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!