Evolutionary Coda

I catalog, dispense, and reorder medications for a living at one of the nicer assisted living facilities in my area.  Across the street from my work is a bike path which, in fact, I use every day coming to and from work.  It is also where I take my lunches in all but the most inclement of weather.  There are park benches where I like to sit and read.  The trail itself is scenic, next to a creek.  It's a lovely area.

I was sitting there on my lunch break the other day when a man, a complete stranger to me, approached on a bicycle.  He was around retirement age and the repair and accessories of his bicycle as well as his dress suggested a man of modest means and likely a more solitary existence, but not an unpleasant sort of person.

As for me, my moment before the encounter was spent realizing that I had 10 more minutes of my lunch break and only 3 more pages left before I completed the chapter I was reading.  I was inclined towards finishing the chapter before I had to return from my break.

The man said, "How's the reading?"

I said, "Great as always."

He said, "What are you reading?"

I said, "Mr. Charles Darwin."

He screeched to a halt.  I think he actually said, "Uh oh."  I knew exactly what was going through his head and what was about to happen.  The man, in his head, thought that this was the moment where he meets the secular humanist on the road and evangelizes him, or at least does intellectual battle with him.  What went on in my head was, "Great.  Now I'm going to have to listen to this guy and not get to finish my chapter."

It was a source of great amazement to me how reading Darwin in public inspires more strangers to feel compelled to talk to you about religion than does reading the Bible in public.

I felt a little cheap after I thought, "This guy is looking for a great story to tell his church group.  He wants to tell the story of the atheist he met on the path and either he stood his ground for the truth of the Gospel or, even better, he preached at the atheist until the atheist got down on his knees a-weeping and repenting."  Immediately followed by the humbling thought, "Wait a minute, Paul.  Aren't you already planning to use this story on your blog?"

I did not say much.  I mainly didn't say much because he didn't ask much.  He lectured and I silently prayed, "God help him if he ever meets the person he currently thinks he is meeting.  He'll be eaten alive."  He began to speak in such a way that I could not break out of the conversation without compromising my standing as a gentleman.  I felt a little like I did when Mormons came to my door the other day.  I felt a little cheated because I would love to have an intelligent conversation about ideas, but that was not on the table here.  What was on the table was for some guy I don't know to tell me what he thinks and then leave, feeling good about himself and feeling no requirement to give me another thought so long as he lives.

How did this come to be?

I also felt a little bad that he was not about to obtain the narrative from his encounter with me that he was expecting.  He started out with the unsolicited advice that I should balance reading Darwin with also reading the New Testament.  I said, "I fully anticipate that I shall" although, in all honesty, I am currently studying through the book of Ruth and, frankly, am not doing so to "balance" anything. 

He asked me if I knew why there was so much evil in the world.  I said, "Yes.  Because of sin."  And at that moment I had the distinct impression that he realized that he was not talking to "the enemy."  He talked for a while about his view of science and religion and about how he lives in a low income apartment complex for the elderly and about the CMA church that he attends.  I then got the sense that he didn't really have all that much interest in speaking to me as a fellow human being now that he felt to his satisfaction that I wasn't someone that he needed to correct and, just as he arrived, he left.

I had this moment as he started to ride away where I had a vision, a moment where my internal camera pulled away into the third person, and I saw this lonely old poor man on a bicycle, riding away from a neurotic middle-aged poor man in a path in a neighborhood where wealthier people dwell.  Two infinitesimal growths on the thin layer of scum covering a small rock hurtling through a dark void.  It's only by the grace of God that an asteroid doesn't slam into the Earth, or Mount Lassen erupts, or the poles shift, or the coming antibiotic resistant plague doesn't arrive to wipe us all out of our strutting and fretting existence.  While both of us owe our lives to the myriad shoulders of ancestors on which we stand, neither of us are exactly the sort of mover and shaker whose bold personality is going to insure top-feeding for us and our kin.

And I called out after him, probably out of his range of hearing, "You know, both can be true."

In which I talk about the terrible event I mentioned 2 weeks ago

I wasn't sure if I would talk about this here. This blog is often kind of a vacation for me. And believe me, I would much rather be writing about something interesting I just read about John Keats, or Laurie and my love for the music of Erik Satie right now. But I have something else I have to write about tonight.

I mentioned about two weeks ago about a life changing and terrible event in our life. In brief, here's the background for newcomers to this story. Last year we had a delightful family come to our church for many months. Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz had a large family, 6 of their own kids and 3 adopted from Liberia, including 7 year old Lydia who shared a special mutual adoration with Laurie. Kevin and I would talk after church often. We went to dinner at their house, they showed us how to milk their goats; they gave us book cases. They were very kind and very sweet. We loved them all very much and still do. We will continue to love them no matter what happens, and no matter what happened. They left our church after about 8 months.

A little over two weeks ago I got a phone call from my pastor. Lydia is dead, her sister in the hospital, the rest of the kids in foster care, and Kevin and Elizabeth in jail. Soon after, Kevin and Elizabeth were charged with an open count of murder, torture and child abuse.

I will not go into the emotions here. I'm not sure I need to and I'm absolutely sure I don't want to. It is probably needless and the zenith in understatements to say that it has been a very rough two weeks. To see this happen to people you love is really beyond words.

The Schatzes followed, to a "t", a system of child rearing which came from Michael and Debi Pearl whose No Greater Joy "Ministry" is based in Tennessee and whose site I refuse to sully this blog by linking to. The Pearls are not professionally trained or educated in child development. They came up with this darkness out of the abundance of their hearts. The first time I pulled up their website about two weeks ago to learn more about this system which I'd only ever heard of in furtive whispers before, Laurie can testify, I literally left my office in tears after only a few minutes and did not want to go back into the room where that was on the screen. It is one of the most hate-filled, wicked and evil systems I've encountered in my life, all with a sheen of "Christian" and "happy families." For the past two weeks, information junkies that Laurie and I are, we waded through the Pearl system and it gets worse the more you dig.

Other people (my wife for one) have done much better jobs laying out the evils of the Pearl system. Generally, one of the major problems is the extremely dangerous and wildly unbiblical position that they preach of sinless perfection being achievable in this lifetime. Mix that with a strict discipline system with one's children and you can probably put together for yourself how something like this could happen. You expect sinless perfection and you will whip your child as often as needed if they fall short.

People, this is exactly why I am so focused on searching out and sticking to good, sound, biblical doctrine! This is why I beat that drum so much. This is why discernment is so vital to a Christian! Doctrine dictates lifestyle! The Pearls teach a system of salvation through obedience, which, as I've now said elsewhere, is about as anti-Christian a message as I can think of. The Pearls' theology is as anti-Christian as anything I've read in Nietzsche, and Nietzsche's philosophy does not endanger the physical lives of children. We are saved by faith alone in Christ alone, by His undeserved grace, by no work of our own lest we should boast. Along with that, we are called to love. Love is patient, kind, long-suffering. All of which are qualities that are considered parental weakness to the Pearls. Or, rather, they may pervert it in such a way that they may say words to the effect of "I am being patient, kind and longsuffering in diligently whipping my child at every hint of an offense."

Specifically, the Pearls suggest in their book the exact piece of plumbing tubing for whipping disobedient children that the Schatzes used when Lydia mispronounced a word when reading out loud from a Frog and Toad book (I grew up on those books. Their appearance in this story is just another in a seemingly endless line of heartbreaking detail.) The Pearls also suggest things like if your child tries to run when you're about to whip them, stalk them through the house slowly while laughing at their feeble attempts at escape. Also, wear the tube around your neck so that the child sees the weapon every time he or she looks at you. I think part of what strikes me so much about this is that it is a system meant for Christians, and many Christians are buying it while non-Christians I've spoken to have no problem immediately identifying this system as outrageously evil and, in my own words, "morally repugnant." As another has said, this is a major failing of the Christian church in America.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
So, the Pearls have no legal responsibility. They're just making suggestions, of course, and we live in a society where we all enjoy free speech (look, I'm doing it right now!) And every time a child of a parent following their system dies at their parent's disciplining hand (as you can probably imagine, this is not the first time it's happened) the Pearls have no problem throwing the parents under the bus, washing their hands of it to the press. However, we, the people, can still see the blood on the Pearls' hands and this is where social responsibility comes in.
It is unacceptable that a system like this is socially acceptable in what is supposed to be the Christian church. We ought to have a culture where public opinion is so strong against such things that systems like these cannot exist. No Christian should entertain the idea of the Pearl system for a moment and certainly no one should be giving money to these people.

So, being anti-censorship, what can I do? Well, I wrote to Lynn Harris, the author of many books but also the journalist on Salon.com, one of the internet's most major news sources, who in 2006 wrote an article on the death of another Pearl follower's child during discipline, and the subsequent murder charge. We wrote back and forth, spoke on the phone and she produced an article. Yes, the Laurie and Paul Mathers in the article are exactly who you think they are.

Speak out and speak up, Christians. Educate yourself in sound doctrine and let's move public opinion in the church to a place where this system can no longer survive.

If you call yourself a Christian and you don't immediately think it's a foul, unthinkable, disgusting suggestion to whip your child at least 10 times per offense (more "if needed"), wearing the weapon visibly at all times, having a weapon always at hand with which to whip your child, menacingly hunting down your child when they are fleeing punishment in terror like the villain in the Halloween movies, and even manufacturing occasions to whip in order to "train them", if you don't immediately recoil from such things, I would highly recommend you put down the plastic tubing and go pick up your Bible. You may have reason to be concerned about the state of your soul. If you think, as I keep hearing from Christians (and it makes me feel like vomiting every time) that "there's some good in the Pearl system" I would suggest that an apple dipped in cyanide also still contains vitamins. If you eat it, it will taste good, but it will kill you inside. There is not such a dearth of child rearing methods that you ever even need to pick up a system laced with violence, cold-heartedness, and fatal legalism to get "some good points" out of it.

And if you are a Christian, the state of your child's soul should be paramount (and, if you're a parent of any kind, the preservation of your child's life, health and well being should be paramount.) Sharing God's love for them and your own love for them should be at the top of the list. I have no idea why expedient means to get your child to obey is so important. Christ's love for us imperfect sinners is more important than anything! God's patience with our own disobedience is unfathomable.

Michael Pearl, after a tirade on his website about the "lesbians" who are persecuting him (yes, it's that level of rhetoric we're talking about here) does make a point that he doesn't see "the daddies" speaking out against him (yes, also probably not a big surprise, he also uses extremely socially awkward and highly archaic turns of phrase like "damsels", "porno", and "licks" as in "giving licks," as in whipping). He is correct in that I also am not seeing a lot of Christian men speaking out against this. Shame on Christian men. It may have to do with his power-mad system that revolves around constantly stroking the male ego. But it may also be that that day is over. I am one Christian man who will tell the world that the Pearl system is evil, anti-Christian, and it will not stand! The Pearls preach lies from the pit of Hell. I will not sit back and allow them to continue to drag the name of Christ through the mud.

I could go on. And I will elsewhere.

But do go and read the Salon.com article. Also go read my wife's blog entry. It will break your heart. It broke mine all over again and I think we're both starting to realize we may live in that state for the rest of our lives.

Paul Mathers on Hallowe'en

I wondered if I would ever really need to have this conversation. It is, on my end, a bit like having to explain to someone why I don't watch television. I simply cannot work up any care over it, so why would I want to then burn precious minutes of my life explaining said apathy. So hopefully I'm only going to have to do this once. There is any number of things I would think more important to talk about, but every stinking year we hear this sort of drivel.
This is the "yes, I am a Christian and no, I have no problem whatsoever with Hallowe'en" post. And then we can get on with our lives.

Much like my wife has written elsewhere, I hear this discussion every year and I am so sick and embarrassed of it. There are Christians (or at least church-attenders) who get very heated over this topic. More heated than they ever get over, say, doctrine or the Gospel. It strikes me that it isn't so much about the holiday as it's about feeling really good about getting really mean and self-righteously indignant on a subject. Really? We really need to talk about this? Because I'm still not sure we really even need to be talking about this. I shudder to think I'm actually about to address a topic generally only discussed by the sort who start conversations with "did you see that commercial where..."

Okay.

Hallowe'en is everywhere in this country. Sales in decorations have surpassed those of Christmas decorations. It's a billion dollar a year industry in years when the global economy hasn't collapsed. Its history is long, verbose, not terribly exciting, meandering and long. It comes to us from a long history of time, different cultures, superstitions, wives' tales, genuine holy days, but mainly and above all from loads of advertising from Victorian times through today. It's a walking shadow, a poor player. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .

So often I hear Christians say "look at the history" and I do! I have! I know the history of the holiday pretty darn well. And what do I find? Muddled nonsense scraped together to reveal that the dad-blamed thing didn't really exist in any tangible way over 200 years ago. I find a folk tale here, a superstition there, and then a card company and candy company joining forces back before the American Dream was murdered. At this point let me point out that I am not talking about Samhain here. That is a holiday for some who I'm sure would agree with me at least on the point that what they are celebrating is not the same Hallowe'en that I am talking about here. I am talking about the thing you see when you walk into a drug store between now and Sunday morning. I am talking about an American tradition which has very little inherent meaning. Which means that, yes, one puts one's own meaning into Hallowe'en - just as we put our own meaning in December 25th when we borrowed the date from pagans to ease the transition into Christianity even though it's a 1 in 365 chance that Jesus was actually born on that particular day. These holidays did not exist without humans. We do make our own reality in this case. It's something we made up. Much like the likewise embarrassing "should we let our children read Harry Potter" discussion in Christian circles 1) it has jelly beans in it. If your faith is being shaken by it, you may want to look into the seriousness of your faith if your faith in a sovereign God and Christ's atonement for your sin can be shaken by something involving jelly beans and 2) it's really not all that good. If your faith is being shaken by a formulaic children's book series or a day to wear cheap plastic masks, you may want to look into how earnestly you delight in the things of the Lord.

I hear Christians say "you just say that to make excuses to do whatever you want." On this weekend I have carved a pumpkin and shall pass out candy to any child that comes to my door. And that is it. It's hardly a hill I would die on. Aside from the baked pumpkin seeds I doubt I would even miss it all that much were it no longer celebrated.

If Laurie and I had our hypothetical child, we would dress the child as an historical figure or literary figure and spend time learning about that particular figure (on Hallowe'en. And actually, upon reflection, probably throughout the year as well.) Then we would probably take the child in that costume out to a better neighborhood and let the residents shower candy upon our child. And then I would spend a week or two with the harsh temptation of eating my child's candy.

And, I know I'm lifting this aspect of my argument wholesale from Tim Challies, but what kind of a witness is it to be super-uptight about this? Who are you really going to have a productive ministry with if you're freaking out about these things? People have a lot more important things going on spiritually than Hallowe'en. Address those and don't blow your witness on the Vegas-era Elvis of holidays.

Now, what I do tend to wish to celebrate on the 31st and what I certainly celebrate in earnest on the Sunday nearest to it is Reformation Day. As you well know, I am a Reformed Baptist and as you also well know October 31st is the date in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Chapel, citing the abuses of power and doctrinal errors of the Roman church, thereby inciting (unawares at the time) The Reformation. I could make a pompous statement about a meaningless holiday of wearing masks versus a holiday celebrating the ripping off of masks to reveal corrupt institutions. In fact, in days gone by I probably would have made some pompous statement like that. Now I take the time to remember where Protestantism came from, compared to where it is, and especially to reflect on Luther's Solas which are:
-Sola scriptura (by Scripture alone)
-Sola fide (by faith alone)
-Sola gratia (by grace alone)
-Solus Christus (through Christ alone)
-Soli Deo gloria (glory to God alone)
It was a significant day in Wittenberg because everyone was gathering for miles around in preparation for All Saints Day, the day when one honors the cloud of witness in the faith who have gone on before us (as you can see, a celebration of the dead is a bit of a perversion on this theme.) It was a Hallowed Eve that Luther chose to nail his 95 Theses to the door of the church. All Hallow's Eve was a high holy day in the Roman church at that time and earnest believers would have used it as a time of worship. I, for my part, look to the great cloud of witness who have run the race before me on this glorious weekend. Reformation Day is a holiday about truth whatever the cost and it is a holiday about glorifying God.

But that's just what I do.

I find I can work up a bit of railing on an aspect of Hallowe'en if I am called upon to do so. It's to the effect of something I think I've heard Laurie already say in a few conversations. Words to the effect of "no, we're not doing anything for Hallowe'en. We're grown ups."
Hey, look, no one who knows me is going to accuse me of being anti-fun. That's a large part of why I carved a Jack-o'-lantern. I don't even in concept have an ideological problem with adults who want to put on costumes. I will not, no matter how often I threaten to, dress as Martin Luther one of these years. It's a matter of taste (in snarky moments I might say that it's a matter of having some.) I don't even in concept have a problem with decorating one's yard for the little Trick Or Treaters (although I do take some issue with the "making light of death" themed decorations. First, as my wife also said elsewhere "It is the great enemy of man." Second, there's something kind of pathetic to me when people presume they can laugh in the face of death. They can't. Given enough time, death laughs last.)
Mainly it's that we live in a town whose population largely comprises college students but also with a thriving section of those who have chosen "substance abuser" as a career path. Tomorrow night I have every desire and intention of being in my home by nightfall. The whole culture of "cheap excuse to try once again to drink away the constant, maddening existential hum" and "dressing as a sexy something, doesn't really matter what" strikes me as kind of desperate, hollow and pathetic. I have no problem passing a sweeping judgment over that particular side of the holiday although I would also point out that the problem here has nothing whatsoever to do with Hallowe'en.

In short, I have no problem with Hallowe'en. As far as I can tell, it's a cultural, very American holiday (I know it's in Britain and Germany as well, but it's a very different beastie over there than it is over here. See below) that one cannot avoid without putting one's head in the sand. As usual, this does not mean it's good to blindly follow, but it also isn't necessarily evil in and of its self any more than, to risk wearing out an analogy, Twitter is vapid. The bulk of tweeters may be vapid, but it can also be a valuable tool and it is not the medium that produces the content. Yes, people may wear costumes of highly fictionalized versions of dark entities, but if a comical witch or devil is shaking you to your theological core, you may have a larger problem than Hallowe'en. You may want to turn to the Gospel instead of to the pointing, condemning finger and the fear. People love themselves some fear. In my experience, nothing makes people more angry than telling them that they don't need their precious fear.

I also have no great love for Hallowe'en. If it stopped happening this year I wouldn't miss it. As it stands it is a day when I will carve another pumpkin (or, rather, I am informed that I will scoop the innards out of Laurie's pumpkin so that she can carve hers without doing the grunt work); I will pass out cheap Trader Joe's chocolate bars. Going anywhere after 3pm will be a king sized pain; and I will go to bed early and enjoy an extra hour's sleep before church on Sunday.

And in conclusion and a weak attempt to diffuse the rising bile in the more legalistic readers of this blog (if any), here's British comics Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie telling the BBC audience how to properly treat Trick or Treaters.

Books That Changed My Life

C.S. Lewis is one of those authors that Christians like to cling to with all tenacity and ferocity (as well they probably should. Heaven knows there's a great mass of awful Christian writing out there. Although any opponents who might wish to gloat on that point, I would hastily point out the even greater mass of awful non-Christian writers currently in print.) We know that he was a great author, a great intellectual, and a great historian by any standard. However, often for me he brings to mind the old Mark Twain observation that a "Classic" is a book which people praise and don't read. Sure, everyone reads the Narnia books and some read The Screwtape Letters, both of which are awesome in their own right. But who reads, say, The Great Divorce aside from theology nerds like Laurie and I.

And speaking of that, one of the beautiful things I find about Lewis is that he is very much a unifying force (and we can use all of those we can get in the church.) I've heard the half dozen people I've met who've read The Great Divorce from various theological standpoints themselves all come away with kind of a "hm. As a thought experiment, kind of cool. As theology, pretty weird." Lewis did have some pretty quirky theology, but in my experience none but those on the more divisive end actually ever attack Lewis. There's that famous story of a baffled Bob Jones who, upon having met C.S. Lewis, was asked what he thought and replied with much confusion “That man smokes a pipe, and that man drinks liquor—but I do believe he is a Christian.”

I had a very difficult time with Mere Christianity about a year ago specifically his suppositions about free will (which would be laughed right out of any biology, physics or philosophy department building of a modern university. He's very much into free will through the eyes of thinkers of 70 years past), but I still think Lewis was a great Christian author. And let me tell you why.

Till We Have Faces is, in my opinion, if not his finest work very nearly so. It is by far my favorite work of his. Till We Have Faces is a retelling of a Greek myth but it is so much more than that. The first half of the book reads like a historically type novel. I was able to find myself totally bathed in the story by Part 2, I've talked to others who found it a bit on the yawny side until Part 2 which I don't get, but fair enough.

The second part completely destroyed me.

Lewis expresses the greatness of God in such a staggering way. It captures the reaction of Isaiah, or pretty much anyone who experiences a theophany, when they feel they are undone, when they realize and experience. I won't give away much because one really needs to read this book. Everyone should read this book.
This is where Lewis shines. When it comes to specific doctrines, Lewis and I have differences. Clearly I have no problem with the smoking and liquor thing. I personally feel that Lewis and scripture have some differences of universe views. But I wholeheartedly, without a moment's hesitation affirm once again that Lewis was a wonderful Christian and a jewel of a man. And while his intellect in, say, The Screwtape Letters is an absolute delight to read, I think the intellect really only serves as a support for Lewis' true gift which was expressing God's greatness, holiness and love in tangible, visceral terms that reach out of the pages and grab the reader by the lapel.

If you have not read this book, read it. I've had different eyes ever since I first read this book. It's that good.

Offense Through The Mailslot

I had a completely different topic to cover in today's blog post, but something came through our mail slot this morning that I thought might be worthwhile to reflect upon for a few moments. The item is a holiday season (although we might, I say "might" be safe to say Christmas in this instance) catalog from a popular Christian bookstore. It is tangible evidence I can point to for two statements my wife has heard me make countless times. "So often I feel like an alien in my own religion" and "If I did not believe the Gospel to be entirely true there would be nothing about Christianity that would make me a Christian."

I've heard many before me speak on the topic of "Jesus Junk," which is to say anything from pencils to paddle ball sets, to key chains, to breath mints "sanctified" by a little scripture inscription or at the very least a symbol, or that one painting of blond haired, blue eyed Jesus. Tom Waits even did a song about the phenomenon. So I know I'm not alone in these observations. So for some reason, probably born from the echos of Sacher-Masoch in my subconscious, I thought I might give a walking tour of this catalog. Clearly I am in the role of Virgil, not of Beatrice.

First, right on the front cover is the new Christmas themed video in the Veggietales series which I believe are about old enough to drink now. I'm hard pressed to think of another child focused cartoon to survive longer than one generation. I don't have much of a value judgment to make on the Veggietales series, although the bright shiny colors, the happy image, the tried and true marketability, and the total absence of anything apparent that would point an alien to the Gospel message sets the tone for what's within.

Within are greeting cards, pastoral and sedate art prints, a plush mountain goat or something like that holding a package that reads "Jesus is the gift." The sort of thing I remember from being an atheist as the sort of thing you go and buy for someone who you know is religious, because it's got Jesus written on it and because what the heck else do you know from what to get them. There are hoodies, a plate set, dozens of advent scenes, baseball caps, uh, let's see, there's a little Precious Moments figurine reaching for a snowflake to symbolize, uh, how we're all like God's little snowflakes or something. A clock! That's good and useful, right? I bet I could knock you over with a feather from surprise when I tell you it's a Kinkade scene on the clock face and that it plays an inspirational song on the hour and that it is 50% off. Necklaces. Oh, okay, 22 pages in we hit the first Bible. It is the Veggietales Bible. It is an NIV. It is also on sale. I think the one that scares me the most though is the American Patriot's Bible. It's a New King James Version, of course, and has a picture of a Puritan and one of Washington praying by his horse on the cover. It is also on sale.

There's the Fireproof movie page where you get a free "Covenant Marriage Certificate" with your purchase, suitable for framing, which you and your wife sign and then I guess you're even more committed than you were when you had a danged marriage ceremony before God, state and your core peer group. You got your Rick Warren, your Donald Miller, that dude that went to Heaven for an hour and did so well with his book that some other guy went to Hell for 23 minutes on Don Piper's coattails.

Then I got to the page that has two books which had me sputtering around the front room for a few minutes. They are books addressed to Christians who are entrenched in the Twilight series of books. No, I'm not kidding. There are, in fact, Twilight replacement books for Christians (I think the genre is Xian ParaRom which, translated, is Christian Paranormal Romance books) which are a bit like methadone for the heroin addict I suppose. This, rather, is... well, let's let the product description speak for its self:

"What can vampires teach us about God's plan for love? Two new books help you investigate the themes of the Twilight saga from a biblical perspective. Touched by a Vampire presents parents, teachers and others with a thoughtful, but cautionary overview of how the series' storylines portray love, sex and purpose. While Escaping the Vampire draws on themes that appeal to teen girls- romance, superhuman powers and adventure- to help them move beyond fantasy to discover the true Lover of their soul."

Oh, dear reader, I wish I were being satirical. It really really says that.

Are we really having this conversation? Is this really so big an issue that it warranted two books? We are talking about God's divine and sovereign plan throughout eternity, all of history and space unfolding to the great work of redemption and His perfect holiness, His glory, His infinite love! We're talking about the meaning of the existence of everything, the drama of cause and effect, sin and holiness! It's a catalog which claims its aim is toward people passionate about Christ, transformed into new creations, once dead in their sins and brought to life through the Holy Spirit's gift of faith in Jesus' perfect sacrifice and atonement for sins! And there's a page featuring books about pulpy pot-boiler checkout-counter books by a Mormon about teens who fall in love with glittery vampires?!!?

Oh, and two pages over is the steaming heap called The Shack. Near the end we have the "Guitar Praise" game which, you guessed it, is Guitar Hero with Praise Music. There's Ben Stein's movie being appropriated (or maybe quarantined might be more apropos) by the Christian catalog on grounds of some shared points of view. There are films with families standing on prairies. One with a talking dog. An auto-censoring DVD player so you can watch big Hollywood films instead of the crap in the catalog without the bits the DVD player thinks you might disapprove of.

We end in the music section. There's an album with a cover that shows that the band has seen, liked, and stolen the art style of artist Dave McKean (who is probably old enough to be the grandfather of the members of the band. Christianity does that. The cutting edge of Christianity tends to reflect the slightly edgy mainstream of a generation ago.) There's an album cover with a pug dog in comedic glasses. Most of the other album covers are great big pictures of the band. And the catalog ends with coupons.

I posted recently on righteous indignation to be used sparingly and in the appropriate context. I also talked about focusing on the good and avoiding giving too much press to the horrible. I find it appropriate for me to break both of those with this catalog. It's spitting in the face of all I hold most valuable. It is a book of vultures picking clean the corpses of the spiritually dead while giving the illusion of life. The catalog stinks of Hell. It reeks of the nominally Christian, the false conversion, the cultural Christian. I find myself at a loss to express how repugnant I find it, so I wrap my comments in sarcasm. Make no mistake, behind it is deep offense.

People die for the Gospel. The Cross is everything. As C.S. Lewis said,

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

Needless to say, I'm trying to fit Lewis' quote into the box of Christian merchandising trifles. I would say the same goes for Guitar Praise. Also, there are people, many throughout the world, many even in America now, who are in dire need at the end of this year. And you're really hocking a system so people can watch National Treasure on their flat screens with the innuendos bleeped out?

Folks, we are all sinners. That is the natural condition of man to be separate from God in our sin. God, in His perfect grace and love, provided a Savior to atone for His lost sheep, to die in His perfection on the cross under God's wrath for all of our sin, to rise again victorious over death itself, to restore our relationship to Him and all those who have faith in Him.

This Christmas, give to those who are in need. There are a lot of them right now. Spend time with your loved ones. You only get so long with them in your life and you don't know how long that will be. Keep Christ in your mind. And if you're going to give gifts, like what you like. God made you the way you are for a reason. Don't let these hucksters try to pawn a bunch of cheap crap off on you because you're a believer and you have to take it.

This isn't meant to say that Christian bookstores are all bad to their core. I've been to the one in town franchised from this catalog's company. They have two or three titles by the always awesome John Piper right next to the gargantuan display of Don Piper's "Whut I Seen In Heaven That Time My Heart Gave Out." They have the ESV Study Bible available (which is probably the best study Bible I've found to date) next to the American Patriot Bible. My point is the tone and bulk of the offerings are SO far off base. It's not even cotton candy instead of steak. It's more like a picture of bubblegum cigarettes instead of a few lung fulls of clean, pure, mountain air.

Covering Capitalism

Many years ago, when Laurie was just a friend of mine, one evening at a study she told me a story about when she was a teenager and they unplugged a jukebox at a camp because the kids kept playing "One Tin Soldier" over and over and over. She was amazed that I had never heard One Tin Soldier. I think later that night I drove down for one of my Orange Country trips (which I used to do when I was single - leave to drive to OC at 9pm and get there just before sunrise.) Within 24 hours I was at a friends house and asking them about One Tin Soldier. It turned out everyone else on Earth had heard the song before, but I got the strange idea in my head that I should record a cover of the song, never having heard it before, of what I might suppose it might go like. I envisioned a whole album of covers of songs I'd never heard. My version was highly percussive and had a lot to do with Red Buttons making time go slow and Jonathan Winters' head rising like the sun.

I'm about to do something similar and, probably, about to finally write the post that will make everyone furious with me. Deo Volente, Laurie and I are spending the last of our movie theater gift certificates tomorrow to go see Michael Moore's new film "Capitalism: A Love Story." I thought I might say a few words here in the autumn of 2009 just before seeing the film; and then after seeing the film I can write a review and see what the two entries look like next to one another.

I've enjoyed some of Moore's films and I would direct you to my recent post of separating art from artist. I thought Sicko hit the nail right on the head; and I cried most of the way through Bowling For Columbine. And when I disagree with him, he at least gets us thinking and talking about why, which I think is always good. In the end, I like his op-ed pieces. I take them as op-ed pieces, (not as journalism) regardless of what I think of him or how much or little I agree with them. At the very least, I think he puts on a good show and sparks some nifty conversations. And sometimes he hits it hard and he hits it exactly on the head.

Now, to Capitalism as an economic system. Here's a clip of Senator Sanders responding to a question by Michael Moore:



I don't think Capitalism is necessarily a great evil in and of itself. Like Moore, I understand that it is not by necessity the American Way. Democracy is The American Way. We can have whatever economic system we choose. I have no problem with rewarding good production and hard work. In fact, I would like to see that.

It's always puzzled me how a first world country, born from The Enlightenment, can have people who die of heart attacks because they don't call the ambulance because their family could not afford the medical bills. Or how there can be people, like me, who desperately want to work, when clearly there is an abundance of work that could be done to build our nation, but are unable to find work because no one is hiring. Or that people who want to work lose their houses and cannot afford food. Meanwhile, the top 1% gets a new, bigger flatscreen iTV. I'm inclined, with Senator Sanders, to agree that a lot of Europe seems to put us to shame. Not that I think Europe is some Utopia by any means. Also, upon consideration of the temperature set by television's screaming heads, I should probably add that I love my country.

It would seem to me that our country could be a hot-bed of progress, innovation, ideas, culture, and philanthropy. At the moment, I think we're slouching toward the polar opposite. There could be jobs for all! When I took a business leadership course in college (I think I was planning on using the concepts in stage management) I did a report on Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and their corporate structure, which includes taking scrupulous, almost Nordic, care of their employees, and the CEOs not making more than seven times what their lowest employees was paid (I say "was" because they eventually ended up having to sell the whole company to Hagen Das in one of the more depressing bits of business news of the last 20 years.)

I'm not here for an anti-capitalism rant. I do think capitalism can be a good incentive system. I think that people striving for better stuff is fine, so long as one's not glutting while someone else willing to work, unable to find work, is outside starving, sick without means for medical care and being foreclosed upon. And so long as the people who are doing the work that deserves the rewards are getting the rewards, but that is so very rarely the case. Unfortunately, unfettered capitalism seems to have led to a sort of Social Darwinistic economy where the "fittest" are either:
1) those born to rich parents;
2) those so brutal, amoral, and backstabbing that they politic, coerce, and destroy their way to the top or;
3) the kind of entertainer or athlete that advertisers and corporations feel okay backing because they do nothing to disrupt the culture of consumption.

I am achingly aware that money does not really exist. It is merely an agreed upon idea. However, as most of you who have reached adulthood have probably noticed, even in America you can die from a lack of agreed upon ideas.

So, as with Twitter, I don't think Capitalism is in and of itself evil, but the people who wield it often are. The way we use it often is. The top feeders in modern America seem to have come from the Charles Dickens Villain School of Business and Economics. The recent bank bailout debacle serves to illustrate again that people are not inclined to do the right thing.

Yesterday, I had a whole post on Classicism worked out in my head until I took the dogs out and a truck drove by. The truck was playing music of a man screaming as though he were about to kill people and the discordant cacophony behind his vocals were tailored to a pace to mimic a heart that is about to explode in panic. I thought about how things are getting kind of bad around here, and are in fact getting kind of bad all over the place. I don't come from a great golden age of decency. I am a child of the '80s. But I can say that things did not used to be as bad in America as they are now. People did not behave in the manner they now behave. Entropy ravages our closed system. And I started thinking about the murderous, vile, selfish hearts of humanity. But, 'twas ever thus. The murder in the hearts of those walking around, the selfishness and hatred, could be a fitting description of the days of Noah, or of the men of the city that Lot and his family fled in Genesis.

My brother brought up this morning in conversation how the church should take care of its own. I agree! Last night Laurie was asking me if I regretted that I don't have money and travel; and I said words to this effect: "Laurie, I am a man with a lot of regrets from his time in this world thus far. That is not one of them. I am very smart and could have sought after money and travel. But what is this world to me? Without Christ's abundant grace, I have nothing."
And again I would point out that we can talk about economics until doomsday, but a world without Christ is going to be wicked and sinful. A world without Christ has no hope. Without Christ, all is worthless.

I would also point out that the Bible doesn't command me to endorse a particular mode of government or economic structure.

But don't let's just tear down. When the economy collapsed, I thought it seemed like a very good time to re-organize, re-think, and re-structure. The video below is an interview (it's about 15 minutes long, but way better than whatever you were going to do with those 15 minutes anyway) with Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglizt about the gross mishandling of the banking crisis, how the economy really looks now, and some archaic aspects of our current economic structure (although I was laid off from a business with the 19th century mode of ownership that he was talking about. The dis-unity is a bit of a problem too, especially when you have 19th century style businesses competing with slick 21st century structured businesses and then wondering why they're having so much trouble.) To those already made politically uneasy by some of what I'm saying, I would point out that Stiglitz criticized Obama just as much as Bush. (Lately I've been using the word Carter-esque way more than I ever hoped to use it again in my life.) I thought it was a fair and thought provoking analysis of the current economic situation, which included some solutions which I don't think even went far enough and won't happen anyway. But, I thought I would pass it on.



You know, this is such a wonderful country. I love this country dearly. So much so that I think it would be an enormous tragedy to see it fall over something so stupid as the mismanagement of the economy. We wouldn't be the first to fall in such a way. The Roman Empire had a more dignified death.

Authenticity

"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." - Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3

When I worked in a Shakespearean theater company there was a type within the ranks of the subscription ticket holder whose path I would occasionally cross. All of the subscribers were not like this, but this type existed. Often I would talk to them, and a good deal of the poor little dears didn't have the sense to be ashamed of what I'm about to tell you. Some, in fact, were proud of this. The type was as follows: They went to Shakespearean productions to be more cultured. When I put that way it sounds fine, possibly even admirable. But, don't miss this, they felt as if becoming more cultured was something that happened to them by sitting in a room where Shakespeare was happening. It didn't matter if they paid attention or even stayed conscious. Shakespeare was cultural detention for them instead of a passion, a love of language, an unquenchable thirst for the greatest dramatic works ever penned. Unfortunately this reinforces the common (and misguided) perception that Shakespeare is too high fallutin, too esoteric for the common people to understand or enjoy. That's the real crime: people using Shakespeare to authenticate their sense of superiority eclipsing people who find Shakespeare's works so marvelous that they want to share Shakespeare with everyone.

I don't know why people fall for it. I have to assume that it is out of ignorance. I mean, we're talking about plays where men's heads turn into donkey heads; fat drunken men with adulterous intentions hide in the laundry basket. There are spells and monsters, ghosts and fairies and sometimes even bears onstage; villainous hunchbacks and virtuous heroes swordfight; pranks are played; Puritans and fops are lampooned; fortunes are gained and lost; people get murdered; people fall in and out of love; songs are sung; great wars and mighty storms happen; great men are born, made or sometimes have greatness thrust upon them; and, occasionally, there are witches and cannibalism - all to some of the most beautiful poetry and prose ever written in the English language. The appeal is anything but obscure. The appeal is universal. It is the very stuff of life.

Laurie and I were talking this morning about how the Christian church in America, in our experience, is full of non-Christians. This takes many forms that we've noticed in the many churches we've attended. There are those who are at church kind of like one would go to The Rotary Club, those who actually go there to actively sell things to people who have to listen because you're supposed to be a fellow Christian (this has happened to both Laurie and I multiple times), those who go there because it's supposed to be the religion of the Republican party, those who go because their parents went, those who go because they like to show off how they are anti-some other group of people who are not at that particular church because of their beliefs and/or lifestyle choices, those who go because the pastor is kind of a local rock star, those who are there because their boss is there, those who go because they are afraid of Hell, those who go because they want to let everyone know how superior they are (I think the Higher Life/Second Blessing/"sinlessness while we are still alive on Earth" from the Keswick crowd is one of the most evil theologies within the church today. It's tailored for people who want to look down their noses at other "lesser" Christians. What pain and meanness the Second Blessing lie has unleashed within Christianity, not to mention how those people treat unbelievers. How strange to turn Christianity, of all things, into a form of snobbery. Give me someone who admits to their glaring flaws readily any day! That's the person I can believe to tell me the truth.) or wag their fingers at others, those who go because they have a crackpot worldview and the church has to listen to them and the church is supposed to be too nice to tell them that they are barking mad, those who like to be right about everything and use correct biblical doctrine as a means by which to stroke that urge, those who go because churches give stuff out and sometimes serve meals, those who go because the rest of society has marginalized them, and on and on and on. Often one finds such churches have a low view of Scripture, salvation, God and Christ. Often one finds such churches would suggest that if you repeat a little prayer in your head and raise your hand while no one is looking, your salvation is assured no matter how much you continue to live like the Devil. As George Bernard Shaw so aptly put it "Christianity never got any grip of the world until it virtually reduced its claims on the ordinary citizen's attention to a couple of hours every seventh day, and let him alone on week-days."

True salvation comes through faith alone in Christ alone. While we were dead in our sins, God removed our hearts of stone and replaced them with hearts of flesh, so that those given the gift of faith (by no work of their own) in His atonement - God's Son on the cross, enduring God's wrath for our sins, dying, and rising to life again, a living Savior, after three days in the tomb - should abide with Him forever. This new heart produces an earnest desire in the believer to repent of sin, focus on God, to draw nearer to Him and do what is pleasing to Him, to know His Word and to glorify Him in all that he does. That is the meaning of life. We are no longer citizens of Earth, but citizens of Heaven and it should burn brightly in every aspect of our existence.

In my experience, those who have true conversion (become new creatures, catch fire for the Lord, become zealously passionate about His word and glorifying Him) have one of two things happen to them. Either they are run out of the church or they are made associate pastors. Which one happens, I think, has to do with whether the church thinks they can control the person or not.

A lot has been written on Matthew 7:21-23 which is the passage that reads "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" It can be a scary passage because it begs the question, how does one know if one is authentic? Actually, Jesus speaks to that directly before this passage "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits."

I think we ought to be passionately concerned about our salvation. I think that we all ought to be self-examining at all times, tossing that which has wicked motivation or is wrongheaded, seeking to draw closer to a life which bears good fruit. I think it's a good thing to have constant awareness of why we are doing what we are doing (although at times I would settle for awareness of what I am doing.) It is promised that the gate is narrow and hard. Don't do things out of a sense of social duty or fear of man. I would really rather see huge masses of rank heathens and a handful of the saved, than mega-churches jammed full of those unable to hear the gospel because no one can convince them that they aren't already Christians.

I tend to gravitate toward the honest and the admittedly flawed. I like it when people admit who they are regardless of what that may be, or, more to the point, I find that preferable to those who pretend to be something close to what I am.

Wow, Richard, you've really opened my eyes to what a loser I am!

I was talking with my brother (who is also my pastor, for those of you who don't know) the other day. He was describing another pastor with whom he had met this past week. The other pastor was jolly, laughing all the time, and really just brought his joy into any room he entered. He had a jar full of "vitamins" on his desk which were actually Jelly Belly brand jelly beans. He gives them to children with some words about taking vitamins and, of course, he is giving the children jelly beans. My brother said that the man was so obviously full of joy, contentment and happiness. I thought "I used to be like that. What happened?"

I have a deep respect for people like that, people who are joyful and not deluded or mentally unstable in any visible way. In a lot of ways I think that that is one of the most courageous ways to live especially for those whose vocation brings to them some of the most horrible conditions in life.

I was reading in the gospel of Mark the other day. I was reading the parable of the sower which goes like this:

"Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." And he said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven."
And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." - Mark 4:3-20 (ESV)

It's a passage that, in Puritanical style, makes me examine my own life and the state of my own soul. Some fall away when persecution or tribulation comes. Some fall away when the cares of the world come. That's me! So much of the time that is me. When the cotton is high I'm all spiritual, but lay me off from work for 5 months and just try to weigh my faith in God's provision against a mustard seed. And then it's easy to continue the spiral by feeling like a spiritual loser.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians that joy is a fruit of the spirit, meaning a sign by which believers can identify one another, as well as a means by which we nourish one another. And in Philippians, in the very passage I read to Laurie when I proposed to her, he commands us to "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." Of course, earlier in the same book he says "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." The rejoicing comes with the realization of the extent of humankind's trespass and the entirely undeserved grace extended to God's elect.
John Piper talks often about levity (and I talk often about John Piper talking often about levity.) He distinguishes joy from levity. Joy springs from a spirit of hope, goodness and peace. Levity is a mask for a heart of aggression, anger and discontent. Which is why I try to almost never, never, never use the form of humor known as sarcasm.

Which brings me to the movie we watched last night. We watched an amazing film called Little Miss Sunshine. It's one of those where if you're anything like me you laugh and cry all the way through. Its major themes, as I understood it, dealt with winners and losers, competition, how so often so many aspects of life are a beauty contest, and how the defeated deal with it in various ways, which reminded me of a quote I posted on my other blog a few weeks ago:
“What I hate most in life are people who are not really the peach of the day but who want to be young and sexy. You can fool nobody. There is a moment when you have to accept that somebody else is younger and fresher and hotter. Life is not a beauty contest.”
-Karl Lagerfeld

Which is all well and good and true. Lagerfeld is warning against a Death In Venice end, but then how does one deal? I remember a phenomenon from my goth clubbing days back when I was ages 16-20ish. The phenomemon was that there would very often be a male over 25 at a goth club and everyone else could readily identify that as creepy. Aside from the blantant sexual predatory thing that would usually be going on, there was the general understanding that there was something wrong with a grown man dressing in that manner and associating with teenagers. Of course it took a few years before I caught on that what that really meant was that the whole scene was trite and childish, but that's not the point. Also reminds me of how I smoked cigarettes in my teens and, now, when I see a high school (or even college) student smoking I naturally find myself thinking "Oh look. A child smoking!" I hasten to add that I was warned about how silly I looked smoking in my teens and I did it anyway.

There's more reason not to be all Death in Venice than simply not making an embarrassment of one's self. The better reason is an utter rejection of the fleeting, arbitrary and ridiculous standards of beauty and "winning" that Western Civilization (more specifically advertising) has just kind of made up. As the late physicist Richard Feynman said in his Nobel Lecture "The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off chance that it is in another direction — a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory — who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself."
Or, as the great sage of the last century, Mama Cass Elliot said "Make your own kind of music."
There is a reason why God populated the world with so many variations.

I found myself identifying with each of the males in the film (we were talking about Little Miss Sunshine, remember? Before I drifted off) in some way or another. From the grandfather's self-medicated nihilism, the angsty teen's defiance, the brother's struggle to reconcile the nobility of suffering with the very real despair and hopelessness in which he finds himself against his will, and even the horrid father's trying his very best and failing. Those who know me know that last one is one of my greatest fears in life and, therefore, one of my recurring themes.

One thing that is clear from the "fruit of the spirit" passage is that Paul is not commanding a "fake it until you feel it" approach, but rather the expressing of what comes from the abundance of the heart of believers. Just because the world around you is a beauty contest and everyone insists on putting you on the catwalk does not mean you have to behave on the catwalk in the manner in which they expect you to behave. The film ended with the lesson (and I don't think I'm spoiling anything here. I try to be dilligent against spoilers) that one ought not care what others think. It was an anti-fear-of-other-people message which is a good message and one that I think ought to be given more of a platform today.

However, you can't live on disgust with society and non-conformity. Actually, I guess you can. A good deal of the people I read made a tidy living off of that. I did it for years! But given the choice, I would take the negative for all it is worth and try to focus on a positive. The earnest Christian walk provides tremendous freedom for the believer. Freedom from the fear of man, as we are not citizens of this world; and the meaning of life has nothing to do with the ridiculous constructs of human society. Freedom from the shackles of our depraved nature, as our imperfections have been atoned for in full. Freedom from our inability to fulfill the Law, as the Law has been fulfilled in Christ. And freedom to focus on the only thing that really matters, which is God. In short, I'm all for non-conformity, but I really feel that when one comes up against a negative, one ought to offer a positive alternative. In this case, as I continue to think constantly about fear of man and judge myself against it, I think that the cure once again points back to the Great Commandment passage from Mark 12:

"Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Joy is quenched when I shove the cares and expectations of the world so close to my face that I am unable to see around them. So often I lose track of what's important in light of what is merely visible.

Paul Mathers on Health Care Reform

Okay. Time to talk about a hot button issue that will make everyone everywhere angry at me.

First of all, one of the glaring points I've noticed recently on this topic is that a year or so ago if I had talked about HMOs and the health care industry in America everyone, EVERYONE would have agreed that it is a messed up system. It was customary in modern American English to preface the word HMO with a obscenity. It was one of the rare unifiers in our country. Rich, poor, Republican, Democrat, covered, uncovered alike could agree that for-profit health care exploits pretty much everyone. It was screwing us all over with good old American equality. Michael Moore made a film about it and it was the first (and probably the last) thing he did that had people crossing partisan lines to hear him out over the issue. So many people know someone who have horror stories about bankruptcy, losing coverage for lung cancer because their HMO discovered they went into their doctor's office for a cough and so it was a "pre-existing condition," or other stories of that type.
I've spent most of my adult life around artists and poets which means I've spent my adult life around adults without health insurance. When I was working we could not afford to insure my wife and continue to eat and live indoors. Mind you, that was when I was working and had health insurance through my job which, you know, in theory ought to take care of its own even if, you know, they were anti-labor union. Most of you know my story of being laid off by no fault of my own.
Lately Laurie and I have had a problem with indigents sitting on the curb across the street from us and smoking crack in broad daylight while children are playing across the street (parenthetical tip for the perplexed: don't buy a house wedged between the back wall of a roach motel and an alley that leads from the soup kitchen to the homeless shelter off a major street in the poorer side of town.) Once, one of the indigents had the paramedics come and take him away, probably from an overdose. The way our country's health care system works, that man's ambulance ride and hospital visit will probably be taken care of entirely by the taxpayers. That's because he long ago chose "substance abuser" as an occupation and has absolutely no means by which to pay for his health care or anything else for that matter. He might not even ever see the Medi-Cal papers filled out with his information. I live in a house that I own (well, the bank actually owns, but I'm paying them off slowly each month) across the street and we scrape by. If I passed out on a curb (which I haven't done in years) I could not afford to go the hospital in an ambulance. It would destroy our lives. I would say we're one medical emergency away from losing everything, but actually I've pretty much resigned myself in my head to the reality that if I have a medical emergency I am going to freakin' die. Because I'm not going to spend my last moments or my recovery time watching my wife lose the house and declare bankruptcy. So, there's that. The people who are really screwed are the people who are in houses, apartments or condos in middle to lower middle class neighborhoods who are doing everything they can and should to make ends meet.
Oh, and even if a sack of money fell on us right now while I'm between jobs I could not get a private insurer to pick me up because I have the pre-existing condition of asthma. Health Insurance in America is modeled for those who don't need it.

Let me say a few of my presuppositions. I believe that the majority of the people in our government are trying to do what appears to be right and good for the people if for no other reason than that is their job and how they stay elected. Sure, they make mistakes like any humans and there is a wide variety of opinion (which is part of the beauty of our species.) They sometimes fail to foresee all of the repercussions of choices they make, just like the rest of us. And some are corrupt just like in any other position of power in the world; but mainly I think that the people in our government are trying to do what they think is best. They are trying to do good. I don't believe in conspiracy theories in general about shadowy government activity and that sort of nonsense. The sort of thing that makes Barney Frank ask which planet you live on.

And the last thing you want is for Barney Frank to ask you which planet you live on.

I think President Obama has thus far been a pretty good president, in fact one of the better ones in my lifetime. I don't agree with him about everything, but I certainly don't think he's evil or devilish or the Anti-Christ or any of that sort of foolishness which tends to make me embarrassed for the people who suggest such things. I think Christians would do much better spending their energy on spreading the Gospel and loving their neighbor than burping out that kind of absurdity at every microphone they can still manage to see through the Right wing standard issue blinders.
Now, I also don't think he's proven to be "greater than Lincoln" or anything yet, and I begin to have doubts that he'll be anything but another marginally competent president (although, since I seem to be throwing opinion spouting caution to the wind, I do think he's a bit of a cold beer on a hot night compared to his predecessor, but you can only keep that feeling up for so long before you actually have to start doing things.)
I do think there are a few fairly blatant "conspiracies" that do exist if you can call some things so blatant a conspiracy. One example would be the health care industry seeking to discredit Michael Moore's film "Sicko." I think we can all agree that that is a fairly clear conspiracy in its motives. I also think that the Republican party dupes the Christian community into whoring themselves wholesale to that party. Karl Rove has straight up admitted, and rather proudly at that, to using Christian views of homosexuality to advance his candidate even though Rove himself did not share those views. In other words, he used mainstream Christianity's beliefs to get what he wanted. This was a great point of pride in the two presidential campaigns he designed.
I also think that a good deal of opposition to health care reform comes directly from the health care industries that stand to gain from such reforms failing. Quo Vadis?

I am not a Republican nor do I consider myself a Democrat save that that's the party with which I found I could just barely stomach registering as without vomiting. Politically speaking, I consider myself as rabidly pro-science and arts with a predominately Quaker sense of social values. Quaker like Lucretia Mott, not like Richard Nixon. In short, I try to take the Fruit of the Spirit and the Sermon on the Mount with me to the voting booth as an individual American citizen and I do no attach a political party to my soul. Or to my brain for that matter.

I've heard Christians say some pretty disgusting and disturbing things in this debate. I read a professing Christian online who said that most of the people without health care are illegal immigrants anyway as an argument as to why we shouldn't provide health care as a nation. First of all, Laurie and I are hard working natives to this country and neither of us are insured. Second, in spite of what Lou Dobbs may tell you, I assure you that illegal immigrants are human beings created in the image of God, your earthly brothers and people in poor and desperate circumstances which we as Christians are commanded to seek to relieve.
And here's the rub of that. I've also heard Christians say that the church ought to see to the poor and their needs and the government stick to whatever it is they do. On Saturday, Laurie and I went to a benefit dinner for a drug rehab work program/halfway house here in Chico. They do good work and their restaurant (The Well Experience which both benefits the cause and employs people in their program) is one of the best restaurants in the county. I sat next to a man in a wheelchair. I don't know what happened to him, I didn't think it would be polite to ask, but he was severely crippled. But I do know that he was a brother in Christ. He had accrued in the course of his disability a million dollars worth of medical bills and the man was probably in a similar financial class to my own which is to say a million dollars may as well be a billion dollars because both are an amount that we will never have at our disposal. The church rushed to his aid, put on a huge benefit, people from all of the county, some complete strangers, all pulled together and with this great and touching effort were able to raise... $11,000. Which is a bit like making a full pot of coffee and drinking one shot glass worth. The Church in general does not have the means to see to the medical bills of the congregation much less the collected poor of the nation.

So we have taxes which pay for services that we all enjoy like socialized police protection, socialized fire departments, socialized libraries, socialized education, a socialized military. Yeah, you get the joke I'm making. Christians ought to be the loudest advocates of using our tax dollars for the relief of the poor because, as I said above, the church is just not going to cut it. I would remind my Christian readers that The Good Samaritan paid for the health care of the beaten man. While I think a lot of Christians ought to be ashamed of themselves for leaving their Christianity at the door with this issue, I really would rather suggest simply that Christians ought to be enthusiastic about providing for everyone in any way they can and in any way that is feasible/plausible/realizable. As an uninsured man with an uninsured wife, I find so many Christian arguments against health care to echo James' hypothetical brother who says "be warmed and filled" but does not provide what is needed by the needy. A good deal of Jesus' ministry comprised health care, if you will, or more accurately the relief of temporal suffering.

You do realize that there are earnest and truly converted Christians in countries in the world right now where they don't have The Republican Party. There were earnest and saved Christians a millennium before the foundation of the American Republican Party. You do realize that there will be Socialists in Heaven, don't you? Actually, do bear in mind that when one looks at the numbers in history it would suggest that the bulk of the population of Heaven at this point will be monarchists. How alien is that to us in modern America! In short, modern conservative democratic capitalism for all of its genuinely good points in the proper places is not Christian or un-Christian in and of itself. I would highly encourage everyone, myself definitely included, to be ever vigilant and oh so careful to never confuse their political affiliation with their spiritual walk.
However, this is a spiritual matter, as are all of our actions as Christians! I would advise all Christians to not blow their witness to the suffering individuals in our country in favor of the privilege of parroting the rhetoric of the screaming heads on the major cable networks whose television shows are interrupted by the quarter hour with advertisements for prescription medications.

And another thing, almost all of my artist friends have no health care. I have one who has excellent health care because they retain citizenship in their native Canada and will travel there if they have health care needs. I keep hearing the cry of "just ask a Brit or a Canadian what they think of their health care." I took that challenge and we have talked to dozens. They all love their health care system.
Which is not to say that I think any specific system is the cure all/flawless system. I've heard some of the pros and cons of Germany's, Britian's, Canada's and France's (although the latter seems to have surprisingly few complaints considering the source) and I'm not sure which model or amalgam of those models would suit our country. But I wholeheartedly feel that reform is the necessary and the compassionate road to take. As well as the enlightened one.
I'm not a socialist, but I also grew up after the knee-jerk hatred of anything that smells vaguely Red. I remember a Bible study several years (and several churches) ago where we read the portion in Acts about the early church pooling their resources and giving to each according to their needs. One clean-cut young man objected loudly to the pastor in the middle of the scripture reading saying "But.. but that's communism!" And I thought, "Okay, pastor, drop a train on him. Talk about compassion and brotherhood." No. The pastor talked about how that was cultural and how it's okay to hoard wealth and possessions because the Needle's Eye was actually a gate in Jerusalem where the camels had to crouch a little to get through. And the young man went away pleased because he had great possessions.
I like a lot of elements of capitalism and think that it works very well (except when greedy practices by banks, mortgage lenders and real estate agents crash the economy) in private industry. But I don't think everything everywhere would benefit from privatization. My gosh, no.

I would also suggest that ones who place their faith in Holy Scripture are already admitting at the start that sinners require governing.

Returning to the topic of politicians though, don't think I have high hopes for said reform either. Every few presidents get the bug to be the great hero of American history who brings us into the golden age of being a great society which provides health care for everyone within their borders. Then they fail miserably. They fail because another of the seemingly endless line of demons that Nixon let free on our land is the HMO and that demon will not lay down for a second. Ted Kennedy's death might actually help (I doubt anyone could make an argument that Ted Kennedy didn't want universal health care and a "let's do it for Teddy" campaign might work.) But ultimately here is my prediction:
President Obama will buckle to pressure and compromise to some half-hearted and impotent public option OR rather than reforming the system there will be a push to outlaw dropping the insured for pre-existing conditions and other lugubrious HMO practices. And in seven years when Obama prepares to leave the White House me and people like me will find ourselves much in the same health care situation we're in today.
What I would like to see is the people of Earth to rise as a species and seek to wipe out poverty and illness in all people regardless of race, geography, political affiliation or religion.

I would also like a pony and a castle made of lemon drops.