Ralph Nader

This morning Ralph Nader kicked off his 3rd Presidential bid on Meet the Press. Here's my confession...the last two presidential elections I voted for Nader. I can hear the eyes roll already...Why, you may ask? Those much older and wiser then me usually laugh when I tell them...they have a longer history with Nader. Some think he is "out there" on some issues...some think he is an egomaniac - self absorbed - thinking more highly of himself then any person should. Fine...that may or may not be true...I don't really know. What I do know is 8 years ago I heard him on Meet the Press and I was blown away. He talked about real issues...he talked substance...he talked about things I really care about and think every Christian should care about. He talked about a living wage, about supporting small businesses in the face of corporate power, about working to ensure that abortion is no longer necessary (not just illegal), he talked about health care. I found myself agreeing with his take on the Republican / Democrat "duopoly". Bush / Gore? Was there really a choice? Bush / Kerry? McCain / Clinton? Choice? The two parties used to represent ideological differences that represented a choice...but now you could take the soundbites from one candidate and put them in the mouths of the others, and no one would notice.

I remember when Bill Clinton was elected president. My mom was worried...told me to pray for our country. But was anything really different? Did policies drastically change? Bush was the savior...and to many he still is. But what changed? I remember driving from Des Moines to Pella recently and seeing sign that said: "Vote Life. Vote Republican." Immediately I thought of the thousands of men and women who have died in Iraq and the tens of thousand Iraqis who have died...and for a moment I wanted to commit righteous vandalism. Pro Life? War? Death Penalty? Give me a break!

What attracts me to Nader are his ideas...ideas that the main candidates refuse to discuss for fear of being labeled. It's a frantic race to the middle - especially in this election. A Nader candidacy means ideas might just have a place in the election. Look - even Nader knows he will not win...but what he talked about this morning is how most social revolutions in this country's history have been instigated by third parties who forced the two major parties to engage the

issues. This is the importance of a Nader presidential bid. As a Christian concerned with issues of justice, and as someone who believes the Christian community should be pro life from

the womb to the tomb, I welcome the news of Nader's

presidential campaign. Maybe this will mean fewer soundbites, less rhetorical gymnastics, and more discussion of real issues. But this will only happen if they let him play...

www.votenader.org

Fighters of Foo

On February 28...I will partake of a favorite guilty pleasure in life. I will drive down to Council Bluffs...meet my friend from Des Moines...and proceed to rock out to the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl...power chords...screamed lyrics...sweet humanity.

Why this attraction to the Foo Fighters? Couldn't tell you...maybe because they have a way of addressing serious issues...but don't take themselves so seriously. Their music is tight...driving...melodic - and he likes to scream. My wife can't stand the screaming...or so she says.

I've seen them once before - in Council Bluffs - about 3 years ago. Great show...

Check it out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR40JbiJkEY

Losing My Religion

The other day my daughter lost a little bit more of her innocence. Gone...poof...never to be recovered. That last few weeks Naomi, who is 6, has been talking about going to Disneyland. She loves the princesses...you know, Cinderella, Snow White, and Ariel. All she has talked about is going to visit them...because, she informed us, they are real! They live at Disneyland...and she wanted to visit them in the worst way. But just the other day, a well intentioned friend (who undoubtedly received a tip from older siblings) told her they were not real. They are just people dressed up. Poof...gone. At the supper table the other night she informed us of the bad news.

Now I know some would say "good riddance"! Nothing but corporate indoctrination trying to get our kids to buy Disney crap...bad examples for young girls - teaching them to wait for some prince to come and rescue the helpless woman from her circumstances. Blah, blah, blah...I get it. I'm still sad - and I know my wife is too. For with one metaphorical wave of the magic wand, a little bit of wonder, just a little bit of her imagination was lost. And that is a sad, sad, thing. It happens too quickly they way it is. We send our kids off to school to learn...and what do we get? Drained imaginations. They learn about the "real world" - that we have everything figured out. From the color of the sky, to the make up of stars, to the fact that Snow White and Ariel aren't real. And what do we gain? A lack of wonder...a lack of awe...and a mechanically boring world. We get this in religion now too. Everything must be explainable...there can be no mystery, no unknown. The Bible must be explained. Worship must be practical and easy to follow. And we wonder 

why kids would rather read Harry Potter? We wonder why children are bored...and why they become bored adults.

This is why I love G.K. Chesterton. Yes...he is feisty. I know...he really doesn't like Calvinism. But he loves magic. He loves wonder...and believes that Christianity is the last great bastion of magic and awe. In Orthodoxy, Chesteron proudly tells us he is a product of his childhood, and the greatest teacher he every had were the fairy tales. Worlds where we didn't know what would happen next...where animals talked, and magic trees produced anything but leaves. This, argues Chesterton, is the world of the Bible. Magic trees, talking donkey's, magic clothes, and walking on water...And for Chesteron this is how we should see the world. A magical place where wonderful and mysterious things happen all the time. A world of kingdoms, and Spirits...a world of princes and princesses of a great King who has come and is coming. This is what I want for my children...and I will fight like mad to preserve it. Even if it means taking my daughter to Disneyland.

Bonhoeffer and Youth Ministry

I've been using a book by Dr. Andrew Root in the Practical Issues youth ministry course I teach on Monday nights. Revisting Relational Youth Ministry is the title...wonderful book! (At least I think so...students may have another opinion) Dr. Root casts a vision of youth ministry rooted (no pun intended) in the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - youth ministry as "place sharing". I won't get into everything he says...I recommend reading the book. What struck me about Root's engagement of Bonhoeffer's theology is something so simple it's profound. Entering into relationships with young people is not a tool...it's not a technique...it is not a strategy. We do not enter into relationships with young people to "lead them to Jesus"...or get them into a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ". We enter into relationships with them...for the sake of the relationship. Period.

Once we stop seeing relationships as a tool or a means of influence...we begin to see the young person as a human. A real live human being...one who is greatly influenced by their specific cultural situation, but also one who cannot be defined solely by historical and cultural circumstances. They are not projects, they are not a product, they are not a means to gauge the success or failure of our ministry. They are human beings...flesh and blood...with hopes and fears, dreams and failures. When we begin to recognize this...and enter into relationship with them in order to share their experience of the world...the incarnate Christ is present.

This speaks to a theology of presence...rooted in the God who's very name, Yahweh, revealed His presence to an enslaved people. A name which fully manifests itself in the incarantion...the Word made flesh who dewlt among us. A theology which proclaims God is for the world, for the other, and calls his people to be for the world in the same manner. A theology which leads to ministry that embraces the absurdity of the gospel - God has entered into the misery and brokeness of his people on the cross of Jesus Christ. And He calls us to do the same...to take up our cross...and enter into the suffering and misery of the world for the sake of the world. Or as Root describes - entering into the suffering and misery of young people for their sake.

No manipulation...no quick, glib, "I"ll pray for you..." or "God loves you", which so often really means "Good luck with all that...". Instead, we take the plunge. By way of the cross we enter into suffering and sorrow - we come alongside, we advocate, we share the burden. By way of the resurrection we proclaim and partcipate in new creation - new humanity - calling those we encounter to put away the old self and become who they were created to be.

For sure this isn't easy...but Jesus never said discipleship would be. But what relief! Relief from the artificial, the surfacy, the showmanship, the "big deal". Relief from the expectation that being spiritual means transcending our humanity. Relief from simplistic moralism and rigid doctrinal boundaries. Relief from fads and gimmicks...from "stuck in adolscence" youth ministers who do incredible harm to both young people and the reputation of those called to youth ministry. Could it be that this is what Jesus meant when he said "Come to me, and I will give you rest"? Maybe so...

Packaging

This past weekend my family and I took a trip down to Pella . We had a wonderful time...seeing friends, driving our kids past the houses they were born into (not literally of course), drinking coffee and soaking in the Pella high life. We also visited the new building that now houses Pella Christian High School. Wow...as buildings go...very nice - and that's an understatement. Everything was done well and thoughtfully...classrooms, library, chapel...I'm sure it will be a wonderful educational environment - and a much needed improvement over a building land locked and slowly falling apart.

The experience got me thinking about the nature and purpose of education in our North American culture. We are obsessed with cosmetics...how things appear. We are slaves to technique. If education isn't what we think it should be...we throw some money or computers at it. We try gimmicks...as long as it looks like something is happening we're ok with it. A prime example of this, one used more frequently by teachers at every level, is PowerPoint. As one critic of PowerPoint put it...making boring and meaningless information dance doesn't make it any less boring or meaningless.

A few years back I was at my parents house overdosing on cable television when I came across a speech on C-Span. An old guy (at least 80) talking about education. His speech was slow, a little shaky, and by modern standards, very boring. But I found it fascinating...especially his thoughts on what was necessary for real education to happen: a teacher with a blackboard and a piece of chalk, and a student willing to learn. Now I'm not a stickler on the chalkboard...whiteboards are all the rage...but I appreciated the simplicity. No matter how you dress it up, true education occurs when ideas are exchanged, and minds rub up against each other...the rest is just window dressing. So how do we get back to this? Good question...

Bull$#&t

It's Christmas...I love the Christmas season. Lights, trees, the Grinch, snow...I love it. But there is a dark underbelly to the season. We clean everything up...dress is up on the surface, putting on our nostalgic emotional facade...to pretend like everything is fine. All is well with the world. We even dress up the Christmas story. Ever see the nativity scenes people put out? Nice, peaceful, Mary and Joseph...pleasant looking Shepherds...the baby Jesus sleeping soundly...clean straw...you get the picture. Once I asked my high school students, many of whom were farmers, what was missing. They smiled...and you know what they said. I'm sure the cattle weren't just "lowing".

This was exam week at Dordt College, and I just finished grading essay questions and papers. Now don't get me wrong, there are many thoughtful students at Dordt and I read many thoughtful and interesting essays. But these creative engagements were mixed in with quite a bit of bull$#&t. Christianity nice and neatly packaged. Everything figured out..."t's" crossed and "i's" dotted. Gumball Christianity...put in a quarter and out comes the answer...without much thought at all. I really don't blame the students...many of them have been trained to think about faith in this way. Through many years of schooling and indoctrination...we are trained to spit out answers even if our lives reflect we believe very little of what we say to be true.

So what's my point? The Luke narrative of Christ's birth penetrates through the bull$#&t if we let it. "In the days of Cesar Augustus...", in other words, in the days of the son of the gods is born the Son of God. Luke tells is as it is...in the midst of misery, oppression, and exile...in the middle of a dark cave rank with animal waste...a child is born. He has come to deal with the messiness, to enter into it, in order to do away with it. He surely hasn't come to dress it up a little and pretend everything is fine. What we need this Christmas season is honesty...seeing the world as it is...seeing ourselves as we truly are. Only then will we be able to make sense of the hope and peace God brings in the Christ child.

The Golden Compass

What follows is a piece I was asked to write for my church on the Golden Compass...

The Golden Compass: Should we See It?

This Friday the film The Golden Compass will be released in theaters, including the Sioux Center theaters. The film is based upon the fantasy trilogy, His Dark Materials, written by Phillip Pullman. There is much controversy surrounding both the books and now the film. The latest Christianity Today has referred to the books as the “Chronicles of Atheism”, a contrast to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narina. The Golden Compass tells of the quest of Lyra, a young girl who sets out to discover the secrets surrounding the mysterious disappearance of children, and the strange activities taking place in the North. These stories are fantasy, similar to The Lord of the Rings. There are witches, talking polar bears, and magic compasses, all in a world where John Calvin is pope, and the geographic center of the church is located in Geneva. Maybe for us Reformed folk, the last part isn’t too hard to imagine!
The controversial part of the story is the characterization of both Christianity and the church. The church is represented as an organization bent upon control and obsessed with power. They are involved in secret activity to prevent the truth from being known in order to protect the authority of the church. The quest at the center of the film is to discover the secrets of Dust…and the possible existence of other worlds…which are not in the Church’s best interest. Is the Dust good or bad? Is it something to fear and overcome, or is it a part of the natural world? This is what Lyra is trying to find out.
So how should we – the church – respond to such a story? Should we read the books? Or more importantly, should we go and see this film? In my humble opinion the answer is both “yes” and “no”. There have always been critics of Christianity and more specifically the church. There have always been accusations against the church regarding the abuse of power, influence, and control. And there have always been critics of God. Pullman is not the first author to speak of the death of God, nor will he be the last. There are those in the world who look at the suffering, the sorrow, and the mess we have made of things…and shake their fist at the heavens. There are some who look at the church and the North American manifestation of Christianity and shake their heads. We are escapists they say…we are uncomfortable in our own skin…so we fantasize about another world…a spiritual world…far away from the reality of this one. Or like Karl Marx, they say we use our religion to justify the status quo…promising those we oppress bliss and happiness in the life to come…a reward for the pain and suffering they accept in the here and now. I hate to say it…but sometimes they are right! Too much of modern Christianity is “pie in the sky, go there when I die” Christianity. Too much of modern Christianity refuses to recognize the goodness of creation, that we were created to be human, and although things are not the way they should be, God is at work making things right. Pullman wants the audience, or the reader, to love this world…to love our humanity - to quit looking upward and start living life. Believe it or not – biblical Christianity wants the same thing! Biblical Christianity proclaims that in Jesus Christ God has come to reconcile the cosmos to Himself…and that instead of us looking to the heavens…God comes down, and enters into our world as the baby in the manger. Biblical Christianity takes this world seriously, proclaiming the good news that in Jesus Christ God is at work making all things new. Some “gods” need to die…false ones…including the false “god” set forth sometimes in modern Christianity. “The god who is not God”, as Luther would say. In this way, we can stand along side authors like Pullman, and not be afraid of films like The Golden Compass.
But there is still a “no” to consider. These books have been marketed as children’s books, and my guess is the films will be directed at older children as well. Here is where we must be careful. Our job as parents, teachers, members of the body of Christ, is to train up our children in the Lord. Personally, I will not let my children read these books until they are much older, and able to discern the ideas the book engages. I have heard the film softens the controversial aspects of the books, but we still must be careful. Parental discretion must be used with regard to your child’s ability to discern the subject matter of the film, and your willingness and ability as parents to process these ideas with them. Our children will encounter these ideas at some point in their lives, but we should be careful not to expose them needlessly or before they are ready.
Should Christians go and see this film? I would answer with a qualified “yes”. We need to engage the world of ideas, we need to understand how others see the world, and we need to see how others view Christianity and the church. But we must also be discerning with our children and their ability to process these ideas, protecting them from needless exposure, or at the least, being willing to watch with them, and help guide their thoughts on what they see and hear.