Bumper Stickers

I once heard Demetri Martin say, "I love bumper stickers because they allow me to spot a jerk from a distance." I think that's both funny and true. The vast majority of bumper stickers I see are extremely polarizing. They're almost always either eye-rollingly liberal, or make-me-wanna-puke ultra-conservative.

"Trees are the answer" (Maybe, but what's the question?)
"War is not the answer" (What if the question is, "What did congress declare after Pearl Harbor?")
"Love is the answer" (Especially if you attended Woodstock)
"Jesus is the answer" (to every Sunday school question EVER)
"Coexist" (Translation: I'm a pluralist who thinks all roads lead to nirvana)
"Support Our Troops" (often a conservative's choice, as opposed to...)
"Support Our Troops by bringing them home" (often a liberal's choice)
"Don't blame me, I voted for [opponent of the most recent president for whichever party they hate]" (Most commonly inserted names: Gore, Kerry, McCain)
"Native" (I think this example is unique to Colorado? This sticker is similar to the condescension of natives from Hawaii who say, "I grew here, you flew here")
"I navigate using NOAA charts" (Yes, I actually saw this one [NOAA stands for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. I really have no idea what it means)
"God is dead -- Nietzsche" (The athiest's choice)
"Nietzsche is dead -- God" (The evangelical-who-thinks-he's-funny's choice - but at least this one's true, and sort of humorous)
"Jesus was NOT a republican" (Which is true, but makes me think about how stating other anachronistic fallacies don't work as bumper stickers: "Julius Caesar did NOT own a wristwatch!" or "I could beat Einstein at halo")

I also hate bumper stickers that make sense ONLY to the person who owns them. A sticker on your car that says "RD" or "J.A.Z." doesn't promote anything, it just takes up space on your otherwise nice car. People have to know what you're referring to for it to be promotional.

The bumper stickers I love are funny ones that make absolutely no moral or political statements at all. I saw a Jeep the other day with a sticker that was upside down and backwards that said, "If you can read this, flip me over!" I thought it was funny.

The unfortunate thing is that I am drawn very strongly to bumper stickers and I want to read every one I see. This usually causes me to judge a person (because they're usually of the polarizing variety listed above). But sometimes, like in the case of the upside down and backwards sticker, it simply ends up being dangerous, because I have to get close enough to read it, and I have to take my eyes off the road to read it. I swear the closest I ever come to getting into an accident is when I'm trying to read bumper stickers (not that I come close to getting in accidents very often -- don't worry).

WARNING: CHANGE OF TOPIC

Why are drivers so awful? I'm a pretty good driver, and it takes almost NO real effort on my part for that to be true. Yet rarely does a day go by that I don't encounter a driver doing something stupid and unsafe.

We love to pass laws about driving to make things safer, but I think the roads would be safest if we just required people to demonstrate some basic safe-driving ability before giving them a license! It'd probably take 70% of Denverites off the road instantly, which has the further advantages of reducing pollution and shortening commute times!

(That was my high-horse. Stepping down now...)

Parenthood

NBC's new show Parenthood has quickly become a favorite of mine. If you haven't seen it yet, it's on Tuesdays after The Biggest Loser, which doesn't matter if you only watch TV from your DVR or on hulu (because then it's on whenever you want!).

Anyway, I like it. A lot. And you should too.

If you watch it, what do you think of it?

RMNP

Wednesday afternoon we drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park, because a) National Parks are free this week (through Sunday, I think), b) that's the closest one to us, and c) it's one of the prettiest places I've ever been.

We had a really great hike, but we didn't get all the way to the summit of our trail because the trail became covered in snow as we went up in elevation, and we don't have the proper gear for hiking through deep snow. We also didn't continue along the trail because the forecast called for a lot of rain, and it looked like it was moving in pretty quickly. Fortunately for us, we made it back to the car, then we drove through the park for a ways and got to see some pretty views, and it wasn't until we were leaving the park that it began to rain.

Here are just a few of the photos from our hike and drive. In the third photo you can really see the darkening clouds start to swallow up the mountains. That was happening right before we made our way back down and out of the park.

love and hate

Joel Willitts shares a few thoughts on the popular Christian saying, "Love the sinner, hate the sin."

Check it out.

What do you think?

Personal mail IS AWESOME

There's someone named Emily who is really cool who writes a blog that I regularly read. I would describe my relationship to Emily, but I'm pretty sure 97% of you reading this are part of either her family or mine (or BOTH!) and don't need to be told.

Emily recently sent hand-written letters to my wife and I, because she's awesome. Mine was even Dallas Cowboys-themed because she knows I'm a fan. How sweet, and wonderfully personalized. Even though I wasn't the winner of the special grand prize contest, I enjoyed my just-for-me letter more than just about any other mail I've gotten in quite some time.

Thanks, Em!!

The new guy

We got a new couch. We're really excited about it. Our old couch was great and served us well... but it was dying and sagging and starting to make our backs hurt when we lounged for any period of time.

BEFORE

AFTER!!!

Future history

I often find myself thinking like a historian. That makes sense, because I majored in history in college, and I minored in religion (which includes a LOT of historical study) and now I'm working on a Master's degree in Biblical Studies -- also very historical in nature.

One thing that I learned in college was how true it is that the more you learn about history, the more you realize how little we actually know.

Sometimes I wonder what historians in the future will think about the early 21st Century. In a lot of ways, they'll be in much better shape, because things are documented in much more detail now than they were in centuries of the past. Things like recorded video and audio are just two examples of media that future historians will be able to watch and listen to in order to develop an idea of what life was like in "what was known in 2010 as the United States of America." In fact I read a story yesterday about an announcement that the Library of Congress is digitally archiving and preserving every public tweet that has been sent since twitter began a few years ago.

Thoughts like these cross my mind sometimes when I blog something or tweet it or facebook it. The other day I tweeted, "I'm excited that Thursday marks the last day those silly statues of liberty will be dancing on every street corner." You probably know exactly what I'm talking about, because you live in this country and you drive around occasionally, and you probably have some Liberty Tax Service locations nearby where you see the same kinds of people I do trying to promote the service, dressed as the Statue of Liberty and dancing around for attention. But think about it from the perspective of a historian who lives in the year 2350, or something like that. What does that statement mean?

Future historian: "Well, this was written only a decade into the 21st Century, when the Machine Age was still rather young. Perhaps there were robots built to look like the Statue of Liberty (after all, this was a fairly patriotic period for the United States -- the terrorist attacks of 9/11 had happened only 9 years earlier, and the country had just elected its first African American [okay, HALF African American] President). But why would they be dancing on the street corner? Well, we can see that the "Thursday" in question would have been the 15th of April, 2010. What was significant that happened on that day? Not really much. It was the anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league sports. We also know that April 15th used to be known as 'Tax Day' in the U.S. when citizens would have to file taxes. Ah! So maybe these robots danced around as a signal of celebration for the end of the tax season? But the author says he's 'excited' that the dancing won't continue after a few days. We know that hanging out on 'street corners' during this period often signified the prostitution of women. Perhaps these dancing robots were seductive, scantily-clad women-robots? Yes! That must be it."

Now, this "future historian"'s conclusions sound kind of goofy to us, but think about a lot of our conclusions about life 500 years ago. Do you think present-day historians would sound pretty goofy to them? That's really the best you can do as a historian. Try to put together pieces of a puzzle, even though  the vast majority of the pieces are missing!

Anyway, these are the kinds of things I think about sometimes. You should take a look at some of the things on your own blog or facebook page and think about what historians of the future might conclude about them.

Foot and End Notes

Last night I was complaining to Elizabeth about endnotes. I hate endnotes. You have to flip to the back of the book (or chapter) to try and find the source the author is citing or referring to. It's terribly annoying.

I think Elizabeth was in an argumentative mood, so she told me she liked endnotes. "Get 'em all out of the way," she said, "put 'em at the end."
"You only think that because you don't read the notes," I said.
"Yep," she replied.
Still trying to be right, I said, "But don't you like it when footnotes take up 1/4 or more of a page and then you actually have to read less than the page count of your assignment?"
"I only like that if it's reading I have to do for a class," she told me.
So I asked her, "How often do you read books with footnotes or endnotes that aren't assigned to you?"
She said, "Ok, never."
I gloated a little, and her response made me laugh for a long time:
"Well, I'm glad I fell into your spidery trap."

Dealing with Disappointment in the church

As you know, it's not uncommon for me to link to Kevin DeYoung's blog when he posts things I think are particularly good.

He's just finished up a 3-part series on disappointment in the church (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

None of them is too long, so check it out.

Debunking Seminary myths

It seems that lately I’ve come across a pretty large group of people (most of them fellow Christians, and many of them from my own church family) who have some fairly strong negative opinions about seminary that don’t appear to be grounded in their own personal experience or really anything else.

Myth 1: Going to seminary takes away your passion for ministering in the Kingdom of God and replaces it with sterile, lifeless academic study about the Bible.

This myth usually manifests itself in some snide comment to me like, “Well don’t let seminary ruin your faith,” or this actual example, “Like my dad always said, ‘There are an awful lot of people who know a whole lot but they don’t really get it. Make sure you get it.’” That’s all fine, I suppose, except that these comments imply that seminary is the only place on the planet where one’s faith can be shaken. The idea that seminary can “ruin your faith” is no more true than the idea that a Christian college can, or working for Focus on the Family can, or ATTENDING A CHURCH can.

Professors at the seminary I attend have mentioned that they’ve had students who have gone through the program there and earned their degrees who do end up “falling away” from the faith. Far more often, however, that is NOT the case. I think of friends of mine who went to Young Life with me every week in high school. I look on their facebook pages today to realize that that Christian teaching didn’t exactly stick for them (or so it would seem). The same could be said of college friends who were very active in InterVarsity and Campus Ministries. I’m sure most of us could think of an adult or two who used to attend a church regularly and profess to be a Christian, but has since experienced some kind of frustration and no longer claims Christ.

The vast majority of my classmates at seminary are anything but lifeless. You don’t spend the kind of money we’re spending on a Christian education if you don’t believe anything you’re being taught. These people truly desire to serve the Lord through vocational ministry and believe that intense study of the Bible and theology and philosophy and leadership will better equip them for doing so. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Almost all of the MDiv students I know have internships, part-time, even full-time ministry jobs at local churches in addition to their class load. Many of them have already had ministry jobs for years and have now been called to seminary to grow in their abilities so that they can graduate and then go back to ministry jobs. Sterile? Lifeless? Hardly.

Myth 2: Seminary is overrated and unnecessary.

I hesitate to call this one false, though I’d like to clarify it a little. First I would say that in my opinion it is NOT overrated, simply because in my experience it doesn’t really even seem to be rated! Unnecessary might be true depending on how you’re using it. If you mean unnecessary in the sense that the very idea of a seminary is unnecessary, I would argue with you. If you just mean that it’s not always necessary for pastors at every level to have attended an accredited institution and earned an MDiv, I absolutely agree.

I tend to think that good, true, fruit-bearing ministry can be done by just about anyone, regardless of education level. I do believe, however, that it is important for our head pastors and preaching pastors to have a solid biblical and pastoral education (just like I would also think it important for a college history professor to have a solid foundation in history and education). Whether that’s done in a seminary or in a different venue makes little difference. I recently read a really interesting article on how much more beneficial it would be to the church if our congregations provided solid biblical education classes to up-and-coming pastors, rather than sending them away to a seminary for a few years where they would be 1) disconnected from that congregation for that period, and 2) probably going into debt. I’m not against that idea, but as long as that’s not happening in congregations across the country, it seems like seminary is a fine alternative.

Myth 3: Seminary is filled with academics who have all kinds of grand theories and Bible knowledge, but know nothing about real life down-and-dirty ministry.

First, a word of clarification: Not everyone attending seminary is doing so with a call to the pastorate on their hearts. The biggest program at the seminary I attend is actually its MA in Counseling. I’m working on an MA in Biblical Studies (an academic degree designed primarily for those looking to continue on in Ph.D. work and/or enter  a teaching field). We also have MAs in Philosophy of Religion, Theology, Leadership, Christian Studies, and more. The degree that most future pastors are working toward is an MDiv. I think it’s important to start with this understanding.

Of course there are academics in seminary. It’s graduate school. Pretty much every level of education beyond high school is filled with what we call “academics.” Many of the academics at my seminary are former pastors. Some are current pastors. Almost all of them preach AND teach regularly at local churches, and ALL are at least involved in local church ministries. Probably the most “academic” professor on campus is an active member of an inner-city Denver church where the ministry couldn’t be more “down and dirty.” Even if this weren’t the case, though, many of the classes a student takes at seminary are not primarily geared toward the practices of pastoral ministry. I hope we can agree that it’s good to have an “academic” teaching New Testament Greek (assuming you’d like to learn it well). Same with Church History. Same with the Gospels and Acts, Biblical Interpretation, and the Epistles and Revelation. Any of these courses could be taught and taught quite well at a secular graduate school. The fact that my graduate school is an evangelical seminary just makes it even better, because the academics that teach them have pastoral hearts and are full of grace and love.

There’s probably some truth to the idea that some professors lack a few pieces of “real world” sense. I’m sure it’s true that many pastoral theories don’t completely work in every situation. But that’s also true everywhere else in all of education. You simply have to take solid teaching for what it is, and rely on your own experience and the experience and advice of your mentors in the field for many of the curveballs that lie ahead of you. It’s naive and more than a little silly to think that seminary students and professors believe that with the right classroom education they’ll be able to step into any church in the world and run it flawlessly with no messes or mistakes.

Nicholas Sparks: Gag me with a spoon.

When I was in college a female friend of mine overheard me bad-mouthing Nicholas Sparks (I probably wasn't really "bad-mouthing" him at the time, because I didn't know anything except that he wrote the book that A Walk to Remember was based on, which I'd watched and thought was cheesy). This friend loaned me the book and told me not to judge until I'd read his amazing work. I read the book in an hour or two... and thought it was cheesier than the movie.

Since then I've seen one other movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book (and I didn't realize it was based on his book until afterward). It was Nights in Rodanthe. It was worse than A Walk to Remember. I've also seen probably most of The Notebook (in bits and pieces here and there... never more than a half-hour chunk of it at once). As far as I can tell, it's pretty much the same.

But apparently, in a recent interview, Nicholas Sparks criticized such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen, and William Shakespeare because they write predictable romances that are all basically the same story over and over again. He writes "love stories," not romances.

THIS is a very, very funny article that puts multiple Nicholas Sparks books/movies side by side and compares their story lines. They're all pretty much identical. It's hilarious, and I encourage you to spend a few minutes and read it.

As a teaser, check out the image below, describing the complex steps of putting together a Nicholas Sparks screenplay.

the storm is more or less over

Today I had my "James panel." After you turn in your James paper, you sit with another person or two in front of the entire class and they ask you all the interpretive and exegetical questions they have about your passage... and you're supposed to know the answers.

It went well.

Afterwards those of us on the panel got to go out to a restaurant with our professor and her son and another couple of friends. It was great. So nice of her to treat us to that. It's nice because after you've turned in your paper and done your panel, there's not a whole lot left to the class, so you can kinda sit back and relax.

Which is, hopefully, what I'll be able to do a little more of in the next couple of weeks.  It has been CRAZY for awhile.

Exhausted

I'm tired. I slept for one hour last night. It was really not last night. It was from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. this morning. Why didn't I sleep more? I had to finish my exegetical paper on James 4:1-12. It's a 30-40 page beast that requires a pretty solid knowledge of New Testament Greek, and advanced exegetical and interpretive skill. I don't really have those things. Therefore, this super difficult paper was even harder.

I've been working on it nonstop for more than a week. Haven't hardly seen my wife (who's been a complete saint through it all). Haven't hardly slept. Haven't hardly eaten.

But it's over now. I turned it in this morning. I do not have a good feeling about it. But it's over. Now I can sleep. And eat. And see my wife (except she's been working all evening tonight, and goes back again at 8:30 tomorrow morning).

And yes, I can blog again.

P.S. Does anyone think it's totally awesome that if you hover your mouse over the scripture passages on my blog you can read the verses they reference? I do.