September 15, 2009 | Posted by Steve
(continued from Part IV)
Okay, we have finally finished our trip through the spooky McLaren forest and are dusting ourselves off now that we have reached the other side. Now it’s time to talk turkey.
(By the way… I still have no idea where that saying comes from.)
We haven’t even attempted to answer all the hard questions we just asked in Part IV, though I don’t know that it really matters much at this juncture. It is time to stop fretting about not having the answers to those questions, some of which may never be answered, and instead focus in on a single, confounding mystery.
What right do I have, as just another Christian brother, to “discern” that McLaren is on a shaky theological path when he chooses to celebrate Ramadan?
Or, as some folks put it, with a far broader brushstroke…
“Who am I to judge…?”
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September 15, 2009 | Posted by Steve
(continued from Part III)
If you have been following along at home, I said way back in Part II of this series that the, “Who am I to judge…?” question dropped a barge-load of heavy duty questions at my spiritual dock.
That one question forced me to step back and rethink my attitude toward the “Amazing Oz” of post-modern Christian thought (aka: Brian D. McLaren). I had to step back and reconsider all of McLaren’s choices in a fresh context. Instead of presupposing the outcome, I wanted to reconsider my own life and the alleged narrowness of my perspective with fresh eyes.
(Yeah, I know. Sounds a tad disingenuous coming from the guy who wrote everything else in this series.)
So what are some of the hard questions that littered my intellectual landscape after considering that, “Who am I to judge…” question? Take a gander. See if you can answer them for yourself without blowing a mental circuit breaker along the way.
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September 15, 2009 | Posted by Steve
(continued from Part II)
The problem with a line like, “Who am I to judge…?” is that it springs up like a relativistic cobra from the dense underbrush of legitimate theological debate. It is intended to do one thing; stop you dead in your tracks. It makes you consciously pause, wondering whether the snake bite about to gitcha on the leg is worth the all the trouble of contorting into a human pretzel, planting your mouth on the wound to take a good suck on the venom.
(Sorry… That metaphor got away from me like a pig all greased up for the county fair…)
A rhetorical question like, “Who am I to judge…?” is just chock full with individualistic, subjective, open-ended interpretation. If you carry it out to it’s logical conclusion it is actually a pretty heavy-duty challenge to the person on the receiving end.
“Whose truth is the right truth?”
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September 15, 2009 | Posted by Steve
(continued from Part I)
The essence of the obviously rhetorical, “Who am I to judge…?” question is simple.
McLaren is doing what he can to build relationships with people of other faiths. If McLaren thinks he is doing what God is leading him to do, then…
“What right do we have to question the guy’s choices or motivations?” (My paraphrase.)
At first glance that seems like a pretty reasonable question. If for just a moment it gave me great pause and made me go…
“Hmmm… Who am I to judge?”
“Who the heck do I think I am? GOD?!”
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September 15, 2009 | Posted by Steve
I have been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual tension between the words “judgment” and “discernment. “ This trip through the wonderland of religious semantics all started when Brian McLaren, noted Christ Follower (aka: “Christian”) and de-facto global head of what is known as “The Emergent Church,” publicly announced his intent to observe the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. My first reaction to this news was, as you might imagine…
“Bald-headed, bearded guy say what?!”
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September 10, 2009 | Posted by Steve
My family and I sat down tonight to a civics lesson in why Barack Obama is the Prez and George Bush is a fast-fading memory. The man can just plain speak and when he does speak he speaks very plainly. He knows how to articulate tough issues in simple terms and hits all the emotional touch points along the way. Of course as old Joe Wilson (R – South Carolina) reminded us, some folks just don’t trust the Prez. (C’mon, Joe. Take a chill pill, will ya?)
Maybe that’s because Obama knows how to slide one by every now and then. The Republican response missed the chance to bring Obama’s curve ball to light. More about that in a moment…
Now don’t get me wrong. Unlike a lot of my equally-conservative Christian brothers and sisters, I’m no “Obama is the Anti-Christ” wing-nut. Nah, we’re all plenty sinful as is. Labeling guys like Obama “Anti-Christ” seems a little intellectually lazy to my mind. After all, it doesn’t take an unseen arm of Satan pulling Obama’s puppet strings for him to do dumb, though well-intentioned, stuff. That’s the human way. Sin nature, stupid choices.
And I guess I ought to tell you that I don’t see the health care issue in terms of Biblical chapter and verse. The Bible didn’t envision our hybrid version of capitalism tinged with socialism, so there are few clear parallels we can draw from the Bible to inform today’s events. I see stuff like Universal Health Care in terms of “civic” responsibility, not necessarily “Biblical” responsibility. What should a civil society provide, regardless of whether that happens to be a Biblically-bounded society or not?
Perhaps this slightly sideways approach to the role of Christianity in politics is why I view all of this kabuki theater with eyes wide open.
And that’s why, like John McCain, I heard Obama build a bridge to the Republicans out of toothpicks and rubber cement where some bricks-n-mortar are a little more appropriate.
Obama still refuses to tackle malpractice reform with anything approaching a serious-minded fervor equal to the rest of his plan.
“But wait,” you say. Obama did mention malpractice reform. Correct. He “mentioned” malpractice reform. He didn’t commit to it.
What he did commit to was extending “experiments” in improving the “safety of health care”. The implication is that improving safety alone is going to reduce the size of runaway malpractice settlements.
I’m a trusting guy, but I’m not that dumb.
Prez, it’s time to get serious about a holistic approach to health care reform. So much of what you propose makes “common sense.” On this one, you’re just whistling in the wind. It’s time to tell some of your most ardent supporters – trial attorneys who make huge dollars on excessive malpractice awards – to shut up and shelve their greed.
Experiments are nice. Common sense caps on punitive damages are even better.
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June 22, 2009 | Posted by Steve
As promised, I skipped Jon and Kate Plus 8 tonight. Instead, I hopped on the treadmill, fired up the Playstation 2, and played a riveting game of “Burnout Revenge.” (Hey, we all have our vices. Mine is ramming computer-controlled cars off bridges. Who needs “road rage?”) By comparison, Burnout Revenge turned out to be a relatively mild game of bumper cars compared to what was going on over at TLC. The news reports afterward made the story abundantly clear.
The Gosselins have filed for divorce.
Reading the transcript of the salient moment, where Kate explains (tearfully) that their marriage is over and “it’s complicated”, I found myself screaming at the computer.
“It’s not complicated, lady! It’s called a FULL-THROTTLE GREED-FEST!”
Jon and Kate are blaming the collapse of their marriage on the tabloids, outsiders, and just about everyone except themselves. They talk in euphemistic terms about it being a “private” matter even as they rake in beaucoup dough from their allegedly “no holds barred” reality series. Though I think Kate is marginally more culpable as a result of her drippingly, overtly condescending attitude toward Jon over the years, Jon does not walk away unscathed. An honorable man would never have allowed himself to find comfort in the arms of another woman. Period.
Am I the only person who finds this whole episode a little – uhhh – weird? A “reality” show where people get paid big bucks for a “private” glimpse into their home, their lifestyles and personalities go the way of the gilt-edged as affluence grows, and then they wonder when the wheels came off the wagon?
At the risk of sounding childishly taunting…
Uhhh… DUH!
Kate, you have such a death grip on your Berks County manse that you can’t see the choke-hold you put on Jon.
Your divorce is not “complicated.” It all gets down to one thing. You love the money more than you want to love each other.
You want the love back?
Ditch the show. Get Jon into a room with a counselor, rekindle the stuff that brought you together in the first place, and live in a one-room shack in Wellsboro on the re-run residuals. Whatever you do, though, get over your weird, misplaced perception that holding on to the show and the cash at all costs is worth more than holding on to your marriage at all costs.
The J&K+8 show is a train wreck. TLC is milking it for all it’s worth in the promos and you’re going along for the ride. Say goodbye, say hello to each other in a quiet room without TV cameras waiting around, and recommit to your kids and your love. It’s possible, I’ve seen it done before, and it’s imperitive if you are to raise kids who ultimately steer clear of the same kind of devastation you have wrought on each other in your quest for the glamourous life.
Good riddence to J&K+8. Here’s hoping that Jon and Kate Gosselin fade from the limelight and resume a 10-year-long marriage that once had some joy in it before the divorce papers are finally approved.
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June 20, 2009 | Posted by Steve
Writing over at my other Blog, the relatively more mellow “sdpearl.com“, I opined back in late March that unless Kate Gosselin pulled the plug on the couple’s show, “Jon & Kate + 8,” their marriage would soon be over. I had no idea just how quickly the wheels would come off the the cash-laden armored car riding on the backs of their prodigious brood. According to insiders familiar with both the show and the two adult leads, the upcoming episode, Monday June 22, will air the announcement that the two are officially headed for the big “D,” and I don’t mean “Dallas.”
What is both encouraging and telling regarding the popularity of this marital slug-fest is that this show has hemorrhaged viewers over the past month. With a 9.8million viewer share on its May 25th episode it scored a measley 2.3million for last week’s episode. That’s a crash in popularity rivaled only by the state of Citibank’s stock. Nothing gives me greater glee in this nuclear disaster than the idea that such a drop-off in viewers might represent a glimmer of sanity and hope for the taste buds of the American viewer. Perhaps the collapse of J&K+8 finally signals that we have had it with indulging the wretched refuse and by-product of human greed on parade.
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February 26, 2009 | Posted by Steve
NOTE: This has been sitting in the “Draft” bin for a long, long time. I had forgotten it until just today. This is the conclusion of a multi-part series begun during the presidential election cycle of 2008. I hope you find it useful even though it is somewhat less timely.)
(This is Part III of a multi-part series on the emotionally-charged topic of abortion. Please read “Part I: The Journey Begins”, and “Part II: ”…But for the Grace of God…” for important background material.)
Working in the world of advertising and marketing for 14 years taught me a few things about the power of persuasaion. Tell a story long enough, loud enough, and frequently enough and eventually people will start to believe your message.
The battle over abortion rights is about “choice.”
The battle over abortion rights is about “life.”
Somehow I think it is ultimately about neither.
Somehow I think the abortion debate is really about something more sinister and cynical. Our fixations on “choice” or “life” play right into the hands of people for whom abortion is about something altogether more greedy.
Power.
For many, the fleshly football that is the unborn child has become more symbol than symbiot. It represents more a point to score and a power position to be won than a real life with long-term responsibility attached.
To be sure, there are some on both sides of the debate who fall into the category of “true believer,” unwilling to dialog and unwilling to step into the shoes of the person sitting across the table from them. Over time they have become the lightening rods for their strident followers. You know who these people are; they bomb clinics. They find ways to shuttle pregnant women into a clinic that is under seige more to make a point (they could go elsewhere) than to provide critical “care.”
It is the notion that the true believers are more narcissistically manipulative than genuine that leaves me feeling as if there is something creepily seditious hidden in the cracks and crevices of the raging abortion debate. Something about the polarization between “life” and “choice” feels as if it is the quintessential red herring, drawing us away from an even more emotionally charged and ponderously difficult reality. Every day I consider the events going on in the world around us I see evil forces at work, and not just on the side of those who are ostensibly the “murderers” in the equation.
We in the Christian community unconsciously free ourselves from a broader reality of moral accountability. We pat ourselves on our collective back about the good we are doing fighting against abortion (or homosexuality, for that matter), ignoring our imperative to practice a much broader, more socially engaged form of morality that includes outreach to the homeless, the infirm, and the disenfranchised.
Fixating on the words “life” frees us in the pro-life lobby to ignore a whole host of more difficult spiritual matters that must be considered an intertwined part of the Christian walk. Fixating on the word “choice” frees those in the pro-abortion lobby from the moral weight of the frequently immoral choices that pushed a woman to the point of needing to exercise her “choice.”
For we Christians, lost in the battle over abortion is the reality that Christ spent more time clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and caring for widows and orphans than eradicating murder.
This is not to say that Jesus wouldn’t care about abortion. I am sure He does. I am certain Jesus would do his best to eradicate abortion if he were walking this earth today in the temporal form.
Jesus would do it differently, though, compared to the tactics employed by many of the picketers at today’s murder-for-hire emporiums and Planned Parenthood depots of death. Jesus would be the lone soul sitting behind a table draped with the banner, “There is a better way, please let me help.” Picketers with photos of dead, mangled babies spray painted with the words “murderer” or “baby killer” across them would swirl venomously as the lone Christ set the example for a more peaceful, spiritually powerful way out for the woman or girl in crisis.
I am convinced that, for Jesus, abortion would be but one of many moral issues with which he would force us to reckon. I am equally convinced that Christ would have spent more time sitting with the abortionists and reasoning with them them than picketing them and pipe-bombing them.
As I ponder the fallout of this cycle of political pandering to the “base” of either party, I am drawn yet again to the conclusion that we are the puppets and we are letting others pull our strings. If we were truly the Christians we say we are, would we not walk up to the front door of the abortion clinic and ask a simple question…?
“What can we do together to cut down on this sad waste of life?”
Yes, some aspects of Barack Obama’s platform scare me. I see through the charade that is “releasing funds” to organizations that provide abortion counseling in other countries. But I know what I am getting with Obama. He is not the friendliest candidate in the field when it comes to anti-abortion sentiment. Knowing that about him, though, gives me the equipment I need to fight him through the political process should that time come.
For now I will choose to look beyond the inflammatory rhetoric to accept my responsibility to change each life I encounter, one life at a time. I will choose to give myself a healthy distance from the spin-meisters in both political parties and wrestle through not just the moral weight of abortion, homosexuality, and other hot-potato litmus test topics, but the full moral weight of caring for the less fortunate.
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January 27, 2009 | Posted by Steve
You just can’t make this stuff up, folks. There I was yesterday rushing through a breakfast of a bagel and left-over piece of my son’s birthday cake, when I heard deluded Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich liken himself to Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.
I kid you not.
If I had not heard it with my own ears I might have thought someone was pulling a prank on me.
What is even more astonishing is that the interviewer didn’t have the smarts to actually stop this dope in his tracks and say, “Are you saying that you are like these great leaders because you are being persecuted, tortured, and beaten for your beliefs or because you are leading an epic peaceful resistance to free people living under oppressive regimes or conditions?”
No, the NBC interviewer (I think it was Amy Rohbach) just didn’t have the brain pan to stop this charlatan dead in his tracks.
Then he showed up on Good Morning America and The View and pretty much dropped a load of horse pucky all over each set without getting anything even resembling a decent grilling.
Ladies and gentlemen, the next time you hear Blagojevich (or anyone else, for that matter) liken themselves to Ghandi, King, or Mandela, ask them when the last time was they were clubbed with a police state truncheon. That ought to put things into a tad better perspective.
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