Update

Turns out the badguy lived right around the corner from the store. They took one of the employees over and asked, "Is this the guy?" She said, "Yes" and they arrested him. Hmph, easy as that.

Another thing, I don't think it was a good idea to bury this story way at the bottom of all that nonsense of the last post. So Iran is happy with Iraq's new constitution, hails the new Islamic state. That's good...? Probably not considering the new federal make up of Iraq gives Iran an oil rich ally in the Shia South, consolidates oil production and pricing control, and offers more leverage and bargaining power in the question of nuclear development. And if it's not enough that Iranian militants are hailing the new constitution, check it: (what is the correct grammar for that?) secular Iraqis are concerned with the heavy dose of Islam in the constitution. But... umm... 9/11, they hate our freedom, terror alert.

What's Wrong?

[Reading News (Vamos- The Pixies)] I'm wondering if there is a way to un-self-conciously identify the influence certain types of music have on me as I write my posts. (Into the White- The Pixies). My computer is generally playing a randomly ordered playlist as I read the news and write and it just occurred to me that what I read and write is likely tainted/affected by the mood, genre, associated memories, etc... of the music. The thing is, although I may be influenced, I could never know what that influence really is as long as I am looking for it. Maybe differently though, I could say what I might choose to listen to if I were to create a playlist right now. After reading today's news- what would I choose to hear? No that's too much work. I would probably just go with a genre, maybe something folky. Maybe- speaking of folky, someone shoplifted a bunch of Bob Dylan CD's from work today. Just as I was getting ready to leave, a customer told me some guy just ran out the door with a bunch of CD's. I ran out into the parking lot to see him driving away- I got the license plate number- 3VAF103 (do you know him?) I've seen a lot of movies, it seems like it should have been so easy to chase the car down and jump on his hood or something. The funny thing is I couldn't catch him. (Do Ya- ELO) He just drove right off, no screeching tires, no crashes through a crowded market place with me barely hanging onto the hood and chicken cages and watermelons flying all over. We share a parking lot with a 24 Hour Fitness so we didn't go crashing through the plate glass windows and into a bank of tread mills where I did not get up from the crash and dust myself off. He didn't lift his head from the steering wheel, dazed and bloody then look up at me so I could punch him- knocking him out. Then there was no sound from his horn mixing with the gym's sound system (conveniently enough playing Back In Black) I didn't get to say "Looks like that didntwork out. That's weird. Odds are they won't go get the guy. They'll just put a warrant out for his arrest and wait until he gets pulled over for something. (Night Train- James Brown) At least he stole the Dylan CD's. Here's what else he had to choose from: the "new" Allanis Morissete, some guy named Zucherro (not into him at all), remix covers of Sly and the Family Stone songs, Amos Lee, and Jason Mraz. You gotta hand it to the guy for not stealing crap. But back to the criminal aspect of this, I wonder if he's worried at all. Will he be nervous when a cop just randomly pulls up behind him? Will he worry about being recognized? (Swing Low Sweet Cadillac- Dizzy Gillespie) Will he avoid our store forever or just lay low for a while? I don't wonder if he'll be put off stealing. Actually, I think he may be acutely aware of the possibility of being caught for a brief period, but then forget about it.

Segue

I wasn't such a good kid. I did a lot of bad stuff but I would only be concerned about it if there was the immediate possibility of being caught. I wasn't concerned about the consequences until they were staring me in the face. And even then, I didn't think there was anything anyone could do to me that was all that horrible, as far as a punishment- not because I wasn't doing things that could have had serious consequences but because the consequences would have been so far removed from the immediacy of my "badness" I would have seen them as a flaw in the "punisher" rather than a result of my actions. More specifically my "badness" was not who I was- I was good, but bad stuff was what I did. Even as things that I was doing were clearly wrong, I could not easily conceive of myself as bad, so did not think consequences were warranted. (Star- David Bowie) That is, even if I knew that, at some level, what I was doing was wrong, I did not think I was bad. I separated what I did from who I was by locating the moral standard of bad external to me. So for example, I might rationalize stealing street signs in a way that if I was caught, any punishment I faced was because others were not smart enough to see that it was okay for me to steal street signs. (All Because of You- U2) So, even though I may have done bad things, if I was not bad, a punishment levied against me was inappropriate. I might temporarily suffer for my ideas, but I would do so with resolve and steal any hope for victory from my enemies by refusing to change. That sounds really pathological and stupid.

That's not the whole story though. There were things I would feel guilty about, mostly relational "crimes." I think guilt is evidence of internal conviction of wrongness. It killed me when I learned/discovered/conceived of human interconnectedness and the nature of sin being an act against God and not just a violation of some ethereal moral rule. I don't think that's a generally accepted posibility. Not that people are actively opposing the way I understand human and divine connections, I think, though, it is not an idea people accept or live by. Even in the church, I think people understand sin more as a specific identifiable act rather than a condition. (Positively 4th Street- Bob Dylan)

The president has gotten a lot of guff about his whole policy in Iraq and the Middle East in general. It's no secret there were no WMD's in Iraq. The case for war was largely fabricated propaganda cynically created to support a pre-existing policy advocating an aggressive invasion of Iraq as articulated in a PNAC open letter to President Bill Clinton and the Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century paper. People have criticized the way he speaks in vague platitudes when specific and clear policies and goals are needed; some have said talk about bringing democracy to the Middle East through war in Iraq is really a bunch of "self-serving hypocrisy" since we actively support tyrannies in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Pakistan. (Rudy Can't Fail- The Clash) All in all, the guff suggests that people are dying because of past lies and present incompetence.

All I have to say to that is, "Whatever, Hippies. You can have all your cogent arguments and moral reasoning, they're not the same as facts: we invaded a country, we totally kicked their assess, and they have their own new constitution that they're waiting to agree on. So some people are still dying, but if the president is confident enough to go on vacation during this time, then we should just trust that the 71 more Americans that died while he was mountain biking aren't that big a deal. And you know what else? We're building bridges. (Never- Cat Stevens).

Hat Trick

I am regularly struck (along with frequent headaches) with this realization that I am in a uniquely privileged situation, however once this occurs to me, I immediately discount it by saying how ill prepared I am to be in this unique situation, yet if that were true, I would not be in this situation, but I know me, and there is nothing about me that warrants the privilege I enjoy... I started the first course of my PhD coursework today. I am uneasy. I don't know how much of this stems from some trepidation about starting a task few begin, let alone finish, or feeling ill prepared for the task ahead. On the surface that would seem to be the case, but I know me, and no matter that I am seldom prepared for anything I typically jump in whole hog. And I know I am not that humble; there is more to this recurring thought than a little worry about a lot of work.
For good or bad, I am now a part of the tradition that treats religion as an object of study rather than a life to be lived. I am moving further from the outside and into the secret places where men in long robes and funny hats discuss the outside world in abstract and theoretical terms. I am building my cloister in the ivory tower; I am becoming "the man." When I first realized this I was so aghast I dropped my monocle into my brandy.
I am moving easily into this new role which suggests to me, this is always who I was. I have been an elitist. My criticisms of church culture aren't rooted in a deep desire for the church's purity. They are snobbery; evidence of my disdain for other's sincerity or purity of heart. Like my taste in books, music and movies, it's just another pretense; I find Armageddon hackneyed and shallow, for others, it's the greatest movie ever or a conception that motivates them to live their life with an intense urgency and passion for evangelism.
I'm just being dramatic. I am concerned about school. I don't want to fail, I don't want to be an egghead. I am concerned about seeming pretentious.
But contrast all that with this story: I work at Starbucks. This is my first year not teaching, and I don't like it. Starbucks is a fine little job. I am paid well and get benefits, but I really miss teaching and all it entails. In any case I wake up yesterday morning and am so tired I get completely dressed for work and briefly go back to bed. I get up again, go to splash water on face, and am disgusted by the old man wearing a Starbucks hat staring back at me from the mirror. Well- I guess I'm not old, but definitely too old to be wearing a hat with a foodservice logo on it to work.
I guess I'm not really at risk for becoming a snob.
One last thing... have you seen this heartwarming story?

Almond Raca Pt. II

Almost like clockwork, I have been getting these incredible headaches at about 3:30 nearly everyday. (That's a horrible sentence). I haven't been sleeping well, but I think my lack of sleep stems from the headaches rather than vice versa. But back to violence...

What I want to distinguish is the difference between physical force, which isn't always violence, and a violent... animus?, which isn't always physical. I think this animus is at the heart of Jesus' intensification of the law in Matthew 5.

So remember I made mention of Pat Robertson the other day? I actually watch TBN so I can catch this stuff right away- that and I'm a bit of a loser. Anyway, when I first caught it I didn't think people would make that big if a deal about it because a.) his audience would likely think it not too far out and b.) he says a lot of kooky things that get overlooked by the media. But then it got some traction (as they say). I still don't think his primary audience think it too far out, but I did. And I do. So I wrote a post- and if you remember, I wrote about his comment being stupid- like sin stupid. Now "everyone's" writing about it- whatever- I was first. But a lot of it is coming from the perspective of "Look what hypocrites Christians are," or "He's not one of us."

The thing is: he is "us." We're not doing a very good job these days of knowing what it means to live as the Body of Christ- what it means to be filled with and live under the power of the Holy Spirit- to be perfect like our Father in Heaven is perfect. (That sounds a little out there). If you read his "apology", note that he specifically apologizes for calling for someone's assassination- he apologizes for his statement. The sentiment he justifies and rationalizes. It's okay to want someone dead, he just shouldn't have said it on TV. He's wrong, not just his words, but his heart. We're wrong when we focus so much on Christianity being some sort of program for developing middle class civility and values and that's what we're doing if this apology seems to cut it. Maybe that's a jump.

I've been reading through Ecclesiastes and thinking a lot about the conceptions of wisdom and folly- or being wise versus a fool. Robertson's comments- a lot of his comments are evidence of folly. Now that's a pretty horrible thing to say because it doesn't just mean he says dumb stuff or sometimes looks a little silly. It seems to mean he doesn't really have a clear idea of who God is, who he is, or what life is really all about. He (Pat) has since said he didn't say what he said (oops, that was a lie). Then he said he said what he said out of frustration. I don't know if Pat is a fool. (Ha- there's my loophole!) He seems to be doing foolish things. But more to the point he seems to be trying to confess that something has taken a hold of him. He's trying to tell us, it's not the Holy Spirit that is leading him but this animus, this desire for destruction. He has become frustrated to the point that he wants, not just to spread his misery around a bit like a Tobor beater or the kid that beat me up and threw my back pack on the roof of the school in 2nd grade even though he had no idea who I was and didn't necessarily want anything from me other than for me to be hurt, someone dead and that'll kill him.

Almond Raca

It would be a bad idea to continue driving in a particular direction if you knew it was not the way you should be going- an especially bad reason to do it would be in "honor" of all the miles you'd already driven. That probably doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Anyway, I was about eight years old the first time I took a beating. I went to a private school that had kids from first to eighth grade sharing a campus. I had been in fights before and since then. These were mostly squabbles with family or friends over toys, but on a playground, in second grade, I knew for the first time a relative stranger’s desire that pain be felt. I remember after it was over, struggling to breathe, with grass sticking to the blood on my face and wondering how I would get my backpack off of the school roof that this was different from a struggle over who got to use the hinged Lego piece, but I didn't know why. I couldn't understand why someone would want to hurt me- I mean, I'm great.

So at the VA hospital in Durham, NC there is a robot that dispenses medication for patients. I learned of it while I was there visiting a school that rejected me. Its name is Tobor, the robot not the school. It’s plain and sterile, about the size of a washing machine, and warns you when it’s going to move. This last fact about Tobor is interesting to me because I don’t think we are at the point yet when robots are aware of anything enough to require the Asimovian directive of not harming humans, yet there is the possibility of Tobor harming someone. Because Tobor knows no better, it might, in fact, run you over. If you are not careful, if you ignore its warnings, Tobor could bump into you at a very low speed. I suppose there is also the possibility, despite the best human efforts, Tobor could deliver the wrong medication. But that wouldn't be Tobor's fault.

I also found out Tobor is frequently the recipient of a beating. Patients will go to Tobor and give it what for. It doesn’t know. It could be beaten into a pile of sparking and whirring metal and plastic without any sense that anything has changed. It would know as much as a light switched off. Whatever anyone’s reasons for beating Tobor are, Tobor knows nothing. If you assault Tobor in a rage-filled Luddite protest, Tobor doesn’t know. If you are not receiving the health care you feel you deserve, Tobor cannot be strong-armed into treating you like a human. Tobor can't know what anyone wants or deserves. Tobor cannot be reasoned with, petitioned, or threatened into submission. Still, patients come upon Tobor and beat him. They will beat him complaining. They will beat him silently. They will beat him even to their own harm. It doesn't take much to learn that Tobor's shell is stronger than the bones of your hand or foot, but that knowledge generally comes too late and the pain someone wanted to inflict comes right back to them.

I think that's generally the nature of violence. Not conflict- those fights over Legos, or the last Otter Pop, or eons old compressed organic matter are because "[we] covet and cannot obtain; so [we] fight and wage war." That's not a good thing, but it is different than that spirit that seeks destruction or pain. I tend to err on the side of pacifism- not as a principle but because of a unique understanding of "sacramentalism"- but still, I do not identify every act of physical coercion as violence. Violence is different. Violence as I'm thinking of it is more about a spirit that seeks pain. Okay more later...

Ugh

So Pat Robertson has recommended the US assassinate the President of Venezuela. Really. That's not a misinterpretation of something he said, that's what he said. Now wouldn't it have been easy to start with some generic condemnations of a militant religious cleric calling for the assassination of a western leader. I would be all indignant and make comments about radical religious terrorists, it would seem like I was talking about a Muslim and then drop the bomb that it was (gasp) a Christian! I tend to not take too much of what Pat Robertson says seriously- Oooh I just hit the moment when my cold medicine kicked in- but others do. A lot of those others are non-Christians. Isn't that great?
In another news story some girl climbed into the rafters of Fenway Park at a Rolling Stones concert and fell- not to her death- to her broken ankles and wrist. She was climbing to get a better view of the stage. That's pretty dumb too
Christians say all sin is the same. Stealing is as bad as lying is as bad killing is as bad as adultery. Does that transfer to stupidity?

I Care

If you're going to teach you have to pass a test called the CBEST. It is very easy. It is good that there is some sort of standard set for deciding who should be a teacher, but it bothers me that it is so low a standard. So when the subject of that test would come up I would say something like, "It's so easy a monkey could pass it." Invariably, someone would say, " I didn't pass it," or something like that. I guess they should've had a monkey take it for them. The point is, I critique stuff, sometimes in a not so gentle way. Because of this, sometimes people think I'm a jerk (remember I said I would mention that?). I mentioned previously my experience with the camp speaker as being one of the worst... Maybe the worst. It's hard to say, one year there was a mime, he was pretty bad... Anyway, I really tried to be gracious and quiet with my criticism of his presentation. I tend to find that other people enjoy or find useful things I don't. Sometimes that's okay- somebody's got to keep food on Jerry Bruckheimer's table; it's not going to be me. Even when it has to do with spiritual or theological issues, I realize not everyone has the same needs. Sometimes- okay a lot of times- it is not okay. So I say something. I try to be mindful of the difference between being a malcontent and the need to point out the superficiality of so much in the church so that people don't settle for nonsense. I do it because I care and there are a few things I take seriously- like the opportunity a thing like "camp" can be. So the speaker... I didn't go around pointing out the flaws in his presentation or his misuses of various scriptures... well I didn't go around pointing it out to everybody. I shared my criticisms in very specific and constructive ways with few people. But here's the thing: during his talk I was taking notes. I generally do that, but I guess it looked like I was writing like a madman. I was noting things that I thought could be improved and things that were just plain wrong. Long story short- people were expecting me to say something. People wanted to know what I was writing and wondering when I was going to blow up at the speaker. So that's what people expect me to do. They expect me to be a jerk. Drag.
As for the ultimate foursquare, imagine playing foursquare with two people in each square and each square is about 25 feet by 25 feet. Each team gets two hits and can only hit after the ball bounces in their square. So your teammate can set it and then you slam it into your opponent's square or you can let it bounce once and hit it immediately into an opponent's square. It was the hit of camp.
As for the dog food- Booda Co. makes a dog snack that is packaged like your generic cheese puff type snack. They're called Dos Amigos Chicken Fiesta Flavor Cheese Puffs. People will eat them.

Life Is A Mitigating Circumstance

Two things that have to be understood as being very connected even though they don't immediatley appear to be so are these:
1.) Men have sex with men in prison and they don't necessarily consider it gay.
2.) The church as a body in the US and various of its members are desperately afraid of single people.

A friend of mine was dating someone formerly of the video pornography industry. He was not an actor. Rather, he was involved in the post-production aspect of the industry. I think his job was to edit scenes of explicit sexual activities together with banal scenes of bad acting and deficient plot development. I do know he became a Christian and was convinced it was not a job appropriate to his life in Christ. So he quit. He and my friend were ultimately not able to make a dating relationship work. I asked, jokingly, if it was because he is gay. I was told he is just the opposite. It turns out this means he could not be in a dating relationship with my friend only. He thought it necessary and acceptable to date a number of women at once. While he did not actively keep this a secret from my friend, neither did he fully disclose he was doing this. My friend did not share his view of dating. She thought it better that they get to know each other romantically at the exclusion of others unless or until they decided they were going to get married. Like many people, their dating did not result in marriage, so they stopped seeing each other all together. It was suggested his view of relationships had something to do with his history in the porn industry. My friend believes her view has something to do with her being a Christian.

The implication seems to be that because he wanted to date many girls at once, this man formerly of the porn industry was the opposite of gay. It is as if his sexual appetite was on a spectrum where as he moved further away from “gay,” he moved more towards "man whore." That's dumb. I have known homosexual men who were not very promiscuous and heterosexual men who were very proud of the fact that they slept with 3 different women over a two day period. Similarly I have known homosexual men who were very promiscuous and heterosexual men for whom promiscuity was not at all attractive. I do not want to date many women at once. But at the same time, neither do I want to date many men at once. I am content to date only my wife. What does that make me? I have never consciously thought of homosexuality and heterosexuality in terms of opposites, but it seems that is how I was acting until that little statement actually caused me to think about that assumption. Homosexual and heterosexual are not opposite sides of a sexual coin (the most sexual of coins being the 50 cent piece, both because of the Kennedy icon and its association with hip hop- Hmm, I guess the same criteria would qualify the nickel too).

I guess I know what it's not, but I don't know that I know what it is- "gayness" that is. I don't like the word "gay" as it is used among young people, boys especially. You know how they use it to describe something they don't like or find particularly confusing, as in, "You like The Backstreet Boys?! Dude, that's so gay." I would hear that frequently in class and tell students that there was only one thing that made someone gay. It is not found in liking musicals. It isn’t being thin, talking with a lisp, or preferring drama to sports if you’re a boy. It isn’t having a predilection for short hair, pants over skirts, and softball or preferring to not spend your time doting on make-up and what boys are thinking if you’re a girl. I would tell them having sexual contact with someone of your sex identifies one as gay. Now, I am not so sure. That's brings us to the men in prison thing. Men have sex with men in prison and they do not consider it gay. It is considered a result of the mitigating circumstances of prison. But life is a mitigating circumstance. We understate the consequences of sin if we think we approach life with a reasonable and healthy understanding of anything about ourselves- especially sex. Nowhere here am I saying a "man lying with a man as he would a woman" is not sin, I am saying that much of our approach as the Church to relationships in general is pathetic.

It seems the Church struggles so much with the idea of homosexuality because we are so wrapped up in cultural ideas of sex. The dominant culture values sex so much, especially as a commodity or evidence of worth, we can't imagine that anyone's sexuality is a part of who they are without it being used exploitively. We are so identified by how and what we consume and we so readily treat others as objects intended for our gratification, we can't imagine someone being attracted to another and not sinning with that. We no longer treat people like people but problems or projects to be punished or paired off (this last sentence was brought to you by the letter "p").

Anyway, I think my friend's troubles with this boy, and other boys before and since then have to do with sin. That's not news- or maybe it would be to her. I don't know. And I don't mean that she struggles with sexual temptation in the way everyone seems to think that is meant. I mean big picture sin. I mean the sin that turns people into objects of lust and finds us substituting every manner of misery for intimacy. I think I mean the extenuating circumstances causing sin.

And why does my hair go gray from the ends to the scalp and not vice versa?

I Take No Delight In Your Solemn Assemblies

One of the contemporary defining points of Evangelicals is their view that the Bible is authoritative. At least that's what they say. Most Evangelicals will describe the Bible as the only infallible authoritative word of God. In fact, that's how the National Association of Evangelicals would describe it. (If you check out the link, note the capital W in "Word"- does that seem, blasphemous to you too?) How you arrive at that point scripturally, or how you even arrive at the Bible itself scripturally isn't clear. A strange situation, especially if you declare that the Bible is your supreme authority. No wait, not declare- decide- no that won't do either. Adhere to the authority of ecumenical consensus and agree the Bible is as it is? No? Accept the precedent of tradition? No no wait we can't do that. Assume it's a given? It's a mystery of the Church? Just take it and like it?

Aside: Am I treating this too lightly- is it not as silly a conception as it seems?

I happen to believe the Bible is authoritative but I can't agree to this tenet that finds itself at the top of so many statements of faith. The funny thing is, I reject this "given" because I do happen to believe the things I read in the Bible, things like: Jesus is the Word and he has sent his Spirit to teach us, and that he is present among us when we gather together in His name, we're His body. Weird.

It seems a large number of people who claim otherwise don't believe those things. I don't know what that means exactly so if it sounds very self-righteous... oh well.

There is some practical silliness that arrives from this starting point. I experienced some of that silliness at camp. The speaker was a public high school coach that also taught Life Science. He was a horrible camp speaker. He read directly from a power point presentation he gave- long paragraphs in little font on a projector. He spoke on "Evilution" or as he liked to call it "Satan's Evangelism." He gave a lot of quotes, explained how Darwin's theory on the origin of species has led to everything that is bad in modernity and then finished off the week with an altar call. I've had to sit through a number of camp/chapel/crusade type event speakers and this one was pretty lame. I think the whole evolution versus creation debate is pretty lame. It seems so much like a petty playground argument that has no bearing on what really matters. Anyway, you know how many kids made decisions for Christ because of that speaker? You know how many kids were convinced the Bible is true ergo they should make the perfectly reasonable decision to "become" a Christian because of the "scientific" evidence he laid out? You know how many kids made a decision for Christ because of any speaker? None. That's not how it works.

Kids didn't go forward that last night. I think that's a good thing. I've never been very comfortable with "altar calls" but a lot of kids did take the opportunity at other times to share what they thought God was doing with them. It wasn't because of the speaker; it wasn't because of the brilliant, good looking, counselors, or a special sacredness of the mountain, or the sleep deprivation, or the mood setting music and lighting. It happened because we were in the Word- not the Bible- we were living as the Body of Christ. Just a little bit.

I think the road that starts from the "The Bible is the only infallible, inspired, blah blah blah" point leads to places we don't want to be. It leads us away from what the Bible really is and away from a church life we are supposed to have. I think it leads us away from belief in God's Holy Spirit and into discussions about rabbits chewing cud or bats being birds. It gives the impression that the goings on inside a camp chapel are more important or more real than the life that occurs with and among believers as they become a part of the testimony that scripture is. There's more to say about that but my wife is rushing me so she can read her celebrity gossip. (She'll say she wants to check her email).

The Teen Choice Awards are on tonight but I've only seen glimpses of it as my wife is flipping through the channels. I've been a high school teacher and done youth ministry for some time and am perfectly aware of the dumb choices teenagers can make. However, I don't think I believe the choices teens make are as stupid as the ones that Fox would have me believe. Let me restate that, I don't the think what teens would choose to celebrate is exceptionally stupid or any less stupid than the that worshipped by everyone else. The vapid celebrities, the skin, the horrible, horrible writing and glorification of pap are not specific to teens so I think a better name is in order.

Also thought I'd give a shout out to all my homies from QMC High School '05 representin' the Glendora '40.

Technically it's QMCC (Quaker Meadow Christian Camp) but I think a.) it's silly to call a camp Christian and b.) I am resisting the need some people feel to modify the terms Friend or Quaker with anything else that suggests Christian is not implied.

Guess Who's Back

I really liked Robocop. The just past the horizon future imagined was brilliantly prescient: giant luxury cars, privatized government services, TV dominated by hackneyed catch phrases and boobies. It was really the present (1987) skewed just enough to seem laughable. That's typically what the future is. Anyway, I was away this past week (I was a high school camp counselor at a little place called Quaker Meadow) and came back to see I really hadn't missed all that much even though quite a bit was happening. All the happenings reminded me how amazingly absurd we are.

A man died from having sex with a horse.
The president is too busy biking and clearing brush to meet with the mother of a deceased soldier.
Prepositions matter a whole lot in Texas. (It seems you can shoot toward people but not at them or drive into a crowd but not over it).

Nothing like going away for a while to remember to be shocked.
Anyway, at camp I discovered what a jerk I am, invented an amazing game called ultimate foursquare, and found it incredibly easy to get people to eat dog food. More on all of those later.

Whatever, Hippy

Okay, I'm going to use the term Imperial Christianity very specifically here. The definition may need to be refined and I welcome suggestions for that, but make sure you don't think I'm saying something I'm not. So...
By Imperial Christianity I'll mean a Christian culture that has developed within a European state church model or the hegemonic Christianity of the US. It's not a Jesus-following type of Christianity but rather a system with some Biblical imagery and morals thrown in to support an industrial-capitalist system. This does not preclude the existence of Jesus-following Christians in this culture, but acknowledges that the overarching Christian culture of the West takes for granted certain social institutions and values that will take precedence over anything else. These are not neutral values or institutions, but because of their pervasiveness, they lay claim to individuals, appear normal or natural and easily possess individuals and the culture they create. So they become a part of the lens through which the Church exists or expresses its faith. The developing list of "they" is this:

Belief in autonomy and personal liberty
Self-interest as the primary motivator
The development of consumptive power

To use Biblical imagery, (and to do so properly I think) these are simply some powers and principalities that attempt to separate us from the love of God in Jesus. I'm not saying this to bash the Church in the US but to set up what I think is an important point: we've given ourselves pretty whole hog to these values. And that's part of what I wanted to call the suburban captivity. But now I need to give it a new name.

Another idea to pursue: Now that he has the opportunity, why isn't Ray Stevens proudly standing up next to anyone to defend the USA today?

Excuses, Excuses

I had a terrible headache yesterday. I don't normally complain about that kind of thing but it was awful. I was blinded by little sparkly glimmers in my peripheral vision, I was nauseous, and very sensitive to light. I wanted to take out my eyeballs or drill a hole in my head to put ice cubes in there. I went to bed about 6:30 PM, woke at about 2:30 AM, fell back asleep and didn't get up until 8 this morning. This is just an excuse for not posting anything yesterday.

Define, Define, Well Educated Infant

See Paddy O's comment re. the Absolutely post. He says it is very important to read Through A Glass Dimly and send money to the author. That's not true, but he does hit on one of the problems (if not THE problem) of modern/Modern Apologetics: it is largely wrapped up in philosophy of the modern era.

All Christians should be a type of apologist, so I have no issue with apologetics in general but, as Paddy O points out, many contemporary Christian leaders are playing with ideas that they found in a box hidden way in the back of the garage marked "Caution: Modernity." No one was using them much so they figured they'd have a go with them, but they're just going to end up getting hurt. In short, this strain of apologetics is enmeshed with Enlightenment thinking in such a way that it is incompatible with the Gospel.

I happen to know that Paddy O. holds the Eastern Christian tradition in high regard. So maybe we react to similar things of Liberalism- not conservative versus liberal liberalism- Liberalism as a political philosophy that assumes that natural autonomy of the individual is the highest expression of humanity (and the greatest gift of an unspecified creator). That's dangerous garbage, especially if you have even the slightest inkling of what it means to be in Christ. To be united with God in Christ in thought, will and action- to be in communion with God sure does seem to preclude Liberal conceptions of autonomy. The idea that I only have life and purpose in the vine seems at odds with the idea that the world is a better place if I simply pursue my interests.

What Has Been Will Be...

So, according to W, the post of US Ambassador to the UN is "too important to leave vacant any longer" but not too important to make sure it is filled by someone who has the full confidence of the body constitutionally designated to approve presidential appointments or the credibility to speak on behalf of the US to the UN. Isn't this the perfect time to be blindly committed to ideology? (Plus the post isn't vacant, it is currently filled by Anne Patterson. And if the job is so important why appoint someone for just 6 months? Bolton only has until the next session of Congress to serve.

In other news... Have you ever thought you had an original idea only to learn that someone else a long time ago had the same idea? I thought I came up with the idea of the suburban captivity of the church. It turns out someone named Gibson Winter wrote a book using that title. I don't know what his conception of the term is but I suppose I shouldn't use it. I don't figure I'm the first person to think of the suburbs as a spiritual war zone or an opiate for the church but I thought I had coined a cute term for describing broadly how the proverbial whore of Babylon has lulled a large portion of the Western Church into a secure and flaccid complacency. Wow, doesn't that sound crazy? It's nothing new to say that the goals of the American Dream are at odds with the requirements of the Gospel. That's important to remember, perhaps it is best then that I not have the distraction of thinking I am so clever to have come up with a cute little label for it.

More on the general conception later though.