The Gospel Is Better than Nice

So this is pretty old by now, but still relevant (is that even possible?!?!):

A vocal minority claims that the film Avatar is racist on a fundamental level because it propagates the archetypal white man coming in as the messiah of the savages.

"It's really upsetting in many ways," said Avatar star Robinne Lee, who is black with Jamaican and Chinese ancestry. "It would be nice if we could save ourselves."

It would be, but we never can. And as "upsetting in many ways" as that is, we must accept the bad news before we can receive the good news.

*Let the record show that Jesus is not white.

The Primary Purposes of Church Music

1. to aid the memorization of doctrine and scripture
2. to facilitate active participation in united confessions of faith
3. to stir the affections for Christ

I try and let these shape every worship service I lead. Are there more? 

Nevertheless...

Conjunctions are so important. "I generally believe in pacifism, nevertheless I must kill you now, for you have eaten the last pink Starburst."

I believe Jesus' prayer in the Garden would have been incomplete had he merely said, "Thy will be done." You know, as if he was supposed to just man up and John Wayne the Passion. Just put on your poker face and stare down the Enemy. No, Jesus didn't suppress his own identity in order to glorify His Father's. Instead, along with his unconditional surrender to the perfect will of His Father, Jesus also disclosed His own hurts, fears, and desires to His Daddy. I think this is VITAL for us as we think about what it means to live in relationships where authority and submission come into play. Jesus modeled this perfectly by making not only His surrender but also His vulnerability complete. He may have stood silent before his mockers, but not so before the True Judge. Jesus knew and even said that Pilate held no power over Him, but His plea was loud and clear to the One in Whom authority did rest. "I don't want this!" But a real man knows his place.

Nevertheless... Your will be done.

We often think that submitting to authority subverts our individuality. This is not so. It only prioritizes it according to what will bring God the most glory. I hate that the words "dominate" and "Lord" have etymological ties (domini), but Jesus showed us a different way to view "Lord." He hearkened his ear to the cry of His beloved. He had compassion upon the harassed and helpless. All authority (dominion) in heaven and on earth belonged to Him, and so He used that position to have Himself brutally murdered for the sake of our needs. That's not domination - that's lordship.

On her best days, when my wife comes to me for something, she comes having already committed to follow my lead as a fully invested supporter. But that doesn't mean she has to agree with me or keep her opinions to herself. In fact, she knows that my devotion to her means that she has more influence than anyone else in my life, and I will only tell her no when I can see no other alternative. She trusts me in that and so she feels free to be both vulnerable and submitted at the same time. She should have nothing to hide. It would grieve me to know that she had ever withheld her feelings from me in the name of obedience to me. Now translate that to your own prayer life (hint: you're the bride).

Postscript - I can sympathize with people who would prefer an egalitarian approach to marriage on the basis of having seen this trust continually violated. Nevertheless, I believe complementarian marriage reflects a very Biblical model of these relationships - both the complete vulnerability of the beloved and the final accountability of the lover for having seen to her well-being over and above his own.  Jesus, as his Father's beloved and His beloved's Husband, modeled both positions FLAWLESSLY. Let us imitate Him in whatever role we might play.

Cities Apart

Several years ago I met a quiet curly-headed kid who could shred on the guitar. He's now one of my truest friends, and I can't imagine life without him. A couple of years ago, we began writing some worship songs together, and then with the support of our church, we began the recording process. On March 5th, we will release Cities Apart. I'm really proud of this work, and I hope it's a blessing to everyone who purchases it. The profits will support refugees in Memphis. We're not making a huge deal out of that for fear of exploiting our brothers and sisters, but we do want people to know that the object of our affection is the Lord whose concern is for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner, and so we're putting your money where our heart is.

You can become a fan on Facebook to stay updated,

Or visit www.citiesapartband.com.

Andrew Peterson, Tolkien Style

"I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn’t beautiful in the first place. We aren’t writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can’t begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it’s only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there’s no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars." - Andrew Peterson

If you liked that but you've never read "Leaf, by Niggle" (pronounced Ni'juhl), check out J.R.R. Tolkien's heart-wrenching short story celebrating an artist's journey into sanctification.

The Sci-fi Writers of the 20th Century Would Flip.

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip, calls today's humans "cyborgs."

“If a cyborg can remove its digital eye and leave it on a shelf as a surveillance device, and I think we all agree that it can, then your cellphone qualifies as part of your body.” He sees the phone as an exobrain: “Your regular brain uses your exobrain to outsource part of its memory, and perform other functions, such as GPS navigation, or searching the internet. If you’re anything like me, your exobrain is with you 24-hours a day.” - via moreintelligentlife.com


Implications? I'm thinking many.

Tweeders

There's an implied element to Twitter that is conspicuously ignored in its language. Can there be so many followers without leaders? Are you willing to admit that following someone means you're allowing them to lead you in some way? Are your own tweets leading anyone anywhere worth going?

The Insufficiency of Time

"Time heals all wounds"

Who said it? It's not in the Bible. Most would attribute this proverb to Chaucer, who actually got it wrong here. It's vaguely comforting; it's just not really very true. It's the kind of popular line people pull out when they are groping around in their ill-stocked memories for something compassionate to say to a grieving friend (a good reason to memorize Scripture). When I look back on some of the things I did and said in my teens, I often ease my regret and disgust with the thought that these events occurred over ten years ago and I'm a different person now. I can forgive myself for having been so daft and coarse. On a much smaller scale, if I can keep myself from gnawing my nails for a week, I often look at my former nail-biting self as a sort of monster, far removed from the civil human I am now.

But let me ask you this: if the man were caught today who had murdered your brother ten years ago, would you accept his version of that defense? "I was a different person then. Time has healed this wound. I am not responsible for what that young man I was once did so long ago." A general rule of jurisprudence is that if the argument only sounds good when you're using it to defend yourself, then it's probably not a good argument.

Time cannot erase consequences. It cannot separate you from culpability that you have earned for yourself. It cannot make you into a different person. In fact, most often time festers wounds, multiplies bitterness, and hardens hearts. Time is no friend to the hurting. That's why Hell is such a believable reality to me.

But Jesus IS a friend to the hurting. And if you'll let Him, He will take that time, along with all the mess that is your life and He will forgive and recreate every bit of it.

He will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
   from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
   from all the earth.
            The LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 25:8

"Be very careful then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, and redeeming the time, for these days are wicked." Ephesians 5:15-16

Nietzsche is Dead. God is Risen. Christ Will Come Again.

Nietzsche misidentified the body of the god whom he pronounced dead. His philosophy had successfully attacked and killed the Supreme Ontology of Greek metaphysics, not Yahweh of the Jews. Easy mistake to make, considering the contagious Neoplatonist conceptions of the God of Scripture found in Origen and Augustine. In fact, the Great I AM had his own people to kill him, but that was 1900 years prior to Nietzsche, and unlike the philosopher's own demise, Jesus' death just didn’t take.

I wish you a very surprising Epiphany today. 

What Happens When I Read Descartes in the Morning

The attempt to divorce reason from revelation is itself irrational. Reason cannot exist without revelation because a grammar cannot generate its subject. Reason is form and not content, which is to say it can only contain something that exists independently of it. The life of the mind is an attempt to make sense of that with which it has been confronted. The mind is an operating system; revelation is a series of programs. The ability of reason to arrive at Truth is contingent upon:

a.) the furnishing of sufficient and reliable premises by an outside source,
b.) one’s ability to receive these revelations accurately, and
c.) one's ability to interpret and meaningfully combine these to produce useful conclusions.

I think an honest and humble assessment will show that this is an uncommon confluence of circumstances. Our mental logic boards are filled with viruses and there's a lot of bad information out there to begin with. God help us.

Recent Logos/Ethos/Pathos Sighting

Calvinist philosopher John Frame claims that knowledge has three perspectives to it: the normative perspective, situational perspective, and existential perspective.

1. The normative perspective asks, “What do God’s norms [the Bible] direct us to believe?”
2. The situational perspective asks, “What are the facts?”
3. The existential perspective asks, “What belief is most satisfying to a believing heart?”

Sounds an awful lot like:

1. ethos (ought = goodness)
2. logos (facts = truth)
3. pathos (satisfaction = beauty)

 I'm sure Mr. Frame cited my blog in his dissertation, so I won't bother to check. Although I am a little miffed that he botched the order. Amateur.