I was having an email discussion with someone (we’ll call him Oliver for sake of discussion) who often berates a particular well-known pastor (we’ll call him Larry) via blogs and other online tools.

Now Oliver agrees with most of what Larry believes and teaches — he’ll freely admit this off the record.  But trying to get Oliver to say something positive publicly about Larry is like pulling teeth from a hungry grizzly bear after you smack him on the snout a few times and tell him that his mother dresses him funny.

Now I must admit that Oliver is far from being a nutcase.  He doesn’t beat up on everyone with whom he disagrees under the guise of “discernment”.  He doesn’t see a heretic around every corner.  He doesn’t wield Matthew 7:16 like some divine talisman of clairvoyance.  But when it comes to Larry, he starts getting dangerously close to all that stuff.

But like I said, Oliver is not a nutcase.  Much of what he has to say on many other subjects is very helpful. And so I tried to appeal to him logically, explaining that when he talks about Larry, he’s not separating himself nearly well enough from the actual nutcases.  And so when he starts his Pavlovian salivating over Larry, his actual points — some of which I agree with — get drowned in all the slobber.  (OK, I said it more graciously than that, but you get my point.)

The majority of Oliver’s response to me was just more argument about how horrible Larry is.  But one of the few statements that wasn’t of this nature was something to the effect of “You want me to say something positive about Larry before I say something negative about him. I won’t do that.”

Actually, his response was greatly exaggerated — more like “you want me to build a shrine to Larry before I say that I wouldn’t have worn that color tie” — but even without his exaggeration, my point remains the same.

On Sunday mornings, my church started studying the letters from Jesus to the churches in Revelation 2-3.  In good preacher style, my pastor used some alliteration to note that all of the letters contained:

1. a commendation for the church’s good works
2. a condemnation of where the church fell short
3. the promise of a crown
4. a warning of consequences for a lack of repentance over #2

Granted, there are a couple of exceptions (e.g. there was nothing good to say about Laodicea, so there’s no #1 in their letter).  But for the most part, this is the pattern of the letters.

Hmmmm.  So Jesus preceeded His comdemnations with commendations (when the latter were able to be made).

So am I to conclude that becoming more like Jesus is not part of Oliver’s job description?

I love JT and appreciate many of his writings, but his promotion of this quote unwittingly shows why DeYoung and Kluck’s latest book would be better titled “Why We Hate the Critics”.

(or I assume that, at some point, you’ll get to an actual point — in the meantime, I’ll be over here, holding my breath )

There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the President’s speech to school children tomorrow. And there’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the hand-wringing.  Not only are liberals jumping on the case of those conservatives that are concerned about the speech, but many of my fellow conservatives have gotten in on the act — and they’re using some of the same one-size-straitjacket-fits-all mentality.

Case in point:  If I point out the fact that American education is far behind the majority of the world and that maybe students’ time would be better spent on the three R’s, well then, I must be afraid that one speech by the President is going to make socialist drones out of all our children.  And that was from a conservative.

I must say, though, that I think it’s funny hilarious that days before the content of the speech was made public, those who were defending the speech (regardless of which side of the aisle they usually fall on) were speaking as though they knew the exact content, because of what was stated by the administration.  So many people are taking at face-value what is said by a man who tells Rick Warren that he wants to reduce abortions and Planned Parenthood that his first act in office will be to sign FoCA.  P T Barnum was clearly low-balling.

But here’s the kicker.

Even if you factor out those that have figured out a way to blame George W Bush for conspiring with Cain to murder Abel, there are many — on both sides of the aisle this time — who are absolutely certain that those who disagree with Obama wouldn’t disagree with a conservative president if he did the same thing.

With apologies to Colonel Potter:

MULE MUFFINS !!!

(And, no, Brent — in case you read this — this is not about you.  You were gracious enough to ask, not to definitively state.  You asked a fair question. But it’s asinine when someone else tells me what I think.)

The issues surrounding the speech, of course, aren’t the only instance.  It’s just the first time (to my knowledge) that conservatives have played that card on each other.

I’ve got two objections to this silliness.  First, it assumes that five times a day, I roll out my prayer carpet, face Crawford, and pray, closing with “in Rush’s name, Amen”.

More importantly, though, it strikes me as a bit odd that those who name the name of Christ (regardless of their political stance) would play this card.  The entire faith is wrapped around the idea that there is one standard (to which none of us measure up), and there are several warnings in Scripture against men comparing themselves with each other. So, unless I foolishly start compartmentalizing my life, why would I want to abandon a single standard in other aspects too?

And why the [censored] are you telling me that I am?

A friend of mine was recently asked what his “position” was on a particular issue.  It is an issue about which there is presently very little information.  It is also an issue that, while possibly important, has no bearing whatsoever on my friend or anyone that he knows.  This is mainly because, even though it’s public knowledge, it only involves a handful of people.  So I really have to wonder, why would anyone care what his “position” is?  Why does he even have to have a “position”?

When faced with a scenario with multiple possible outcomes, I learned fairly early in my adult life not to get too specific with my mom when asking for her prayers.  Before I learned this, a typical conversation would go like this:

Me:  Mom, please pray for me about situation X.  It could have outcome A or outcome B.

Mom:  I’ll pray that God’s will is done in the situation.

Me:  I’m hoping that it’ll be outcome A.

Mom:  OK, I’ll pray that God’s will is done in the situation.

Me:  But can you tell Him that we’re rooting for outcome A?

Mom:  I’ll pray that God’s will is done in the situation.

And isn’t this how it’s always supposed to be?  Are we not supposed to pray for God’s will to be done in every situation?  Seems like there was something about that when Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

Our “position” doesn’t mean bupkus.  And our opinion is only slightly more valuable.

My position on the issue?  Left defensive tackle.

A couple years ago, while writing on an unrelated issue, I told this story on this blog:

Back in 1998, a documentary was produced called Anatomy of a “Homicide: Life on the Street”. It was an analysis of behind-the-scenes and making-of an episode of the NBC police drama, followed by an airing of that episode. One of the issues that was examined was the back-and-forth between the writers and the network censors. To the writers, this was often a game — “how much can we get away with?” And one of the strategies that they employed in the game was classic misdirection. They had a particularly violent scene that they wanted in the episode, but they knew that the censors would never allow it. So they went nuts with foul language right before and right after that scene. The foul language jumped out at the censors and they balked at it, making the writers trim it back. They did so “reluctantly” and did the happy dance back in their offices, as the censors totally missed (and therefore allowed) what was really important to the writers.

Now, since I’m not God, nor do I wield Matthew 7:16 as a magic wand, I can’t divine the motives of others. But I have to wonder if Derek Webb didn’t do a similar thing with his latest album, Stockholm Syndrome.

Last month, I noted the controvery over the song “What Matters More“, as it contains two words allegedly not used in polite company. These two words are ostensibly more offensive to the sensibilities than references to bloody tampons, walking around and preaching naked for three years, publicly cooking over human feces and eating the results, and the desire to see others mutilate their genitals. And never mind that the employ of these words was a microcosm of the whole point of the song, anyway.

But I digress . . . .

Stockholm Syndrome is so loaded with prophetic condemnation of the American Church, that one has to wonder if the use of strong language in one song was a misdirection to keep the naysayers (not to mention the record label and the Christian bookstores) from noticing the other scathing content.  Just a few songs and the issues that they address:

• “The Spirit vs The Kick Drum” looks at the heinous things that we say with our lives, but would never verbalize
• “What Matters More” (when not being criticized for its language) asks if it’s really more important to fight the culture wars than to minister to the sick and dying
• “The State” takes Christians to task for the blurring obliteration of the line between faith and Americanism
• “Heaven” bemoans our obsession with materialism and the subsequent ignoring of the “least of these”

Such issues simply don’t fit in with the other things sold at your average Christian bookstore.  And let’s be honest — it’s not because the stores are shallow in and of themselves. Any store that stays in business for any length of time must reflect the priorities of the majority of its customer base.

Granted, there are other means/venues for Webb to sell his music and deliver his message. But considering the audience that most needs to hear this message, I can’t help but wonder if one song wasn’t (at least partially) designed to take attention away from the others, at least long enough for the listener to take his medicine.

My Facebook status yesterday noted that This Train was possibly “getting the band back together”. It’s looking more and more like that’s a probability, rather than just a quote from the Blues Brothers.

Well, now they’ve launched a MySpace page that indicates further reality of this monumental circumstance. (And, apparently, they know nothing about how to design a MySpace page, as this one is legible and not a full-scale assault on the optic nerve.)  On that page is the proof that they aren’t just playing with my emotions:

This Train formed around 1993 in Chicago, IL. Played and recorded heavily until about 2000…then everything went black…where did they go? Mark was heard saying they split up due to “creative indifferences.” Jordan did wish for a hiatus to “follow his dreams”, which he darn sure did…too bad the mighty Cobra thought ‘hiatus’ was the ancient Japanese poetry…and exclusively spoke in the 5-7-5 form for nearly 6 years. But all of that is behind us now…the guys have been talking again and discovered they might want to take another whack at recording and playing shows…they’ve started writing…stick around and see what happens…because they have no idea what’s gonna happen next…just taking the ride.

For those who may be unfamiliar with This Train, you have been missing out. Prepare to be schooled.

First a few baseline facts:

• Mark Robertson, front-man and principal writer for the band, was a Ragamuffin (the band behind the late, great Rich Mullins) and in the subsequent Ragamuffin Band that brought about the vision of the last Rich album (after his death) and recorded one other album of a similar nature.
• This Train opened for Rich on a couple of tours, and also for the Ragamuffin Band later.

This Train (particularly through Mark’s writing) has the ability to mix the sacred with the ludicrous, and sometimes in the same song.  One example would be “The Longest Goodbye”, a song about the rapture and longing for (our eternal) home — but that includes a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Perhaps the best (or at least, most memorable to me) example is the title cut of their second album, Mimes of the Old West (which you can hear on their MySpace page).  I had the opportunity to ask Mark if that song was a metaphor for the early Church or if it was simply about the mimes of the old West.  His answer gave some interesting back-story on the song, but essentially, it boiled down to “yes”.

I realized, in retrospect, that any other answer would have disappointed me.

Go check out the MySpace page — they’ve got 8 of their songs up there (including a cover of Rich’s “Screen Door”). Even if you’re a long-time fan of the band, there’s no such thing as hearing their songs too much.

There’s an encouraging article over on the NY Times site about some extreme sports guys (think X Games and such) who are Christians.  Some of the guys’ stories are a bit harrowing (some came to faith after near-fatal accidents or jail-time related to drug addiction), but this is just further testimony to God’s grace.

While it’s neat to see someone using his platform to talk about what’s really important, particularly in a less-reached segment of our society, I (unfortunately) can’t stop by pointing out the article.

I’m not going to name the author of the blog where I found out about this article as (1) it’s not important and (2) some of his statements make it a bit unclear where he’s coming from. But this little gem jumped out at me:

You never thought you’d be praying for [guys like these], did you? Well, now we can. Now we should.

WHAT ?!?!?!?!?!?!?! NOW we can pray ?!?!

• Is it not true that God is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance”?
• Didn’t Jesus tell us to pray for (even) our enemies?
• Doesn’t “God demonstrate His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”?
• Hasn’t God chosen “the base things of the world and the things which are despised … and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence”?

But NOW is when I’m permitted to pray for these guys?

What has happened to the bride of Christ that we have erected self-imposed barriers about who we can and can’t pray for or care about?

Sometimes I have to wonder if Christians are living as though the Jehovah’s Witness interpretation of the 144,000 is being overly generous.

I find myself writing on Facebook a lot and not so much here on the blog.  Several reasons for that, but I’ve decided to occasionally bring stuff over here that I wrote over there.  Most of it will be links or quotes that I’ve discovered.

I’ll still write here when I have something less succinct to say (especially if I want to have ownership of it — FB’s ToS is your standard legalese nightmare of confusion).  But now if you’re not a FB friend, you can be one virtually.  And if you are, some of this will be worth a repeat anyway.

LINKS:

• Jeff Allen on God’s revenge
• Douglas Wilson on “green” and a Christian’s approach
• TRON (2) Legacy teaser clip
• An advocate for socialized medicine forgets to stack the deck (funny)
• Funny John Piper quotes

QUOTES:

Christianity is not immunity from trouble, but community with God — Sandy Adams

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. — CS Lewis - God in the Dock

OTHER STUFF:

• According to Jordan Richter of This Train, “we’re getting the band back together”. Assuming he isn’t just quoting the Blues Brothers, I’m gonna be squealing like a school girl.

(No, he’s not in jail.  “free” as an adjective, not a verb.)

Gayle Erwin is a teacher and author.  Although he isn’t officially a part of the Calvary Chapel movement, he’s been involved with them for many years.

I was talking about him today with a friend and noted that he has the Max Lucado-like gift of painting a Bible story very vividly, shrinking the time and distance between the reader/listener and the actual events.

I wandered over to his website and noticed that he now has many messages and most (all?) of his (audio)books as free mp3s.  I’m sure Gayle wouldn’t mind if you bought something, too, but wanted to give folks the heads-up.