A Hot Line

There has been a hot line that a professor that I am studying under keeps saying. I am calling it hot because it rubs some people the wrong way and some people absolutely love it. The line reads as follows...

"The Gospels are just passion narratives with extended introductions."

Does this bother you? Do you love this line? Why or why not? Can you see why it might bother somebody or why somebody might love this?

If you get a chance, I would love to hear your thoughts on this controversial comment.

I attached some of the newest photography that Whitney has added to her site.

A Special Reflection

To the 2006 Detroit Tigers,
The loss yesterday continued this deep sense of processing that I have done through the lens of our 2006 team… While one of my dad’s favorite memories is dancing with me as a toddler in 1984 after we won the World Series, I was too young to remember. I do, however, remember 1987 and Trammell and Whitaker, and I do remember Cecil Fielder and his 50 home runs, but I do not have many memories of winning very many baseball games. However, the beautiful part of this letter happens now, this past year, up until this moment. Much has happened in my life since the beginning of spring training 2006. As we were beginning the season, typical male blather seemed to fill conversations regarding our team. Many of us continued in skepticism, but some of us had a much more positive outlook on the team. (I, however, was one of the highest of skeptics!) While the story of the Tigers was continuing in spring training, my story was also continuing and taking some sharp turns. (Similar to the Tigers…) I was applying for graduate school, (contemplating leaving Michigan for this graduate school) and we had never been more uncertain of my mom’s health. I remember as the season started off well, I continued in my skepticism, even making bets against our team. (I figured that it would be easy money, and if I lost the bets, I figured that I would be delighted to pay… I suppose that it was probably a protection mechanism of sorts.) While we were beating all of the teams that we were supposed to beat, we were losing to the “good” teams. This was my defense within this community that was forming over our team this year. Every day we would always talk about the game and keep up on all of the happenings. By this time, I had been accepted into graduate school and began telling people that my wife and I would be moving to California. It was hard telling people that we were leaving. Really hard. My mom’s health had leveled out, but we were still uncertain of the future. This was hard as well. It was also hard to contain my excitement as a Tiger fan as you continued to win games into the month of August. I started doing the math and realized that we were probably going to make the playoffs. I am sorry to say, but this math led me to shed the skin of skepticism. I was so excited. I remember going to the cottage up in Baldwin to fish with a couple of the buddies that made up our secret Tigers fan club. I pretended that I was still skeptical, but really, my heart was enthralled for our team. That weekend we fished, threw some cards, drank some beer, and talked Detroit baseball. It was a marvelous time. We couldn’t wait to potentially be watching Tiger baseball in October. Around that same time my wife and I were packing boxes. Bubble wrap, cardboard, and tape enveloped our lives. We were making rental truck plans to move across the country, we were attending good bye parties (which also included my sister and saying good bye to her moving to the Dominican Republic at the same time my wife and I were moving), I had best man responsibilities as my best buddy was getting married, and life seemed so uncertain. We welcomed this uncertainty as our baseball season also became uncertain. We started losing games. It was crazy. We began to question the division, and then we began to even question the playoffs. This didn’t last long as the White Sox fell back and we knew that the play offs were a certainty. It also looked like the division would also be ours as the Royals were coming into town. What the hell happened that weekend? By the third game, I was watching in Los Angeles through the internet, and we had all the momentum. Inge hit a bomb, tears, literally fell from my eyes as we were going to win the division, but it fell foul. And we lost the damn game. I was pissed. I could not believe that we had just been swept by the flipping Kansas City Royals and had lost the division. I thought that the season was ruined. We were now going to go to have to play the Yankees in the first round, and this dream of a season was going to be over before we knew it. I am sorry for losing hope. We were now settled in California. My wife and I both had jobs and classes had begun. We had said our goodbyes, and we were now saying hello to new friends and to a new place. The community of friends had grown back in Michigan, even with my absence, and there was now a large group of people that text messaged, e-mailed and talked on the phone a regular basis about the playoffs. Included in this group was also my brother in law from Texas. It was such a pleasure to connect with him on a regular basis over these games. Thank you for providing space for this to happen. At this time my mom had a big MRI coming up and we were praying for the best. We continued to pray for healing. We lost game one, but as I watch from a local pub, while studying one of the 18 books that I had to know for grad school, we won game two. And then went on beautiful streak of playing beautiful baseball. Winning seven games in a row. My phone would be blowing up with text messages while in class and my piers would constantly laugh at me, I’m sure thinking that I was some kind of freak. (Representing Michigan well!) And then Maglio’s home run. Unbelievable. And now we found ourselves in the World Series. It was over a conversation with my best friend where he asked, “So are you coming to the World Series or what?” The thought really had not crossed my mind, but through some supportive conversation with by wife, she convinced me to go. (She is an incredible woman…) While we had clicked our mouse like crazy at 10 AM on Monday morning before the series, we were not one of the lucky ones to get tickets. (By the way, this ticket system that we have is messed up. I will cry injustice here.) We didn’t get tickets, but I flew home anyway. I knew that I needed to be with these people that had experienced this unusual connection through the “magic” of the Detroit Tigers. I took the red eye on Thursday night to get home for one of the weekend games. My dad and I cheered as we counted down the seconds on Ebay. Nobody overbid us and we were going to game two on Sunday night! I tried to give him the money for my ticket, but he made me promise that if the tigers ever return to world series, that I would have to pay and take him and his grandson to the game. I hope that I have to pay for those tickets one day. So my father and I went. We cheered. We ate hot dogs and drank 8 dollar beers. We won and we danced. Like a couple of fat white guys, we danced. And then we lost. And then my mom found out that her brain was healed. And then we lost again. And my brother in law and I talked. And then we lost again. As the Cardinals opened bottles of champagne, I, sitting in my overpriced, 500 square foot apartment in Los Angeles, open one more beer to celebrate you, the 2006 Detroit Tigers. I guess the point behind me writing you this letter is to say thank you. Thank you for your story this year and how it intertwined with my story. My wife and I have been through so much and you have given us a template in which to relate, even through our stuff. I feel like we all know that baseball is more than three outs and nine innings. It is about hope and surprise and tears and laughter and pain and winning and losing and home runs going foul and broken bat base hits and errors and more errors and relationships and long hair and rain and cold and warmth and time and timelessness and beauty and finally, baseball is about the absorption of life. Baseball is about life and celebrating all of the wonderful intricacies behind the mystery of what is really going on around us. Thank you, Detroit Tigers, for giving us the space to more fully celebrate this transcendent thing that we are all intertwined in. Thank you for giving us the space to celebrate life.

The Reliability of the Gospels

Here is a paper that I jsut finished on the reliability of the Gospels. I know that this is a hot subject in our culture today. I wrote this paper for a rather conservative/orthodox professor. The page numbers come ouf of a book called The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition by Birger Gerhardsson. It might be a little boring but I thought that some might enjoy. (PS Don't let me know of any errors because I will not have time to correct them!)

An important question stands before us. Are the Gospels reliable? So much of our understanding of Jesus and what it means to follow him falls on this question. If the Gospel of Mark was not written until the approximate year A.D. 70, then there was approximately a 40-year period in which the stories of Jesus had the potential to shift, the imaginations of writers had time to develop, while their memories had time to be shifted. Basically, there was a forty year period in which humans may have “gotten in the way” of Truth before it was written down. American and Western cultural reason would lead us to believe that the story would have undoubtedly changed within those forty years and that the reliability of the Gospel tradition would have been marred by humans. Yet orthodoxy tells us that the Gospels are reliable, and if the Gospels are reliable, then reliability must have been maintained the forty years after Easter and before Mark’s writing. The way that stories were maintained in the time and setting of our Savior was through the oral tradition. It was a rich and well developed tradition that had been mastered by many within the Jewish context. With all of this in mind, the richness of this oral tradition was effective in maintaining Truth and accomplished the imperative task of preserving the reliability of the Gospels between the times of Easter and the written Gospel of Mark.
Most skeptics of the reliability of the Gospel tradition would argue that the oral tradition simply was not a completely effective method for transmitting stories. A portion of this argument would include the idea that many people outside of the close circle of Jesus could have inserted traditions into the Gospel tradition. This then leads skeptics to contend that the disciples of Jesus did not have authentic authority to be bearers of tradition. (39) This is simply not true. Too many assumptions and leaps in logic occur to assert this skepticism. The disciples of Jesus walked, ate, healed, lived, and loved with Jesus over a three year period in which Jesus himself gave them the authority that they needed to become part of, and remember the story of Christ on earth. The remaining portions of this paper will address the prior thesis and therefore refute this common skeptical arrangement.
The method that was used to sustain the Gospels as reliable was not a construct of the time of the followers of Jesus. Students had been approaching rabbis for centuries to learn torah. With the learning of torah came the learning of the oral tradition. The rabbi, who became a spiritual father figure of the students, and the flock made up a pseudo-family unit. (page 8) They were continuously together, learning and living the torah. Students learned both by listening to the rabbi and by observing the rabbi and his deeds. Students lived and longed to be just like the rabbi. At the time of Jesus, the torah was still orally being handed down in this fashion. (page 9) Massive amounts of text were learned, discussed and memorized on a daily basis through the leading of the rabbi. There were very distinct methods that were intentionally used that allowed the text to be well absorbed. Text memorization occurred via repetition, didactic and poetic devices such as rhythm and alliteration, assonance and recitation. (page 11) An interesting and important point to remember when contemplating oral tradition in that writing was commonly used as an aid for memorizing texts. (Modern culture seems to have completely reversed this process by using the oral as a way of servicing the written.) The oral tradition was the way of the expansion of the meta-narrative for hundreds of years prior to Jesus. This powerful tradition was well developed and central in maintaining the story of God and God’s people when Christ came to earth.
We can be certain that the people that surrounded Jesus were familiar with this storied tradition. Mark writes in his seventh chapter that the Jews and the Pharisees hold to the tradition of the elders. Matthew also quotes the Pharisees in his fifteenth chapter as asking Jesus, “Why do your disciples break the traditions of the elders?” (page 14) The tradition of the elders is the same tradition that we now speak of in the passing of the oral tradition. The disciples wrote of this tradition in their version of the life of Jesus. Thus, it would have been natural for them to continue with this natural tradition after Easter, until they eventually wrote down the Gospels. These are just two of many examples of the writers of the Gospels affirming the use of the oral tradition within the context of Christ’s time on earth.
The actual oral tradition of the story of Jesus may have started at his birth. While we can only speculate that the childhood of Jesus was unusually unique and powerful, it seems to make sense that stories about this prodigy child had would have appeared. The stories would have been spread through his family and probably consisted in a free form of oral tradition. (page 123) This free form of oral tradition was probably not authoritative within the context the grand oral tradition. Thus, the Gospels do not include much of the childhood of Jesus and this leads to belief that the proper oral tradition of Jesus probably did not actually begin until Jesus began his public ministry. A specific time that may be appropriate for the mark of the beginning of the oral tradition is when Jesus began to speak and gain followers through his teaching and his works. (page 123) It is intriguing to ponder that Jesus himself never wrote. (page 135) The only historical records that we have in Jesus writing was in the sand, and we do not even know what he wrote in that moment. Thus, it is reasonable to appeal that Jesus was an advocate for the oral tradition. This makes sense, as it seems that the way that he spoke and taught was purposeful for the action of memorization and for the passing of the oral tradition.
The disciples grasped the idea of the oral tradition as they followed Jesus in his life. They remembered. While Jesus often seemed frustrated at the disciples for not remembering, like in Matthew 16:9, the Gospels are full of stories of Jesus encouraging the disciples to remember and the disciples remembering. Peter remembered that Jesus had told him about the rooster. He also remembered the withering fig tree. And who could forget that extraordinary moment when the disciples remembered? They remembered that their rabbi told them that he needed to be handed into the sins of men and that he would be crucified and that he would then rise again. This theme of remembering was then essential for the eventual writing of the text and is not solely layered all over the Gospels, but all over the entirety of the Bible. It was also essential that the disciples remembered within community. The disciples were a cohort of sorts. They remembered with one another and used a system of checking and balancing in the remembering of their rabbi. With this community came a sort of organic unity in remembering. (page 131) During the thirty or forty years after Jesus’ death and the writing of the Gospels, it is also probable that written aids were accumulated. As written earlier, while the oral tradition was primary for transmitting stories written aids did exist to aid the oral. This oral tradition was well documented and with the aids of community and writing, we can be confident in the reliability of the Gospels.
Especially within the context of the post-modern culture that we live within today, skepticism is high. History is often questioned and certainty has taken the backseat to a blurry sense of dubious blather. In many ways, the church should be thankful for this time, but in the case of the defense of the reliability of the Gospels, the church needs to stand firm. Skeptics will contend that the Gospels lost their reliability over the forty years between Easter and the written Gospel of Mark. However, there was well developed and well maintained tradition that the disciples were enveloped within. We can be certain of this tradition and use it to refute skepticism. If we are to lose the certainty of the oral tradition, a slippery slope may follow. This slippery slope would eventually include our loss of the authority and reliability of not only the Gospels, but of the entire Biblical text. The oral tradition that captured and held the reliability of the Gospels was a well developed, and well maintained tool for passing story. The reliability of the story was preserved and this preservation has been central in people teaming up with God to further his Kingdom on earth for centuries. Thus, it is now our job to remember and to pass on this remembering to the next generation.

A Special Weekend

This weekend was special. It isn't too often that I enter into a weekend knowing that I will remember what is about to happen for the rest of eternity. This weekend, however, matched that high context.
To make a long story short, Justin sarcastically (I think) asked me if I was going to come to Michigan for a world series game. I laughed and then the thought crossed my mind that this was actually a possibility. So I worked at getting tickets online all week while my dad worked on using some frequent flyer miles to get me to the M I. So at 12:30 AM on Friday morning I hopped on a plane out of LAX and headed for the GRap. I arrived at nine in the morning and had fun on Friday on Saturday surprising friends and family. We watched the U of M game on Saturday afternoon and then watched teh Tigers on Saturday evening. On Sunday morning I surprised my grandma at breakfast (her face was priceless) and then my dad and I headed east to Detroit. The atmosphere was electric. Indescribale. I often just closed my eyes in thankfulness for the eternal moments. Check out the pics and the videos from the game.









7th Inning Stretch

One too Many!

The Last Out

MusicIP Mixer

I was on Chris's blog (Chris is Whitney's co-worker and a new friend.) the other day and dowloaded this program that he recommended. It takes a song that you select off your itunes library and automatically produces a playlist with similiar music from your library. I am enjoying it right now as I write. It is perfect for you music buffs out there who are constantly in the "cool music person loop"... Which, by the way, I have little connection with! (If you are questioning if you are one of these people or not, then you are not... sorry! Talk to Justin Beck for details on how to keep up with the latest and greatest in music! It is good to have friends in "the loop" so you can at least appear to be cool...) Have a great weekend... GO TIGERS, GO TIGERS, GO TIGERS!!! (That was seminary talk for the trifold!)

Thoughts From a Friend

Good morning,
This morning I am trying something new. Earlier I wrote on a new movie called Jesus Camp. To hear people's thoughts on the movie since that writing has been amazing. Fortunately, an old friend, Jon wrote on his extended thoughts on films like Jesus Camp to me via e-mail. I asked him if I could add to our thoughts by putting his e-mail on my blog and he graciously complied. He graduated with a deegree in film from Calvin and now lives on the east side of the state working in media. There is some wonderful wisdom within his writing. If you get 5 minutes please take time to read his thoughts on documentary films over the past 5 years.



sorry--i haven't had the opportunity to see this film yet, so we can't dive too deep into a discussion on the film itself. instead i'll work around it, dealing more with political docs in general and giving you some links that widen the scope a bit. from what i understand from reading, the film is plagued by politics. i'll agree with this assesment because the preview of the film provided enough evidence. if you have the time, the chicago reader's review is excellent (as they always are) and worth a few minutes, if not more.


i don't have a problem with politics (i would label myself a moderate liberal), but i have a real problem with political documentaries. especially the slew of docs that have come up in the last 6 years or so (michael moore, morgan spurlock, handful of recent iraq war films, jesus camp etc). for one, because these films are 'political,' a dichotomy is created, one side against the other for the rest of the film, which i don't think is a fair portrayal of any reality. more so, they often exploit both the subjects and the viewers to the point where truth is blurred... and this is when you can feel yourself being manipulated by the filmmakers (most easily spotted in editing and assemblage of the 'story', ie rhetoric).

from what i've studied, its all about where you inevitably stand before watching the film (any film actually). i think in the case of jesus camp, its rather unfair, because the majority of those watching the film are likely to be many steps removed from this practice of faith, even if they too are faithful christians. for example: say an atheist liberal goes to see jesus camp: its contents are representative of an extreme that she don't believe in. this extreme is drawn-out and emphasized over and over, related to politics, thus, probably making it all the more extreme, and in the end, making the liberal atheist viewer comfortable because really her views have not been challenged, they have only been confirmed. and those opposed to the films point of view, perhaps become engaged only to refute it as a lie. for jcamp, the best point of criticism i can make starts before we even watch the film: the filmmakers choice to record the events of a community that explicitly relates itself to conservative christian politics defeats the purpose for most. to me, its an example of how poorly trained filmmakers are these days (or how fragmented we really are) that they can't even approach a subject objectively, let alone choose a subject that will allow and objective approach. sounds an awful lot like our current political make-up in the states, which i find petty and waste of the last four years but that's a different rant.

those who i believe can balance a film like jesus camp and lead viewers through the murk, and raise interesting questions like you did in your post, stand in-between the two sides before the film is projected on-screen. they understand and have been affected by liberalism and christianity, perhaps practice both in their lives and find a really apt marriage of the two that is similar to the way jesus radically lived, abandoning the axe when everyone else was looking to pick it up and strike the nearest naysayer. they can de-mystify the fundamentalism and 'campiness', and can de-politicize the liberalism. unfortunately, i know very few people who can do this effectively because, for one, its really challenging.

when i was at calvin, i took a documentary filmmaking class with james ault, a visiting sociologist/filmmaker from massachusetts. his personal life and professional pursuits fit perfectly into this conversation. in the 1960s, he was an anti-war radical at harvard, lived in a commune, and practiced atheism. in 1987, he made a film for PBS called born again: life in a fundamentalist baptist church, and extension of his PhD dissertation. its a moving, objective and balanced story of a small community in new england with some intensely real scenes on conversion, adolescents, and day to day life with fundamentalism. incredibly, his experiences making the film led him to leave his atheism and become a christian. when i took his class (with only 9 other students! i heart calvin), his personal life really spoke to me: essentially, he found deeper relationships through christianity. he wrote a book on his 20 years of experience with the church that includes a history of fundamentalism in america but its release feels a little late ( cs monitor review). the book is available at amazon or, even better, fuller's library. if you could get a hold of the movie (maybe a prof at fuller has it on VHS?), it would go well with a fundamentalism + film forum or something: a picture of fundamentalists in the 1980s / picture of them in 2006, one objective, the other highly subjective, and i'm sure there are other examples one could dig up.

i'll cut it off here and look forward to hearing back. what are your thoughts on jesus camp now that you've had some time to reflect? best of luck in keeping up with school--hope you are doing well in everything otherwise.

(i almost managed to not write anything about the tigers here in detroit...what a memorable weekend[!]...i've never seen so many grown men cry...i've been watching/listening to the tigers since day 1 of the 2006 season so if you want to get into a serious talk on baseball, i'm all for it...).

a friend

jon


AND HERE ARE SOME LINKS THAT HE HAS ADDED TO THE DISCUSSION...

nick

sure you can post it to your blog, include/exclude whatever you see fit for that space. i knew that i sometimes tend to get long-winded, thats why i opted for email over blog comment (i've had blog comments that were lenghty get erased in middle of writing before).

i've done more 'looking around' since i emailed you. some useful links:

http://www.myspace.com/jesuscampmovie (for clips of scenes and the trailer)
http://blog.myspace.com/jesuscampmovie (offers a director's statement and discussion forum)

AND

president of the NAE's [national association of evangelicals]--ted haggard--response to the film:

http://tedhaggard.com/jesuscamp.jsp
(funny/ironic? this link came up as the only sponsored link in a google search for 'jesus camp' )

AND MORE

a list of links to discussions (some video) that have taken place in national media outlets like ABC, CNN, HBO, etc....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp#Television_News_Reports_.26_Discussions

my the web can be overwhelming...but useful.

best

jon

Digging for Treasure

While searching through Whitney's "artistic" pictures I came across this gem. I thought that you could get a laugh out of this one. I like to call this my "republican" part. So, yes, the secret is out... When Whitney and I are bored on weekends we like to play with my nappy hair! We can certainly be truly boring people. Have a nice evening...

New Sites

Whitney and I have been hard at work this weekend putting together some new sights. Firstly, Whitney began a blog and will be journalling stimulating conversations. These conversations often happen through her job and she is so good at remembering the most minute and most compelling things through her dialogues. Please periodically check in on her blog.

www.whitneywarnes.blogspot.com

Also... I have been Whitney's biggest fan regarding her talents within photography over the past few years. She is SO talented and we have been trying to figure out a way for her to share her talent and to get her involved within the photography industry. (She is often too modest and too busy to fully pursue.) So we have started a pseudo-blog/pseudo-buisness around some of the beautiful pictures that Whitney has taken over the past five or six years. The website is a work in progress but should be an amazing place for you to check out some of Whitney's work. Feel free to browse through the galleries of photography. I know that you will enjoy her work. (And with the holidays just around the corner, some of her work might make for amazing Christmas gifts!)

www.warnesphotography.blogspot.com

We would love any ideas, suggestions, or ways to link her photography to the world... So please feel free to share!
Here is a taste of some of the pictures that she has posted...

PASADENA ART WEEKEND

Last night was Art Night in Pasadena. It is a biannual night that includes all of the "museum hopping" that one can handle. Pasadena rents a bunch of busses and puts them on a circuit around the city, stopping by all local museums. Restauaunts advertise a bunch of deals and the whole city gets involved. So we had dinner with some friends at Gordon Biersh (with our friends Jon and Taylor), a local brewery, and then hopped on the bus circuit (with our friends Charlie and Brooke). Charlie's dad is an elder at the church I used to work at in Hudsonville. (We have had some wonderful conversations regarding psychology. He is working toward his doctorate in psychology and he likes to mess with my mind!) We only went to two museums, but the last museum we went to was the world famous Norton Simon Museum located right here in Pasadena. Monet, Picasso, Vangogh, Rembrandt, you name it, we loved viewing the art of such famous artisits. And it finally rained! Well, it was more of a sprinkle, but water fell from the sky last night for the first time since we have lived in Los Angeles! It felt heavenly... Fuller is putting on a flea market this afternoon, watching the Tigers while studying between 1:30 and 4:30 and we will be barbequeing with some friends this evening. We feel blessed...

ADOLESCENT CULTURE

I have been taking a class with Dr. Chap Clark over the past couple of weeks. He is paving a way of understanding towards adolescent culture that many people whom deal with adolescents on a daily basis are following. With all sorts of new information from his class on my mind regarding teenagers, I came across a little something...

I was tutoring a young lady earlier this week, her name to remain anonymous, (By the way, I have loved tutoring. I originally loved the idea of tutoring because of the good money and flexible hours, but I have realized a deeper love for students that I did not realize that I had. This job has been perfectly healthy in helping my to transition out of youth ministry world...) I have been playing close attention to the nuances of my students while pondering the theory that we have been learning in class about the way students are. (By the way, the parallels on these students with the theories have been accurate.) In the midst of asking my friend to complete a chemistry problem, I saw this piece of paper pouring out of the front of her binder... As if she was begging for someone to read... To notice what she had written. I asked her if I could read the writing and she said that I could. She also immediately said that the writing was "NOT REALLY HOW SHE FEELS... I just wrote those things to finish the assignment." I feel like this poem is a wonderful representation of adolescents today. Here is the poem.

Sing to me of the girl, Muse, the girl who struggles inside of her.
The girl who does not show the pain that she deeply feels.
The one who has a brilliant smile. Help me tell the tale, Muse,
About the girl who lives up to everyone's desire.
Who really is unhappy with a lot of what is happening.
Sing to me about the girl who feels rage and fire, and
Who is surrounded by cheaters and liars.

Tell me about the girl who longs for something more.
Who believes that one day she will be satisfied with who she is
And wouldn't want anything more.

FALL CLEANING

I just rearranged the blog (as a result of screwing up the HTML when I was trying to manipulate). I originally planned on stopping the blogging when school started but will plan on regular postings in the future. I added podcasts that Whitney and I listen to and some other features. Hope you enjoy and thanks for being "cyberly" part of this community!

JESUS CAMP

I always try to hold my expectations relative when reflecting over a movie. This exercise will typically keep 8’s from being 5’s and 4’s from being 7’s. (On a 1-10 movie rating scale of course…) For the first time that I can recall, after exiting Jesus Camp last night, my expectations were neither right nor wrong, but were completely off. I had no idea what I was walking into. I was not expecting the political overtones, the often dark cinematography, or the frightening manipulation of children that often occurred in the name of Jesus within the film. More so, I had no idea what to do with the mixture of truth that I saw interweaved into such a harmony of lies. My brain and my heart were overloaded and yearned for conversation with others.
What does the moderate Evangelical think of the film? What does the conservative Evangelical think when a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush is brought out at camp to pray over? What does a Liberal think of the emphasis on praying to end abortion, especially with prayers of fire and tongues? (What are these labels that I am using and that we put on people?) What does a person not intentionally following the ways of Jesus think of the film? How does this film affect their thoughts towards Christianity? Do the students that I have been trying to point towards Jesus over the past years view me the same way that these kids thought of the main pastor in the film? Did I sound like that? So many questions for so many people with such a longing to hear other perspectives.
The messages of this film were powerful. The chief message seemed to speak of the sea of Evangelicals that are “taking over America.” The producers really brought to light some of the lingo that Evangelicals partake in. For those of us immersed in that world, we often don’t realize that the lingo we speak is foreign to others outside of our bubbles. We also don’t realize the craziness behind what we are saying. The producers did an extraordinary job of bringing out these idiosyncrasies. I am still processing whether or not these messages were fair or if they were manipulated to send an anti-Evangelical message to America. We will probably never know. It is probably part of the mystery and brilliance of the film. Something that I do know is that I will be using this film as a conversation piece for years to come. There is such potential for rich conversation dripping with truth and reality from the themes and overtones that this film brought to the table. Jesus Camp caused me to think and it made me want to have conversations with others. For this I am thankful because conversation, after all, is what film is all about.

ETHOS OF MEGANARRATIVE

It is one thing when the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup. (At least 4 people that I know notice.) IT is a step up when the Pistons won the championship. We all routed DE-TROIT BAS-KET-BALL. But there is something special about today. It is drastically hard to articulate. What is it about the tigers and about baseball that is so special? Is it just my own affinity for baseball? I don't think so. I think that baseball, in some mysterious way, goes deeper into the depth of life than any other sport. Maybe it is the 162 game schedule, maybe it is the timelessness of the game (there is no clock in baseball), maybe it is the thought that if the tigers can win; anything is possible, maybe it is the recall of baseball in my childhood, maybe it is the real realization that I will never again play the game that I love so much, maybe it has to do with living in Los Angeles, maybe it is the community that has formed this year around the tigers this year due to the 19 year drought from the playoffs, I really don't know. But the Tigers are in the bottom of the 8th right now and they are about to beat the Yankees. This is incredible to me right now. I have longed to watch the Tigers in the postseason. I do not remember ever seeing them in playoff action, and to watch them in the fall, with the crisp of autumn in the air is magical. (Munroe just made a diving catch.) Memories continue to move through my mind. Thornapple baseball, FHC, Grand Valley, being cut from the game, Woodchuck mixed with Guiness, Fillmore, the grizzel, and now watching my team on national TV in Pasadena. I guess that the beauty behind this game is found that my story intertwines in so many ways with the mega narrative of the Detroit Tigers. Post-modern writers write of the loss of mega narrative in our current culture as a destructive force that may eventually tear humanity apart. In this moment I can feel the ethos of this graniouse statement. The mega narrative of the Tigers is so important to me. (One more out to go.) How much more important then is the mega narrative of the story of my family. How much more, then, important is the mega narrative of my true family... the church. (Pasada just hit a home run to cut it to 8-3.) The mega narrative of the people whom God blesses. (Tigers in 4! Tigers in 4!) (Sorry to cut this short!) It is time to celebrate, the Tigers, baseball, life and the beauty of combining mega narratives!

Justin and Caleb... I can't wait to pay you for losing bets on the Tigers this year!!!

A TOP 10 LIST

10. We had a cloudy day. (The variation was welcomed.)

9. I got published for the first time. (Don't get too excited, it was just a short article promoting the use of Flexcar, a new buisnrss that Whitney and I are loving.)


8. I officially began tutoring. (Trying to recall chemistry and biology will be especially interesting!)
7. I will be taking my first final at Fuller tomorrow. (Distance learning that I did this summer.)


6. The Tigers did not lose yesterday. (They got rained out.)


5. My parents are visiting my sister in the Dominican Republic. (And they are surviving the wilderness!)
4. I have first and second decelntion nouns complete in Greek. (ous, ou, w, ov, oi, wn, ois, ous, 2nd declention masculine)


3. I cut off my hair and I now weigh three less pounds. (Yes, I did it myself. Yes, Whitney cleaned up the mullet I left.)





2. iTunes has a new format. (Finally, movies can legally be put on the iPod.)



1. The season premiere of Lost was last night and it did not disappoint. (Are followers of Christ allowed to skip Lost?)

DANCING ON THE ROOFTOPS

Seriously, we really did. On Friday night, the Brehm Center (which is the center of worship, theology and art at Fuller) put on quite a party. They rented a rooftop right across the street from campus at a local art museum. What a great idea! They hired a DJ that was spinning (this is a new word for me to use), they had all the dessert you could ever want, and they also provided wine. I was impressed with the elegance of the party. Everyone was dressed up, (except me in shorts and a t-shirt) and the stars were twinkling above our heads. You could also go inside to view a room full of photography. With all these things in mind, Whitney and I were reminded that this place really is a great fit for our passions and dreams!

On Saturday we ventured on the Los Angeles Metro for the first time. (The train that takes you all over town.) After a two hour ride to Rodondo Beach we were a little frustrated with the weather. It wasn't sunny... We couldn't believe it. 55 of 56 days here have been sunny and last Saturday was cloudy. So we grabbed so nasty Thai food at a local joint and went to a mall to watch a move. (The new one with John Heder... It was okay for what it was.) We then ventured 2 more hours back home and found the place that we will be hanging out on the weekends! There is a back alley over in Old Town that reminded us of Carmel. Whitney and I sat outside and had dinner in the romantic environment. It was a nice way to clsoe out a long day. One more thing regarding the Metro... It will be awesome to get downtown and to get over to Hollywood. Besides these two things, we don't plan on using it ever again...