New Pray for Denmark Site

A while ago I wrote about a Web site a friend and I have created for people to pray for the spiritual revival of Denmark. The site didn't look very good at the time, but now I think Pray for Denmark is looking pretty nice. Please take a glance.

In addition to encouraging prayer for Bill's and my ancestral homeland, I hope Pray for Denmark will be a model for other Web sites by people who want to promote prayer for their homelands.

Robinson Crusoe

I read to my son frequently, and gave Robinson Crusoe a try. (Great book, but the old language was too hard for him.) But, anyway, it had a neat quote - though in rather archaic language - about the perversity of human nature:

"They are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action, for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools; but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men."

A Sermon to Himself

I just started reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton (very good so far) and was struck by this description of Hugh Knox, a Presbyterian minister who had a very positive impact on Hamilton's life (pg. 34). Let me quote:

"As a raffish young man, he exhibited a lukewarm piety until a strange incident transformed his life. One Saturday at a local tavern where he was a regular, Knox amused his tipsy companions with a mocking imitation of a sermon delivered by his patron, the Reverend John Rodgers. Afterward, Knox sat down, shaken by his own impiety but also moved by the sermon that still reverberated in his mind. He decided to study divinity...."

Fascinating. A mocking sermon delivered by himself convicted Knox's heart and turned him to God.

A Disgrace to Journalism

I am watching the current U.S. presidential election with fascination, and while I'm not certain who the winner will be, I already know who the losers are.

The losers are the big media: The LA Times, the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN, to name just a few.

Having worked for some years as a newspaper reporter, including a stint as a stringer for the LA Times, I could see that individuals in the media were generally very liberal, but while their liberal bias would occasionally seep into their news coverage, I always believed that a good story would always trump a bias. In other words, I thought any good reporter would rather have a scoop than cover up a story, whatever his or her biases.

That may have been the case then, but I no longer believe it is true. What caused my change of opinion was watching Unfit for Command (a book very critical of Sen. John Kerry's experience in Vietnam) be published and rise to the top of Amazon's best seller list, and yet for more than a week the charges layed out in the book were utterly ignored by the big media.

I saw the story unfold on the Internet, in great detail, with quotations from the Congressional Record and testimony by Kerry's fellow Swift Boat veterans. I watched day by day to see how the major news media would treat it. Would they give the vets charges and Kerry's response equal treatment? Would they give it a liberal spin? Well, no, they didn't spin it, not at all. They pretended it wasn't happening. They wrote nothing.

Except sometimes they slipped. My local newspaper ran an editorial cartoon showing "mud" being thrown at Sen. John Kerry's war record. But I hadn't read anything in the paper's news pages about criticisms of Kerry's war record. So what was this "mud" the cartoon was referring to?

Not a clue from my hometown paper's news pages, or from any of the biggies. But a simple search on Google News for "Kerry Cambodia" turned up plenty.

The "mud" (in part) is this: Kerry claimed to have been on his Swift boat in Cambodia during Christmas, 1968, and that this memory is "seared" into him. Nixon, he said, lied when he said there were no Americans in Cambodia because he, Kerry, was there. However, Kerry's fellow Swift boat commanders, and Kerry's superiors, say he was not in Cambodia. He was at Sa Dec, 55 miles from the Cambodian border.

After a week or two the story slowly seeped into newspapers' editorial pages (I, for example, wrote a letter to the editor - which was published - asking where the news story about the "mud" was), but the news pages were remarkably free of anything on the topic. After I wrote my letter, the paper ran - grudgingly, it seemed to me - a vague Associated Press story on the bottom half of page two of the B section.

When the Swift Vets television ad began being run and the biggies could no longer ignore the story, they initially responded with stories about the motivations of the vets, and still studiously ignored what they were actually charging.

And when they were finally forced to address the charges, they picked the most ambiguous of the charges (how Kerry got his war medals) and for the most part ignored or burried the more clear-cut Cambodia charge.

Then, finally, Kerry got mad and responded to the Swift Vets, then the media started covering the story... sort of. By contrast, if these were charges against Bush, the media would have been all over it.

It would be easy to attribute all this to conspiracy, but I really don't think so. I think it is a result of today's media being run by a group of likeminded people who have apparently forgotten - or are intentionally ignoring - what they should have learned way back in Journalism 1A.

In any case, they are a disgrace to their profession and it makes me glad to have been a reporter back when my colleagues - even my liberal ones - had some professional ethics.

Being a Pest

I mentioned earlier spending time in Illinois with Chris, my bestest buddy and frequently debating opponent, at the Cornerstone Festival. Chris is a writer, so I pestered him to create a blog.

Nah, he said. I've already got a forum. Don't need another one. Yada yada yada.

So I was rather surprised to get this email from him:

"Hey Brad,

You'll never believe what I did:

http://faiththoughtswithmerlin.blogspot.com/

Yep, that's where you'll find my blog. I can't believe it did this. I mean, I carried on so much with you about my not wanting to share my thoughts with the e-world. Now this. You're having a bad influence on me. I think the world is coming to and end. And, for some weird, warped reason, it's kinda fun--not the world coming to an end, but having a blog. Thanks for corrupting my soul. :0)"

I hope you'll give Chris's new blog a look. He already has a couple of thoughtful posts.

Sitting Outside

I went to church today - sort of. I went but I didn't go in. I've done this three times during the last four weeks. I go with my wife and kids. My wife goes to the service, my kids go to their class, and I sit outside and read the Psalms. I'm up to Psalm 65 now.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this, except that for a long time now, the services have just left me flat. I go to church to worship God and commune with him, and it hasn't really been happening. I think it's happening for other people - my wife, for example - but not for me. So I sit outside and read Psalms.

And you know what? I'm coming away from it really deeply refreshed!

It is interesting to see David in these psalms. David crying over his sins. David proclaiming his innocence. David asking God to avenge him. David complaining that God has abandoned him. David rejoicing in God. It's David all over the place, just like us, and each Sunday God seems to speak through these words to my heart. Today I was really struck by Psalm 42:11:

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

I was a bit droopy this morning, and David's heart echoed mine and added that note of hope: "For I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Amen!

I'm well aware of the admonition in the book of Hebrews not to abandon meeting together with other believers, and I do meet with friends. I'm not trying to be rebellious, I just want to connect better with God, and that seems to be happening in this way.

I've thought that I could do this at home, but there's always something distracting at home. This hour is totally devoted to God, there's nobody around, the weather is warm, and I'm having a great time, though the activity seems a bit odd and I'm not sure for how long I'll do it.

Chopping Apart Psalm 23

I was reading today in the Psalms, and relating what I read to what I wrote earlier about the role of "story" in postmodern Christianity.

The Twenty-Third Psalm in particularly struck me (this is, of course, the wonderful "The Lord is my shepherd" psalm). It is so beautiful and speaks so deeply to my heart, and I wonder whether I would have the same great experience with it if I was to chop it apart verse by verse and try to understand it segment by segment. I think this is the objection postmodernists would pose toward looking at Psalm 23 in this manner.

And I'd agree with them. The answer is no. I would not have the same great experience. The story aspect of it would be ruined. I don't think it would speak to my heart in the same way at all. But on the other hand, in the past I have looked at it in that manner and pondered it verse by verse, and that has been good in a different way.

This kind of reinforces my feeling that looking at the scriptures as story shouldn't prevent us from looking for truths within the story. Sometimes I think we should simply read for the story, and at other times dig out the truths that lie within the story.

Perhaps those - like myself - who have mostly read the Bible for specific nuggets of truth should take a break and read the Bible as story and let it speak to our hearts instead of just to our minds. And perhaps others who read for story and how it speaks to their hearts should take an occasional break and dig for the truths that are contained in the passage.

Division of Labor

A friend told me about his church, which has a seniors group come in once a week and do all the prep work to set up for the children's Sunday school. The seniors come and have lunch together and assemble the crafts for the Sunday school teachers, then go home without having to deal with a bunch of squirrelly kids. Then, all the Sunday school teachers have to do is prepare their lessons and teach them. A nice division of labor.

Postmodern Christianity

At the Cornerstone Festival (mentioned earlier) I encountered what was described to me as "postmodern Christianity." My friend Chris - who is in the know about these kinds of things - described it to me, and I could see it reflected in some of the Cornerstone culture.

What is postmodern Christianity? Well, Chris and I discussed this on and off for a couple days, and I heard a talk that I would say was deeply influenced by postmodernism, and so now I have a clear understand about one aspect of it: it's vague. And quite likely it is intentionally vague.

Postmodern Christians seem to be deeply bothered by lists, or steps; by three-point outlines; by "Six Biblical Keys to Financial Freedom," and stuff like that, which I think appears to them to be a bit trite and simplistic. For example, one speaker said he asked a seminary student to list the steps to falling in love with a woman. He said the student came up with the first step (meeting the woman), but then puzzled over it and said that he wasn't sure that it was exactly a step-by-step process. Exactly! And neither, the speaker said, is our relationship with God a step-by-step process.

Also, Chris said, some postmodernists are kind of negative about "truth." It was unclear to me if they mean that truth is not always easy to grasp, or that it isn't worth pursuing, or that it doesn't exist. I heard a Christian speaker - not at Cornerstone - argue that we should hold our beliefs very lightly. I suspect some postmodernists find truth to be too much of a pat answer, kind of like lists. This is one aspect of postmodernist Chrsitianity I find very concerning.

So that's (apparently) part of what postmodern Christianity isn't, but what is it?

Well, Chris said it is about "story." And this was again echoed by the speaker. He said he had rejected his faith and was later brought back to it by the prologue to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He said that in the prologue Shakespeare outlined the story, beginning to end, and it got him to thinking about the essential elements of a story. I can't remember them all (he listed them), but they were something like: Beginning, Problem, Struggles, Climax, Resolution, and Ending. He said all good stories have these elements, and the human heart actually longs for this pattern. Then he got to thinking about the Bible, and how it precisely follows this pattern. He didn't exactly say this, but I got the feeling he meant that a book from God should follow this pattern - which matches the human heart - and the Bible does.

So it follows that the Bible should be read and understood as story, not as lists of principles.

Chris kinda filled this out for me. He said a postmodern Christian gathering focuses both on the story of the Bible and the story of the church members. People are given the opportunity to share their journey in faith.

A lot of this strikes me as very good. I too have sometimes heard a sermon draw five points from a passage of scripture that I don't believe contains those points. I, too, think there is a lot of value in reading the story parts of the Bible as story. And I totally love the idea of church groups giving a lot of time to letting people share their faith journeys. (A couple decades ago I think this was called, "sharing your testimony," and I've always been a bit saddened to see it fall by the wayside.)

But what concerns me about Christian postmodernism is the potential of falling off the other side of the horse. I believe Martin Luther told a story about a drunk who left the tavern, got on his horse and fell off the right side. Determined not to do that again, he got on the horse, leaned the other way, and promptly fell off the left side. The idea, of course, is to stay on the horse.

I think postmodernists should be careful not to go too far in their dislike for lists. Just because there are stories in the Bible - and it is a story - doesn't mean there aren't also lists. I mean, the Ten Commandments, for Pete's sake. Also, did you notice the speaker actually cited a list (the elements of a story) and indicated they were critical to his return to faith? Lists are important, even for postmodernists.

Also, I think there are difficulties in applying a story to one's life. I feel less certain of this because a story, as a story, can have a profound impact on people's lives, and maybe this is what postmodernists are counting on, but how do you - for example - take Jesus' short list on how to live (1. Love God, 2. Love your neighbor) and apply that to your life as a story. It's a list, dogone it! And it needs to be treated as such.

But the thing I find most scary is the notion (which I do not believe was shared by the speaker and hopefully is not shared by most postmodernists) that truth is something to be held lightly. Certainly there are debatable topics within Christianity, and I don't want to confuse peripheral issues with core issues, but I don't think that saying, "Well, I kinda believe in God for now," cuts it. When I hear something like that I think of James' condemnation (James 1:6-8) of those who are blown and tossed by the wind, who are double-minded and unstable.

Cornerstone Festival

I mentioned earlier that I went to the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois in early July. The large (25,000 people?), four-day Christian festival is held near Bushnell (a very small town) and features alternative (read "very hard") rock music with a major punk emphasis. While not my style, I was impressed by one of the bands, called Kutless. Quite hard, but if you like your music that way, very good. I also liked one of the small-stage bands, a world music group called Madison Greene. The one rap group at the festival, called Grits, was also very good. Amazingly, it was one of the softer toned groups at the fest.

For most of the time, I wore my earplugs, and felt a bit out of fashion until I saw a guy with a felt marker stuck through his earlobe who also had earplugs in. Then I felt right in style.

The son of the friend who invited me, a great Christian kid, really liked the harder stuff, including the mosh pits. He explained to me the difference between a Christian mosh pit and a non-Christian one: In a Christian mosh pit, he said, they don't hit you as hard and they help you up if they knock you down. Hmmm. I really have to think about that one.

Anyway, aside from music, there was an art festival and some rather academic lectures by various speakers, well known and otherwise. I attended a session on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Whoda thunk you'd find lectures on those guys at a Christian festival - and they were packed, standing room only. The lecturer bent over (too far) backwards to be fair to these guys, but I didn't warm up to either of them - especially not the Christian-hating Nietzsche.

Though the music was not my style, and I don't wear my hair spiked, I did not at all feel intimidated. In fact, I felt oddly at home, because the spirit - music and mosh pits notwithstanding - was gentle and kind.

Coffee Outreach

I recently got back from the Cornerstone Festival in northern Illinois. It's a four-day Christian music and teaching festival featuring mostly very hard rock bands. Not at all my style (though clearly it was other people's style). One thing that struck me (I'll have some more comments over the next few days) was a coffee shop.

It was in a tent (like everything else) and was called Alliance World Coffees, from Muncie, Indiana. My friend (with whom I attended the concert) and I got talking with one of the employees of the shop, and it turns out that this coffee shop is an outreach of the Muncie Alliance Church.

The idea is to open coffee shops in various cities and then have Bible studies in the evenings, and from those studies eventually form churches. Pretty cool idea!

Outreach By Hobby

I was just visiting a friend in Central California who told me about his church. Sounds like a nice church, in general, but what really struck me was that it has what you might call outreach-by-hobby.

The specific example he gave me was that the church sponsors a quilting group. By way of contrast, my church has support groups for people going through various kinds of trials: a cancer support group; a parents of ADD children group, etc. That's good, but this is a great addition. Not everybody is going through a trial for which they need support, but there are lots of people who have hobbies they'd like to share: quilting, bike riding, bridge, woodworking, model railroading, cooking, kite flying, scuba diving, painting, camping, and a thousand others.

When I heard about the church-sponsored quilting group, it occurred to me how much easier it would be to invite someone with a common interest to a group that shares that interest, rather than inviting them to church, which may be for many an alien and intimidating environment.

I think it would be great for churches to sponsor as many of these hobby groups as there are knowledgeable and competent church members to lead them, and for which the church can provide a solid core of members.

But how can these groups be a stepping stone to faith? Well, the church could let hobby groups meet in its facilities, thus making the church building a little more familiar and a little less intimidating to newcomers. Also, the hobby groups could start with a prayer. But most importantly, as the Christian members interact among themselves in a godly manner, and as they show kindness and develop friendships with the non-Christian members of the group, I think opportunities to share Christ or to invite people to church would naturally and comfortably arise.

Unrequested Advice for Grads

Not that anybody asked me, but I'm going to give a word of advice to college and high school grads from someone who has been out of college and high school longer than he cares to mention and has made the mistake he doesn't want you to make. Here's my one bit of advice:

Don't loose track of your friends!

I know you think you'll stay in touch, but things happen, you get busy, and probably you'll slip. People will move and forget to let you know, or get married and change their names. So, in addition to getting their current email address, phone and mailing address, learn your friend's parents' names, address and phone number (parents are a bit more settled and less apt to move around). Learn your friends' full names. Is it Kim or Kimberly or Kimberlee? What are their middle names? (Believe me, it's a lot easier to find a John Danforth Smith than it is to find a John Smith). Then sign up with something like Classmates.com.

In 10 or 15 years you may be very glad you did this.

Christian Community Service

When I was in college I was part of a campus ministry similar to Campus Crusade for Christ. Overall, it was pretty great, but when I got out of college ... nothing. Well, not really nothing. I became part of a good church, but I miss the fellowship and focus of an outwardly-focused organization devoted to bringing Christ to the world.

So I think it would be great if there was a non-denominational organization devoted to 1) Christian growth, 2) mutual support, and 3) local community service - kind of a cross between Campus Crusade and the Lions Club.

Christian Community Service (or whatever it's called) could be a regular dues-paying club that meets once a week for lunch or dinner at a restaurant. There would be teaching, prayer and fellowship, and members would help each other out in times of need. Then, every month or three, CCS would have a community work day. It would arrange with the local parks department to plant flowers at a park, or with the school district to paint classrooms at a local school, or with other local service organizations to do repair work at low income homes. It could raise money to provide scholarships to students from the local high school or to buy playground equipment. The object of these good works - aside from the obvious one of benefitting the community - would be to get Christians out, mingling as Christians with their neighbors and other members of the community, creating friendships with non-Christians, showing love to the community, and hopefully, providing opportunities to share about Christ.

Bible Updating

I have several friends and acquaintences who are missionaries around the world, some of whom are involved in Bible translation, and a few of them involved in Bible updating, which, oddly, seems to be kind of new ground.

The premier Bible translation organization is Wycliffe Bible Translators, which is working hard to translate the Bible into languages that have never had it.

But where is the organization devoted to Bible updating? From what I've heard, some of the translations in use around the world now sound absurdly old-fashioned, and therefore don't communicate well with their intended audience.

A while ago I found an old Wycliffe handbook about Bible translation. To a layman's eye, it seemed like good stuff, though it was an old book, so it was a bit out of date. I'm sure Wycliffe now has more up-to-date versions.

That's great, but where is the handbook on Bible updating?

I'm not at all suggesting Wycliffe change it's approach; what it's doing is vital. What I'm thinking is that maybe there needs to be an organization with the expertise that Wycliffe has, but for updating Bibles. There needs to be an organization to set good standards for updating, and an organization that keeps electronic copies of the new translations as backups. (The first step in updating seems frequently to be keying the old translation into the computer. That's understandable, but it would be a serious mistake to have to do that twice.)

Just a thought...

Keeping the Faith

I'm really impressed with Ahmer Khokhar, the man profiled in this article. The pressure he overcame to become - and remain - a Christian are an inspiration to me. On the other hand, the casual "whatever works for you" attitude of some Christians depicted in the article discourage me. Maybe he has paid a price for his faith and holds it dear, while they have paid no price for it, and treat it like an old dishcloth.

Squares and Odd Shapes

I just finished an excellent book called Measuring America, by Andro Linklater. It's hard to believe a book about surveying and measurement could be fascinating, but it was. The book, which actually included a lot of information about measurement in Europe, makes the very interesting point that the way land was divided in the northern and western U.S. states was one of the main reasons for the great economic growth of those areas, while the different way it was divided in the southern states hindered economic growth.

In the North it was divided into (with some sloppy exceptions) exact six-mile squares, while in the South it was cut up any which way depending on what land a purchaser wanted to buy. This, of course, was harder to survey, and thus more prone to mistakes, and for that reason there have been unending and expensive boundary disputes in the southern states.

Lots more good stuff, but that's a taste.

Analog vs Digital

I recently bought a watch. My old digital kept resetting itself to midnight, January 1.

I'm kind of out of it, fashion wise, but what struck me while shopping was the large number of analog (big hand, little hand) watches that are available. I bought one, which kind of surprised me.

As I think about why I chose analog over digital, I think part of the reason is nostalgia, but there are other, more practical reasons. I wonder if the precision of digital watches (It's nine fifty seven and twenty seconds, a.m.) had become a bit annoying. Analogs are a bit more casual. More relaxed. You can certainly read them with about as much precision as a digital, but it's a trifle more difficult. Instead of saying it's nine fifty seven, I find myself thinking, "It's about 10 o'clock." I think the reason for this is you can actually see the hands approaching the hour mark, which you don't see with digitals.

Another even more practical benefit is the ease of setting analogs. Pull the stem out, twist, then push the stem back in. That's it! For years, every time I wanted to set my digital, I had to read the instructions: Press button A to enter time-set mode, be careful not to enter chronograph mode, press button B and then button C until the right number is showing and be careful not to go past it because it doesn't go backwards. Press, press, press until your finger is sore.

Welcome back, analog!

Google, Dieters and Carrots

I read with great interests, as I'm sure a lot of people did, the news that Google plans an initial public offering. One of the somewhat odd things they're doing is refusing to predict results on a quarterly basis. I think that's wise and I hope other companies take their lead.

Google co-founder Larry Page wrote in a "Letter from the Founders" included in the company's filing with the SEC, that, "A management team distracted by a series of short-term targets is as pointless as a dieter stepping on a scale every half hour."

Hmm. While I like the sentiment, I think Page's dieter analogy isn't quite strong enough. I prefer this one, which I heard in relation to growing in the Christian life, but I think applies equally well here. So let me re-craft Page's analogy it its image:

"A management team distracted by a series of short-term targets is as bad as a gardener who pulls up his carrots every day to see how they're growing."

I think this analogy makes clear that it's not just distracting and a waste of time, but positively unhealthy.

Prayer Ads

Quite a while ago I went to a church because I saw it's ad in the newspaper and I happened to be looking for a church. When I told someone there I came because of the ad, he was astonished. Nobody had every come before because of the ad. While I'm sure some people do pick a church from an ad, I doubt that very many do. While this might suggest that churches simply should not run newspaper ads, I think before they stop they ought to give it another try - but do it differently, with a bit more creativity, and a bit more committment behind it.

What if a church ran an ad something like this:



It is nothing but an offer to pray. Readers don't have to come to the church or do anything except let the church know what they would like prayed for. For that reason alone I think an ad like this might be attractive. But also, I think all the white space in the ad - in addition to being practical - would grab the eye. Finally, this ad requires a reliable prayer team at the church that will take the requests seriously. Otherwise it would just be a bad joke.