Men With Broken Hearts - Hank Williams via Elvis

One of Hank Williams' greatest spoken word pieces and quite a punch in the gut. But also pretty fitting as we approach Good Friday. Williams understood the leveled-playing field of suffering better than anyone (ht DB):

You'll meet many just like me upon life's busy street

With shoulders stooped and heads bowed low and eyes that stare in defeat

Or souls that live within the past where sorrow plays all parts

Where a living death is all that's left for men with broken hearts

You have no right to be the judge to criticize and condemn

Just think but for the grace of God it would be you instead of him

One careless step a thoughtless deed and then the misery starts

And to those who weep death comes cheap these men with broken hearts

Oh so humble you should be when they come passing by

For it's written that the greatest men never get too big to cry

Some lose faith in love and life when sorrow shoots her darts

And with hope all gone they walk alone these men with broken hearts

You've never walked in that man's shoes or saw things through his eyes

Or stood and watched with helpless hands while the heart inside you dies

Some were paupers some were kings and some were masters of the arts

But in their shame they're all the same these men with broken hearts

Life sometimes can be so cruel that a heart will pray for death

God why must these living dead know pain with every breath

So help your brother along the road no matter where he starts

For the God that made you made them too these men with broken hearts

[CONTINUE READING]

The Best Argument For Atheism and The Bible Is Obviously Wrong (About Dogs)

Some stellar Lenten preaching from our very own cousin-in-Christ DJ JAZ, delivered last week at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, AL.

Download "The Best Argument For Atheism" here.


Download "The Bible Is Obviously Wrong (About Dogs)" here.

Leonard Cohen and the Glory Story Bumper Sticker Reflex Part II

Theology Of The Cross In Pastoral Ministry

Time and again, Cohen’s lyrics have become, for me, a kind of soundtrack for sobering life moments. And in light of recent pastoral volunteerism—while I continue to ponder the Olympiad Triumph Of The Human Spirit Festivities—I’m hearing “Hallelujah” lyric snippets afresh again.

The church where I serve as a lay pastor runs a recovery ministry of sorts and I’ve been a part of that work for about a year and a half. Last week I teamed up with other pastors and volunteers to train leaders from around the country in how to better help hurting people in their congregations. It was a spiritually and emotionally taxing week to say the least. On the last day we had an evening celebration to sing hymns together, to share stories, open mic style, of how God shows up to redeem broken lives.

And Yet, And Yet – No Leapfrogging the Cross

[CONTINUE READING]

Whoops! Is My Elevated Anthropology Showing?

From the current Vanity Fair interview with Joel Osteen, the mega-pastor of America's largest church:

“Have you ever sinned?”

“Oh, sure,” [Osteen] answered surprisingly. “I’m sure I have. I mean, I think we’ve all sinned, so I can’t say that I’ve never … ” He looked suddenly bashful. “I’ve never done anything you’d call ‘terrible.’ I haven’t done drugs. Victoria’s the only girl I’ve ever dated.” Victoria, his glamorous wife of 22 years, is also a pastor. “I’m probably squeaky clean—I don’t have to say it,” Mr. Osteen added.

One's anthropology, theologically speaking, is one's doctrine of man. (See the Mockingbird-approved definition here.) The concept covers lots of territory. But the key question here is, in relation to God, what is a human being capable of? Is a human being able to please God? Osteen's response indicates a pretty robust sense of his own abilities towards righteousness (i.e., a high anthropology), and a shockingly lightweight view of sin. It appears that to him, sin is simply bad things we do, and thus can simply stop doing. The fact that anyone could be acquainted with the Bible (Romans 3, anyone?), and a pastor to boot, and still think of himself as "squeaky clean" is stunning. Because if one can be squeaky clean, what need does one have for (as the old hymn goes) a fountain fill'd with blood?

Jesus never said, "Be squeaky clean." Rather, he said, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." And that's why I'm so glad for Good Friday.

325 Days of Lent: "It is finished"

In our church stand two crosses. One, the crucifix, shows Jesus in all of his tortured agony. The other stands gleaming white and empty, a potent symbol of the promise that in Jesus “death has lost its sting.” And as much as we profess faith in the victory, it is telling that the crucifix stands over the pulpit and the empty cross over the Lord’s Table; one signifies where we are, and the other signifies where we will be “when he comes again in glory.” Until then, this-- the sixth word of Jesus from the cross-- remains our hope.

Life is lived in tension between these two crosses, and that forces us, says Hauerwas, “to stay in the almost unbearable present moment where Jesus is.” This suffering, as we have pointed out, is the passive lot of those of us who are left wanting more. “There in the agony of the ‘sufferings of this present age," writes Gerhard Forde, "he cried, 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.' Is that not enough? John’s Gospel put it only slightly differently: “It is finished!” This is what we have, the basis of our faith that holds on, as David Ford says, during our overwhelming. “This overwhelming,” writes Hauerwas, “[allows] us to live not because we have answer to all the world’s troubles, but because God has given us a way to live without answers.” (88)

But before we grow our beards out, throw up our hands and retreat into the mystery of 24/7 Eucharistic adoration, let us be clear about what we can say, because too often the “sufferings of this present age,” force pastors and theologians--and I am as culpable as anyone---to unanswered, unfinished speculation about the cross that subverts Jesus’ very cry. What's worse, inveterate moralists across the political and theological spectrum want to turn this end into a beginning. “See,” it is argued, “Jesus did it all, now get going and do (or stop) xyz, because that can’t really be all there is to it.” Sadly, Hauerwas also drops the ball, as he, like so many others, puts the weight of “it is finished,” back on a continuum that, despite semantic word games, makes it anything but. He writes, “To be sure, he has come that we might be redeemed, but our redemption is but one movement in this drama of the beginning and end of time.” Oh, Alles klar;-)
[CONTINUE READING]

Moses: Our Founding Father of Freedom?

An interesting op-ed recently appeared on CNN talking about the role of Moses in American politics. It seems that Moses as a deliverer in the Exodus and a lawgiver on Mount Sinai finds an integral significance in the history of America.

As Feiler notes, "By the time of the Revolution, Moses had become the go-to narrative of American freedom. In 1751, the Pennsylvania Assembly chose a quote from the Five Books of Moses for its State House bell, "Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the Inhabitants Thereof -- Levit. XXV 10." The future Liberty Bell was hanging above the room where the Continental Congress passed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Congress' last order of business that day was to form a committee of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to design a seal for the new United States. The committee submitted its recommendation that August: Moses, leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. In their eyes, Moses was America's true Founding Father."

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King Jr. have all been compared to Moses in their role as a savior and lawgiver. Washington delivered America from the oppressive British and presided over the drafting of the Constitution. Lincoln ended slavery through military force and the Emancipation Proclamation. MLK spoke of leading African Americans into the Promised Land. Even the Statue of Liberty is modeled after Moses. The spikes on her head and the tablet in her arms mimic Moses' iconic pose as he was walking down the mountain with a radiant face and carrying two tablets.
[CONTINUE READING]

I've Been Consulting My WWJD Bracelet All Day And It Just Won't Answer Me!

From a USA Today article entitled "Choice Bus Shows Students Two Sides Of Education":


Anderson says, "I want to be somebody who makes something out of my life and not be in prison. I tell kids to think about what kind of child you want your mother to have, a prison child or someone who makes good choices in life." (Yikes. Good luck, kids!)

Leonard Cohen And The Glory Story Bumper Sticker Reflex Part I

Not A Marble Arch Or Victory March

I’m a little slow on the draw on this one but anyone else see the Olympics opening ceremonies? KD Lang sang a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (a song popularized by Jeff Buckley). I know I’m over-thinking it, but to me, this moment was a perfect example of our culture’s bumper sticker reflex to re-tool the meaning of something to mean the exact opposite of its original. Anybody remember Reagan’s use of The Boss’ “Born in the USA” lyric? Same idea, really.

To me, one of the most meaningful and chillingly real to life lyrics of Cohen’s song is this:

“I've seen your flag on the marble arch

Love is not a victory march

It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah”

Cohen’s Unwitting Sound-byte Theology Of The Cross

I’ve always loved Cohen’s cryptic-Zen-genius-with-a-splash-of-biblical-imagery lyrics. And as far as I can tell, this tune seems to mostly be about the bitter sweet of loss and failure in love. I’m going out on a limb here but this Hallelujah lyric snippet--to me anyway--has always seemed like a pro-theology of the cross moment. Our world loves to see love like a James Cameron movie (i.e. theology of glory) when in fact, true, biblical love involved a man becoming a bloodied mess on our behalf (theology of the cross). Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah, indeed.

As Lang sang out the last Hallelujah of that verse, you could hear the enormous crowd begin to cheer. As I listened, I was utterly baffled at how such a sobering refrain could get sports fans whooping and hollering. It’s all context and delivery, I guess. It seemed odd that such a melancholy song in that moment was somehow being translated by the crowd as a “triumph of the human spirit!”

(next post I'll talk about a theology of the cross in pastoral ministry)

Frusen Glädjé: "ENJOY THE GUILT."

I wonder if any of you remember Frusen Glädjé, the original yuppie gourmet ice cream? Best name and packaging of all time. It was huge in NYC right around the time when TAB was pioneering important ground in the world of diet cola. If memory serves me correctly, it was awesome stuff, and my parents sometimes served it at their bible study in Greenwich Village, at Grace Church.

In the spirit of Lent, check out these amazing commercials from the 80s. In the first one, we find a man saying to a priest: "I would rather go to hell, than give up Frusen Glädjé."


...and in the second one, the same theme is applied to psycho-analysis:

Plus-Size Models and Self-Esteem

A new study from Arizona State University has found that advertisements featuring plus-size models actually decrease women's self-esteem rather than increase it. Not quite sure what this means but definitely something legal, if you catch my drift. Perhaps something about how shifting the expectations of Law doesn't ameliorate its affect/nature? ht JD:

“We found that overweight consumers demonstrated lower self-esteem – and therefore probably less enthusiasm about buying products – after exposure to any size models in ads (versus ads with no models). Also, normal-weight consumers experienced lower self-esteem after exposure to moderately heavy models, such as those in Dove soap’s ‘Real Women’ campaign, than after exposure to moderately thin models. 

Thinner women tended to experience a boost in self-esteem when they viewed all models because they identified positively with the thinner models and saw themselves as different from the heavier models. Heavier women dropped in self-esteem when looking at all models because they saw themselves as different from the thinner, idealized ones and similar to the overweight models. 'Normal' women had the most shifts in self-esteem, depending on what types of images they saw and could therefore be the most influenced by pictures in ads. For example, if they viewed a moderately thin model, they felt similar and good; if they saw a moderately heavy model, they worried they were similar and overweight.

These findings could be used to prompt changes in behavior. For example, if a normal-size woman sees moderately heavy images in ads for weight-loss products, she might feel overweight and be more inclined to buy a diet plan or gym membership. The same premise could apply to using heavy images in public service announcements aimed at fighting the obesity epidemic.

March Playlist

1. Rainmaker - Sparklehorse

2. Animal Farm - The Kinks

3. Maybe I'm Amazed - The Faces

4. If You Don't Come Back - Elvis Presley

5. Voices - Phantogram

6. Tightrope - Yeasayer

7. O, Dana - Big Star

8. Lawyers, Guns and Money - Warren Zevon

9. Mixed Emotions - The Rolling Stones

10. Stay Together - Suede

11. Don't Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds) - The Cardigans

12. Lonesome Blues - Shooter Jennings

13. Love Is All I Am - Dawes

14. BK Baby - Ben Kweller

15. Wandering - Ben Folds

16. After The Gold Rush - Thom Yorke

17. I Wouldn't Ever Change A Thing - Rod Stewart

18. Shelter - The XX

Bonus Track:

Love Songs, the Gospel, and Uncle Kracker

I was driving back to Atlanta tonight and I heard a song that has just inched its way into the charts. It's called "Smile" by Uncle Kracker (yes, he's country and to the right).

Love songs, in my view, are one of the ways God speaks, a kind of Radio Free Europe broadcast to a world held by the Enemy. It's a way God speaks to Christians too -- because we can get numbed, imprisoned by religious practice, religious speech. (Ever wondered why certain VERY religious Christians seem to be light years from the Gospel?)

In a love song, God speaks "under the radar." And we get to hear in a fresh way what it means for the Beloved (the singer) to get his entire identity from the One who loves him. No work, no try, no do. No self-generated willed anything. The language of love (and every real love song) is always about how YOU MAKE ME _____.

Take a listen (the video has the lyrics too) -- and if you like it, listen again after Easter.

Mockingbird: Tune in, we're on the air.

'For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.' (Ps 91:11-12)

Another Weeks Ends: Unemployed Conversion, Galli on Love, Westerberg on Chilton, Tiger, LOST, Elvis' "Life"

1. "What I Lost When I Lost My Job" by Dominique Browning is the sort of subtle conversion story that will leave you in tears. Published in this past weekend's NY Times Magazine (of all places), she touches on pretty much every major theme of this website: justification by work(s), achievement-based identity, the death/resurrection paradigm of personal change, etc - and she does so eloquently, with deep feeling and hard-won insight. But don't take my word for it - just be sure to read to the end. Here's an excerpt from the beginning (ht SZ):

My nightmare had finally come true... Work had become the scaffolding of my life. It was what I counted on. It held up the floor of my moods, kept the facade intact. I always worried that if I didn’t have work, I would sink into abject torpor.

I have always had a job. I have always supported myself. Everything I own I purchased with money that I earned. I worked hard. For the 35 years I’ve been an adult, I have had an office to go to and a time to show up there. I’ve always had a place to be, existential gravitas intended. Without work, who was I? I do not mean that my title defined me. What did define me was the simple act of working. The loss of my job triggered a cascade of self-doubt and depression. I felt like a failure. Not that the magazine had failed — that I had. 

Elsewhere in the tri-state area, a conversion led to an admission of guilt in a 30 year-old murder case (ht WDR).

2. The irrepressibly awesome Mark Galli hits another home run over at Christianity Today with the brilliantly titled "Love Needs No Reason" (ht AZ):
[CONTINUE READING]

325 Days of Lent: "I Thirst"

If there is a particularly enigmatic word among Jesus’ last seven from the cross, this is it. “How can the Second Person of the Trinity thirst?,” wonders Hauerwas, “surely this must be meant metaphorically. But if this is only a metaphor—something said for our benefit to insure that in spite of being the second person of the Trinity Jesus tries to identify with our lot—the cross is just a cruel joke.” (71)

 
Indeed, going back to the first century, there has remained within Christianity a docetic tendency to turn the cross into an object lesson, a huge living (graphic) parable that God is teaching us about how bad we are, how much we’re loved, how bad the Romans are, etc. But none of these attempts (which are alive and well up to this present day) has been able to do justice to what we see happening there. 

Again Hauerwas, “In Jesus’ ‘I thirst’ we confront again our desire to have a God that would not save us by a cross. We keep hoping that if the One who suffers on the cross is in some way connected to God, then there must be some remainder, there must be something saved in reserve: that the God who thirsts will find a way to escape from the cross.” (77). But he doesn’t, and we are left 2000 years later, wondering what he meant by these words.

A lot has been said about these words, and a lot more will be said, but for our purposes this cry of Jesus helps emphasize an aspect of the cross that we wrestle with here, because that the cross is a punishment is clear, but it is also the substitutionary death of the One who thirsts on our behalf, so we will have to thirst no more.

[CONTINUE READING]

Mockingbird at the Movies: I Want You to Hit Me as Hard as You Can

There's a scene in Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, which finds Norton being taught by Pitt to make soap.

Pitt's character, Tyler Durden, embodies everything Norton's unnamed narrator aspires to be. It's Durden who makes speeches about "the things [we] own end up owning [us]" and when confronted with the ugly truth about America's consumer culture simply spouts invective: "[Expletive] Martha Stewart. She's polishing the brass on the Titanic...it's all going down."

Through a series of circumstances too intricate to go into here, Norton comes to live with Pitt, and begins to lose the trappings of Americana: his home, his job, his yin-and-yang coffee table. Pitt though, still thinks Norton is being a poseur, simply acting like he's ready to let it all go, while still being too afraid to really take the plunge.
[CONTINUE READING]

Civil War, Judgment, And Giving Up

Marcus is an atheist friend of mine from NYC. He wrote me the following note the other day, and it made me wonder whether some unbelievers might have a closer grip on what we talk about at Mockingbird than our culture-war Christian cousins.

I'm wondering how you've positioned yourself -- or found yourself positioned -- by the great divide in the country. I'm talking about the red-state/blue-state thing. As you know well, I am apolitical. During the last few years, my nature (combined with the ethos of the country) has made me more and more unhappy. From what I can tell, I'm pretty much alone. In theory, someone wouldn't have to be apolitical to feel the way I do. My feeling is one of a deep hatred of teams or being on a team, and that feeling is probably connected to me having Aspergers Syndrome. It is possible to share the core values of liberals or conservatives while still hating the fact that we're basically in the middle of the Cold Civil War.

But most people I know seem to either not mind the endless endless endless angry rude nasty bickering (or be mildly upset by it, but "whatcha gonna do?") -- or they enjoy it.

Maybe if I'd played sports as a kid, I'd understand the thrill. Probably though, the reason I didn't play sports as a kid is because I wasn't built to feel the thrill.

What I do know is that I have to keep my mouth shut about the way I feel most of the time. If I am honest, I am no one's friend. Both sides hate me.

[CONTINUE READING]

I Know You Owned This

So I stumbled across www.nintendo8.com at work the other day (I promise, only on my lunchbreak) and discovered the best cache of fully working java clones of 8-bit Nintendo game classics I've ever seen. And I can still say that Mega Man 2 may be the best video game of all time (seriously).

There were a whole bunch of games I didn't recognize, but one in particular caught my eye:

Spiritual Warfare!

My 9 year-old self could have kicked some serious A in Sunday School if I had had the chance to hone my chops on this Legend of Zelda-style classic. From the Wikipedia Article:

"The player controls a young Christian whose town has been infested with demons apparently under the command of Satan himself. His task is to purify and convert the denizens to Christianity. Strewn about the town are the Fruit of the Spirit, taken from Galatians 5 and represented allegorically by five fruits (pears, pomegranates, apples, grapes and bananas). The player may use these to defeat enemies by hurling the fruits at unbelievers who repent immediately upon contact. In order to free the town of the influences of "ultimate source of evil," the Christian must collect each of the six pieces of the Armor of God, which are guarded by "bosses" that are particularly resistant to conversion. Along the way, the player may collect other helpful Biblical items such as Samson's Jawbone and Anointing Oil."

I mean, who needs the tri-force when you've got the Trinity?

Perhaps best of all is the music: classic Protestant hymns in all their 8-bit glory! Must be heard to be believed...

CONFERENCE UPDATE - TALK TITLES AND FLYER

The talk titles for our upcoming NYC conference have been finalized. We could not be more excited about them. Truly:

Thursday April 15th
Bishop FitzSimons Allison - "The Word Made Verb: The Rescue of Imputation"

Friday April 16th
Dr. Rod Rosenbladt - "Martin Luther And The Bound Will: Good News?"

Bishop FitzSimons Allison - "The Courage To Trust"

Dr. Simeon Zahl - "Experiencing The Spirit In Failure And Love"

Breakouts: 
1. "God Gave Rock N Roll To You" - David Zahl & Aaron Zimmerman
2. "Listening In A World Of Talk" - Linda Murchison and Mary Zahl
3. "Mockingbird At The Movies" - Nick Lannon
4. "Two Words Radio Live!" - Jacob Smith, Sean Norris, Bishop Allison & Dr. Rosenbladt

Saturday April 17th
Dr. Rod Rosenbladt - "Justification: Freedom Based On What Is True"

We have also produced a fancy new double-sided flyer, featuring the final schedule, which we encourage you to print out and distribute to everyone you know. If you are planning on coming, please pre-register asap. If you would rather pay in person upon arrival, that is fine, but please email us at info@mockingbirdnyc.com to reserve your spot. It is genuinely filling up, so don't delay!

"Love Is All I Am" - Dawes

The greatest band out there right now singing about the greatest commandment...can you dig?

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

I loved Diarmaid MacCulloch's Thomas Cranmer and his later book The Reformation.

He's now taking on the whole history of the faith in Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. (Yeah, I thought the title was interesting too!)

Here's a review of it. Anybody heard anything about this book? Anyone planning to read it? Opinions?

From The Onion: $14 Trillion Spent Annually On Trying To Look Cool

The Onion has been on fire recently! This week's feature article nails the identity thing yet again in a predictably hilarious way: 

Looking cool, which the report defines as "the outward projection of an appealing and often enviable image of oneself that others perceive as requiring little to no effort," appears to be a nationwide obsession.

"To put this into perspective, the amount Americans spend on cool looking haircuts is nearly 15 times greater than the total amount spent on cancer research," said Eric Gerhardt, noted economist and lead author of the report. "Whether it's name-brand sneakers, an all-in-one espresso maker, or a pair of hip and stylish Ray-Ban sunglasses, we devote tremendous resources each year toward our conspicuous attempts at stature enhancement."

"It's pretty much an epidemic at this point," the 52-year-old professor added before pausing momentarily to adjust a small gold earring in his freshly pierced earlobe.
----------------

Asked about ways the $14 trillion might be better spent, Professor Ian Thorson, a sociologist at Georgetown University, suggested the funds be used to combat poverty, but acknowledged that donating to charities was not always effective, as even those Americans in need often spend much of the assistance they receive on trying to look cool.

"The whole thing ends up being a vicious cycle," Thorson said. "The only way this situation will ever be remedied is if people just relax and try to be themselves, you know? I mean, that's cool, man."Added Thorson, "Right?

Also:  "Sometimes, Area Woman Just Feels..." - does that make sense?

Confessional Map

Something to keep in mind as you fill out your census forms:

Maybe Rockin' Rod Is Amazed By The Groom Still Waiting At The Altar

If you're not a Rod Stewart fan, that's understandable. Lord knows the man has given even his most faithful followers plenty of reasons to jump ship over the years, the least of which being his recent reinvention as Tony Bennett, Mach II. Greil Marcus once proclaimed, perhaps a little unfairly, that “no one in the history of popular music has more comprehensively betrayed their talent than Rod Stewart." Indeed, it is increasingly difficult to believe that there was period of time between 1968 and 1975 when Rod made some of the most glorious music the idiom has ever produced. His Mercury albums still stand, in my humble opinion, alongside the best of The Stones and The Kinks of that era - the first four are uniformly genius, and the fifth, Smiler, is better than its reputation would have you believe. The same goes for his work with The Faces: all stellar and completely indispensable for any rock fan.

Rod may not have tackled much explicitly Gospel material, musically speaking, but that genre's influence pervaded everything he sang during this period, i.e. before it all went so wrong. He possessed a rare and unrivaled knack for wringing spiritual significance out of the most ramshackle party music. Take for instance the way he prays his way through McCartney's 'Maybe I'm Amazed':
[CONTINUE READING]

325 Days of Lent: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

In this cry of Jesus from the cross, his fourth of the final seven, we come to these despairing words that, paradoxically, have given people such comfort. In Cross Shattered Christ, his meditations on these last seven words, Stanley Hauerwas explains that we, the people who live in the aftermath of Auschwitz and the shadows of the Twin Towers, are those who, “most identify with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”(Mt.27:46) We do so because we think we have some idea about what it means to be forsaken . . . Maybe God does understand our suffering. Maybe God even suffers with us, which some seem to think is comforting given the fact it is very clear God is incapable of doing anything about our suffering." But, he continues:

That we can even begin to entertain such thoughts is but an indication of our refusal, indeed our inability, to believe that this One who hands on this obscure and humiliating cross is God. . . . This is not a cry of general dereliction; it is the cry of the long-expected Messiah, sacrificed in our stead and thus becoming the end of sacrifice. (60-61).

It is the profundity of these words that force us to the most abstract flights of speculation, because there really is no way appropriately to "read, mark and inwardly digest" what is being attested to here. Neither the intricacies of an Eastern Orthodox Trinitarian scheme or the complexities of a Western justice scale will save people from the implications of Jesus being abandoned on the Cross by God. No, with these words we are forced face to face with our lives, our God and our complete passivity before Him. Theological concepts like the deus abscondituis, or the idea that God works sub contrario (under the opposite), or even allusions to the cross itself are helpful to read about, but ultimately they all stop short of being able fully to articulate exactly what is going on in this—the death of God’s son for the redemption of His people.

[CONTINUE READING]

Drunk Ecclesiology - The 9th Tradition Of Alcoholics Anonymous

From Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions: 

"Did anyone ever hear of a nation, a church, a political party, even a benevolent association that had no membership rules? Did anyone ever hear of a society which couldn't somehow discipline its members and enforce obedience to necessary rules and regulations? …Power to direct or govern is the essence of organization everywhere.

"Yet AA is an exception. It does not conform to this pattern. Neither its General Service Conference, its Foundation Board, nor the humblest group committee can issue a single directive to an AA member and make it stick, let alone mete out any punishment. We've tried it lots of times, but utter failure is always the result.

"At this juncture, we can hear a churchman exclaim, 'they are making disobedience a virtue!' He is joined by the psychiatrist who says, 'Defiant brats! They won't grow up and conform to social usage!' The man in the street says, 'I don't understand it. They must be nuts!' But all these observers have overlooked something unique in AA. Unless each AA member follows to the best of his ability our suggested Twelve Steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant. His drunkenness and dissolution are not penalties inflicted by people in authority; they result from his personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

"...So we of AA do obey spiritual principles, first because we must, and ultimately because we love the kind of life such obedience brings. Great suffering and great love are AA's disciplinarian; we need no others.”

The Nazareth Principle - According To J. Kerouac (And The Atlantic)

This is pretty cool.

For the full post, go here.

The License To Be Green

A few excerpts from yesterday's NY Times article When 'Green' Consumers Decide, I've Done Enough' concerning a recent study at the University of Toronto that sought to to answer the question, 'Are consumers of “green” products more likely to be miserly and thieving?' Surprisingly enough (or perhaps not surprising at all), the answer appears to be Yes. I hate to keep harping on environmentalism on here - I personally consider a great deal of it to be very admirable and worthy - if only it didn't illustrate the darker side of the Zeitgeist quite so well, i.e. the double-edged sword of feel-good denial and self-empowerment/-righteousness:

“People do not make decisions in a vacuum,” the researchers concluded, adding that “while mere exposure to green products can have a positive societal effect by inducing pro-social and ethical acts, purchasing green products may license indulgence in self-interested and unethical behaviors.”

[The results can possibly be explained by the] psychological phenomenon known as the “single-action bias,” a term that arises often in discussions of climate change. The Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University in New York describes the single-action bias this way:
[CONTINUE READING]

Game Over - Kordian Lewandowski

RIP Alex Chilton - Keep An Eye On The Sky

The greatest rock n roll anti-hero Alex Chilton of all-time died of a heart attack this past Thursday. In tribute, we thought we'd re-run the Big Star post that went up in October, "Keep An Eye On The Sky - Big Star Talks To God". But first, children by the million: 

The Replacements Alex Chilton
Uploaded by Celtiemama. - See the latest featured music videos.
Last month brought the long-awaited release of Keep An Eye On The Sky, a boxed set collecting the music 70s power-pop pioneers Big Star. I recently heard the short-lived Memphis group referred to as "the greatest American cult rock band this side of The Velvet Underground". Which basically means their influence is inversely proportionate to their popularity/commercial success. I happen to greatly prefer them to The Velvets and would consider the tragic British band Badfinger a more appropriate reference point. Musically, at least. Unlike Badfinger, the closest Big Star ever got to having a hit was when one of their lesser songs was resurrected (and poorly covered) to serve as the non-Cheap Trick portion of the That 70s Show theme - you know, "Hanging out! Down the street!..."
[CONTINUE READING]

Mockingbird: We've got it licked.

...no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (James 3:8)

Have You Hugged A Theologian Today?

DugDownDeep_Carnahan.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.
(h/t David Ould)

Another Week Ends: America's God, Plastic Surgery, Channel Surfing, Woeman, RIP and a better McLaren emerges.

Dave gave me the opportunity to post an entry into the "Week Ends" franchise, so here are some things that have been sent directly to my instapaper.com account--enjoy! JDK

1: As we are want to say, something is rotten in the state of American Protestantism, and while one may take issue (and does) with his appreciation for Aquinas' virtue ethics and the beard, this article by Stanley Hauerwas is a must read. An excerpt:

America is a synthesis of evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology, and commonsense moral reasoning. Americans were able to synthesize these antithetical traditions by making their faith in God indistinguishable from their loyalty to a country that assured them that they had the right to choose which god they would or would not believe in. That is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer acutely characterized America Protestantism as “Protestantism without Reformation.” American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce interesting atheists in America. The god most Americans say they believe in just is not interesting enough to deny. Thus the only kind of atheism that counts in America is to call into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and happiness.

2. An interesting article in CT entitled Is Cosmetic Surgery Immoral points out the complexities of this issue and offers insight into the need for pastors to be theologians--theology, of course, being the art of distinguishing law and gospel:

A pastor friend of mine once told me, "The Lutheran answer to every question is, 'Why do you want to know?'" A question about the morality of abortion will be handled differently based on whether the person asking is a post-abortive woman seeking forgiveness, a pregnant woman facing a crisis pregnancy and considering abortion, or a curious youth who's simply seeking instruction. The answer doesn't change, but the way we address the issue does.

3. Even though this season of American Idol is painful, and (if you're like me) you are starting to worry that the writers of Lost are running out of time to come to anything resembling a satisfactory end, there is hope on the horizon in Southpark, Breaking Bad and ANTM. In the season 14 opener Sexual Healing, Southpark seems to have returned from a forgetful run of non-insightful shockingly crude humor to its signature: insightful shockingly crude humor. Their anthropology would make Matthias Flacius blush:); Breaking Bad, everyone's favorite nice-guy-with-terminal-cancer-turned-homicidal-meth-dealer, returns on AMC; and ANTM has also returned from a stint as "Tyra's afterschool special," and has regained its former (ahem) glory. Couch potatoes, take heart!
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Thornton Wilder and "The Emporium"

Thornton Wilder has long been a favorite on this blog for his deep insight into the struggle of life. The following comes from journal notes he wrote concerning his play "The Emporium." It is a tragedy that he never found the necessary creativity to finish the play and put his great ideas to paper.

Wilder described the play as combination of Kafka and Horatio Alger. It seems that "The Emporium" is organized around the following two central ideas:

1. The Impotence of the Ethical.

For Wilder, a central problem of humanity is the presence and potency of fear. Life is marked by an insatiable fear and our striving to quench this insecurity.

"Ethics does not offer any relief to the basic fear of men; though millions try to make themselves believe so."

"The Just Man, conscious recti, cannot dissipate or liquidate his fears; he can only ignore them; or, as we say, rise above them. They lie in wait to assail him at those moments when weakness or some sudden blow of circumstances (mis-chance) robs him of the will-constructed resolution not to confront them. And the long-time contemplation of the totality of experience is itself the enemy of serenity. Many a stoic has significant resolution to be unshaken by the ills within his own life; can he sustain it in the contemplation of the ills of all mankind? Again there is a transition from quantity to quality: to remain serene in the presence of a few ills is stoicism; to remain serene in the face of a myriad demands faith".
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The Wonderful Written Word

My frequent Mockingbird at the Movies posts may belie my love of reading. I know many Mockingbird readers are big consumers of the written word, and so I thought I would try something. In the film adaptation of Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, Michael Douglas, a writer, says of his lover, "She was a junkie for the printed word. Lucky for me, I manufactured her drug of choice." So, what is your favorite non-Biblical English-language passage of reasonable length...your drug of choice? Mine comes from Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and it is the final paragraph of the novel. For a bit of context, the novel's narrator has just experienced the summer in which he feels he has grown up:

When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness -- and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything.

In the comments, post your favorite passage, with a bit of context as necessary. I can't wait to read them.

Ian McKellen on Acting

In honor of St Patrick, here's a little comic relief from the British Isles, a clip from Sir Ian's brilliant guest-spot on Extras:



For some slightly more serious Gervais-related material, read "The Gervais Principle, or The Office According To The Office" (ht JS). Or just go and download our "The Gospel According To The Office" series.

Mockingbird Glossary: Pneumatology aka The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

A basic theological question in Christianity is: how is God present to us today? In New Testament times, the answer was pretty easy: God is present to us in Jesus of Nazareth. If you lived back then and you wanted to be near to God, a good bet was to go find this Jesus character and follow him around.

Things, of course, are somewhat different now. Jesus is no longer present on earth the way he was in the Gospels. Indeed, God can often seem completely absent from the world. It is much harder to say with certainty ‘God is here’ or ‘God is there’ than it was when Jesus was wandering around Galilee and eating meals and being born in mangers.

Perhaps anticipating that this would be a problem, the Holy Spirit was sent to be with us in his place (John 16:7). So nowadays when we talk about how we know God, how we experience him, how he is involved in the world from day to day, we are talking first and foremost about the Spirit. The theological term for the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is ‘pneumatology’.
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On The Relationship Between Fart And Morality

When we think about ethics and morality, we often think that it is rational. Morality requires making judgments of right and wrong, and making judgments about what is right and wrong is a matter of logic and reasoning. But researchers interested in the psychology of morality are finding that morality is much more embodied and affective than we’d like to think. Specifically, moral judgments have been found to be linked to the feeling of disgust.

Schnall, Haidt, Clore, and Jordan (2008) hypothesized that morality may be more of a gut reaction that is later justified by moral reasoning: “moral reasoning is an important part of moral life, but for most people, most of the time, most of the action is in the quick, automatic, affective evaluations they make of people and events.” (p. 1097) They tested this hypothesis in a series of awesome studies that included fart spray and dried up smoothies. (You have to acknowledge how incredibly cool it is that “fart spray” made it into a top tier psychology journal.)

The researchers asked participants to read and think about several vignettes concerning moral judgments. These vignettes ranged from personal (e.g., whether sex between first cousins is ok, whether it is wrong for someone to falsify their resume) to public (e.g., whether participants would support nondenominational school prayer, whether participants would support spending more of the state’s money for waste treatment); some of them were disgusting (e.g., eating dead dog) while others were not meant to elicit disgust (e.g., stealing). Here is the cool part: the researchers experimentally manipulated the level of disgust that participants would feel. In one study, some of the participants completed the questionnaire in a room that smelled like fart (yes, the experimenters secretly sprayed fart spray into the air), and in another study, they had to complete the questionnaire with a pen that someone had chewed up, while sitting at a table with a cup of old, dried up smoothie and some used tissues, in a chair with a dirty, worn out cushion, in a room where the trash can overflowed. (Folks in the no-disgust condition completed their questionnaires in clean, tidy rooms.) 

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Monday Afternoon Links: Faith & Works & She & Him (plus The Joan-Girl)

1. Run don't walk to Lutheran Theology and read our very own JDK's "A Brief Introduction To Faith And Works". It's a stunning accomplishment and a great "next step" for those of you interested in the theology which informs our perspective. Bravo! One stirring excerpt from the end:

"Only work done in the faith and security of God’s promised mercy towards us is a good work. Period. The seeming ambiguity of this position is profoundly unsettling, because it removes any ability we have to measure our “progress” in the Christian life, takes the ruler of introspection out of our hands and forces our eyes on the Cross. We can neither look to works as meriting our standing before God, nor can we rest in a false distinction between justification and sanctification, as if that helps."

2. 'Adorable' is not a very rock-n-roll kind of word (or attribute). But somehow She & Him make it so... The video for their snappy new single "In The Sun" being a prime example:



3. PZ's "Visions Of The Joan-Girl" appeared yesterday at mardecortesbaja. A profound reflection on a letter that Jack Kerouac wrote to Neal Cassady in 1951 about an experience he had in St Patrick's Cathedral. Among other things, the post touches on the meaning of tears in church (and tears in general). Must read.