Concept 53

Bella

Rick — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:44:50 +0000

You can safely say that I don’t get out much. Local cultural events here on the prairie - whether they be live concerts or cow-tipping - don’t manage too often to shift me from the schedule I need to keep for work. Movies, no matter the hype, are rarely going to get me to go out once I get off work. “But Rick,” I’ve heard this argument before “aren’t you being anti-social like that? Don’t you ever want to go out and do something with your friends?” Yes, I do like to go out and do things with my friends - but sitting in the dark eating popcorn while we all stare out at a great screen is not what I classify as a social activity. Every now and then, I make an exception - Fireproof was one such example. The social activity was getting together for dinner before the movie with another couple from our small-group, then hooking up with the rest of the folks from the group that were going. That more than made up for the passive nature of watching a flick in the local multiplex and calling it a social activity.

None of that changes my nature, however, and I am most definitely a movie buff. I’m probably the only person in the U.S. whose wife, when asked why I wasn’t present in church one particular Sunday, happily allayed their concerns about my health by letting everyone know that I had decided to stay at home because the original 1933 version of King Kong was on a commercial-free channel (funny I didn’t hear the laughter at home; she swears that everyone in the church was rolling on the floor when she’d finished telling the tale). It seemed only fitting, then, that this time she would pick out a movie for her anniversary present to me, and that I would fall in love with it.

Bella is one of those films a lot of critics might classify as a sleeper, or a feel-good movie. I’d have to go along with the idea of it being a feel-good movie, but it was so much more. For those who, like me, don’t get out much anymore, I won’t spoil the story or give away any of the themes. Sensitive material, handled with the deftest of touches. Superior performances by everyone involved in front of and behind the camera made this a film worth seeing when it was released to theaters… and to my wife, who continues to bless me daily, thank you for this most perfect choice of anniversary gift, and I’m sure that the welts and bruises that all 12 of the church members sustained falling down laughing are healed by now.

Praise Team Motto

Rick — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:52:23 +0000

When you play in a praise team band, you have to have the ability to change everything on very short notice. Therefore, I propose this as the new praise team mascot and motto for all denominations that have more than a piano player/organist on the platform on Sunday mornings.

First National Bank of God

Rick — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:13:36 +0000

As a side effect of aging, coupled with years of having my ears near guitar amplifiers, cymbals, and other assorted musical instruments, as well as my current job which adds in the sounds of jet engines, I’m getting a little harder of hearing these days. Mind you, I’m not deaf by any stretch, but sometimes I don’t hear things right, so I asked my oldest son to repeat himself. We’d been having one of those rambling conversations about how much the town I’d used to live in had changed so much, and how what were once minor landmarks were now either non-existent or magnified beyond reason when he referred to a certain Baptist church (once firmly in the minor landmark category) as the First National Bank of God.

Once I was certain I’d heard aright, I asked him why he called it that, and his answer was a bit disconcerting. First, he said, it didn’t look like a church at all, with the exception of the steeple and the cross atop it. In his eyes, it looked like a bank and, as it came into view, I could see where he got that impression. A major building project had changed it from a sleepy little church into a megachurch colossus, complete with faux Ionian columns and a massive marquee with every bell and whistle built in. The sanctuary, he told me, had been redone so it was more like a movie theater, with huge screens up front.

As he continued to tell me the reasons for his negative assessment of this church, things didn’t get much better. When last I lived in town, the church took up a corner. As a part of the building program, the church purchased two houses on lots behind the sanctuary, and then burned the homes to the ground so as to add room for the pre-school playground and off-street parking. In his eyes, the purchase of the homes was fine but burning them to the ground was grossly inappropriate.

His rant continued on for a few more minutes, and I countered the arguments that I could in good conscience, not knowing anything of the processes and events that had come about to make this particular church such an object of derision for my son. What made it uncomfortable for me was that I could see many of those same criticisms being leveled at not just the church I attend, but at so many others across America. A drive-by of Central’s campus wouldn’t cause the average viewer to think bank - but they would certainly think that a lot of money is tied up in that building and grounds complex (and they would be right).

I cannot help but wonder when God went into the real estate business on Earth, requiring that His children erect auditoriums that rival the concert facilities of major cities, all in an ongoing attempt to reach “the unchurched” using the tools of the world. I’ve heard all the arguments put forward by our local big church folks, but now I’m asking you, the readers here - at what point does our need for worship space and our style of worship become yet another bullseye for the world to aim its criticisms at? Is God in need of a church that looks like a bank, or an auditorium?

Atheist Wants ‘God’ Out Of Inauguration

Rick — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:49:52 +0000

He’s at it again. Michael Newdow, American atheism’s poster child, now wants to remove references to God from the upcoming Presidential Inauguration. You have to admire the chutzpah of the guy - he also plans to attend so long as one of California’s senators will provide him with a ticket.

Eastbound and Down…

Rick — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 07:16:23 +0000

It has been a crazed week at work. Flights have been canceled left and right, temps are bitterly cold, co-workers are sick, and as a result my schedule went down the toilet. Nice, predictable, orderly schedule, meet the norm for the winter season; to wit, irregular operations. So then, why is this man smiling?

First, because my work is enjoyable even when things go horribly, horribly wrong. Second, we’re past the winter solstice - on our way back to springtime, be it ever so imperceptibly, and third, I leave for Virginia on Christmas morning to spend time with my sons. If I don’t post again between now and my return to the prairie, may God bless and keep all of you.

No related posts.

Blind Obedience

Rick — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:40:11 +0000

OK, I’d like a show of hands - how many of you folks have ever heard of the Milgram Experiment? Freshman year, Psych 101? Anybody?

For those who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, Stanley Milgram was a Yale psychologist back in the 1960’s who was interested in how the phenomenon of group evil could come to be. To test his theories, Milgram created a simple series of social experiments designed to answer these questions: “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”

To understand the mechanics of what he did, follow the link above. To grasp the significance of what he discovered, try this on for size: “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.¹” That, my friends, means any one of us can become an active participant in evil so long as there is an authority we are willing to follow. Let that sit with you for just a moment.

Three different news sites, CNN and MSNBC (Reuters wrote the article carried on MSNBC, and the block quoted text below came from Reuters site as well) carried essentially the same story today about how Milgram’s work has been replicated with essentially the same results - the experimental conditions were modified in ways that would not cause a difference in outcome but would be considered ethical - by Jerry Burger, a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California.

Burger said the experiment, published in the American Psychologist, can only partly explain the widely reported prisoner abuse at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or events during World War Two.

“Although one must be cautious when making the leap from laboratory studies to complex social behaviors such as genocide, understanding the social psychological factors that contribute to people acting in unexpected and unsettling ways is important,” he wrote.

“It is not that there is something wrong with the people,” Burger said. “The idea has been somehow there was this characteristic that people had back in the early 1960s that they were somehow more prone to obedience.”

I respectfully disagree with the professor about a few of his statements and beliefs. Fallen man can do horrible things; Milgram’s work pointed out what has been known (and forgotten) since Biblical times. We would all like to believe we are not capable of these things - the words of Christ do not allow us the comfort of that delusion. People have been giving and taking orders from one another for millenia, and I have a hard time buying into the idea that “this characteristic that people had back in the 1960’s” only dates back that far.

I bring all this to your attention with this in mind: many, like myself, believe we are now living in the End Times. Given that many of the prophecies concerning these times have to do with the rise of a “new” authority figure, do you think it is possible that people faced with a collapsing world as they’ve known it would cling to every word out of the mouth of one who would offer hope, and might they then be persuaded to help by hurting those who could be seen as standing in the way of progress?

Stanley Milgram, The Perils of Obedience, 1974 ↩

Where is Christ in Christmas?

Rick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:12:26 +0000

Before anyone calls me a Grinch (which designation I’d happily accept, given the outcome of the tale), I’m going on record as not having been fond of a lot of what we now call holidays - holy days - since I started reading and researching them. If you are caught up in the cultural thing, that’s fine - I’m not aware of many others who, like me, think that raising kids without Santa and all the other nonsense is a better way. I do believe that there is much more wrong with the celebration of Christmas as a cultural event than the crass commercialism, and I never have cared for the fact that early church leaders freely edited our calendars by co-opting the sacred days of pagans and turned them into high holy days.

Regardless of the date of Christ’s birth, the shadow of the cross was there all along. If that day was, in fact, May 23^rd (to choose a date off the top of my head), it would be no less holy than we try to make December 25^th; perhaps that is the nature of one aspect of the difficulty I have with how we celebrate Christmas, in that we try to make something holy when we don’t feel God’s agreement. I suspect that holds true for a lot more people than me on a far greater number of issues related to their faith (which might go a ways toward explaining the statistic generated in the Pew Forum survey) - but that is for another post.

The material below is from USA Today:

“The focus on peace and giving gifts allows you to safely focus on nice things instead of the idea that God sent his son Jesus to be Christ, who dies on a cross. It’s human nature to want to take the ‘nice’ without the ‘truth,’ ” says Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research in Nashville

It’s not that Christmas partying is wrong: There just has to be a larger purpose for it, says pastor and author Rick Warren. His newest book, The Purpose of Christmas, cites celebration as one of the three things announced by the angels at Christ’s birth, along with salvation and reconciliation to God.

But social scientists say several trends work against the push to focus on doctrine:

•The percentage of U.S. adults who say they have no religious identity has more than doubled, from 7% in 1990 to 15.2% in 2008, says sociologist Barry Kosmin, principal investigator of the American Religious Identification Survey and a research professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

•Data from Christian trends researcher Barna Research in Oxnard, Calif., finds the long-familiar bump in Christmas church attendance is mostly somewhat-regular attendees coming in from the cold more often.

•Interfaith marriages — in which couples often blur or ignore religious differences — have increased from 2.9% of U.S. adults in 1973 to 8.5% in 2006, says Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey for the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

But ultimately, the most significant reason behind the shift away from focusing on a religious Christmas that stresses the birth of Jesus may be found in the latest survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The survey found that more than half of U.S. Christians (52%) today do not say Christianity is the exclusive path to eternal life.

Horton blames Christians themselves for taking the Christ out of Christmas. “Secularism cannot be blamed on the secularists, many of whom were raised in the church. We are the problem,” he says.

via Where is Christ in Christmas? - USATODAY.com.

People For the American Way ‘Profoundly Disappointed’ that Rick Warren Will Give Invocation

Rick — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:22:54 +0000

For the record, I am not a fan of James Dobson or Rick Warren - I respect both men, but I cannot say I always agree with their rhetoric.

That being said, the statement below, from People for The American Way is far more offensive to me. What say you?

It is a grave disappointment to learn that pastor Rick Warren will give the invocation at the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church’s engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right’s big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.

I’m sure that Warren’s supporters will portray his selection as an appeal to unity by a president who is committed to reaching across traditional divides. Others may explain it as a response to Warren inviting then-Senator Obama to speak on AIDS and candidate Obama to appear at a forum, both at his church. But the sad truth is that this decision further elevates someone who has in recent weeks actively promoted legalized discrimination and denigrated the lives and relationships of millions of Americans.

Rick Warren gets plenty of attention through his books and media appearances. He doesn’t need or deserve this position of honor. There is no shortage of religious leaders who reflect the values on which President-elect Obama campaigned and who are working to advance the common good.

via People For the American Way: People For the American Way ‘Profoundly Disappointed’ that Rick Warren Will Give Invocation.

For Master Debaters Only

Rick — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:08:19 +0000

If you are one of those folks who like to get involved in intellectual debates about whether or not Jesus was a real, flesh and blood man who walked the earth some 2,000 odd years ago, then Opposing Views has just the debate for you.

Me? The question is settled, so I have no need for the intellectual flogging of minutiae in order to prove my credentials as a master debater. If the question is not yet settled for you, follow the links.

Coming to terms with terms

Rick — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:23:29 +0000

Almost every day, I run across some great posts on the blogs I surf. With nearly the same frequency, though, I find myself a bit frustrated. Is it my imagination, or is the practice of Christianity now to be of less importance than the terminology, and the personalities more important than the principles? The inspiration behind this post is, in part, based on a great post over at Shane Vander Hart’s Caffeinated Thoughts, and the other part is from another book I’ve cracked open.

Here’s a simple question from a member of the laity - can we chuck some of the labels like missional, post-modern, attractional, emergent, etc. and simply do what we are called to do by the Great Commission? As it is, all of us are living far below our birthrights and our callings, and while we play word games with one another - who is right? Who is wrong? - we’ll end up wondering who’s left, and why were these left out?

Coming or going to church? We are the church - how about we change our use of language to reflect reality, rather than continue to repeat the mistakes of the past that confused going to a location to worship with being that which worships? It is not merely a semantic issue.

Our work here is to make disciples, not to make more bricks for an ivory tower - or am I the one who is confused about what we’re to be doing? How do these terms help us reach people? How do they help us disciple them? Sorry - I don’t want to seem like I’m a foaming at the mouth attack dog (far from it!) - I just get more than a tad concerned when I see us bogged down in what often seems to be yet another variation of the three blind men describing an elephant to one another. I, for one, have no desire to follow the leading of blind men, the leading of blinded men, or the leading blind men (and no, I will not change that to read visually impaired - blind has to do with more than just the eyes). I want to follow Jesus; it is Christ that I’m attracted to, it is by His stripes that I’m healed, and it is His teaching that I need unpacked. I need to hear less of the latest teaching from academia’s newly minted Ph.D.’s and see more of what Christ lived being taught and modeled by those who would be our pastors and teachers.

Pastors - please leave the corporate models back in the corporate boardrooms, or is it that you do not trust in the living God to further His work without a five-year master plan? We are not members of a corporation - we are members of Christ’s Church, meeting in local congregations, house churches, assemblies. How our numbers grow or shrink will depend less on programs and committees than it will on whether truth and holiness are being brought out of the storeroom. We do not need an Edifice Complex, or any other complex - should growth of the local body of Christ assembled occur organically and naturally, trust that His economy can accomplish all without going into debt.

If any of this offended, I am sorry. If it stirred a reaction, please leave a comment - whether you agree or disagree.