Kara and I went all out for Halloween this year.  She’s been reading Dracula recently so naturally she went as a vampire princess.  I finally pulled off the zombie costume I’ve been thinking about doing for a few years now.  We spent the night in Allentown, NJ where I pastor.  Allentown is serious about Halloween, they do it right and everyone in town gets involved.  I mostly roamed around the streets, stumbling, falling down, moaning and occasionally groaning BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS.  People loved it.  The combination of the realistic makeup and throwing myself fully into zombie character made it a lot of fun for the people I ran into (sometimes literally).  Thanks to Indy Mogul for the super helpful tutorial on how to do the zombie skin effect right.  Who knew toilet paper was the key!?  For more pictures of tonight check out my set on flickr.

To make the night even more memorable Kara and I decided that we needed to go out to eat in full costume.  So we headed over to the Americana Diner to get some Fried Calamari.  Wow did we turn heads in the restaurant!  One guy sitting behind Kara looking at me stared the entire time we were there.  He didn’t steal glances, he repositioned himself for a good long stare.  As we left I turned onto the road that would take us home to Princeton, only I didn’t realize that it was a No Right On Red light.  So, you guessed it, a cop pulled me over and I got to hand my licence and registration to an officer in full zombie getup.  He laughed and let us go.  Not TWO BLOCKS down the road I got pulled over again, this time because I hadn’t turned my lights back on from being pulled over 30 seconds ago.  Same thing, the cop laughed and let us go on our way.  What a night.

When I was in Seminary back in Kansas City, I used to sneak off to a church called Jacob’s Well on Sunday nights.  I eventually became friends with a few of the pastors on staff and have come to think of it as one of my home churches in many ways.  Even out here on the East Coast I still think about Jacob’s Well and pray for them.  I keep in touch with a few of the people involved there so I feel like I’m still connected in some small way.  Well something happened this week that has really reignited that connection for me.

Last week Kara was in Kansas City for the 2008 Emergent Conversation - “Reclaiming Paul.”  The event was hosted at Jacob’s Well and she brought back a gift for me - the newly released album from the worship band.  Songs From Jacob’s Well by Mike Crawford and his Secret Siblings has brightened by week.  One incredibly powerful song in particular (Words to Build a Life On) that has been a part of my journey the past few years has finally found its way onto a recorded format.  So it’s pretty much been on constant repeat in the car lately.  These songs remind me so much of the time I spent at Jacob’s Well, listening to them half way across the country makes me feel like I’m there again… or at least like I’m still connected with that community.  It doesn’t hurt that the music and lyrics are both works of art.  Not cheesy, cranked through the grinder mush that so much Christian music tends to be these days.

You can get the 2-disc album here.  Coming soon to iTunes.

This is a letter that I sent to Focus on the Family in response to a fictional story they sent out to Evangelicals attacking Senator Obama.

Dr Dobson,
I recently read the fictional letter Focus on the Family published from a make-believe Christian in the year 2012.  The tone and content of this letter saddened me greatly.  I grew up in rural New Mexico listening to Focus on the Family in the car with my mom.  I came to faith in Christ while I was a teenager in the Church of the Nazarene, a denomination we both belong to.  I respected Focus on the Family.

But I feel that over the years your organization has begun to drift away from a focus on the Kingdom of God and has tried to serve two masters - God and the Republican party.  I do not agree with everything Barack Obama stands for.  I am consistently pro-life, and I do not agree with Senator Obama’s stance of being pro-choice.  However, Senator Obama is pushing the Democratic party towards a goal I think conservatives and liberals can both work towards - FEWER abortions.  I believe that in God’s eternal Kingdom there will be no abortions, no death penalties and no war.  I believe that peace is God’s will.  And that’s why I am consistently pro-life.  I see senator Obama, motivated by his faith in Christ, working towards a society with FEWER abortions.  And to be honest, I’m just plain tired of voting for Republicans who say they agree with my pro-life stance (only on abortion), but do nothing to work towards FEWER abortions.  I would rather see abortion rates drop than have politicians who say they agree with me but do nothing to address the problem.

I have become very disillusioned with the motives of the Republican party regarding abortion.  As I see their policies I see a party who is concerned with two main things, unbridled militarism and capitalism.  I believe that both unbridled militarism and capitalism are dangerous unhealthy things that work against the Kingdom of God in this world.  I believe that the Kingdom of God is about unbridled peace and generosity.  I have become cynical about Republicans lofty words regarding the issue of abortion because I think it has become the carrot on the stick they use to gain our votes.  And once in office they go about the business of militarism and unregulated capitalism while doing little to nothing to decrease abortion rates.  And think about it - if Republicans DID outlaw abortion there would be no more carrot to hang in front of us.  In short, I think they are deceiving us and I am sad to see your organization fight so hard for a party that is lying to and manipulating Christians.

However the most disheartening part of your letter is the doomsday tone used.  When you put so much emphasis on the impending doom and gnashing of teeth that you think an Obama presidency will bring about I can’t help but be deeply suspicious that you have put your HOPE in the Republican party.  That somewhere along the way, you lost sight of your savior and opted instead for conservative politics.

I hope that Barack Obama is elected president.  I simply think he will do a better job than Senator McCain.  But if Senator McCain is elected I’m not going to lose one minute of sleep over it.  Because I believe the HOPE of the world is Jesus Christ, not some politician.  Likewise, I don’t think a politician can turn history down some distopian path that would derail the Kingdom of God from breaking into our world.  God will be God no matter who is elected.

I am not opposed to Christians participating in politics, but I am saddened by what I think is the way your organization has lost sight of its first true love - Jesus of Nazareth and has fallen in love with the Republican party.  Please… come back.  We miss having you on the side of the Kingdom.

I just read an interesting article by Meredith Miller about what happens to Christian students when they enter college.  Research being done suggests that students losing their faith is less of a danger than locking up their faith and not engaging the world with it.  An important read for youth workers.

Check out her article HERE.

(thanks to ysmarko)

If you’re a political junkie like myself, you might be interested in this website showing the history of every American Presidential election.  Especially interesting is the divide between the north and the south (with the south going Democratic) that began in 1860 (Lincoln) and kept popping up year after year (especially 1924) all the way until 1980.  Also interesting is to see the four consecutive landslide elections that FDR pulled off between 1932 and 1944.

www.270towin.com

[disclaimer: full of spoilers]

A couple years ago I read an excellent book called How Movies Helped Save My Soul that has affected my Blockbuster Queue ever since.  One such film was High Plains Drifter.  HPD  was just the third film Clint Eastwood directed and it foreshadows a long line dark films to come.  HPD tells the story of a nameless stranger who rides across the eerily quiet and suspicious desert mining town of Lago.  Within minutes of his arrival three men pick a fight with the drifter while he’s getting a shave.  The stranger kills all three men for their trouble, all while sitting in the barber’s chair.  Immediately after the barber shop scene a young woman bumps into the drifter in the street in an effort to flirt.  Not impressed, the stranger derides her attempt to introduce herself and then drags her to a barn where he rapes her while the people of Lago turn a blind eye.  In the very next scene we find out that the leaders of the town have called a meeting to decide whether or not they should hire the stranger to protect them from some soon-to-be-released outlaws that are sure to return to Lago with revenge on their minds.

The town leaders in Lago find the stranger’s ruthless amorality to be an asset rather than an affront.  The townspeople are a cowardly bunch and cannot stomach defending themselves against the immanent threat of the outlaws and despite all appearances that the drifter is the devil himself they agree to hire him to defend their town for them.  When approached with the offer the drifter refuses, shrugging off the threat to the town as not his problem.  In an effort to sweeten the pot, the sheriff offers “anything” the stranger wants in order to defend Lago.  “Anything?” the stranger asks?  And at this point you know that the people of Lago have truly made a deal with the devil.

The stranger turns the whole town upside down, making the Barber’s diminutive servant into both the sheriff and mayor, handing out free booze to everyone in town, kicking everyone out of the town’s hotel to keep for himself.  In “preparation” for an ambush on the returning outlaws the stranger turns everyone in the town against each other and begins to dismantle their lives piece by piece.  Some turn on him and they pay with their lives.

In one of the most telling scenes of the film happens just outside of town in the cemetery next to the town sign.  The stranger is painting something on the sign when he tells the people of Lago to get to work painting all the buildings of Lago blood red.  The preacher complains, “You can’t possibly mean the church too.”  And the stranger responds, “I mean especially the church.”  With resignation the saloon owner says, “Alright, I’ll paint if you say we’ve got to, but when we get done this place is gonna look like hell.”  As the camera pans from the people returning to town to the sign we see that the drifter had painted the word HELL over the town’s name - LAGO.

HPD really blurs the lines between the western genre and the horror genre and pushing it further into horror territory is Dee Barton’s hair-raising score reminiscent of the 70’s horror classics.  The score is at it’s most terrifying during the flash-back scenes where we learn that the three outlaws who are returning had whipped Lago’s marshall to death in the street while people in the town all watched.

When the three outlaws finally come riding back into town the stranger slowly rides his white horse out of town leaving the people of Lago to deal with the prisoners themselves.  The men wreak havoc on Lago, setting man of the buildings on fire, killing man and corralling the rest of the people together in one room where they would take their revenge for serving time in jail for a murder the people of Lago had hired them to do.

Only then does the stranger return.  He drags one of the outlaws out of the saloon in the night, while the red buildings are burning in the background and kills him the same way he killed Lago’s sheriff - with a whip in the middle of the street.  The people scatter and the stranger eventually gets to each of the other two outlaws and by this time in the film there is no doubt that Lago is Hell.  The people of Lago had their own marshall killed by three men that came back to take revenge for having to serve time for their crime, and they hired a stranger to defend them who killed the three prisoners but also brought the gates of hell right to their front door.

In the last scene of the film the stranger is leaving a smouldering, ruined Lago with an expanding cemetery when he pauses by Mordecai who is finishing up the tombstone for the murdered marshall.  Mordecai looks up at the stranger and says “I never did know your name.”  To which the stranger responds, “Yes you do.”  As the stranger rides off into the distance on his white horse the camera zooms in on the tombstone which reads “Marshall Jim Duncan | Rest in Peace.”  One interpretation is that the stranger is the devil, but the more likely the stranger was the avenging ghost of the murdered marshall.  Either way the stranger represents some kind of supernatural incarnation of wrath and vengance.

Krista Tippet, of Speaking of Faith radio fame, recently did two really great interviews exploring the unexpected ways that faith is engaged in politics on the left and the right.  Each podcast is about an hour long, but is well worth the time!

Faith Life of the Party - Part I, The Left

Faith Life of the Party - Part II, The Right

I’ve been eagerly awaiting Oliver Stone’s new film W. for several months now.  I must admit when I saw the first teaser trailer I thought it was going to be a roast-fest at the expense of a president I am less than fond of.  So, somewhat deviously, I was looking forward to the chance to see Bush exposed and raked over the coals.  There’s a ton of material I thought would do the job quite well - the rush to invade Iraq, the Patriot act, Guantanamo bay, presidential “signing statements,” invoking God to bless invading Iraq, pushing Powell out of the administration, faking evidence for WMDs, the Plame scandal, Katrina, etc.  And while W. at least acknowledges most of these instances of governing incompetence or arrogance the film is less about these details and more about the journey of George W. Bush.

And I found the character of Bush to be incredibly compelling.  This is a story of an underdog, a guy with a booming personality, an underachiever trying to find his place in his own family… and in the world.  Bush’s family name gets him out of the kind of trouble that would ruin many people, and the result is a man-boy who has a hard time taking responsibility for his actions and who lives in the shadow of his cold father.  There is so much that this president has done that absolutely makes my blood boil… and during the entire film I couldn’t help but root for him.  He has screwed up so many things in his life (and the film doesn’t shy away from his rocky past) that I found myself hoping that he’d pull it together, that he would find his place in the world, that he could kick his drinking habit, that he would become a successful politician… that he would become better than his father.  This is a man about which I can count areas of overlapping ideology on one hand (I think he has done a great job in funding AIDS prevention & treatment in Africa)… and yet I just wanted him to win.

With the exception of Richard Dreyfuss‘ Cheney and Jeffrey Wright’s Colin Powell the cabinet members are were a bit two-dimensional and at times bordered on SNL spoofs.  Thandie Newton was transformed into a spitting image of Condoleezza Rice but her performance seemed like it was better suited for comedy than a serious film.  But we can forgive Stone & Co. for not mining the depths of all the cabinet members characters, because after all this is a film about dubya.  The cabinet members really are orbiting the central personality and taking the time to develop them as characters would have been really tedious.  Casting Josh Brolin in the lead role of Bush was a stroke of genius.  Brolin rose above the SNL spoofishness that some of the other characters seemed stuck in.  His portrayal of Bush was brash, insecure, but above all really compelling.

Brolin’s performance helps remind us why even if the guy doesn’t make a good president, he’s still very likable.  For all the calculating, macheovelian policy of characters like Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld they lacked the “heart” and people skills of someone like Bush.  For his part, he seemed less invested in the overall big picture of the technocratic policy elements and trusted his neo-conservative cabinet members to do the thinking for him - just so long as everyone acknowledged that in the end he was the decider.  Then he would help “translate” their macheovelian politics into words that “real Americans” could grab onto.

So if you’re looking for a roast of Bush, you may leave feeling like you got to know the guy’s story and that despite his politics you can connect to his character on a human level.  It’s probably a good reminder, especially for a Christian like me, that every person is bigger than their faults and everyone’s story is more complex than what simply meets the eye.

For years I’ve wanted to travel to Africa.  It probably began towards the end of high school and beginning of college.  That was right around the time that I began to open up to God’s call for me to the ministry.  It was also about the time that my cousin Tiffani graduated from college and promptly moved from Chicago to Nairobi, Kenya to work as a librarian.  Her stories over the years of life in Africa, the adventures she had and the closeness to God she experienced there all deepened my desire to go to Africa.

In college I began to read books like Richard J. Foster’s Freedom of Simplicity and a number of Henri Nouwen’s books that were challenging the culture of busyness and consumption that I was (and remain) immersed in.  For some reason Africa became the place in my mind where a Christian could finally be free of the over-scheduled life of busyness and by necessity would have to live simply rather than by greed and consumerism.  Both then and now I longed for more stillness in my life, for a life of sustainability rather than one full of cool stuff.  Africa was a beacon, it was there I thought, that I would finally learn these lessons and following Jesus in these radical ways would just become easier.

In my later years in college I began to discover Jesus’ heart for the poor, and God’s call for his people to stand for justice in this world.  This compounded the mythical power of Africa in my imagination.  Africa was a place where God would be more present simply because of the poverty and injustice there.  And so I longed to visit Africa so that I might meet God in a new and more powerful way than is possible for a privileged kid with a Masters degree in America.

But when I went to Africa God was the same.

And that made me think.  It made me think that instead of internalizing God’s heart for the poor, I might have used it as justification for feeling distant from God.  And if that was the case then feeling distant from God probably had a lot more to do with me not paying attention and not spending enough time in prayer than it did with my surroundings.  I still wish I could embrace a life with more simplicity, I still long for more silence and prayer in my life and less scheduling and busyness.  But right now I’m thankful that God helped me to deconstruct yet another mythical place where being a Christian is somehow easier and reminded me that it’s not about where you are, it’s about who you’re becoming, whose voice you’re listening to.  Because even in Africa, God still speaks in the still small whisper and even in Africa following Jesus still takes a lot of faith.

Just recently I’ve begun watching a new show on Fox called FRINGE.  FRINGE was created by J.J. Abrams, the same guy who helped create LOST, Heroes, Alias and wrote/directed Mission: Impossible 3.  I’ve been a big fan of a lot of Abrams’ material but it was an interview he did with Teri Gross from NPR that sold me on checking out this new show.

Abrams inspiration for the show included two pseudo-sci-fi shows which many of us have come to know and love - The Twilight Zone and The X-Files.  This could be very interesting!  Unlike the gigantic unfolding epic that is LOST, FRINGE will be more episodic and accessible to someone who hasn’t seen all the episodes leading up to the current one.

After watching the pilot I’m already hooked.  You can see them all online at Hulu.com for free.