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.