him was that I was pissed off at God and the church, he wasn't about to accept my sob story as an excuse for abandoning the (c)hurch--local or universal. Shepherding my faith required much wisdom on his part. He knew my journey was at a precarious point with steep ledges on either side. On one side was passively wallowing in the pain inflicted by the institutional church until my faith digressed to a nominal existence. On the other side was proactively lashing out at the church, which likely would have resulted in its rejection. Give him credit. He listened compassionately but never allowed me to stop there. He encouraged me to vent my raw emotions of betrayal, anger, and bitterness, but then set me about the tasks of understanding, forgiving, and healing. He challenged my hypocrisy, getting me to stop pointing fingers at others without acknowledging my own failures. He taught me to be a member of the Body of Christ, together striving toward an unattainable ideal. He confronted my sheer laziness, insisting upon the New Testament mandate that believers aren't to forsake the meeting together of the local body. When I first told Wally I was pissed off at the church, he did what few too pastors in America do to young American males: instead of being content with my simply caring about the Church, he insisted that I take personal responsibility for it. We would meet only if I'd commit to faithfully attending church. He didn't deny or dismiss my experiences, but confronted me with the question of what I was going to do about it. This forever imbued in my faith a sense of commitment to the Body of Christ.

Jumping forward a few years, as newlyweds my wife and I moved across the country and set about the task of finding a church. Now, I'm not one of these "church shopping" guys. I never had the consumer mentality toward churches nor did I expect anything approaching perfection. My only concern at that time was for my wife's and my spiritual well-being. I didn't care about worship styles, finding people the same age, being entertained by a dynamic preacher, agreeing with their adiaphora, or even the distance. I had precisely one absolute need: exegetical sermons. After growing up in Pentecostal churches where they did all sorts of strange things with the biblical text, I wanted to be immersed in what the Word of God was actually saying. I was weary of topical sermons that were chalked full of corny jokes, unbalanced piety, historically-inaccurate illustrations, trite Christianese metaphors, and were evangelistic although the Sunday morning service is supposedly for believers to worship and have fellowship. I needed a pastor who'd dig into the text and explain what the biblical authors we saying in their own cultural-historical context, then carefully apply that to our present circumstances. Shoot, I would've even settle for what I call "exopical" sermons (half exegetical, half topical) like what John Piper does.

Being in the Bible Belt, one wouldn't think that would be too much ask, but we attended 13 churches all over the evangelical spectrum and couldn't find a single exegetical sermon. To give one example of the sort of inane preaching we were exposed to, the largest church in town had an outline on the back of the bulletin that read, "_____ leaders _____ big" (blanks: great, think). I remember thinking, 'C'mon, Joel Osteen. Is this a church or a business seminar?' It wasn't a special Sunday where some fool was filling the pulpit while the pastor was on vacation, either. The situation was far more grave. The fool that was in the pulpit was the fool who occupied it. I was disgusted.

#14 was a small Presbyterian church. The people were cordial and the pastor did a pretty decent job exegeting a passage from John. Afterward the college students were invited to stay for fried chicken. Just as I was considering that we might have found our new church home the pastor sat down next to me, put on a hand on my shoulder, and inquired, "So what do you think about the five points of Calvinism?" Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a pretty straightforward guy. I try to exercise discretion in how I say things, but ultimately I tell it like I see it. Being as we were brand new, however, I figured this was neither the time nor the place to explain that two years ago I was an Arminian, the year before I was a Calvinist, and now I affirmed neither. I tried to be political about it by responding without really answering his question. Either the reverend failed to take the hint or didn't care because he launched into a detailed explanation that dripped with condescension. I was the theological idiot whom he was going to enlighten. 45 minutes in and up to "I" in the famous acronym, I finally interrupted him. I explained that I appreciated his commitment to theology and respected him as the authority God had placed over this congregation, but since he's forced his smug views down my throat and treated me like a moron I was going to answer his question. I had my ESV Reformed Study Bible with me, which had handwritten notes for each point from my days as a Calvinist along with notes against that point on the next page from after I ceased being one. I began with a brief description of hermeneutical methodology; specifically, because the same Spirit inspired it all scripture ought to be used to interpret scripture where the meaning of a passage is unclear. In his case, however, his theological system had taken precedent over his hermeneutics. His Reformed Theology, not the text itself, determined what was clear and what was ambiguous. Consequently, classically Calvinist passages like John 10 (a metaphor about Jesus holding sheep in his hand) are used to interpret classically Arminian passages like Hebrews 6 (about people falling away from the faith) rather than vice versa. Suffice to say he made it known in no uncertain terms that I was unwelcome at his church.

Score: 0-14.

Despite our sincere efforts to find a church and the Holy Spirit's conviction, we basically stopped trying. Yet things only got more complicated from there. It was that fall to spring when I went through those two spiritual crises explained in earlier posts. Because of those experiences three more interrelated issues became essential needs. First, as I learned to worship God with my mind I needed to be among Christians who did the same. I could no longer handle being around Christians who discouraged serious thought, dismissed its necessity as part of a holistic worshipful lifestyle, and denigrated the faith of those who were serious about intellectual matters as somehow spiritually inferior. My soul truly couldn't cope with the pragmatic anti-intellectualism that so permeates contemporary evangelical culture. I couldn't be a part of a local body that had mistaken child-like faith (trust) with childish faith (immaturity). Second, with the life of the mind neglected, the evangelical culture had been built around a sort of individualistic mysticism. Rather than someone saying, "I was studying Romans last night and was struck by..." they'll say, "Last night as I was studying Romans the Spirit showed me..." Rather than a thoughtful consideration of how faith might influence political participation, they often spiritualize their cultural presuppositions and claim Jesus told them He supports a particular candidate or even a whole party. Certainly there is a valid role for mysticism within a Christian's spiritual life, but I couldn't accept it at the expense of rationality. Third, I needed to get away from (really!) low church worship styles. Reflecting on my frustrations there, here's a paragraph I wrote about that topic a while ago:

"I'm weary of singers who awkwardly stand on a stage as though they were performing a concert, people-centered songs that emphasize people's experience in worshiping rather than the God who is being worshiped, 'special music' that guilts people into giving money, preachers who mislead people as they rant and rave with half-truths and use youtube clips in a ploy to be culturally relevant, altar calls that emotionally manipulate people into psychological frenzies, evangelistic spiels that miss the point that a Sunday morning worship service is for believers, architecture and decor that are so utilitarian as to lack almost any aesthetic/artistic value that both points to God and reflects His creative nature, rambling prayers that are just, well, supposed to be, just, like, more sincere because they are just, you know, just spontaneous, and, most of all, the pep rally feel where it seems the implicit purpose is to pump the Christians up on some sort of church camp-like high in order to defeat the devil in the upcoming week's football game of life."

No, I'm not saying that God doesn't work in and through low church services. No, I'm not saying that low church services are intrinsically bad or inferior. What I am saying is that for me, personally, I couldn't handle any more of it.

Of course there were many who said I was picky and bitter. They scolded me for having too high of expectations and said I needed to attend a church not for my spiritual life but for the edification of others. I've been told by some that I'm stubborn and by others that I'm principled. Whatever the case, because of my temperament I refused to accept the depressing prospect that my soul would be chafed by every minute of every service and I sure as heck wasn't about to deceive myself into believing I wasn't annoyed. The next few sentences may sound like a hyperbolic, emotional overreaction on my part, but I'm just telling it honestly from where I was at. Sitting in those churches I became this mass of solid angst. Far from ushering in a worshipful demeanor, I just got mad. Every last part of it annoyed me. From there I found it virtually impossible not to be negative, let alone uplifting. Maybe it's just me, but I find it difficult to be encouraging when I'm irritated by everything and everyone one around me. I still believed that my wife and I should be a part of a local body, but there was simply no way I was able to join any of those churches.

I was caught between a rock and a hard place. The nearby churches made me hate Christians. That's not good. Yet the Spirit's conviction was growing that I shouldn't shouldn't forsake fellowship. It grew to become an unavoidable, nearly ever-present, thought. Though not as insistent, acute, or faith-threatening as the other two crises in that nine month period, it was very much a third spiritual crisis. However, a second time in as many months God used the college's online philosophy forum to deliver my answer. After an extended rant about how much all the nearby churches sucked, one of the profs insisted that I visit his church. Quite reluctantly, my wife and I gave it a shot and only then because he concurred with my appraisal of the nearby churches.

The University Church is located near the University of Georgia in Athens. It's a house church unlike any other house church. The service was structured like a regular church, so it wasn't a bunch of people just sitting around on couches doing spontaneous things. Plus they weren't all about being a house church. Its founding members had been kicked out of virtually every place on campus, so out of necessity they began meeting in a nearby house. A few decades later they were still in pastor's beautiful old house. When we arrived Dan Orme, still the original pastor, was filling the pulpit. His enormous library and graduate degrees in theology, classics, and history effectively set the tone that no questions would be discouraged, which was strangely augmented by the fact that Dan looked a bit like Francis Schaeffer with a clerical collar. His written sermons were rich, lucid, poignant, and convicting. He exegeted the heck out of biblical passage and often employed textual criticism, insights from the passage's cultural-historical context, quotations from the likes of Josephus and Ante-Nicene Fathers, insightful reflections on American culture, scathing assessments of contemporary evangelicalism, practical challenges to the congregation that effectively destroyed any sense of spiritual complacency, and a humility void of spiritual or intellectual pride. During the service the people passionately sing hymns with simple piano accompaniment, recite the ancient creeds, and pray corporately for one another, the Church universal, their local community, the nation's leaders, the world's impoverished, and so forth. For Communion they use actual bread rather than a oyster cracker or a religious wafer with a cross stamped on it. The first week we visited the Sunday School topic was Just War Theory. That same hour there's also a sermon discussion where people discuss its content, work through its implications, nuance or disagree with certain points, etc. Every week there's a meal. Theologically, they're committedly evangelical with humbly Reformed leanings, meaning there are Reformed themes coming from the pulpit but they're not obsessive about it and not even all the elders hold to Reformed Theology. It's elder led. They intentionally avoid being programmatic. They encourage the arts. On Wednesday nights that have paper discussions... 'nuff said.

The thing that absolutely sold my wife and I was something that happened right after our first service. We were standing right by Dan in the crowded hallway when he proclaimed, 'There’s too many people. I’ve got to get out of here!' He promptly walked outside and stood there till people went away. We needed a church in which the people didn't immediately try to suck out of lifeblood; a church of people who were warm but not draining. We knew at that moment that we'd found our church. Don't get me wrong, though. I never had any grand delusions about it. It's far from being the elusive "perfect church." As people living in the paradox of the imagio dei and the fall, Christ’s first and second coming, I know all individuals and the organizations they form will necessarily magnify and reflect those tensions. Yet, if I may be honest, the fall seemed to be winning the war at most the other churches we visited. In the months prior to visiting the UC that first time I feared that I would end up like Roger Williams, a eternal vagabond who never found an ecclesiastical home. Yet that was not God's will. He used the UC over the next couple years to restore my faith in the Church and what a local church could be.

The UC taught me many lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. First, I learned an older and, in my opinion, richer form of worship. It was there that I learned the beauty of hymns, creeds, written sermons, corporate prayer, and public exhortation. Second, I began to learn to live the balanced christian life of intellectual rigor and loving acts of grace, compassion and confrontation, passion and patience, transparency and restraint, trust and caution, humility and conviction, etc. Third, I also began to learn how to discerningly live in the world yet not be of it. There's no rigid answer to the Christ and culture dilemma. Not only can one assess, confront, embrace, sift, and create culture, but in the wisdom of the Ecclesiastes there's a time for all. Wisdom is knowing and balancing the needs of the moment with their long-term consequences. Fourth, as the UC healed my own injuries, I learned that a calling of mine is to reach agnostics and those who've been gravely wounded by the institutional church. Fifth, as laughable as this might be, I learned that you can love and cherish people despite being perpetually annoyed and even offended by them. The truth is that some people suck, but it's on me to love them despite themselves. Six, I learned that a church doesn't have to follow a business model. It's not about developing programs and marketing plans, but rather love and sacrifice for one another as Christ did for the Church. Seventh, I learned a different model for the pastorate. A pastor doesn't have to behave like a used car salesman to "sell" the Gospel or the local church. A pastor can cry, not to emotionally manipulate the people into having a spiritual experience but out of sheer awe and worship of God’s goodness. A pastor can be irritated by irritating people yet love them unconditionally as he guides their spiritual growth. Rather than dumbing everything down to the lowest common denominator so as not to intimidate people, a pastor can preach in such a way that inspires, encourages, and teaches his flock to worship God with their minds. The pastor's job isn't to lead with perfection, but to lead as an imperfect fellow traveler on this pilgrimage called the christian faith and point others to holiness and perfection surpassing his own failures. Finally, I learned what an elder should be and do. Elders shouldn't be in competition with one another or the pastor. Conflict will necessarily arise and often times that's even a good thing, but their aim must be to lead the local body by mooring it in sound doctrine, correcting its members when/where they stray, helping those who are hurting and struggling, and wisely and patiently preparing for the future while being ever-mindful for the present.

For all of those things and so many more, I'm grateful to the UC. Sometimes in life going to church faithfully is simply about discipline, but that shouldn't always be the case. I had an experience on those Sunday mornings when Sarah and I made the hour+ trek to Athens that I'd never known before—the joy of fellowship with the local body. I actually enjoyed going to church! Though circumstances were such that Sarah and I were never able to be a part as much as we would have liked, my experiences at the UC will for the rest of my life guide my hopes and dreams for the local churches of which I'm a part for it was there that I learned that the biblical tension is acknowledging our imperfection yet refusing to accept it. Every church and person is imperfect, but that's why there are local bodies—so together we can strive toward perfection. My time at the UC reframed my emphasis from the tragic reality of the fall to the blessed reality of our ongoing redemption.

As a final word, though I prefer Anglicanism's historic practice where the worship service climaxes in the Eucharist, I confess that one of my greatest disappointments about committing to the Anglican tradition is the usual absence of exegetical sermons. I'm yet to hear a homily that inspired or challenged me as did those sermons at the UC. Exegetical sermons are no longer an absolute need of my spiritual life, but I miss them terribly. If ever I become an Anglican pastor I will insist upon remedying that situation.

My Completion of the Canterbury Trail: My Journey (Part III-d)

It's been two weeks since the last post in this Anglican series and I've tried to sit down and write the next part about ten times. I've found these autobiographical "My Journey" posts to be incredibly difficult to write. They're emotionally draining. Yesterday afternoon, however, it occurred to me that one of my posts from this past December entitled 'A Relationship with God?' was almost exactly what I wanted to express next. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I've decided to reuse it for this series, though I've significantly edited it for my purposes here and added new material throughout. For anyone who's already read the earlier version, please read at least the four final paragraphs as they're new. Thanks.

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"With everyone's head bowed and eyes closed, I invite you to trust in Jesus, ask Him into your heart, accept Him as your Lord and Savior, and begin a relationship with the loving God who died for you. Just slip up your hand if you feel the Spirit calling you." In some sense, I'm infinitely grateful that I heard this so many times. My stubborn nature led me to resist multiple evangelism invitations each week for 14 years. In another sense, as I've grown in my faith I've become skeptical of this evangelistic axiom. I've begun to question the conception of Christianity within which it grounded me. Not the least of my questions has been this: Are we supposed to have "a relationship with God"? Given the sensitive nature of this subject I will make every effort to exercise humility and grace in the way I explain my thoughts.

More than anything, I've wanted to have a relationship with God such as my pastors invited me to begin a full decade ago. During a prayer retreat several years back I remember the leader instructing us to find an isolated place in the woods and wait there until we heard from the Lord. That afternoon people trickled back to the cabin with amazing stories of things God has spoken or revealed to them--words of peace and comfort, areas of pride and rebellion, relationships that need restoration, etc. Some said that quietly waiting upon the still small voice of the Lord had made them the most aware of Spirit's indwelling presence that they'd ever been. They spoke about how they felt that it was an experience that would forever alter their spiritual lives.

If I may be brutally honest, my experience that day was one of frustration and despair leading to sin. I sat there praying hour after hour, patiently waiting for God. After about five hours I told God that I couldn't sense His presence or hear His voice, and I asked why. Still nothing. After another hour I wept almost hysterically. 'Why God? Why can't I know you're here? Why can't I hear your voice? What's wrong? Is there sin in my heart? I'm trying, but am I not listening enough? Please, please reveal yourself to me. I trust you. I love you. I just want to know you're there." Nothing. I went back to the cabin already frustrated that I'd failed. As I heard these amazing stories from my friends I felt more than embarrassed. I felt humiliated. So I lied. I made up some great story about how God had touched my heart and remember quite vividly the leader saying, "See? That's the power of God. As I said, all you have to do is wait on Him." The events that day set off a chain of events that would transform my spiritual life.

Three years later I was living in Georgia attending a small Bible college. In the years since that day in the woods I'd doubted God's very existence, the truthfulness of Christianity, and much else. I remember being so frustrated one day after a class that I told my wife, "I don't know if I love God." As one might imagine, she was alarmed and perhaps a little angry, but to her infinite credit she listened to my heart and tried to understand why I was thinking what I was. I asked, "How can you love a God that you can't see, touch, hear, smell, or taste?" As the conversation went along my repressed emotions began flowing. Through tears of anger, sorrow, and fatigue I asked, "What the hell does it look like to love a God who is wholly beyond our senses? I keep having people tell me that I just need to hear God's voice and sense His presence. Yeah, tried that, and it ain't happening!" In Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, he writes about a pastor who began to cry when someone simply asked him what Jesus meant to him. He absolutely lost it. Miller says that he wants to love God that much. Love God to the degree that the very mention of his Savior's name brings him to tears. Most of the book resonated with me deeply, but this portion just plain infuriated me. I desperately wanted to have that sort of love for God, but it just wasn't happening.

That fall and winter I'd worked through the most profound spiritual crisis of my life to that point, which was resolved when I read Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Far from settling my faith and providing comfort, it merely opened the doors for another crisis shortly thereafter. I'd learned that Christians can and should worship God with their minds, but that meant I could no longer lie to myself. I could no longer accept cognitive dissonance. I had to work through the issues that had plagued my soul.

That spring I became engrossed with an online philosophy discussion board. In one of the threads I explained the discrepancy between the expectations for my spiritual life that I'd gained at church and the reality of my experience. One guy said he empathized with my struggle and recommended I read Philip Yancey's Reaching for the Invisible God. I'd only recently heard of Yancey from my wife's grandma and had never read him, but thought I'd give it a shot. I'm infinitely glad that I did. Yancey hit upon the exact sorts of questions that I was asking. He dealt with them honestly, certainly with his heart but not to the exclusion of his head. This doesn't do it justice, but Yancey helped me to re-frame my whole conception of what Christianity is and what my expectations are of God. I came to see that my "love" of God is rather unlike Don Miller's pastor's love of God. Neither is right or wrong, just different. My love of God has far less to do with being intimately connected to Him on an emotional level and far more to do with devotion to a worthy Lord, cherishing what He did in saving me, being thankful for His care and provision, and being willing to sacrifice my wishes and desires to serve what I think is His will. That is, I had to redefine all my expectations for what it means (for me) to love God. Occasionally I experience a profound sense of emotional connection with Him, but that truly is the exception rather than the rule. I came to see that despite what the pious church culture around me said, my love of God is no less sincere because I'm not crying all the time. The transformation of my faith didn't end there, though. As I followed down this path, it wasn't long before I ran into a sacred cow.

Where in the Bible does it say we're supposed to be in "a relationship with God"? I stewed on this one for a couple years before sharing it with anyone. I feared that voicing this question would harm those with simpler, but no less sincere, faith as well as incur the wrath of the fundamentalist polemicists. After all, this idea of having a relationship with God is perhaps one of the few things that unites Protestants, overcoming the division between even mainliners and fundamentalists. It even transcends the generational gap. Regardless of whether a person is a 83-year-old modernist who loves Billy Graham or 18-year-old postmodernist who loves Brian McLaren, everyone seems to agree that the purpose, even the essence, of Christianity is the restoration of our relationship with God. But, again, I would ask: Where is this in the Bible? The first and only person I've seen pose this question in print is Rob Bell, but he was only using it as an example of things that people believe without questioning.

A while back I shared this question with a mentor. As the first to hear it I half expected him to question my salvation. I thought, 'This is going to be where he thinks I'm off my rocker.' After considering it for a few moments, his response was startling--comforting, but also startling. He said, "You know, I'd not heard anyone ask that until just last year. Since then you're probably the seventh guy to say that to me." He went on to explain that all the others were guys in their mid-40s and had been saved since their teens or early 20s. Despite their various church backgrounds, all had basically been taught the same conception of what Christianity is. They'd all responded to the same sort of invitation about entering into a relationship with God. And two decades in they'd separately come to the same point of disillusionment. All were sincere Christians and none were doubting their faith, but for each man his spiritual life was nothing like he'd been taught it'd be like. Their experiences failed to meet their expectations, and they were disappointed. It was an albatross around each of their necks. They felt guilt for not being as close to God as they ought to be, but more than that they felt like they were letting their families down. They felt they weren't being the men of God that they were called to be. Despite their efforts to seek God's face all the more their struggles only worsened. Finally they voiced these concerns and found out they were all in the same boat, so they started meeting about it one morning a week. After a year of those meetings they'd collectively come to believe that a Christian's spiritual life is usually far different than what any of them had been told by evangelists, pastors, Bible college professors, radio preachers, and Christian Living books. They believed that a "relationship with God" is less about these existential, mystical experiences and more about faithfulness, devotion, reverence, and submission. On hearing this I felt a great burden lift.

Do you remember when Mother Theresa's journal was published? It was shocking. She was revered by Christians of all traditions all around the world for her selfless work among some of the world's poorest people in Calcutta. Everyone seemed to have had this assumption that what sustained her through all those years was this deep sense of God's presence and an intimate relationship with Him. Instead what her journal revealed was decades of wretched loneliness. She had no tangible sense of God's presence and had often found herself frustrated, feeling like she was praying to the wall. I can relate. I wonder how many other Christians secretly experience this frustration?

When I've shared these sorts of thoughts with people, I've gotten every response you can imagine: relief, intrigue, confusion, shock, annoyance, anger, and even threats. Seems it's a novel concept to most people. The most common response, however, has probably been a defense of the idea. "Of course a relationship with God is biblical," said one guy. "It doesn't have to be said explicitly 'cuz it's implicit all throughout Scripture!" He pointed to passages like Jesus' addressing God the Father as "abba father," best translated "daddy" to us. He talked about how God strolled through the garden with Adam and Eve, how Jesus had built relationships with His disciples, how He said that He'd send the Holy Spirit to comfort them, and even the nature and purpose of the indwelling Spirit. None of which I'd argue against. Nevertheless, if restoring our "relationship" with God is the, or at least one of the, central theme(s) of Scripture isn't it strange that the Bible never comes right out and says it? When I read the Bible I don't see a lot of key points left unsaid. Moreover, if God is completely beyond our five senses, then wouldn't any "relationship" we might have with Him be completely unlike our relationship with any other person? And if that's the case, is it even a "relationship" at all? Does the term even apply?

I've often heard it said that this idea of relationship is the thing that separates genuine Christianity from cold, dead orthodoxy. "It's not first and foremost about a set of beliefs, but an intimate relationship with our Creator, Savior, and Lord." Asked what that means in practice, most people I've asked give these vague descriptions about God's presence, hearing His still small voice, being able to tell Him anything, having a confident sense of His will, and so on. Maybe I'm an oddity on this one, but with the exception of the being able to tell Him anything (I often pray about things that I've never even told my wife) that sounds quite unlike any relationship I've ever had. When I'm talking to someone, I have no difficulty telling if he's present. When someone says something to me, unless we're in a library or he has laryngitis I have no trouble hearing his voice. When someone has a desire, I generally have no trouble grasping it. I'll say it again, whatever a "relationship with God" might mean it certainly isn't like any relationship between people I've ever seen or experienced.

Some people say that "a relationship with God" is all about those deeply emotional and profoundly spiritual experiences. As for me, I'm thankful for those things when they happen but I often wonder if our expectations haven't become skewed. It seems to me that we've bought too much into this individualistic, existential form of uniquely North American Christianity and forgotten the more subtle, day-to-day disciplined life. Theologically, I've got a theory that this stems from a deficient understanding of the incarnation. We think of Jesus as primarily a man without remembering that God almighty condescended Himself in order to become one of us. Unwilling or unable to accept the complexity portrayed in the Bible, we've emphasized Jesus' love, compassion, and grace in the New Testament to the neglect of God's power, glory, and even awesome fear exhibited toward Him in the Old. That is, we prefer a God who weeps over our rebellion to the God who gets angry when we turn away. We can related to Jesus' humanity but don't quite know what to do with His divinity, so we end up a friendly, personalized, relatable God who is perhaps typified in the "Jesus is my homeboy" paraphernalia that dominated youth groups everywhere a few years ago.

I find the term "relationship with God" to be exceptionally inadequate. As much as I desire to chuck it, however, I can't because there's an element within it that rings true--something which I sense goes straight to the heart of what's best about low church evangelicalism. There is within us all a desire for spiritual connection with God. I feel certain that, in my own spiritual life, it's supposed to be much less buddy-buddy and much more submission to the will of our King, though both extremes obviously fall short of the Edenic ideal. What is needed is a way of existing as spiritual beings that simultaneously preserves our sense of God's power and nature as wholly other to which we ought to submit while also maintaining the loving intimacy that once was and will be again when God sets everything to rights.

In the book Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, the late Robert Webber wrote that he'd never met an evangelical who became Anglican without one of the main reasons being a desire for sacramental worship. Truth be known, I'm probably one of the least sacramental persons to ever have completed the Canterbury trail. I have a great appreciation for the awe and reverence within Anglican worship, but thus far I've been unable to get my mind around sacramentalism--this idea that in the sacraments the wall between the physical and spiritual is torn down. Yet I remain open to the idea. That being said, over the past several months I've been playing with the idea that these two separate ideas of a low church "relationship with God" and high church sacramentalism may be linked. I'm nowhere close to having put the theoretical framework in place in my head--much less being able to offer a coherent explanation--but perhaps that strong element of truth within the "relationship with God" concept will in time find fulfillment in the sacramental life. Maybe I remain way off, but that's as close to a constructive alternative as I can offer at this point.

Mini Blog #18: Newsflash: Baseball has long seasons

One thing I really dislike about so many baseball commentators is how they lose sight of how long the season is. How many times have I heard that a team's "season is over" only 50 games in 'cuz they're out by 5 games? Or the reverse when they say a team "is a lock to win the division" when there's still 50 to go and they're up by 5? In June I was listening to two Atlanta radio guys rant about how the Braves were done. They've been leading the NL-East most of the season. Today I listened to Buster Olney on Mike & Mike say that the Red Sox are done. They're 4 freaking games out of the wild card with 49 to go. Then, year after year, these guys act shocked when a team gets hot down the stretch and not only vie for the wild card but make a run at the division title. It doesn't bother me so much when it's local idiots on the radio. I half-way expect that. But when well-respected, national guys the likes of Peter Gammons fall for it every year... c'mon, guys.

The Sky is Falling! Why American Christians Need a Dose of Christian Realism

Since moving to Waco last week my newsfeed has displayed a string of videos, articles, blog posts, and status updates expressing lament and immense frustration that that the American people are stupid, ignorant, judgmental, and prejudiced... among other things. The most recent hot button issue is the mosque that's scheduled for construction need Ground Zero. Though the opinions I'm seeing conflict with each other, underlying all these comments is a common theme: the prevailing sentiment about the decline of America. Nearly all of the comments have come from Christians.

I'm continually hearing comments from well-intentioned people all over the ideological spectrum that America has lost its way. Or as one person put it, "America isn't America anymore." But if there's a decline, that means there was something better from which we digressed or something that was corrupted. So when exactly was this ideal America? There's about 38 million citizens who will fight anyone to the death who claims it was before the 1950s. '60s? Have you heard about 1968? '70s? Yes, when the Bee Gees ruled. Surely that was the height of pure America. And during my lifetime that's certainly never been the case. So unless it happened right around 1982, the uncomfortable truth is that the aforementioned adjectives apply throughout the entirety of our nation's history. And to be really honest about it, this isn't an American phenomenon. Sure, certain cultural distinctives give America a unique twist on those errors, but most of those words would apply nicely to the majority of persons in almost every society that has ever existed.

N.T. Wright recently provided me with a more well-rounded, international perspective on these matters. The French are burned out because they put all their hope in the Enlightenment's ideals only to learn the whole thing was a farce one beheading at a time. The English never really accepted it in the first place. It's only we gullible Americans who fully bought into the Enlightenment dream of the perfectability of society. Only rather than admit our error, we stubbornly refuse to accept/admit the obvious: the Enlightenment's ideals were merely a pipe dream. Instead we engage in willful self-deception, resorting to belief in a fictitious historical Utopia--be it the nation's first generation, the Antebellum Era, the post-WWII period when society remained conservative by in large and America dominated the world, the counterculture of the '60s, etc.--that never actually existed. (As an aside, this is the exact same mistake the Founding Fathers themselves made with the government and society of Ancient Greece, which they tried to pattern the United States after.) As skeptical as we are, it's remarkable that we Americans (still!) really do believe the Enlightenment fairytale that democracy, capitalism, education, technology, and the like will save us.

My take: There is much we can learn from the wisdom of Enlightenment Era figures, but we need to stop acting like the Constitution is God and James Madison is its prophet. As American Christians we need to finally dislodge our naive belief in the Enlightenment's ideals and replace it with christian realism--a view of society that recognizes the paradoxical tension between the imagio dei and the fall. We shouldn't accept our fallenness as OK and become apathetic, but neither should we be surprised. This would help us to stop getting our panties in a bunch and going off on these Chicken Little jeremiads every time sinful people--Christians and non-Christians alike--behave accordingly.

3 Political Thoughts from 3-Minute Video

A month ago I decided to take an extended leave of absence from the political fray. I planned to continue exploring the underlying philosophies, but intentionally distance myself from the day-to-day bickering and maneuvering that generally comprise the typical political discussion. Of course, that's an awfully fuzzy line. My intention here is to use this video, which is from February, not to again jump headfirst into the healthcare debate, but rather to use it as a launching point for three thoughts on the deeper issues:

1. Rep. Ryan claims that if Obama & Co. think the American people want this legislation, then they're not listening. This statement is the exact sort of one-sided idiocy that annoys me about American politics. I'm continually hearing people all across the ideological spectrum refer to "the American people" as though they're this monolithic demographic who share the same vision for the country's future, which is simply absurd. In D.G. Hart's book, Deconstructing Evangelicalism, he controversially argues that there is no such thing as evangelicalism. That is, individuals with vested interest--historians, sociologists, theologians, pastors, etc.--spend so much time emphasizing the tenuous links that they downplay the overwhelming differences. Because they want evangelicalism to exist, they selectively interpret the data in such a way that creates a movement that actually doesn't exist. (Then they argue, quite conveniently, that "true evangelicalism" is exactly what they think it should be.) While I disagree with Hart's overall premise, in my estimate he offers a valuable criticism: we tend to allow our ideals, not to mention a desire for unity, to obscure actual fragmentation. We would do well to complicate our perception rather than simplify it. I bring this up because the same exact issue is at play in our political perceptions, only it's even more complicated because the American people are all at once more unified and more diverse. Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers, and all the rest need to begin the discussion by acknowledging that their individual views aren't representative of the true pulse of the "American people." To use the phrase "American people" is to invoke complexity. In my opinion, politicians make thorough asses of themselves when they make these ideologically laden, simplistic assertions that their view represents the American people.
   
2. Rep. Ryan states, "There really is a difference between us, and it's basically this: We don't think the government should be in control of all this." Oh my garage. A Washington politician explicitly identified political philosophies! Political discussions between those with conflicting perspectives often revolve around superfluous positions rather than the deep-seated beliefs from which those positions arise. Regardless of whether or not I agree with him, I commend Rep. Ryan for actually pointing that out.
   
3. Flushing out that quote more fully, Rep. Ryan states, "There really is a difference between us, and it's basically this: We don't think the government should be in control of all this. We want people to be in control." Since I'm an equal opportunity criticizer, I'll now critique that same comment. In my experience, conservatives often see two primary interest groups in this complicated situation: government and people. Therefore, since they don't want the government in charge, that puts it in the hands of the people just as Rep. Ryan said. Minor problem: The Industrial Revolution happened there, bub. Corporations are not "the people." The complicated reality in which we live is that there's (at least) three primary interest groups: government, people, corporations. A clear example of this is the oil spill. First, BP exists to make money, so it lobbies the government, hires people, and sells its product to people. That means that it's continually negotiating between government regulation, customer satisfaction, and its employees' compensation. If it fails in any of these three areas, it jeopardizes its long-term goal of making profit. Second, the government is supposed to represent the people by working with BP and keeping it accountable, but in reality each elected official has his/her own agenda and external pressures. Each politician must negotiate between the long-term and short-term needs of individual persons and the country as a whole while trying to keep his/her own job. Third, the people's lives have been thrown into chaos by BP's blunder and they're theoretically being represented by the government, but in reality they need corporations like BP to provide jobs and maintain their standard of living, and they can't agree on what the relationship between government and corporations ought to be, much less what the overall purpose of government is or should be. My point? While the whole political process is so convoluted that it's hard to even make general statements, Rep. Ryan and others could at least start by acknowledging that the interests of corporations and the people often aren't one in the same.