Waiting For Sunday

I still maintain my innocence regarding interest in O. J. Simpson’s salacious book deal, but if I were to write about it, I would want my post to resemble this Newsweek article based on an exclusive look at the chapter from Simpson’s book about the night of the murders.  You shouldn’t read the Newsweek article, but if you’ll do you’ll find it fascinating, and you’ll come away with pretty much the same opinions you had before.

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When I was a kid, I was a committed Christian and I was really into science fiction. It didn’t take me long to see the tension between the two. My favorite science fiction writers (especially Isaac Asimov) were atheists. Their vision of inter-galactic travel and settlement of the universe had no place for God.

So I dreamed up in my own mind a vision combining the two. What if a group of Christians could settle another planet somewhere and establish it as an outpost of the kingdom of God? In my mind, I pictured a screening process which would make sure that all the settlers were true Christians. Thus, we’d start our settlement with only the good people. Then, if anyone later decided to reject Christ or if they persisted in sin, or if they committed serious sin, they’d either be sent back to earth, or else face the death penalty (I mean let’s get serious, right?). In other words, specifically the words of Jesus in the parable of the wheat and the weeds, we would first uproot the wheat and transplant it elsewhere; and then we’d uproot the weeds as they sprouted up.

There were several problems with this vision, however. First, it didn’t take seriously the sin in my own heart - the benevolent founder and dictator of this colony - let alone the commoners I’d take with me. Even good Christians carry enough sin with them to infest another planet quickly. Second, my vision assumed that it is possible to set up a screening process to tell real Christians from fakes and outright sinners. It isn’t. One day the Lord will make the judgments - and his judgments will be right. But until then, we cannot do so.

The third problem with my dream of a Christian planet was that I didn’t realize that such things have been tried many times and have almost always failed. I’m currently reading a book called Illusions of Innocence about early-American religious movements (mine included) that tried to restore the primitive faith and sometimes (as with the Puritans) attempted to set up “Christian” colonies. The lessons? People who try to establish a utopian community by separating the good people into a village away from the sin without quickly see their utopia destroyed by the sin within.  The pride, the lust, the petty jealousy and legalism reveals that the wheat and the weeds aren’t really all that different in this age. In the OT, God separated his people into an isolated nation, and made it very clear by outward practice who was part of it and who wasn’t. And yet that chosen and separate nation didn’t often behave in a holy fashion. Sin infested Israel much as it did the surrounding nations.

All of this is to say that it shouldn’t surprise or discourage us to find sin in church. Of course we have to confront it (see Matthew 18:15-17). But we can rest in the knowledge that we don’t have to make church into a sin-free zone. God will handle that at the end of the age.

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Last night, Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. No matter how you feel about capital punishment or the war in Iraq, it’s pretty obvious that he deserved it, and not just in a “wages of sin is death” kind of way. MSNBC has posted a video which shows Saddam, on the very first day of his reign in 1979, sitting in a crowded room reading off the names of his enemies who are then snatched out of the room and taken away. Many of these “traitors” to the Baath party were shot without trial. These were but the first of his crimes as president. Even the ones for which he was convicted and hanged (the 1982 slaughter of 148 Shi’ite villagers) were but a tiny part of his infernal legacy.

Should Saddam have died? I have problems with capital punishment as it is carried out in the U. S., but those problems stem not primarily from Scripture (I understand Romans 13:1-7 to allow for capital punishment, along with Genesis 9:4-6), but from our system’s inability to reliably find the guilty person. That wasn’t an issue with Saddam to say the least.

What if Saddam had been sentenced to life in prison instead? Could this have been a tiny step toward ending the eye-for-an-eye cycle of retribution in that region? I’d like to think so. It’s just as likely, however, that his continued presence would have have been seen as 1) a horrible injustice to the tens of thousands he tortured and killed, and 2) a rallying symbol for those on all sides who desire to stoke violence.

The major news sites have all posted footage of Saddam with the noose around his neck, along with stills of his corpse. I suppose it’s just a matter of time before the moment of his death is widely available too. A friend said to me yesterday that when we finally have that video, we’ll see a lost man stepping through the gates of hell. That’s that saddest thing that can be said of anyone.

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I first became aware of the (Red) campaign on Thanksgiving night when I saw a long commercial about it (narrated by Bono). Some of my younger friends tell me that (Red) has been operating in Europe for some time, but it seems the U. S. push is just beginning.

Here’s how it works: Companies like Apple, American Express and others brand certain products with the (Red) logo. (The products themselves may or may not be red in color). When consumers purchase (Red) products, part of the profits go to AIDS relief. The (Red) Ipod Nano, for example, which is actually red as well as (Red) costs the same as comparable Ipods, but $10 goes to AIDS relief with every purchase.

The (Red) manifesto stresses that (Red) isn’t a charity but rather a business model, that once consumers understand the choice, they will choose (Red) products and increase their market share enough to offset the contribution. The relative success of products labeled “green” and “organic” may indicate that (Red) will succeed.

I think (Red) is a great idea and I hope it works. What concerns me is that it taps our questionable impulse of materialism and suggests that we can use it for good (kind of like the 2001 idea that we had to shop, or the terrorists had won). Sure, if I’m going to buy a Nano anyway, I might as well get the (Red) one. But what if instead I decided to forgo the purchase altogether and give $200 to AIDS relief?

The truth is, most of us aren’t going to do that. And this is the problem. The (Red) option gives me an alternative that keeps me from feeling guilty about it.

Socially-responsible economics are complicated. For example, a (Red) T-shirt from GAP costs $28, and GAP says they donate half the profits to charity. My initial reaction is: “How selfish do you have to be to buy a $28 T-shirt? And how much better can it be than a $7 T-shirt from Wal-Mart?”

But look closer and you’ll see that GAP also claims to be committed to improving conditions and pay in garment factories in China. Maybe that $7 shirt is subsidized by child-labor at slave wages. Maybe it really does cost closer to $28 to get it made fairly and get it shipped here.

Which brings me back to wishing this whole project well. As Chrsitians, however, shopping responsibly can be only the beginning. Loving our neighbor like we love ourselves requires real sacrifice.

P. S. Growing up in the late-cold-war 70s, I never thought being red would be such a desirable thing!

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What’s worse than O. J. Simpson’s now-canceled TV interview and book deal? Actually these would be hard to beat. The idea was for an interview and book, both titled If I Did It, in which O. J. would describe how he WOULD have killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994 - IF he had in fact done it. Simpson apparently maintains his innocence, but Judith Regan (who wrote the book) said that she considers it his confession. Due to widespread anger at this concept (even Geraldo Rivera found it disgusting), the book and the interview are both trashed. However, the book was completed and printed and so (I believe) was the interview so I’m sure they’ll “leak out”. Only The Onion can adequately cover this story.

But worse than the Simpson story is the camera-phone video of “Kramer” (Michael Richards) screaming obscenities and racial insults at hecklers in a recent “comedy” act. (The video contains bleeped obscenities and the unbleeped n-word). Kosmo, what were you thinking?

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Cindy and I were in Denver shortly after Christmas, 1996, when the JonBenet Ramsey murder was oh-so-briefly just a local story in the Rocky Mountain News. It soon became a national media obsession with enough steam to run for most of the past ten years. It’s back this week with an arrest.What a horrible thing for a young girl to be molested and murdered. What an unspeakable tragedy for her family.

But why is there so much interest in THIS girl, THIS crime? Is it because she was so rich, so perfect, so WHITE, so American? That’s it exactly.

Look at the reports about yesterday’s arrest. The very last line in the CNN article (the very last line for cryin’ out loud!) says that this guy traveled frequently to Thailand, “a country notorious for its child sex trade”. Eight words to cover thousands of broken lives and devastated souls which were housed mostly in yellow bodies or brown. Who tells their stories for ten minutes, let alone ten years?

In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible, a white family in Africa suffers a tragic loss which scars them for the rest of their lives. Yet some of those family members begin to understand that their loss finally unites them with the Congolese around them. Their loss is the world to them, but it is only one raindrop in the jungle of Africa’s grief.

Losing precious people is one thing we all have in common. White people, rich people, beautiful people don’t love their children more. Africans and Asians and South Americans don’t grieve their children less.

When we finally grasp this, we’ll DO something. And we’ll actually have something to say to the world.

(This was originally posted at my MySpace blog, which you may want to check out occasionally).

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“The greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” James Truslow Adams. Last week at Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit, I heard Bill Hybels interview rock superstar Bono on his faith and his passionate work against poverty and AIDS in Africa. Bono is one of the world’s most famous people, even though my Dad thinks he used to be married to Cher and many folks under 20 don’t know him as well as I expected.

Bono said in the interview that celebrity is a ridiculous thing, an exact inversion of the Bible’s principles on value. But, he says, since he HAS celebrity, he chooses to spend it on Afirca. Celebrity gets him in to see the President, Senators, UN Leaders, and other wealthy and powerful individuals who can DO something. Celebrity also connects him to the masses of us who can each do a LITTLE something that can add up to MUCH.

Bono is directly involved in the One Campaign which, among other things, calls the U. S. to use one percent of its budget for basic health, water, food and education in the world’s poorest countries. I like this idea because I read in both Testaments of the Scriptures that God takes interest in nations as well as individuals and how they do justice.

Another group I’ve been impressed with is World Vision’s One-Life Revolution, a Christian-based organization that MHCC has worked with in the 30-Hour Famine. For the past 11 months, some of our youth have been raising money to dig a well for an African village to provide clean, life-giving drinking water to the people there. The last event in this effort will be a spaghetti and salad dinner here at MHCC on Sunday night, September 10 at 5p before evening activities. Come and donate!

More importantly, find your place in Africa, South America, Asia or other parts of the global south where poverty and disease is rampant, and then read Matthew 25:31f and see where Jesus is in such circumstances. Find your place to pray about daily and where YOU can get involved.

Many of you have enough money to know that it doesn’t satisfy. So start spending it (and your life) on something that will outlast it.

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When The Passion of the Christ came out, Mel Gibson was accused of painting the crucifixion story in an anti-Semitic way. I didn’t agree, although I have to admit that 1) Gibson was more nuanced in his presentation of the Romans than the temple leaders, and 2) passion plays have been used historically to stir up anti-Semitic feeling.

But when Gibson was arrested recently for drunk driving, he apparently made some remarks that are more than a little anti-Semitic and vulgar. You can read about it here (but beware of Gibson’s rough language).
James 3:1 says: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” This is a scary truth. I have my sins just like Mel Gibson, just like you. But when we presume to speak in God’s name about the things of God, people look at us more carefully than we would like, and our witness is on the line.

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My previous post (and church newsletter article) was about my boyhood admiration for Superman. Well what’s a young kid who loves superheroes to do when he’s too old to believe in the Man of Steel? In the 70s there was a real-life substitute who flew through the air, put his own safety aside for the sake of his cause - heck, he even dressed in red, white and blue and wore a cape. His fame swept across America and through my Elementary School too. I’m speaking of Robert Craig Knievel, Jr.

Evel Knievel was nearly thirty years old when he made what became his most famous jump - and crash - at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. I became aware of him when ABC’s Wide World of Sports featured him regularly from 1973-76. During that time, he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, had a popular line of toys, and inspired a two-part Happy Days cliffhanger in which Fonzie tried to jump his bike over a line of barrels. (It wasn’t till later that Fonzie - and Happy Days - jumped the shark).

Even today I can’t help watching this guy. Last night I saw him featured on The History Channel, and today I have spent more time than I should have reading about him on the web. But these days, the fascination is more about a guy whose LIFE is a motorcycle crash. Superman was invincible. Evel Knievel has broken up to fifty bones, spent a month in a coma after Caesar’s Palace, and says he has been in the hospital for a total of three years. He had a liver transplant in 1999 after contracting hepatitis C, apparently in one of his many surgeries.

Superman fought for truth, justice, and the (politically incorrect) American way. Knievel beat Sheldon Saltman (who Knievel said wrote lies about him) with a baseball bat while another man held Saltman (Knievel served six months in jail for that). Superman was a force for good. Knievel has been in trouble for tax evasion, soliciting a prostitute, and carrying illegal weapons.

When I was a kid, I looked at Evel Knievel and saw Superman. Today when I watch those old interviews, I see a guy who is just LOST, an Elvis impersonator who has been kicked in the head a few times too many.

And Superman never sold a scooter.

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I ran across an interesting blog today written by a homeless guy, called (interestingly) The Homeless Guy. He has been blogging for more than four years, but he recently attracted enough attention to make it to the front page on Digg (apparently driven by this Wired story). His blog will frustrate you if you look for him to explain his homelessness in a quick easy way, or offer a solution to homelessness, but he will give you some insight into the world of the homeless.

He has a PayPal link on his site to accept donations, and he says that he tried Google Ads and they didn’t work (”Click here to learn how you can be homeless!”)?
Is he for real? Salon did a story about him in October, 2002. And he isn’t alone. A search on “homeless blogger” reveals several other such people including a woman profiled by NPR in January, 2004.
So why is a guy who has attracted national attention at least twice, and who is obviously intelligent and literate, perpetually homeless? Let’s just say there are reasons why it is difficult to pull people out of homelessness.

Read a few posts on his blog, and you’ll see homelessness, charity efforts, inner-city renewal and many other things from a new perspective.

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MHCCer DeWayne Britt sent me this excellent article from a Christianity Today publication (Outreach International Today) about a minister’s struggle to relate to his openly-gay neighbors and reach out to them with the love of Christ. Our Wednesday Bible study had a lively discussion about this article and issue. Maybe it will stimulate your thinking and outreach too.

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I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday that I heard a secular film critic mention that homosexuality was a subtext behind the latest X-Men movie (about mutants and those who want to “cure” them). Even if that subtext is present, there is certainly more to the movie than that. Here’s a story (thanks to Linda M.) about X-Men producer Ralph Winter, a Christian who sees his work as a bridge-building exercise between culture and faith, and he offers another interpretation, as well as other interesting observations about movies.

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Unity08 is a fascinating attempt to reshape the next presidential election by nominating a president and vice-president in an online convention. According to Unity08, this ticket will be “headed by a woman and/or man from each major party or by an independent who presents a Unity Team from both parties.”

Here is a section of their belief statement:

In our opinion, Crucial Issues include: Global terrorism, our national debt, our dependence on foreign oil, the emergence of India and China as strategic competitors and/or allies, nuclear proliferation, global climate change, the corruption of Washington’s lobbying system, the education of our young, the health care of all, and the disappearance of the American Dream for so many of our people.

By contrast, we consider gun control, abortion and gay marriage important issues, worthy of debate and discussion in a free society, but not issues that should dominate or even crowd our national agenda.

Note that I’m not endorsing this party - I’m just beginning to learn about them. But I think it is possible that something like this could work.

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Christianity Today has posted an interview with Rod Sider, a well-known representative of the “evangelical left” and one of the founders of Christian Peacemaker Teams, the group whose members were captured and rescued (some of them) in Iraq. Sider has been around for a long time and comes at the Christians and Culture issues from a Mennonite (and therefore, pacifist) perspective. He apparently isn’t associated with CPT anymore, but shares their ideals and provides an explanation of their strengths and weaknesses in this interview.

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Isaac Hayes, the soul-singer best known for the theme song to Shaft recently quit the TV show South Park due to its intolerance to religion. Hayes, who voices a character on the animated show, resents a recent satire (attack?) that South Park did against Scientology. South Park co-creator Matt Stone said that Hayes had made plenty of money on the show making fun of Christians. But it’s hard to take a stand when it doesn’t affect you, isn’t it? I mean, who among us would want to stand up against ridicule of Scientology?

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By John Pryor - MHCC Youth Minister

“Miss McBeth” just got rehired to a teaching job in Eagleswood Township, NJ. After an extended absence due to surgery, the 71-year-old returns as a sub for now but hopes to become full time. Sounds great, right? But check this out: the surgery was a sex-change operation for the former “Mr McBeth,” a retired father of three. Several parents had a big problem with the school board’s decision, but they were overruled on the testimony of a few people who reminded them that “the fact that she is a good teacher” was “more important” than his/her/its personal lifestyle.

If I remember correctly, this lie (that job performance matters but personal integrity and/or morality does not) gained national prominence and acceptance when Clinton’s lawyers used it to keep him from being impeached because of moral failures. (As any high school or middle school teacher/principal will tell you, the assertions that oral sex is not sex also have had a big impact on our culture, but that’s another story.)

Are Christians OK with this philosophy? Are we so trapped in secret sins of our own that we’re willing to let this lie became “popular wisdom” that is lived by? If not, what do we do about it?

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Last June I was in a sorry state. The cars I use to drive around making hospital visits each had a radio and a non-working tape player (and no CD). I don’t listen to music that much, but I like to learn while I’m in the car (sermons, audio books, news, etc.) I looked into buying a CD player but balked at the expense. Then my wife got me an MP3 player for my birthday (”MP3″ is simply the name of a popular type of audio file), and I discovered that with a few inexpensive accessories (and an Internet connection) it was the answer I needed. The inexpensive accessories include a low-power transmitter and/or an adapter to enable me play it through my old car stereos, my 1980s home stereo, or whatever. Of course the little headphones and 12-hour battery life make it possible to listen everywhere else.

My little player is about the size of a pack of cards, but it holds more than 400 CDs or about 14 days worth of audio content. I have loaded it up with all my worthwhile CDs from home, and I occasionally buy a new song online (for 99 cents) and I am constantly adding podcasts - free content such as sermons from great preachers, feature stories from National Public Radio and Public Radio International, talk shows featuring technology, movies, NASCAR and other things of interest. (I delete the podcasts after I listen to them but the music stays put). With all of this, my player has about 3.7 days of content, and it looks like it may never be half-full.

Until recently, MP3 players were popular only among college kids and techies. Now they’re exploding. MHCC GLOW kids are getting them for Christmas and birthdays. I’ll know that they have truly penetrated the market the same way I knew the personal computer had arrived…when my Mom gets one. The cell phone saturated the market a few years ago and changed the century-old concept of calling someone at a specific location. Now the MP3 player is unhinging music and personal education from any particular place (and the latest players allow you to take TV shows and movies with you too). Now the reason I raise this topic of You Are In Control: Do you think this has any implications for the church?

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