Category Archives: Film/TV

“I can’t see you in it” : A heart is more than a performance

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, , , , , ,

Sorry to talk about Heidi again. But I learn so much from reality TV – like Project Runway. The producers are certainly not trying to teach me how to live in Christ, but they just can’t help it. For instance, one of the things the judges on PR frequently tell designers is this: “I can’t see you in this dress.” Or “You seem to have lost your voice. I can’t tell what you are saying. You’re collection does not tell a story.” I have watched enough clever people on this show by now that I totally know what Zac Posen is talking about when he is frustrated like that (God help me).

He is talking about insecure or lazy people doing what the design book says, or mimicking something they think will please the judges, or channeling someone else’s brilliant idea. That’s not good enough. To win the show, you need to be a creative designer who takes something in a new direction, hopefully one in line with the latest zeitgeist or your own aesthetic that you hope will become fashion. You need to show up, not just sew things. You need to create with a vision, not just plug what you’ve been taught into the design you imagine someone else thinks is right.

Fortunately, I never have to sit in the judge’s seat and rate the work of people in our church, or the church in general. (I’m plenty judgmental, but that is a sin, not an obligation). Because if our work got on the runway, I am sure I would need to say about some of it, “Your heart is not in this. Where is your inspiration? What makes this as creative as your creator?”

It is the age-old question to ask oneself, isn’t it? Some Pharisees came to Jesus questioning why his disciples did not bother to ritually wash their hands before they ate. Their question was not about hygiene, it was about keeping the rules for how to be ritually pure. Jesus did not answer, but asked them why they scrupulously kept other traditions that violated the law itself. More to the point, he quoted the prophet Isaiah

“These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is based on merely human rules they have been taught.
Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.” Isaiah 29:13-14

Like failing Project Runway designers of religion, the Pharisees were running out a collection that looked well-sewn and skillful, but it did not have any heart. They could apply the rules someone else had made up, but they could not create any rule-breaking new rules that reflected a heart-to heart relationship with the creator.

Jesus was trying to teach them to do that, just like he is trying to teach us. We live in a very rule-oriented society right now. For instance, Spectre which is all about who makes and follows the rules. The most recent James Bond film, is all about a shadow organization (like an ISIS that will sneak into Paris) which is out to destroy Democracy and the hero who breaks out of the bureaucracy to thwart it.

Box office could be half a billion worldwide by yesterday.

Spectre , the fictional organization, appeals to  fictional people who want tough laws and armed forces that enforce them. James Bond is all about breaking the rules to protect the heart of democracy — and at the end he finds his own heart this time around! Not to be too judgmental, but there are plenty of people in our church who would love a little more Spectre. They ask things like, “What are the ‘best practices’ for doing this? What are the regulations that apply to this? What is the protocol for doing that?” Or they are afraid of the people who might ask those things. Organization is good, but the organism is a lot bigger than what organizes it — especially the church, since it is held together by the Spirit of God!

People can do a “program” like the Sunday meetings or caring for children or even debt annihilation and not really be an effective, living part of what they are doing – nothing requires them to apply their heart. They could come to the meeting and not really even inhabit it.  I think some people perform the roles that keep the church organization going so they can stay committed to it in theory — but they don’t create it or inhabit it. The Project Runway people say “I want to see you in it” — and they are just talking about a dress! How much more would God say, “I want to see the true you in my church” since the whole point is for us to become more like Jesus all the time.

It has always been a temptation to follow the rules and not the Ruler, so we will need to deal with that just because we are human. In this day, however, it is even more tempting  to get better rules when we are all scared about getting blown up by a barbarian. Rather than growing an expansive heart like God’s, we can hide behind a big wall of laws and law enforcers until we can’t even see ourselves as anything better than law abiding.

Koinonitis and the bubble diagnosis

Building community, Film/TV, , , ,

I heard the bubble diagnosis again the other day. A friend told me they needed more time outside the “church bubble.” I did not pursue the thought too much so I am still wondering, “Did they feel like Pauly Shore in Biodome?“ They seemed to be taking an anthropologist’s view of the church and decided they needed some breathing room from the subject tribe.

Whether they were just inspecting us or not, I think they mostly make sense. If your congregation becomes a bubble and you are relationally stuck in it, something needs to change. Worse, if the rules of your religious social system are strangling your relationships with people outside of it, that could be toxic to you and to it. It could be “koinonitis.”

The leading cause of death among organic, relationship-based churches is koinonitis. The word is a spin-off from the Greek word koinonia, which means “fellowship,” or life in common. Fortunately, koinonitis has become a popular topic among us for the last few months. If we don’t see it lurking around every bush, it should do us some good to think about it.

Luke reports that the first church, “Continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship [koinonia], in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42, NKJV). Koinonia is the corporate experience of God in the midst of the body of Christ. It’s the common sharing of the Lord’s life, the shared life of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is primarily a shared experience. We often think of the Holy Spirit as someone we encounter as an individual (perhaps in our beloved contemplative prayer). But in the New Testament, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is almost always given in the context of a shared-life community where other believers are actively involved. There are, for sure, individual spiritual experiences. But the highest spiritual encounters are those that we receive with and in the Body of Christ. This is the meaning of koinonia.

Our church is blessed with deep understanding of the rare experience of koinonia. You could see it at our Love Feast last Saturday and hear about it in so many of the stories new covenant members told about why they want to take what has become the strange step of making a covenant.

When koinonia becomes koinonitis

Koinonia, however, can devolve into something quite pathological and poisonous. It can develop the disease: koinonitis. Koinonitis sets in when koinonia is ruled by the group’s processes rather than by Jesus. When the processes strangle the presence of Jesus the church dies.

In some places devolution happens when the community emphasizes being a community so much that the church turns insular, ingrown, and self-absorbed. For them, koinonitis is too much of a good thing. It is “fellowship inflammation.” Like high blood pressure, koinonitis is a symptomless disease. The church is typically unaware of it until it suffers a stroke.

In other places (and I think in our church) koinonitis can set in when the family system develops unhealthy patterns of relating. For instance, among us, there are people who protect others from relational or spiritual pain and impose a “niceness” or tolerance that keeps anyone from saying, “The Emperor has no clothes.” Jesus does not rule, the rule that you are not supposed to say anything that could spoil our sense that “everything is copacetic” or maybe “everything is awesome” rules. Koinonitis can set in when there is no reconciliation needed because people who cause “problems” are the ones who need to reconcile. They are bad because they violated the appearance of koinonia.

Like high blood pressure and dysfunctional family rules, koinonitis is hard to spot by the person experiencing it, but it is easy for outsiders to see. Here are some characteristics of this disease:

  • The church lives in a bubble. It has unwittingly built a barrier of difference around itself, not built of its vision, necessarily, but built of relational habits. Relationships get deified to the point where the members don’t feel comfortable having anyone else included who differs in mindset, beliefs, or jargon.
  • Even though the church desires to grow, in reality, it has an “us-four-and-no-more” mentality. The group has devolved into an ingrown toenail—an exclusive huddle of navel-gazers who are shortsighted by the view of their own bellies. (Have to give Frank Viola credit for that description :))
  • There is little to no numerical growth in the church over the long haul. People who visit feel awkward and out of place. More people leave than stay. The church can go on for years with little to no growth, yet few members wince. The thought never occurs to them that they may have something to do with the low volume. They say they don’t want to be about “numbers.”
  • A sense of cliquishness is noticeable by those on the outside. Visitors feel welcome to attend the meetings, but they don’t feel wanted. The church views them as intruders that may fracture the group’s warmhearted fellowship.
  • The church has little impact on the surrounding culture. Because the members are so absorbed with one another, they seldom reach outside their four walls.

How to be healed if the diagnosis fits

I don’t think we, generally, fall into most of these descriptions. But what should we watch out for? As an organic, communal people, we are prone to the disease. (And at least one person feels like they need to get out of the “church bubble.”). So try these things:

  1. Keep looking in the mirror. Some of us can’t help being a mirror; thank God we have not broken all of them, yet! Koinonitis is like acne. You can’t see it unless you look in the mirror. It is a kindness if someone shows us our reflection – if they do it kindly, and persistently so we will actually listen.
  1. Get an infusion of new blood. In John 15, Jesus pictures Himself and the church as a vine tree. If you look at any vine, the branches extend outward as the tree grows. So long as the tree is growing outwardly, it will live and continue to grow. Jesus Christ is the Vine, and we are the branches. His nature is to grow outwardly. When a church suffers from koinonitis, it becomes a vine that stops growing outward, even perversely grows inward (an “unvine”). For that reason, the prognosis of koinonitis is living death Revelation 3:1. A new-blood infusion can reverse the symptoms.
  1. Get out there. When Paul planted a few churches in the major cities of a province, he considered the entire province to be evangelized (implied in Romans 16:18-27). Why? Because he planted churches in strategic centers and expected them to naturally evangelize their surrounding districts. Paul had built into the foundation of the church God’s heart for the world. The best thing we can do to prevent koinonitis is to explore ways to naturally develop relationships with people “outside the bubble” so to speak, and to find fresh ways of telling our story to them, including showing it to them acts of compassion and healing.

If getting out of the bubble means the vine is growing, that’s great. But if getting out of the bubble means you despise the miracle of being part of the community God has formed, that’s not so good. If getting out of the bubble means you want to be free of being in covenant with both the bad-rule-makers and discomforting mirrors, that’s not so good, either. Living within the constraints of love might feel like being in a bubble some of us want to pop. But every act of love or feeling of obligation is not “creeping koinonitis.” Neither thinking something is “awesome” nor saying something is “not of the Lord” is always bad just because one is not cool and the other is too hot.

We’re an organism of diverse parts enlivened by the Spirit. We are a work of God in progress. Like all organisms we can get a disease and die; we can wander into an environment that starves us and could kill us. We need to keep listening and obeying as God keeps us safe, renewed and useful in the cause of redemption.

Awkward: Did you stop reading the Bible Jenna Hamilton?

Doing Theology, Film/TV, , , ,

I have been watching MTV for 34 years. (My devotion will not help the network’s pursuit of the 12-34-year-olds it targets). I watch it:

  • Because I am regularly entertained — like by my latest TV-binge Awkward,
  • I want to know what the youth of the nation are being fed instead of the Bible.

How many of the youth MTV is still feeding is under dispute. The network has been recently punished in the cable ratings — down 29 percent in 2015. But their Facebook fan base is 48 million compared to Fox News’ 10 million and Fox has a much bigger cable rating number. It is hard to measure what people are doing on their phones and computers. But it looks like they consume a lot of MTV.

THAT GIRL STILLS MTV LAUREN IUNGERICH
What made Jenna “that girl.”

MTV is not kind to Christians, most of the time, although one or two did come off relatively well on Real World, back in the day. In Awkward, the Christian girl has a closeted gay dad, a judgmental mom and is consistently stupid and fearful. But then the outlook of teens on Awkward is not kind to most people and sees most adults as especially useless. As far as these MTV teens are concerned, what is important is not being awkward, succeeding at something, and fitting in – and having sex. For instance, Jenna Hamilton, the lead character, has an unusual opportunity to have her first sexual experience with her impossible crush, Matty, and then finds out he wants to keep their relationship a secret because she is so uncool. She thinks: “With my v-card safely tucked away in his back pocket….he hit me with ‘but nobody can know that I like you.’ So…I was still Jenna Hamilton.”

So how does one get into a dialogue about the Bible with Jenna Hamilton? Just asking that sounds sort of uncool, right? Is she and all her friends fully plugged in and not listening outside their cocoon? Are they hypervigilant against anyone telling them that anything but what they feel might be relevant? Are all adults useless? I have a lot of questions that, well, make me feel awkward. Especially when I want to talk about the Bible, does that make me even more useless, like that Christian girl on Awkward? I probably am a Barney (a dork, a nerd boy, or a goober; guys with whom you don’t want to be seen with in public — there is a wiki).

I have to ask the question, however, since it might be true that MTV and all her media sisters have become more of a Bible than the Bible for many 12-34 year olds! MTV, in particular, is certainly a postmodern propaganda machine. You could say it is just channeling the zeitgeist and selling it back to kids. But it is also creating it and codifying it without an actual dialogue with what is being replaced (and what is being mocked to death, like opposing views were treated in high school).

Yes, this could have been resisted.

I can see why Jenna may have stopped reading the Bible. There are a lot of good reasons. For instance:

  • Christians got sucked into the Enlightenment/modern paradigm and all their teaching got boiled down to extra-biblical, “scientific-like” principles. (But not all Christians did that, Jenna!)
  • People, in general, are decoupled from their own history. They really do think they have no choice but to make it all up as they go along. If someone (like the Bible writers) tell them what to do they are instantly resentful.
  • Likewise, “science” supposedly says that 90% of what we are is hardwired. So finding your label is inevitable. You can fight it, but “it is what it is.”  So all the talk about choice and miracle in the Bible seems impossible.
  • The biggest reason to not read the Bible, of course, is the absence of the supernatural in the everyday life of most people. The teachers for the last 50 years have made sure that “nature” is free of God. Science cannot be tainted with the unmeasurable, so everything is now subject to the oversight of materialism. The Bible assumes that God and creation are intertwined, so reading the Bible can seem quite a leap, unless it becomes another story, like Awkward.

Did you stop reading the Bible for some of the same reasons?

It is kind of easy to never be too serious about much more than who will have sex with you, or not. Like this preview for an episode of Awkward: “Having survived the title of ‘that girl’ by the skin of her teeth last season, Jenna once again risks the label now that a former schoolyard indiscretion may have been caught on tape. ‘The Sanctuary’ [sic] behind the bleachers at Palos Hills High seems like it’s anything but in the upcoming episode of “Awkward,” and Jenna is determined to get to the bottom of things before Jake finds out about her fling-plus with Matty.” Yes, I saw that episode. I admit I was entertained. Even more, I was enlightened. Somebody channeled what was going on in the world and made a little chapter of the ongoing video bible they are writing. Who knows how many people interpreted it as inspired?

The different, weird, strange, confusing, mysterious church

Film/TV, The Mission, , , , , , , ,

Why did I miss diving into the Divergent series until now? It is totally my kind of thing: anxious twentysomethings/teens forced by the government and their colluding parents to choose an identity that doesn’t fit them. Watching Kate Winslet (symbolizing the authorities) have her hand nailed to a computer screen by a well-thrown knife — what could be more interesting?

There is just so much to talk about here! So much of what the movie’s (and books’) characters face is exactly what people are thinking and feeling in the church all the time.

For instance, in Divergent-world, people are assumed to be pre-programmed. So far, it looks like Tris just isn’t. And it looks like Four/Tobias doesn’t want to be. Isn’t that just what we are all talking about — am I just who I am, or can I be someone more? “Can I choose? Do I have to choose? What if I choose wrong? Who decides the choices? Can they make me choose?”

In that kind of atmosphere, people have a lot of questions about the church, too — which is all about choosing, after all, and all about taking on a new identity. For instance: “Are the pastors a bunch of Kate Winslets with secret plots to use us for their own purposes?” That’s a good question. But, more likely, the question is about choices. “Should someone else choose what I choose (like Jesus)? Are they just programmed differently? Can I say what the choices are? I like choosing more than I like what I choose — what about that?” There is a lot to think about.

A couple of weeks ago, we revved up the survey monkey and asked people to choose seven words they thought other people would use to describe Circle of Hope. One group of words (in the order of incidence) were “different, weird, strange, confusing, mysterious.” Many of us were delighted at this result, since we think anyone who doesn’t describe Jesus with those words isn’t looking at Him carefully. So if people think of us that way, great! Other interpreters were dismayed. Being all those things doesn’t look very user-friendly. People avoid people who seem strange, don’t they?

Tris bravely being the first over the edge.

Those are, again the kind of questions Divergent is exploring. “Is ‘being myself’ all that great?” But then, “Is being what others think I should be really that important?” And “Will I be left out one way or another?”

On the one hand most of the young people in the dystopian Chicago of Divergent seem totally ready to go with the program; they choose to take on the arbitrary labels assigned them and allow themselves to be trained into stereotypes. If you want to be a successful church, wouldn’t you appeal to that sensibility to get some butts in the seats? It works! Some people thought the survey responders were unhappy that our church is so different. They would never bring a friend to be a part of the meeting because it would be “weird” for them — it would be better if it were just like what everyone is already choosing. Even if they love the weird meetings themselves, they still think the majority of people would find them strange.

On the other hand, the only two people we really like in Divergent, in the sense that we would like to be like them, are Tris and Tobias. And everyone, including themselves, thinks they are “different.” The powers that be are hunting people like them down to kill them, they are so threateningly not conformed. Isn’t that exactly what the first church was like? The early Christians eventually got hunted down by a few Roman emperors because they were so divergent. (Veronica Roth, the author of the Divergent novels, is a Jesus-follower, so she might be channeling that reality). So if people think we are strange, that might be uncomfortable (especially if they try to kill us!) but it is better than the alternative – chosen for mindless drudgery, manipulation by the man and being part of something that is going nowhere fast.

All these choices make people anxious or irritate the anxiety they are trying to keep in check. We are afraid to be different and afraid we can’t be different at the same time. I bring up the anxiety people are bringing to the questions because I think it might be the unnoticed psychological disease that keeps infecting our life and work together. Anxious people tend to think things (like how people might label our church) are much worse than they are. They also tend to be highly conformist, even though they fear the powers that press them into molds. They tend to be perfectionistic and don’t choose to do things they can’t do well. They are critical and fear criticism. So being part of the  different, weird, strange, confusing, mysterious church can take a lot out of a person.

Tobias being led upward to face his fear.

If any of this applies to you, congratulations! Like Tobias facing his fear of heights, you are facing your fear of being different, weird, strange, confusing, and mysterious as you follow a Lord who is  different, weird, strange, confusing, and mysterious. Face it.

I hope you can say, with Peter, who answered back to Jesus that time, ““Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” That was Peter’s response when Jesus was at his “weirdest” and truest. The Way, the Truth and the Life will always seem different, because He is different, thank God! Be brave.

The Book of Mormon and Disney are suspiciously similar.

Doing Theology, Film/TV, , , , ,

We took our five-year-old granddaughter to Disneyworld. We enjoyed it. Our Princess Tiana room had headboards that sparkled when we pushed a button. When our plane got snowed out, the resort took us back at the Priceline rate, no extra charge. I missed the major snow storm while I was laying by a pool. I learned things. Good, good. I hope my granddaughter did not learn too much except that we really love her. But I learned a lot.

Hospitality and branding

Let’s be positive first. Disney knows hospitality. That is something to learn. If our church were as ready for visitors as they are, we would have more visitors at our meetings. The “cast members” are so well trained! — a little robotic as a result, but I am being positive. They gave my granddaughter an “It’s my birthday” pin to wear and fifty people must have noticed it! — get a corn dog and get special recognition from your waitperson! During the Mummerlike Festival of Fantasy parade, a dancer actually interrupted her routine to lean down and wish her happy birthday – it choked me up.

Disney connects people to their brand. That’s also something to learn. We met a family on the plane who were going to Disney for their daughter’s spring break (that is what she wanted to do). It was their thirtieth trip! In Downtown Disney (a shopping and eating village) there is a giant store devoted to Disney everything. People buy it and wear it. Witness the pink crocs with a Mickey Mouse logo lighting up when you see my blonde descendant. We should connect people to Jesus so effectively.

Ubiquitous, Mormon-like philosophy

We visited princesses. Only one of us dressed as one.

Then there is that other stuff, like the entire insidious philosophy behind the place. There’s a LOT to learn there! For instance, the welcome show is a good example of getting a dose of philosophy right off the bat. We got to the entrance early because we desperately needed to go visit Elsa and get our autograph book signed. (For the uninitiated: yes, you heard right). We did not know there was a welcome show planned for the several thousand people waiting for the gates to open. The essence of the welcome show is: “Today is going to make a memory you never forget!” The hidden message for your grandchild is: “Life is like an autograph book filled with the memories of getting something you really want and like.  Those moments are what we work for, even what we live for. — You can make them today! It is up to you.”

We visited Tinker Bell, too. She is the most obvious example of the “dreams come true” mantra one hears all day at Disneyworld. I think Disney thinks they are a dream come true, so look no further. But the idea is: “If we just believe, our expectations will be met.” I think more people might believe this “positive” piece of theology from Tink than believe Jesus is their Savior. I would not be surprised if many people who believe Jesus saves them thinks he does it because they believe it. My daughter-in-law sent me a clip from the Book of Mormon when I was marveling at Orlando [listen to the theme song]. She reminded me of how prophetic that musical is. Mormonism has the same foundation as Disneyworld – stories of sorcery and fantasy turned into a theme park in Salt Lake City. They believe.

The loving parent needs to do some brain-unpacking if their child shows signs of thinking the Disney myth has a basis in reality, don’t they? There is a witch behind every bush at the park. Boys are pirates and girls are princesses. Pretending it is normal to exist inside a giant machine that makes everything magical is considered OK there. Saying “have a magical day” is something people do. Stealing the essence of cultures by stereotyping their character and then making a movie and a theme park ride out of them is considered nice.

The empire mentality, just for fun

Islam also scrubbed of its essence and commodified

Let’s spend a little more time on that last one. Disney is the crown jewel of an empire mentality. You don’t need to visit the far reaches of the empire to experience “otherness.” It is collected, like thoughts in a thought zoo, in the theme park. The theme is, “We have stolen your identity and reduced it to Aladdin or the Princess and the Frog, then we sell it back to you.” (Isn’t that magical!) They even melodify our epidemic of isolation and solve the problem by advising we live “free” in an ice palace we created with the special power we used to hide. Our faithpushers have caught on to this technique and have constructed their own megachurch theme parks. Disney pushes this tourist view of the world with an Animal Kingdom and Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) in which they reproduce the exotica of far away lands that are safely caged in Disneyesque surroundings.

Disneyworld is hugely philosophical. The most redundant teaching has to be: in a “world” full of stories, the end is always boy gets girl (or now, vice versa), never child meets God. The place is scrupulously scrubbed of Jesus. What does a child make of that?

What is a Christian who lives in a Disney world to do? I am a pilgrim moving through. I can taste the sweetness of a well-intentioned “cast member” without becoming one. But I will have to have some healthy dialogue about every piece of propaganda that gets into my house. Most of all, I will need to build an alternative that makes more sense than Disney as it incarnates the living God.

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If I tell you not to watch Kingsman will it make you want to see it?

Film/TV, The Mission, , , ,

Somehow we wandered into the movie Kingsman: The Secret Service. Now we know it is another Matthew Vaughn, hyper-violent, self-consciously and darkly-pomo, comic-book fantasy. Director Vaughn gave us the snarky, swearing, pre-teen assassin in  Kick-Ass.

Are you picturing us in this audience? I suppose if you love me, you will start telling me which movies I can see. How did I not know what I was getting into?

Deconstruction with a nasty twist.

I don’t usually hate everything about a movie. But even the clever parts of this one are overshadowed by its generally vile nature – deconstruction with a nasty twist, a training ground for ISIS do-it-yourselfers — only they actually do what you are fantasizing. I hear Vaughn has a rabid fan base, or do his movies create the rabid out of the unsuspecting? (This is where you begin to pray, “Lord saves us!”)

In this unintended horror movie Vaughn does for James Bond what Kick Ass more or less did for Spider-Man. I think it might have been meant as playful. But this child needs play therapy fast, since it is nasty play — like some brutish sibling torturing you when the folks are away. That being said, the sets are great, the digital carnage is well-executed (what I could see through my fingers) and the tailoring is impeccable.

I think they were doing James Bond “today,” and we are so vile we would never understand the sweet 60’s, or even 80’s. At one point the two main antagonists, Colin Firth’s super-spook Harry Hart and Samuel L. Jackson’s baddie, Valentine, sit down to compare their love of the old Bond movies. They miss the certainty they had, the style, and the endearing silliness. Vaughn’s film argues those kinds of movies have gone out of fashion. He slices them up with so much vulgarity and violence that he makes sure only the slightest hint of their relative humanity is left. He makes me wonder. When James Bond movies are wistfully seen as the morality we once had, times are indeed rough.

Crude comic book

Samuel Jackson as Valentine

To my credit, I did get, from the trailer, that Colin Firth had been lured into a thin, comic book plot. I knew it was another recruitment movie. Her Majesty’s secret service are a man down, and the smart money is on Eggsy, a council-estate wild boy, to outfox the handful of upper-class creeps who think they’ve got the gig sewn up.  The gist ends up being that, these days, even a working-class lad can dream big and become a slick, womanizing, “male chauvinist,” dinosaur if he sets his heart on it.  I did not know the Samuel Jackson would do another weird role as the main villain, Valentine, a baseball-cap-wearing tech billionaire. His lisping delivery is a big joke at the expense of his old foe Spike Lee, but not a good one. He has a henchwoman with razor-sharp prosthetic feet, allowing Vaughn to indulge the kind of effects coup he has made his grisly trademark: she dances around unsuspecting foes and turns them into tossed salad.

About halfway through the movie, I realized I should have brought a scorecard. How many times will the word “fuck” be used in this movie? Am I so out of it that people actually use the word in that many variations? – enough so that the casual viewer in Japan will be able to figure out what is going on?  I needed to write down things that need further research, like whether anal sex with a princess is generally considered a reward for good job performance, like whether watching a church full of bigots in Kentucky be massacred provides a great number of people satisfaction, like what is it that made our audience laugh when heads began to explode all over the world?

I suppose my keepers would say, “Will you just stay out of those movies? Have you not heard of porn, or something? Do you not know that marketers are preying upon innocent, unhinged minds (such as yours, I suppose they would mean) to make a buck? Have you forgotten about evil – it’s mainstream?” They would be right. But it is also good for me to get a dose of what is going on out there. In Korea last weekend, Kingsman was hotter than Fifty Shades of Grey (that other horror film that tries to turn S/M into romance). Kingsman has already made $85 million. (Fifty Shades has made $500 million worldwide).

Last week we were talking about how to be more effective at getting out our message as Circle of Hope  — a message also tuned to speak to the times. One thing Kingsman did for me is energize me to get our message out as well as I can. I want to be one of the King of King’s men and keep putting myself in the path of the evils that are rolling over a lot of more-vulnerable victims than I am. I am the Christian Eggsy, only much less well-dressed!

Acceptance: Fast or furious? Quakers and Puritans keep arguing.

Building community, Film/TV, , , , ,

I’ve seen the trailer for Fast and Furious 7 so many times it has taught me lessons. Like this one: Before the big stunt, one of the team mates does not understand what is going on and refuses to drive his car into a parachute jump (not kidding). Vin Diesel has a plan for this acrophobic team mate, since everyone knew he would be too afraid to do this crazy thing. Most of the team is fast at getting out of the plane; this one hold out is furious when they get him out, too. That’s the church. Some people are good at “wild,” some are less so, but we still figure out how to jump from the same plane in our hot cars. Right?

Well, maybe the church is not exactly like that. But our team is a lot like other teams. For instance, the other night at the BW Stakeholders meeting there was a brief interchange between a couple of the good people present. Their back-and-forth was another in a long line of similar conversations stretching back to the beginning of the country, even the beginning of the church! One of us said something like, “The Holy Spirit should run a cell, not some person or program.” Another of us answered back something like, “I just joined a cell that is very structured and I find it comforting.” One was ready to jump and one wondered about the plan.

Prophecy and order

Prophecy vs. order is always the balancing act of the church (I still recommend this book by one of my professors). Some people are always ready to jump — even think jumping is holy. Other people want to know the plan and think jumping all the time leads to destruction. They sometimes don’t like each other.

These days people think being one way or the other is just a matter of one’s “bias” or one’s “personality” or even “preference.” People have generally decided to not decide things in the name of tolerance. But I think there is an important issue that each growing person of faith can and should decide.

  • Is having a consistent order to things (which can quickly become law) numbing my faith?
  • Is having the freedom to follow the Spirit in every circumstance (which can quickly become selfish) undermining the community?
  • Is there really a contest between the individual and the community, between freedom and covenant?

There usually is a contest, but should there be?

I was surprised, for some reason, that we were having that kind of argument at the stakeholders meeting. I should not have been surprised since the church has been sorting out these relationships since the beginning. Especially in the American church, prophecy vs. order has been a constant place for arguing. For instance, at the last General Conference of the BIC I wound up on the outs with some people when I questioned the leadership — their reactions to me were not unusual. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1600s New England, the Puritans had similar reactions when Quakers landed in Boston to preach their radical new faith. The Puritans, who had been so rebellious in England, were now in the place of protecting an order they had built in the new world from someone even further out than they were. Bernard Bailyn describes the two sides very well — you can see how the descendants of the arguers are still with us!

Quakerism had emerged as the ultimate descent from rational, Biblicist, clerical Protestantism into subjective, anticlerical, nonscriptural, millennialism that threatened the basic institutions of civilized life – church, family and social hierarchy—that they were struggling to preserve. [The Quakers] challenged such fundamentals as the sanctity of Scripture, the principles of predestination and original sin, and the propriety of religious “ordinances”: the sacraments, scripted orders of worship, structured preaching, and the formalities of prayer.

Among the church plantings popping up in the Philly region these days this divide is still being played out. The Presbyterians inherit the role of the Puritans, hang on to over-rational faith and resist women and other people who traditionally don’t have power – especially “enthusiasts” who undermine the Bible with their feelings. On the other hand are Pentecostals who, like the original Quakers, trust their personal experience and bravely attempt to get everyone into their own version of it — all in the name of following the Spirit and applying the Bible.

Isn’t there a middle?

I am aligned with the “Anabaptists,” the kind of Christians who were also kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for being disorderly and just plain wrong. But I try to force myself into the middle, when it comes to prophecy and order, somewhere between Pentecostal and Presbyterian. For one reason, I think every version of Christianity usually has some brilliance to it. We are all one in Christ. But I also have more practical reasons and scriptural reasons, as well.

The Apostle Paul was confronted with this dividing point when he was writing to young churches. In chapters 14 and 15 of Romans he does a brilliant job of forcing himself into the middle by telling everyone to accept one another like Jesus accepts them — not because they are right or have rights, but because of Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 9 he charts middle ground by telling everyone to become like everyone for the sake of the mission — not merely because of empathy or tolerance, but because of Jesus. Paul puts himself firmly in the freedom/prophecy/filled-with-the-Spirit camp. But he uses his freedom to firmly protect those who don’t feel it. There is no point in having freedom if one uses it to win a point or to dominate everyone else. Freedom is for love. At this point some people among the BIC might think I eat meat sacrificed Philadelphia idols. That doesn’t mean I need to chew it in their face all the time. We all need to stick together in Jesus. Some people in our cells need enough structure to help them feel safe enough to grow – their cell leader can provide it without writing a new set of commandments for them.

Even when Paul is very frustrated by the people who are turning the Galatians back toward the Jewish law, he is generous: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. …If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other”(Galatians 4:14-15). He keeps his eye on the prize, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible” (1 Cor 9:19).

The leader of the plane jump probably needs to be “fast.” That will undoubtedly make some team mate “furious” about all this jumping. The leader needs to consider that certain valuable members of the team are not just like him. The point isn’t feeling unfettered or secure; the point is being in love and following Jesus. Some people will always be in love and follow Jesus in a more orderly way, some will be wilder. That’s how it is. Regardless of our differences or even liking one another, we can all be one with Jesus and grow toward having generous hearts. We can recognize who we are and who someone else is — and see all of us in the light of Christ.

Your socks are going to get dirty on today’s march. Keep cleaning.

Film/TV, The Mission, ,

Life in the Spirit is like cleaning. Clean the inside of the cup, not just the outside you think people can see — stuff a cloth way down in that spiritual “cup” and scrub out that dried crud on the bottom. Don’t do it to because you must be perfectly spotless to be presentable (God help you!). Do it to participate in the cleansing that is freeing us from what gums us up. Cleaning is a big thing to us Jesus-followers. We get good at it. Today is a good day to roll up our sleeves.

Jesus demanded that self-appointed spiritual authorities who opposed him get some cleaning skills even though they thought they were already clean enough.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Matthew 23:25-26

For a great dramatization of this part of the Bible, check out a clip from the famous movie, Jesus of Nazareth. (And yes, I know putting a blue-eyed Jesus in this post is ironic).

I come by my understanding parentally

My parents were big on cleaning, so I am kind of picky about it. I am picky mostly because they were picky about how well I cleaned for them — not because I find some moral purpose in having things spotless! One of my specialties among the family housekeeping chores became cleaning floors. My father, the Navy man who rose to the rank of bosun’s mate, was a passionate trainer of floor cleaners. For him, the use of brooms, even mops was purely preliminary to swabbing the deck. No floor was clean until one got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed. If brushes (down to toothbrushes) were necessary, they should be at hand.

The big lesson in his floor-cleaning class — the thing that separates real cleaners from pretenders, is the art of rinsing. Here is his secret: Even if one doesn’t use soap, the goal is to extract every bit of soapy/dirty water off the floor — get it ALL into the bucket and out the door. (And don’t spill it on the back porch or your mom will slip on it when she gets back from the hairdresser). Do not (under threat of unpredictable repercussions) just spread that dirt around with your dirty mop until there is an even layer of film that makes it look like the floor is clean. If your dad is running around in his socks and undies (which he will be!) the evidence of your sloth will quickly be discovered on the bottom of his socks.

Spiritual cleaning

Floor cleaning may be a subject for me and my therapist. Thorough spiritual cleaning is a good subject for me and Jesus. It is tempting to just sweep the “dirt” here and there in our lives and never get it into the dust pan and out the door. It is tempting to water down our sin and still leave it like a film that no one is willing to call dirty. It is much more challenging to give the floor of our hearts a good scrub, dump the bucket far outside our spiritual house and be ready for living water.

Our relationships, our leadership, our societal obligations often show the effects of random sweeping. We spread more toxic dust with our wifty attempts to appear tidy than we accomplish cleaning, most of the time. It is very challenging to get down on our knees and inspect the floor of our community for the layers of waxy build-up and grime that we have started to think is the actual color of the floor.

Philly street cleaning
Budget cuts make Philly responsible for its own street cleaning.

I hope my metaphor is helping you out. Along with all the personal and communal dirt we should stop spreading around, we should all get out our dustpans and get started on the mess building up around us. The national holiday honoring Martin Luther King is a great day to clean something. I think today should be called “national racism day” or something more descriptive of the dirt on our collective floor. Hordes of people will be out mopping but the sinful grime is likely to be there again next year. The whole country keeps sweeping that sin around instead of throwing it out.

Racism is not just the sin of being mean and depriving people of their rights, as wicked as that is. It is the sin of losing sight of what a clean floor looks like. Behind racism is the sin of imagination-deficit. That’s the sin that makes us blind to what we can do to make a difference, like making a friend with someone who is not immediately likely to be our friend, like letting our anger about societal lies and injustice boil over, like Jesus told certain Pharisees the truth.

I know you have heard this before. But I don’t know why  Jesus is the only one who seems to notice his socks are dirty. Or maybe you do notice, but Jesus is still the one down on his knees rinsing.

Advent is a wonderful truckload of “foolishness”

Doing Theology, Film/TV, , , , ,

Maybe Advent should culminate with a Mummers Parade. Maybe we should reorient the whole season to focus on how crazy it all is and stop cleaning things up. Prophets having visions, John the Baptist in animal skins, Jesus in a manger, foreigners with gifts, baby slaughter, angels, Holy Family displacement and immigration — it is much wilder than a family dinner with grandma and all that exquisitely pretty music, don’t you think?

Fools

Last night I began with convincing people that the prophets of the Old Testament could be considered “fools” — the kind Paul recommends to us when he says: “It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:9-10).

jokerHistorians dispute some of this, but Shakespeare popularized the idea that part of a king’s entourage in Europe’s included a fool, or a jester (who said things in jest). He could say things in jest because he was a fool. Sometimes the fool had an actual disability, a natural fool. And sometimes he was a licensed fool, a person who had license to say things back to the king or queen that others could not say. For instance, when the French king Philippe VI experienced a great defeat at sea in 1340 his “fool” told him the English sailors “don’t even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French.” We preserved the memory of these people in our deck of cards (and Batman movies) with the joker.

Foolishness

We also preserve the function of putting all the foolishness on someone or letting all the foolishness out in some way so we don’t have to bear it ourselves. For instance, Philadelphia provides the world with the best Mummers Parade ever.  The following video will tell you all about it in the first 5-10 minutes. The government tried to eradicate the racism from the Mummers Parade in the 60’s, with some success. They keep trying to eradicate its spirit with super fancy costumes, but the comic brigades preserve the weirdness and the commentary. It is good foolery.

The best preservation of “the fool” is left to the comedians. I think the best of them is Jon Stewart. He has become the conscience of the ruling class — he is certainly among the one-percent, himself. Fox News is the 50’s; Jon Stewart is the 60’s; the rest of us are amused. But there is the function, however turned into media fodder to feed the subscribers and ignored, that manages to let the truth be told. Here is Stewart, for instance, on Ferguson — mostly talking back to his rival talking heads, but telling truths like only he can.

Many have pointed out that Jesus is the ultimate jester. His whole work is a riddle the rulers cannot solve, unless, of course, they bend their knee to their Ruler. So Paul recommends that we all follow Jesus and learn to appreciate being a conundrum — at least making people wonder what is going on because of what we say and do. If the rulers and the general populace they dominate don’t object to our foolishness, we may not be following Jesus at all! So let’s keep protesting the commodification of our holiday, affirm the fools that keep sticking it to the man, and focus Advent where it belongs: as a celebration of the upside-down kingdom coming and planting itself as our right-side up redemption.

What Americans are like: Project Runway demonstrates the list

Film/TV, The Mission, , , , ,

I discovered the other nightproject runway 05 at the Love Feast that I might lose a couple of friends if I betrayed who won Project Runway last Thursday. Life is now DVR’d so there is no shared sense of real time — I forget these things. I am forbidden to disturb the perfect isolation of someone’s relationship with the screen. So now that I am down a few lines and have issued the spoiler alert, it was Sean from New Zealand, not Amanda from Nashville, Kini from Hawaii or Char from Detroit.

The manual for my mission field

I don’t watch the show because I root for a winner. I never know why someone wins anyway (although I do think it should have been Amanda this time). I watch the show for it’s message. It is such a perfect piece of capitalist propaganda it is a priceless manual for my mission field.

heidi klum of project runwayI was talking about the show the other day and yet another person gave me that “I’m-trying-not-to-get-into-this-with-you” look. But they could not resist. “Why do you watch that show? Isn’t it about fashion design?” The unspoken question was, “Pastor, you are into fashion design? Aren’t all those fashion people the definition of godless?” I told them, “I watch it to learn things.” Yes, Heidi Klum is still beautiful and I am fond of Tim Gunn; and it is amazing that these artists can make practical art out of anything in no time at all — those are also good reasons to watch. But mostly, I am listening for what people are being taught, and Project Runway sums up America in 90 minutes each episode — 45 of which I actually view. (Thank you inventers of the DVR; I can skip most of the relational drama the film editors concoct).

The Wellstone International Academy in Minneapolis did the internet-world a service when they offered everyone the summary sheet they give their international students about U.S. Americans. They collected Concepts that Shape the American Way of Life, a “compendium of ideas developed by anthropologists and sociologists over the past 40 years.” As it turns out, the kids could have gotten the same thing by watching Project Runway for forty minutes. The show is a redundant indoctrination of all things Americans consider important. Here are seven of the concepts that we missionaries need to know about if are to have any hope of helping people learn to let Jesus shape their way of life.

Tell it like it is

1) U.S. Americans tend to be candid and outspoken in communication with others, and they seldom shy away from disclosing facts about themselves.  Thus, they make reality TV. They prefer “direct” questions and respond with “straight” answers. Thus, Heidi tells the designers each week that, “In fashion one day you’re in, the next you’re out.”  Thus, Tim Gunn is beloved for being gently assertive as he tells someone their design may need to be trashed. The dapper Mr. Gunn is also the one who delivers the news each week that the loser needs to pack up their stuff in the workroom and get out — pretty candid.

Don’t shy away from challenge

2) U.S. Americans assume that any challenge can be met, any goal achieved, if one works hard enough.  The motto of the Navy’s Construction Battalions (the Seabees) during WWII was:  “The difficult we do immediately;  the impossible takes a little longer.” Thus Project Runway gives the designers $100 at Mood and one day to make Heidi a gown to wear to a gala. And they do it! They will perform the impossible for the chance at $100K. “Make a look from things found in a movie theater or on a movie set? Sure! I can do that in a few hours; I’m in America.” We are all supposed to have a dream and fulfill it by sticking with it. Almost all the losers tell the camera on their way out that they are going to keep believing in their dream.

Don’t expect togetherness

3) U.S. Americans believe in individualism. They stress being separate. Thus, the designers always hate the dreaded group challenge. Americans stress personal responsibility and stress that each person must take their own initiative, so designers are always talking about “finding their voice” and Nina Garcia always says, “I can’t see you in that dress.” The show sets up the redundant formula to highlight these things again and again. We always see people hating group challenges (admit it, Amanda) and we always hear about people finding their voice. The judges reward them for individuality.

Expect greed

4) U.S. Americans measure their well-being in terms of the number of tangible things at their command which enable them to enjoy uninterrupted comfort and convenience. Thus, the Project Runway contestants are put up in posh NYC hotels, they make elegant clothes, they get a cool car if they win. Plus, the winners get the promise of a bit of money and fame to start their own brand so they can drive cool cars to posh hotels like Heidi. We are taught to desire these things. We know the people who have made it and who rule the airwaves (possibly rules our lives!) have these things.

Make it work

tim gunn of project runway5) U.S. Americans are deeply practical.  They want things, procedures, and people to meet the requirements of actual use in daily life.  The dreaded Project Runway critique is, “It looks like a costume.” Because someone, somewhere must be imagined wearing this thing to Wawa or the Emmys. Thus, Tim Gunn comes by when you’re halfway done, looks concerned and says, “Make it work.” You can get that saying on a T-shirt.   Other people groups around the world give more weight to tradition, theology, morality, or theoretical consistency. None of that matters to Americans if what they’re doing wins or sells. The contestants will modulate their “voice” to get into the pages of Marie Claire.

Get busy

6) The self-esteem of individual U.S. Americans is largely tied  to their ability to “get ahead” in terms of the recognition of their peers as well as material affluence and social mobility.  There is a deeply held belief in the U.S. that  anyone — through hard work, talent, and persistence — can rise well above the station in life into which he or she is born. Thus the creators of Project Runway comb the world for rags-to-riches possibilities and replay the drama so we will keep believing that piece of relative nonsense. Heidi Klum comes out in some fabulous (if often tasteless) dress — she’s made it! Tim Gunn somehow made a name for himself. That’s the story, again and again. Sean Kelly moves to Brooklyn from the land of the Hobbits and six months later wins Project Runway. Get busy.

Hurry

7) U.S. Americans tend to feel that time is relentlessly rushing past them. They attempt to “save time” by moving at a rapid pace, taking shortcuts, and improving their efficiency.  They become anxious if forced to waste time. The whole premise of Project Runway is about this anxiety. Only the swift survive. This season Kini remade much of the collection he brought to New York Fashion Week because the judges trashed it; we were impressed that he could sew like lightning.

I like the skillful people of Project Runway. It’s a fun, pretty-much-predictable-by-this-time show. But it is also so instructive! I need to keep my eyes and ears open. Because I am tempted every day to sink into the delusion that Americans live in reality. Reality shows remind me of just how crazy this place can be, and just how much we all need a Savior. That’s Who I am bringing into the mix, after all.