Cable is Evil

The other night there was a meeting.  A revival meeting of sorts...to cast out a demon from our college campus.  Cable Television.  I wouldn't have been involved if I hadn't been asked to speak.  I think I was supposed to talk about the evils of cable TV...but ended up re-telling an episode of the Simpsons - you know, the one where Marge helps get Itchy and Scratchy taken off the air...

The thrust of the meeting consisted of arguments concerning the "problem" of cable "addiction".   A part of me was a little uncomfortable with the way the word "addiction" was thrown around.  Should we start a support group?  Is there a 12 step program?  I'm not denying the power and allure of the "idiot box"...but just turn the thing off, for Pete's sake!

Just for the record, I originally supported the motion to get rid of cable - but not because I think cable is evil.  The so called cable problem is a symptom of a deeper issue:  What is the purpose of college education?  More and more it seems we are running a hotel / resort - a very expensive hotel / resort.  Academics just seem to get in the way of the more important things going on.  Oh, yeah, I shouldn't use the word "academics" - it wreaks of intellectualism.  I guess I can't use the word "scholar" either...when suggested that a student's role for four years is that of scholar - eyes roll.  We are America, after all, a democracy...and what's more democratic then cable TV.  On cable TV all ideas are equal...and the TV watcher has the ultimate power of veto - the channel changer.  There is nothing more un-American as the notion of "academics" or "scholar".  Such language reflects a "youthinkyourbetterthenmeism".  And we certainly can't have that.

 

I realize that getting rid of cable is not the cure all.  There are many other avenues of distraction, some even more influential then cable TV.  Such distractions are not always a bad ... we need them from time to time to get some perspective, or just be entertained.   But when I hear of students  threatening to transfer if cable TV is taken away?  Hmmmm...I have to wonder.... 

 

Horton hears the gospel?

A few weeks ago I took my kids to see Horton Hears a Who.  For the last year or so I have been reading the book to my kids.  They like it because it rhymes and has silly words...and I think they find the story interesting.  The film was very good...the best kid's movie we've seen in quite awhile.  My kids snoozed through Ratatouille...really, do 3-5 year olds really care about French chefs, or rats who can cook?  The Veggie Tales "The Pirates who don't do anything" lived up to it's title.  Horribly bad.  Come on...mutant cheese curls?  To quote Southpark..."dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb".  So we were excited to finally see Horton, and it lived up to our expectations.  My kids loved it.

I have to admit there is something about the Horton story that intrigues me as a theology guy.  I'll never forget watching the old video version of Horton...it came on our VHS copy of The Grinch.  I hadn't read the book in awhile, so I had forgotten the story.  As I watched the video with my kids it struck me...we were watching the gospel.  Not in an allegorical sense, but in a thematic sense.  There was this world...floating along on a dust speck.  Most of the inhabitants oblivious to the fact there existed anything outside their world...oblivious to the fact they were being watched over by a huge elephant.  But watch over them this elephant did.  He cared for them, had compassion on them, fought for them, and  searched for them.  Too me, the search is the most powerful part of the story.  Vlad Valdikoff dropping the clover into a field full of clovers...and Horton endlessly searching, one by one, until the 3 millionth flower...he finds them.  

One of the images I try to impress upon students who take Theology 101 is the image of God, in the Garden of Eden, calling out for Adam.  Genesis 3:9 "But the Lord God called to the man 'Where are you?'"  The biblical story reveals a God who endlessly and tirelessly searches for his creation...a search ultimately fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.  A God who was willing to be caged, and beaten...all for the sake of his people, for the sake of humanity.  "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."  A world, saved by the smallest and weakest of all...saved by a child. 

I know, I know...why ruin a nice story with all this theologizing.  Fine...experience the story for what it is...a wonderful story, that just so happens to parallel the biblical story in so many ways.  Coincidence?  I didn't think we believed in coincidences....? 

The way is shut. It was made by those who are dead and The Dead keep it.

Today in Acts - Revelation we began working our way through the book of Revelation.  Chapter 1 is jam packed with imagery...so much we didn't get through it all.  We did get to the greeting which contains the following:  "...and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first born from the dead..."  The part I didn't get to, but wish I had, is later in the chapter... "I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hades."

When I arrived home this evening I went through my rituals.  I greeted my kids, my wife, grabbed something to eat...and headed out back to the deck for some peaceful "meditation".  I ended up calling my friend in New York, who had some bad news to share.  One of his friends, who was diagnosed with cancer a few years back, had taken a turn for the worse.  She was in the hospital, a mere shadow of her prior self.  Her body frail, malfunctioning, the only part still recognizable were the eyes.  I could tell he was pretty shook up as he told me she most likely wouldn't last the week.  She doesn't get many visitors, and the flowers sent to her room reveal a sad denial of her situation.... the card reads "We love you...get well".  

Death has reared it's ugly head too much lately.  Pictures daily remind me of the daughter we helplessly watched die last August.  Aunts and uncles prematurely gone...loved ones left to try and pick up the pieces.  So as I prepared for today's class, the words of chapter 1 prophetically pulled me in.  I went to the library and found The Return of the King - the scene where Aragorn and company enter into the realm of the dead.  I can't help but think of the Creed... "and he descended into hell".  "The way is shut.  It was made by those who are dead and the dead keep it."  If there is any cinematic representation of hades...this is it.  The realm of the dead, invaded by a king in disguise, who displays his blade, the symbol of power and authority,  and reveals his true identity.  

This is the hope of Easter.  In Jesus Christ God has entered into the depths of hades...throwing the gates open...leading his people out.  So we need not fear...we can look death straight in the eye... staring it down.  We can stand at the graves of our loved ones... weeping and mourning... with the assurance that death does not get the final word.  

"I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Back from the Dead

On Tuesday I brought Kurt Cobain back from the dead.  I sensed his presence...along with Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Elvis.  It happened in the middle of Gen 300...I told the students that I could sense something...that Kurt was with us.  They told me to prove it...so I did.  I conjured up a spell...went to my little magic box...and "poof"...there he was.  You can imagine the surprise...

Kurt talked about New Wave music in front of the Seattle skyline...wondering if Nirvana was on the brink of bringing New Wave and break dancing back in vogue.  The little black box was my lap top...and the spell was "youtube".  So what's my point?  Technology and Magic are not that different from each other.  Both are an attempt to manipulate forces at work in the world.  With the right word, or the click of the computer, we can magically bring people back from the dead...having them appear in the most unlikely of places.  Both cause people to live forever...something Radiohead wrestles with in the song "Video tape"...as we all live forever in "red, blue, green".  Students magically disappear right in the middle of class.  Totally sick of what I'm saying...they enter into the mysterious worlds of Facebook and MySpace...never to be seen again...or at least not until it's time for class to be over.  Sure, we use different words to describe it...we don't call web addresses or binary code "spells"...we have made the lingo all scientific and rational so we don't freak out.  But...the truth of the matter is what we experience through technology is on par with ancient magic.  Do some research on Sir Isaac Newton sometime...see what he REALLY spent his time doing...

In this way the gospel confronts technology in the same way it confronted Magic.  The magicians Paul confronts in Acts used magic to control...to gain power...economic gain...for the glorification of the self.  This led to oppression...to dehumanization...In the same way the use of technology can often be driven by power and the desire to control. Manipulation...oppression...dehumanization.  Think about Facebook and MySpace...we erect idols to the gods we worship...making ourselves in our own image...or the image of what we wish our self could be.  Morpheus's' "projection of our digital selves".  

I know, I know....HYPOCRITE!  Here I am using blogspot...using technology to write this

 diatribe against technology.  Touche.  I never said technology is evil - period.  Technology can be used well and appropriately for the benefit others.  (Even Facebook?) What I am calling us to think about are the unintended consequences of technology...and the motives, the power, that lies beneath the surface.  To work at reclaiming our humanity in the midst a mad technological orgy. 

 

Next time you talk to Kurt...tell him hello...