The Buffy Void

I confess.  I am a Buffy the Vampire fan.  And nothing has filled the void created by Buffy’s absense.  Ignorant people have suggested "Charmed" or "Point Pleasant" to fill the void. The thing that I liked about Buffy was that it could treat darkness in a serious and silly way at the same time, all the while treating human inter-relations in a very honest and vulnerable way. 

I’ve always loved the fantasy genre for being able to give us the cognitive distance necessary for us to be able to examine our own lives, and our own society.  Because we are seeing an alternate reality to our own, we can analyse and judge it in ways that we couldn’t otherwise.  And unlike other unrealistic shows, like the OC, or Desperate Housewives, Buffy is blatantly unrealistic.  And it revels in its unrealism.  It is deeply embedded in the myths that shape our own society, but it embodies these myths in dark, disturbing, and often hillarious ways.  No show does that (at least not on broadcast TV).  And because no show can do what Buffy does, I feel a small void. 

Gavyn

Gregg and Tena (our housemates) just had a baby, little Gavyn.  Gavyn is already a techie–he blogs here.

Courage

I loved the following from Chris Erdman and Alan Roxburgh so much that I quote it in its entirety:

Courage: The Fulcrum Around Which Transformation Pivots

Chris Erdman and Al Roxburgh write: Chris is
teaching Missional Leadership to graduate students this semester. In
this unit on The Leader’s Self the class is exploring the nature of
courage this week. Chris ways, "Because missional transformation
invites conflict and embraces it as creative (as well as destructive to
old, reified systems), it will require a courageous leadership posture.
Courageous leaders will practice a well-differentiated leadership
posture–a willingness to expose their convictions, priorities, and
plans not only acceptance and approval, but also to rejection and
ridicule. Courage may well be the fulcrum around which missional
transformation pivots."

About this kind of courage Alan says, "Courage is about doing the
right thing when it is neither easy nor comfortable. While habitual
solutions and practices will not innovate a missional congregation, our
instinctive response is to default to solutions that have worked in the
past. It takes courage to accept the personal consquences of leading
people out of familiar habits and patterns toward an alternative
future. When Moses brought the peole across the Red Sea, they were
thrilled that someonce had finally acted to release them from an
untenable situation. But once in the desert, they discovered that the
habits learned in Egypt could not sustain them on this new journey.
They became angry and complained, demanding that Moses return them to
the security of Egypt. Moses’ personal courage was in his willingness
to pay the price of resisting the pressure to give in to these demands.

"Personal courage involves a readiness to sacrifice popularity in
order to tackle the tough issues of transformation. This courage is
essential as it beocme clear that missional change is not a short-term
program amenable to pragmatic programs. Instead, it is about the
formation of an alternative imagination formed over time. Personal
courage is the capacity to go on a long journey in the same direction,
even in those times when few might seem willing to follow. It is about
keeping to one’s core values, ideals and sense of call, even when these
have become upopular."

Next-Wave Article

I have an article up on Next-Wave here. 

Contrasting Films

Someone just lent me Brother Sun, Sister Moon.  I am a big fan of Saint Francis (alot of people are), but the movie disappointed.  Through most of the movie, Saint Francis walks around with a big dopey look on his face.  I know they were trying to make it seem that he was filled with an unquenchable joy and love, but it made him seem a bit adle-brained.  The movie showed a sort of euphoric, happy Francis…not the passionate, filled-with-love, but sometimes hard man who challenged the Christian faith.  The film-Francis has no doubts, no real struggles, no anger, no passion.   The real Francis had doubts, had struggles, experienced anger, was passionate to a fault.  The film-Francis was so utterly unrecognisable as a human being that it was difficult to watch the film.  He was even less life-like than Max von Sydow’s portrayal of Christ in the Greatest Story Ever Told. 

Contrast this with a movie I watched on the same day: The Exorcist.  I had never seen the movie before, but a number of friends highly recommended it.  I was surprised about how much of a solid drama the movie was–it is only a horror film secondarily.  The depiction of the priests’ struggles were poignant and nuanced.  The movie is about everyone who comes into contact with the evil in Regan.  The demon-possession serves as a foil to display the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. 

In an odd way, the Exorcist was a more realistic picture…not in the surface content, but in the issues the movies raised.  Brother Sun, SIster Moon shows an other-wordly Saint Francis who responds to the brokenness around him with shimmering faith.  The Exorcist shows us two priests who struggle against brokenness.  The Exorcist’s understanding of faith in the face of a broken world is much more compelling.  The Exorcist shows us that sometimes victory over darkness is gained by being overcome by it.  After all, isn’t this how Christ secured victory for us on the Cross?

Shiny Corduroys

My friend Pat has a delightfully quirky sense of humor.  Pat is a pastor in frogtown (an area along University Avenue in Saint Paul.  You need to check out a recent post of his, entitled "shiny corduroys."

Evangelicals in America

Check out this feature from Time on Evangelicals in America.  Is this the way Church is supposed to engage America?  Is this what a light on a hill looks like?  According to Time, these are the most influential evangelicals in America…does this encourage you or discourage you?  Some of these folks are well worth emulating, but others seem to demonstrate an evangelicalism that has accomodated to Americanism.

1. Rick Warren
2. Howard and Roberta Ahmanson
3. David Barton
4. Douglas Coe
5. Chuck Colson
6. Luis Cortes
7. James Dobson
8. Stuart Epperson
9. Michael Gerson
10. Billy (and Franklin) Graham
11. Ted Haggard
12. Bill Hybels
13. T.D. Jakes
14. Diane Knippers
15. Tim and Beverly LaHaye
16. Richard Land
17. Brian McLaren
18. Joyce Meyer
19. Richard John Neuhaus
20. Mark Noll
21. J.I. Packer
22. Rick Santorum
23. Jay Sekulow
24. Stephen Strang
25. Ralph Winter

An Interview with Vincent J. Miller

The Matthews House Project has the transcript from Ken Myers’ interview with Vincent J. Miller about consumerism.  Definitely worth your time.

« Previous Page