On Hitting A Wall and Hating My Own Voice

When I was in college, I was a mediocre writer.  I got a bit better over the years thanks in no small part to an excellent creative writing prof who frequently eviscerated my verbose poetry, but in a really nice, upper-Midwest way, with a smile on her face, until it stopped being overwrought brain dumps and started to be lean distillations of emotional experience.

In seminary, writing dullsville reports on the minutiae of evangelistic techniques and scrambling for essay topics that wouldn't put me or the grader to sleep, my writing got both better and worse.  More technical, perhaps a bit more precise, but thudding and heavy.

When I started writing this blog, I went through phases.  One week I'd toss out the same overwrought brain dumps I'd been carefully trained not to write, and the next obsess over word choice and syntax for hours before deleting the lot.  Now, having been out of seminary for going on three years, not having had to write a paper for anyone's approval, not having deadlines and due dates looming, I've gotten sloppy.  I want that taut academic precision back in my writing.  I want to stop sounding like a cross between the Fug Girls and Ree Drummond, which, I fear, is the voice that's developed.

So, all that to say, I will probably be writing here quite a bit more than usual, because practice, as they say, makes perfect.

Stop It. Just Stop It.

OK, I have officially had enough.

Back in September, Tullian Tchividjian's church made the move to one service, from their previous format of one "traditional" and one "contemporary" service.  He wrote an initial post about their kickoff week and a little of the background behind their decision.  At the end of the post, what he didn't write but might as well have was "Cue Psalms-only, Western-musical-tradition-obsessed, Regulative Principal types: pontificate away, fellas."

Here are just a few of the many comments that made me want to throw stuff at my computer:

I foresee a time, probably when the current minister of music retires, when the two services will be blended. My hope is that Jesus will return before that happens.

Even the best expressions of blended worship represent a level of compromise

I’m having difficulty understanding why churches insist on dumbing down something intended primarily for God so that we aren’t challenged by it.

Granted, classical music is not as appreciated in today’s society as it has been in the past, but then again, neither is the Gospel.

Hymns like “A Mighty Fortress” and “O God Our Help in Ages Past” ministered to me and soothed the hurt I felt inside. Trading all that for the moaning and twitching of contemporary worship, the loud praise band and flashing lights, is a thought too horrific to contemplate.

Can we please just take a second (after we've all picked our jaws up off the floor) to evaluate the assumptions behind these claims?

1. Modern styled music is something to be dreaded, avoided, and pushed back.
2. The choice of music and style is primarily about my felt needs (oh, the irony).
3. Our only choices are the lovely, rich, comforting old hymns and an overwrought seeker-sensitive rock concert style (complete with "moaning and twitching"?!?).
4. If a long-standing traditional style is denigrated or underappreciated, that's a theological issue akin to people's rejection of the Gospel.
5. The culture is changing, so we have to reject change by holding our ground with traditional styles of music.
6. Anything other than a Western classical style represents "dumbing down" of worship.
7. The goal of modern styles of music is that we won't be challenged by worship.

Seriously, people.  Stop it.  Stop making arguments against your brothers and sisters in Christ based entirely on logical fallacies.*  Stop claiming some special knowledge about how public worship gatherings are supposed to look.  Stop insisting that Western classical musical from 400 to 150 years ago is the pinnacle of all human achievement.  It's not just silly, it's xenophobic and exclusionary.  (Notice that I didn't say that using Western classical music, or even preferring it, is xenophobic and exclusionary -- insisting on its superiority [even its spiritual superiority] over all other types of music is.)

We sing theologically rich songs at Sojourn, songs that are full of Scriptural truth. We often sing hymns -- in fact, I would guess that a majority of our songs have a hymn structure (i.e., a particular meter in each verse). Four of the five songs we did this past week were hymns.  Two were traditional hymns, two were written more recently.  One of the modern hymns was based on a Puritan prayer from the outstanding Valley of Vision.  We sing a fair number of Psalms (I can think of a dozen or so) and are always up for singing more.  Why, then, do people continue to insist that, because we use guitars and drums, we're contributing to theological shallowness in the church?

Church music ministers need to be students of their culture and their congregation as well as of the Scriptures.  And, furthermore, it's absolutely possible to obey the commands of the Scriptures without having to use only piano and organ or orchestral arrangements or Western classical style (thank God -- if not, boy, would overseas missionaries be in trouble).  It's even possible to adhere to the Regulative Principle and still -- gasp! -- use guitars.  Maybe piano, organ, and classical style are what's best for your particular congregation.  But why then does everyone else have to agree that it's better?

If we want to talk about what styles of music best carry theological content in a coherent way, I'm happy to have that conversation (and no, I don't think all musical styles are equally suited for public worship, just on a practical level, but I also think that particular knife cuts both ways).  If we want to talk about reverence and decency, I'm up for that too.  Attitudes toward our collective history?  Yeah, definitely, let's talk about that.

But if folks are going to approach this conversation with an attitude of snobbery towards everyone who doesn't have their "special knowledge" about the superiority of the Western classical tradition, a traditional hymnnodic structure, and the Fill-In-The-Blank Psalter... Well, I'll just turn off my computer and have a little chat with the doorknob instead, thanks.  ;-)


*In that list, you'll see a false dilemma (either good thing A or hideously unimaginable thing B must be true), a package deal fallacy (modern music goes together with shallow content and theological inferiority, therefore if you use modern music you're embracing shallow content and theological inferiority), an appeal to fear (this thing is so dreadful that I hope Jesus comes back before it happens, an appeal to emotion (hymns are comforting; if you want to get rid of hymns you are getting rid of my comfort waaaaaaah), cherrypicking (here is the worst example of how churches can do this, never mind all the good examples), confirmation bias (I believe it will be like X, therefore I will experience as X), tons of bare assertion fallacy (NO IT'S THIS WAY DON'T ARGUE IT IS SO!), and plenty of equivocation (what exactly do these folks mean by "traditional" or "classical" or "hymns" or "contemporary" or "modern"?).

A Thought Or Two On Singleness And Sanctification, Part Three

In my last post I mentioned that we really struggle to give single people a big vision for God's work of sanctification in their lives.  I was going to go on to say that it's essential that we do more to help single people really ground their identity in Christ rather than success at work, or being liked, or whatever, but then it occurred to me that that's a desperate need for everyone in the church. 

I've talked to many married folks, especially women, about "the moment" when they realized that this person they were married to was never meant to give them their identity.  For some people, that's the end of their marriage.  For others, it's the beginning of a long and difficult journey of finding their identity in Christ and resting there.

I've also had plenty of conversations with single folks (um... including myself) about the identity crisis of not having a spouse, of feeling valueless and adrift without this supposed anchor of marriage.  It's daily implied to us that marriage is not simply a good and worthy state, but one that defines us as, and makes us, mature.  (Think I'm overstating my case?  Name one unmarried ministry leader at your church.  Or consider what percentage of your congregation is single vs. what percentage of the leadership.  Now, I know... correlation and causation.  But it's something to think about.)

Who am I because of my job?  Who am I because of my marital status?  Who am I because of who I'm attracted to?  Who am I because of my income?  Who am I because of where I live?  Who am I because of my politics, or my eschatology, or my taste in music, or the food I eat or the education I have or the clothes I buy?  All those things, to the Christian, must take second place to the question, "Who am I in Christ?"

And if we spent the rest of our lives trying to work that out... Well, that would be ok.

A Thought Or Two On Singleness And Sanctification, Part 2

So, I wrote the last post to sort of point out the problem of our unbalanced understanding of singleness and sanctification.  In this one, I'd like to think through what a solid, biblical view of singleness and sanctification looks like.

I think, first of all, that it's not just about "patience."  We get told this a lot -- that we're so blessed to be learning patience, learning to "wait on the Lord" as we're single.

I think it IS a lot about... just life.  Married folks and parents especially get all kinds of advice about how to turn everyday stuff into an opportunity for sanctification.  Messy husband?  It's a chance to love him sacrificially by just picking up the stupid sock and not nagging him about it.  Hate folding laundry?  It's a chance to pray for your family, one stained onesie at a time.  Frustrated by the neverending cycle of strife between your kids?  Just think of how God feels when we continually rebel against him!

Too often, we only address the external, apparent frustrations of the single person (loneliness, desire for marriage) without just dealing with their everyday circumstances, so we end up giving them the same prescription for sanctification.  Be patient.  Rely on God.  Both great, but just not enough, and definitely not specific enough.  I definitely need sanctification in those areas, but not only those areas.

In my life, for example, my biggest sources of sanctification are my students and hosting community group.  I'm constantly confronted with my own pride, laziness, and selfishness at work.  At home, I constantly fail to live up to my God-given task of home-keeping, making my little domain a place of peace and welcome for whoever God sends.

But not only do we fail to give specific, life-focused counsel to single people, we also fail to give them a big picture.  Ultimately, God's purpose for me and God's purpose for my married friends is identical: that we would be more like Jesus.  And we do married people and single people a great disservice by overemphasizing their dissimilarities and under-emphasizing their similarities.  My best friend, who's married, needs to remember the Gospel just like I do.  She needs to be made more like Jesus just like I do.  She needs to respond to God's grace by striving to live a life of excellence, purity, generosity, wisdom, perseverance, and self-control, just like I do.  She needs to joyfully submit to those whom God has made her leaders, just like I do.

The external circumstances whereby she is reminded of the Gospel might be different, or they might not.  The trials that refine and strengthen her faith might be different than mine, or they might not.  But the final outcome is that God, who has promised to complete the work he begins in his people, will make her, and me, and every other believer, more like Jesus.

A Thought Or Two On Singleness And Sanctification

My sweet, encouraging sister-in-law and I had a really good conversation last week, in which she said something I don't think I've ever heard a married person say, at least not quite in that way.  She actually told me that singleness was sanctifying me, not just in one area, that of patience, but in my whole life as a Christian.  Single folks don't really hear that a lot.  Sojourn does a better job at addressing this than many churches, but I imagine it's tough to work in a lot of exhortations to singles, especially single women, when you're a married guy like all our elders are.  So this isn't a post where I call people out and tell them to get on the ball or anything.  It's just thoughts.  Thoughts: I has them.


As is typical for me, I'm finding it helpful lately to see the whole concept of how we talk about sanctification as single people on a continuum, with error at each end, and a range of orthodoxy in the middle.

So: at one end, you've got the idea that singleness is a less-than-ideal circumstance for sanctification, and that marriage is not just normal but normative.  Few people actually teach this (although... I can tell you from experience, they're out there).  But a lot more people sort of accidentally teach it, or at least imply it.  The error here is reading the Scriptures and seeing marriage described as sort of socially and culturally normal, as well as good, and that probably most people described in any detail in the Scriptures are married, and drawing from that something that's normative.  It's a common interpretive problem, confusing descriptive and prescriptive aspects of Scripture.  Plus, marriage "has a verse on it" as we say in the South, the lovely and oft-read-at-weddings passage about the mystery of marriage referring to Christ and the Church.  We seem to think that means that singleness is just one tiny step down from marriage, because singleness doesn't have a verse about Christ and the Church attached to it.

Here's where you get marriage just hammered on from the pulpit, and talked up, and praised, and presented as the furnace of sanctification, without any notion that we're failing to give people a vision of what godly celibacy (which, in case we've forgotten, is our eternal future state) looks like.  Instead we're telling people to direct all their energies toward something that's temporary, and discouraging single people from pursuing sanctification because we're implying that it all will just happen automatically and effortlessly once they get married and start having kids (insert collective snort of disgust from all my married readers).

(Incidentally, and just as a little side rant: why are we ok with denigrating the lives and experiences of single people by constantly saying that marriage/child-rearing is "harder" than singleness?  I'm positive that it's harder in some areas, and it's definitely a different kind of hard, but, married folks, please.  Stop telling us that we've got it easy.  /rant.)

At the other end of the spectrum is a view that's totally foreign to us Protestants, that celibate service is spiritual and, in fact, that married folks (basically, in most cases) disqualify themselves from vocational ministry.  We can't get our brains around this.  So because we can't get our brains around it, we mostly don't provide a path for celibate service, and we retreat all the way to the other end of the spectrum.

Whate'er My God Ordains Is Right

It's a rare song that contains both well-crafted poetry and beautifully-presented truth.  These lyrics are worthy of your full attention, friends, and I encourage you to read them carefully and rejoice in God whose mysterious will works out for our good!

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His holy will abideth;
I will be still whate’er He doth;
And follow where He guideth;
He is my God; though dark my road,
He holds me that I shall not fall:
Wherefore to Him I leave it all.
 
Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me by the proper path:
I know He will not leave me.
I take, content, what He hath sent;
His hand can turn my griefs away,
And patiently I wait His day.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my Physician sends me.
My God is true; each morn anew
I’ll trust His grace unending,
My life to Him commending.
 
Whate’er my God ordains is right:
He is my Friend and Father;
He suffers naught to do me harm,
Though many storms may gather,
Now I may know both joy and woe,
Some day I shall see clearly
That He hath loved me dearly.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Though now this cup, in drinking,
May bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
Sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
And pain and sorrow shall depart.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
Here shall my stand be taken;
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
Yet I am not forsaken.
My Father’s care is round me there;
He holds me that I shall not fall:
And so to Him I leave it all.

-- Samuel Rodigast, 1676

Alienating Verbal Tics

Just thinking of these last night.  They tend to disconnect people from the conversation.  Can you think of any others?

Habitually starting sentences with "No," or "No way," even when you're agreeing or the sentence isn't subject to agreement or disagreement. 

"Shut up," when said as, "You're kidding!"  This one's tough for me.

Saying, "You have no idea," or "You don't even know."  This one is particularly bad.  It's mostly intended as something like, "The situation I'm referring to was really bad/good," but it comes across as, "I have experiences you could never dream about."  Makes you sound super arrogant.

School.

Among American Christians, choosing where (or IF) to send your kids to school has become this almost comically fraught decision of unparalleled theological significance.  If you listen to certain folks, your children's eventual salvation basically hinges on making the right choice in this area (the huge number of publicly educated Christian adults, yours truly included, notwithstanding). 

You've got a small but vocal group of Christians loudly decrying "government indoctrination facilities," people saying you don't care about the poor if you pull your kids out of public schools, anti-homeschooling blogs dedicated to making parents feel incompetent and irresponsible for daring to think they can educate their own children, Christian schools of every stripe, from Montessoris to classical schools and from public school look-alikes to ultra-rigorous mini-seminaries... all of them clamoring for parents' attention.  How are we supposed to see through the confused haze of claims and caveats?  Here's my little tidbit of advice as a teacher at a fantastic private school who doesn't actually really care all that much about how you educate your own children ;).

1. Chill out.  Is your child's education important?  Definitely.  Is it THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER OH MY GOSH YOU'RE DOING IT WROOOOOOONNNG ? Um, no.

2. Remember that your identity, your hope, your salvation are in Christ, not in subscribing to a particular educational methodology, not in being "right," not in trying to create an ideal situation.

3. Then sit down, write out a pros and cons list, and make the best decision for your family.  There's no need to wait for a sign or to feel God "releasing" you to do X, Y, or Z or to "have peace" about it.  Your life, Christian, is spiritual.  You have the Holy Spirit actually dwelling in you to guide your steps.  You have a sovereign, good, and gracious Father who knows the end from the beginning and whose plans are for your good and His glory.  You have a faithful Savior interceding on your behalf before God.  You have nothing to worry about.  Work, because God is already at work.

Just my two (or maybe four) cents.

Stereotypes

Quick, picture a stereotypical Twilight fan.  Now picture a stereotypical unemployed 20-something.  Now a megachurch pastor.  A ruthless CEO.  An overworked stay-at-home mom. 

Chances are, you and I had similar pictures in our heads.  A weepy-eyed fangirl writing fan fiction in her Team Jacob shirt.  An unshaven slacker sitting in his mom's basement playing Starcraft at two in the morning.  Joel Osteen.  Gordon Gecko.  This poor woman.

These pictures, the ones that sort of exist in our collective cultural consciousness, are tools that good writers and speakers use as a point of connection with the reader or listener.  In other words, sometimes, stereotypes are good.

A Weird Culture Thing

I know, that's probably the most descriptive title ever, right?  I was bumming around a friend-of-a-friend's blog yesterday and came across something that really got my blood pressure pumping.  The guy happens to be Australian, and he released the freakin' hounds on a famous American preacher for what was, to my mind, a series of totally boring and ordinary Facebook posts talking about his schedule, family life, marriage, etc.  But in thinking about it last night I remembered that there's a weird culture thing (there's that brilliant phrase again) between Americans and Aussies that we often don't recognize and that very often causes problems between us.

What is this Weird Culture Thing?  I'm so glad you asked.  (Attention: broad cultural stereotypes ahead.)

Americans are, very generally, a positive people -- I'm thinking of that sort of midwestern, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, self-reliant, I'll get by, buck up attitude.  I mean, there's a whole sub-genre of American folk/popular music dedicated to getting people to cheer up and have a positive outlook on life ("Smile, Darn Ya, Smile" "Put on a Happy Face" "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile," "The Sunny Side of the Street," etc.) -- much of which was written during the Great Depression, a period with an incalculable impact on the collective American psyche.  I like this attitude, generally; I think it shows resilience and optimism.  But there's a dark side to it as well, what we might call the Joel Osteen or Pollyanna side, that closes its eyes to the impending storm and brags about how wonderful life is.

Aussies, in my experience, often don't get that, for most Americans, this positivity is a totally natural cultural thing, ingrained in us since infancy, not a boastful put-on, not a fake-out, not an effort to belittle anyone else.  Because, generally, in my observation, Aussies are humble, hard-working people who just want to give everyone a fair shot, get on with it, and not call attention to themselves.  So they see what we think of as cheerfulness and positivity -- or just stating facts -- and read it as Pollyanna-ishness or bragging or putting others down, and feel the need to address it (just like we would want to address something we saw as major arrogance)

But unfortunately, the kind of forthrightness that your average Aussie values, unmixed with flattery, is going to come across to your average American as presumptuous and rude instead of like a much-needed dose of reality. So that gets our defenses up, and we write you off as a mean old crank, and then you write us off as xenophobic and isolationist, and then our suspicions are confirmed that Americans are the only nice people in the world (and we value "nice" a LOT), and then your suspicions are confirmed that Americans don't understand or care about anyone but themselves, and then...

See?  A Weird Culture Thing.

In Case You Were Wondering Where That Howl Of Fury and Protest Was Coming From...

It was me.  When I read this article.

What a load of utter, middle-class-guilt assuaging, white man's burden, condescending, collectivist, furrowed brow, think-of-the-little-people nonsense.

First, why is it my business to raise other people's kids?  Help them, yes.  Care for them, absolutely.  As a Christian, reach into their problems?  For sure.  But consider them FIRST, over my own doggone (hypothetical, future) children?  That gets a big HECK NO.

Second, why do I get to choose between 1) hurting those poor poor children, you arrogant and probably racist jerk, and 2) helping those poor poor children by sending my smarter, richer, happier, more psychologically balanced offspring (oh, the irony) to whatever public school my municipality in its infinite wisdom decides to shuttle them off to?  That, boys and girls, is called a false dilemma.  With just a leetle dash of straw man thrown in.

Just imagine with me for a moment that there could be -- miracle of miracles -- something like... wait for it... a third option!  What?  More than two options?  No way, man, we're American, we can't give people more than two options!  Not in public discourse!  Hahahaha...

The Son of God Goes Forth To War

I just recently was introduced to this song at Community Presbyterian Church's Reformation Day feast.  I had to quit singing because I was choking back tears.  The subject of martyrdom is SERIOUSLY under-sung in our churches, people.  This one deserves a more regular spot in our rotation.

Get yer Kleenex out before you read this.  Just sayin.

The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar!
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink His cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below --
He follows in His train.

The martyr first, whose eagle eye
Could pierce beyond the grave;
Who saw his Master in the sky
And called on Him to save.
Like Him, with pardon on His tongue,
In midst of mortal pain,
He prayed for them that did the wrong!
Who follows in His train?

A glorious band, the chosen few
On whom the Spirit came,
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew,
And mocked the cross and flame.
They met the tyrant's brandished steel,
The lion's gory mane;
They bowed their necks the death to feel:
Who follows in their train?

A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Savior's throne rejoice
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of heav'n,
Through peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be giv'n
To follow in their train!

-- Reginald Heber, 1812

Chilling Out About Politics

Here's one of the major problems with the American political system.  We measure a politician's pre-election success primarily by his ability to whip his listeners into an ecstasy of high-flown patriotic sentiment, to the point that we seem to vote for the most exciting candidate rather than the most qualified, or the one with the best ideas.

This is frustrating to me.  Do we not understand that (soundbytes that elicit cheers from huge crowds) < (intelligent ideas skillfully presented by a qualified person)?

And here's where I love Jon Stewart, really: despite the fact that I largely don't agree with him about politics, I love that he's encouraging people to turn off the caps lock and stop trying to fit their entire political philosophy onto a t-shirt or a protest sign.

I think it's a good word for pretty much everyone, honestly.  I'm not saying that you should cherish your political opinions with less fervor.  I'm not saying you need to become more politically moderate.  I'm just saying that, if the people you get your political news from make your blood pressure rise more than they make you think deeply and critically, you probably need to shut the TV off and read some Rousseau or something.

What's Wrong With The World?

G.K. Chesterton, when the Times posed this question to him, famously responded, "I am."

Fortunately for us, he didn't stop there.  He wrote a collection of short essays on a variety of topics, all addressing that question in one way or another.  Check it out and add to your collection.

No, I'm Not a Traditionalist.

It ticks me off that people refuse to see the difference between Traditionalism and Biblical worldview.  I kind of get it when we're talking about non-Christian folks.  But they're not where the trouble lies.

The trouble is, we haven't been bothered to separate the two.  We've been content to conflate the teachings of Scripture with Traditionalism, which is why people still think, among other things, that Christians hate women.  Um, hello?  Remember that guy Jesus chillin' with all the ladies, from the rich patroness to the prostitute?  Remember how in the Gospels the eejits who don't get it are a bunch of dudes, and the clever interlocutor, some of the few left at the cross, the one who gets to the tomb first, are women?

We're ill-equipped to encounter that nonsense.  We can't discern the absurd and wicked elements of Traditionalism because we think it's what we believe.  We've been hornswoggled by our own equivocation.

Traditionalism sucks.  Traditionalism sucks because it's an ideology that controls, that masters.  But tradition, like most ideas, is an all right servant.  Scorn for the past isn't my thing.  It isn't God's thing.  But idealizing the past, idolizing the past, that will get you nothing but 40 years of wandering in the desert while you pine for the good ol' days in Egypt, or 1955, or the Reagan years, or whatever.

We do it with politics too, we let some movement or institution or organization tell us what we believe, or at least what we can believe publicly.  Oh, you're just like us because of whatever.  Jump on board the tea party express, or the hope and change bandwagon.  Christianity is a tool that political parties can wield.  Right?

Knock it off.  The Gospel is not a talking point to be hammered on, a political agenda, a social reconstruction plan.  It's nothing to be co-opted and subsumed by a larger, another ideology.  There is no larger, no other ideology for the Christian.

Happy Reformation Day!

The Reformation Polka
by Robert Gebel
[Sung to the tune of "Supercalifragilistic-expialidocious"]

When I was just ein junger Mann I studied canon law
While Erfurt was a challenge, it was just to please my Pa.
Then came the storm, the lightning struck, I called upon Saint Anne,
I shaved my head, I took my vows, an Augustinian!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

When Tetzel came near Wittenberg, St. Peter's profits soared,
I wrote a little notice for the All Saints' Bull'tin board:
"You cannot purchase merits, for we're justified by grace!
Here's 95 more reasons, Brother Tetzel, in your face!"
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

They loved my tracts, adored my wit, all were exempleror;
The Pope, however, hauled me up before the Emperor.
"Are these your books? Do you recant?" King Charles did demand,
"I will not change my Diet, Sir, God help me here I stand!"
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Duke Frederick took the Wise approach, responding to my words,
By knighting "George" as hostage in the Kingdom of the Birds.
Use Brother Martin's model if the languages you seek,
Stay locked inside a castle with your Hebrew and your Greek!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Let's raise our steins and Concord Books while gathered in this place,
And spread the word that 'catholic' is spelled with lower case;
The Word remains unfettered when the Spirit gets his chance,
So come on, Katy, drop your lute, and join us in our dance!
Oh...

Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation
Speak your mind against them and face excommunication!
Nail your theses to the door, let's start a Reformation!
Papal bulls, indulgences, and transubstantiation!

Fiction.

I haven't written fiction in over a year, maybe closer to two.  I need to start again -- the observational/analytical stuff I do here (rarely... sorry about that) really cranks one part of my brain, but the creativity/fiction section of my brain seems pretty atrophied at the moment.  Hm. What to do, what to do?

In Which I Unexpectedly Post a Picture of Kanye

(First: I lied.  I know I said I'd publish a follow-up to the Titus 2 post but I totally forgot and then didn't have time.  I'll try to get it wrapped up and published tomorrow.  Sorry.)

In the Facebook comments from the last post, a friend summarized the advice columnist's attempt at guiding the letter-writer thusly: "(1) grow up, (2) get to know her, (3) get married."  All excellent advice except for step two which is, alas, hopelessly vague.  Twenty or thirty years ago, there wouldn't have been any vagueness, because "get to know her" would have meant one thing: "ask her on a date."  Now?  Not so much.

And that's where the trouble lies.  When you combine all the varying advice young single people have been given, what you end up with is a mire of confusion, mixed signals, indecision, and heartbreak.  Seriously, how do you make a game plan out of that? 

Here's just a taste of the kind of advice I've received or heard over the last ten years or so:

Don't date. Dating is bad; Joshua Harris said so and if a 19-year-old kid says something in a book (!!!) that got published (!!!!!), it's probably true.  Get to know people only in a big group.  But it's a bad sign if you "struggle" with too much attraction toward one person, because that's lust and it's bad, so go after someone you feel really ambivalent toward.  Lack of attraction is HOLY, you guys.

Know beyond a shadow of a doubt whether he/she is "the one" before you make a move.  Be friends first, probably for at least a year, for some reason involving "seasons of life."  

Guys, you don't have to step up and take the lead until you're officially dating, so don't define the relationship until she breaks down crying in your car one day from pent-up frustration and disappointment.  And then tell her that you're just not in a season of life to be dating anyone.  Because your life situation has to be perfect and complication-free before you can be in a relationship of any kind.  

Ladies, allow your nurturing instinct free rein and make sure to be available to your guy friends around the clock, and definitely don't limit your accessibility to a guy you're interested in!  It's ok for "friends" to spend lots of one-on-one time together as long as they don't call it "dating" -- because dating is bad, remember?  If you're attracted to a guy, it means you should spend more time with him dropping hints.  If you're not attracted to him, that's ok.  You can still hang out with him all the time and tell him your guy troubles until someone better comes along.

Don't move too fast or you'll regret it.  But if you struggle with sexual temptation in your months- or years-long pseudo-dating awkwardness stew of a relationship, you'll probably be a social outcast and disqualify yourself from ministry forever.

AUGH.

So now, once and for all, let me make this as clear as possible.  The best way to get to know someone... 

You know what?  Let Kanye break it down for you.

I could have answered this guy's question in five words.

The highlight of Boundless, in my opinion, is the advice column, which almost always contains really straightforward, cut-the-crap, gospel-centered answers.  But not this time.  A fella writes in and asks, "How does a single guy pursue a godly woman in a romantic but godly way?"  I could have answered in five words, but instead, the columnist gave him a manifesto of the same kind of nonsense that's kept many a young man paralyzed with indecision since we started using the word "pursue" to describe what our parents called "dating."

What's in this seemingly designed-to-confuse relationship manifesto?  Stuff like, make sure you're mature enough to date (hint: if you're asking the question and you're old enough to get married, you are).  Ask God to "show you" what you need to do to move forward.  Figure out what your courtship/dating life should look like once you are in a relationship (uhhh... I literally have no idea what this means).  Be intentional about doing covert ops on -- er, I mean getting to know the girl you're interested in, mostly in groups but then singling her out in those groups to find out what she likes (because that's not creepy at all), etc. Overuse of the word "intentional" or some variant thereof seems to be mandatory in these kinds of articles.

And of course there's no mention of, like, letting her in on this process of determining if she's The One.  Just a lot of "determining" and "being intentional" and "using discernment" and "prayerfulness."  No wonder we're all so confused.

Want to know my pithy, five-word response to this guy's question?

Dear Confused Guy:
ASK HER ON A DATE.
Love, Laura

Not enough for an entire advice column?  Fine.

Dear Confused Guy:
If you find yourself attracted to (because physical attraction is OK; you don't have to confess to your accountability partner that you thought a girl was cute) or otherwise interested in a godly woman, ASK HER ON A DATE, probably within a few weeks of first realizing your interest.  If she says yes, then take her on a date. And if you have a good time on that date, ask her on another date. Rinse and repeat, and remember that you're a Christian.
Love,
Laura

See, friends, we have this handy-dandy cultural shorthand for discovering if someone's interested in us.  Ladies, if a guy is interested in you, he will ask you out.  Fellas, if a girl is interested in you, she will say yes when you ask her out.  See how easy that was?  Now, sometimes one party can be interested while the other isn't -- or one party might be dating someone else already.  That's not so hard to handle either!  Ladies, if a guy is not interested in you or is already seeing someone, he will not ask you out.  Fellas, if a girl is not interested in you or is already seeing someone, she will say, "No, thanks," or, "Actually, I'm already seeing someone" when you ask her out.

I can think of so freakin' few genuine, legitimate reasons NOT to act like this, most of them involving some kind of catastrophic relationship blowout in the recent past.  So, if you didn't just break off an engagement or ditch an abuser or something similarly disastrous requiring some healing time, what's the holdup?  Ladies, if a godly man asks you on a date, you should probably say yes.  Guys, if a godly woman has caught your eye, you should probably ask her on a date.

There now, we've got that all settled, right?  RIGHT??

Sigh...

Titus 2 is for Single Girls, Part 1

In my observation, when a pastor preaches on Titus 2, this is what often happens (caution: hyperbole ahead):

Married guys, MAN UP and lead your families!  No!  Just shut up and do it!

Married ladies, you need to be mentoring younger married ladies and teaching them what you've learned.  We love you, and we know it's tough to be married to us horrible, horrible men.  Don't be discouraged even though we keep telling you that you have the hardest and most-critical-not-to-screw-up job in the world and that you're basically 100% responsible for your both your husband's fidelity and his self-esteem.

Single dudes, have some self control, and get married!  And quit watching porn and playing video games!  And get a job!  And move out of your parents' basement!  And you suck!  And there's basically no hope for you!  UGH SINGLE DUDES UGH.

Single ladies... uh... I dunno.  Be patient I guess?  Maybe?  Yeah, I got nothin'. 

At Sojourn we're blessed to have pastors who handle God's word... well, a lot better than that, and I could address the problems with each one of those paragraphs, but I'm only going to deal with the last one, because I think it's the place where even the most well-intentioned, careful, Gospel-centered teaching can kind of go off the rails.

What do we do with single women in the church?  In the case of Titus 2, I think what we often imply is that her calling is on hold until she gets married, and even then that her calling hasn't reached its ultimate fulfillment until she starts having kids.  Then, we seem to say, you're really living out your calling, sister.

How do we make sense of the biblical teaching that seems to speak primarily to married women with children, when all around us -- both in the Scriptures and in the Church -- are unmarried, childless women? 

I think the key is to begin to see the connection between calling and identity.  Calling, in the Scriptures, is a function of identity -- sometimes a current identity; more often what we might call a prophetic identity, a declaration of a new identity given by God to the person he's calling.  So when we see passages that call us to a certain set of actions or attitudes, I think it's important to ask what identity is behind those actions. 

For example, God calls all Christians to care for the poor and the alien.  What identity is behind this?  Ultimately, we are a people whom God has rescued from the ultimate poverty and alienation, and we paint a picture of the Gospel when we reach out to the poor and alien.

What about Titus 2?  What is God telling all women about who we are (or are becoming by grace) through these instructions to married women with kids?  I'll address that in Part 2 tomorrow.

Titus 2 is for Single Girls, Part 2

(Read the first installment here.)

Yesterday I said that I think an important factor in interpreting and applying biblical passages about women is the idea of the identity that underlies the instruction.  Today we'll take a look at Titus 2, starting in verse 3:


Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.  Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.


OK.  What we have here are a list of behaviors that, I believe, are to characterize all godly women, not just older women and younger married women with kids.  Reverence, control over our tongues and our appetites, guidance for younger believers, love, purity, homeward orientation, kindness, and godly relationships should mark the lives of all Christian women!


Now is where I ask myself: What does this passage say about who I am in Christ? 


In Christ, I am


In Christ, I no longer am controlled by my sinful desires because He has given me a new nature controlled by the Holy Spirit.


In Christ, I am cleansed from sin and made pure.


In Christ, I am ushered in to a new

Sometimes I Feel Like I Need A Vacation

From serious posts.

My pal Jamie Barnes is currently on his way back from Waco, where he was at a (by all accounts pretty sketchy) conference.  He just tweeted that he feels like he never goes through the security line quickly enough, and I replied that, if you travel often enough, you'll soon have the satisfaction of looking down on all the noobs who don't realize that they can't bring their 3 full-size bottles of shampoo in their carry-on bag; and what's more fun than derision?  I mean really!

And that got me thinking of all the funny security-line and airport stories I've amassed over the years since I started traveling.

A recent favorite, in the Sydney airport on my way home from this last trip to Australia: a full-grown woman had a nuclear-attack-siren-level temper tantrum upon being asked to do the normal stuff you have to do in the security line.  Like, you know, wait your turn.  She was trying to snatch her bag and purse off the belt and shove through the line -- and she actually did cut in front of several of us, muttering that she didn't have time for this nonsense.  The security screeners, bless 'em, were just cracking up behind their hands as she screeched, "I want to speak to a manager!  This is absolutely unbelievable!  I have a plane to catch!  You can't make me wait here!  I'm in a hurry!  Give me my things back!"

There are really only a few things you need to know when traveling, most of them variations of stuff you learned in kindergarten.  Wait your turn.  Use your manners.  Read the directions. 

Any funny or horrible stories from your travels, dear readers?

In Which I Tell The Kids To Get Off My Lawn

Like I've said, this is my third year teaching at a classical school.  At this point in their education, most of my older students could wipe the floor with your average basement-dwelling twenty-something atheist (and sundry other contrarians), and don't even get flustered when people try to challenge their firmly held beliefs.  They just bust out a syllogism and a few well-honed rhetorical flourishes and then graciously bandage their opponent's wounds, without breaking a sweat.

Coming up to this election season, though, I sort of wish they could go to Washington and teach logic classes to politicians and pundits.  What do they teach in Ivy-league poli-sci classes these days? 

Interviewer: So, your plan proposes decreasing the size and power of the federal government.  What programs will you cut to accomplish that?

Politician: Well, I think the American people will notice right away looking at the plan, that we're blah blah blah capping discretionary spending blah blah a savings of over $100 million blah blah!  That's a lot of money!  I think the American people are too stupid to follow an actual argument, so I'm going to throw around a lot of patriotic-sounding buzzwords and tell everyone that my plan will guarantee a sparkly unicorn to every family in the country AND set us on the path to financial solvency.  Except I won't use the word "solvency" because I think Americans are idiots.

I: Are discretionary caps enough to result in that kind of savings?  Which programs in particular will be impacted by that discretionary cap?  Also: you're a jerk.

P: Well, again, a $100 million savings in just the first year blah blah financial blah blah gibberish blah.  I think that the American people blah blah times of hardship blah blah lack of compassion blah blah.  Oh, and all those bleeding-heart liberals want to force every American to marry a unicorn and then agree to have no more than one unicorn-human-hybrid baby.  All I can say is, they're just out of touch with middle America.  Midwesterners love unicorns, they support unicorns.  But if they're going to have to marry unicorns, they'd better be able to have as many freakazoid humicorn offspring as they darn well please. It's a constitutional right!

How inconceivable would it be for the conversation to go:

Interviewer: So, your plan proposes decreasing the size and power of the federal government.  What programs will you cut to accomplish that?

Politician: This plan eliminates approximately 220 federal programs.  It does not eliminate the services provided by those programs, however.  It turns their control over to the individual states.  Our Constitution grants all powers of government to the states, and we're very serious about implementing a plan that accords with the law of the land! Besides which, it's just common sense. Rather than the federal government trying, inefficiently, to manage these hundreds of programs, in the future, states will manage them.  This allows states to refine and personalize each program based on the needs of its citizens.  A more efficient system ensures that each citizen receives the services he or she needs without unnecessary delay.

Interviewer: That was... remarkably lucid for a politician.  Wow.

At Least It Made Me Appreciate My Students...

After going-on three years of teaching at a classical Christian school, I'm so accustomed to polite, well-trained kids that I don't know what to do anymore when faced with rude or untrained ones. 

A girl of around ten ran up to our table this afternoon (at the J-town Gaslight festival where my school has a booth), pointed at the bowl full of beads, and demanded, "What are THOSE?"  When I told her she and her friend could make bead bracelets, she ran off without another word.  No "excuse me," no "thank you," no "Oh, let me go ask my mom if it's ok," nothing.

Here's the thing: I don't think the girl was trying to be rude.  It just seemed like she'd never been taught how to talk to adults.

Why do people not think they have the responsibility to teach their kids basic manners?  How is your kid going to learn manners if you don't teach them?  The reason you teach kids to say "please" and "thank you" and "pardon me" and "oops, sorry" and all that is not so you can show off what a good parent you are, nor is it about forcing your rambunctious little darling to become a boring Stepford child who smiles and says, "Yes, ma'am" on command.  You teach manners to children so they can get along in the real world, both as they grow up and when they're adults.

/rant

More Thoughts On Fiction and Entertainment

(see this post and comments section for the first part.)

OK.  I've asserted that it may be not only permissible, but also beneficial, for Christians to watch movies or read books without an explicitly Christian worldview -- even books or movies whose themes oppose a Christian worldview, or that are anti-gospel. 

Let me add one more assertion: I think it is the height of folly to judge a book or a movie based on what it omits rather than what it affirms.  Again, the Twilight books demonstrate how this happens.  Edward and Bella, the two main characters, refrain from sexual intercourse until they are married, at Edward's insistence (leaving aside for the moment that he does so because he fears he will be unable, in a state of arousal, to keep control of his desire to kill Bella.  And that she, knowing this, keeps pushing him to have sex with her).  I can't tell you how many times I heard, from the girls at my school or from Christian parents of my acquaintance, "Well, it can't be that bad; at least they stay pure until they're married!  It's a good example to teenage girls!"

Do I dare insult your intelligence, dear reader, by pointing out the folly of ignoring an onslaught of insipid prose both describing irreparably twisted relationships and suborning heresy because the two main characters narrowly and for the wrong reasons avoid one form of immorality?  By all means, read insipid prose describing twisted relationships and suborning heresy if you identify them all as such.  But don't pretend that it's "not so bad" as you stretch out on your blanket in the park for a sunny afternoon's passive absorption of insipid prose, twisted relationships, and heresy.

I'd much rather my students come to class and say, "Miss Roberts, we watched Massive Gory Shoot-Em-Up: Part IV on Friday night and, geez, it was so wrong!  I couldn't believe how Studly McHotness treated women!  And the way women threw themselves all over him even though he was a total dirtbag... ew.  I thought it would be cool, but I just couldn't get into it," than, "I went shopping at the Christian bookstore and bought this great new book -- I'm A Christian Princess!  It's all about how God is the king of everything and that makes Christian girls princesses, so we should make sure that everyone treats us like princesses!  Isn't that right?"

Christians cannot avoid evil, and we must not pretend it doesn't exist.  Whether non-Christian media, and its depiction of evil, hardens our consciences toward the real thing or trains us to address the real thing depends on how we approach it.

I think the first step is to ensure that we and the young people in our care are absolutely crammed full of Bible.  God's Word contains everything we need for godly lives, but if we don't know it, it's of no use to us.  Why are there so many stories in the Bible?  I think it's so that, when our life stories start to run along the same lines, we'll know the outcome of certain actions.  We don't have to come up with an object lesson to teach young men not to ogle naked chicks.  We just have to send them to the story of David and Bathsheba! 

Beyond the Scriptures, God has given humanity two priceless teaching tools: a colorful and checkered history, and an irrepressible urge to write stories.  In these we see an affirmation, whether intended or not, that God's word is true. 

As N.D. Wilson puts it, my goal is for my students to learn to recoil from sin, to see in the Scriptures and in fiction and history a tiny taste of the fires of Hell.  I want my boys to be so familiar with Lady Folly and Becky Sharp and the Green Knight's wife and Anne Boleyn and Mata Hari that they learn down to a fundamental, instinctive level to stay the heck away from the house of the seductress.  I want my girls to know Mr. Rochester and the Highwayman and Count Vronsky and John Wilmot well enough to recognize the sort of twisted romantic obsession that drives women to forsake -- or nearly lose their lives to keep -- their most dearly-held principles. 

This sort of education will, ideally, have two results.  First, it will enable them to recognize good and evil in fiction.  A young man who recoils from Mata Hari will have no trouble recoiling from Our Mrs. Reynolds.  A young woman who learns to despise the Highwayman instinctively will hardly be fooled by the endearments of the be-sparkled Edward Cullen.

Following on from number one, this sort of education enables them to recognize good and evil when they encounter it in real life.  Again paraphrasing N.D. Wilson, I want my students to know that if the Fool follows the Seductress to her house on page 4, on page 10 he's going to get way more than he bargained for.  I want them to know that judgment follows sin as surely as B follows A, and I don't want them to have to learn it the hard way. 

Seven Links

(via Problogger)


1. My first post.  Well, this is a really thrilling way to start off, let me tell you.  Or something.  When I first started "It's a Blog" more than five (!!!) years ago, I did so with the purpose of keeping in touch with and praying for the kids I worked with in summer camping ministry.  The very first post was a kickoff of sorts, to welcome and encourage them to talk to God with their brains turned on. 

2. A post I enjoyed writing a lot.  SO MUCH!  This is what cranks me up, people: theology.  A friend of mine emailed me a couple of links to articles about the sovereignty of God, and I wrote this post in response.  Seriously, loved, loved writing it.  I got to use all my fancy seminary education AND the phrase "some pretty sexy contortionism" to describe someone's lousy exegesis of an Old Testament passage.  Yeah, buddy.

3. A post with a great discussion.  I'm going to go with "series" rather than "post."  The "Q & A" series I did almost two years ago!  Sunriiiiise, Sunset!  Sunriiiiise, Sunset!  Ahem.  That series had a few really insightful and interesting comments and it provoked a couple of really good off-blog discussions too.

4. A post on someone else's blog I wish I'd written.  Again, I'm going to do a series -- Timmy Brister (who, as I've said before, is constantly writing stuff I wish I'd written) did an extensive series on his blog a couple years bad titled "Blue-Collar Theology" that I not only wish I'd written, I wish anyone had written it thirty years ago!  The modern church's neglect of the importance of the ordinary Christian life is scandalous and its exaltation of "career ministry" is as Vatican I as it gets.  Timmy presents a compelling case, and a pretty comprehensive syllabus, for the theological education of the average pew-sitter.

5. My most helpful post.  Well, it has the word "helpful" in the title, doesn't it? 

6. A post with a title I'm proud of.  AND it's about Christian hip-hop!  Coincidentally (ha), Shai Linne, whom I mention in this post, and his lovely new bride Blair were in Louisville this past weekend.  I was blessed to be able to meet them both.  Shai helped lead worship at the evening services, and gave the dopest benediction ever, reducing the (usually dangerously high) honky levels in our young suburban congregation by 100%.

7. A post I wish more people had read.  I am SO not the only person who grew up in the church who struggled with legalism, and I wish this one had gotten a little more mileage.

So, friends, any thoughts?  Feel free to post them here or on the posts I've linked!  Thanks for reading!

I think there's value in debates (note that in Acts Apollos "vigorously refuted" the Jews) even if the person being debated never comes to know Christ.  The debates between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, for instance, are valuable even if Hitchens never gets saved, for two reasons: they encourage believers regarding the reasonableness and coherence of our faith, and they are a tool of hardening those God wants to harden.  For some reason unknown to us God chooses to reveal his glory in judgment as well as in mercy, and just as the preaching of the Gospel is the means God uses to incline the hearts of the elect toward him, stuff like this can be the tool that God uses to harden the hearts of the reprobate.

Fiction, Truth, and the Gospel

One of my students last year wrote her final paper on why Christians should exercise discernment in their media involvement.  We had a lot of loooooong conversations about discernment, and she really had to work hard to address a common objection about fiction in general -- the "it's just a story, it's not real" objection. 

Just taking Twilight as a case study... one of my issues with Twilight is that young girls don't need someone telling them that that's how love is supposed to be -- that there's a guy out there who's perfect in every way, who's your soulmate without whom your life is utterly meaningless, and that its ok if that guy wants to hurt you as long as he has self control.  And that when a guy ignores you and barely speaks to you except with apparent hatred, it means that he's just seething with lust.  And that it's ok to string a decent guy along until you decide that you do want to be with your perfect sparkly soulmate after all. Teenage girls already are so prone to thinking all that.  It's already programmed into their little texting, MTV (do kids even watch MTV anymore?), Jersey Shore, Bieber-obsessed worldview.  They don't need an adult to confirm it, they need lots of adults to correct it!

I have some pretty big issues with the weirdo Mormon theology that's EVERYWHERE in the books, but the relationship stuff is my major practical concern.  I don't really have much of an issue with adults reading them, since they're more experienced and discerning, and can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  But girls who are 13, 14, 15, when they're just left to read the books on their own with no one talking to them about the issues it brings up?  Not so much.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the type to go, "ZOMG it haz teh witchez/magic/fantasy BURNNNNN IT!"  I mean, I did read all the Harry Potter books.  ;)

But I do think as Christians we have a responsibility to ask questions.  And the question isn't, "Does this movie/book/whatever depict a world without evil or darkness or moral complexity -- a nice, shiny, clean, Precious Moments world where everything turns out just dandy?"

We need to ask questions like, "Does it portray evil as evil and good as good, or does it pretty up evil or trick us into thinking something evil is really not so bad?  Does it show the reality of the battle between good and evil?  Is it realistic that sometimes evil seems to triumph?  Does it show human character honestly -- that we're all messed up by sin and make mistakes, even the heroes of the story?"  Again, that's worldview stuff we're talking about here.  "How does the author view life? humanity? love? sex? relationships? purpose?"


For example: I think American Beauty is a absolutely brilliant movie, and that Christians ought to watch it (if their consciences permit, of course).  It's rated R, it depicts adultery, drug use, deception, violence and lots of other truly evil stuff.  But it also shows, vividly and poignantly, the meaninglessness of a life apart from Christ.

Stories are powerful.  We're shaped by them and they impact us in a way that just straight teaching might not.  So we have to be discerning, even about fiction -- maybe even especially about fiction, because it can affect us without our even being aware of it.  I think about how I feel after I watch a movie -- even the fluffiest, silliest, most blatantly unrealistic romantic comedy can change my mood.  It can make me feel dissatisfied with my life, frustrated that I'm still single, annoyed that some sexy leading man hasn't come and swept me off my feet (well... yet... ;p).  Stuff like that affects our hearts.

I mentioned American Beauty.  It's really good, but what keeps it from being "capital-G Good," is that it offers a counterfeit solution to the problem it presents.  It says, "Life is ultimately meaningless.  If you can find meaning in the meaninglessness, you're one of the lucky ones."  We know as Christians that that's not true, that true meaning and purpose and hope are available, and found in Christ.  But just like American Beauty, every story -- from comic strips to epic novels to TV shows -- offers some kind of "answer" to the life's problems. 

Only Christians can offer the real solution, the Grand Story into which all of our little stories can be fitted by the Great Author of the universe.  But a book, a movie, a TV show, whatever -- all these things are only good inasmuch as they can point their readers toward God's truth.  Stories have the power to prime human hearts to see the emptiness of life apart from Christ, like American Beauty, or the reality of the battle between good and evil, like Harry Potter, or the brokenness of a fallen world and our often-futile attempts to fix it, like Sherlock Holmes, or the inherent beauty and preciousness of human life, like Children of Men. 

Ultimately, we have the freedom in Christ to read, watch, or listen to just about anything.  And we have a responsibility to use that freedom wisely.  So, read Twilight or watch Mad Men or listen to Katy Perry or whatever.  But do it with your eyes and ears wide open, and do it like a Christian.

I Do Not Have An Expiration Date

I'm twenty-eight.  One more birthday in my twenties and then, I will be thirty.  Thirty years old.  I have just realized that my value does not diminish as the Lord adds years to my life.  Each birthday signifies another year in which the Lord has been inconceivably gracious and kind to me, preserving my life and keeping my soul.  There will never come a day when I am less in God's image, less saved, less a part of God's family, less united with Christ, less who God made me.  I don't expire like a carton of milk and become worthless after a certain point.  Never going to happen.

Imagine that.

One of These Days, Doggonit...

REALLY.  Next summer I promise I'm going to say at the end of May, "See you in August!" instead of just abandoning my, like, four faithful readers for three months.

School year's about to start again, which means my brain is back in blog-production mode.  Look forward to some actual content here in the next few days!

Some Actual Thoughts For A Change

Currently on my bedside table are the following: alarm clock, lamp, water glass, and two books.  One book is Bridget Jones's Diary and the other is John Owen's The Mortification of Sin.  I fully expect to wake up some morning to find that the two have spontaneously combusted in the night.

I started reading The Mortification of Sin well over a year ago, before it got shuffled around somehow and pushed to the bottom of a pile and sadly neglected.  (Side note: I started reading it while sitting at an airport bar waiting for a flight.  Picture me with a beer in one hand and a Puritan Paperback in the other.  Classic experience.)  I picked it up again recently and have been amazed and blessed by Owen's strongly-worded caution to those who bear the name of Christ not to deal lightly with our besetting sins.

Chapters 10 ("Seeing Sin For What It Is") and 11 ("A Tender Conscience and a Watchful Heart") are particularly rich and full of godly counsel.  Here, a segment from chapter 11 that merits being quoted at length:

Look on Him whom you have pierced, and let it trouble you.  Say to your soul, 'What have I done?  What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on?  Is this how I pay back the Father for His love?  Is this how I thank the Son for His blood?  Is this how I respond to the Holy Spirit for His grace?  Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, and the Holy Spirit has chosen to dwell in?  [...] Do I count fellowship with Him of so little value that, for this vile [sin's] sake, I have hardly left him any room in my heart?'

As is typical with those dear old Puritans, the counsel Owen urges on his readers is emotionally stirring, grounded in the Gospel, and intensely practical.  Incidentally, I find this to be a great weakness in a lot of modern devotional writing, which tends toward one or two of those three characteristics.  Consider this snippet:

Do you find corruption beginning to entangle your thoughts?  Rise up with all your strength against it, as if it had already started to overcome you!  Consider what an unclean thought desires: it desires to have you immerse yourself in folly and filth!  Ask envy what it aims at: murder and destruction are its natural conclusion!  Set yourself against it as if it had already surrounded you in wickedness!

Or this remarkable reflection on the transcendence of God:

Labour to limit your pride with these considerations: What do you know about God?  How little a portion of His majesty!  How immense He is in His nature!  Can you look without terror into the abyss of eternity?  Can you bear the rays of His glorious Being?  I consider these meditations of great value in our walking with God, so far as they are consistent with our filial boldness in seeking Him at the throne of grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. [...] To Moses was revealed the most glorious attributes that He can reveal in the covenant of grace, but even these are but the 'back parts' of God!

It's definitely kicking my butt.  And I'm just now over halfway through.  Eep!

A Love Letter To My Record Player

I have been going ON and ON and ON to anyone who will listen (sorry... everyone...) about the amazing record player I bought today.  It's a late 1960s (I'd guess '67 or '68) cabinet stereo with a record player and AM/FM radio, Packard Bell, made of hardwood (I think oak, just from the grain) with a beautiful dark finish, probably close to six feet long.

I've just gotten really tired of that beepy, digitally-compressed computer sound that comes through on mp3s and cds, and fell in love with Kelsey's record player, which sounds so warm and beautiful, so I've been on the hunt for a furniture-type vintage stereo for the last few weeks.  I found a great one thru a site that rhymes with Braeg's Mist for... get this... $60.  That's Sixty U.S. Dollars, people.  I went to an antique mall and bought a dozen records (spent less than $3/ea on average) and have been fooling around with it, trying to figure out all evening how all the little switches and doo-dads work. 

And what a sound.  Sigh. 

From Sunday's Sermon

A paraphrase of Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks, regarding a person believing himself righteous based on being less sinful than the person next to him: When you are in Hell, suffering God's wrath for all eternity, will it comfort you to know that you are better than the person next to you?  Gotta love those straight-shootin' Puritans.

There was apparently a time when people who worked on large wheat farms were taught to escape a sudden oncoming bush fire this way: they were to burn the area around them, stamp out the fire, and try to get down into the dirt as much as possible.  This way the fire would go around and over them but would have no fuel where they were laying, leaving them unharmed once it passed.  In the same way, we cling to the cross of Christ because it is the only place where God's wrath has already been poured out and spent.  When the day of judgment comes and God's wrath falls, we will be safe in Christ.

In Which I Am Reminded of An Important Truth

(Incidentally, doesn't that sound like the beginning of a chapter in Winnie the Pooh?  If it said "Pooh is" or "Piglet is" instead of "I am" especially.  Or if it ended with "Important Truth About Hunny.") 

I was reminded recently of something very important, which I either didn't realize or had forgotten.  A dear friend sent me a brief text with just a couple of sentences addressing something I'd been angsting about -- honest words that stung a little, to tell you the truth.  It wasn't a sermon or a long conversation, just something I really needed to be reminded of about my affections.  Which I'll come back to.

I'm a pretty cerebral kinda gal.  Being cerebral is one of those characteristics that's a lot like the Girl with the Curl from the nursery rhyme: when it's good, it's very, very good, but when it's bad, it's horrid.  The good part is that I love to think deeply and ponder and muse and learn and wonder and teach my students to do the same. The horrid part is when I get so far inside my head that I can't escape, and what ends up happening is that I live an almost parallel life, some self-narrated alternate reality in my head until I'm so wrapped up in it that everything about real life seems less real and far, far more disappointing.

So back to the affections.  Jonathan Edwards wrote of the affections that they "are no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul."  Wait, what?  Are you trying to tell me that my affections are exercises of my will?  To be used sensibly and thoughtfully, not merely letting them light wherever they want, but to be directed and applied in a godly way?  Far out.

In that self-narrated alternate reality that's constantly competing for my attentions, I have allowed my affections to be directed toward things and circumstances and people thoughtlessly.  Rather than choosing to set my mind on -- to direct my affections toward -- "things above" as the Scriptures say, I have too often chosen to allow my affections to be cast about by my mood, my temperament, my situation, and countless other factors. 

I needed (and am very grateful for) the reminder that my deepest affections belong only to God.

Conversations With My Students

My poor little darlins... their brains are just fried from end-of-school craziness.  We were talking today about how our Kindergarten and 1st/2nd grade classes are almost full for next Fall, but there are only a handful of kids in 8th-10th grades.  Bless 'em:

Me: Well, y'all need to pray that the Lord sends us some families with older kids who've been classically educated so y'all can have some more classmates.

Boy: They have to be guys.  And they have to be athletic, so we can play basketball!

Girl 1:  And they have to be cute!  We'll pray for cute guys.

Me (rolling my eyes): Yeah.  Why don't you go ahead and pray that a couple families will move here and enroll at CCA with upper-school-aged boys who've been classically educated and are athletic and cute... and why don't you throw in that they have Australian accents too?

Girl 2 (fists in the air): YEAH!!

Me (as their parents): Honey, I appreciate your newfound interest in prayer, but you've been kneeling there since you got home from school and it's time for dinner.

Pride is a Trap. No Really.

A blog-acquaintance of mine just put up some musings about homeschooling and asked about a particular curriculum she's thinking of using for her kiddos. It got me thinking.  Schooling is one of those topics that can turn mild-mannered Christian parents into red-faced UFC contenders in the time it takes to say "unschooling."  It's ridiculous, and I see why it makes people so neurotic -- even once you've decided on public or private or home, you still have to choose between classical! Montessori! Charlotte Mason! Waldorf!  And then curriculum!  Do you go for the tried-and-true Abeka even though it's KJV-only?  Or Sonlight?  Or Veritas?  Or one of those online accreditation things?  Or WHAT?  And then methodology -- five days a week, 8-3, nine months a year?  Or something else?  Dedicated school room or kitchen table?  Or picnic table?  Or the table in your RV?  No wonder so many threads about homeschooling end with people getting all capsy and BUT YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!  WROOOOONNNNGG!

That reaction?  Is all about pride.

So I was amping up to do a thundering post about pridefulness in schooling choices, when it hit me: I am just that bad about my "stuff."  People who watch Glenn Beck.  People who send their kids to school with a can of spaghetti-o's for lunch three days a week.  People who use the N-word.  People who tell rude jokes about Obama.  People who roll their eyes at women who want a natural birth... All those people just get my blood pressure going.

And that reaction is ALSO all about pride.

AUGH.

Links!

I'm going to be extra-American and gush for just a second about Mikey Lynch -- I think his blog, Christian Reflections, is one of the most quietly impactful blogs going right now in Theology Land.  Mikey doesn't feel compelled to make a bunch of high-falutin' theological points or write a sermon for every post, but in the meantime he's evaluating and making connections in an incredibly smart way.  Just about everything he writes I wish I had written instead, that jerk.

Anyway, take a look at his series on Crowded House, which is full of alternately fascinating, funny, and important insights.  Here's Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.  Check back for more of his thoughts -- I know there will be a Part 4!   

And An Update At Long Last

Hey y'all, as usual I've hit the Crazy Time at the end of the school year, and haven't had the time or energy to post.  Only two weeks left of school!  Here's what's been going down:

My students, God love 'em, have been going crazy writing their end-of-year thesis papers.  We use this curriculum, The Lost Tools of Writing, about which I was extremely skeptical at first.  Having taught it for a year now, I've changed my tune -- it's terrific.  I can't imagine a more valuable program for helping kids do every single part of a paper, from coming up with ideas to fine-tuning their sentences. 

I've gotten a little obsessed with Australian Rules Football (which, fyi, is neither soccer nor rugby) in the last week. I got to see an old Tassie friend last weekend when he came up to play against the Louisville Aussie Rules team, and it was so much fun that I've been watching games on ESPN3 to try to pick a team to follow.  My friend Kate (mum to Pablo) is a Carlton supporter but says I have the freedom in Christ to support any team except Collingwood.  It's nice to be able to shut my brain off for a little bit while I'm watching the games!

I participated (briefly and with much eye-rolling) in a little dustup in the comments section of a post by well-known worship music writer Stephen Altrogge called How To Write An Awful Worship Song.  As usual, a few humorless trolls came and took a tongue-in-cheek post and started making accusations and dropping big words like "judgmental."

I'm starting to get really, really, REALLY excited about going back to Australia in less than two months!!  Yes, I'll be there in the dead of winter, but I'm super pumped to see everyone.  I've been thinking about all the fun stuff I'll get to do... and "fun" in my universe is best defined by good food, good drink, good friends, and maybe some footy on the tv.  What could be better on a cold winter night?

Fasting From Facebook: Part Deux

I just re-read the little snippet Daniel wrote after Lent, about the stuff people had fasted from and how the fast had impacted them.  Great stuff.  Did you know that around 2 million people gave up Facebook for Lent?  Crazy. 

Anyway, it got me thinking about how to continue the pattern of 1 Corinthians 6:12 -- not everything is beneficial, and I will not be mastered (I think "overpowered" would be a good paraphrase of the Greek) by anything -- even though Lent is LONG over.

I put a couple of things on FB about how to keep from drowning when you're drinking from the firehose (hide people from your feed, check FB rather than keeping it up in your browser all the time), but I'm thinking about how to expand that to my other online time.  Using a feed reader has helped a bunch, so I'm not going to eight zillion separate blogs and sites every day. 

Do y'all have any other ideas that could help me streamline online time?

Oh My Gosh I Think I Figured It Out.

Kinda.

On Sojourn's discussion/message board, The City (think Facebook + old-school chat room + newspaper classified ads + online church directory), a few discussions of late have just caught fire -- one about John Piper inviting Rick Warren to speak at a conference, one about Dallas Willard and whether or not he's orthodox, and one about The Shack that only died finally because the "listen, it's fiction and it speaks to people's pain" crowd bowed out of the conversation. 

And ohmygoodness, I think I've nailed down what those three discussions have in common AND why stuff like that tends to be tinder just waiting to be set off.

What they have in common is what I'm going to call the "Driscoll" factor -- high profile, prophetic, controversial.  The reason Mark Driscoll chaps people's hides is that he's got a prophetic ministry, calling to folks from the front lines, being a bold voice in just a few areas.  The reason I love and appreciate him is that the Church needs men like that who are willing to take a whole lot of flak because they're passionate about seeing the gospel applied in places that we want to ignore.  We desperately need Driscoll and guys like him to shake us up about our self-righteousness, our confusion about sexuality, our immaturity.

When it comes to the discussions I mentioned above, the Driscoll Factor means that they draw people on both sides who are passionate, even outspoken and fiery, about that particular issue.  So, with The Shack, for example.  On one side you have people who say, "Look, not everyone resonates with the Puritans or a systematic theology text.  This book can speak to people in their pain, and that's a good thing."  What's at stake, to them, is the faith of their wounded brothers and sisters.  It's an issue of love.  On the other side are the folks who say, "We have to protect the body of Christ from error.  Letting heresy slip under the radar because it's in a work of fiction is not okay."  What's at stake to these folks is the Gospel, and it's an issue of Truth.

God bless my brothers and sisters at Sojourn, because a conversation like that could so easily have spiraled into name-calling and judgment-pronouncing, but the tone stayed civil and gracious.

And it occurs to me that we desperately need both those voices in the church.  We need people to stand up for the hurting, to encourage us not to snuff out the smoldering wick, to remind us of grace, to display mercy and demand mercy from us, as people who have received so much mercy from our loving Father.  Without them, we'd be a bunch of loveless, cranky pharisees nit-picking each other's theology until we all spontaneously combusted.  We need folks who will thoughtfully defend the Rick Warrens and Dallas Willards and C.S. Lewises of the church for the sake of adorning the Gospel with love.

And we need people to stand up for the truth, to encourage us not to settle for mediocre theology or a watered-down gospel, to remind us of reality, to display integrity and demand integrity from us, as people who have received the very counsel of God in his word.  Without them, we'd be a bunch of hippy-dippy weirdos, wallowing in our feel-good love fests while the blinding glory of the gospel slipped through our fingers.  We need people who will boldy stand up for the gospel and not back down from exposing error no matter what.

The reason these kinds of discussions get so fiery is because you've got people from both ends of the continuum calling to each other, often without realizing that they're all contributing to the life and health of the church just by having the conversation in a gracious, godly way.  

We need each other!

Criticism

Some days I wish I lived in the pre-internet age.  Or was Amish.  Or something.  Days like today, when I see a beautiful quote from a respected, wise, older brother in Christ, and then I see someone else, someone who claims the name of Christ, making snap judgments and hateful accusations about that man's character and doctrine.

Friends, we have to learn -- I have to learn -- to temper our words when we're on the internet.  We must.  The commands of God not to entertain accusations against an elder without corroboration do not cease to apply online.  I'm convinced that a great many Christians are experiencing personal stagnation in their growth in Christlikeness because they constantly allow bitterness, anger, self-righteousness, lovelessness, and pride to gain a hold on them in the comments sections of Christian blogs.  How often do we see characteristics and actions  that belong to the realm of death in people who call themselves by the name of Christ?  Gossip.  Slander.  Malice. 

How foolish!  How our enemy must laugh with twisted delight when we use God's language for the Devil's purposes.

What I Learned When I Gave Up Facebook For Lent

(Not much organization here, peeps -- just a collection of musings.)

I think, worry, and obsess way too much about what other people think of me.  In the first several days of my Facebook-free Lent I had far too many moments of, "Oh, man, I wish I could use that as my status update.  Bummer."  Which of course is all about pride -- wanting people to think I'm smart and clever and funny.

My first impulse in too many situations is to cling to other people rather than looking to Jesus.  I mentioned early on in this little experiment that I was learning to pray first rather than write on someone's wall or even pick up the phone.

That surprised me a little -- that the stuff I was learning by giving up Facebook weren't just impacting my online relationships.  I talked with my best friend Kelsey a few days ago about the fact that it's unloving for me to depend on her more than I depend on my loving Father.  Picking up the phone to call her (or my mom, or a friend, or whoever) ten seconds after I experience a moment of sadness or anxiety or fear -- that's giving too much weight to my deceptive, fickle emotions, and not giving enough credit to my Father, who has told me to cast all my cares on him.

Now that's not to say that I don't value and cherish the friendships the Lord has given me.  I do.  I believe that the folks in my community group and my precious family and my dear friends both near and far are gifts from the Lord.  They can be Jesus to me when I'm hurting or anxious or confused.  But I find myself far too quick to dump my "issues" on other people instead of dealing with them before the Lord.

I'll talk a bit later on about how my online time looks different now after this little adventure.  Lord willing, it'll be a permanent change for the better.

In Case You Don't Know This,

April is National Poetry Month.

I majored in English in college, which means I spent a good chunk of my late teens and early twenties reading, analyzing, and writing poetry -- everything from thousand-year-old Japanese haiku to postmodern poetry written by unreliable authorial personas.  

I can't even remember in which class we studied John Donne, but I remember being absolutely amazed and moved to tears by everything of his that I read, and that's true to this day.  Every one of his poems that I discover or re-discover stuns me.  I forget sometimes just how much I love him.

The best thing about Donne is that someday I'll get to meet him.  I wonder if he'll be as cheeky as I imagine him to be?

Anyway, Donne's Holy Sonnets are probably some of the best bits of Christian poetry ever to be written down outside the Scriptures.  Go read them, slowly and out loud. And then read this, also slowly and out loud, the fifth poem in Donne's La Corona cycle:

CRUCIFYING.

By miracles exceeding power of man,

He faith in some, envy in some begat, 

For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate : 
In both affections many to Him ran. 
But O ! the worst are most, they will and can, 
Alas ! and do, unto th' Immaculate, 
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate, 
Measuring self-life's infinity to span, 
Nay to an inch.   Lo ! where condemned He 
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by 
When it bears him, He must bear more and die. 
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee, 
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole, 
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.

Huh.

Sorry about that whole "accidental blog sabbatical" thing.  I didn't mean to ditch y'all, and I don't even have a good excuse this time (computer meltdown, insane busyness, lack of internet, etc. -- nope, none of that).  I just didn't have anything to say.  That's a symptom/side benefit of giving up Facebook for Lent, which I'll tell y'all about tomorrow.

I have a couple posts in the hopper, and then I'm going to try to get back in a routine.

Also, it's currently like 85 degrees in my condo, so if any of this doesn't make sense, blame it on the fact that I'm being slowly steamed to death.

Greatest Hits: Discernment

(Originally Posted August 1, 2008)

Since I won't be writing much while I'm on Spring break this week, I'll be posting some of my previous articles, slightly edited in this case.  I'll be back at it on Monday, March 29th.

In the church, there seems to be an idea that "discernment" means "praying and waiting for God's specific, personal direction on every decision in my life."  But is that the view of Scripture? Yeahno. Such an understanding of discernment leads to several errors:

1. A separation between Christians who "know God's will," i.e. the super-Christians that God speaks to, and the "ordinary" Christians who seem not to hear from God about stuff like the color of their wallpaper.

2. Using "discernment" to excuse unwise behavior and even sin. I don't know how many times I've heard people say, "Well, I've prayed about it for months and the Lord has told me it was OK," even if "it" was buying a $300,000 house when you're $60,000 in debt, or living with your fiance, or not disciplining your kids. Those are not areas about which we ought even to pray. The best advice I can give people who encounter this "God told me" business from people is to remember that it's not a trump card. We have a responsibility to one another in the body of Christ, and letting someone off the hook just because they played the "God told me" card is hardly showing love to our brothers.

3. Total paralysis in decision-making, stemming from not using your brain and instead waiting for some sign or feeling to show you that God has given you direction. I strongly believe that for the Christian, the ordinary way of making decisions goes like this: Learn, study, and love God's word. Use the mind that God is sanctifying to make wise decisions. Rinse and repeat. But too many people seem to think that's just not "spiritual" enough. A Christian's life IS spiritual -- it's life IN the Spirit! And it can look very ordinary, but an ordinary life lived faithfully still results in "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's not to say that I don't think God sometimes uses other methods to reveal his will to us -- I certainly do believe that he does! But the ordinary way seems to be knowing God's word and living wisely in accordance with that.