Nut cases who get it right

I heard the author of this book (new release this week) interviewed on a radio program a few days ago. He is a died-in-the-wool proponent of the views of Ayn Rand. It's frustrating that I agree with over fifty per cent of what he says (including everything he says about the free market and education), but he still comes off as a nut case.

Last week a lot of Christians got bent out of shape because of the Muslim reaction to the movie about Mohammed. From what I can tell, it probably had a good bit of truth in it, but it was poorly produced, and its spokespersons came off like nut cases.

We live in an age of sound bites and images, and careful reflection on complex ideas is getter rarer all the time. It doesn't help any of us when right ideas are espoused by nut cases. Those whom God has gifted to be able to communciate well should take the lead in expositing Biblical thinking on current issues. I recommend BreakPoint with Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet. 

Pervasive banality

As much as those of us who are nerds-in-training might like to

believe that there could be academics as innocent of popular icons and values as Dr. Sheldon Cooper and Dr. Temperance Brennan, it is, in fact, the utter unbelievability of their remoteness which gives charm to these characters. Pop culture rules, even in the halls of ivy. Banality has conquered America. Our diplomats are being murdered, Washington does not respond, and everyone is watching the finals of "America's Got Talent."

Radical Faith: Trusting Public Schools

John Taylor Gatto, former New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year: “Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers who you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child’s mind?”

Is anybody paying attention?

Anyone paying attention to the current political ads by our current president must see the obvious parallels between his diatribes against the wealthy and the key Marxist supposition that life is all about class warfare. I have never seen anyone in my entire life state such openly blatant Marxism. And no one is wearing sackcloth and ashes. I don't get it. And I am far from wealthy.

Going back home, but not to my eternal home

This week I will return to my roots, briefly. I have never been ashamed of being from the South, but I no longer identify deeply with its culture.  Linda and I vainly attempted to introduce our children to grits, cornbread, and turnip greens, but their comfort food will always be Mexican. 

Nevertheless, it will be good to spend time with my brother and some old friends from college and the church I grew up in.  

What does this have to do with worldview?  It's easy to forget that this world is not our home. When we take the commands of God seriously, then we can appreciate the labors our ancestors poured into making the places we call home prettier, more habitable, more prosperous, and more convenient.  When I go back to the South, the passage of time gives me a perspective on the changes - mostly for the better; some, not so much. 

Some of the photos on this page show the things Marietta can be proud of: aesthetic, historical, and cultural. But whenever a Mariettan needs to be humbled, just remind him or her that the only thing most people outside of the Atlanta area know about Marietta is that it's home of the Big Chicken.  

The point is that we ought to fulfill God's dominion mandate by improving the places in which we live. But worship of the labors of our hands or a piece of geography is still idolatry, and this world is ultimately not our home... 

Knowing the real deal - when we see it

I have mentioned in a previous blog that I am a regular subscriber to Breakpoint, and always find their commentaries stimulating. Since the passing of Chuck Colson, Eric Metaxas has become the primary contributor, and I found one of his posts this week particularly intriguing.  Here it is, in part:

Here’s a particularly egregious case [of Christian curmudgeoning] in point: the recent campaign to remove a great movie, The Blind Side, from the shelves of LifeWay Christian stores. Remember, The Blind Side was denounced as Christian propaganda by many liberal critics.

It explicitly depicts an affluent white Christian family devoting itself to helping an impoverished black kid because it’s the Christian thing to do.

The film’s offense, according to a Florida pastor who started the campaign to have LifeWay stores pull the DVD, is that the movie contains “explicit profanity, God's name in vain, and racial slurs.” It doesn’t seem to matter that the objectionable language is used to depict the palpably unpleasant world from which the young black man, Michael, was rescued by his adoptive family.

What seems to matter to this pastor is that if we “tolerate” the presence of this movie in Christian bookstores, our children and grandchildren will “embrace” this kind of behavior. I’m not making this up – this is the exact reason given by the pastor. And frankly, I think it’s insane. I saw the movie myself. I even let my 12-year-old daughter see it. That’s because it is a great film and I recommend it highly.

But sadly, LifeWay caved in and removed the “offensive” discs from their shelves.

For outsiders looking in, the moral of the story is that “there is no pleasing Christians. They always seem to be looking for something to be mad about.”

We complain about the calumnies and caricatures of Christians on the big screen; and then, when an Academy Award-winning film shows us at our very best, we complain that scenes depicting harsh, inner-city reality are too true to life!

We are, in effect, making our participation contingent on all our possible objections being met beforehand. Since there are many people who would be happy if we stayed within our cultural and religious ghettos, it’s difficult to imagine how we Christians can hope to be taken seriously in cultural discussions and debates with this kind of an approach.

Concerns about the language in the film also miss the larger point: what made the Tuohys — the family depicted in the film — such great Christian exemplars wasn’t their non-use of profanity; it was their willingness to reach out and embrace someone in need.

If we Christians can’t get this, then maybe we really should refrain from commenting on culture in the first place.

For more on this subject of Christians in the arts and culture, visit BreakPoint.org.

The People I was Writing about Yesterday

So I stumbled across an ad for a new line of clothing bearing this logo. The slug on their web page read "We are not ashamed. We are not afraid." This, of course implies that shame and fear may exist, constructs which are patently impossible in a mechanistic universe controlled by Darwinian selection. Most meaningless of all is their logo, left, which draws on all kinds of deistic history, symbolism, and imagery. It calls to mind what Doug Wilson always says about the thinking of atheists:

Two things atheists believe:

1. There is no God.
2. We hate Him!

In regard to the abundant revelation of God - natural, special, historical, etc. - one can't help picturing a child with his hands over his ears, yelling at the top of his lungs, "I'm not listening!  I'm not listening!  I'm not listening!"