I love google analytics. This nifty site lets you track all kinds of stats and info about your web traffic but we warned it’s like crack. I’ve been signed up for over a year now and my favorite feature by far is the map overlay (above). I’m always surprised when I see some of the different countries where chuckp3 readers come from. So when I saw Adam’s post asking readers of his blog who they are and where they come from I thought I’d do the same. So, take a minute and tell me who you are by answering these questions.

Name:
Age:
Profession:
Location:
Why do you read this blog?
If you could change something about this site - what would you change?

Kara and I can’t wait to see the Simpson’s movie!

That’s all.

ps-for your own Simpson’s avatar check out simpsonsmovie.com

Last night CNN and YouTube hosted an interesting debate between the democratic candidates for president. It was an interesting format. Rather than having the moderator, or audience members ask pre-screened and predictable questions CNN pre-screened 38 YouTube questions that were just slightly less predictable than usual. At least it was creative.

I blog today not to swoon over some candidate or talk about how “well” one candidate did in the debate but rather to examine a very powerful American myth we saw last night and what happened when one man challenged that myth. The myth is this, American soldiers never die in vain. To suggest that soldiers die (or have died) for no good reason cuts across many other strongly held American myths and calls into question the legitimacy of violence as a means of solving conflict. To suggest that American soldiers die in vain is to suggest that war is a mistake, or worse, sinful. And yet war, more than most things, is the glue that holds these American myths together.

And last night Mike Gravel said that soldiers (both Vietnamese and American) had died in vain during Vietnam. He continued to say that soldiers dying in Iraq today are dying for no good reason. (click for the Video here) Mike Gravel challenged the pervasive American myth that it is impossible for an American soldier to die in vain. It took only seconds for many of the other candidates to rush to the defense of this myth, Barak Obama said “I never think that troops like those coming out of the Citadel who do their mission for country are dying in vain.” John Edwards said, “I don’t think any of our troops die in vain when they go and do the duty that has been given to them by the Commander in Chief.” After the debates Chris Dodd attacked the premise again, saying he was offended by such a statement.

As a Christian I don’t hold the same assumptions that American soldiers can never die in vain. Some are saying that today we are living in the Pax Americana, or “American Peace,” a notion that America’s military and economic dominance is creating world peace, an idea borrowed from ancient Rome and the Pax Romana. But ancient Christians rejected the Pax Romana as a sad and twisted parody of the peace of Jesus Christ. In the same way, “American Peace” is based upon military violence, war and economic manipulation of the poor. This is a far cry from the peace of Jesus Christ, and so when American soldiers die for the Pax Americana… what in the end are they dying for? When America sends men and women to kill and die for a false “peace” that will be exposed by God and replaced by the real and lasting nonviolent peace of Jesus Christ how can we understand anything other than cooperating with God in the peace of his Kingdom today as anything other than working in vain?

We as Christians must not get caught up in these American myths, we must be people of the truth. We must tell the truth. And the truth is, God invaded this world through the quiet and humble birth of a Jewish boy named Jesus. From that day forth a Kingdom of peace has been breaking into this world. That Kingdom of God is the way of the future, but it is also happening today. We Christians are called to live today the way God would have us all live in his Kingdom. We are witnesses to the world that peace is possible now, and we are people who can say such bold things and act on them because we believe in resurrection.

There is no lasting peace other than the Kingdom of God. So when people die or kill for a false peace what can it be other than to kill or die in vain?

I know it’s been a few days since I’ve posted on EP but I felt as though I should really give Sharon Huey’s sermon (click for the mp3) some time to digest and work on me before posting a sentence or two of summary and then moving on.

Sharon’s sermon spoke deeply to many of us. As clumsy as it may be, I’ll try to sum up a bit of what she had to say that’s been at work in me of late. Those of us who meet at EP every summer tend to lean towards the “radical” and the “revolutionary” streams within this family called church. Our heroes are people like the Berrigan Brothers, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, MLK Jr., Oscar Romero, etc. We tell stories of revolutionary saints, people of God who would not bow to the patriotism of their day but sought to be radically obedient to God and work for justice and mercy in their communities. When we think of Jesus we don’t think of a “nice” guy who spoke in sound bytes easily turned into daily calendars by Hallmark. We think of the wild-eyed Son of God, on a mission, ready to overturn tables and smash the status quo.

But the beatitude passage from Matthew 5 that Sharon shared with us reveals the kind of people who showed up for Jesus’ revolution. To be blunt, nobodies. Jesus’ revolution wasn’t made up of the steely and hardened Kingdom fighting crew we sometimes wish the church was made from these days. It was the awkward disciples, who didn’t always “get” Jesus, the people on the margins of society, the poor, the sick.

And yet how often do we as pastors, or laity groan because our churches are filled with people who just don’t “get” Jesus, people with problems, people with crap in their lives. We sometimes wish for the “lean, mean revolutionary force” for the Kingdom of God and are stuck with these embarrassingly human people. Sharon reminds us that the Kingdom being made of these people is the revolution.

Some of us have been a part of churches that really embodied a revolutionary Kingdom of God kind of life. But then we move on and run into these “embarrassingly human” churches that just don’t “get” Jesus like we think we do. And this is what I’ve been mulling over. Because I feel this frustration deeply for both good and bad reasons. I feel this frustration because I long, like many of us, to see the church shed its allegiances to poisonous civil religion, rampant materialism, and the suburbification of the Gospel. But all too often I allow this frustration to be a form of self-righteousness rather than about a longing for God’s spirit to take hold of the church. I forget that if the church wasn’t made up of losers who don’t come close to being the kind of Kingdom revolutionaries like MLK or the Berrigan bros that I wouldn’t be a part of this family either. I forget that discipleship is a long road and not a status of those who “get” it.

Today was day one of the 2007 Ekklesia Project gathering. This is my third year attending the annual conference and it really has come to resemble something of an extended family of sorts. I’ve often been asked to describe what EP is or what EP does and it has been difficult to sum up in a short mission statement what we really are all about… but we know it when we see it. As Phil Kenneson said tonight, we’re not quite an academic conference and we’re not entirely a “church” conference although those both seem to characterize a lot of what we do. Perhaps, as Phil suggested, we’re more like a family reunion. These EP conferences are about friendships between pastors, theologians and laity who share convictions about a few core things. Among these are the conviction that as disciples we are first and foremost a people defined by Jesus (not America, not the Denver Broncos, not our Alma Matter, etc), also that real discipleship must take place within community and we share the conviction that we are a people formed and shaped by many things, so the church must be active in faithfully forming disciples in the way of Jesus. This was just a little bit of an introduction to tonight’s talk by Phil.

I’ll post more about Sharon Huey’s sermon from earlier in the afternoon. I’m posting a link to all three audio recordings from today here as well.

Brent’s Opening Comments.mp3

Afternoon Worship.mp3

What Are We Doing Here.mp3

Rusty was out visiting the other day and we caught a matinée of Michael Moore’s new film, SiCKO. While it has become popular to criticize Moore for his bias and question the facts in his films I think, as usual, we need to take seriously the argument he makes rather than get hung up on the critiques from conservatives on his editing technique. And just to be precise, Michael Moore did not edit this film, like most films there is an editor who is assigned this task. While some are already questioning a fact here or a fact there, Moore has said repeatedly that everything in the film was based on solid research. That being said, it wouldn’t be hard to find other research which contradicts his own. This does not mean he lied, this means you are consulting differing sources. Moving on.

Moore’s argument isn’t a surprising one. The American health care system is set up to put profit above caring for all. This means that many people just plain get screwed by the system because unlike other public institutions (Fire Dept, Library, Police, etc.) the health insurance companies’ number one priority is profit. A corporation seeking profit before the good of all people no doubt cuts corners in order to maximize profit. Rather than understanding paying for someone’s medical needs as the goal of business, insurance companies understand this as a “loss” and seek to minimize losses. So that’s a small summary of how our system is rigged to benefit the shareholder above the insured client.

The second part of Moore’s argument is that all the fear-mongering about how the rest of the western world does medicine is just plain unfounded. So we visit Canada, the UK, France and even Cuba to see what publicly held health care looks like. Conservative politicians have familiar talking points when it comes to public (or socialized) health care. They say that we won’t have any good doctors left (assumption: medical professionals are all incredibly greedy people and if the government pays less doctors will quit). They say that wait times will increase (assumption: if everyone has access to health care, then when I have a heart attack I’ll be told to come back in two months), but Moore’s trips are full of people who are incredibly happy with the speed at which they’re seen by a doctor and emergencies are treated as such. They say that the government can’t handle the health care system (assumption: only corporations can be trusted to oversee such a large and complicated system), but when corporations are in charge it is profit rather than care which is the primary goal, this is fundamentally mismanagement.

I think this is Moore’s best film to date and his argument is a good one. Savage Capitalism is doing to the health care system what Enron did to power in the west. Like the library or the fire department the health care system must be held by the public, not privately held by corporations.

Check out biblical scholar, Ben Witherington’s take on the film here.

I’ve been tagged by Lucas aka - myfourwalls

The rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My Eight Random Facts/Habits

1. Fact: I own a straw cowboy hat. A nice one.

2. Habit: I keep movie ticket stubs and tape them to a wall wherever I’m living. When I move I start over. Yesterday I got my first movie ticket from Princeton life.

3. Fact: I am 160 Gigabytes shy of having 1 Terrabyte of HD storage.

4. Habit: I Q-Tip my ears about twice a day.

5. Fact: I’ve had a cool Gandhi quote mug for about a year that I just drank out of for the first time yesterday. The quote: “be the change you wish to see in the world…”

6. Fact: CSS makes me happy.

7. Habit: I listen to exactly 2 LOST podcasts a week, while simultaneously browsing lostpedia.com

8. Fact: I am a citizen of the Colbert Nation.

Alright, I’m now tagging Wilson Ryland, Eric Lee, Kaz Trypuc, Brian Postlewait, Mike Murrow, Rusty Brian, Matt Martinson and Mike King

Kara and I walked down the street to the theater last night to see Evan Almighty the sequel to Bruce Almighty starring Steve Carell. Okay, so being a Christian makes watching “God movies” a complicated experience. On the one hand there is this instinct to hold the film at arm’s length and critique every frame that doesn’t match up with my own theology. Being a seminary grad makes this all the more appealing. Then there’s this other side of me that really wants to see something good, something of real value in a film like this. So I’ve usually come to movies with the bar set very very low for theological orthodoxy. Doing so means that I’ve been surprised a time or two by how many things a “God film” got right. Case in point, Bruce Almighty’s theme of God’s non-coercive love for us.

So before I get into what I thought Evan Almighty did right I’ll just lay out a few of my beefs lest anyone think I’m an uneducated heretic. Okay, God in Evan is only vaguely the Trinitarian God of Jesus. God here is pictured as more or less the kind of nice dude we Americans tend to think of… kinda (I’ll take issue with this later). God’s “mission” for humanity is incredibly easy for Americans to swallow: ARK (Acts of Random Kindness). Loving one’s enemies and sacrificing creature comforts to be better stewards of creation are hardly “random” acts of “kindness” but are disciplines lived out in community. But you know what, Stanley Hauerwas didn’t write the screenplay for Evan Almighty so I approached it like he didn’t.

Whew. Now that I’ve sufficiently “distanced” myself from the theology of the film and hopefully convinced you that I am not dropping out of Orthodox Christianity and enlisting in Evan-anity let me tell you what I think this film got right. By the way, thanks to Scott for writing a similar post.

1. God loves his creation. Creation meaning ALL of creation, not just us humans. God is concerned with the lack of stewardship of plants and animals at the expense of human consumption.

2. God is funny. God is a God of laughter.

3. God is amused by what we seem to think are really important “plans” we have for this life. God is more concerned with our obedience to his will and joining in the Missio Dei (Mission of God) than with our image, our job, etc. God is content that we makes ourselves foolish by joining his mission. For more on this check out Scot McKnight’s post about Missional Jesus.

4. God loves everybody and is about the business of redeeming relationships, corrupt political systems, and even urban sprawl. God acts to redeem.

5. God interprets the scriptures. God actually reads Genesis allegorically rather than scientifically.

6. God does not “zap us with fuzzy feelings” but gives us opportunity to practice love/patience/etc.

7. God is the main actor in the events that transpire but does so through people (like Evan) who forsake themselves to follow God’s lead. God works through broken, fallen people.

8. God smiles when fathers put their family before their careers.

Those are just a few of the surprising theological themes in Evan Almighty that I thought were profoundly true. So go check it out. Realize that there are going to be some shallow or cheesy moments that don’t live up to our theology and that the Missio Dei can’t be summed up by “Acts of Random Kindness.” But go with an open mind, this film might just surprise you with how much it does get right.

A few days ago Kara and I arrived at our new home in Princeton, the CRW apartment buildings (we’re in 101) and have been settling in ever since. The east coast is now home. I’m excited about this new chapter but let’s hope I meet a few of New Jersey’s more hospitable folks. Right now the “east coast” stereotypes are well founded, at least off campus anyway. To all those friends in DC and NYC, we’re now much much closer to you, let’s plan on getting together sometime soon.