I have limited wind

This is very long, but I would much appreciate you taking the time to read it. Commenting never hurt me either.







OK, so in my last blog post I admitted some things that may not have reflected on my greatly, and this next confession may possibly be no exception: I would rather rock out to Kenny G on MUZAK than listen to nothing at all. I, of course, am looking at this from the perspective of a cubicle monkey (read ala Career Builder commercials) who sits in an office of solitude, silence and despair. Now, before I go any further, this may seem hypocritical to something I speak about often: the need to get rid of the noise in our lives, whether it be audio, visual, or something in between. Good Examples of this would be always needing the radio on, a cluttered house, the need to always be out and social etc. I often argue on this point to people who say they do not hear God – clearly to me, they have too much noise in their lives. I know I do. So to completely contradict this idea, I want to state that its cruel and unusual punishment to be forced to work in an office, with over circulated stale air, people who microwave food that reeks of curdled milk and onions, and coughing fits that make the infirmaries during the black plague era seem tame, that has no music what so ever. I am not living a noiseless life here at the old job, nor should I be thanking them for allowing me silent time to hear the voice of God, rather I am stuck here amidst all this strife, stuck listening to the screaming in my head that says "Get me the $%^& outta here!"








So it's probably true that I will never be satisfied with a 40 hour a week job (hence my delving into the fields of music and church – although the church field is a whole different sort of torture, maybe not lacking in crappy music (can anyone say "Shine Jesus, Shine . . . and yeah I did just vom in my mouth) but certainly torturous in its own way none the less . . .) but I digress. Either way, I still need a little something more from my job. Redundancy is what is killing most of us – I am pretty sure we were built to be creative, and a job that saps you of your creativity is a lot like the "Suck-Kut" from the movieWayne's World. (Did I just lose some of my readers with that ancient pop-culture reference?)








Somebody actually commented that they really liked my writing style and I was certainly very flattered. What's interesting, though, is that this person must love my parentheses or ellipsis (since I use them all the time. . . )








Does anyone remember that crappy song that went " I love you period. Do you love me question mark? Please, Please exclamation point! (I want to hold you in parenteses.) – I actually have fond memories of that song, but its still really crappy. It just really makes me sad to think that the song my father wrote that said "Kill your mother, rape and pillage . . ." never caught on. Oh, and by the way, he was mocking the music that I was listening to as an angry and disenfranchised youth. Oh yeah, I had a mullet, and black t-shirts with anarchy signs – I was totally sweet. This phase was preceded by my late elementary years in which I clearly remember wearing neon orange spandex with black checkers up the sides, and a t-shirt with a shark on it holding a knife and a fork saying "Let's do lunch." Two things about that: 1. I had no grapes to really be smuggling, so that was of little concern, and 2. I was not nearly as sweet as I thought I was . . . go figure.








So some of my friends are upset because they were implicated in the Enrique Iglesias' "Hero" incident of '05. I personally feel liberated.








I have said it once and I will say it again – Abortion is NOT the only moral issue. Too many Christians and extreme right winger's ("She's only seventeen (seventeen) . . . did anyone else get that?) think they have a cornered market on the "moral" party because they are anti-abortion. Some other moral issues may be, life in general, war, poverty, unfair trade and labor – just to name a few. To vote against abortion does not mean that no other moral issue matters. Think about it.








Now, its strange because I often get accused of being "liberal" now, which is pretty funny to me. Folks, let me be real honest with you – I have opinions. These opinions are constantly being shaped and changed to look more and more in line with how I think Jesus calls me to live. I am trying to not be republican or democrat, right or left. I am just trying to get in line with what is best for the most people. I have issues with both sides. I mostly speak out against the "christian right" because I am a friend of Bill W's (a recovering "christian.") Actually I am trying to throw out the word christian altogether – it conjures up to many thoughts and I am not near good enough to change peoples perception. I am trying to think of a different term for myself other than "christian." Obviously, the term "awesome" fits. Maybe I could make that work? "What religion are you?" - "Awesome." What do you think?








Let me go back to the abortion thing for just a moment. I am trying to have a consistent ethic of human life. To me, this means no war, no genocide, no torture or death penalty, and no abortion. I am trying to be all around pro-life – all lives are important and equal. I get that this is a major issue. I have read all the bumper stickers and yes I am glad my mom chose life, but here is the thing. We just had 8 years of a pro-life candidate in the white house and it did not change a thing. Does this make it an unworthy cause? Of course not. Before Roe v. Wade, abortions were still popular, just illegal. Much like prohibition, making them illegal will really not change anything. We need to change our hearts and we need to make a difference in peoples lives. Legislation can only make minor changes at best, but the real change starts with us (have I said this before?) So why do I advocate interest in politics? Because it is a part of our world and it is a good place to start the discussion, and can even be helpful in raising awareness for some major injustices that are currently happening in our world. But the other day, Derek Webb said, and I completely agree, "I venture to say, that if you step out of your house and look at the 6 or 8 houses/apts./condos around you, and try to make a difference through love and service in those peoples lives, that it would make a thousand times more impact in our world than any politician ever could." Well played.








www.postsecret.com – have you been there? You need to go. Better yet, send one in. Its like a modern day confession. The idea behind confession is not bad – simply getting things off your chest is very cathartic. You were not meant to carry all that baggage.








I absolutely fear confrontation, but I love to debate.






I often wonder if anyone really gets me.






I used to want to be hospitalized to see who would show up, so I could see who really cared. Then I went to the hospital and I was pleasantly surprised by the people who visited.






Sometimes I am afraid I talk a better game than I really have.






I confess some things so I do not have to confess others. Maybe someday.








One of the hardest things about writing about social issues, pop culture, theology and the like is finding out how to best portray my opinion. You see, clearly I think my thoughts are better than some peoples because they would not be my opinions if I didn't. I also want people to know that I try to be open to new ideas and I certainly don't want people to take my thoughts as the final word on the matter, but at the same time, I do not want them completely dismissed either. I want people to know that I am just trying to be part of the discussion and that I am equally flawed. Its hard to make a harsh stand on certain topics because I am far from perfect and I am always afraid someone will look at my life and call me out. Sometimes we need to have thoughts before we can take action, but actions speak louder than words . . . how interesting.








Are you enjoying my foray into hyperlinks? I am trying.








There is a guy that sits near me that honestly thinks that Mountain Dew is the devil's tool. 1. Has he ever even had Mountain Dew? Yummy. 2. If he is a christian, I am definitely now calling myself awesome. 3. Isn't he fighting the wrong battles? 4. This is also the guy who thinks Barack Obama is the anti-christ.








I, on the other hand, think David Archuletais the anti-christ.








I am thinking about bringing the phrase "bomb-diggity" back – With the help of my friend Eric, we clearly made "your mom" jokes cool again. Any other suggestions?








"Today the minutes seemed like hours, the hours go so slowly . . . "








Albums you should be listening to (at least what is appealing to me right now, and clearly seems like a much better deal than Kenny G on MUZAK):

The National "Boxer"
Derek Webb "Mockingbird"
Jeff Buckley "Grace"
Arcade Fire "Neon Bible"
Neil Diamond "Hot August Night"
Under the Influence of Giants "Under the Influence of Giants"
Ray Lamontagne "'Til the Sun Turns Black"
A Perfect Circle "eMotive"
Beck "Guero"
Badly Drawn Boy "The Hour of Bewilderbeast"



Movies you should be watching:

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Blood Diamond
No Country For Old Men
Juno
Sweeney Todd



Books you should be reading:

"Everything Must Change" by Brian McLaren
"Jesus For President" by Shane Claiborne
"Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
"Serve God, Save the Planet" by Matthew Sleeth
"The Great Awakening" by Jim Wallis
"Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk
"House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski
"The Secret Lives of Men and Women" by Frank Warren
"Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell
"The World According to Garp" by John Irving



If you ever want to discuss any of the aforementioned titles (movies, music, books, etc.), please hit me up.




And you should not be watching TV because it steals your soul – but I have no room to talk. DVR has seriously ruined my life. I watch shows that no one watches, like "Monsterquest" – seriously, I have got issues.

Barack Obama

The day I knew would come at last has come at last

I predicted about a year ago that it would happen, and alas, sadly, it has. Someone I work with said, and with a straight face, that he thought Barack Obama was the Anti-Christ. Thats right. . . you heard me. . . good old Satan in the flesh - the one from all those Timothy Lahaye books (well to be fair, you could say it was in the Bible first, although Lahaye has conveniently layed out all that Jewish Apocolyptic Literature for you (sigh))

I bring this up not to boast about my prophetic prowess, rather to point out how sadly predictable and scary some "christians" can be.

Think about this, someone is calling Obama=Satan, and is seriously meaning it. That then implies that everyone who votes for him is assumingly one of the lost who will spend an eternity in hell.

I could discuss this theologically for hours, and I have more questions than answers, but I don't think I am going overboard by saying this is somewhat ludicrous and maybe a tad extreme.

Here are my questions:

Is this a fear of religion, or race, or just democrats?

Will more right wing christians adapt this attitude?

What are those of us that see christianity and politics as being a lot more complicated to do?

If he is the anti-christ, can I vote for him and still like God better?

What is more important, the leader of our country or the leader of our heart?

A Daily Prayer from jesusforpresident.org

Jesus For President Litany of Resistance
Created with the help of our friends Jim Loney (CPT Reservist) and Brian Walsh (activist theologian)
--------------------------
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
All: Have mercy on us
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
All: Free us from the bondage of sin and death
One: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
All: Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.

One: For the victims of war
All: Have mercy
One: Women, men and children
All: Have mercy
One: The maimed and the crippled
All: Have mercy
One: The abandoned and the homeless
All: Have mercy
One: the imprisoned and the tortured
All: Have mercy
One: The widowed and the orphaned
All: Have mercy
One: The bleeding and the dying
All: Have mercy
One: The weary and the desperate
All: Have mercy
One: The lost and the forsaken
All: Have mercy

One: O God -- Have mercy on us sinners
All: Forgive us for we know not what we do
One: For our scorched and blackened earth
All: Forgive us
One: For the scandal of billions wasted in war
All: Forgive us
One: For our arms makers and arms dealers
All: Forgive us
One: For our Caesars and Herods
All: Forgive us
One: For the violence that is rooted in our hearts
All: Forgive us





One: For the times we turn others into enemies
All: Forgive us
One: Deliver us, O God
All: Guide our feet into the way of peace
One: Hear our prayer.
All: Grant us peace.

One: From the arrogance of power
All: Deliver us
One: From the myth of redemptive violence
All: Deliver us
One: From the tyranny of greed
All: Deliver us
One: From the ugliness of racism
All: Deliver us
One: From the cancer of hatred
All: Deliver us
One: From the seduction of wealth
All: Deliver us
One: From the addiction of control
All: Deliver us
One: From the idolatry of nationalism
All: Deliver us
One: From the paralysis of cynicism
All: Deliver us
One: From the violence of apathy
All: Deliver us
One: From the ghettos of poverty
All: Deliver us
One: From the ghettos of wealth
All: Deliver us
One: From a lack of imagination
All: Deliver us
One: Deliver us, O God
All: Guide our feet into the way of peace
One: We will not conform to the patterns of this world
All: Let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds
One: With the help of God’s grace
All: Let us resist evil wherever we find it

One: With the waging of war
All: We will not comply
One: With the legalization of murder
All: We will not comply
One: With the slaughter of innocents
All: We will not comply
One: With laws that betray human life
All: We will not comply
One: With the destruction of community
All: We will not comply
One: With the pointing finger and malicious talk
All: We will not comply
One: With the idea that happiness must be purchased
All: We will not comply
One: With the ravaging of the earth
All: We will not comply
One: With principalities and powers that oppress
All: We will not comply
One: With the destruction of peoples
All: We will not comply
One: With the raping of women
All: We will not comply
One: With governments that kill
All: We will not comply
One: With the theology of empire
All: We will not comply
One: With the business of militarism
All: We will not comply
One: With the hoarding of riches
All: We will not comply
One: With the dissemination of fear
All: We will not comply

One: Today we pledge our ultimate allegiance… to the Kingdom of God
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To a peace that is not like Rome’s
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Gospel of enemy love
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Kingdom of the poor and broken
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To a King that loves his enemies so much he died for them


All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the least of these, with whom Christ dwells
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the transnational Church that transcends the artificial borders of nations
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the refugee of Nazareth
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the homeless rabbi who had no place to lay his head
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the cross rather than the sword
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the banner of love above any flag
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the one who rules with a towel rather than an iron fist
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the one who rides a donkey rather than a war-horse
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the revolution that sets both oppressed and oppressors free
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Way that leads to life
All: We pledge allegiance
One: To the Slaughtered Lamb
All: We pledge allegiance
One: And together we proclaim his praises, from the margins of the empire to the centers of wealth and power
All: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb
One: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb
All: Long Live the Slaughtered Lamb

If Burgess Meredith and Britney Spears had a love child . . . .

If Burgess Meredith and Britney Spears had a love child . . .
So I went to a "mega-church" this weekend, for the first time in quite a while and its got me thinking about all kinds of things. Having been way more involved in church politics than I would like to admit, I am still trying to repent of some of the awful things that I have done in my past when handling church business. With that said, I am always trying to chew over things more so I no longer make the same mistakes and sometimes I think pointing out positives and negatives can really create some good dialogue. So here it is – A review, or a good chewing over if you will. Feel free to chime in

The church was in Cincinnati – that's the only info that's relevant - some of you that know me might know which church it is, but for the purpose of this discussion, its not necessary

The good:
1.The music was excellent – as I would expect it to be when you can pull from such a big talent pool

2.The service featured creative sketches that were both funny and entertaining – Its great to keep people laughing and to not always be serious. I think this helps people stay focused. If the church needs anything, it needs to remember how to laugh

3.Multitude of programs and small groups – If you are willing to call someone or speak out, it would be easy to get involved. There is something for everyone – and for any focus you may want

4.The atmosphere – It was electric. It was Super Bowl Sunday. People were tailgating in the church parking lot. Free Hot Dogs, Free Coffee. A lot of young, good-looking professionals. Hipsters volunteering everywhere. People that look like me, or at least, look as hip as I want to feel (this truly is a compliment)

Rather than saying bad, or the bad, I am just going to ask questions. Questions I would ask of any church, for the most part, and questions that I believe should be asked. *No church is perfect – sorry to break that to ya, but considering its full of ruffians like me and you, what could we possibly expect?

Questions:
At one point should a church spend its money on itself rather than on the needs of its community, city, nation and world?

Are custom football jerseys at $300 a pop necessary for one Sunday?

Is it important to buy 10,000 people who come to your church a hot dog (presumably mostly from an affluent neighborhood) rather than buying 10,000 hotdogs for people who wouldn't otherwise eat today?

Could we set a better example in spending money on others than spending money on ourselves?

Are too many churches hiding behind the idea "that we are doing this to save souls" to justify spending money on themselves and their congregants?

Does the parable of the rich man and the widow have something to say about this (Mark 12:41-43), or does the multitude of deeds a large church can do put them in God's positive column, even if they are still spending lots on themselves?

Can we preach about the difference about knowing God's will and doing God's will and mention tithing to the church in the same message?

Can the cornerstone of a message's gimmick/theme revolve around the identity of a head pastor – or more simply stated, should we make a big deal about who the head pastor is at all times (or even more simply, can you lead a mega-church and not come off as arrogant)?

What is more important, the amount of money you take in, or the amount of people that attend? Or, how do we measure success?

Just because someone attends the "god-show" are we to assume they took anything from it?

Does spectacle equal experience?

Is it a mega-churches responsibility to lead the way in recycling by Serving God and Saving the Planet?

Does a large church have the responsibility to serve fair trade coffee so they can look the attendees in the eye and say "this cup of coffee did not oppress anybody" even if it means they have to spend a little more? Or is coffee unnecessary anyway?

Are gadgets God-approved spending, since after all, it gives people a better experience?

Do people attend because its God, or because its cool?

Is a mega-church a gateway, and can they only take you so far?

When you focus on toys and gadgets and gimmicks is it still possible to focus equally, or even more so, on God?

Is a mega-church like a Wal-mart to your local mom and pop shop?

I honestly don't have a lot of answers to these questions. I have heard stock answers to many of them and have spoken passionately about others, but either way, I think they are worth asking. I cannot condemn any church. I have my thoughts and opinions.

Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk Quotes - But they are worth reading, and plus I made a few comments - Please indulge me and read. Or maybe even comment.
Rant quotes
My life may be little and boring, but at least its mine--not some assembly line, secondhanded,hand-me-down life. I think this captures the fear of my generation. We strive to be original, but that thought has already been taken, so we are not sure what to do

The future you have tomorrow won't be the future you had yesterday.

Fight Club quotes
It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. Or as also said in the movie "the things you own, end up owning you" which is very true of so many people I know, mainly me. We are so consumer driven. How many times do I need to say it before I get it? What do I need to give up to better understand?

If you could be God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose? I just don't think this question is that simple or that easily broken down. Philosophical questions should have a great deal more than 2 options, but maybe thats who we have become, a bunch of people who think and wish life could be that simple, and then are left empty when we realize its not. Our lives have a lot more than 2 options.

This is why I loved the support groups so much. If people thought you were dying, they gave you their full attention. If this might be the last time they saw you, they really saw you… People listened instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. And when they spoke, they weren’t telling you a story. When the two of you talked, you were building something, and afterward you were both different than before. I have said it before, and I will say it again, most of this worlds problems, and most of your problems would be fixed if we just shut the hell up and took time to listen to people. Sure this could seem like a paradox, but we just need to take turns, and make sure its not your turn first. You listen, then talk. Maybe if we lead with the listening example then people we know we learn to hear us. But then again, here I sit giving advice instead of listening. I am the problem.

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. Singing a praise tune, or owning a Bible, or memorizing a scripture or having a bake sale does not make you a follower of Jesus, but it probably does make you a "christian"

Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers failed, what does that tell you about God? There is a lot of truth to this. You view God like you view your father. Think about it. Is your father distant? than to you, so is God. Is your father mean, or unjust? So is God to you. Lets be thankful for good fathers (and mothers) and hope in a lot of cases we can do better.

Look up at the stars and you're gone. Not your luggage. Nothing matters. Not your bad breath. The windows are dark outside and the horns are blaring around you. The headlights are flashing high and low and high in your face, and you will never have to work again. You will never have to get another haircut. This is why I shaved my head. A haircut was just too stressful. Thank goodness modern marketing has told me to "Relax, Your at Great Clips"

This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. SO why in the hell aren't you doing anything? But I guess I should talk

I just don't want to die without a few scars.

You know that saying about how you always kill the one you love? It works both ways.

If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person? How little redemption have I truly offered the world by the way I have lived?

You just had a near life experience.

We are selling women their fat asses back to them. I love the topic of consumerism. I could talk about it all day. Maybe I should put up a billboard about it to raise awareness. . .

Invisible Monsters quotes
If I can't be beautiful I want to be invisible. It was bad enough we made women feel this way, but now "metro" men are feeling this way too. This happened in Rome too, they started to value beauty over everything else. That went well.

When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? When did I start waking up wishing I could go back to sleep? That stupid choral arrangement in the eighth grade told me that everyday was a promise. We have marketed a terrible life, which has sold a great deal of products. Most recently, I decided I needed an apoxy putty. I am not even handy

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known. I copy quotes from other authors and feed off their ideas . . . as evidenced here.

When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves. Too bad the next logical statement wouldn't be "When we don't know who to love, we love ourselves" It more likely goes "When we don't know who to love, we hate ourselves" Of course if we keep relying on someone to love us to validate our own self worth then we are going to go no where, but. . . maybe if the Creator of matter tells us we matter, than maybe we are going somewhere

Beauty is power like money is power like a gun is power.

Given the choice between grabbing a strange tongue and watching a monster poop into a giant snail shell, the face retreats and slams the door behind it. This is too deep for me, but I just had to include it

The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person. This comes across as cynical and terrible and awful, but may be more true than it should be

As soon as we become boring we die. Never ever become boring. Here's to creativity. But we will just keep taking the arts out of schools and keep mass-producing hip-hop albums until nothing is left. The average life expectancy may decline to 34

Survivor quotes

Today is the kind of day where the sun only comes up to humilate you. I think of that one anti-depressant commercial with the little blob thats walking around depressed. Have you seen that one? I heard on TV that 10% of adult women are on anti-depressants. What have we done to ourselves?

Reality means you live until you die...the real truth is nobody wants reality

The only difference between martyrdom and suicide really is press coverage.

It's only in drugs or death that we experience anything new and death is just too controling I am not condoning drugs, but isn't it strange how true that quote sounded to you for a second? And I have never even done a drug . . . .

Everybody thinks their whole life should be at least as much fun as masturbation Sorry to include this, but I think its poignant. I think of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty when he says masturbating is the highlight of his day. What should be the highlight of your day? And I am not going for a generic answer cause I don't have it, but if you even thought something cliched like, spending time with God, you are farther along than me.

The cultures that don't castrate you to make you a slave, they castrate your mind.

The joke is, we all have the same punch line.

Choke quotes
Art never comes from happiness. So please die Thomas Kinkade . . .I meant that metaphorically, or figuratively or whatever that was. It was not a death threat

'We don't live in the real world anymore,' she said. 'We live in a world of symbols.'

Until you find something to fight for, you settle for something to fight against. I fight people at Bengals games, and the ones I love, while people are dying in Africa and starving on the streets of Cincinnati. I have my priorities in line.

Lullaby quotes

Maybe we don't go to hell for the things we do, maybe we go to hell for the things we don't do. He may be on to something, and I am not talking about the Sinner's Prayer

The only biodeversity we're going to have left is Coke versus Pepsi.

Diary quotes

Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't.

We have no scar to show from happiness. We learn so little from peace.

That's the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell.

Some stories, you use up. Others use you up.

I think, therefore I’m not

People often ask me questions about the Emerging Church. What makes this interesting is, I have never claimed to be a member and I guess the great irony is, if you claim to be, your not anyway, and if you say your not, you may be . . .its all rather confusing.

I do not have enough stuff figured out to be accepted by anyone, but either way, here is a good synopsis. . .



What is the Emerging Movement protesting? Let me count the ways.

That's not an attempt to be funny: there is a list of at least ten items the Emerging Movement is protesting, and most would agree that it has its finger on some hot buttons. And let it be said that its primary focus in protestation is the evangelical movement and, sometimes but not always, the mega-churches that so clearly define and set the tone for the evangelical movement.

First, it protests too much tom-fakery in traditional churches. This generation of Christians is not as capable or interested in putting up fronts when it comes to "church" or when it gathers. Instead, it prefers a higher level of honesty. (Now the older generation would contend that hanging out dirty laundry is not advisable, while this generation is not so sanguine about the desire to protect.) Let me give one example: most evangelical Christians don't pray. (Stats show this.) Neither do they read their Bibles as often as they claim. (Stats also show this.) The Emerging Movement doesn't want this hidden in non-confession but wants it out in the open — and then it might even ask if reading the Bible is making a difference or if praying "works." It likes to ask these sorts of questions.

Second, it denounces the divisions in the Church. Why there needs to be so many kinds of Baptists or free church types or so many others kinds of churches is becoming more and more incomprehensible to the emerging generation. If the gospel is what it is supposed to be, if Jesus prayed for us to be "at one," and if we are supposed to be able to do things together, why not worship together? And, it denounces such divisions as much by raiding the entire Church tradition as anything else: increasingly the emerging generation finds things it likes in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions — things that were "no no"s to a previous generation.

Third, it sees cock-sure certainty as a cancer. I will touch on this origins for this tomorrow in my post on postmodernity, but the emerging generation does not find certaintist expressions as amenable as less certaintist expressions — even when the same thing can be said in different ways. Certainty denies the frailty of humans, the limitations of our own minds, the need for conversation and relationship and communal growth, and it sets itself up for collapse the minute a more complete grasp of knowledge is found.

Fourth, it refuses to separate action from articulation. If the older evangelical generation found doctrinal statements the chief way of setting up boundaries, the Emerging Movement wants to see one's articulation expressed by one's action. "By their fruits, ye shall know them…" (I fell into some KJV language, but the point is the same.)

Fifth, it wants individualism absorbed into incorporation: that is, the Emerging Movement encourages personal redemption but solo-Christianity is not what Jesus wants. He wants to form communities of faith not individual Christians. (By the way, this is not a false dichotomy; it is ancient form of hierarchy.) The Emerging Movement will ask as much about how a community's spiritual formation comes about as how individuals are being formed. (So my current poll will soon find an emerging complement.)

Sixth, the Emerging Movement's mindset is against marketing the gospel. It is the simplistic packaging of the gospel, so it is sometimes said, that causes so many problems in the Church today, so the gospel needs to be presented and performed in such a way that its rugged realities are clear in the summons to join in the work of God in our world today.

Seventh, the Emerging Movement despises the idea that Church is what takes place on Sunday Morning, between 11 and noon. Sunday morning, if it is at that time or another time, is when the Church gathers to worship and share life, but the work of the Church is what occurs during the week as the local community of faith performs the gospel. Frankly, for many, stomach flu breaks out when they think of the ornateness and the elaborateness and the expense of Sunday morning services.

Eighth, the Emerging Movement rejects the hierarchy and pyramid structure of many churches. Authority is in God — Father, Son, Spirit — and not in the pastor or the elders or the board of deacons. Scripture, it must be seen, is an expression of God's authority and not an independent authority. The very notion that one needs pastoral approval for one's calling or one's promptings or what one is permitted to do many find unconscionably usurping of God's authority.

Ninth, the social gospel cannot be separated from the spiritual gospel. The Emerging Movement combines the Liberal social gospel with the Evangelical spiritual gospel and comes up with something that is neither Liberal nor Evangelical. To use my words (and you can trace this in my Emerging Movement Category in the sidebar), it wants a "purple gospel." It is not so much a denial of either but a combination of both. (There's a big difference in those two ideas.)

Tenth, the Emerging Movement wants to be Worldly. Not in the Johannine sense or in the Pauline sense, but in the Kingdom sense: it knows that God is working to restore the entire creation into an expression of his glory and so it summons everyone to participate in the grant work of God to restore and redeem. It embraces culture and state and politics and business and it protests old-fashioned Christian separationism and enclave Christian circles. The walls between Church and World, so it is suggesting, need to be impermeable and not permeable, they need to be knocked down so the passage from one to the other is an imperceptible as the passing of Jesus from one person to another.

1776

I was watching the Democratic Presidential Debate on TV the other day (I DVRed both the Republican and Democratic debates hoping to ascertain some idea of what's going on), and a questions was asked that still has me stunned. Now let me preface this by saying, several years ago I would have considered myself a hard core Republican, but that was mostly because the "Church" taught me that's what Christians were – Oh how foolhardy – and we wonder why no one wants to be a Christian; We NEVER seem to think for ourselves. Anyways, I have more recently decided that I am going to try to vote for the person who I think will do the best for the most people and not just for me. (Unlike say Christians who vote their agenda, or to be fair, people who only vote pro-union to increase their own wage or . . . ) See, too often we have made politics about what I can get out of it as supposed to the "what's best" approach. But I digress.

The question was "Is human rights more important than national security?" Let me preface briefly by saying the question arose from discussions of who to handle the war and other issues of diplomacy and trades in other countries. Let that questions sink in for a minute. What is really being asked here? We are talking about human rights measured against National Security. What sorts of implications do you get from this? Maybe my interpretation is a little extreme, but are we actually saying is it ok to disregard the rights of a human (whether they be guilty or innocent (and how do we define guilty) in the eyes of America) in favor of protecting our nation (or in other words, whats ours, or rather, what we think we have earned?) In other words, is it cool if we screw everyone else to favor and protect ourselves?

Have we really earned anything? Or is everything truly a gift from God? How much of your life have you acquired and how much of it is birthright? Does the American lifestyle make you better, or just more socially unaware? Should I be thankful to America because it affords me the freedom to question it? Is our world the world?

Here is what was scary. Every candidate said national security was more important, but then again, whether I say it or not, I think my lifestyle tells people I feel the same way. For that I repent, and am sorry. But how do I change? As a follower of Jesus, I cannot theoretically ever favor my luxuries over basic human rights . . . but I do. And its awful.