A few thoughts about making sense

I promise, the following conversations actually happened. To avoid embarrassing people who I know don't read my blog anyway, I have omitted names.

First off... The Kid. He was 17 years old at the time of this conversation, and he's a good kid for the most part - he just has the unfortunate luck of being surrounded by a group of friends who make being an atheist the popular choice. His whole family is regularly involved in the church, but The Kid is an atheist, and his atheism exists entirely because he has decided that he's an atheist.

Here's a late-night discussion between me and The Kid:

Me: So let's just be point blank about it... You don't believe in God, right?

The Kid: Right.

Me: Any particular reason why not?

The Kid: Well, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Me: OK. I can see that. I can understand that it's a pretty big thing to take in. So let me ask you this, then... Do you believe in the scientific theory of the Big Bang?

The Kid: Yeah.

Me: OK, good. So which makes more sense to you, then? That the universe and everything in it came from absolutely nothing, or that there was a Creator behind it all?

The Kid: Well, I don't believe in God, so I guess it has to be that it came from nothing.

Me: Really? You sound a little hesitant there. It really makes more sense to you that everything came from nothing than that there would be a Creator?

The Kid: Well... I guess not...

Me: So you agree that it's pretty logical to assume that God made the Universe?

The Kid: ...yeah, I guess so.

Me: So does that change your mind about God at all?

The Kid: No.

Me: Wait, wait, wait... You just said that you believe that it makes more sense for God to have created the universe than not, and yet you still don't believe in God? Why not?

The Kid: Because I just don't.

Me: You do realize that, by your own definitions, your beliefs don't make any sense, right?

The Kid: That's OK, they're my beliefs.

Me: Well, you definitely have a point there.

_______________________________________________

The less I tell you about The Girl, the better. But we did have the following conversation.

The Girl: It makes me so mad that you always know you're right.

Me: Well... Yeah. I mean, I can see that. I know arrogance is definitely one of my weaknesses. I'm really trying to work on it. I'm sorry.

The Girl: No, no, that's not what I mean. I mean, yes, you are arrogant. But that's not what I'm talking about. I hate it when you know you're right.

Me: Uhhh... You mean... like... when I'm actually right?

The Girl: Yeah.

Me: And... and when these moments come up that I know that I'm right because I actually happen to be right... do you know that I'm right?

The Girl: Yeah.

Me: So... Let me see if I'm getting this... If I'm right... and we both know I'm right... you're mad at me?

The Girl: Yeah.

Me: ...why?

The Girl: Because it means I'm wrong. That's why I hate hearing you talk about God. If you're right about God, which you probably are, then I'm wrong, and that means I have to change a lot of things.

Me: But you already think that I'm probably right about God?

The Girl: Yeah.

Me: And yet you're choosing to believe things that you already know are probably wrong?

The Girl: Yeah.

Me: Why?

The Girl: Because I don't want to have to change anything. And I also don't want you to be right.

Me: Well... That's a valid reason, I guess...

_______________________________________________

I didn't put these up out of a spirit of mockery, but to point out the fact that sometimes people are operating with a dangerously misguided understanding of reality that hinges not on the evidence for reality itself but, instead, their own personal preferences.

Consider this quote from Robert Jastow's God and the Astronomers:

There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause; there is no First Cause... This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.

The "traumatizing implications" here are that the evidence of the beginning of the physical universe coming completely out of nothing strongly points to the possibility - even probability - of a Creator. If a scientist is truly open to all possibilities in the search for Truth, then the possibility of God must be acknowledged as feasible. But if the question is approached from a position of believing that God isn't a possible answer in the first place, no amount of evidence will change that scientist's mind.

(Incidentally... From about 300 years before the birth of Christ to roughly 100 years ago, the standard accepted scientific model was the Aristotelian view that the universe is infinite and eternal, without beginning, simply existing forever. So for something over 2,000 years, science stood in judgment of the Abrahamic religions' belief that the universe was in fact a created thing, temporal and with a beginning. The widespread acceptance of the theory of the Big Bang as the standard of universal origin was a step closer to a scientific agreement with the Bible, not a step away as so many people seem to believe.)

It's easy to point out that a non-theistic worldview is challenged by the evidences for the existence of God, but I don't think that all that many atheists read my stuff. (If I'm wrong, hi! I'm glad you're here. God Loves you, even if you don't think He exists!) But the problem I'm specifically wondering about is how we address fellow Christians whose belief systems are leading them down dangerous paths.

For example... Consider Romans 14 and Paul's thoughts about "the weak and the strong." In my journey through Christendom, I have at times definitely been the person whose faith allows him to eat anything. I understand that it is my responsibility to use discretion through Love for my brothers and sisters to avoid placing any stumbling block in their path, but the entire point of that chapter is actually that it is the responsibility of the weaker brother or sister to not judge the stronger.

So why have we come to a point in our churches today where we exclusively cater to the weak? Why do we allow them to remain weak, instead of encouraging them to grow stronger?

If we're going to claim that our faith is based on the Bible, we've got to actually follow the Bible in order for that to be true.

And there are just some things we're doing these days that really don't make any sense.

Since when did Christianity become the religion of teetotalers? Doesn't Jesus make water into wine? (John 2:1-11) Doesn't Jesus, in fact, drink? And drink enough that the Pharisees accuse Him of being a drunkard? (Luke 7:18-35) Doesn't the Bible actually encourage people to drink a bit when they're down in the dumps? (Proverbs 31:6-7)

So why is there this largely unspoken yet very real disapproval of Christians responsibly enjoying alcoholic beverages?

Or what about dress codes at church? Since when was dressing nice a requirement? Doesn't James specifically say that it's wrong to treat people differently because of what they wear? (James 2:1-13) Don't Peter and Paul specifically say that we shouldn't try to impress people with our clothes? (I Peter 3:3, I Timothy 2:9) Doesn't Jesus pretty explicitly tell us to not worry about our clothes? (Matthew 6:25-34)

Those are the easy ones.

What about the way the modern church at large treats homosexuals? When are we gonna start Loving them as we Love ourselves?

What about the way guys like Joel Osteen promote the idea that God wants you to be comfortable with your money instead of reminding us that we're actually called to use it more on others than we do on ourselves?

When are we going to actually start calling each other out on our sins - in grace, truth, and Love, of course - instead of hiding behind the idea that we don't want to appear judgmental? There is an enormous difference between judging someone as a bad person and telling someone that they are doing a bad thing.

I have been working on this post all day. Normally, I get something started or I pick up on an idea that I've already got written down, and within two hours, I'm finished. Not this one. I've been going all day. I've passed the 10 hour mark. There are so many things that I just want to understand, so many things that we do that just don't make any sense. I just want to see us stop.

I'll be honest, there are times when I feel like I'm putting something up just to put something up. This is one of them. It's not that I'm trying to fill space, it's just that I am so confused by what Christianity has become, especially when I look at what it is meant to be, that I don't even know how to begin to address it.

Love God, Love Others. That's it.

My brain is tired. So is my butt.

Maybe next week I'll make some sense.

Intent vs. Interpretation

I'm gonna pick on my buddy Will here for a minute.

Back in January of 2010, I wrote a short story entitled "Their Only Date" (link is to Facebook). If you haven't read it, please do, because I'm about to spoil the ending for you, and once that's out of the bag, the story just really loses whatever impact it has.

Seriously, you need to read it to get what I'm talking about here.

Last chance before I ruin everything.

And now it is on your own head.

Some days or whatever after I had written that story, Will and I were doing what we do - not very much at all - and he brought it up, saying that he had enjoyed it. He went on to tell me that he had appreciated not only the effort I'd put into it, but the emotional honesty behind it. He told me that he could see me working through some then-recent heartbreak by expressing my feelings in the story of two people who seemed to be perfect for each other and were just fated to not be together for whatever small reason. Though the story itself is funny (or at least I meant it to be funny - no telling whether it actually is or not), the pain was real enough, and by addressing my own pain through a filter of humor, he could see how I was taking a big step on the road to my own personal recovery.

I sat and listened as Will expounded on his theory behind the meaning of my small literary effort. Once he was done, I let him in on the deeper truth behind the story.

"Uhh... it's about nerd feuds, man..."

"Wait... What? Are you serious? Is that it?"

"Well... Yeah. I mean... I'm flattered that you can see that much depth in something that I wrote, but I promise you, man... at the end of the day, it's about nerds. The chick likes Star Trek and the dude likes Star Wars, so they can't be with each other. They're nerds."

"So the whole thing is just an elaborately told joke?"

"Yeah."

We sat in silence for a second as Will let that revelation sink in.

"Well, that's disappointing! I liked my version a lot better."

And like I said - I was impressed that he saw that much depth in something that held no more meaning to me than to say that sometimes people get silly about their passions, which is something that anybody who knows me can readily attest to.

Before I go any further, I'd like to make something extraordinarily clear, just in case there's anybody reading who doesn't know this just yet: I'm not a "Biblical scholar." I can't read Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. I don't know all the theories about the sources and dating of the Biblical text. When it comes to the academic approach to the text of the Scriptures, I am definitely not what anyone could call with any degree of truth a "well-educated individual."

But just the same... I know how to read my Bible, and I make a regular habit of doing just that.

And as I continue to read my Bible and grow in my own understanding of what it means, a question keeps coming to my mind over and over and over again: Is it possible that we're making Christianity a little bit more complicated than Jesus actually meant for it to be?

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

- Matthew 22:34-40

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.

- John 13:34-35

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right.

- James 2:8

But whoever loves God is known by God.

- I Corinthians 8:3

I was in Searcy a couple weeks back and got to talking pretty late with some of the fellas. As usually happens with us in those 2 AM think tanks, we got to talking about what it means to actually be Christian the way God wants us to be Christian.

The consensus was there among all of us that there is nothing more to it than to Love God and Love Others. We all felt pretty confident in saying that, and we all felt that there was more than enough Scripture to back us up in our belief.

The challenging part of the discussion, however, was in determining what it actually means to Love God and Love Others. I feel safe in saying that this has been the same unique challenge for all Christendom over the past two millennia.

Again, I feel the need to stress to you that I am by no means a Biblical scholar.

But all the same... I think I can say, with some pretty solid ideological and Scriptural footing, that we have collectively fallen short of the intent because we've been so busy focusing on the interpretation.

Denominations argue and bicker amongst themselves while the hungry remain hungry and the naked remain naked.

Fights over the timing and purpose of baptism confuse and frustrate those considering Christianity to the point that they abandon the Truth altogether.

A man enters a church for the first time in three decades and sits by himself because he doesn't have the right clothes on.

A church cancels a job interview with one of God's most dedicated, loving, and humble servants because of a controversial yet Biblically sound view that can't even be seen by the public anymore, just in case anybody's offended by the truth.

I realize that I'm not really saying anything new this week. As you probably figured out from "Their First Date," a lot of what I write is a big theatrical presentation centered around one simple idea. And unfortunately, I don't really think that this is gonna do a lot of good in the first place - the type of people I'm actually the maddest at don't read my blog, and even if they did, they're not the kind of folks who are going to accept the opinion of a guy who thinks it's OK to wear tie-dyed shirts to church on Sunday morning. This, of course, is part of why I'm mad at them in the first place, and so the whole cycle just repeats itself in a sort of passive-aggressive standoff.

But I do hope that it can encourage you to be a part of the solution. And more than that, I hope it will remind me to do the same.

Like I said... I'm not really getting at anything earth-shattering here... I really just want to see people stop screwing it up.

Questions of interpretation matter. I get that. I really do. In fact, it's been kind of a hot topic lately with some of the folks I talk to, specifically in address to the question of whether or not homosexuality is a sin. If the Bible has been misinterpreted and homosexuality isn't actually a sin, then hey, we've got a lot of stuff to re-think. But if the interpretation of Scripture has been accurate, at least in the broad strokes, over the past 5,000 years, I think we're pretty safe in saying that yeah, homosexuality is still a sin.

But here's the kicker: whether it is or isn't, we're still called to Love God and Love Others. That's the point. That's what it's all about. That's why God created us, that's why Jesus came down, that's why He died, that's why He was resurrected, that's why anything that is, is.

Love God, Love Others.

If your interpretation says anything other than that, I've got news for you: YOUR INTERPRETATION IS WRONG.

Led Zeppelin t-shirts, Jesus fish, and other things that tick me off

One of the greatest frustrations in my life is that this shirt does not come in XXXL.

Look at it. It is a thing of beauty. That winged fella there is Icarus, the "mascot" (I guess) of Led Zeppelin's Swan Song Records label. The 1977 tour referenced was the last US tour Zep ever made, and it was a MONSTER. I've got some bootlegs as well as a few official live recordings pieced together from that tour... and wow. Led Zeppelin. Dang.

I know it hasn't been that long since I wrote about Led Zeppelin, and that last post wasn't the first time they've come up on the blog, so I hope you'll forgive me going back to the (nigh upon bottomless) well of my passion for Led Zeppelin in trying to illustrate some point to you about God.

So I wanna tell you a story about this kid I met a few years ago, after I went back to Harding. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I was at this lunch thing at the campus ministry's Rock House. In coming back to Harding after a year gone, most of my friends had graduated or drifted off in other directions, so I really just didn't know a ton of people. I was trying to be somewhat more social, trying to mingle in with more people, trying to connect... and in walks this kid with the shirt pictured.

BAM. Conversation starter. Yes. Something for me to go on. A potential in-roads to a connection with another human being. (Or so I thought.)

I am not saying that I'm automatically going to be buddies with a dude just because he likes Led Zeppelin, but the chances are a LOT higher that I'll get along with the guy in the Zep shirt than the guy in the KISS Army shirt. It's just a foothold, something I can latch on to, something that I am extraordinarily passionate about, something that - if all else fails - I can engage in conversation over for HOURS.

So I found myself sitting across from this kid - maybe all of 19 years old, versus my 24 at the time - and just casually said, "So... what's your favorite Zep album?"

"Huh?"

"Your shirt. The shirt there. You a big Led Zeppelin fan?"

"Oh, uhhh... No, not really... I just like the shirt. A lot of my friends have it, so I picked one up. It's vintage."

Oh, the rage. Oh, the unbearable, unspeakable, unstoppable rage.

Where is the fairness in that? Here's this 5'4" twerp, maybe 140 pounds if he's holding a 50 pound sack of dog food, doing his dead-level best to look like Harry Potter stumbled through Goodwill on a shopping spree specifically engineered to make high school girls think he doesn't care about his looks, wearing a shirt - dare I say PROFANING a shirt - that I would gladly amputate a limb to have in my size. (Not one of my limbs... that'd just be silly.)

And it's not like I'm saying the kid's got to be on "my level" of fandom to earn the right to wear the shirt or anything... But at least, you know, be able to name an album or something... And it's not like that's a hard task, either... The first three albums are all called Led Zeppelin, so it's really hard to mess up... The fourth album doesn't even have a name... Come on, kid.

At the end of the day, am I just jealous because some kid doesn't care about the band on the shirt that he's wearing? Yes. But at the same time, it really gets under my skin because I enjoy Led Zeppelin so much and take their music so seriously to heart and have nothing to tangibly show the world "YES! I AM COMPLETELY NUTS ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN!" And then there's this kid who doesn't even come close to pretending he cares about the band, and he gets the shirt. He wants to look like he cares about Led Zeppelin - specifically because of the added bonus of looking "vintage" - but at the end of the day, all he cares about is the look. It doesn't actually affect his life one way or another what's on the shirt, so long as the design of the shirt is popular. The label didn't have any relation to the contents of the package.

And now a story that I assure you is completely unrelated.

I was driving with Dad to Arkansas last week and as we went through Memphis, we wound up going through a construction zone. This isn't really a surprise... I don't think I've ever been through Memphis when there wasn't interstate construction in progress... But this time, there was plenty of warning about the upcoming construction zone. There were construction signs on the side of the road warning drivers that the left lane was closed 5 miles out. The overhead traffic advisory signs were warning us that the left lane was closed 3 miles out. The road cones started showing up 2 miles out, in addition to more signs. And then you know the rest. "LEFT LANE CLOSED 1 MILE" led to "LEFT LANE CLOSED 1/2 MILE" and then "LEFT LANE CLOSED 1000 FEET" and then... you know... the left lane closed.

So for the entirety of the five miles since that first sign proclaiming that the left lane would be closed, there's this fancy SUV thing hovering next to me in the left lane. I'm not usually a very aggressive driver in the first place, and with Dad sleeping in the passenger seat and Pink Floyd coming through the speakers, I was in an even more chilled-out mood than usual. So for all five of those five miles since the first hint of warning for the upcoming lane closure of doom, I've been rolling along at a steady pace, keeping a ridiculous amount of room between myself and the car in front of me. Seriously, at times it was at least a quarter of a mile. There was room for the guy to my left to get over, as well as several other guys to my left who may or may not have existed.

But you wanna know what happened? As the countdown kept going - 5 miles, 4 miles, 3 miles - the guy stayed there. Once the traffic barrels showed up - 2 miles, 1 mile, 1/2 mile - the guy just stayed there. Once the lane closure was actually immediately visible - 2000 feet, 1000 feet, 500 feet - he still didn't do anything, and I'm still leaving enough room to drive a truck through, which is a figure of speech that somehow loses its power when actually talking about traffic.

So what else was going to happen but the inevitable: once we actually got to the point of no return where the lane is closed and the barrels are blocking off the lane, this guy floors it, cuts me off, clips one of the barrels with his fender, slams on his brakes to avoid ramming the guy in front of him, forcing me to slam on my brakes, causing a whole shockwave jam in traffic and screwing things up for everybody.

And that's when I saw the Jesus fish on the rear bumper.

I'll be honest - I don't really have the highest of expectations for the majority of the people in the world. I kinda operate on the assumption that most everybody out there is a first-class jerk who would just as soon punch a baby as extend kindness to a stranger. I don't think this way because I view myself as so much better, but because it helps me keep my cool. If I already expect 99% of the world to be completely awful, I'm not all that angered with 75% of the world that actually lives up to that expectation, and I'm in fact grateful for the 24% that surprised me.

But I really, really, really wish I didn't ever have to see this kind of behavior from somebody who is proclaiming with a little magnetic ΙΧΘΥΣ that they're supposed to be cut from a different cloth than the rest of the world. Apparently that fish held nothing more than strictly ornamental purposes, because it sure didn't affect the way the guy drove. As the traffic slowed to a crawl, I watched this guy weave in and out of lanes, cheat by driving on the shoulder, cut off several other drivers, doing everything he could to ignore the fact that "the first will be last and the last will be first."

I could bust out a ton of scripture here (Matthew 23, James 1:22-25 and 2:14-26, Revelation 3:1-6, 14-21, just for starters) about how it's not enough to look like you're following God, you've actually got to do something about it.

We've come to a point (and it's not like this happened recently) where Christianity is just enough of a social norm that a lot of people want to look like Christians even if they're not willing to live like Christians. But it's that look that is so important. It's the look that keeps everybody complacent in their faith because of a widespread misunderstanding of what Jesus meant when he was talking about planks and sawdust. It's the look that lets people get away with anything they feel like because they know they've been forgiven and that God wants you to forgive them, too. It's the same look that keeps us all paralyzed, locked in a self-defeating and self-perpetuating cycle of sin and purposeful ignorance.

But what if we stopped just trying to look like it?

What if we actually took the challenge of Christ seriously and stopped caring about what people think of us and just focused on doing what was right?

So many people miss the point of everything in Christianity because they've got their focus on the wrong thing. If you're focused on looking Christian, you're not actually going to do a good job of being Christian, because you're focused on appearances. That's not going to get you anywhere. Jesus said it, Paul said it, Peter said it, James, Jude and John said it, Augustine said it, Francis of Assisi said it, G.K. Chesterton said it, C.S. Lewis said it, and I'm saying it. So pick one of those guys to listen to and knock it off.

Why is it that the people who are the quickest to remind us not to judge are the ones who are the same ones who need to be reminded that there actually is such a thing as right and wrong?

Why is it that there are countless people in the world today who can rattle off verse after verse of the scriptures that point out what YOU are doing wrong, but live in complete ignorance of anything that condemns their own actions?

Y'all... I'm not perfect.

I struggle with a lot of things. I struggle with lust, anger, prejudices, nicotine addiction, insensitivity to the feelings of others, and a great deal many other things that I can't actually come up with right now because another of my many faults is being arrogant enough to think that I'm really not that bad of a guy.

I know I don't have any room to say that I'm any better than anybody else, and I sincerely hope to God that nobody hears me saying that. And I know I can't judge the content of anyone else's heart and decide how sincere that person's faith is (or isn't).

But at the same time... "By their fruit you will recognize them." (Matthew 7:15-20)

So let me leave this post with an open question... When do we call people out? How? Where's the line?

Bear Romans 14 and I Corinthians 10 & 12 in mind, remember the lessons of the meat to idols and our freedom in Christ. But there comes a point where we've gone beyond the boundaries of acceptable celebrations of our uniqueness in Christ and have just lunged headlong into straight up ignoring the Bible and living in sin.

So what do you do?

And does anyone ever actually listen?

Read This Post or I'll Shoot My Cat

Just take a look at this big, fat ball of hair (the cat, not me). You wouldn't want his death on your conscience, would you? I'm completely serious. Have you ever seen Boondock Saints?

OK, so, now that I've got your attention, I'll go ahead and let you know that I have absolutely zero intention of hurting Deputy. He's my cat. Come on. I'm not gonna shoot my cat. If the post had been about me shooting my sister's dog, you would have had legitimate reason for concern, but I would never purposefully bring even the slightest harm to Deputy, so you can go ahead and stop writing your angry e-mails to the ASPCA and just pay attention.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The Life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the Eternal Life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

- I John 1:1-4

That's the prologue to the first of John's epistles. It's a beautifully expressed declaration of the tangible reality of both the person and the divinity of Jesus Christ, and opens up one of my favorite books of the Bible. But for the purposes of this post, I really just want to focus on verse 4: "We write this to make our joy complete."

Proselytizing, evangelizing, whatever you wanna call it - spreading the Gospel, telling others about Jesus, and bringing people into God's presence is an absolutely undeniable part of Christianity. If you're not sharing your Christianity, you're not actually doing your Christianity.

It doesn't have to be so overt as this blog, or so obliviously ineffective as standing on a street corner in a sandwich board and shouting at passers-by, but it's got to happen. That's made perfectly clear throughout the entire New Testament.

But why?

"...to make our joy complete."

I'm sorry to resort to such a low-down dirty trick as pretending to threaten my cat, but I'm just trying to do whatever I can to get you to notice this stuff. It's not so much because I crave an audience as much as it is that I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. I have something to say that I think you would benefit from hearing. I actually think it's important enough that I'm willing to play whatever cards I've got at my disposal just to get you to read at least ONE of these posts, hopefully more. And it's not like I've got any kind of ad revenue coming to me off of this. Facebook definitely ain't payin' me, even though it alone is at least a part-time job just based on the hours I put in each week...

But I do get something from it. I get something of a completion of my joy. I get the thrill of knowing that I've helped people focus on God, maybe even in a way that they never had before. That is awesome for me. And not because it's got anything to do with me, but because it's entirely about you, the one reading this. If you are reading this, I am thrilled. I'm even more thrilled if you're actually absorbing any of it. I'm elated if it challenges you to think about your relationship with Christ and the improvements you can make to it. I'm overjoyed beyond the limitations of the English language to express if, by some movement of the Holy Spirit through me and my keyboard, you - the actual YOU reading this right now, not the general "not me" version of "you" - take a step closer to God that you'd never taken before, whether you've been going to church your whole life or you've never once heard a word of the Bible.

And it doesn't give me all those warm fuzzies because I'm the one that wrote whatever words changed your life. It rocks my gypsy soul for the same reason that the shepherd rejoiced when he found his lost sheep, the woman rejoiced when she found her lost coin, the father rejoiced when his lost son came home, and the Father and all the hosts of angels rejoice when one repentant sinner accepts the Grace of God and steps into the Light.

It makes my joy complete.

If I can be the instrument God chooses to use to bring you, in any way, closer to Him, hey - that's awesome. You will not find me complaining about that. I try not to complain about God using me in general, but that specific use would be pretty solid.

But why? Why does it even matter to me?

Because I fully believe that everybody's life - and I mean everybody-everybody - could be improved by better knowing the Majesty, the Splendor, the Glory, the Holiness, the Power, the Presence, and the unfailing, unending, unmistakable Love of God.

Look, folks... God is... the best. The. Best. Imagine the best thing you've ever experienced. Now go infinitely better. That's a rough picture of the goodness of God. I cannot possibly explain to you in enough detail how good God is. 1) I don't have the words to convey it all, and 2) you don't have the patience to read my futile attempt, which would be so overly verbose that Google would shut me down for clogging up the internet.

I don't know what your relationship with God is like. I hope it's incredible. I hope that whatever you're getting is anything like what I'm getting, because folks, I ain't lying when I tell you that what is happening in my life is so very good that I cannot possibly keep it to myself.

It's Oreos and Led Zeppelin and good Batman comics and perfect air conditioning and the comfiest couch in the world and every other possibility of anything GOOD in this world all rolled up into one inexpressibly perfect thing, and I would feel like an absolute jerk if I kept it to myself.

If you eat at an awesome restaurant, you tell your friends, right?

If you see a mind-blowingly good movie, you tell your friends, right?

If you have goodness, you share it with the people you love, right?

That's what I want to do.

I want to tell you how awesome God is for me, because I know that when you let Him, He will be every bit as awesome for you. I mean that, no matter where you are in your walk with Him. If you're a staunch atheist, I want to talk to you about God. If you've never missed a church service in your life, I want to talk to you about God. If you just don't know where you fit in, I want to talk to you about God.

And I am totally willing to cheat in order to get that done.

Why else would I have been writing posts openly drawing comparisons between God and Batman or God and Eric Clapton?

It's not (exclusively) because of my inability to escape my own nerdiness, but it is because I am trying to do anything I can to get people to read this. I want to talk to you about God. That is my goal. If this means I lure you in with sensationalist headlines about killing my cat, so be it.

Jesus performed miracles for a reason - to get people to listen to Him. The Holy Spirit manifested miraculous gifts in the early church for the exact same reason - to get people's attention and show them the glory of God. Whatever gifts I do have from the Spirit, I have not as yet been able to heal a lame man with my shadow, so I will have to do what I can to bring people in, because I can think of absolutely nothing in existence that could ever be any more fulfilling than to encourage those around me (and, through the magic of the interwebs, those nowhere near me) into a closer relationship with God.

It makes my joy complete.

But here's the twist.

I jokingly threatened my cat just to get you to read this. It's an absurd example, but it worked, right? I mean, you are, after all, reading this...

How would you have responded if this week's entry had instead been titled "Live Your Life By My Rules or I'll Shoot You"?

I don't think there's any point in being bashful about my intentions. Yes, I want to encourage you to grow closer to God. That's my goal. Again, I don't care if you're already a very strong Christian or if you're a very strong atheist or if you're just very strongly confused. I want to talk to you about God. And my ideal outcome of any conversation that we should ever have about God is that we both walk away with refreshed spirits, renewed minds, and rejoicing hearts.

But the last thing I want to do is bully you into accepting what I believe.

I do believe, fully, that Christianity is the best possible way to live your life. I also believe, with every bit the same fullness, that the Christian life that I'm living is the best I can do with the knowledge and understanding that I currently have. In other words - yeah, I think I'm right. Of course I think I'm right. If I didn't think I was right, why would I continue to think things that I thought were wrong? That's dumb.

But there is a gigantic difference between my telling you that I feel that the truths behind my beliefs would be of great benefit in your own life if you applied them the same way I do and my telling you that you're evil and stupid for believing something other than what I believe and should immediately recognize the rightness of my beliefs and just stop your silly questioning because how could a fool like you ever know anything worth saying in the first place.

Put a bit more simply: there is a HUGE difference between sharing the Gospel through Love and forcing the Gospel down people's throats through arrogant moral superiority.

I'm perfectly willing to trick you into a conversation about God. I don't feel bad about that.

I'm also completely at peace with the idea of using whatever connections I might have with you or anyone else I ever encounter to find a way to get my foot in the door and then get to that conversation about God. It's worth working towards. In my work towards connecting people to God, I'm willing to be a downright snake in the grass, if I have to.

So that's what I've got this week. I've got nothing to hide - my mission, my purpose, my goal is to talk to you about God. I don't care where you stand with Him, I fully believe that both of us have everything to gain from striving for a more perfect understanding of the infinite goodness of God.

It is to that end, then, that I would like to close this post with an especially heartfelt encouragement and sincere exhortation: talk back. I have always wanted this bloggery business to be a conversation more than a sermon. I would LOVE to hear from you - no matter who you are, no matter what you believe. Ask questions. Debate points of doctrine. Drop a truthbomb on me with a scripture I might not have thought of that shows things in a different light. Whatever it is, please... do it. I want to be better at this, and a lot of the learning comes from feedback.

I do sincerely appreciate those of you who do comment and write me and everything else. It definitely means a lot, and please don't feel that I don't value your input - I do. I just want more. Is that so bad?

God bless you... And hopefully we'll talk soon.

Nerd Rage and a Statement of Purpose

You wanna make a nerd mad? Get his obsession wrong.

You can take the easy way out - asking about the latest episode of "Star Track" is a pretty popular choice - or you can get really advanced and spend over 250 million dollars on an unholy abomination that ruins whatever credibility was built up with the first two movies...

I can't say enough about how wrong Spider-Man 3 was. And it's not just that 3 was so horrible on its own that makes it sting the most... The real salt in the wound is that Spider-Man 2 was nigh-upon perfect. Doctor Octopus is my favorite Spider-Man villain, and the flawless portrayal by Alfred Molina fit seamlessly into an outstanding story that balanced action, romance, personal pathos, and just the right amount of comedy.

But Spider-Man 3... Oh, goodness. That really set a standard for bad movies as far as I'm concerned. The third X-Men movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, was pretty bad. The Roger Moore James Bond movies start off pretty terrible and get worse as they go along. Beer For My Horses was so bad that it wasn't even worth mocking. But none of those are as bad as Spider-Man 3. It's a disaster.

There are a lot of reasons for the 2 hours and 19 minutes of torture found in Spider-Man 3, but it mostly boils down to the studio folks shoving the Venom character into the script against director Sam Raimi's wishes. Sam Raimi felt (correctly) that Venom is a pretty dumb character who wouldn't really work with the style of Spider-Man stories he had told with the first two movies. The studio guys didn't care about that - they just knew that Venom was a hugely popular character (mainly among people who don't actually read Spider-Man comics and just have vague recollections of the '90s cartoon and video games) who could sell a lot of toys on the cheap, because hey, it's Spider-Man painted black.

So the studio guys force Venom on Raimi, Raimi forces Venom onto his version of Spider-Man, and the whole thing comes out an ugly mess.

And whaddya know, a convenient metaphor for the church in today's world just showed up!

I think most of you reading this have already seen this somewhere else, but I didn't get the job with the church in Oregon.

For the record, I also didn't get the job with the church in Tennessee, California, Montana, Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Hawaii, Arizona, Mississippi or Ontario. I'm sure I've left a few out, but it really doesn't matter - I didn't get the job there, either.

I don't want people to think I'm harboring any sort of negativity to any of the churches that have turned me down in the past two years. God has a plan for those congregations, and I'm not a part of that plan. That's OK, because God also has a plan for me, and it's really starting to look like part of God's plan for me is to bypass working at an established congregation of any kind and plant one of my own.

Like Paul leaving the Jews to reach the Gentiles, I'm leaving the churched to reach the unchurched.

It has become very obvious to me, through an occasionally painful and disheartening series of lessons, that I am not cut out for institutional preaching. For a long time I had hoped that I would be able to find that one church, wherever they were, that would be just crazy enough to trust that God would actually speak to them through me, but that door has been pretty firmly shut. The youth ministry door - the one I was originally trying to enter - was apparently never even as open as I'd thought! For whatever reason (and it's not like a shortage of options), I just am not what churches are looking for.

BUT!

It's absolutely undeniable that God has equipped me to do something for Him. I don't really care what you think about my blog - I'm mostly writing this for myself - but I definitely care what you think about God. And for whatever reason, people are generally willing to talk with me about God. Sometimes they're even eager. I can't tell you how many people I've met through just the experience of following one particular band who are open to the questions of God - and are actually seeking out someone to help them find their own answers!

I can't tell you how many people have introduced themselves to me through Facebook or the PGroove message board or even in person who have said that they specifically wanted to get to know me because they want to talk to "the preacher." Some of them want to encourage me to keep sharing my faith in an environment that might not always be as accepting of religion as some others. Some of them come to me for encouragement to hold fast to the faith that they're struggling with holding on to. Some of them just have questions.

Do I have to work at a church to share the gospel with those folks?

Back to the Spider-Man 3 metaphor now...

I'm a God nerd, and a lot of churches (not all, but a lot) are really making me mad because they're getting my obsession wrong. I am completely obsessed with God, and other people are messing it up.

And I want to assure you that it doesn't have as much to do with churches not hiring me as it does with my thinking that I've actually got anything to say to churches in the first place. I know I don't look the part of a preacher. Like, at all. I can totally understand a church's hesitancy to take a chance on a guy like me. But what I don't understand is a church's hesitancy to take a chance on God.

I am not the second coming of Jesus, nor do I think myself to have any sort of extra-Biblical revelation to the Will of God. I just think that a lot of people aren't paying attention to what the Bible actually says, and therefore distorting Christianity into a wrecked mockery of itself. Churches have become so caught up in things that shouldn't even be an issue (like what version of the Bible we use, what clothes we wear to church, whether or not a preacher can actually be effective if he's single, etc...) that we've missed the real point.

We've become so caught up in what the world thinks church should be about that we've missed so much of what God said the church should be about.

Love God, Love Others. There you go. That's it.

Musical instruments don't matter. The name on the sign in front of the building doesn't matter. The mistakes of the past don't matter. The only thing - the only thing - that matters at all is Love.

So... I'm moving to Texas.

It's not gonna happen right away, but it is going to happen, hopefully by the summer. Specifically, I'll be moving to Arlington. I've got some people down there who are itching to help me in my efforts to reach out to the people that churches have, at best, not known how to reach or, at worst, completely ignored and maybe even maligned. It's going to be a thing.

The healthy don't need a doctor. I'm going after the sick.

In the process of doing that, I'm probably going to get a little "out there." I'm probably going to be hanging out with some (more) folks that a lot of pew-fillers are pretty uncomfortable with. I'm probably going to look like someone that is rejected by the legalistic standards of people who think that following God is about following rules. I'm probably going to be surrounded by sinners. I'm probably going to drink a lot of beer.

But I think I'm in good company, because I can think of at least one other person who did all of that. Do you know who I'm thinking of?

Let me give you a hint: starts with a "J," ends with "esus Christ of Nazareth, the crucified and resurrected Son of God."

Pray for me. Pray for my efforts to reach the lost. Pray for Christians the world over who need to be reminded that our faith is not about how good we can be for God, but instead about how good God has been to us, and the responsibility we've been given to take that goodness to others.

I love you all.

Why I hate Superman so very, very, very much

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's an incredibly boring character whose very DNA is filled with deus ex machina story resolutions!

I hate Superman.

Oh, dear sweet goodness, do I hate Superman.

In the interest of fairness and full disclosure, I need to point out that I specifically hate what Superman has become today.

The original Superman - June 1938, Action Comics #1 - wasn't bad. Not my favorite by any stretch, but definitely better than what we've got now. I absolutely love the 1941-1943 Fleischer/Famous Studios Superman cartoons, but that's partly the animation nerd in me showing. Same thing goes for Superman: The Animated Series: if it was just another Superman cartoon, I'd skip it completely. But since it's from Bruce Timm and all the other guys that made the Batman series, well, then, I've got no choice but to own the entire thing on DVD. I mean, really... No choice. What choice do I have? None!

But Superman as he exists today... Yeah, not a fan.

I'm gonna do you a favor and skip over a lot of my nerd rage here and just bring up a couple of quick things that will hopefully at least help you understand why I hate Superman. So the quick version is this - 1) Superman is so powerful it's downright stupid, and 2) Superman is so morally pure and good that he makes for some really, really, really boring stories.

As I'm sure you know, since Superman is unfortunately one of the select few superheroes who has been chosen for universal recognition outside of the world of comics, Superman isn't actually human - he's a Kryptonian. His home planet of Krypton was destroyed years ago, and young Kal-El (Superman's real Kryptonian name) was stuck in an interplanetary escape pod, crash landing outside of a farm in Smallville, Kansas, to be raised by his adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. Since Krypton orbited a red sun and our earth orbits a yellow sun, as Clark Kent grew into manhood, he discovered he had powers far beyond those of mortal men. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive... You know all of this.

But the point is that there are other powers that Superman has in the comics that just kinda stop making sense. For instance... Superman not only has X-Ray vision, but he can see radio waves if he squints. This is a silly thing. Seriously. Radio waves. Squinting.

And that's not all! Because Superman has been spending so much time absorbing all of the yellow radiation from our sun, Kryptonite doesn't even slow him down anymore. The only way to make Superman vulnerable to any sort of physical harm is to bathe him in the light of a red sun - and how many red suns do you have lying around, hmmm?

Even his hair is bulletproof.

But an indestructible character is not necessarily an uninteresting character. It's the addition of the super-duper good guy persona that makes Superman so intolerable to me. No matter what Lex Luthor does - from kidnapping Lois Lane and holding her hostage in the heart of a volcano to brainwashing Jimmy Olsen to become a Superman-hating hippie (both of these things happened) - Superman never gets angry, never gets out of control, never shows emotion beyond a stern disapproval of Luthor's naughty ways.

And that gets boring.

Sure, there's all sorts of drama about how he never knew his real parents, and his entire planet was blown up, and he's the last of his race...

But then there's also the bottle city of Kandor (an entire city from Krypton shrunk down to the size of a snow globe), Kara Zor-El (Supergirl), General Zod and the other surviving Kryptonian villains from the Phantom Zone, Krypto the superdog, Streaky the supercat, Comet the superhorse, and Beppo the supermonkey, because why not?

So no matter what happens to Superman, unless Lois Lane were to actually die, none of it matters, at all, because at the end of the day, he can still punch his way out of whatever death trap he's in and then smile for the camera when he snatches Jimmy Olsen from the claws of the Thanagarian snare-beast or whatever inane crap it is this week. (For those of you who care, check out Kingdom Come for an alternate-future story where Lois in fact is killed by the Joker, and Superman is for once an interesting character.)

I have a point with all of this, and it's not just to indoctrinate you into my way of thinking about arguably the most popular superhero of all time.

What I want you to think about now is how many Christians you know (maybe including even you yourself) who try to present an image of themselves as being like Superman.

It has become an epidemic: some Christians in today's world are trying to convince the rest of us - and even themselves - that they are bulletproof, that they are above reproach, that they are without weakness in any shape, form, or fashion. They have (rightly) taken God's grace into their lives and realized that they have been forgiven of all of their sins, but then have also (wrongly) used that as an excuse for a stand-offish superiority.

One of the stereotypical scenes put into just about every media translation of Superman ever is the image of Superman foiling a robbery in progress and the bad guys wasting all of their ammunition firing into Superman's impenetrable chest as he stands stock still, an ever-vigilant guardian of goodness and pretty hair.

Sometimes some Christians try to convince people around them that they're the same as Superman - bulletproof, immovable, never-failing, never-faltering...

And that's just wrong.

If there's anything that Jesus was trying to teach us throughout His ministry, it's that God is Good and we aren't. We miss it. We miss it by miles. And it is only through a confession of that missing it that we ever get any closer.

And it's not good enough to just say "Well, I'm not perfect." We've actually got to be willing to open up to God and to each other and confess - BY NAME! - our sins.

I have something of a problem with lust and pornography. I am unbelievably arrogant at times. (Believably arrogant at others.) I pass judgment on people with little to no hesitation just because they don't act or look like me - and most of the time, I'm judging them for (possibly) judging others who do act or look like me. How's THAT for awesome?

I could go on, but those are the three it's hardest for me to actually own up to, so I think you're getting the picture.

The purpose of our redemption in Christ is not to transform us from sinner to super saint so we can stand firm in our goodness and watch the bullets of sin and darkness just ping! and ftwang! off of our perfectly chiseled pecs. In fact, it is that very mindset of thinking that our righteousness is so secure that we're impervious to the attacks of Satan that will land us directly in the enemy's camp in no time.

So don't do that.

If you pay attention to what Mary is saying in Luke 1:46-55, you'll see a lot of the "theology of reversal" - God opposes the proud but lifts up the humble, fills the hungry but sends the rich away empty... This is an invaluable peek into what it means to actually seek the Heart of God. It is only through assuming a correct relationship with God and man that we can actually enter into a blessed relationship with God or man.

We are residing as aliens in this world, which means that we're definitely not supposed to be like everyone else down here, but in our uniqueness from the earth, we've also got to be willing to be a part of it. We are to keep ourselves pure from the pollution of the world, but we're also supposed to reach out to the world in efforts to bring them to God. In order to do any of this, we have to admit our own weakness - total, complete, ground-up, all-consuming, inevitable weakness - and rely fully, wholly, entirely, and solely upon God. Nothing else works. Ever.

Weakness is strength and strength is weakness. The exalted will be humbled and the humble will be exalted. The first will be last and the last will be first. The sooner we all get that idea into our heads and start living it out on a daily basis by treating everyone we ever come into contact with as being more important than ourselves, then the sooner we can get the world closer to something of a respectable condition so we don't have to be embarrassed when Jesus comes back and sees the total mess we've made of things since He left.

(Also - anybody who makes any lame Superman/Jesus comparison in the comments is gonna get mocked. Just warning you now.)

Why you ought to be more familiar with Hellboy

This is Hellboy. He is a demon, the son of Satan himself.



Hellboy is one of my absolute favorite comics.

If you've never read Hellboy, I highly recommend it. "The Wolves of St. August" is a great starting point. I'd at least recommend that everybody see the first movie. Skip the second one, but definitely see the first one. It's not perfect in its translation of Hellboy and the BPRD (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) from the page to the screen, but it's pretty dang close.

Like I already said - Hellboy is a demon, from the place known to Christians as Hell, in at least a mythological and literary sense. It is definitely the dominion of Satan and all his armies of darkness. Hellboy was brought to earth in December 1944 as part of a collaboration between a desperate Third Reich and the mad Russian monk Grigori Rasputin. Rescued by a group of American soldiers and Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, appointed head of the BPRD by Franklin Roosevelt, Hellboy was raised as an American citizen and - under Professor Bruttenholm - a Catholic.

As Hellboy grows in stature, wisdom, and favor with man and God, he becomes a fully active field agent for the BPRD, using his demonic strength and thorough knowledge of various evils in the world in combat on the side of good, which normally winds up being the side of God. On several occasions, Hellboy is shown (in both the comics and movies) as only being able to defeat some creatures of evil with Christian relics.

In the movie, there's actually a scene that really accents the Christian symbolism in a more direct way than is usually shown in the comics. Hellboy has been lured into the realm of sin (claiming his birthright as the bringer of the apocalypse by virtue of being the crown prince of Hell itself) and is about to destroy the world. Another field agent shouts to Hellboy, telling him, "Remember who you are!" As he says this, he throws the late Professor Broom's rosary to Hellboy, who catches it. As Hellboy catches his dead father's rosary, the cross makes contact with Hellboy's skin, burning it. This breaks Hellboy away from the darkness, brings him back to kill the bad guys, and we get a happy ending.

I used to catch a lot of flak from people for reading Hellboy.

"The main character is a demon. His name is 'Hellboy.' He's FROM. HELL. How can you, as a Christian, possibly think that this is worth reading?"

Hey there, nameless accuser... Have you ever actually sat down and read any Hellboy?

"Well, of course not! I don't read that kind of sinful material."

Have you ever seen the movie?

"Why would I? Anything that promotes Satan is beyond my tolerance as a Christian."

So you have no way of knowing, then, that Satan always loses in the Hellboy comics. So you have no way of knowing, then, that Hellboy himself is consistently written as actively fighting for the forces of Good - the forces of God - fighting the countless evils that seek to war against Heaven.

Hellboy is a fictional character. I don't really care if you think I'm not being Christ-like for reading it. If it bugs you, don't read it, and if my influence on your Christianity is going to be wasted because of something I read, then I assure you, you'd have a lot more problems with me the more you knew about me, so maybe it's just good if you start ignoring me right now.

But the reason I bring up Hellboy in the first place is that I think Christians have developed a reputation for being spiritually pessimistic. We look at someone who doesn't look like they could possibly be a good Christian and let what we see determine a lot. The way people dress, the way they live, the way they talk... We look at people trying their best and decide that their souls are half empty instead of thinking that they could be half full.

Hellboy is good. It's a good comic book, Hellboy himself is a good character (in the sense that he's written well and has very interesting conflict potential for any story he's found in) as well as being a character who is good. He's not a saint. But he's definitely good. And he's definitely trying.

There are so many people - so many - in this world who are trying their dead-level best to be the people that they believe God is asking them to be, yet they can't get very far because they've been turned off by the behavior of other Christians. They've been excluded from churches, from communities, from schools, from families, from humanity itself at times, simply because they didn't look like good Christians.

Why come to church when everybody at church is shocked that you'd ever dare to come to church after what you did?

Why come to church when everybody at church can't believe you'd come to church in that?

Why come to church when everybody at church knows that you're too far gone to even talk to?

I'm not gonna put up any scripture for this one, because you've heard it. Open your Bible to anything in the New Testament and read the two pages there before you. If you don't hit at least something about not judging others, you're probably missing a few pages.

The only reason people don't go to church is the people who already go to church.

Either you're the kind of person that will tell those in the darkness of the world just how lost they are in all that darkness or you're the kind of person who will ignore the darkness and focus on showing others the light.

God Loved us before we ever Loved Him. He took us from where we were and brought us to where we are. Why would we ever think, then, that the world outside has to come to us?

A brief theological reflection on Batman

What comes to mind when I tell you to think of Batman? This is actually a pretty important question, because we can't talk about Batman until we've got some agreement on who Batman actually is.

The 1966-1968 Batman TV series, starring Adam West as Batman, is not a good version of Batman. I know there's folks out there who like it, but I just hope that they understand that it's not really the best version of Batman out there. Really, folks, let's be honest - the Batusi is not going to be a recognized action of a man who dresses up as a giant bat in order to more effectively avenge the murders of his parents (which he witnessed at age 7).

But on the other hand, the 1992-1995 Batman: The Animated Series is a very good version of Batman, largely because it is much more in line with the central idea of "Bruce Wayne saw his parents murdered in front of him and now fights a one-man war on crime as the dark-clad spirit of vengeance."

Of course, those aren't the only two televised adaptations of Batman to ever exist. Batman was also portrayed on SuperFriends and all of its spinoffs, as well as spinoffs of the 1992 animated series. And then there are theatrical adaptations of Batman to be considered, as well. The Adam West series had its own movie, Tim Burton directed Batman in 1989 with Michael Keaton, and then Burton and Keaton reunited for Batman Returns in 1992. After Burton and Keaton left, director Joel Schumacher took the reigns for 1995's Batman Forever starring Val Kilmer, and 1997's Batman & Robin with George Clooney. None of those are very good, but I'll allow that some are worse than others.

Then we come to the most recent film adaptations of Batman: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, both directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale as Batman. Both of these have been excellent, and I'm personally looking forward to the third film in the series, The Dark Knight Rises, due summer 2012.

Now, I realize that I'm not the supreme arbiter of taste when it comes to interpretations of Batman - my opinion is just that - my opinion. If someone else thinks Adam West was the best Batman ever, who am I to say he or she is wrong?

Well, for starters, I'm the guy who's read a whole lot of Batman comics.

I won't claim that I've read every Batman story ever, but I've read enough that I have a pretty solid idea of who Batman is, what defines him as a character, what kinds of stories work best for that character, and also what kinds of stories don't work as well for the character.

And sometimes when people get to talking about Batman, it's very important to make sure that everybody comes to the table with a common understanding of what makes a "good" Batman, because it's only after everybody agrees on what's good that you can actually determine what's bad.

Tim Burton's depiction of Batman is no good for a lot of reasons, but there are two huge ones that stick out as flagrant errors in Batmannery. First - the Joker did not kill Batman's parents. That's a pretty cheap storytelling move, trying to tie unrelated elements of the story together in order to create more emotional tension. Second - Batman doesn't kill people, not even the Joker. But hey, Tim Burton has said before that he never read Batman comics, and really, that explains a lot of things.

I'm not saying that you can't enjoy Batman without reading the comics... But that does make it really hard to get a fully accurate picture of the true nature of the Batman.

Movies and TV shows are operating within time-sensitive frameworks where there's not really enough room to put in ALL of the wealth of information and characterization that can be borne out of more than 70 years of work on Batman. In pursuits of a deeper understanding of Batman, however, it becomes necessary at some point to at least read a few of the comics. (I would suggest starting with anything written by Frank Miller.)

Sometimes people have ideas of what they think Batman is like - based on their exposure to various TV shows and movies over the years - that either line up perfectly or don't fit at all with what the real Batman is like. These misconceptions of Batman have a lot to do with how people react to Batman, and it's important to know if somebody's idea of Batman is right or not in order to know what they actually think of Batman.

And now replace "Batman" in that last paragraph with "God" and you'll see what I see in a lot of Christians today.

A lot of Christians today are operating under a set of mistaken assumptions about who God is. The corruptions of the idea of God come from all sorts of places, not excluding movies and TV. And even worse, once we get to the root of the misconceptions about God, we find that they come from someone who hasn't ever actually read the Bible to see what God Himself says about God.

Batman as portrayed by Adam West in the 1966 TV series isn't such a terrible Batman that it's something else entirely. It's just a somewhat goofy Batman with painted on eyebrows and a charming smile, surrounded by caricatures of his villains, all reduced to brightly colored practical jokes instead of genuinely threatening psychotics with seriously altered understandings of reality.

Batman as portrayed by Michael Keaton in the Tim Burton films still isn't so horrible at being Batman that we have to call him Superman, but it's still not a 100% accurate Batman, either. This version of Batman goes too far and crosses lines that the real Batman doesn't, violating one of the central codes of the actual character's definition, leading to a corrupted vision of who Batman is.

Again - that's how some people are with God. Some people - Christian and non-Christian alike - operate with understandings of God that deviate the Biblical picture of God to create something that, although not entirely worthless, definitely isn't completely correct.

God is not the eternal sunshine and rainbows machine, wanting to shower you with nothing but happiness and Lisa Frank stickers; nor is He the universal drill sergeant, barking orders and keeping His troops in line through harsh routines. Both of these ideas of God come from corruptions of aspects of God - both ideas are based on the Truth of God, but still fall so very short.

I'm hoping that the Batman analogy helps you see why it's important that we all have a fully functional understanding of who God really is. While I'll grant that it doesn't matter too much (while still mattering a good bit) what you think about Batman, it definitely matters, more than anything else does, what you think about God.

As I've become more known in social circles as "the preacher," I've found myself having more and more discussions about God and faith in Him. One of the inescapable commonalities among people who hold objections to Christianity is a theologically incorrect picture of God. If God Himself is misunderstood, how can anything else make sense? When I'm talking to non-Christians who object to the idea of a God who tells His followers to bring hateful acts of violence down on - for instance - homosexuals, I try to show them that they're operating with a mistaken understanding of who God is. Once they understand that what God actually asks of us is to love all people as much as we love ourselves, then we are one step closer to sharing in an experience of the Truth of God.

But at the same time, I often have conversations with Christians who are themselves coming from dangerously awry understandings of the true nature of God. When I meet a Christian who is struggling in his faith because God hasn't blessed him with material wealth, it's there that we've got to make sure to look for and find the Truth of God, the Truth that transcends worldly desires and focuses on living by the Spirit. It is only when we come to understand the Truth of God that the Truth can set us free - truly free.

It's no mere coincidence that Jesus refers to Himself as the Truth - there's a very powerful idea contained in that. One person's understanding of God might seem to work for them, but if it's not actually based on the correct understanding, then things fall apart pretty quickly when the questions are asked.

I'd like to encourage you to read the book of Job. I know it's long, and I know not everybody's got just tons of free time, but trust me - if you take the time to read the Bible, God will bless you deeply for it, and you'll be blown away how much you can get out of just reading for a few minutes each day. But specifically and especially in reading Job, I want you to look at the version of God presented in the closing chapters and compare it to your own concept of God. Does Job's God look like your God?

There's only so much any preacher can do. Eventually everything comes down to whether or not the listener is willing to seriously question his or her own beliefs and make adjustments based on the reality of Truth when compared to the illusion of personal preference.

When faced with the choice between a difficult belief that challenges you to take the hard step of living a better life or an easy belief that allows you to stay the same and placate your conscience, it's not hard to see why most people through the history of the world have taken the easy way out. It's easy. Duh.

But following God isn't supposed to be easy. Good Batman isn't easy. But finding - and adhering to - the genuine Truth is what makes all the difference.

When The Dark Knight came out in theaters, the girl I was dating at the time was extremely reluctant to see the movie, citing a huge hatred for Batman. This simply wasn't gonna sit with me, so I had to find out where this hatred was coming from. As I dug and poked and prodded, I found out that she'd never actually experienced any good Batman. Once she saw The Dark Knight, however, she admitted that she enjoyed it - and why wouldn't she? It's awesome! It gets Batman right! I firmly believe that it's next to impossible for anyone to see Batman done well and not enjoy it at least a little bit.

But Batman done wrong? Yeah, that's terrible.

Same thing goes for God. When people are operating with a poor understanding of who God actually is and what He actually does, it's easy to see why they'd reject the idea.

Once the Truth is understood, however, and people have a correct understanding of the Nature and Will and Love of God, then I don't see how anybody can pass it up.

Make sure you know the Truth of who God is. Don't be content with your understanding of God as it stands now - dedicate yourself to a constant search for knowledge of God on the most intimate of levels. Know Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you will find yourself sharing what you know with everyone around you. Just like Batman, once people see God in the right way, it becomes a lot harder to reject the idea.

Something about Pink Floyd in a religious context

As you may recall from the previous post, Led Zeppelin is my favorite band to a truly hyperbolic degree.

However standing in as close of a second place as is possible is the Pink Floyd.

GET IT?

Pink Floyd does good things. Very good things.

But they're not Led Zeppelin.

I said last week that Led Zeppelin's 1973 Houses of the Holy is my all time favorite album. Pink Floyd's 1973 Dark Side of the Moon is my second favorite. I don't know how it was for wine, but 1973 was a pretty awesome year for rock and roll.

In fact, I think Pink Floyd hit a streak of audio perfection for a stretch of four albums - Meddle in 1971, DSotM in '73, Wish You Were Here in '75, and Animals in '77.

But Led Zeppelin had a streak for 8 albums running. So... Led Zeppelin still wins.

And it's not like I hate the rest of the Pink Floyd catalog compared to those four albums. That's not at all the case. I really dig The Wall, but it is a bit bloated, and it's very emotionally draining if you really absorb the content while you listen, so I don't listen to it very often. The Syd Barret years are fun, and some of the earlier instrumental freak-outs like "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Saucerful of Secrets" are particularly awesome.

But at the same time, I don't ever just sit around listening to the studio album from Ummagumma. You wanna know why?

Because it's terrible.

I love Pink Floyd. Don't get me wrong. But nobody likes Ummagumma. Even Pink Floyd members themselves will tell you that Ummagumma is horrible. Ummagumma studio is not as bad as "Revolution 9" from the Beatles' white album, but it is almost six times as long, so it's like your best friend asking if you'd rather be stabbed in the ears with a really sharp pencil once or a kinda dull pencil six times. Either way, you're getting stabbed in the ears with a pencil by someone you once trusted to not stab you in the ears with a pencil.

Led Zeppelin? They don't have a bad album. Sure, In Through the Out Door is not my favorite Zep album, but it is still a Led Zeppelin album. I still love it. I'll even admit I can see why other people aren't too nuts about it. I still love it. It's Led Zeppelin.

Sometimes I am not in the mood to hear Perpetual Groove. Sometimes I am not in the mood to hear Eric Clapton. There are never times when I am not in the mood to hear Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.

Now, there is some Pink Floyd I have to be in the mood for, like The Wall or most of the stuff from the Syd Barrett years. And, of course, Ummagumma is just never gonna happen voluntarily.

But I will never complain if you turn on Dark Side of the Moon. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, what time of year it is, what's happening in my life, if I've had a good day, a bad day... Dark Side of the Moon is always a good choice.

It's just that Houses of the Holy is always a better choice.

I love Pink Floyd. I just get a bit more excited about Led Zeppelin.

A lot of you have been asking me for updates on the job situation with the church in Oregon. As of writing this, I don't really have an update to give. I know that they interviewed another guy. He taught the Wednesday night class last week and preached this past Sunday morning. As far as I have been told, it's down to me and that guy. I really don't know anything else about if I've got the job or not, or even when I will know.

I do know that I want the job. I know I want to be in Oregon. When I was up there, I saw God using me in a lot of just incredible ways. I felt like my entire life up to that point had been laid out specifically to get me to that point. I saw the invisible Hand of God guiding my life from birth onward, directing an infinitely complex orchestra in an infinitely complex song, and going to Oregon felt like the first notes of the "Hallelujah" chorus. It was good.

But hey, you know what?

I like being at home, too.

In fact, I love it.

Since the end of the summer of 2009, I've been looking for a church job. I started off looking exclusively for youth ministry work, then broadened my search to include pulpit jobs. In every church I've had any serious contact with, God has shown me some pretty amazing windows of opportunity where I felt that I would be able to be of particularly good use. In some places, those windows were bigger than others, but every church I heard anything other than an immediate "No" from looked like a possibility on my end just because I saw where God could use me if He wanted to. And that's just what I saw. I know for sure that God saw other places I could have been used in any of those places.

But (obviously) I wasn't the best fit for those places and/or they weren't the best fit for me.

The thing that started to get to me, though, was that I could see these immediate openings into sharing Christ with people everywhere I looked... except at home.

I was talking to a church in Olive Branch, Mississippi, for a little while. I know a lot of awesome folks in Olive Branch who could use a deeply personal Christian influence in their lives, not the kind of Christian influence that leaves fake money with Bible verses on it as the only tip for a waitress named Emily. I could have done some good there.

I was talking to a church in Cathey's Valley, California, for a little while. I didn't know anybody out there that wasn't at least a three-hour round-trip away, but that entire trip was God showing me places and people where I could do some good.

I was talking to a church in De Queen, Arkansas, for a little while. They were my first church interview after my internship Heritage Place in Birmingham was over. I was nervous, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I certainly wasn't in the same place with God that I am now. But even with all of that, I saw where God could put me to good use.

But no matter where I went, no matter where I got back from, no matter what I learned, I couldn't see how to do anything at home.

I don't know if it was because I just wasn't looking in the right places or what. I did what I could where I could, but it was like a band with one good song every few years instead of a career made of several worthwhile albums. That one good song might be awesome, but everything in between is really boring.

But here lately, something happened. I got back in touch with some dudes I knew from high school days and God started really using me. It's slow, but it's steady. It's definitely there. It's definitely strong. It's definitely God.

So now I've got another reason to want to stay home.

I love my parents. I love my sister. I love our cats. I like our dog. I love Tennessee. I love living less than an hour from Nashville. I love being close enough to Perpetual Groove's regular touring circuit that I managed to see them 6 times last year - one of those being Amberland, which honestly, literally, truly, sincerely changed my life.

But I'm more excited about Oregon.

There's no shortage of things I can do here at home. I've started to see more of the possibilities God wants me to see. I've started to see more people I can reach out to. I've started to see more conversations I can have with people who I'm in a unique position to have those conversations with about the things that are worth having conversations about. Those possibilities are everywhere here at home. I'm finally seeing it.

I'm still just more excited about Oregon.

To be honest, part of the reason is that it's gonna be easier for me to be a better man in Oregon. Up there, I've got a clean slate. Down here, I'm doing my best to be my best, but I'm still reminded by a lot of reminders of my past failures. In Oregon, I didn't spend all my time around cigarettes. Here at home, most of my friends smoke, and sometimes I slip up. Sometimes I slip up for a few days in a row.

When Jesus had finished these parables, He moved on from there. Coming to His hometown, He began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t His mother’s name Mary, and aren’t His brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all His sisters with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?” And they took offense at Him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

And He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

- Matthew 13:53-58

I'm not saying I'm a prophet, and I'm definitely not trying to equate myself with Jesus, but I do think that the truth of what Jesus says still rings true today. Why would anybody listen to me talk about God? Isn't this the guy who dressed up as Twinkie the Kid in high school? Isn't this the guy who never showed up on time for anything once he had a driver's license? Isn't this the guy who did old Chris Farley gags on the bus?

Please, please, please - don't get me wrong, I love being home. It's just that I know I can do some better work somewhere else. That's what I'm more excited about.

I'm excited about being in a place where people see my Christian example without the burdensome trouble of knowing me 10 years ago.

I love Pink Floyd. I will never be upset with someone for suggesting Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd is awesome in ways that nobody else - including Led Zeppelin - ever comes close to. Pink Floyd is the only Pink Floyd.

I'm just more excited about listening to Led Zeppelin.

If I do get the job, I know I'm gonna miss home. I know it's going to be different being 2300 miles away from my parents and sister. I know it's going to be hard.

But I also know that it'll be worth it.

And if I don't get the job, I know I'll be somewhat disappointed, but I certainly won't be complaining.

I also know that it'll be totally worth it.

I'd appreciate your continued prayers for God's Will being done through me.

I will let you know what happens as soon as I know anything myself.

I love you all, and I love all of you.