Pastor Ryan Gaffney

At some point along the road to I must have switched into survival mode. It’s like my Dad, when he goes back home to New York City, and you hear his accent get thicker and his temper get shorter as he prepares for City Mode. I put my Game Face on.

St. Louis is the first stop on the trip where I transfer buses. It didn’t matter that I got off in Kansas City, I knew I would be able to get back on, because I was sitting right back down on the same bus. At St Louis, they had the opportunity to screw with me again, and I wasn’t going to let them.

Since I wasn’t allowed onto the first bus on my itinerary, I had missed my connection to Chicago as well. Presumably I had no rights, the next connection could be any time they felt like and I would get to deal with it.

The driver looked at my ticket and directed me to the counter where I began to play Customer Service Roulette. This station was nicer, cleaner, and bigger, than the KC station, They shared it with Amtrack, who apparently have higher standards. St. Louis was using airport style consoles with computer printed boarding passes, All Junction City had given me was a piece of Carbon Paper.

I came in at Noon, they wanted to put me on a bus to Chicago at about 8pm with a connection to Madison in the morning. Also, the ticket I had been given in Junction did not cover round trip. After a bit of talking and schmoozing I managed to haggle them down to a 2pm Express Bus to Chicago, and a ride back on the day I wanted.

I was able to secure this ride back only by providing my online receipt from the Greyhound Website which I was able to procure on my SmartPhone, which had no cell reception, but could access the terminals WiFi.

I’m really starting to enjoy this now. What else you got? Huh? What’s the next challenge?

I’m on the bus to Chicago now. This one is actually nice, with the outlets and the WiFi they promised. It’s also only about half full which means I get two seats to myself that I can curl up and go to sleep in.

I’m going to do that now

About halfway to Columbia Missouri I used the restroom. I’ve used restrooms on buses before. Back in California I was a part of a very large youth group and there was no way we were going to get enough 15 passenger vans to move everybody, so we used to charter buses to our camping trips. The bathrooms on those buses were much like those on airplanes. Smelling heavily of blue disinfectant fluid with a bowl tapering to an automatic metal flap. That was not the experience here. Instead this bus had something more like a PortaJohn or a campsite bathroom. Just a seat leading straight down to a box filled with human waste. I was glad to be seated near the front.

I lost track of Leo, and ended up sitting next to a older gentleman with a voice like Henry Fonda, or Sam Eliot. Deep and world wearied. He was an ex-trucker who now delivers cars for people. So if you buy a car on eBay for instance and it’s in Rhode Island, this guy will drive it to you and then take the greyhound back home for a small fee.

We talked for a long time, all the way to St. Louis. Or rather he talked, I listened. He was a Christian and went on at some length about how he came to faith, and what he did now with it. He was deeply concerned with Christian political issues like gay marriage, not so much with personal righteousness. It was clear in his mind that a lot of people were wrong, Catholics, Muslims, and Christians who were just looking for fire insurance were all equally subject to judgment in his mind. He didn’t really ask me what I thought.

I was glad to have the background noise though, as it gave me something to do and think about. The alternative was to think about the bus I was in which stalled 7 times on the way to St. Louis as it weaved through the various small towns in the Ozarks. I didn’t much want to spend the day in one of these towns waiting for Greyhound to send another bus. Luck was with me, and I got to sit listening to Mr. Fonda’s soothing voice the whole way.

The woman sitting next to me talked about her story, how she has a black eye from when her son and one of his friends broke into her house  last week to beat her up because they were drunk and he was mad at her for abandoning him. It struck me how nonchalant about this she was “I did it, to have a life” she said and then went on to tell about how happy she is that he’s in jail now. She’s riding the bus to visit her father who she hasn’t seen in 15 years because he is dieing.

I expected when I was in Junction City and first realized that this would be a deeply cross-cultural experience, that it would help me to appreciate and empathize with the lower class people all around me. Alter all, despite the fancy clothes and Yankee upbringing I’m pretty underclass myself. I don’t have a car, I’m technically homeless, and I beg for a living.

In actuality though so far it’s done more to make me appreciate the rich Christians I know. There’s a sense I get sometimes that a lot of people are way to focused on success and getting ahead, as if that’s what matters in life, and it has often seemed idolatrous to me. Sometimes it probably is authentically idolatrous, but today I’m also learning that it’s pretty efficient!

Generational poverty is a massive, systemic, social justice issue. If you’re poor, the chances are your kids are going to be poor, and so are their kids. And with that generational poverty comes hopelessness, a sense of detachment from your own destiny that causes you to feel like stuff just happens to you independent of you. As a result we see much higher rates of crime, domestic abuse, child abuse, obesity and alcoholism.

So if you’re not poor. It’s actually a very good thing for the world if you continue to not be poor, and make sure you’re kid’s aren’t poor. Cycles are hard to break and we don’t want to start another one.

The 4am bus was late, but I got on at about 5 and sat at the last seat remaining in the very front. There was another guy Leo who got on with me, and he and the bus driver were the only folks awake on the bus. I chatted with each of them quietly for a little, I think we were all just glad to be moving

I packed two small carry-ons for the trip. I figure I’d rather stop at a Thrift Store in Madison than add the complication of checked baggage to this whole maneuver. One bag is my rucksack. It’s just a standard bag of essentials I always keep packed in case I decide to go somewhere suddenly. The other is my laptop bag, filled with stuff to keep me entertained on the road. Books, movies and the like.

The ride on I-70 towards KC is familiar enough, I saw the sun rise over the highway and then got some reading done. I don’t have the wifi access I was promised but now I’m here at the bus station catching up on blogging, maybe this won’t be so crazy after all.

This bus station is not like the one at Junction. It’s an actual depot with about 10 busses all lined up in a row and employees that actually work for the company. The building is simple, with a ticket desk, some bathrooms, a little food stand, and all surrounding a central sort of lobby with metal mesh seats and concrete slabs. Everything in the station is built to be indestructible, and the presence of some old video games and pay phones gives the whole place an early 90s feel

Some of the people here have clearly been here for a while, sprawled out on the floor. I feel distinctly out of place, but I get the sense that many others feel the same. It’s a unique crew, with some military guys, some very young white girls, and quite a few people who are clearly in generational poverty, many of them notably overweight and wearing dirty clothes, while sporting some of the most creative haircuts I’ve ever seen.

There’s some Amish folk here too. I don’t know what sect, but they are wearing blue, and riding a greyhound so I guess they are some of the “liberal” Amish. It’s interesting to me how opposite, and yet similar our experiences must be. We both feel like fish out of water, but here I am riding greyhound in an attempt to be radically counter cultural while for them this experience must feel like a dangerous compromise of their faith to be so conformist.

In the time since I’ve been here it’s begun to get very crowded

It’s 7:30 Am and my adventure is just beginning.

What the hell was I thinking?

My Bus adventure has not even started yet and I’m already beginning to think this was a bad idea. Maybe the airline industry isn’t so bad after all.

There’s a town not far from home called Junction City. It’s mostly military, and in the 6 months I’ve been in Kansas I hadn’t yet found an excuse to go there. But that’s where the bus station is, so I got a friend to drive me down there and experienced it for the first time today. It had the feel of an old Route 66 Ghost Town.

The bus stop was no stop at all, It was a store of some kind called “Junk In the Trunk”. I think it’s like a secondhand store or pawn shop but in the 3 hours I’ve been here I haven’t actually seen anybody buy anything, so I don’t really know.

What I did see is that the store was filled with crap. There is a room in the back that is stocked with DVDs  of B Movies from years ago, the sort you throw away. There’s incense burning by the bathrooms, instead of a incense stand it’s in the slot of an active power strip, which in turn is balanced on what looks like a big speaker, with a drum set piled on top of it.

In the clearing near the center of the store, there are 4 kids, one infant, a toddler, two small children. I can’t tell whose they are. Next to the counter somebody was watching a Tyler Perry movie, and then when it ended they put on a Gross-Out Horror Flick.

The shopkeep himself doesn’t work for greyhound. Apparently he’s an authorized retailer or something. And he simply could not care less about what’s going on.

The bus arrived, a half an hour late and then wouldn’t let me on. Apparently it was full, and that was my problem somehow. They said I had to come back at 4am where I could catch another bus instead of the one I bought the ticket for.

To be clear, I wasn’t bumped. I wasn’t comped anything for my troubles; I’m not even entitled to a refund. I was simply told that I would not be allowed onto the bus I had scheduled to be on because… those are the breaks. Try again in the middle of the dang night!

So now I’m sitting back at the station trying to figure out what in the world I was thinking. I’m a college educated professional, taking a reimbursable business trip and here I am stick in a chicken shack in Junk City USA waiting for a guy to take me back home, so he can take me back here at an ungodly hour of the morning, so that I can hope that they weren’t also lying to my face about this next bus!

You have to understand I was raised mostly in a very wealthy part of Southern California (as opposed to the rest of southern California which is just regular-wealthy) I have no idea what I’m doing in an environment that says “yup, we’ll take your money but we absolutely do not care about you”

Still I’m trying to be missional in it. I haven’t raised my voice, I haven’t insisted on my rights (not to them anyway just to you readers) The good news is that the adventure’s begun, and it is sizing up to be more than I bargained for. If the rest of the trip is like this it will make for a rather interesting journal.

Every year I go back up to Madison Wisconsin for some Continuing Education. I made the decision not to fly this year, Instead I’m going to take a Greyhound Bus

Rather then spend about 2 hours on a plane, I’ll be spending about 24 in and out of busses and bus stations.

What in the world is wrong with me you ask? Well a couple of things…

Mostly it comes down to a very strong commitment to practice what I preach. When students watch the decisions I make, It’s important that they see something consistent, otherwise I’m wasting my breath.

I tell my students to take risks, to try new things, to get out of their comfort zones, and to seize every opportunity. I need to do that myself.

I’m pretty displeased with the airline industry. Of course you’re familiar with the TSA restrictions and crackdowns, as well as the new scanners that can be used to see you naked. But if I’m being honest, I’m less offended as an American citizen who’s rights are being violated, and more offended as a Computer Geek who can’t understand how a high tech industry could be permitted to not advance in half a century.

We had much the same commercial jet travel experience in the 1960s, except that the customer service was much better, and they used an analog board rather than little TVs in the terminals to show the schedule because the idea of reprogramming TVs with unique content was still a little ”futurey”

But as I talked about in my Patronage Article. it doesn’t matter what we say with our mouths, so long as with our dollars we continue to say “Yes, give me the cheapest flight imaginable” If they continue to take things, like our checked bags, our drinks, our headphones, and our dignity and we continue to do the same things nothing will ever get better.

So I’m doing something else. Actually, Plan A was to hitchhike, or hop trains, but considering I actually need to be in Madison on time I decided to do something a little more reliable, and a little less questionably legal.

It should be fun, it should be a way to slow down and engage with the landscape of America, it should help get me out of my surburban mindset, and if nothing else, It’s slightly cheaper.

Do I think it’s necessary? Is it a Christian moral imperative that I should do this? Absolutely not, and I think that’s exactly the point. I want to be the kind of man who explores interesting moral alternatives even when not forced to. A person who does not conform to the pattern of this world.

Greyhound advertises free power and WiFi on all their busses So I’ll keep you in touch of the play by play.

There’s a lunch I go to when I can at another ministry house on campus. They gather to eat mostly organic local food, and It’s free, so win/win! But the Spiritual Director had hoped it would foster just a bit more community than it does.

To use his words “it’s a drag” people come, eat and leave, without talking to anybody they don’t know. And the people who do know each other form tight and unfriendly cliques. So he and I and a couple friends sat down and brainstormed ideas about how to mix it up a bit.

“You could tape water guns under their chairs” Said one friend

“Yeah but they would have to be unloaded or they would leak”

“What about like an organized Mixer-game What’s a good game?”

“Nah” I said. To formal, people won’t go for it.

“What if we just made paper airplanes and threw them at each other?”

…

So that’s what we did. The next morning we took a bunch of discarded newspaper (Eco-Friendly) and folded them up into airplanes, and threw them at one another at the lunch. You won’t believe what happened.

…

Nothing

…

We were sure no red blooded American youth would pass up the opportunity to make a complete mess of a room while joyously chucking paper at their friends and perfect strangers but it wasn’t to be.

We folded airplanes and we threw then at one another and we ducked and dodged all around a bunch of counter-cultural hippies in cliques eating their organic rice who did their best to ignore us completely.

One man was actually began reading the old out of date newspaper rather than join the fun. I couldn’t believe it.
I mean I understand that I’m a lot more outgoing than most people are or want to be, and significantly more counter-cultural. But to sit down in the middle of an airplane war and disregard it… That takes some extraordinary level of militaristic introversion that I just can’t fathom.

I mean it’s not like this was a meeting of the Southern Baptist Men in Business here! It was everybody. Including the friendly looking college kids folks with the tie-dye shirts.

Thoreau said “most men life lives of quiet desperation” but even a quietly desperate man will respond to stimuli. Today I wonder if most men live at all.

A friend introduced me to someone recently and he asked “Oh, Is this the guy with the Liberal Blog?”

…yeah that’s me

It makes sense that I would come off that way. I generally write to an audience that is more conservative than me (or at least I think they are). So I write articles that urge us to be more progressive. I say we should have a wide understanding of who is going to heaven we should not be religious about out treatment of profanity, and at one point I even kinda sorta defended gay marriage.

but the truth is I’m actually pretty theologically conservative, just not quite as conservative as the conservatives. And I’m maybe slightly socially progressive, if you look around you can also see me defending the historicity of the gospels talking about the importance of really believing the bible, and coming to Jesus.

For many of us who come from backgrounds like the one I came from, we never meet or interact with Christians that are unlike ourselves. We think whatever we believe is normal, and anyone more progressive is a heathen while anyone more conservative is a fundamentalist. This viewpoint is unsustainable, the truth is that the christian church is really big and there are lots of people in it and not everyone who believes differently can be easily dismissed.

So welcome to my liberal blog. If I’m standing to the left of you you are in the right place.

You should check everything i say against scripture, and come to your own decisions. If those decisions differ, by all means post a comment and we’ll talk about it (I think I have replied to every comment I’ve gotten so far) If you disagree for a good reason you are probably Right! I should know about it!  I would refer you to my very First Post from back when I was in college writing for Faithvine.org. In that post I explain that this blog is supposed to be about stuff I think, not stuff I know. this isn’t a treatise on theology, this is a Weblog. So challenge me on it, disagree, that’s part of the fun.

So a long time ago I wrote a post about Patronage. I’ve linked it here, and you should click over and read it, because seriously It’s been a while.

There I introduced to to the economic concept of supporting something, being a “patron” of that thing, by spending money on it in the free market. For those of us who are Christians, this is a critical way to change the world by patronizing things that glorify god, and bring about greater love, joy, peace…

But all of this then leads to a question:

“What sorts of things are those?”

“What glorifies God?”

And most of us would say “Christian” things Glorify God. but that would be a mistake.

no actually I’ve argued before, that the belief that things can be made “christian” and therefore better by stamping a cross or a fish or a verse on them is a heresy.

…yes, seriously. It’s a part of gnosticism.

So let’s take movies for example. There is a mature conversation that has to take place in the video store when you go to buy a DVD as a christian. Should you buy “Left Behind the Movie” Starring Kirk Cameron. or “Gran Torino” starring Clint Eastwood.

On the one hand “Left Behind” is a christian movie, based on a christian book, starring a christian man, playing a christian character.

on the other hand Gran Torino is actually a good movie.

Both movies have a fair share of violence, but Gran Torino is rated R for language that would curdle milk in just about every scene. While left behind is considered “wholesome”

You might thing “Left Behind” has a biblical storyline but I’d actually dispute that. It has a Pre-Trib storyline, based on a certain theology some Christians hold, and I’d actually argue it’s wrong. Torino on the other hand is about friendship and sacrificial love. It’s artistically put together, and well acted. it addresses the modern issues of multiculturalism and is engaging to watch. That’s why Torino is one of my favorite christian movies ever!

Maybe a closer comparison would be Braveheart, Or Passion. Which should I patronize?

If what I want is more movies with Jesus in them, then I guess I should pick Passion. But what I actually want is more movies I think Jesus would like, and I think Jesus likes good movies, So I’m going with Braveheart.

The same is true for everything. Which band is more glorifying to God with their art, the band that makes more good music, or the band that puts more bible verses in their songs?

Which Coffeehouse serves the more glorifying coffee, the one with a name that’s a bad christian pun like “Higher Grounds” and has a shelf in the back with Karen Kingsbury books, or the one that treats it’s employees fairly, and buys coffee that’s ethically grown?

The answer to me is obvious.

A long time ago I wrote an article about Calvinism and Arminianism (Free Will and Predestination) where I argued that the debate itself was theologically valuable, and that the reason it was able to persist so long was that both points held truths that the other missed.

I argued at the time that the same could be said for other great debates, but until today I haven’t followed up on any of them.

I want to crack open Egalitarianism V Complementarianism today, which is the theological debate about gender roles. On the lay level this is summed up in the question “Can women be pastors?” but on a scholarly level it has much broader implications.

Complementarians say that while Women and Men are equal, they have differing and complementary roles. Leadership roles are reserved for men, and support roles are better suited to women. Egalitarians argue that this is prejudiced, and that in Christ we are given the freedom to do whatever it is that God made us and called us to do regardless of gender.

As was the case before, these two points are mutually exclusive. Only one can be true, (or they are both wrong). But as previously, both hold truths about God which are deep and valuable and difficult to understand apart from the doctrines.

Egalitarians see God the creator as fair, and Christianity as progressive. After all, justification by grave is the first and only means to holiness that is utterly egalitarian, helping people of all races, classes, and genders equally. Christianity is a libertarian religion that calls us to throw down the shackles of slavery that formerly held us back and be who we are, only moreso, in Christ. This message is central to the heart of Christianity, and our adoration of the savior who defied all societal, and religious expectations.

As something of an egalitarian myself, I’m often struck by how wooden the interpretation of the bible is among my more conservative brothers. It seems to me that Jesus was far more interested in people than he was in rules.

The complementarians however will point out that they don’t disagree with any of that (they just don’t emphasize it). However, equality cannot and should not be assumed to mean sameness. “Yes,” say the complementarians, “the genders are equal under God, but they are also different, and any 7th grade anatomy book should make that obvious. Women should not be made to function as men in order to achieve equality anymore than men should be asked to bear children.”

There are disappointing societal structures that have been built which assign prestige to masculine roles, but the problem is not the roles, it’s the structures! And these should be done away with so that when I look at a women, and I see that there are elements of my spirit, my body, and my whole self that are different from hers and I would not assume that makes her inferior, but instead, that those differences make her “other” or “holy” a oasis of femininity to be protected and cherished for what it is.

“Someday I’d love to take a road trip with no predetermined destination.”

“I’ve been meaning to see that movie, It’s on my list”

“One of these days I’ll go back and finish college”

“I wish knew how to dance”

How about we go do that. That sounds good, Let’s do that right now!

No?

Why not? We’re grownups now, there is nothing keeping us from accomplishing our dreams but us.

Oh, I see “You don’t have the time”

Well here’s the thing about time:

Everything that ever happens, or has happened, or is going to happen, happens at the same time.
And that time is called “Now”.

Nothing in the entirety of human history has ever happened in the future. And nothing ever will happen in the future, because the future is not a time when things happen.

Likewise nothing has ever happened in the past, and nothing will happen. You might think it has, but you are mistaken.
“The Boston Tea Party” you might say. “That happened in the past”
No it didn’t.

The Boston Tea Party happened in the present. It’s just that back then December 13, 1773 was the present

Now the Boston Tea Party is in the past, and that’s why it isn’t happening anymore. Because the past is not a time when things happen.

Similarly you might think something is going to happen in a couple weeks, but it isn’t going to. Do you know why?

Because a couple weeks is in the future. So nothing will ever happen then.

Mid-August is a different story. I’m writing this in late June, so a couple weeks from now is going to be mid-August. And on August 11th something might happen. But when it does it won’t be in a couple weeks, it will be when August 11th is right now.

Does that make sense? Because it’s important! It might seem like I’m being pedantic and weird, worrying about technical stuff that doesn’t matter. But it makes a difference. And It’s the difference between all your dreams coming true and not.

When people say “I’ll do it when I have more time” what they don’t realize they are saying “I will never do it” Because you will always have exactly the same amount of time as you have right now, everyone does. That’s a part of the definition of time.

So do it.

Or else don’t.

I get asked often whether I believe Genesis to be “Literal” or “Figurative”

I usually say figurative. I’m a theistic evolutionist, I think the universe is about 4 and a half billion years old, and that life on earth was created gradually. I think the Origin stories in Genesis and John are both steeped in rich symbolic and mythic tradition and poetic language.

Most people who say that they believe genesis “literally” believe the world is 6 to 10 thousand years old, was created at the same time as the universe, and was inhabited by the first family a week later. So I wouldn’t want to be misleading or deceptive by implying that’s what I believe.

Still I don’t feel completely comfortable saying I believe Genesis only figuratively or symbolically. that word “only” looms large.

sometimes people might describe my understanding of creation as “just a symbol” which is patently untrue.

a symbol? Yes!

“Just a symbol”? Absolutely not!

This is probably a diffacult tension for you to understand if you are standing on the other side of the fence. So I have an example:

Isaiah 2:4 offers a familiar prophesy about the coming kingdom:

⁴And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Now my question is: Do you believe that literally or figuratively?

Well… Both! Right?

If you are like me then you believe that Jesus is real and he is really coming back and when he does there will literally be no more war and we won’t have any use for things like swords anymore!

But obviously we aren’t literally going to beat literal swords into literal plowshares. I mean… Come on… Jesus hasn’t come back yet and already we are not really using swords much. We’re not using plowshares either, we have big mechanical tractors, you can’t make those out of swords even if you wanted to.

There is not reason to make useless ancient tools for farming out of useless ancient tools for war. it isn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t mean we won’t make swords into plowshares, we just won’t do it literally. What we will actually do is turn Machine Guns into nail guns, and use nuclear bombs to power spaceships, and spread the gospel using a military technology known as the “internet”

Do you feel like that compromises the meaning of Isaiah?

I don’t

What would you say if you met someone who thinks that when Jesus comes back we’ll all have to take up blacksmithing so we can bang on swords until they become plows for some reason?

Would you think they have more or less trust for the scriptures than you do?

That’s also how a feel about Genesis. I think it’s rich and deep and awesome and exciting and it has some great symbols. And people point at me and say I’m watering it down, but I don’t feel like I’m compromising at all. I just feel like I’m reading the Bible as it’s written.

My first paid ministry job was at a little Lutheran Church in California. The pastor was everything you’d expect from a little mainline church (that’s not him in the picture but it’s the same idea) He was old but not aged, always well dressed, and with a smile a mile wide. He used to teach the Catechism class for the Jr. High kids who were getting confirmed.

I’ve never forgotten him, or what he said in those classes. Much like a good Lutheran he was laser focused on salvation by grace alone, when kids would misunderstand things or get a question wrong  he loved to say “well no, but ya’know if you ever forget, you’ll still go to heaven!”

He spelled his stance out more clearly at one point, while seated on a chair that was way too small for him in his robe. “When I was young I used to think there was one way to God and it was my way, and anybody who had it different was just off, or they weren’t really a christian. The older I get the more people I allow into my understanding of heaven, heaven is a big place, and there are going to be a lot of kinds of people there, not just people like me.”He chuckled, and then continued “I still think my way is the best, but we’ll find out in heaven, right kids?”

That’s always stuck with me, and I wish I had heard it more often from christian leaders so i wanted to take this forum and pass his wisdom along. I think Pastor would like that.

Oh! and also, he would want me to mention that “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” write that down!

Monogamy refers to a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. However, monogamy may also refer to the more general state of having only one mate at any one time and as such may be applied to the social behavior of some animals. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction.
Form Wikipedia

Of if you prefer Websters: marriage with only one person at a time (compare to “bigamy”)

So let me say this clearly, because it seems like we are very confused about something here. CHRISTIAN DATING RELATIONSHIPS SHOULD NOT BE MONOGAMOUS

Christian Marriages should be monogamous. Christian dating relationships need to be “Nonogamous”. If you are dating someone it’s vitally important that you not also be married (even if your only married to one person) or to use the looser modern use of the word, you should not have only one sexual partner. You should have zero sexual partners. in anticipation of having only one.

Nonetheless christian authors make big bucks off of telling young and restless teenagers the step by step proscription God has for their dating life and it almost always includes a heavy dose of monogamous commitment right at the beginning (or often even before the relationship starts)

This isn’t just a confusion in the christian world either. It’s often a rule on secular Dating Shows like the Bachelor that there is to be “No sex before monogamy” that sentence makes no sense. That’s like saying you are to eat no fish until they’re aquatic. By this they do not mean that the contestants should not have intercourse prior to marriage, they are saying that they should not have intercourse until you are ready to stop dating other people. (“going steady”) Of course if you currently have zero sexual partners than beginning a relationship with the first one is monogamous by default.

What this does essentially, is confuse “-Gamy” Meaning “Marriage” and by association “Sex” with another word that means “Dating” or “Flirting” but it’s vitally important that we understand that these are two very different things because if we start to thing dating is marriage  and marriage is dating then what we are going to start to see is that married people will start to “break up” and divorce rates will go sky high, and dating people will start to think they are “monogamous” and therefore sex would be okay and you’ll see lots of premarital sex.

And we wouldn’t want that to happen would we?

There is a much easier answer: No sex before monogamy, sure, but no monogamy before marriage, no gamy of any sort before marriage, just lots of flowers and chocolates and fun times had together until dating time is over and a new season begins (whether that be engagement or more dates with other people or singleness)

What do you know about Islam?

You know the mane of their prophet, and their holy book right?

Do you know what the central tenants of their faith are? (hint: there are 5 of them)

If you’re like most Americans your knowledge about Islam probably drops off after that, and You’ll start talking about the war in Iraq.

You aren’t so uninformed as to think Haamas and Al Queda represent the entirety of Islam. You know better. but still in your head when you think of Islam, You’re kinda thinking Al Queda.

And you’re getting this information from the news and the church foyer and the coffee shot as you talk about the war.

There’s a problem though. A very serious problem, with getting your information about Islam from the War in Iraq.

The war is not about Islam

It’s near Islam.

There are islamic people there.

But it’s not about Islam it’s about politics.

See we’ve been buying oil and a very small minority class has been benefiting from that, and while we’ve been doing things like fighting the Cold War and becoming the dominant world power, much of the middle east has been picking up the pieces from their last interaction with the west….Over and over again… for generations.

So a certain group of people got kinda annoyed about that and staged a massive protest in New York City, which we retaliated to, which they responded to and so on….

And it’s a big complicated mess because we’re kinda allies with the governments of most of these nations, but their people kinda don’t like us very much and so they are all kind of afraid of internal revolt so they are sort of only half helping us, and half covering their butts, and now there’s all sorts of independent revolts for democracy and we don’t always know what side to be on because we’re in a financial crisis and…. yeah…

But it’s not about Islam. and it’s not about Christianity.

The terrorists use Islam and adapt it to explain and respond to what they are feeling and what they want, and they talk about their political allegiances using Islamic vocabulary, but it would be very much the same if the middle east had been Zoroastrian or Hindu instead.

In the same way, we have responded in a majority christian culture, by co-opting out christian vocabulary and saying things like “God Bless America” “One Nation Under God” “Pray for the Troops” yadda yadda. But we aren’t responding to terrorism because we’re christian. We’re responding because we’re American, we’re just talking about it the way we are because we’re christian. It’s the same for them.

“Yeah, Yeah…” You’ll say. “…But it kinda IS about Islam though, isn’t it” with ears full of sawdust from having heard for 10 years that this is what Islam is about.

No,

No it isn’t. But for the sake of argument. Let’s suppose for a second that it was. Let’s say this is a war about Christians vs Muslims not US vs Terrorists. if that’s  the case: then we are wrong!

We’re wrong!

In Islamic language they use the word “Jihad”, we have a very similar word in Christian parlance “crusade” which is a holy war against Muslims, and it hearkens back to one of the darkest times in our history when we went in and invaded the middle east trying to convert all the heathens by means of the sword and reclaim the holy land. If this is a war about religion then there is no question that it is a crusade.

And this crusade is worse than the last. After all, we already have the holy land. We gave it to the Jews and protected them with Nukes. And now what are we after? Peace? Certainty not. More like revenge.

If this war is about terror it’s justifiable. It’s a bit questionable to try to fight an idea using violence but an argument can be made in support of it.

If it’s about national defense, it’s justifiable. We need to make sure nothing like 9/11 ever happens again. It might seem counter-intuitive to do that this way. But at least it’s one way to do it

Even if it’s a war about oil it’s justifiable, It’s again questionable but hey, listen! we payed for that oil, and it’s not our problem if their government is too unstable to share the wealth. if it’s causing problems for us, we have enough money and enough guns to solve the problem. Don’t mess with us! U-S-A! U-S-A!

If this is a war about Islam than we have no recourse. Make no mistake, they did not draw first blood, we did. And even if we hadn’t Jesus doesn’t speak too highly of revenge. Crusades are terrible moral atrocities, and not a part of the way of Jesus. So if you think this war is about fighting Muslims then we need to stop right now and apologize. Otherwise we should start talking about it more as what it is.

It seems to be a common problem in Christendom that we feel like we are stuck waiting.

It’s not a problem I am at all unfamiliar with

At one point in my life I was waiting for a church to hire me as a Youth Director. I remember recounting to a friend that my call to ministry felt like God presenting a giant oak door to me, which I obediently started walking towards. But that at that I was relating the story moment I felt like I had arrived at the door to find it closed. “I have faith that when the time is right God will open the door” I said to her “but right now I’m being pushed up against a closed door, and knowing that it will open someday isn’t helping much”

It seems like a lot of Christians I meet feel like that, whether called to Professional Ministry or not, we are all called to minister, and it seems like more and more people are hearing that call, and then waiting.

I felt that again when I was Fund Raising to come out to Kansas. It was a full year from the time I first heard there was an opportunity here for campus ministry, to the time I finally left California. And during that entire time I sat waiting for the events to align that would enable me to move.

It’s a good process, it teaches us reliance on God, and patience, and all sorts of other good things. But it’s also infuriating, and it makes you feel desperate and purposeless. Your life begins to feel like a waiting room at a train station, and the train is way behind schedule. It’s hard to live for God today while waiting for tomorrow, and sometimes this waiting stretches on for years at a time.

The common wisdom is to keep waiting, have faith, pray more. and the common wisdom is not wrong, that’s often the right thing to do. But the common wisdom is also common, and there’s another side to this coin that needs to be addressed.

So here’s my advice on making it go away.

Have you considered getting on a train?

Because if you’re just sitting there in that waiting room, and trains keep whizzing by, and you keep identifying them as “the wrong train” maybe it’s time you just hop on one.

Try to pick one going in vaguely the right direction and get on. Worse case scenario: You just got on the wrong train, and you’ll catch yours at the next station, best case: this train was right all along, you just didn’t recognize it from the outside.

The bible tells a story of Johnathan In 1 Samuel Ch 14 who without prompting from God or anyone, decided to rout out the Philistines.  Even Johnathan himself did not know if it was what he was called to but said “Perhaps the Lord will give us victory today” and proceeded forward.
And God did give him victory.

Meanwhile when Baalam began down a road which God didn’t want him on God made a Donkey to talk and give him better directions!
Bodies in motion can be redirected, but bodies at rest tend to stay at rest.

So pick something good, something that goes with what you already know God wants for the world and try it. If you end up doing the wrong good thing that’s okay! God can fix it.

When I was Waiting fro my Youth Minister Job I got involved with a Church that accepted me as a volunteer and I began to work with them in their young adult ministries to develop their College room into a 24 Hour Coffee Bar.

It’s long been a dream of mine to see a community where at 2 in the morning you could go and interact with people. When you are at your most desperate place, and nobody loves you you know you can always go there.

It seemed like something God would like, so even though it wasn’t youth pastoring (or even a paying job) I got to work. I learned to make Espresso Drinks, and cleaned up the room. We repainted it and designed a new look for the building. I made logos, and wrote up proposals to present to elders, and they came back with positive feedback.

Then La Mirada United Methodist Church hired me, and I responded to the call I had been waiting for. I said goodbye to the other church and did my best to leave other leaders to take over the mission but found none who were able to commit themselves to that mission.

The College Group moved to the sanctuary, the Coffee House is now a very nicely painted Storage Room.

No harm done.

A year later I took some of the blueprints for that College Coffee House and Built a Swing Dancing Venue in La Mirada for Young Adults. The work I did there caught the attention of my current supervisor and got me the job here in Kansas, and now months after leaving the state, The Dance still happens every Wednesday night without me thanks to the leaders who took it over in my absence.

I want to challenge you to find your Coffee House. Pick something that you can do right this minute, to take action towards a goal that seems good. That goes with the fruit of the holy spirit. and if nothing else. It will keep you from going crazy waiting for the real writing on the wall to show up.

Introduction Games are just a fact of life when you meet as many new people as regularly as I do. It seems like just about every month I’m in a new circle telling people my name rank and serial number, along with what my dream car is, or what major I had, or what my most embarrassing moment was.

Last time this happened we talked about super powers. “If you could have any super power what would you have?” which is actually a complicated question when you are a huge nerd like me. Most normal people are trying to choose between speed, strength, or invulnerability, but nerds know that the possibilities really are endless. In the X-Men continuity alone there are over 3000 Mutant Powers.

The nerd’s mind is also rife with useless information about the pitfalls of superpowers. Nerds know that light hitting your retina is what enables you to see, and so if you are invisible and light is going right through your eyes, scientifically speaking you should go blind, which would definitely not be worth it!

Well anyway I have officially settled the matter for all introduction circles about superpowers so that I don’t have to spend three hours thinking. I settled on multiplication, Like Multiple Man (pictured) which means the ability to copy myself in order to take every opportunity, even those that happen at the same time. To spend the time getting a Masters in philosophy and not miss out on the chance to go on mission in Zambia at the same time. Meanwhile another me might be in Tibet studying Kung Fu on a mountaintop so he could come back and merge back into the rest of us. Best of all, It has no obvious downsides.

Interestingly. I realized that this already what I do. I myself can only be in one place at a time, I can only leader one bible study or visit one church in any given moment. So I spend most of my time teaching other people to do it instead, and then letting them teach others who teach others. This is the way Jesus, who multiplied his ministry into 12 disciples saw those 12 to multiply and multiply until we saw little Christs in every nation of the world.

I might not be able to take every opportunity, but one of my multiples can get the pieces I miss. Pretty cool

I had a friend back in California who’s mother was completely opposed to the consumption of dairy products. her father on the other hand was more lenient on the subject, and it was a significant childhood memory for her that her dad would occasionally sneak her out and get ice cream at thrifty. Before they left however they would each consume a small taste of her mother’s Non-Dairy-Rice-Based-Iced-Cream-Substitute so that when Mom returned home they would not have to lie about the fact that they both had “Rice Dream” (as the concoction was called)

The story is very cute but it rather completely misses the point of morality. Mom’s desire was clearly not that her children consume minute quantities of Rice Dream, It was that her children do not consume dairy. By telling her that you had Rice Dream you are using an irrelevant fact for sole purpose of deceiving her into drawing an incorrect conclusion about what else had not been consumed that night.

Nonetheless this sort of thing very common within the christian church, Brother Andrew told a similar story in his book “God’s Smuggler”. Andy spent his life bringing bibles,and teaching gospel lessons in “closed countries” where it was illegal. Nonetheless he refused to lie as he went about breaking the law of these various nations, and records his difficulty in making the decision to describe himself on an immigration application, not as a “missionary” but a “teacher”. To the brother’s mind this was of course technically true, but to the authorities the information received was certainty not “I am entering your country for the expressed purpose of breaking it’s laws”

Even as far back as 350AD the great Saint Athanasius who famously defended the doctrine of the trinity in the early church was not immune from this tradition. Once when the roman emperor sent troops up the Nile to find ant kill him Athanasius sailed his ship right past them. they asked him “Have you seen Athanasius?” and he responded honestly “you are not far from him” so they sailed on.

One can only justify tactics like this by taking a very specific definition of lying. Perhaps you could define it as “Intentionally saying something which you know to be false to another person in order to get them to believe it” this then would exclude statements of untruth like sarcasm or irony, as well as acting, and simply being mistaken. It also excludes deceptive statements of truth like “I ate Rice Dream”. But at that point, Why bother? If it is moral to deceive your neighbor as much as you wish so long as you do not technically break the rule, then what exactly is the rule there for? Just for kicks?

Maybe instead of striving not to lie we should strive to be honest. Honesty has a much wider definition that implies we should communicate truth in all circumstances (truth being defined as that which corresponds to reality) This begins with honesty with yourself, meaning that if you are a career criminal for the gospel you probably shouldn’t pretend like you are following all the rules as well. 😉

I’d like to show you a video of a young theologian expressing her thoughts on biblical womanhood.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rbMHLDY1pA&w=640&h=390]
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All jokes aside I think the fact that this is funny to us illustrates an intriguing point about the normal desires for woman and how they are being changed.

I can’t say I disagree with her. Heck yeah Gurl! if he gives you an ultimatum you say “Movin’ on!” ::Z-Snap::

Then again… she’s five… Isn’t she still supposed to be under the deluded and kinda creepy notion that she will marry whoever rescues her from the dragon first?

I hijacked a term in my previous post in order to make a point about how sucky and lame evil is. The words “Banality of Evil” come originally from Hannah Arendt.

“Banal” means trivial or common. So I first used the term to point out how unspectacular evil is. But for Hannah it goes deeper than this. She wrote about the Holocaust and other great evils and found that they were not perpetrated primarily by terrible people, but my normal individuals who accepted the premises and authority of the state (Lawful Neutral Folks)

To this extent the propensity for great evil lurks within all of us. Not just a select group of atomic losers as I previously implied.

The famous Milgram Experiment demonstrates this well.
At Yale university participants were invited to participate in a sociological experiment which they were told would measure people’s response to negative stimulus. Participant (marked T in the picture) were instructed to ask a series of questions to other people (marked L) while being watched over by an instructor (marked E)

They were told that every time they received a wrong answer they should push a button which would deliver an electric shock to the person on the other side of the wall, with voltage that increased each time. But unbenounced to them, It was not actually the Ls, but the Ts that were being experimented on.

Milgram wanted to see whether or not normal people would be willing to do something against their morals. So in the experiment L was in actuality just an actor, who only pretended to be shocked.

The L missed more and more answers the more he was “shocked” which eventually lead up to the T being instructed to repetitively give him what they thought would be a 450volt shock (more than 4 times a normal electrical socket) And more than half of the participants did!

This is the same mechanism which was found to be at play in Nazi Germany. Where many SS moraly opposed Hitler’s “Final Solution” but nonetheless continued to do what they were told by what they understood to be an authority out of cowardice and ignorance.
That is to say… The propensity to be an SS, is not a strange and distant human trait. it exists within all of us.

Another idea I borrowed in order to make my point was the information about Patient Zero. In Banality 1, I used Dugas as an example of how evil people are ultimately uninspiring. but for Randy Shilts who wrote the book that introduced Zero to the public, he represented much more.
Aids was allowed to happen.

Shilts introduces us to the history of the onset of the AIDS epidemic, And makes the point that in not for the indifference of governments and relief organizations about what was considered to be a “gay disease” the epidemic could never of tipped.
In other words, because we don’t care about somebody going around killing people as long as they’re Gay. You and I also, are responsible for Patient Zero’s success.
Evil is banal. It’s uninspiring, it’s not awesome, it’s common, it’s lame, it’s…all of us.

It’s common, when telling stories about good versus evil to try to make good sound extra special heroic. We want the good guys, whoever they are to seem to have overcome ridiculous odds, because after all a little good can obliterate lots of evil if it needs to, and that’s awesome for good.

This does however create a perception problem. If we are always telling David and Goliath stories, we definitely make a good point that Davids are awesome (and indeed they are), but we also tend to build up Goliaths, more than we need to or should.

What’s more, by consistently making out evil to be Goliath-like, we begin to develop the perception that evil somehow has something to do with strength. It’s the Dark Side of the force that gets to do all the strong, scary stuff like choking people, while the Jedi can “suggest” things only to the weak minded. Dracula is immortal with three evil brides, while VanHelsing… reads a lot. Galactus eats planets, while the Mr Fantastic is just really stretchy

We do this to Satan too. Who is that Rock-n-Roll God up there? He looks mean, but also kind of awesome I wish I was red with a sweet pair of horns like that! That is so Metal!

Satan is not like that, He is not awesome.

Satan is a Loser

And I don’t mean that in a rhetorical sense like when you refer to your little brother as a loser, I mean that Satan is doomed to do nothing for all of eternity except lose. He is a loser, that’s all he does, The events of revelation haven’t even happened yet, and despite that we all already know he loses. Why would we ever give him the credit? Why would we honor that idiot with the satisfaction of respecting his terribleness? Screw terribleness!

Terribleness is sucky and lame.

You know what the face of evil really looks like on the planet today?

If you guessed this Bill Cosby looking guy over here you’d be right.

That’s Robert Mugabe, The president of Zimbabwe. His people live in incomprehensible poverty under a %100,000 inflation rate with %80 unemployment such that people habitually flee the country in order to starve under better conditions in South Africa where they can  live in a hooverville like one of the prawns from District 9.

He silences his dissenters through fear, torture, and deprivation of basic human liberty, all at the ultimate expense of his people suffering. He hates America, Europe, and anyone white, including Zimbabweians. And worst of all, unlike that giant red dude, he exists!

But unlike the giant red dude who’s way cooler than the devil, Mugabe is characterized primarily by incompetence. He doesn’t want people to starve, he’s just really that selfish, and that incompetent. Basically imagine Dubya on steroids.

( But not the kind of steroids that make you stronger, the kind that make you worse at running a country.)

Or perhaps a better example would be Kim Jong Ill, The nuclear powered Man-child/Dictator/Basketball Freak. Or Bin Laden who was found in a comfortable apartment with a computer loaded with porn… I could go on and on talking about uninspiring evil dictators from history and current events. Not a single one of them is endowed with dark power from the overmind. They don’t wake up in the morning aspiring to sow greater discord. Instead they are almost all spoiled brats who fail to value the horrible ramifications for their actions.

But I don’t want to spend all day talking about evil world leaders. If I did that I’d risk contributing to the same kind of misconception I’m trying to combat, and allow you to subconsciously associate evil with political power.

Instead, as we continue our study in the true face of evil, I’d like to submit my candidate for worst person ever “Gaëtan Dugas” also known as Patient Zero.

Dugas was a gay Canadian flight attendant who became one of the first North Americans to be infected with AIDS. He was a handsome man, and extremely sexually promiscuous, averaging (by his own estimate) over 100 sexual partners per year all over the world. Dugas was made aware of his illness, and of his ability to infect others, but he patently refused to stop having unprotected sex with multiple partners.

According to some sources, Dugas would inform his partners afterward that he was infected with what he called the “gay cancer”

Patient Zero is responsible for the “Tipping point” of the AIDS Epidemic, changing it from a bad disease into a worldwide health catastrophe. He infected enough people who infected enough people for the epidemic to take off. He wasn’t the first to get it in North America, he was just the one to make it take off.

Over 25 million people are recorded dead due to complications related to AIDS, more than the total population of New York City.

By 2030 experts project that AIDS will kill another 50 million people.

Dugas won’t be there to see it of course. He’s caused more destruction that the most successful movie villain, but he’s dead now. He died of kidney failure as a result of continual AIDS-related infections.

And that’s the story isn’t it? If you play with fire you get burned, and you may burn lots of other people also. You don’t become president, you don’t get mind control, It doesn’t make your more awesome. You die of AIDS.

This is the face of evil. This is the alternative. This is what we oppose. This is what Christ has given us victory against. Not the red dude. That’s just Tim Curry with makeup on.

In case you needed a reminder that our battle is not against flesh and blood…

http://twww.todaysbigthing.com/betamax/betamax.swf?clip_id=4627&use_node_id=true&schedule=2&date=2011-02-18&fullscreen=1

After camp I drove a couple of my students back home to Kansas. It was good to have the time with the three of them to engage and hear about camp from their perspective.

As a ministry we always try to include as much as we can from various cultural traditions, Kimchi at snack time, worship songs in Spanish, and so on. The goal is that everyone would adjust a little bit to to everyone else, So that we would all be a little bit uncomfortable and nobody has to be completely uncomfortable. Still, despite this, the camp was right in the middle of Missouri, and the great majority of people are white, so it took on a culture that was closer to white Midwestern than anything else.

The 3 girls I rode with were all black, and this made things more than a little bit uncomfortable for them as they adjusted to a culture that put them in a big room with what seemed like a sea of white people.

We talked about this for about an hour. Discussing what could have been done better, and what was done well enough to make them feel at home. Then we got distracted and started singing theme songs from TV shows. We made two stops on the trip, Once for lunch at a deep country BBQ shack, and once in Kansas City to take a break and switch cars. You’ll remember that earlier this year I lost my truck. so the first leg of the trip was in another staff worker’s car, and the next was in the Minivan I’ve been borrowing.

They missed Brandon, a Christian Rapper who left Staff recently to enter church ministry, so when we got into my Minivan I suggested we listen to the album he gave me (I was curious anyway.) By this time I’d been on the road for about 4 hours, the sun was getting low, the air was cool, and my leg was cramped, so I rolled down the window and rested my left leg on the mirror as I drove.

As we drove through Lawrence I stopped at a stoplight and saw that the car next to us had pulled out his camcorder. Apparently he had just never seen anything quite like a relaxed white man, driving through Kansas with 3 black girls while listening to christian Rap.

We turned up the music.

It turns out it’s not very hard at all to be so radical it turns heads.

There is a cult down in Vista California called the Twelve Tribes that I went and visited some time ago.

You should know I don’t use that term lightly. When I say “cult” I don’t mean “people who believe differently from me”, or “people who appear christian but aren’t”. What I mean is that they actually live on a compound separated from the outside world and invite you to join them in exchange for you selling everything you own and laying the money at their feet.

With that said, I actually had a very good time with them. They live a reasonably simple communal agrarian lifestyle, and celebrate together every morning and evening with “Menha” which involved a faux Israeli style party/worship service centered around dancing merrily in a circle. And it’s awesome.

I saw a similar thing at my cousin’s wedding to his Turkish bride, and another variant at a seminar on multiethnicity for the United Methodist Church. Dancing together engenders community, participation, learning and fun. Unlike the ambiguous waving and shifting common to our protestant worship services that resemble a Pearl Jam Concert. The organized choreographed movements of these communities hearken to mind old Irish line dances and Shaker Ceremonies of early America.

Every time I see a group social dancing all together I think “Yes! That, we need to do more stuff like that!”

I saw it again at camp the other night when, in the middle of praise a group of our inner city kids spontaneously broke out in a line dance that appeared to me to be the Cupid Shuffle. It was stinking awesome.

My old girlfriend and I used to Swing Dance to worship songs back at RockHarbor Church, (most of the songs are in 3:4, the rest are Salsas) but without the community element it was a me and her thing, not something everybody was going to get in on. Still I feel like the precedent is there. If you’re a worship leader reading this, this is your opportunity. I claim no ownership over this idea and put it in the public domain. I strongly suggest you try it.

The head of our Inner-City Mission Project is named Gerry

Gerry is a great old man, very wise and very neurotic, a few months ago at a staff conference I sat down with him for breakfast.

“Where did you get Cholula?”

I’m pretty sure that’s the first thing I ever said to him. I was bemoaning the bland eggloaf thing they were serving for breakfast and was more than a little surprised to see my favorite sauce for eggs at the table. He didn’t answer the question, but looked at my name tag.

“Ryan, when you enter a room, you need to exegete your surroundings: Observe, Interpret, Apply. Otherwise you miss things in plain sight.”

“Are you saying the Cholula is in plain sight because I looked around and I-“

“You looked where you thought you should look, you did not observe. The Cholula is avaliable, there’s about 10 other condiments there too”

I looked around quizzically, I still did not see any condiment bar “And you noticed this the first day?”

“First meal, sure”

“Wow, did you think to tell anyone?”

“Would you like some?” he said finally passing the bottle to me. I took it, he continued

“You don’t tell people everything you know, you live that way, others will take notice. I wish Christian leaders could learn this.”

The rest of breakfast was consumed with conversation about philosophy and hot sauce. Gerry constantly borrowed analogies from evangelism and mission to describe the properly examined omelet. I took notes.

Gerry’s not at this camp, but when I needed something for my vegetable medley I remembered what he said, and carefully looked around the room. To my surprise I found Tabasco Sauce randomly hanging out in a little alcove at the salad bar.

I started eating my food with Tabasco at every meal, then other staff members joined in. I don’t think the camp was used to people actually knowing where to find the sauce because by the second week they had run out!

Now the trick is to do that with treasures besides hot sauce.

Last night I came downstairs at camp to find two girls talking “What are you talking about?”

“We’re talking about proclamations of faith”

“Oh cool, have you come to any sorts of conclusions?”

One of the girls, Allie, responded after a brief pause. “I think I’ve concluded, that I’m not ready to make one”

“All right. Why not?”

“Well, I just feel like I still need a sign”

“Oh okay, what sort of sign?”

“A sign from God”

“To signal what?”

“That he… Exists, that he sees me. I just feel like nobody out here really gets me”

Allie went on to talk about how she had been an occasionally homeless girl from California, her father had been a pastor, but no longer, and she knew about the church and didn’t feel she was ready to commit to a system which she found to be less loving.

I sat and talked with her for a long time. I agreed with her about the church and the Christian subculture, we’ve been an embarrassment frankly, and a stumbling block to many people in my generation. We’ve been hypocritical, elitist, consumerist, and dogmatic. We’ve been anti-intellectual and politically problematic At times we’ve even been racist, sexist, classist, and violent. But I also challenged her that none of those things should stop her from pursuing Christ

“Jesus didn’t like religious people much either, and he disapproved of all of those same things in the church. I understand the struggle, but don’t let things the two of you agree on keep you guys apart.”

Allie decided that meeting another Californian misfit pastor’s kid was a pretty compelling sign. She prayed with me that night, and told Jesus for the first time that she had decided to follow him with her life.

On this blog, Fear of Whales. I don’t spend a lot of time extolling the virtues of accepting Jesus. I don’t run through the gospel over and over again. I don’t give “turn or burn” speeches. On the other hand I do spend quite a lot of time criticizing the church. I make fun of Christian game night, Christian dating habits, and Christian treatment of other Christians.

I just want to make it clear, in case somehow one of you wandered onto this site without having first made a commitment to Christ; that I do heartily and sincerely recommend it. and I do heartily and sincerely think the church has issues. But those are problems with Christians, not Jesus.

“don’t let things the two of you agree on keep you guys apart.”

Hi there, Christian girl.

Yes, you. With the camp t-shirt, who likes Switchfoot

I just wanted to let you that you’re attractive.

You’re a really fun person to be around. You’re nice, and you can be really funny at times! You’re also quite beautiful. I like what you did with your hair today.

Is that creepy? I’m sorry, listen though, here’s the thing. I noticed. Actually, everyone noticed… Every heterosexual guy who knows you has become aware of the fact that you are attractive, and there’s not much any of us can do about that fact.

It’s not like you hide it either. I mean, you dress modestly-cute on purpose right? Isn’t that because guys like me like it? How long did you spend getting ready this morning?

Listen it’s really awkward for us. Because now, if we come out admitting we like you, we are taking a gamble between learning that you like us to, and going out. Or ruining the friendship because you are going to treat us like we are weird from now on. But what’s weird about it? I think you’re cute, you don’t like me that way, let’s move on.

Why should you treat boys who want to get to know you better, like they want to kidnap you?

He is a boy, not a sexual deviant. The dude might like to kiss you under certain circumstances, but trust me it’s not like he is going to try it against your will! So you say, “I’m not interested” and you don’t worry about it anymore.

Otherwise you actually end up perpetuating a problematic cycle, whereby even the boys that you want to like you, will pretend like they don’t like you because they think that if they admit they like you and you don’t like them they’ll be treated like a freak. So then you get upset because none of the boys are paying attention to you but Becky, the standofish witch seems to have no shortage of attention from boys. You start to think that it’s just because you’re not pretty enough, when really it’s just because they value your friendship. Becky treats everyone like a pariah, so we don’t have much to lose by flirting with her.

I know that not all of these emotions are logical, and you just kindof feel what you feel. Creepy feels like creepy, I get it. But I really think this is hurting relationships, and creating Beckys. And it could be prevented if you just think about these sorts of encounters in a different way. Next time a boy is nice to you, instead of getting weird about it just say to yourself “either he is nice, or he thinks I’m cool. Either way is good news, and if he asks me out, all I have to do is say ‘no’ ” Rinse and repeat inside your head as many times as necessary.

If you’ve been reading for any length of time it should not surprise you that I’m something of a rule breaker. I believe that Jesus was Neutral Good not Lawful Neutral and I also care about rules only in so much as they imply consequences. But I don’t value conformity much for it’s own sake.

Christian camps on the other hand, love rules. It’s just an ideal environment for rules to thrive. Wilderness locations love rules, Christians love rules, and people who work with minors love rules, so when you put all three together you have no trouble explaining that you may take a boat out, but only between 3:30 and 4, only when there is a lifeguard on duty and only north and east of the dock. You must wear your lifevest at all times, as well as sunscreen and closed toed shoes. No swimming, splashing, sailing, or having fun.

But I know of another camp that has sortof a different take on things. It’s a camp for foster kids and although there are still a lot of rules (the government mandates most of them) there is a consensus among the staff that our goal is to provide the kids with a positive experience first, and so we avoid saying “no” at all costs.

Sometimes it’s tricky of course. There are a great many things you get asked at these camps that you simply could never say yes to, So when someone says “Can we throw Mikes bed in the pool?” you end up saying something like “Oh we are going to do something way more fun than that! We can go to Rec Time!” rather than “No, That’s against camp rule #343”

Still the concept has transformed much of how I think about camp ministry and ministry in general. Such that now, at a camp with adults, where I have a reasonable amount of power to call shots, I’ve learned to answer in the affirmative as much as possible.

There is just power in the word “yes” and I love to unleash it. So where previously I might have responded to the question “How late are we allowed to stay up?” with something along the lines of “You should go to bed, it’s late” I’ll now say “You’re adults you can stay up as late as you want but you will hate yourself in the morning… You know this right?”

Sometimes they listen and go to bed, but feel respected that I trusted them, sometimes they learn a valuable lesson. It’s a win-win!

I don’t know when it was that so many of us got the impression that there was safety in rules and restrictions, and that by classifying and limiting everything we would all be better off. It seems that not only is that not true at all, but that the opposite is the case, and more than that, it’s way more fun!

To read my perspective on YES in a more political context CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to Hear More Back-story about Alignment and why I favor “Neutral Good” freedom

If you want to hear thoughts about what freedom leads to, and what freedom is for CLICK HERE

Tonight I ran the PowerPoint for the Musical Worship at camp.

We have a slideshow with all the words to the worship songs set up on a computer, churches often need a person (or trained monkey) to accomplish the very menial task of pressing “next” whenever the singer finishes singing the words on the current page.

It’s been years since I’ve done that, Since High School I think. And the experience was actually pretty awesome.

Early in my christian life, when I was a 12 year old in student leadership, PowerPoint was my thing! I ran the lights and the sound and the PowerPoint for services all the time, multiple times a week. But late in high school for some reason the ministry I was involved in got kinda crowded with tech people. And everybody wanted to do the trained monkey job, as if there was some kind of prestige to it, so I moved on and started doing announcements.

Then I did Games.

Then Small Groups, Bible Studies, Sermons, Camps, and Secular Universities.

But tonight they needed me back in the sound booth pressing the next button.

I actually really engage with worship that way. I’m not normally crazy about music, I’m a terrible singer, and I have trouble engaging with what always feels like an excessive amount of time in church spent singing. But from the booth it doesn’t feel that way to me, It feels like I’m more engaged, like I’m contributing something to the sacrifice we’re offering together.

Actually there’s a sense, when you get the slides flowing with the music at just the right moment when the idea shifts from the chorus to the bridge, and you get into the flow of the song, and you almost feel like you’re a part of the band and…. Okay I’m a nerd. Maybe not.

The staff gathered the other night, a night before the students arrived and debriefed and hung out.

At one point one of the staff asked the room full of people about a situation that had arisen. Apparently the pool at the camp will not be open for the week, neither will “giant inflatables” which had been advertised, and she wanted to know why. “The students are going to ask.” she said.

Without hesitation, another staff, one of our Intercultural experts piped up.

“Sharks!”

…What? The sharks popped the inflatables? That makes no sense!… I mean I can understand them infesting the pool I guess…

But before I said anything, our administrator answered the question seriously (administrators are good for that).

“Well it seems, that our camp liaison has changed from the one we’ve been working with in years past, and we learned from this new liaison that the previous one had given us a sort of bonus package and included the pool and the inflatables for free, but since we did not order that, this time we won’t have access this year. Nonetheless we’re hoping that as we continue to develop a relationship that possibility will be reopened to us”

The staff response was as unanimous as it was instantaneous

“so… Sharks?”

“We’ll say sharks”

It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time for me to go up to camp again.

I’ll be up here for two weeks, but I’ll have internet access, you can expect periodic updates about my thoughts and stories at camp. Hopefully it will be an insightful and expository view behind the veil at what camp looks like for a Pro Minister.

But who knows? I haven’t experienced it yet.

What I do know is that camp is really sentimental for me. many of my first activities in ministry took place as a volunteer at various camps (and as a student before that) and when I burned out and crashed and burned ministerially, it was a job at a summer camp that got me back on my feet again.

With my background it’s actually much more likely that I would have become a Camp Program Manager rather than a College Campus Minister. But God knows best apparently (I think I read that somewhere).

Last night it was messing with me though. I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do with myself this summer without any students around and there is a considerable part of my spirit that really would like to sign up as seasonal staff at a summer camp. There’s just something about these places…

I don’t have a good testimony.
Most people hate it when I say that, but it’s really true. Some people have awesome testimonies and some peoples testimonies are boring like mine. The great testimony goes something like this:

“I was born in a broken home. My father left when I was 6 months old, and when I was three my mother married a man who used to beat me and my little sister. I never connected with my earthly father so even though I had heard about God I could never really grab onto it. In College I tried to get satisfaction through women and hard partying, but I ended up getting addicted to drugs and dropping out of school. That’s when Jesus came into my life and changed everything. From that moment I turned around completely and started living for him instead of myself. I’m not saying everything was perfect. I still had some charges I needed to answer for, but things have just gotten better and better since then. Now I’m a coach for kids like me with no positive male role models in their life, and I know with a surety that when I die, I will go to heaven to live with my real heavenly Father forever.”

Awesome Right? I KNOW!
Mine is more like this

“Sooo, My father was a pastor and I don’t honestly remember what it was like to live without Christ. I do know it must have been quite early because before I could read my Great Grandma used to read me bible stories before bed. In college I acted out by volunteering at a Evangelical church (rather than a Lutheran one) and kissing girls I was not yet engaged to. I don’t drink alcohol because I’m genetically predisposed to alcoholism although I’ve never been addicted. I’m still a virgin, and my parents love me. And when I die I know that I’ll still be chilling with Jesus… pretty much the same thing I’m doing now.”

And listen, It’s not like I regret the choices I made that make my testimony different from the first one above, but I still think we should call a spade a spade, by admitting that my story just doesn’t bring the same tears to your eyes.

Why is that?

It’s not the happy ending, they both end the same way. There has to be something about that middle part that connects with us.

Is it that we relate to the first story more? That could be, but you know I really don’t think so. Most Christians I talk to have testimonies that are more like mine. But we all love that other one.

Is it just that we like stories about sex and drugs?… I really hope not.

I actually think it goes much deeper than that. I think a good testimony conforms to something larger than itself. A plot line that weaves itself throughout all of human history. A story of humble beginnings that leads to devastating consequences which are diverted at the last second and ultimately resolved.

It’s a play in three acts. The problem with my story is that it’s all Act 3. It’s like watching Star Wars, if the whole thing was just the Medal Ceremony. At some level, if Luke doesn’t get stuck inside a giant trash compactor, we just don’t care as much that he has a medal.
I mean really.

Do you care? Because I don’t.

But of course that idea leads to new and even more interesting questions (all the best ideas do).  If there is some Ultimate Testimony that all the great testimonies are conforming to… Uhh… Where is it? And what great eternal truth does it hold for us?

I would argue that it’s the story of creation.

That when we tell our stories about our wayward teenage years, we are echoing the corporate experience of the human race. After all, if we could invite Planet Earth to our Altar Call services, what story would she tell?

Well I was born knowing about God, but I decided pretty early on, that I would rather do things for myself. As I was growing up there was a lot of fighting, and some days I didn’t know if there would be anything to eat. Here and there I would hear about God, and sometimes I even prayed, but he was never really real for me.  Ya know? By the time I was a teenager I got involved with this gang called the Roman Empire and things really started going downhill. Then Jesus came into my life and everything changed. I mean, don’t get me wrong things were still messed up, but from that moment on the church was a growing part of me, And things have been getting better and better. Now I’m getting to know Christ more and more, and trying to end things like slavery forever. And when I’m finally done with this life, I know Jesus is coming back to finish the work he’s started in me for the Kingdom Of God.

So everything that is repeated individually, is repeated globally. The bible tells me about how I can be saved. But more importantly. It tells us about how we can be saved together.

What is the best movie ever?

Go on. Leave a comment. Which movie is best?

Not your favorite movie. I want to know the best movie. Objectively.
This is another one of my favorite conversation questions, along with “What is best in life?” I feel like it tells me so much about a person when they answer, and if they answer and how much prodding it takes.

My favorite answers come immediately, as if the responder had already thought about it. Usually they offer something that would hardly be considered “best” by most critics. something like “Dumb and Dumber”

Others will think about it for a while and then offer something like the Highest rated film. Something like “Citizen Kane”

The people I have the hardest time getting along with are the type who will refuse to answer. They will dig their heels in and refuse to name a movie because nobody can say any movie is best. I find that obstinate, and a bit insecure as if they resent being asked a difficult question when I’m supposed to be following a script that contains only questions like “how are you” and answers like “fine”

But I’m learning that those people in the third group may have more evidence going for them than I originally realized.
I mean I always knew that it was kind of an unanswerable question (if you already knew the answer what fun would it be) but I had been operating under the assumption that there actually was a best movie out there somewhere, and the trick was that we couldn’t escape or bias far enough to learn what it is. After all, there are better movies, and worse movies, one of them must be best. Right?

Howard Moskiwitz says no.

Apparently, according to his findings, you can’t sell, “the perfect car” for example. Making a car faster doesn’t make it better, and there is no optimal level of speed for a car. You won’t find a bell curve, where people like cars that go 200 and no more. Some people like fast cars, some people like safe cars, some people like roomy cars. And the best you can do, is build a kind of car that your competitors are not building to appeal to people who have so far been unsatisfied.
So prior to Moskewitz there were two kinds of mustard, French’s and Guilden’s and they were both yellow. But it turns out yellow is not the ultimate mustard, it’s just the ultimate mustard for some people. so now there’s 30 mustards to choose from in your store.

Same thing with cars, with mustard, with movies… So what about churches?

Presbyterians think that God chooses who is saved and who isn’t Methodists think that’s our choice, and Lutherans think it’s something in between. Could it be that this is… a matter of preference?

Certainty we feel that way about worship styles right? I can have a guitar or a choir at my church and that’s all okay, but where’s the line? We can’t believe the Resurrection is just figurative and the bible is flawed if we want to!

…Or can we?

Is is possible that even where one should draw the line between negotiable and nonnegotiables… depends?

I think it is.

I don’t know if it’s the case, but I think it’s possible.
Also, Die Hard: Best movie ever

It just so happens that I was visiting New York City yesterday when Osama Bin Ladin was confirmed dead. After 10 years the long search is over

Late yesterday afternoon I drove past Ground Zero, I saw the new One World Trade Center which is about a quarter built and already an imposing structure. Even though it’s clearly a construction site, it was lighted just like any of the other buildings on the New York Skyline as if to say “Yes, New York, This is your building. It’s Coming!”

That site, Those buildings, the fateful day in 2001 when that horrible attack changed history forever has special significance to this city. To this day you can still approach any New Yorker and ask them where they were when it happened, and their tough, grizzled exterior will melt as they talk about friends they lost, and wax sentimental about what this city means to them and the solidarity they now share.

So it’s really quite an unbelievable privilege that I was able to be in the City when he was caught.

We did it.

And now we can go about the Arts of Peace. Finishing the tower, grieving our losses, celebrating out heroes, and helping the war torn wastelands on the middle east to do the same by building schools and stabilizing political systems. It’s not over. The fighting won’t end here, but it is ending, we’re in the downhill stretch and we’re on our way to better times ahead for New York, and everywhere else in the world that values peace and love.

To read about the death of a Christian Pakistani in retaliation CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to read how Christians in Nigeria and Pakistan are worried

How should Christians react to bin Laden’s death? CLICK HERE to read several thoughts

To watch the video of the President’s statement, CLICK HERE

READ HERE as Beliefnet’s Jim Fletcher asks if all Muslims are evil

To consider the heart-felt thoughts of Debbie Lee, mom of the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq, CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to read bestselling author Linda Howard’s reaction

To consider the thoughts of Beliefnet’s Kirsten Jackson, CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to watch the reaction of New Yorkers at Ground Zero

CLICK HERE for photos and the text of the President’s statement

To read the reaction of Beliefnet’s Ryan Gaffney CLICK HERE

CLICK HERE to read Beliefnet writer Donna Calvin’s reaction

“Let’s consider your age to begin with
–how old are you”
“I’m seven and a half exactly.”
“You needn’t say ‘exactually,'” the Queen remarked. ” I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
” I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. ” Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “One can’t believe impossible things”
Lewis Caroll

I’ve spoken before about how theologically indefensible it is to believe that you are saved by thinking (rather than by Jesus)
We’ve familiarized ourselves with Jesus’ call to “believe in me” but missed the boat at some level when we began to translate that into our lives as “Think real hard that I exist”
That interpretation, as conservative as it seems, simply will not hold up biblicaly.
But even if the bible did support it (which it doesn’t) there is another flaw is this typical theology which Caroll here exposes.
How exactly are you supposed to believe something on purpose? If you think it’s true than you think it’s true, and if not, then drawing a long breath and closing your eyes is not going to help you.

I’m just going to come right out and say it. Mark Driscoll can be pedantic at times.
But not nearly so much as his followers.

This has never been so obvious as with the distinction between “Emerging” and “Emergent.”  Driscoll has drawn a massive cultural distinction about a group that dislikes categorization between a difference of three letters and based apparently upon his say so.

The Emerging Church, say Driscoll’s followers, is the community of people that is asking about how to make the Gospel relevant to the next generation … while attempting to communicate the message of Christ in biblically faithful and culturally meaningful ways.

The Emergent Church, on the other hand, is a specific group of well-defined people who are part of the Emergent Village. They are hard to pin down doctrinally. Suffice to say, they are probably all a bunch of post-modern heretics. “So,” say the proud Driscollites, “I might be emerging but I am certainly not emergent.”

Well wait a sec… Who says?

You know I’ve got a book here written by Dan Kimball, a part of the Emergent Village, published by Zondervan’s label “Emergent YS” and called The Emerging Church wherein Kimball identifies himself as emergent and makes no distinction. So if Kimball says there’s no difference, and he’s the expert who (quite lieraily) “wrote the book” on the Emerging Church, Where did Driscoll get the idea there is such a clear difference?

Is he just being very picky about the dictionary’s definition of the words?

e·mer·gent
–adjective
1. coming into view or notice; issuing.

Apparently Mr. Webster (7th Collegiate Edition) is just as confused as I am.

The truth of the matter is the fact that nobody wants to admit. There is no difference.

Worse than that, there’s no way to draw a difference. Right now, the culture of the world is just beginning to undergo some massive and unprecedented changes the likes of which have not been seen since the Enlightenment.

The church is responding to them with some equally important changes the likes of which have not been seen since the Reformation.

In the middle of the fray are a lot of big ideas, some of which are great, some of which are messy.

We don’t have any good way to sort the heretics from the heroes.

Emergent, Emerging, Postmodern, Post-Postmodern, Post-Evangelical, Relevant, Reconstructionist, Radical… They are all words for the same thing.

They describe the group of Christians that is trying to get a hold of this THING in the culture, whatever it is, and glorify God with it.

Why so many words?

Because everytime a new Christian author wants to talk about how the church needs to address the pressing needs of the next generation, they feel the need to clarify that they’re not one of those other [insert your favorite term here] heathens over there.

No, no, over here we’re [insert your other favorite term here]

Stop making up words.

It’s confusing people. The community you are describing is already confused enough by the shifting definitions. Just jump in the chaos with the rest of us and prepare to be in a league with radical thinkers.

Or else stay on the sidelines with the traditionalists and prepare to be left behind.

If God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life (and I believe he does)

Then what is it?

It seems to me that the same comfortable North American Christians who like that wording, are the same people who are least likely to actually have anything going in their faith (with the possible exception of evangelism)

That phrase has actually come to be synonymous with prosperity gospel in some circles, as if the “wonderful plan” involved Ferraris and movie deals.

I’m ready to defend the phrasing because I’m sure that was not the original intent of Campus Crusade when they wrote it, but I think the way it’s been used speaks volumes to how little thinking we do about what this plan might be.

I think God’s plan for my life has involved unspeakable adventure, intermittent homelessness, extravagant blessing and the opportunity to change the world. God called me to a life of ministry where I have been pushed constantly to the very brink of my abilities as together He and I acomplish wonderful things.

I think he wants the same thing for you. Your path will look different, but ultimatly I think God’s plan for Christians is about saving the world.

The theological parlance for all this is “In sanctification we are privileged to participate with Christ in global redemption.”

But that translates to “God wants to have you save the world.”

How’s that for wonderful?

You can start today, don’t wait for writing in the sky. Go make the world a better place, pray a lot, ask God to guide you.

He’ll redirect you if you try to do the wrong good thing, I promise.

How are you going to change the world this week?

How long have you been a Christian?

I suspect you are a Christian. You have probably been a believer for quite some time – 10 to 15 years at least.

Do you have to have called yourself a Christian for that long in order to want to read about missionaries? About a missionary challenging all sorts of preconceptions? I think so. Otherwise you would just read Squire Rushnell.

I suspect that you were either converted in the 1970s-1990s or else you were pretty much born into Christianity.

Did you learn to evangelize during that time?

Were you taught that the essential truth of the Gospel can be summed up in the simple phrase:

“God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”

That’s a great line.  Really is. I like it a lot.

Stephen was OK with God's plan for him

There’s a problem though. You’ve been a Christian 10 or so years now.  Uhh, what’s up with that “wonderful plan”?

You know, the wonderful plan that God has for you?

The person that explained it to you assured you you there was a plan. You needed to accept jesus so it could happen.

You said “Yes” to God’s plan! So, what did it turn out to be?

Maybe you’ve been the person telling people that God loves them and … there it is again … has a plan for them. So, what is it? It’s not that they should go to heaven when they die, is it? That is a wonderful plan for their death. What are they supposed to do until then?

Go around telling other people that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives?

Doesn’t that seen kind of empty after a while? There must be a better answer somewhere.

Comment me up! Come on, tell me what your plan is.

I wanna know.

What does God have in mind for you?

What plan does God have for you?

It’s the kind of question that gets asked again every year? So why do we color eggs to celebrate the resurrection of the LORD? I used to pester my mom with this sort of question all the time when I was growing up!

But Now that I’m grown I’ve learned to do the research for myself and I’m happy to provide the answer.

You see back in the early days of the church nearly everyone but the clergy was illiterate, so everything was symbolic. It’s still very much that way in the eastern orthodox churches (the symbolism part not the illiteracy part)

We had this extended system of cascading symbols that took place throughout the year called “liturgy” which most churches have now reduced down to it’s most basic elements. But back in the day Liturgy was everything.

The liturgy to prepare for the season of Easter began on ash Wednesday for a season called “lent” where traditionally, Christians would fast from”passionate foods” meaning anything from animals, for 40 days. Nowadays many Christians still fast through Lent, but we more often pick one thing to abstain from than eat an entirely vegan diet.

At the end of 40 days would be Pascha (or Easter) where the fast would be broken and an enormous party held for the risen Lord. This celebration began in the Easter service itself, when after symbolically announcing the risen savior the priest would hand you a Red Egg.

Red, to symbolize the crucifixion, Egg to symbolize new life. You were then invited to crack the shell, to symbolize victory over the gates of hell, and then eat the egg, to end the fast and symbolize that party time had begun!

You see it’s all symbolic

Over time as families helped prepare for the service and children were enlisted to help dye the red eggs it became an Easter tradition. Some people started doing it in their homes in addition to at church, just for fun! Then they started decorating their red eggs with patterns pertaining to the resurrection; things like Crosses, and Fishes. And as more colors of dyes became available in homes, so did more colors of eggs.

Then Chocolate Makers got in on the action and started selling chocolate eggs as an Easter treat, the huge success of which lead to other chocolate symbols of new life, like doves, chicks, and bunnies.

Well it’s a Jonah reference. Obviously.

But it’s more than that.

C.S. Lewis identified himself as “The Most Reluctant Convert,” which is an idea I could relate to, except that I was never really converted (of if I was, it happened before I could talk) My father was a pastor, and during my early childhood he was a rather zealous one.

I don’t remember not being a Christian.

Still I’ve had my intellectual struggles with the concept of Christianity. “Seriously, you want me to believe Someone is watching me from the sky?… Prove it.”

So I get what he’s saying. But I’m not so much a reluctant convert, as a reluctant minister.

I’ve done the research. Actually I love the research. If you keep reading, you’ll get to see me geek out about things like historical proofs of the resurrection. I’m down with being a Christian and an intellectual – Just so long as we define “Christian” as … y’know: “Guy who believes in Jesus, but does something else for a living.”

It’s the ministry thing I’m reluctant about. I’ve seen where that road leads. And I don’t mean “share your faith with your friends” ministry. I mean “give the sermon this Easter” ministry. “Be a pastor” ministry. “Do what your dad did” ministry.

I’m not cool with that. It makes me really uncomfortable, because after growing up with it. I had no delusions about the pastor being the all merciful holy-man of the community. I saw the politics, the game playing, the emotional exhaustion, the low pay. I wanted no part of it.

But here I am.

Why?

Because I’m afraid of whales.

I believe that God called me personally into vocational ministry and I’m not so dumb as to suppose that that was a suggestion on His part. I know better. I’ve been to Sunday School. And I believe that far from an empty threat, God’s call is a promise.

He is God and I am not.

What looks like a bad idea to me may actually be what I was created for, so I will follow it — but not because I want to and not because I’m holy.

Simply because I know better than to do otherwise.

 God’s first call on my life to vocational ministry happened in 2003 when I was a high school student. I followed the call to become small group leader and a Sunday school teacher. And an intern, a camp counselor, then a youth pastor where I  gave the sermon on Easter.

Last year, God called me to leave the beach and follow him to a reach strange people called “mid-westerners” where I’d be the Director of a Campus Ministry at a Major University.

And again I followed without hesitation (and for the same reason).

And even though it wasn’t easy to leave my family and friends and church and beaches and ethnic food …

ven though it wasn’t easy, these last six months have been some of the best in my entire life. God knew what He was doing the entire time.

So, these are the ramblings of a reluctant minister. My stories. My thoughts. An opportunity for you to peer behind the curtain of a critically flawed mobyaphobic 20-something pastor, while he changes the world for Jesus.

Welcome, welcome all Beliefnet readers.

It’s great to have you here. As you can see this is not the first blog post I’ve written. it’s just the first I’ve written HERE. I’ve had a grand total of 5 hosts so far.

Hopefully this one will last, at least for a good long while!

I thought I’d start things off with an explanation, of where in the heck this title comes from. And I will.

Tomorrow.

Today I just want to say Hi, introduce myself, and invite you to catch up on the archives. I’m donating every dollar I make back (yes, Beliefnet pays its bloggers!) to the campus ministry I run.

So the more you click, the less I have to lick envelopes!

If you’ve been following the blog (and why wouldn’t you follow a blog as original and fascinating as this one) then you will probably have noticed that I haven’t been updating lately.

This no doubt lead to sleepless nights on your part.

“Is Ryan Done?”
“is he out of ideas”
“Did he get blogger’s block”
“Was he killed in a tragic alligator wrestling accident?”

No, no, no, and not yet!

Instead I’m moving to a new host (again) and yet again I’m moving up in the world.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/fearofwhales/

The new host is called beliefnet, and they are actually going to be paying me per visit to my new blog and publicizing for me. I’ve made a commitment, not to profit personally from my commissions here, but instead am donating it all directly into my ministry budget.

For me, That means I’m still waiting fot the gravy train to roll up and make me a best selling author 🙁

But for you. It means you can now actually support the my ministry financially by reading and supporting my blog

If you make http://blog.beliefnet.com/fearofwhales/ your homepage, I’ll get a thousandth of a cent in my budget every morning when you turn on your computer. If you occasionally peruse through the articles, the ministry get’s money. and if you tell your friends and they tell their friends and you all actually enjoy what i write and don’t mind coming back again, we can fund this ministry completely without taking a cent out of anyone’s pockets (expect for the people with the stupid dermatologist ads)

http://blog.beliefnet.com/fearofwhales/

Go check it out (and update your bookmarks)

EDIT: Doe to Beliefnet deciding to drown my readers in misleading adds, I am now double publishing the blog

I had a professor once who was brilliant, but a terrible educator. I mean just awful. I think we all  had one like him at one point during out educational careers. He was educated at oxford and got some absurd level of honore mangus dolorem, but he was so particular and meticulous about the finest details of how things should be said or done, that we spent more time learning how not to piss him off than we did about actual theology.

I recall him having been once invited to teach a course on “Christian Ethics” which he patently refused. But offered instead to teach a course on “Christians, and Ethics” because it was his conviction that ethics could not be Christian, and so he would not teach about such nonsense.

“I will not call anything a Christian” he said “Unless I can baptize it!”

Well alright Professor.

“Doctor!” he would say

Alright Your Great Majesty Reverend Professor Doctor B.S. M.Div. PhD DDS

But here’s the thing.
He had a point.

why do we walk around going to christian coffee houses and playing christian video games when that sort of thing isn’t
possible anyway?

I made the point previously that that sort of thinking amounts to gnosticism. (and it does) but there’s another problem with it that is perhaps easier for lay people to understand.

It’s stupid.

Is your Car a christian?
What about your shirt?

I don’t have a car, but my shirt is considering Hinduism.

Oh wait? Is that ridiculous?

Can shirts not be Hindu? Then why do the shirts which you tell me are christian cost more?

Maybe… Just maybe… we should consider that shirts can’t be Hindu or Christian, and the people that sell us inanimate objects they say are Christian are just scamming us so they can charge more for an inferior product.

Whoops, There was a problem with this post!

Maybe you’d rather read something else – such as Why do we color Easter eggs?

Beliefnet is delighted to bring you the clever observations of Ryan Gaffney, a campus minister at the University of Kansas.  Like Jonah in the Bible, he’s not particularly frightened by big fish, but like you and me has to deal with that fear that grips us when God puts a burden on our hearts … and we respond: “You want me to do what??!!??

Gaffney grew up near the beach — in Melbourne, Florida, then Irvine, California. So, he knows what it’s like to find yourself dumped on the sand with the Almighty waiting patiently.

I don’t know why, but over the history of this Blog, my articles dating and relationships have consistently gotten the most attention. I’ve had other articles which I thought were better or more interesting, I’ve had articles that were more controversial, I’ve had articles about zombies, but even the most popular among them rarely get as many visits as even the least popular of my dating articles.

So I’ve developed a theory. I advertise these posts primarily on Facebook. I figure there must be a large group of my friends on Facebook who have secret crushes on me. And every time I write an article about dating they hurry to read it in hopes that it will feature some indicator that I am as into them as they are into me. (sorry ladies, It’s not this one)

I don’t know if that theory is the one best supported by the evidence, but I don’t really care, I like it, It makes me smile when I think about it, So it’s the theory I’m working off of until somebody suggests a better one.

But I haven’t always been the towering precipice of manliness you see now. And believe it or not I’ve actually become acquainted with a fair amount of romantic rejection. So as a man, I want to over some advice to women on how to “let a man down easy”.

First of all, You need to understand that men are basically logical when it comes to dating, or at least, they are much more logical than women. I don’t mean that in an insulting “men are superior” kind of way. I actually see it as somewhat self-deprecating. We approach Romance more or less the same way we approach auto mechanics, which is ridiculous, because the differences between women and cars are as obvious as they are numerous, but we proceed nonetheless. This can result in some very Amelia Bedelia like misunderstandings on our part. So if you’re a woman, attempting to get a point across to a man, you basically need to pretend you are giving instructions to a robot.

You’re a really great guy, and I really like you, but I just feel like now is not the right time for me to be dating

Is a terrible way to let a man down easy. A much better thing to say would be something like

No, I’m not interested in you.

…

There is no need to explain it further. Just say no, and move on.

“But That’s Sooooo Harsh!” you are going to say to me. No it isn’t, not if you’re speaking to a robot. that would be harsh if you said it to a woman, but to a man that is exactly what you need to communicate

“Hey Jenny would you like to go to the movies with me on Friday”

“No Ryan, because I do not find you attractive”

“Okay cool, I’ll move on then”

I’m not a woman, but I’ve spent some time with them, and from my understanding to a woman, saying something like “I don’t find you attractive” translates to something along the lines of “You’re horrible and ugly, nobody could ever love you, why don’t you stop bothering me” but to a man, when Jenny says “I don’t find you attractive” it actually translates to “Jenny doesn’t find me attractive”… and that’s Jenny’s problem.

When you say something like “You’re really great, I just don’t want to go out with you now” then you are talking about us. it translates to “Jenny doesn’t want to go out with me this week”…the implication is that you may want to go out with us later… And if that’s what you want to imply than that’s what you should say. But if you want us to bug off you need to tell us so. because otherwise we have to tell ourselves. “No Ryan, She said you are really great but she didn’t actually mean that”

Most of us guys are not so poorly socialized that we don’t understand that <no to a date> usually means <no to you> but if we ask you out it means we like you, and we would much much rather hear “no to a date but yes to you” so when we hear

“You’re a really great guy, and I really like you, but I just feel like now is not the right time for me to be dating”

that sounds a lot like what we want to hear, but we know at some level it isn’t. So we can’t move on we have to sit and think about it and figure out if that really means what it appears to mean.

And then you have those statements about us in there, where you say we’re great and you like us, but we have to fill in the gaps to understand that you don’t like us that way, and we’re not quite great enough for it to be worth 2 hours of your time and a free dinner to get to know us a little better.
We end up having to build voices in our head that are much much harsher than anything you would say.

So be a little harsh, if that’s what it takes to be clear.

You’re cute, but no

Is confusing, but an improvement upon what I usually hear

No, Thank you

is better, but still leaves room you don’t want to leave “No to the date, or do you just not like Italian?” “What are you thanking me for exactly?”

No, I don’t find you attractive

Is good

I’d love to go to dinner, but I’m not interested in dating you

Might actually be the kindest possible thing to say

You are not handsome enough for me

Is going too far. You don’t want the poor guy thinking if he starts doing more crunches you’ll say yes. but it’s still not as hurtful as

I just don’t feel like now is the right time

There is a delightfully geeky young girl I know who left a status on facebook several months ago which I took note of. It has persisted in my memory as one of my all time favorite status updates ever. It said

“I want to go where the TARDIS is going”

I don’t think she realized when she wrote it, or even now, how deep that statement is.

If you’re not already familiar it’s a reference to the Brilliant british Sci-Fi show “Dr. Who”. Which surrounds the enigmatic Time Lord known only as “The Doctor” who is in the habit of picking up geeky young girls to be his companion for a season or two as they travel through time and space in his TARDIS.

The TARDIS itself is a super advanced alien spacecraft disguised as a Police Box. it can go anywhere, and it can arrive there at any time. In past episodes it’s been to Cardiff to visit Charles Dickens at Christmas, and out to the very edge of the universe in the distant future.

But the status update did not say “I want to be able to go to the edge of the universe” or “I wish I could time travel” it said “I want to go where the TARDIS is going” or, in other words “I wish I were a companion of The Doctor, traveling with him in his TARDIS, to whatever place in time or space it’s headed, regardless of where that is”

How interesting.

The Doctor’s companions often leave family and relationships behind. They risk their lives, and it’s not like the places they go are always nice. One spend a year traveling the earth by foot while caught in a timelline that caused an evil alien to take over the earth. Another one is now stuck in a parallel universe.

But to this young lady that doesn’t matter. If that’s where the action is, If that’s where the TARDIS is headed, if that’s where The Doctor wants to take me, That’s where I want to go.

And I get it. I feel the same way honestly (although The Doctor rarely travels with men) because anywhere, anywhen in the universe I end up, I know the Doctor is going to be there. So even if I get captured by Sontarans, or stuck on a asteroid headed for a black hole, I know that eventually he is going to save me, and it will all be alright. The Doctor has never lost a companion.

Perhaps more important than that, is the guarantee that wherever The Doctor is, there also is incredible adventure. Sometimes the TARDIS flies back to London in the present day. But one is certain that if that’s the case, then present day London will be the most exciting place in the universe to be, because a monster is sure to attack or something, and you and he will get to save the world from impending doom.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. That is the offer of Jesus. That as we travel to the very ends of the earth, he will be with us, he will protect us, he will be our friend, our guide, and our savior. And we are invited to join him, and help him on his epic quest to save the world.

As for myself, I want to go where the TARDIS is going. I want to ride the Millennium Falcon. I want to join the Fellowship of the Ring. And I want to be a disciple of Jesus

Back in California I once took a bike trip down the coast with a buddy.

We stayed in campsites at night and sampled the local food along the way.

I can’t express the exhilaration one feels when they are on a bicycle miles from anything familiar, surrounded by sea cliffs, and coasting down a steep hill on Pacific Coast Highway, keeping pace with the motorists while feeling the sea breeze. It’s incredible.

People talk to you on a trip like that. When you cruise through their town with windblown hair, having not showered, and obviously in no hurry to get anywhere. So I made the habit of  surveying strangers along the road about their thoughts on a simple question.

What is Best in Life?

At the time I thought the half remembered query was something I had learned of in my study of Talmudic Judaism. Rabbis used to ask one another philosophical questions and gauge where they stood on important issues, this was similar. I’d probably plagiarized it.

And it worked, people opened up. At lease some people did. Some people had fascinating stories and lifestyles and philosophies. Some people were boring and gave vague non answers like “love” or “happiness” that they didn’t care to expound on.

But the best answer, my favorite answer came from the owner of a Mexican bakery in Carpinteria.

“What is best?” I said philosophically. “You mean… here?” she responded, in a thick Mexican accent, as if unsure her English was doing the question justice “No” said I “…in life. What is best in life?”

“OOOOHHHhh in life!” she said “Ina all life?”

“Yes, What is best in all of life?”

She stared off to her right for a moment, and then gestured emphatically with her left hand.

“Tamales!”

It was funny at first. but the truth is that that’s very deep. That woman has it figured out. She knows what’s best in life, and she got it, and built a life around it, and now she keeps it just in front of her and to her left where she sells it for 65 cents to anyone interested.

What about for you? What do you think is best in life?

PS: Yes, I bought a tamal. Yes, it was delicious.

It’s a question as old as time itself. No, actually it’s medieval in origin — dating to around the 12th century:

Could God create a boulder so heavy that he himself could not lift it?

There is an older version dating to around the 6th century B.C.: Could God deny Himself?

And a more contemporary version:

Could God microwave a burrito so hot, that even He Himself could not open it? The answer to all of these questions is as uncomplicated as it is disappointing.

He created the universe with a single thought. With Him all things are possible.

Here’s how St. Augustine answered the question:

“We do not put the life of God and the foreknowledge of God under any necessity when we say that God must live an eternal life and must know all things. Neither do we lessen his power when we say He cannot die or be deceived. This is the kind of inability which, if removed, would make God less powerful than He is. God is rightly called omnipotent, even though He is unable to die and be deceived. We call Him omnipotent because He does whatever He wills to do and suffers nothing that He does not will to suffer. He would not, of course be omnipotent, if He had to suffer anything against His will. It is precisely because He is omnipotent that for Him some things are impossible.”  

Aquinas had a similar view:

“Whatever implies being and nonbeing simultaneously is incompatible with the absolute possibility which falls under divine omnipotence. Such a contradiction is not subject to it, not from any impotence in God, but because it simply does not have the nature of being feasible or possible. Whatever, then, does not involve a contradiction is in the realm of the possible with respect to which God is omnipotent. Whatever involves a contradiction is not within the scope of omnipotence because it cannot qualify for possibility. Better, however, to say that it cannot be done, rather than God cannot do it.”

He is everywhere. He knows everything. He made everything. He can do anything.

Which includes tolerating our silly questions.

Deal with it.

Have you guys seen this video yet? It’s the one of the bully getting a taste of his own medicine.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFOVrgToSU&w=480&h=390]

.
I’m interested to hear what you all think. Obviously the bully got what was coming to him, but from a christian perspective I’m not entirely sure Casey did the right thing.

I know what my mom would say. She would have no problem jumping in Casey’s corner. And honestly neither do I… If the alternative corner is the bully.

But what about “turn the other cheek”? Isn’t this exactly the event that Jesus talked about? Weren’t his instructions clear enough?

There’s plenty about this video that makes me cheer for Casey. I was picked on a bit growing up, and I can relate to the feeling and I feel a sense of solidarity with him. I love that he clearly did nothing to provoke it, I love that he calmly walked away after as the kid stumbled up, I even love that the video clearly showed how the other kids were part of the problem standing by and letting bullying happen (even filming it).

Still there’s something here that makes me cringe.

What say you?