Timely or Trendy?

Words mean things. Sometimes they mean the wrong things. Occasionally, therefore, some rectifying semantics are in order.

In this book, Prophetic Untimeliness: A Challenge to the Idol of Relevance, contemporary author and speaker Os Guinness sets the record straight on relevance and presents a masterful case for faithfulness over and against fashion.

“Relevance is not the problem but rather a distorted relevance that slips into trendiness, triviality, and transcience.” This distortion seems to be caused by pursuing relevance as an end in itself, rather than reaping relevance as a fruit of faithfulness. Our true aim, after all, is to be relevant by God’s standard: not the standard of the world. Not that the two are necessarily doomed to mutual exclusivity, only that we must keep the crust outside the filling, and the filling inside the crust, if we want to have a nice pie.

I have for some time felt that the church must stop allowing the world to lead her around by the nose. Along this line, Guinness argues brilliantly for the church to retain (or regain) “the Archimedean point.” “In today’s world, the stance of the wagging tail has been elevated to the level of a creed. In 1966, the World Council of Churches even adopted the bizarre dictum, ‘The world must set the agenda for the Church.’”

Guinness summarizes three postures the Church can take towards society, (resistance, negotiation, and adaptation,) dismissing the two extremes which both reduce the Church to insignificance, and favoring negotiation, which, he says, means “taking seriously the biblical admonition to be ‘not conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of the mind’ […] an ongoing practice of discerning between true and false, good and bad, the godly and the worldly.” He wisely avoids a reductionist approach to this discernment: “Which of us can read enough, think enough, and pray enough to be wise enough? There is simply too much to take in and to ponder.”

Continuing on, Guinness discusses “resistance thinking,” (quoting C.S. Lewis: “Progress is only made into resisting material,”) and also the under-appreciated value of history. "Whereas science deals with the predictable and the repeatable, with laws and uniform regularities, history deals with one-of-a-kind human choices, with accidents, disasters, ironies, and events that are totally unforeseeable and unpredictable. […] History provides a deeper and more comprehensive knowledge of our humanity than science does."

I appreciated and resonated with the general tenor of the book, with only a few minor quibbles. The first two chapters deal exclusively with the subject of time, (the “tool that became a tyrant,”) and I am still debating their “relevance” to the primary subject matter. Also, there are numerous quotes from Nietzsche, primarily as an articulation of the secular perspective, but occasionally employed to support Guinness’ own arguments. Still, it serves well as a concise (119 page) yet careful discussion of the issue.

“It takes the eternal to guarantee the relevant; only the repeated touch of the timeless will keep us truly timely.”


Image courtesy of amazon.com

Thoughts From Isaiah

If Isaiah is one of the most perplexing books of the Bible, it is also one of the most beautiful. Some of the imagery is unmatched throughout the whole of scripture. While I don't understand all of it, (or perhaps even much of it,) I have for a long time liked this book very much.

One of the chief joys of heaven will be the ultimate culmination and realization of wisdom. Seeing "face to face," clear as the sky, instead of darkly, as "through a glass," when all of our baggage and bias falls like scales from our eyes and we are left gloriously alone with the wonder that is God.

"They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine..." (29:24)

"The heart of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly..." (32:4)

We so desperately desire to plumb the depths of what is truly real - to peel back the veneer of existence and apprehend the eternal. But it is easy to confuse the zealous and the rash, and I have many times acted in the mode of the latter, all the while believing it to be the former.
Here in these verses the Lord recognizes the genuine (if misguided) zeal that burns in the "heart of the rash," and the beauty and tenderness in these promises is enough to make one weep for joy.

But here, in the "meantime that is our life," our limited mortal faculties of apprehension and comprehension are only part of the problem. Anyone who has ever seen the moon or held a baby knows that our faculties of expression are also woefully hollow and inadequate. In spiritual, immaterial things, like beauty, or truth, we all possess the "tongue of the stammerers." But we go on hammering and stammering away at what we feel we must express, for fear that it will burst us if we don't. (Job 32:19-20) Unfiltered understanding, along with the ability to express it with ease and precision, must be very ecstasy.

"And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." (35:8)

For a long time I pictured heaven as being rather mushy, trying to imagine what it must be like to walk on clouds. But the geography that Lewis describes in The Great Divorce, while perhaps not entirely accurate, might be a better way to think of it, as it seems closer to the Biblical picture of a city with foundations and hard golden streets. No one knows, really, but whatever awaits us, it must be something far more solid than anything we can experience here, (unless of course our very perception of solidity has become warped somewhere along the way, which is entirely plausible.)

I derive abundant comfort from this promise of holiness as a highway rather than a hut, where despite all our foolishness and lack of direction we are no longer stumbling around in the dark, bumping into each other. Because sometimes I'm afraid that in my best moments that's exactly what I am: a wayfaring fool.


Image courtesy of landscapedvd.com

Reflections on Reflections on the Psalms

I realize that there are many who have serious reservations regarding C.S. Lewis, relating to any number of perceived theological inaccuracies. I sympathize. At the same time, I do not feel compelled to reject him solely on this basis. I do not read Lewis primarily for his theology, but for himself; for his insight into the human thing and the nature of things in general. As he himself said about reading G.K. Chesterton, "Liking an author may be as involuntary and improbable as falling in love. I was by now a sufficiently experienced reader to distinguish liking from agreement. I did not need to accept what Chesterton said in order to enjoy it." (-Surprised by Joy, Ch. 12, Guns and Good Company)

Lewis' Reflections on the Psalms is perhaps best described as a menagerie of commentary, loosely organized, full of delightful rabbit trails. (One gets the sense, in reading this work, that Lewis is not above using a subject as a platform for what he really wants to say.) It is with difficulty that I refrain from quoting paragraph after lovely paragraph.

Portraying the Psalms as Jewish rather than Christian, Lewis derives some fascinating observations from this distinction. Some may feel he has taken this matter of context too far. It is possible. But appeals to context may take many forms, and I am afraid we are more accustomed to the dishonest ones.

We start out talking about Judgement and Cursings, abiding by the "best-for-last" maxim: "I begin with those characteristics of the Psalter which are at first most repellent. Other men of my age will know why. Our generation was brought up to eat everything on the plate; and it was the sound principle of nursery gastronomy to polish off the nasty things first and leave the tidbits to the end." And here the disparity between the Judeo and Christian worldview is immediately apparent. For while the Christian properly considers himself wrong and asks mainly for mercy, (defendant position,) the Psalmist considered himself wronged, hence his incessant pleas for "judgement," and "justice" (plaintiff position).

Continuing on into the subject of Death, Lewis makes some very interesting comments about Heaven and Hell. I hope to soon explore this topic in some depth; if you want to anticipate the discussion, you can read the relevant excerpt here.

The subsequent chapters take a brighter turn. My suspicion is that we too often divorce our appreciation for God from our appreciation for other things, and Lewis addresses this by pointing out the simple, coherent cultural backdrop of the Psalms. "He was a peasant, very close to the soil. He had never heard of music, or festivity, or agriculture as things separate from religion, nor of religion as something separate from them. Life was one. ... There, despite the presence of elements we should now find it hard to regard as religious at all, and the absence of elements which some might think essential to religion, I find an experience fully God-centred, asking of God no gift more urgently than His presence, the gift of Himself, joyous to the highest degree, and unmistakably real." Our modern ideas concerning what is truly "spiritual" are likely in need of redefinition; we may have, in some areas, bought into what A.W. Tozer calls the "sacred-secular antithesis."

I found his comments on Praise particularly exhilarating; I'll let that hang as a teaser.

Several passages proved rather convicting, notably a paragraph on quarrelling and another on criticism. Lewis is too perceptive to restrict everything to fun and games, at the same time possessing the singular ability to pen rebukes that drip with gentleness.

Some may find his comments on Scripture somewhat irreverrent, or at least distasteful. But few would not be won over as Lewis allows, with sparkling humility, that "What we see when we think we are looking into the depths of Scripture may sometimes be only the reflection of our own silly faces."

An Emerging Church Primer

A friend recently sent me an article on the emerging church that provides a good overview without being unduly long. Taylor presents a decent synopsis that for the most part coincides with my own findings. (I liked the article more than its source; 9marks is a bit too stiff and structured for me.)

+ I appreciated what Taylor said in his introduction: "One of my goals is to help you understand 'the emerging church.' My deeper goal would be for us to become the sort of people who know how to think about things like the emerging church." (Not, think about things the way the emerging church does, but think accurately about these kinds of subjects.) We don't want to put undue emphasis on thinking over and against action, but neither should we forget that it is thought which ratifies and engenders action. (Prov. 23:7, Luke 6:45)

+ The point about how the serpent began his deception with a simple question was especially perceptive. It seems there are too many questions being raised, leading to too much tampering with Christian theology and Christian epistemology. (A blog I was reading recently insightfully noted that "when you ask questions without providing much in the way of answers people will generally agree with you.")

+ I liked the numerous instances of both/and style thinking.

+ I posted about the three categories - "the three r's" - not too long ago.

+ Biblically speaking, homosexuality is wrong, and (some) emerging folks are for some reason hesitant about this one. I don't think that stance is defensible, but at the same time I think the mainstream church has blown this particular issue way out of proportion. It's a handy sin to target because it's generally not very close to home.

- I haven't picked up on the emergent/emerging distinction. You don't split firewood out of matches. Besides, grammatically, we need unrestricted use of both forms. (What are we supposed to call the emerging folks? "Emergings?" "Emergingites?" Emerginians?")

- I didn't care for the way Taylor kept deducing the negative statements, (what he called "implicit protest,") from the positive statements set forth by the emerging conversation. This type of deduction does not necessarily follow and doesn't seem fair.

- I think the distinction between "humble orthodoxy" and "generous orthodoxy" is a slippery one. Evangelicals say their firmness is rooted in humility: I think emergents would respond by saying that their generosity is rooted in humility. It seems to me that there is room for both: exercising worshipful humility toward God by believing His word, and exercising generous humility toward our fellow man by giving them some space (where we can) to differ from our particular ideas about God/Truth.

There are some serious dangers and problems in this movement that need to be recognized. I still feel, however, that we have some things to learn from emergent thought and practice. Eat the corn and toss the cob.

Image courtesy of philipstraub.com

The Three Micecatcheers

My sister was taking some pictures of our cats today for school and I thought several of them turned out pretty good.

This is Nellie. We picked her up as a kitten, literally on our way out of town as we were moving from Felton to Oakhurst, so she is as old as the hills: about seven years to be approximate. (This translates to 44 human years.) She is the most affectionate and least active of the bunch.

PJ is the non-runt from Nellie's first and only litter. His father remains unidentified, but he must have been substantial. PJ, (which stands for "Pippy Jr." - long story,) is one hunk of a cat, and has been known to send full-grown raccoons scurrying and squealing off into the night. He has also earned the respect of several neighborhood dogs, and eyes Montana with the cool composure of a street-wise thug. He thinks he's the sphinx.

Tiger showed up last winter, spending a cold, wet night in a backyard oak tree before we pulled her down, warmed her up, and gave her some food. We liked her, and were worried she would leave as quickly as she came. She had no such intentions. Cats aren't stupid: plenty of food, plenty of attention, room to play: it just doesn't get much better than that.
Besides her astonishing markings and fascinating pedigree, Tiger is endlessly entertaining. Early on, she was famous for getting herself stuck in trees and mewing incessantly until someone (usually me, being the soft one,) hauled out a ladder and brought her down. She's thankfully outgrown this, but she's still all kitten. She likes to boing-boing car antennaes and will perform an amazing feat of choreography to drink dripping snowmelt off a bumper. Watching her in her first snowfall was perfect hilarity - she just had to catch every one.

As you can see, she's both photogenic...

and quite energetic as well.

Did I tell you that I like cats?

Refiner's Fire

"The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the Lord trieth the hearts." - Prov. 17:3

The difficulty in being refined is not so much the heat and discomfort - most of us can deal reasonably well with a little discomfort now and then - but rather the bringing to the surface of all the grubby, disheveled, unflattering stuff from the dirty corners of our souls. We will endure an enormous amount of pain, provided we are permitted to protect our public image. (1 Samuel 15:24-31)

Everyone rolls out of bed in the morning and puts on clean, smiling, nothing-is-wrong-with-me faces. It's the professional thing to do, but the inevitable result is a whole bunch of plastic people. In our society, it has become survival - common sense. But you cannot enter the Kingdom with your best foot forward.

Sanctification, by definition, is a messy business. My brother's been working on his car, and it's nothing out of the ordinary to see parts and tools scattered across the worktable, slathered in oil and grime. Even though the goal is restoration and rejuvenation, the vehicle is at times reduced to utter incapacity: it can't even be started.

It is terribly humiliating to have your leaking gaskets, worn u-joints, and fouled up spark-plugs exposed for all the world to see. But don't trade your birthright for a tow truck. Hell is an abandoned junkyard with rows and rows of cars who refused to be worked on.

Open your hood.

Kicking against these goads
Sure did cut up my feet
Didn't your hands get bloody
As you washed them clean
-Aaron Tate, Where I Began

Life, Links, Liability, and a Cup of Tea

Time for a short break from -ologys and -isms. Seems it's gotten a little stuffy in here lately; I think I'll crack open the windows, let some fresh air in, and take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about what's happening in blogville.

Garrett's just rolled out a blog: be sure to stop by and encourage him. I for one am looking forward to the tech pointers and music: he even said that he'll be raking his falling thoughts into piles. Should be interesting. This guy is not just any leaf.

Peter was recently bit by the blog-bug, and I hear he has some lasagne in the oven. It's cooking a little slow, but he says he's working on it.

Javan and Jordan are a few neat guys I met through the Emerging Anabaptism forums. Always on the lookout for Christians who chew before they swallow.

Here's a blog I discovered while reviewing The Christian Mind: it's got some good thoughts from time to time. This one wins hands-down for best title.

Of course, it's always fun to see what the Parishs are up to.

On a larger scale, I've enjoyed the culture and media watch provided by Mercator.net. I don't think they are necessarily Christian but they present a thoughtful perspective and have some fine writing. They just published a perceptively positive article on the good ol' USA that was actually pretty good.

For those of you who share my morbid interest in the Church & (vs.?) State question, Americans United for the Separation of Church & State maintains a blog that, if a little biased, is gratifyingly critical of the religious right mainstream and generally helpful in a continuing analysis of the issue.

A word to the wise: I post a lot of links here, and I think it's high time I pointed out the difference between a road sign and a recommendation. I want to make it clear that a link, in and of itself, in no way constitutes an endorsement. If anything, it's to say with the writer of Judges, "consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds."

Thinking About Sociology

There's some discussion happening here; continuing the search for what defines a Christian approach to sociology.

Music and Mockingbirds

I really like music; in fact, I like it so much that I hardly have any. Let me explain.

There is a difference between a collector and a connoisseur, and I think I crossed the line at some point. A connoisseur's collection grows relatively slowly due to strict standards and discriminating taste. The artists listed in my profile are the only ones that have survived boot camp in my mp3 player. Most do not even gain admission.

I often wish my approach to music was simpler. I have friends who have very broad musical taste and I sometimes catch myself envying them. But there is no use, and so I resignedly go about making my little prison as comfortable as possible.

Speaking of prisons, you may be wondering what that cute little birdie-in-the-cage thingy on the sidebar is all about. And who is Derek Webb?

Derek Webb, a former member of Caedmon's Call, (a band I hope to talk more about soon,) is a bit of a CCM fluke. We are no longer in the current of the mainstream, and do not be surprised if things sound disturbingly unfamiliar at first. But beneath the honesty bordering on bad taste and the insight bordering on the inflammatory, there seems to be a heart that is passionate about both God and reality, a combination that is all too rare these days.

It may be best to allow Derek to speak for himself. In two recent interviews, one with Christianity Today and one as a guest on a podcast (scroll down to interview 2.2), he talks about his perspectives on things, defines what his music is and isn't and why, and tells parts of his story.

Derek has made his latest record, Mockingbird, available for free through the end of the year. This music is not for everyone, and there are several tracks that I rather dislike. But the message, if a little rough around the edges, is penetrating and powerful. There is an incisive music video for Track 2, A New Law, that will really make you think, (and blink.)

I'll admit that this is not a very safe place to start talking about music, which is usually touchy enough already. We may feel a little insecure, a little exposed. But sometimes the ragged edge of Christianity seems closer to the center than the rest of it.

"I don't want to know / if the answers aren't easy / so just bring it down / from the mountain to me / I want a new law..." -Derek Webb, A New Law

The Media Creed

So:

Whatever is false,
Whatever is deceptive,
Whatever is prejudiced,
Whatever is defiled,
Whatever is ugly,
Whatever is sensationally evil,

If there is any vice or anything disheartening,

Report on these things.

Thinking About Evangelism

I've recently been burdened about the posture the Church is taking toward the outside world. This is driving me to deconstruct some of the conventional thought in the area of evangelism and take a closer look. I have been helped by thoughts from Greg Boyd and also from Brian McLaren's book More Ready Than You Realize.

The central idea that is forming in my mind is based in II Corinthians, which I happened to be reading recently. In 4:2, and again in 5:11, we notice the theme of conscience. I think this is key. In evangelism, it isn't so much about what I think is true, or what you think is false; it's a matter of the conscience, both mine and yours. The miscellaneous shreds of truth that have collected in the bottom of my knapsack may be genuine, but they may not necessarily be the truth-key that will fit the lock on your heart. We have to stop dealing primarily with truths-falsities and get back to dealing with people. Jesus saw the questions, yes, but He also saw the people behind them, and sometimes this led Him to answer in a deeper way.

This has led me to reject most of the law-oriented confrontational evangelistic "formula," advocated by Ray Comfort and others. While I appreciate their passion, and think many of their premises are valid, I'm not convinced when it comes to the method. Boyd argues, and I tend to agree with him, that this approach hearkens back to Old Testament principles and is not necessarily a good way to build the Kingdom:

"The trouble with this approach, of course, is that despite the veneer of civil religion, most people in America aren't worried about whether they break one of the Ten Commandments now and then, and they certainly don't see the logic behind the claim that infractions of this sort warrant everlasting damnation. Just because the evangelist thinks this doesn't mean the person they're confronting thinks this, and the lack of shared presuppositions makes the encounter odd at best."*

Boyd talks next about why a proper understanding of accountability is so important, and then goes on to examine some of Paul's evangelistic methods. Paul quoted scripture to the Jews; it was something they subscribed to and so it made contextual sense. Paul didn't quote scripture on Mars Hill: he quoted pagan philosophy. In doing so he showed some simple consideration of, and appreciation for, his audience. These are basic communication principles! Where did we get this idea that we have some kind of moral wild card to play when witnessing? Why are we of all people exempt from the normative cultural standards of consideration? I wonder, supposing Jesus showed up for one of our evangelistic encounters, with all our talk of holiness and hell, if he wouldn't rebuke us like he did the disciples in Luke 9: "You know not what manner of spirit you are of."

What if, instead of judging and intimidating people, we chose to love them and listen to them? What if we took the time to build relationships and give people a reason to hear us out? Granted, there is much work to do, and time is short, but what if we someday find ourselves giving an account for what we thought were harmless shortcuts?

*Gregory Boyd, The Myth Of A Christian Nation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), p. 156-157

Addendum: To get the most from this post, you now must go here and read the comments.

Shattered

the world breaks in upon us
it feels like everybody’s against us
things goes wrong
we bleed; we hurt.
we’re left looking for a world
we can only long for

our hearts are bleeding
but it’s a tough world
so we smile and say
“me? i’m feeling fine”
we go through life much like robots
something isn’t quite real, but we do it all anyway
somehow we’ve been trained to just accept our lot

we trap ourselves in earthly prisons
we still hurt; we still long.
but we’ve learned to live despite it
we cruise through life and then
we wonder why others can’t just be ok
in our pain, we inflict pain
we shackle others in our chains

if only we could understand
this life is all a farce
this truly is a crooked world
there’s something that really is real—
but it’s a whole new dimension
and it doesn’t promise an end to seeking

so we’ve gotta keep looking
we need to keep fighting
skip the cheap and easy answers
and not look for systematic patterns to fill the gap
we’re gonna hurt; we’re bound to be vulnerable
but show me a better way to live in this crazy world.

-Javan Lapp, 2006

Aslan Is On The Move

The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of youth.

The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.

He drinks from any stream he has to cross, winning victory after victory.

-Psalm 110

Languishing Language

As a hiatus from my usual spiritual/(un)political/theological/literary reading fare, I'm working through a number of business books, and it's not unlike the difference between a warm bed and a cold porcelain toilet seat on a winter morning. Intellectual freefall. Consider the excerpt below: clichés in red, surplus words in grey. This writing is so windy it makes me want to hide behind a tree.

"Once you're up and running, maximizing your profits is the name of the game. And it's an ongoing continuous process of improvement. How can I do this better and more efficiently? What it really boils down to is control. The more control you exert over every aspect of your business, the more profitable it will become. This requires you to pay close attention to all of the details so that nothing slips through the cracks."

These days anybody who knows anything about whatever can go write a book on it. I suppose I shouldn't let it get under my skin, I just feel writing should be taken seriously. We're making information king and degrading the noble art of communication to something you do on a cell phone.

English is deteriorating. The dictionaries are happy to tell you about all the great words we're adding - we never seem to hear about all the precise, descriptive, beautiful, archaic words we're flippantly discarding out the back door of civilization. Our public education system is in a tailspin; literacy among college students is slipping. Blogging and chat aren't necessarily helping either.

I don't think it is a deterioration we can stop, but I wonder if we can't slow it down a little - just a little. I'm no Clemens or Frost, but I like to think I have an appreciation, however small, for the succinct, the spicy, the sensitive. We need language that is real; language that shakes and stirs; language with wit and wonder; language that appreciates mystery, and beauty, and wind, and all those other unwieldy abstractions.

We need language that breathes.

My New Wallpaper

The best thing about National Geographic: the photography.

This shot of a Colorado fire was submitted by a reader and featured in this month's "Visions Of Earth." Pretty stunning.

Postscript On Boyd

Apparently not everyone is as excited about Greg Boyd as I am; I suppose that is to be expected. I'm sure he's not perfect, but I think he's on the right road and has a lot to offer, and the criticism only makes him taller.

The church there in St. Paul has made Greg's weekly message available as a podcast, and I'd encourage you to check it out if you'd like to supplement your own walk with some good solid real-time teaching. (Incidentally, 10/1, "The Temptation of Practical Goodness," is exceptional.) Let's do the Kingdom.

The Cross And The Sword

As I continue my quest to understand the social dimension of the Kingdom, occasionally I find a refreshing oasis amidst the wasteland of right-wing political religiosity. A prime example would be the teaching of Greg Boyd, an evangelical pastor from St. Paul, Minnesota, with a burden to see the Church return to the ways of Calvary. Prior to the 2004 elections, Boyd preached a series of six sermons exposing the errors and compromise of Christian nationalism and encouraging Christians, as "Kingdom-of-God-people," to trust "power-under," Calvary-type service, instead of worldly, "power-over," control. I don't know that I can recommend this series highly enough. While I'm still mulling over certain points (see my comments on duplicity below) and various sections seemed somewhat superficial, it remains a passionate cry in the wilderness that is both very strong and very gracious. (Greg's half-hour interview with Charlie Rose is a good introduction: skip past Rick Warren to Segment 2.)

In his teaching Boyd leaves room for some measure of political activism, (voting, etc.,) but only as over-and-against one's Kingdom calling, not as integral to it. I had believed even voting to be dangerous duplicity, and still do, but I am rethinking it through. Maybe it is healthy and desirable after all, as Boyd suggests, to "vote your conscience" on how the country runs, while still maintaining your distinct identity as a Kingdom-of-God-person. Quoted (unfavorably) in a recent AU blog, Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl says "Politics and faith may mingle, because believers are also citizens. Church and state are home for the very same people." I'm not there yet, but I am conceding the idea, in a basic sense, as a possibility. But we must get our thinking turned around first, or we'll never be on the right foot.

Boyd's posture in the series is somewhat milder than it is in the book, (which is basically a transcription of the series): I noticed a distinct difference in tone between Sermon #6, "In But Not Of The World," and its parallel chapter, Chapter 9, "Christians And Violence: Confronting The Tough Questions." The book draws the lines a little more sharply. If you like to read, get the book; if you like to listen, get the sermons. If you don't particularly like either, flip a coin.

Being immersed in this controversy once again has only served to reinforce my feeling that these questions are at the crux of what it means to be Christian. I'm not denying anybody's salvation, I'm only saying that if you don't see these truths, (not necessarily as I see them, but for themselves,) I'm praying my heart out to God that you will. And for those of us who do see them, I'm praying that these truths would muscle their way beyond our minds and memos and into our lives, as we shoulder our crosses and follow Christ in radical, ridiculous, love-your-enemies faith.

"The distinct kingdom question is not, How do you vote? The distinct kingdom question is, How do you bleed?"
- Gregory Boyd, The Myth Of A Christian Nation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), p. 146