Before a couple of Saturday’s ago, to me this topic seemed rather obvious, but after watching some of the Glenn Beck show on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial I had to re-evaluate my assumptions so I’ve decided to write a primer on how to spot American civil religion and how Christians can avoid it in their speech.

Before I begin my primer let me be clear, both Democrats and Republicans do this. I was often disgusted by statements that I interpret as civil religion by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. What Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin did last Saturday, however, was one of the purest examples of it I’ve witnessed in a long time and so I’ll take advantage of this claimed “crossroads of our history” (see Palin’s speech below) to share with your my primer on the subject.

1. Any statement that identifies the USA as God’s unique instrument for the salvation of the world is by definition blasphemous and idolatrous for a Christian to make. In most cases “salvation” is understood in terms of some of our national values such as prosperity and personal liberty. You might find my language about this strong, but these are precisely the terms the book of Revelation uses to describe similar activities done by the Romans or other nations that usurp Christ’s unique role in human history.

2. American Civil Religious speech is almost always self-righteous and moralistic. I transcribed Sarah Palin’s conclusion to her speech.

“We will always come through, we will never give up and we shall endure because we live by that moral strength that we call grace. Although we’ve often skirted a precipice a providential hand has always guided us to a better future. And I know that many of us today we are worried about what we face. Sometimes our challenges just seem insurmountable, but here together at the crossroads of our history may this day be the change point. Look around you you’re not alone. You are Americans! (applause)”

This is the bread and butter of American civil religious speech. “God favors us because of our inherent moral superiority and on the basis of this God will protect us and lead us all to a glorious future.” Palin goes as far here as to redefine “grace” as a “moral strength we (meaning Americans) live by”. This is an appropriation a Protestant buzzword which to me refers not to our moral strength but rather to God’s generosity shown towards the morally undeserving. Sarah Palin’s choice of words here is an attempt to appropriate Christian terminology in the service of another agenda.

3. American civil religion is almost always syncretistic. Many have noted that this seems to be Glenn Beck’s attempt to become the point leader for the religious right yet some prominent evangelicals have pointed out that in their opinion Glenn Beck’s commitment to the Latter Day Saints church requires that his understanding of God differ significantly from that of Christians who hold to historic Christian beliefs as identified in the ecumenical creeds. His goal is to avoid religious particularism while simultaneously attempting to harness religious allegiance and zealotry in the cause of a particular political agenda. American civil religion hopes to benefit from religious enthusiasm by sidestepping clear religious thinking.

No primer is complete without also giving some positive guidance. How can Christians speak about God on a public stage without succumbing to the adulterous (again, read Revelation chapters 17 and 18) temptations of indulging in American civil religion?

It is appropriate for Christians to publicly thank God for blessings our country has received.

It is appropriate to ask God’s forgiveness for ways our country has failed to do justice or protect the poor and the weak.

It is appropriate for us to ask God’s blessing for our country based on his generosity rather than our moral performance or presumed national birthright.

Perhaps the simplest test of determining if our mention of God in the context of our political process is appropriate would be to imagine this mention in the context of another nation. Would we be uncomfortable if a Canadian were making similar assertions?

One of the most significant and notable aspects of early Christianity within the diverse Roman context was the transnational nature of this new faith. Christianity wasn’t the religion of any particular ethnic group but gathered for itself peoples from every tribe, language and nation. American civil religion attempts to appropriate even this aspect of Christianity by pointing to America’s immigrant heritage yet it does so by substituting American citizenship for citizenship within the body of Christ.

It is appropriate for Christians to love their nation, to serve their country, and to seek the shalom of their city. It is not appropriate for us to confuse our national citizenship with our citizenship in the kingdom of God nor to attempt to confuse these two things by appropriating Christian terminology in the service of political zealotry.

Summer is over as far as Hollywood is concerned. No more big potential blockbusters await us. Looking back at the season’s hits – mostly morality plays writ large – I wonder: What do this summer’s movie heroes say about us?

Psychologically, watching a star on the screen can be like looking in a mirror. Sometimes we transfer our own worries and dreams on the characters so that we see heightened versions of ourselves. Sometimes our heroes reflect the attitudes of our era. Seen this way, Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood” is much more than Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood.” Why, I wonder, was this 2010 iteration of the legend so world-weary and glum?

You could ask similar questions of other recent big-screen heroes. Robert Downey Jr.’s cocky Tony Stark had the smugness beaten out of him in “Iron Man 2,” while Leonardo DiCaprio played a con man who literally lived his nightmares in “Inception.” Why did we have so many dark antiheroes in this supposed season of light? Many Christians tentatively tiptoe around movie theaters because of this. Did they have even more reason to do so this year?

Sure, there was joy to be found. Tom Cruise’s spy in “Knight and Day” joked his way through life-and-death scenarios, while the entirety of “The A-Team” was a gag. Were these escapist fantasies America’s way of ignoring two wars and a lingering recession? Likely not, considering they both grossed less than “Inception” and “Iron Man 2.”

As for women looking to see themselves reflected in the summer’s movies, they mostly had uninspiring choices. Angelina Jolie’s rogue agent in “Salt” was as grim as any of those tortured men, as was mopey “Twilight” heroine Bella. The season’s chick flicks – “Sex and the City 2” and “Eat Pray Love” – only offered female figures mired in materialism and narcissism. Were there any heroines this summer?

Obviously the cast of “The Expendables” doesn’t count. The summer season ended with this brawny blow-’em up, in which Sylvester Stallone directed himself and other 1980s action icons in a time capsule of manliness. The movie took first place at the box office two weekends in a row. I’m not sure what this nostalgia for the likes of John Rambo says about the state of heroism in 2010.

What popcorn movies did you indulge in this summer? What did the heroes in them represent for you? Could you describe any of them as Christian figures, or is Hollywood helpless when it comes to that?

Anne Rice is of course not the only professed Christ follower bailing on the church or “organized religion”, some argue an entire generation is doing so. Could there be something “in the water”?

1. We live in a context of mistrust. C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity trying to exegete Jesus’ admonition to “love your neighbor as yourself” illuminates what it means to ‘love yourself”. C.S. Lewis suggests that this is really self-regard. When I do something wrong it’s a fluke. When someone else does something wrong it is a pattern. When I lie it’s justified. When someone else lies it’s because they are a liar. We regard ourselves differently than we regard others. We trust ourselves differently than we trust others. I get much more nervous being in a car on a winding mountain road when someone else’s hands are on the wheel rather than my own. This speaks a lot to our control issues.

How does this work out in terms of our capacity to relate to religious institutions? We want to trust only those we know personally, only those we have experience with, only our networks of trust. Denominations and other religious organizations are really trust leveraging networks. A credential is a document that says, “I can trust John because this other group of people say he’s trust-worthy.”

We have a deep distrust of institutions. We don’t trust government since they needlessly exposed soldiers to radiation. We don’t trust families since our parents divorced. We don’t trust business since they drove the economy off a cliff in 2008. We have trust issues.

How do people with trust issues respond? Keep things close, keep things personal, stay in control. Sending money to institutional offices with the assumption that “they know best” requires a highly developed sense of trust. As a culture we increasingly imagine that such people are naive and we disregard them and disrespect them.

2. One block builds on another here. When institutions act we filter their actions through a prejudice that their actions are motivated by naked self-preservation. This is a convenient prejudice (as most of them are) because it means that any argument or behavior can be dismissed and not fully considered.

3. Tim Stafford in a bit of a book review on his blog notes that conspiracy theories tend to flourish when we personalize impersonal forces of unwelcome change. Not only can’t I trust, not only is this institution acting merely to preserve itself, but furthermore someone in this institution has always had it out for me. Now I have yet a third reason why I don’t need to listen.

4. I am confident in God’s regard for myself based on my moral/missional/ecclesiastical/communal performance. Take points one through three and add to them a personal narrative of divine participation in my life and you can come up with a very potent mixture. I know I’m not perfect but I’m surely better than average. My credentials in God’s eyes, and in the eyes of those around me who I regard and who hold me in regard surely have established that I am on the right track with things and I know the way things need to go. When things go the way I want them to go this affirms that God is blessing me and I’m on the right track. When things don’t go well this either speaks of God’s favor in chastening me or more likely in my own importance (or that of my efforts) and my importance in the larger work of God to elicit such opposition by the devil and other forces of evil. This becomes for me a defining moment where I simply must take a stand so I must harden myself in my position together with my allies and stay the course no matter the cost.

Now laying it out like this a path of self-delusion is clear, but the key to delusion is its irregularity. Just becomes someone is paranoid doesn’t mean that someone isn’t out to get them. Institutions aren’t always trustworthy. Other people are unreliable because they are in fact people.

The delusional factor is the presumption that I am reliable and the increasing distortion this brings to my world. What gets very dangerous in this scenario is one’s progressive inability to listen. Others may not be right, but there might be something helpful for me to learn. Institutions may not be running with perfect efficiency or making all good decisions, but it might not be all a waste of time and money either. It is in fact a good bet that I am thinking about myself, and orienting the world around me to a greater degree than others are doing around me (assuming they are likely as ego-centric and self-absorbed as I am). If there is one thing the Bible should be clear on it should be the fact that imagining God’s regard for us based on our moral/religious/theological performance is very thin ice indeed. Consider Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

The gospel gives me hope as an individual if I can believe a number of its tenets. It can lean against this narrative progression and hopefully open my eyes and ears to how things might be outside of myself, hopefully resisting this insidious path of delusion. What is also difficult is working with others who struggle with the same delusion. To the degree that we don’t have ears to hear we are at the mercy of our own prisons.

A professor/blogger alerted me to a recent court decision denying tax-exempt status to a group called The Foundation for Human Understanding who did not meet the IRS definition of a church.

The judge’s decision makes an argument that FHU members listening to a radio program together does not mean they associate together and gather for communal worship.  I don’t know enough about FHU or tax law to take a stand on whether or not this is a good ruling, but it does raise some interesting questions for me.

First of all, it makes sense that the IRS would have a definition of a church, because the IRS treats churches differently from other kinds of organizations. But it’s also kind of surprising. It got me wondering, if I was a bureaucrat making guidelines for what a church is, for tax purposes, what would I include?

It also got me thinking, aside from tax law, do I think there could be a real church online? Obviously, an online church would have big differences from the church I experience, but many of the functions could happen in new ways. You could be accountable for your attendance either way, either from your physical presence or your appearance as “online.” You can build relationships through conversation and discussion online much like you can in a brick and mortar church. You could lead prayers and declare God’s word online. We’ve talked before about how putting church services online can be a real blessing to people who cannot get to a physical church, for a number of reasons.

On the other hand, there are some things you just can’t do at a distance. You can broadcast a group singing together, but it doesn’t sound fuller if everyone joins in from a distance. Maybe in the future we can find the technology for that. In many communion services the minister says “we who are many are one body, for we all share the same loaf.”  Does the sacrament work the same way if you do not share in the same loaf? There are other aspects of physical church that I would definitely miss. Hugs, handshakes, a spontaneous conversation with someone new over a cup of coffee, the ability to look in someone’s eyes when you ask how they are, and follow up if they look like the answer is not good.

So do I believe an online worship service or an online community would be significantly different from church as I know it? Absolutely. Do I think it’s so different it isn’t a church anymore? I’m still on the fence. I am not sure if online community can have the kind of sacramental body dedicated to service that I think a true church is. But those are pretty tough criteria for brick and mortar churches to meet too, so I’m open to the possibility that it can happen through technology; I just don’t see how yet.

As a Chicago Bears fan, it pains me to admit that one rival Green Bay Packer has inspired me to think.

Recently, ESPN the Magazine ran a fascinating profile of Aaron Rodgers that focused on the quarterback’s “scars of disappointment.” Though now one of the NFL’s most widely respected starters, Rodgers did not have a smooth, painless path getting there. He was not recruited by Division 1 colleges and, instead, played his freshman year at a junior college. In the NFL draft, some analysts predicted he’d go number one. He was chosen with the 24^th pick. Once in the NFL, he waited in the wings for three years behind Brett “Will-He-Won’t-He” Favre.

After setting up this history, ESPN’s Tim Keown delivers this great paragraph:

You know what Rodgers will tell you is an underrated virtue? The ability to tolerate disappointment. We’ve tried to eliminate disappointment, run it off like a deadly virus. The world’s most potent economy collapsed when too many people decided they couldn’t bear to be disappointed. They bought houses they couldn’t afford and cars they didn’t need. They believed that a parent’s most appalling failure is a disappointed child. Oh, we can’t disappoint the children! Lord forbid we allow our kids to be deprived. The dirtiest word in the English language: no.

Amen. In a culture that worships at the altar of instant gratification and happiness, we all too often focus only on the Right Now and fail to consider the Big Picture. Accordingly, one of the aspects of the Big Picture that’s then lost is how the unpleasant, the uncomfortable and the disappointing actually build character. I would hazard a guess that Aaron Rodgers would agree that without his “scars of disappointment,” he would not be who he is today—professionally or privately. Yet, ironically, this article on Rodgers’ character would have never been written if he didn’t first gain our notice with performance. That’s what grabs our attention. Character is not a valued or desired trait today. Performance, appeal and popularity are. We care about the surface—not the depth. How else do you explain why Brett Favre, Heidi Montag, assorted Kardashians and the Jet Blue guy are in our headlines? After all, character is difficult to weigh (it certainly doesn’t appear in game statistics or popularity ratings) and maybe even harder to sell. And so in the end, personal growth does not seem worth discomfort, pain and disappointment.

For Christ followers, there’s an obvious Big Picture behind every trial: God’s perfect will, which ultimately is to bring us to him and redeem this world from sin. Because of this, I believe the concept of tolerating disappointment becomes easier for Christians to comprehend. No, life doesn’t become easier. We aren’t spared. And the church is not immune to disappointment avoidance. Still,  an eternal perspective changes the overall view of temporary setback. In his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, Richard Stearns puts it so: “God doesn’t promise that all of his followers will be protected from hardship and suffering. Christians get cancer, lose loved ones, and suffer financial setbacks like everyone else. But God can use our tragedies to expand our territory in ways that show a skeptical world a different way to live.”

That “different way to live” rings through Scripture:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. … I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13, NIV).

“We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us” (Romans 5:3-5, NIV).

“Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.” (Colossians 3:1-2, The Message).

Now, how do we share this trait with our culture? How do we chase avoidance of the uncomfortable from our churches? Martin Luther King, Jr. once dreamed that his children would be judged by the content of their character, but yet we are still judging by the surface. How can we put the focus on one’s character? Can that even be accomplished?

Matthew Paul Turner pointed us to a MSNBC story about a Louisiana church who applied for a cash payout from BP over of the loss of tithing because of the Gulf Coast oil spill.  Pastor Dan Crown or Anchor Assembly of God is asking for $50,000.

The article said:

Shrimpers and oystermen left jobless by the oil spill in this seafood town can barely afford to feed their families and pay their boat loans, much less give money to their church, Brown said. Giving and tithing is down by $12,000 over the last few weeks, he said, and the oil spill will cost another $38,000 in lost revenues over the next year, making up the total of the church’s claim.

‘You can’t tithe what you don’t have,’ said Brown, whose congregation operates a food bank and gives away bread each Sunday to help struggling families. ‘We’re fighting for our lives just like a business.’

So should churches like this one get BP payouts?  I say no.  Just like I believe Christians shouldn’t be sue happy and file petty law suits, I don’t think coastal churches should ask for payouts.  In a lot of ways it’s sort of like a lawsuit without having to hire a lawyer.  I think the church in this article would be far better off continuing their efforts in reaching out and helping their struggling community without asking for anything in return.  And here comes a truthful cliché—I think they’d also be better off turning to God and trusting Him to provide instead of depending on BP.

What do you think?

Another reminder, if you needed one, that politicians make unreliable moral authorities. In an article in the current Esquire, Newt Gingrich’s second ex-wife Marianne alleges that when she asked her then-husband in 1999 how he could give a speech in Pennsylvania on the importance of family values just days after privately confessing infidelity to her, Gingrich said:

“It doesn’t matter what I do,” he answered. “People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

link

How do I know that “Mad Men” has reached a new level of artistic maturity in its fourth season? I no longer want to have a drink while watching it.

From the start, this AMC cable series about an advertising agency in 1960s Manhattan has been lubricated by alcohol. Swanky drinking has been omnipresent, from the three martini lunches to the fully stocked bars in each executive’s office. Whenever one guy stops by another’s desk, they instinctively pour each other a drink.

Although the show has occasionally nodded to the dark side of this behavior – in season two, copywriter Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray) has a mortifying, alcohol-induced accident in the office – for the most part drinking (and smoking) is part of the show’s glamorous image. It’s given the same retro sheen as the period costumes and décor. Pouring a nightcap of my own before each episode felt like part of the fun.

Not anymore.

Characters other than Freddy have hit rock bottom this season, and not only because of their drinking habits. All sorts of chickens have been coming home to roost, especially for Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the central figure on the ensemble show. Last season concluded with the break-up of Don’s marriage to Betty (January Jones) due to dishonesty, neglect and adultery on both of their parts. No longer the advertising bigwig triumphantly returning home to his picturesque suburban home and family, Don lately has been shuffling, more soused than usual, into a dark, dingy and lonely apartment.

Don’s womanizing, meanwhile – which has previously been sold as part of his charm – is now seen as an ugly truth. More than once so far this year Don’s advances on various dates and/or innocent bystanders have been rejected, while his drunken coercion of his secretary has led to a full-scale blow-up at the office. Told to move on by Don – “We’re both adults,” he shrugs – she hurls a paper weight at him instead.

So far that has been the definitive scene of this fourth season – Don being called out for his sins. As “Mad Men” proceeds, will it move on from these confessions to a phase of forgiveness and eventual redemption? I’m not sure. All along, I’ve been afraid of following this show into the 1970s, not only because the wardrobes will take a dismal turn, but also because that distressed and disillusioned era would seem to hold little hope for these increasingly beaten-down characters.

There is promise, though, and it’s found in an unlikely person: Freddy Rumsen. After being fired for his drinking debacle in season two, Freddy has resurfaced this year, having joined an alcoholics support group. Fresh and stable, he’s in stark contrast to most of the others in the office. “Mad Men” fans: Do you see this as a sign of better days ahead, or false, fleeting hope for characters that are irretrievably doomed?

For most Christians our “first” book is the Bible. That’s an easy call. The Bible, however, is a not so much a book as a library written by a variety of authors in a diversity of cultures over a long period of time. It’s a large and difficult library and most of us self-select a smaller canon within it of favorite Psalms and stories that we focus on at the expense of other less popular sections. Many Christians it seems also have a “second” book that they lean on to give more specific contextual shape to their expression of the faith. Confessional churches it seems almost assume such a thing by creating and curating confessions through which they express and shape their perspectives on the Bible. In my tradition the Heidelberg Catechism has held a prominent place in the lives of believers.

It seems to me that there are also a group of other Christian classics that have created a class of “second” books. “The Imitation of Christ” has long been a book that many Christians have turned to. Others include Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, and Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion”. More recently Oswald Chambers “My Utmost for his Highest” and CS Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”.

My nomination for our second book is JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”. It is one of the best selling books in human history and controversially named by some as the book of the 20th century in 2001. It has many fans in the Christian community. I remember hearing Tim Keller remark that he reads the book continually. That surprised me.

Recently in a discussion with a member of my congregation who was reading the book again for himself he challenged me on whether the book could be thought of as a “Christian” book. He noted quite correctly that the book seems devoid of obvious religious content but I believe that is part of its Christian genius. I think the book is exactly the kind of Christian book we need to engage our secular and pluralistic culture. The book is deeply Christian in the way that the magic of the elves in Tolkien’s world is magical. The magic of the elves seldom draws attention to itself but quietly, subtly, and from the bottom up expresses shalom and truth. A good example of that is Sam’s rope given to him by the elves. His knots hold when the need to and release when they should. This tidbit even made it into the movie.

I think what Tolkien offers us is a sort of pre-evangelism for a secular world with a stunted imagination. We long for adventure but crave security. We look for meaning and providence while we try to keep hope alive. We know that there is great evil in the world but we can hardly admit that it comes from inside of ourselves and that our hands are not clean of the corruption we see at work. Tolkien flies in under the radar of our secular and pluralist alarm systems and opens up hearts thirsty for a larger narrative when the metaphysical bean counters say we can’t afford it. By embracing Tolkien’s fantasy we can begin to believe the Bible’s truth. Tolkien get’s my vote.

Any more votes for Tolkien? If not, what is your “second” book and why?

The New York Times recently published a piece about a rise in clergy burnout. Health researchers are finding evidence of stress such as depression and hypertension. The story point to some of the wisdom of tradition—that everyone needs time off.  The catholic church even requires their priests to take time off, something protestants seem to be learning from later than necessary.

I am a big fan of Dorothy Bass’ work on Sabbath keeping. We all need to take care of ourselves and take time to build relationships with others. One point Bass has made that really resonated with me is the idea that if you think you’re too important to take a break, you probably have an inflated sense of your own importance. I think overworked and stressed out clergy are simply one symptom of a culture where we are all working ourselves to death. Of course, the protestant tradition, at least, has a long proud history of overvaluing work. See Max Weber’s treatise on the protestant work ethic, for example.

I also wonder if lay congregation members bear some of the responsibility for their clergy’s health. The NYT followed-up with an op-ed about the demands of a consumer attitude pressuring pastors away from careful theology and toward feel-good sermons.  I think a consumer approach to church extends beyond sermon content, however, and I do think it contributes to a lot of our problems. I think we hold the minister responsible for the health and growth of the church, at the expense of taking responsibility.

No doubt, strong leadership and quality preaching are crucial to the life of a congregation. But there is a lot more to a vibrant church than a minister.  I wonder if part of the problem is that so many people come to church looking for something to get out of it instead of what they can put in.  Would it be less stress on our clergy if we all took responsibility for our church being the kind of place visitors want to come back to? Of course, making lay church members feel guilty doesn’t make everything better, but I can’t help but think there’s a problem in our communities that is leading to these health problems.

Perhaps we expect too much of our clergy and not enough of ourselves. After all, our jobs and family responsibilities are so important. Oddly, these questions have brought me to a counterintuitive conclusion: maybe we need to work less to work more. That is, we need to allow ourselves to take a break from our weekday pursuits and take a Sabbath, and that very break would allow us to pour more of ourselves into our church communities. Perhaps that would lower the strain on ministers.

I know a lot of clergy read this blog, so perhaps they can speak from experience and improve on my hypotheses. Are there ways congregation members can lighten your load? Can a denomination add new or different systems to keep their clergy supported?

Considering I haven’t played a video game since college, it’s odd how engrossed I’ve become by the current debate over whether or not such games can be considered art, on par with painting, literature, music and film.

Roger Ebert ignited a mini-controversy earlier this year with his blog post, “Video games can never be art,” while accomplished author Tom Bissell argues the opposite in his new book “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter.” Surrounding these high-profile judgments are millions of online opinions that fall on both sides of the argument.

Despite all the back and forth, I’m not quite sure yet where I stand. Certainly video games have the potential to be art, so my instinct is to lean toward Bissell. After all, I’m a movie guy, and the arguments against video games as an art form sound awfully similar to those made against the cinema in its infancy. Bissell also details the increasingly sophisticated ways game designers have interwoven production design, character development, narrative and music – the very same ingredients of cinematic art.

Even so, Bissell’s book spends disconcertingly little time discussing the moral aspect of video games – the crux of the matter for many Christians. Judging from Bissell’s own overview, the average game still runs on those two old standards: sexism and violence. Only here the gamer is able to actively – or at least virtually – engage in the sexist and violent acts.

I think this makes the “art-or-not” argument even more pertinent for Christians. We’re not talking about a frivolous entertainment pastime such as horseshoes. Video games have proven their financial relevance – indeed, they regularly out-earn Hollywood – and the day is coming when they will rival movies in terms of cultural significance. Culturally engaged Christians, then, will need to develop a language with which to discuss them.

The question I have then – and I’d especially like to hear from gamers – is twofold: Are video games art? And if so, how does that change the way Christians should engage and process them?

Some Christians (most notably Sarah Palin) oppose plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque in New York City, two blocks away from Ground Zero. Some Christians support it. I support it, after initial worries that I’ll explain.

As an American, I love the symbolism: a building devoted to a religion that many Americans and millions around the world practice peacefully, so close to a place where terrorists claiming that religion tried to make a monument to hate. The attackers’ message was that the United States is hostile towards Islam as a whole; this would be a great way to prove them and their followers wrong.

As a religious person, though, when I saw heard the phrase “Ground Zero mosque” in a headline, I figured it was about a mosque to be built on the site of Ground Zero itself as a memorial, and that made me squeamish. Not because a mosque doesn’t belong on the site of a national public memorial—but because no house of worship belongs there. Putting a house of worship on public property amounts to a government endorsement of a religion. That’s why I oppose nativity scenes in public plazas and the Ten Commandments in city halls. And in these cases what I’m worried about is the independence of religion: I worry government will succumb to exploiting religion and religious devotion for its own purposes. Given that a mosque near Ground Zero would have a huge political upside for the U.S., the risk is real.

But then I learned that the mosque wouldn’t be on Ground Zero itself, but on private property down the street (which opponents are now cynically trying to get landmarked to derail the plans), and I felt better. This would be a great sign of the health of religious freedom in this country. And religious freedom means that religion doesn’t use government for religious purposes, and government doesn’t use religion for political purposes.

One of the many exciting things about the puzzle movie “Inception” is that there isn’t one way to solve it.

Since its July 16 release, this thriller about thieves who enter people’s dreams has been endlessly debated. Before we get into the theories, a quick primer: Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, a dream thief who is hired by a mysterious businessman. Instead of stealing an idea from a sleeping subject, however, he is told to plant one. This heist in reverse will involve orchestrating dreams within dreams, as well as keeping Cobb’s own subconscious at bay. (His guilt over his deceased wife, played by Marion Cotillard, tends to seep into the dreams he’s infiltrating.)

“Inception” is intricately constructed, yet also exhilaratingly open-ended. You can read it many different ways. Is the entire enterprise a meditation on the film-making process, with Cobb and his team of dream constructors serving as stand-ins for a film production crew? Is it all a big joke, a lark that writer-director Christopher Nolan plants in the audience’s head in order to make us squirm? Is Cobb actually dreaming the whole time, or do the ambiguous final seconds return him to the “real world” within the film?

How you answer these questions depends on much more than what you saw. It also has to do with who you are – on the values, experiences and worldview you bring to the viewing experience. Which begs the question: Should Christians have a common interpretation of “Inception?”

I know that my own reading of the film is rooted in the Christian tenet of forgiveness (warning: spoilers ahead). As the movie proceeds, the thematic weight shifts from the heist itself to Cobb’s struggle to come to terms with the guilt that has been plaguing his subconscious. “Inception” ultimately is about achieving psychological – if not narrative – resolution, and I believe that goal is only achieved if Cobb is fully awake in the movie’s final seconds. In other words, in order for Cobb to genuinely, authentically forgive his wife and himself – to be redeemed – that spinning top has to fall.

Would you consider this a “Christian” interpretation? Or does it simply make me a cock-eyed optimist?

Best-selling author Anne Rice, who most famously penned Interview with a Vampire, announced yesterday on her Facebook page that she is no longer a Christian. She wrote:

Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

Then, a few minutes later, she added:

...In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

Rice, who has often been at odds with the church over social issues, grew up in a devout Catholic household, but left the church when she was 18. In 1998, she returned to the Christian faith, and has since written many books influenced by Christianity (including the Christ the Lord series).

My initial reaction to this was a positive one—I share many of Rice’s frustrations with what the American church has come to represent. Then a co-worker wisely pointed out that this frustration requires a very narrow view of what being a Christian means, and expressing it in this way may simply add fuel to the “culture wars,” rather than transcending them.

So, agree with Anne Rice or not, what’s your take?  Can an announcement like this from such a public figure lead to anything positive? Or is it just another divisive voice in an arena that needs peacemakers?

I have many times wondered why God created a world in which we could stray so horribly. If you live long enough you will undoubtedly see many people fall away from the faith sometimes to their misery and disaster. You will see others challenge orthodoxy and set themselves against it in the name of preserving or purifying the church. Some who do so will foment from within its circle, others will break away to start their own thing that over time diminishes and is forgotten.

I recently bought a Kindle and on an impulse purchase picked up Alister McGrath’s 2009 book entitled “Heresy”. I was curious about the title, stared reading the introduction and haven’t been able to leave the book alone.

I’m most familiar with the word “heretic” or “heresy” either as a verbal hand grenade thrown to discredit someone or a self-selected label by someone who wants to appear edgy and rebellious against uncaring or smothering institutional religion. The word actually comes from the Greek and it simply means “to choose”. McGrath works through a number of ancient heresies and although I’m not finished with the book it has very much shaped how I view heretics and how their “choosing” has blessed the church through out the centuries.

Many of the church history’s heretics were attempting to be missional reformers of the church. They asked hard questions about how the church presented Jesus Christ to a diversity of times and places. Many of these heretics promoted a faith that was austere and morally demanding, hardly the libertines that often claim the badge. Prior to Constantine many were not put out of the church as we imagine but rather left it themselves in order to establish a more pure, more relevant church. Many chose their positions based on important and legitimate concerns that the church recognized and needed to address. Some of the issues these ancient heretics espoused are still with us today in different forms and groups. How then did these groups become “heretics” and why did they lose their fights?

McGrath’s definition of a heresy is clever and in fact a bit Darwinian. “Heresy is best seen as a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilizing, or even destroying the core of the Christian faith.”

The process by which heresy is eventually identified is often one of conflict over time but this process not only leads to resolution of what is heresy but it also leads to resolution over what is orthodoxy. The church in fact isn’t always self-conscious about what is orthodoxy until it discovers what is heresy. Heretics, or choosers, offer up themselves unwittingly and in some senses sacrificially for the long term health of the church. Their choosing and eventual losing helps the church that remains to live knowingly. Heretics in fact enable the church to do the choosing and adapting that it must do in order to migrate and mutate and thrive in the huge diversity of contexts all over the world and throughout the centuries ever since it broke out of Jerusalem in that first round of persecution. Christianity can’t likely become authentically indigenous in any particular culture without the process of heresy and the willing sacrifice of the heretics.

What does this mean for us today? I think about the story of Odysseus and the Sirens. Many approach it like the crew, ears plugged with beeswax they are safe from the Siren’s call that would lure them to their death. Odysseus however opts to hear their songs yet stay lashed to the mast.

At the outset and in the midst of a conflict it may seem uncertain to the honest seeker which is heresy and which is orthodoxy, although of course many in the fight on both sides are sure of the rightness of their position. What we see is that over time and on a stage larger than ourselves or even our segmented denominations, the truth with eventually emerge. Heresy will be seen as a dead end path and the true path of orthodoxy will be recognized even if for many only in hindsight. This world is too deep and too rich and cultures and experiences too diverse for we who are small to pick winners and losers prior the questions being fully engaged by the church. Ultimately it is the Spirit of Christ that preserves the church through storms and trials we cannot imagine and it is our part in this adventure to pursue the process.

Have you thanked your favorite heretic today for playing their part in the communal discovery of orthodoxy? Are you a heretic sacrificially laying down your future for a cause destined to be known only to historians? Do you prefer the beeswax approach or the Odysseus approach? Does your faith rest in your willingness to desert a community over heresy or in the one who tests and purifies the church in ways its leaders never asked for?

Advice columns are a guilty pleasure for me, when I see them in a magazine or website, I usually read them, and consider what my own response would be. Maybe something about it satisfies my inner busybody. I think we all feel sometimes like the world would have fewer problems if everyone else would just do things the way we think they should. This is an impulse that I think works both for good and for evil, and perhaps knowing which is which is what really demands wisdom. Sometimes giving advice is a way to help build community and share wisdom that may have been hard-won. Other times, giving advice can be judgmental or arrogant. I’m sure we’ve all gotten bad advice before.

I can think of a lot of times when advice-giving is a really good way to benefit from other people’s wisdom. For example, my parents have given me advice in a lot of aspects of my life, from how to manage my money to how to succeed in school. In my PhD program I’ve learned a lot from people who are more advanced than I am. In fact, we value those relationships so much that everyone has a faculty member who is their advisor. That’s like, official advice-giver.

The Bible tells us some things about good advice, too. I think of the book of proverbs mostly as a book of good advice. In the first chapter it says the teaching (or advice) of parents are like a garland around your head and a chain around your neck. I take that to mean it makes you look good. Certainly, heeding wisdom from others is something the bible advises.

On the other hand, sometimes I think we try to give advice when we should be sympathetic and listen to others and pray. What first got me thinking about this issue was an article that was on the Think Christian twitter feed from Christianity Today about decades of Christian Dating advice. What I think the CT editorial captures so beautifully is the way pat advice can really sting when you feel you’ve done everything you are supposed to and it hasn’t worked out the way you wanted. It reminded me of the friends in the book of Job, who spend a lot of time telling Job what he must have done wrong to be in such a terrible situation. They weren’t right, and they certainly weren’t helping.

So how do you know when you should offer advice, and when you should butt out? I don’t know if this is an area in which I’m qualified to give advice, but I started thinking about the best advice I’ve ever received and it was often framed in terms of personal experience. My mentors told me how they have managed situations that I might encounter, and what they learned and what they wished they had known. That kind of advice always feels like wisdom, even if I need to discern how my situation is different.

What’s the best and worst advice you’ve ever had? How do you know when it is the right time to give advice to others?

Ben Witherington found the trailer for the third movie in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, set to be released December 10. I have to admit I forgot the studio was planning to plow through each of the seven Narnia books in turn, and even a little surprised to see a third installment come out at all, after Prince Caspian’s box office take dipped from the successful The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and a new company had to step in to finance Dawn Treader.

Although I would love to see a big-budget, big-screen version of The Last Battle, I don’t know if my interest—or studio budgets—will last through three other movies before that one, though maybe they won’t wait to do the grand finale. (Any studio would probably love to side-step the politically incorrect Horse and His Boy. And some speculated early on that Last Battle could follow Silver Chair, in part for continuity in the age of the child actors needed for both, not to mention limited studio budgets.)

How about you? Are you up for four more Narnia movies? Will non-Narnia-devotees show up for any others, the way they did for Wardrobe? Will studios have the money, and the patience? Would keeping some of the Narnia series off the big screen preserve some of the books’ evocative imaginative power?

(By the way, does anyone else remember the old cheap British television Narnia series? I remember it vividly and it still shapes my imagination of Narnia. I think they made it through the Silver Chair before calling it quits, which isn’t bad.)

Tim Keller offered this observation in his introduction to “The Reason for God”. “A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.” Rachel Held Evans’ first book “Evolving in Monkey Town” is all about avoiding that collapse.

Rachel grew up as a religious overachiever in Dayton TN, home of the famous monkey trial (a case where a biology teacher broke the law by teaching evolution). The book chronicles her questioning of American fundamentalist theology and ideology. I suspect a good many young women who grew up contexts like hers will relate to her story and her questions. I think one of the chief social functions of contemporary popular media is to validate and I think a lot of young women will find validation in the struggle Rachel voices. In some ways her voice in this book is a sort of Bizarro Anne Lamott, seeking a contemporary faith she can live with but coming from the other direction.

I hope Rachel is tough because a lot of people are not going to like this book. She openly expresses her doubts or disagreement of the party line positions on a whole range of issues that populate the “no man’s land” in the American culture war: gays, women in church office, pluralism, the Bible, Creation/evolution, etc. That isn’t unusual of course, but she does so with a pleading subvoice for inclusion in this community she has questioned. Communities that major in hard lines don’t usually have to think twice about how to respond to those who start to look like traitors to the cause. Others will simply dismiss the book as yet another 20 something evangelical breaking ranks for the emergent camp.

I think the book should be read in the context of the Tim Keller quote above. She speaks from a generation that is not simply going to accept the regime created to keep them compliant and they know they don’t have to. Perhaps what is most exposed by this early memoir is a misplaced faith the church has placed in its processes of indoctrination. Conservative Christians can speak glowingly about political liberty while saving their best tyrannies for their religious institutions. The information age has broken those tyrannies wide open and there is simply no going back for many of the sharp, literate, question asking 20 somethings like Rachel. Can traditional Christian orthodoxy find a new winsome identity in the public market place of ideas despite yet another generation that has felt itself poorly treated by some of its keepers?

Rachel I think speaks for a generation within her subculture when she writes “doubt is the mechanism by which faith evolves”. One of my favorite chapters was a brief one where she describes her husband fixing up and flipping a house and repeatedly admonishing her to “respect the process”. These are words of wisdom for an older generation of anxious parents worried by where and how their children will land.

How will this book be used? I think it will bring comfort to a lot of young women who are haunted by what Rachel brings forward and won’t feel as frightened or alone because of her book. Most of what I hear her pushing against I have heard in the voices of many others like her. Anxious church leaders that simply can’t see why their formulas for next generational compliance are falling short might want to listen carefully to her story.

Our projects and programs for inviting next generations into the faith should never replace our faith in the one who calls them. Vital to this transference is the full and free appropriation of the faith which is always a scary process. Twenty years from now Rachel may be writing another book about her daughter’s doubts about Rachel’s questions and answers. Central is our Lord’s generational missionary enterprise is the kind of anxious questioning known to every praying Christian.

I’m not ashamed to say that two of my favorite social critics are Marilynne Robinson and Jon Stewart, though it’s hard to imagine two people who could be more different, and it’s hard to take both equally seriously (for good reason). But when they met on Stewart’s show (to plug Robinson’s excellent new book Absence of Mind), the cordial exchange revealed not only how underrated Stewart is as an interviewer, but also how insightful he can be about bigger issues. Take his comment on the seemingly unscientific “beliefs” or “truth claims” made by scientists in explaining the universe, which he gave in an paraphrased dialogue between scientists and the public. I was nodding my head in agreement with Stewart, and so was Robinson.

STEWART (at 2:52 in the above clip): I’ve always been fascinated that the more you delve into science, the more it appears to rely on faith.

You know, when they start to speak about the universe, they say,

‘Well, actually most of the universe is anti-matter.’

‘Oh really? Where’s that?’

‘Well, you can’t see it.’

‘Well where is it?’

‘It’s there.’

‘Well can you measure it?’

‘We’re working on it.’

And it’s a very similar argument to someone who would say,

‘Well, God created everything.’

‘Well where is he?’

‘He’s there.’

And I’m always struck by the similarity of the arguments at their core.

ROBINSON: I think you’re absolutely right.

If you’re not a follower of celebrity scandals, you may not have heard of Mel Gibson’s latest debacle.

The actor and director’s ex-girlfriend, who is in a custody battle with him over their infant daughter, recently released audio tapes on which Gibson is allegedly hurling vicious racial invectives at her. She has also accused him of punching and threatening her, charges that are being investigated by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. This after his 2006 DUI arrest, during which he launched into an anti-Semitic tirade.

Clearly this is a troubled guy, at best. The trouble for Christians is that as of 2004, many of us were hailing him as a Hollywood hero.

That was the year of “The Passion of the Christ,” the Gibson-directed account of Jesus’ final hours. Against all odds, the picture conquered the box office and made movie going a religious event. Here was a Christian loudly proclaiming his faith – in Hollywood of all places! – and being vindicated for his spiritual bravery.

No one claimed that Gibson was a saint (indeed, some believers, including myself, had trouble with the obsession with violence in his film). Yet he became, by virtue of the movie’s success, a spokesperson for the Christian faith. Then the arrest of 2006, and now this.

So is Mel Gibson still “ours?”

The question isn’t unique to his situation, of course. What happens when any prominent figure of faith trips and falls? I suppose you could ask the same of a pastor involved in an extramarital affair, or possibly even a priest accused of sexual abuse. These are touchy, painful instances where questions of Christian identity, morality and forgiveness uncomfortably mix.

When something like this happens, should Christians follow that old adage of “hating the sin but not the sinner?” Or should believers create more of a distance between “us” and “them”?