Think Christian Articles

Valentine’s Day dinner deals and true romance

2012-02-10T07:00:26Z

Posted on 02/10/12

While dining at a local Italian restaurant with my 10-year-old daughter, she read an ad for an upcoming Valentine’s Day special, which sounded like serious romance to her. “You and Dad should come here for that,” she sagely advised. I told her that we didn’t usually do a lot for Valentine’s Day. “Dad’s not really the romantic type. Flowers and valentines are not his thing.”

My next nugget of wisdom, had I gotten it out, was going to be something about how he enjoys spending time with me, that he shows me he loves me whenever he fixes the doorknob or makes dinner, and that he listens when I need to be heard.

She stopped me in my tracks with a dubious look and the heartfelt question, “What were you thinking?! When you married him, I mean?” I laughed out loud and gave my version of romance anyway, which didn’t seem to make much of an impression.

As a teen, I myself spent an inordinate amount of time immersed in romance novels. I ran the gamut from the mother of all Christian romance novelists, Grace Livingston Hill, to Janette Oke, made the jump to Danielle Steel, then on to, well, even less pious romances. In each I found some of the same elements.

A virtuous, intelligent and usually gorgeous but overlooked young woman (preferably with long, flowing hair) falls in love with a strong, handsome and often wealthy young man who exudes a sense of mystery. This young man will likely have a dark side, a rebellious nature and our heroine will help him with whatever personal agony he must endure.

In the Christian romances, he becomes convinced of the error of his ways and marries his virginal bride. In the others, he turns out to be a good man, deep down, no matter how dangerous he might be, and the couple’s relationship also comes to consummation, though usually more explicitly and well in advance of any wedding night.

There are shades of this framework in everything from Jane Austen to Twilight. And there’s a reason. Who wouldn’t want to marry handsome, wealthy Mr. Darcy? What teenage girl can resist being such a temptation and obsession to a surreally beautiful man, even if he is a vampire?

Unfortunately, girls who devour these romances can be ruined for real men forever. I mean, really, who has the Darcy fortune? Who among parents thinks it’s a great idea for girls to evangelize through dating? And, seriously, what man can compete with the book form of Twilight’s Edward, whose very breath is dizzying, always, and who makes you the absolute center of his universe? Any man who sneaks in your window to watch you sleep every night and who follows your every move is a stalker, not a prospective life partner.

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As my daughter enters the age of romance, I hope that she can see more than the hearts and flowers that decorate her room, her wardrobe and her imagination. I also hope that as she begins to form relationships with the opposite sex, she grows to know love beyond the urgency of first infatuation. I know that she sees her parents as being rather dull. Dad is neither mysterious nor particularly rugged. He likes hanging out at home. I certainly do not fit her expectations of a glamorous woman - no earrings, no makeup and less-than-flowing hair. “A boring old mama,” as she summed me up a few years back.

I pray that God will someday bring just the right imperfect man for my beautiful, imperfect daughter, if marriage is in her future, and that she’ll find her value in being a child of God first and foremost. And I’m grateful for her grandparents’ long marriages, which are a wonderful affirmation of the everyday reality of love and commitment. No half-price Valentine’s Day pasta or soon-faded flowers can compare to that kind of romance.

What Do You Think?

What depictions of romance influenced you as a child?
How might a Gospel vision of romantic relationships differ?
What are ways to counter unhealthy romantic expectations that society presents to kids?

Florence + the Machine, Snow Patrol and the trickiness of spiritual energy

2012-02-09T07:00:13Z

Posted on 02/09/12

On their sixth album, Fallen Empires, the Irish band Snow Patrol threatens to get all experimental on us.

The first track, “I’ll Never Let Go,” starts with an arpeggiated synth track and a distorted vocal that had me thinking my record player’s needle needed replacing. Cameos by Lissie and background vocals by The L.A. Inner City Mass Choir certainly set the stage well. Things really open up, though, on the next track (and first single), “Called out in the Dark.” The beat gets really dancey and the hooks are sharp. Next up, “The Weight,” lays down a four-on-the-floor groove as it unfurls what really sounds like a sort of postmodern worship song. Is frontman Gary Lightbody talking about the Almighty when he sings, “You love the little signs of life / You love it when we lose our minds / You love these little wars of words / You love it when they call your name”?

As the album progresses, though, the clubby accouterments give way to the band’s stock in trade. At the core, fortunately, Snow Patrol is simply one of the best Euro-pop bands going, trading in soaring melodies, heartfelt lyrics and powerful dynamics in the wonderful tradition of bands like U2, Simple Minds, Coldplay and The Silencers. It’s no surprise that indie hipsters choke on the sincere lyrics, which explore the darkest of themes: death, addiction, depression, futility and loneliness. These are wrestled with in ways that - for those who have ears to hear - seem awfully hopeful and even Gospel-tinged.

Fallen Empires is a bit more electronic on the surface, and the change is nice. But fortunately Lightbody and company seem to know exactly what they are good at. This kind of boldly soulful and redemptive music is never loved by the critics, but it’s the kind of stuff that just may stick with real people for a lifetime.

I’ll admit that I was slow to warm up to Florence + the Machine. Some television appearances left me scratching my head. She seemed to be on 11 all the time, acting the dervish without first earning the right. I listened to her aptly titled debut, Lungs, exactly once - believing it to be a little more than a testimonial to her ability to holler.

But the songs, ever-present on alternative and college radio, got under my skin a bit. It was the second single from her second album, Ceremonials, that hooked me. “It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back so shake it off!” Indeed. With her triumphant soprano riding a tribal chorus, she immediately reminded me of some of the greats from the 1980s: Kate Bush, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Annie Lennox. It was enough to get me to dive into Ceremonials, as well as her debut, and I like what I hear. Her tracks manage to sound incredibly artful and catchy at the same time. And that voice!

There’s another hook here, though. Florence’s lyrics frequently anchor the songs in spiritual energy, sounding much like the sort of vaguely religious fare that fills stadiums so perfectly at Coldplay or Peter Gabriel shows. At one point in music’s history it would have been relatively safe to assume that any artist who persistently pointed to the heavens and sang of deliverance, forgiveness, faith and hope would be doing so from a perspective of Christian faith. But since U2 - who certainly did imbue their rock with elements of the Gospel - it seems that this brand of hand-raising, euphoria-inducing, inspirational rock has become its own genre. Even when she gets as specific as referencing detailed elements of the Eucharist in “Bedroom Hymns,” it’s hard to tell if the body of Christ is more than a metaphor for a lover. In fact, Florence’s machine seems primarily fueled by Christian metaphors and references, from prayer to baptism to communion and back again. If she’s not a believer she sure seems haunted by faith.

For Discussion

What do you make of the music from these two artists?
Would you consider Snow Patrol's "The Weight" to be a "postmodern worship song?"
Are you bothered by the appropriation of Christian elements in mainstream songs or can they serve as examples of common grace?

Urinating Marines and interpreting the atrocities of war

2012-02-08T07:00:43Z

Posted on 02/08/12

Last month, Americans were forced to face - again - the moral frailty of our own troops when the Internet video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan made headlines. Condemnation of the four Marines was swift. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called the video “utterly despicable” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assured the world that the “vast, vast majority” of U.S. military personnel were above such shameful behavior.

This incident was the latest in a series of similarly shameful incidents that have occurred over the last 10 years since the United States has been engaged in large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - including the notorious photos taken at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Each time these reports surface, Americans are shocked, outraged - and a little unsettled because deep down we want to believe that our soldiers could never commit these kinds of inhumane atrocities. Our cultural mythology - the American civil religion - teaches us that we are the good guys, that we hold the moral high ground. To maintain our national identity in the face of such embarrassing exposures, we not only condemn the deviant behavior (as we should), but we also condemn the perpetrators as deviant outliers (as Secretary of State Clinton did) in an attempt to assure ourselves and the world that the rest of us would never - could never - degrade our fellow man in this way.

The Gospel challenges us to think differently about these scandals. The behavior of the Marines captured on video is indeed despicable and must be punished, but Scripture teaches that we are all guilty of treating our neighbor as less than human. We are each capable of desecrating the image of God in our enemy, and do so daily in more subtle ways. This is the message Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount when he interpreted the Ten Commandments. Hatred is a form of murder; lust is a form of adultery. And using racial slurs or otherwise denigrating the enemy in our speech - even our public policy speeches - precedes more egregious forms of dehumanizing behavior. In acknowledging that the capacity for hatred lurks within each of us, we can more adeptly provide our soldiers with the resources needed to combat the hatred when it arises.

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Recognizing the inhumanity we are all capable of should drive us to wrestle with the unintended consequences of training elite, efficient killing machines. As Reserve Marine Lt. Col. Paul Hackett said to the Associated Press, “When you ask young men to go kill people for a living, it takes a whole lot of effort to rein that in.” Consequently, as the AP reminds us, “desecration of battlefield dead is as old as war itself.” Although war may at times be a necessity, the intense environment in which our soldiers operate can be dehumanizing.

In training and supporting our troops, we must be cautious as we walk the fine line between celebrating heroism and glorifying war. As an Army friend said, we must instill and cultivate in our soldiers “the image of the noble warrior, as opposed to the uncontrolled savage. The vision of a professional who represents the best of our nation can be a vital restraint even in extreme circumstances.”

Interpreting these events through the lens of the Gospel also reinforces the importance of the military chaplaincy. The trauma of war extends beyond the realm of physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists. In as much as we seek to send our young men and women into battle with the best equipment and the latest battlefield technologies, we must also equip our soldiers to navigate the very real spiritual struggles that war can evoke.

For Discussion

What is your reaction when you hear of "despicable" acts committed by United States military personnel?
Is it possible to engage in military conflict as a "noble warrior?" What might that mean?
How can the Gospel message speak to those who have served in war, either honorably or dishonorably?

Charles Dickens and tales of Providence

2012-02-07T07:00:42Z

Posted on 02/07/12

Today, on his 200^th birthday, Charles Dickens is a writer for our times. Dickens is the rare artist appreciated both in his own day and by succeeding generations. Art that can be explained away by its component parts is not likely to be great art; the greatness of Dickens’ art, ultimately, is that je ne sais quoi that separates a good work from the masterpiece.

Even so, some aspects of Dickens’ artistry are clearly identifiable. His characters are mythic, yet seem to pulse with the blood of real individuals. His narrative voice captures equally the comic and tragic, the local and the epic, the silly and satiric, the sentimental and the dramatic. His intricate, improbable plots demand the willing suspension of disbelief as we surrender ourselves in delight to the laws that govern his imaginative worlds.

Dickens was no aloof artist who fancied himself above the materials of his craft. He knew the world he lived in with a depth and intimacy few can claim: he knew fatherlessness, poverty, debt, envy, struggle, and hard-won success. It is said he walked hundreds of miles through the roughest pockets of London. With that knowledge, he reflected in his works the variety, abundance, and oddity of a universe that is at once the source of much wonder and despair. He arouses in the reader sympathy for orphans; sorrow over death that comes too soon; outrage at injustices great and small; admiration for selfless blacksmiths; disdain for hypocrites, greedy guardians, faux gentlemen, miserly employers, and cruel sisters who bring you up by hand; pity toward forlorn criminals. Dickens can elicit these emotions in us only because he felt them, too.

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Yet, the novels don’t merely reflect society as would a mirror. Like a lamp, Dickens’ words shine on the dark places that the blinders of familiarity shield from sight. Like a prophet, Dickens proclaims the truths neither his contemporaries nor we can, or will, see. In expressing the particularities of his own time and place, his stories continue today to illuminate universal truths of the human condition. A Christmas Carol exposes the Scrooge in all of our hearts. Great Expectations portrays the journey we all take to find our true identity and our true home. The labyrinthine Bleak House embodies the idea that justice delayed is justice denied. A Tale of Two Cities, a gospel-saturated work, depicts institutionalized evil, and yet at the heart of the story is a man who lays down his life for another—and, in losing his life, saves it. All of his works exhibit an overarching worldview that recognizes Providence as reigning over even the deepest depravity of man.

Dickens himself was far from an exemplary Christian; both his life and his theology were flawed. For Dickens, as for many in his Victorian society, Christ’s humanity often eclipsed His divinity, and an emphasis on works sometimes overshadowed the doctrine of grace. Yet the body of Dickens’ work reveals an honest struggle to distinguish the outward forms of religion from its essence, and pharisaical piety from Christ-like love. Such an effort is as timely today as it was then.

For Discussion

What is your favorite Dickens novel?
What Biblical themes do you see in his work?
How does Dickens' writing still resonate today?

What Super Bowl commercials really reveal

2012-02-06T03:44:33Z

Posted on 02/05/12

Super Bowl commercials are the highlight of the game for me. Advertisers bring their A game, and every year there are a few commercials that will be talked about for days. This year was no different.

Advertisements reflect their audience. Advertisers spend tremendous effort working to understand their audience and they are usually quite successful. Because of this work, commercials reflect our common desires. We can look to them and see ourselves, maybe even parts of ourselves we don’t like or parts we previously didn’t recognize. What do this year’s Super Bowl commercials say about us?

The NFL has a fantasy football game and the prize is $1 million. One of this game’s commercials is one of the more telling ads of the evening. The slogan is “…like a millionaire.” In one scene, the character gets out of a private jet with a dozen fashion models and the announcer says, “fly like a millionaire.”

The implication is that we enjoy the idea of living like this. Not that we would actually live like this given a million dollars, but we like something in the idea of living this way. Something about the lifestyles in this video appeals to us. Most of the scenes are opulent displays of personal wealth. For example, one scene depicts a man bathing in gold coins. What resonates here is the idea of having enough money to act like this. This level of wealth is so far past paying for the important things that we can waste money on dolphins in our swimming pools. I think this is actually about economic security, not about the obnoxious wastes of wealth depicted. People that have tacky gold statues don’t worry about health insurance or rent payments.

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We like naked women and underwear models. GoDaddy.com continued its tradition of advertising with overt promises of nudity on their website, and Adriana Lima, the famous Victoria’s Secret model, appeared in commercials from two different companies. Numerous other advertisements used somewhat more subtle forms of the same idea: we like being titillated.

This desire for sex resonates with us for two reasons. First, we’re reminded of it and teased with it consistently. More importantly: sex feels like love. In the modern world love and connections have become mostly something we select. This contributes to a general anxiety about being loved. The awareness that we choose who we will love through life makes us aware of the possibility that we may never be loved deeply. While some would argue women have sex for love and men have sex for pleasure, I think that, underneath, most of us have sex for love. We want sex for the human closeness, the intimacy that it represents. Every time we see Adriana Lima, we are reminded of that.

Some might argue Christians should not be afraid of where their shelter comes from, where their food comes from. After all, “consider the lilies of the field.” It could be argued that Christians should not worry about whether or not they will be loved. One often hears condemnations (which I agree with, in principle) from Christians about the selling of sex in advertisements.

I think it is more helpful for Christians to see these commercials as reminders of the aching inside of our neighbors and ourselves. We are a people afraid for our futures. A verse more relevant than Matthew 6:25 might be Luke 5:31: “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do.” These commercials serve as reminders that we all need doctors to heal our broken hearts. We, as servants about our Father’s business, need to work on healing our neighbors. Instead of complaining about the brokenness in the world around us, let’s work as God’s servants to heal it.

For Discussion

What Super Bowl commercials stood out to you and what messages did they deliver?
What did this year's commercials say about American wants, desires and worries?
How does the Gospel message counter what many of these advertisements communicated?

Why is it so hard to be truthful about Planned Parenthood?

2012-02-03T19:11:55Z

Posted on 02/03/12

In the heated world of politicized reproductive health, pro-life Christians can very often make a good, honest case. Why, then, do so many feel the need to lie instead?

By now, most everyone is aware of the actions this past week on the part of the Susan G. Komen Foundation and their relationship to Planned Parenthood. But for those of you who may not be, a quick summary: The Komen Foundation announced early in the week that they would be withdrawing their grant money from Planned Parenthood clinics, a decision they have since reversed. This grant money was used for breast-cancer screenings and mammogram referrals for low-income and impoverished women (Planned Parenthood underwrites the cost of going to a local hospital for a mammogram should a breast exam turn up any abnormalities).

One can argue back and forth for days whether or not this was a political decision, but as Christians, we need to be careful with how we approach the debate.

Over the past few days, I have seen many self-identified pro-life Christians espousing blatant falsehoods about Planned Parenthood and abortion, and that is disheartening. Our positions should be strong enough that we need not stoop to falsehoods in order to prove our point. But, here in America, we seem to have a large blind spot when it comes to Planned Parenthood. These two comments are representative of the kind appearing on the Komen Foundation’s Facebook page this morning:

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“Sorry, I disapprove of this change in your position. Given the fact that one of Planned Parenthood's main purposes is to refer for and perform abortions, I do not see how your money should go to them. Many studies have shown that abortion actually increases the risk of breast cancer. Also, I've heard that Planned Parenthood doesn't actually do the exams (mammograms) there, but only refers for them. They can't do that without your money??”

“Do you know that planned parenthood's PRIMARY mission is to preform abortions. There are HUNDREDS of other needy organizations and clinics that FOCUS on ALL women's health issues that could benefit from this foundations dollars. planned parenthood is not the ONLY organization that helps impoverished women.”

The spreading of falsehoods is unbecoming of a Christian church.

Planned Parenthood, during the defunding fight last year, released their figures on distribution of funds for the 2009 fiscal year. Abortion services only accounted for 3% of their total work. The rest are cancer screenings of the type funded by Komen (16%), STI/STD testing and treatment (35%) and contraceptive services including gynecological exams (35%) and other women’s health services (10%). These are the only statistics on Planned Parenthood’s distribution of funds that are available - any others that you see are false.

We also see the resurrection of the myth that abortion causes breast cancer. This idea has been thoroughly debunked by scientific studies.

Additionally, Planned Parenthood’s abortive services are funded separately from all other services. Legally, they have to be. According to the 1976 Hyde Amendment, federal funds and grants (such as Medicaid) cannot be used for abortions. As a result, women getting abortions at Planned Parenthood are paying out of pocket, so Planned Parenthood has a network of private and individual donors who specify that they want their money used in that way - much like the Komen grants, which are specifically used only for underwriting breast-cancer screenings.

In a hotly contested issue such as abortion, where there are many personal opinions and stories on both sides, it is the Christian’s responsibility to care for their neighbor. And caring for one’s neighbor, at a very basic level, means not slandering them with lies and deceit. If we have to resort to lies and slander to make our case, we have already lost.

Temples to atheism

2012-02-03T14:00:02Z

Posted on 02/03/12

It’s not hard to imagine what the average Christian will think when they learn that a Swiss-born British writer wants to construct a tower in London as a monument to atheism. For most Christians, the initial response will be shock, followed soon by outrage. Why, these militant atheists just don’t quit, do they?

But hold on a minute. The writer behind this idea, Alain de Botton, has written some of the most interesting books of the past several years on work, architecture and other topics. And despite our flinching reaction, de Botton does not intend his proposal as a poke in the eye to Christians. Rather, he intends to counteract the intense negativity generated by atheist intellectuals like Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and the late Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great). De Botton’s planned “temple to atheism” really means to be a positive statement about unbelief, rather than a critique of Christianity or other religions.

After a few minutes of processing, though, I wondered why de Botton feels a need to construct a monument to atheism, when in reality we are already churning them out at a brisk pace.

For about the last 6,000 years of human history, civilizations constructed religious buildings to symbolize the centrality of their faith, whether in pagan gods or the Biblical God. The history of architecture is mostly the history of churches and temples. About 150 years ago (the age of Freud, Marx and Darwin), the church as civic monument began to lose steam. The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., begun in 1907, is perhaps the last attempt to create a space for worship that dares to compete with Washington’s other monuments. By the middle of the 20^th century, church architecture had become a withered and paltry thing, with “form following function” down a pragmatic path to sanctified hotel ballrooms.

But we didn’t stop building great buildings, did we? Remember the Sydney Opera House, opened in 1973? This building represents a turning point, when our aspirations as a culture shifted entirely from houses of worship to houses of art.

In my own city of Kansas City, Mo., we have opened two such temples in the last few years: the Bloch Building addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum, designed by Stephen Holl, and just last fall the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Moshe Safdie. Both Holl and Safdie are elite, globe-trotting, world-renowned architects, and these buildings both featured stupendous budgets.

My assertion is that these buildings, which now occupy the hearts, minds and wallets of our city’s most engaged citizens, have replaced religious buildings as the physical expression of our desire for transcendence. Having, as a culture, shrugged off religion in the last century and a half, we satisfy our need to build temples by building temples to art. And art is not even a small-g god.

Thus my conclusion about de Botton’s proposed tower: while I understand his desire to make a positive statement about unbelief in our time, temples to atheism can already be found in nearly every city in the developed world. I think de Botton’s scheme is less than insulting: it’s unnecessary.

For Discussion

What structures do you notice that have taken the place of the great cathedrals in contemporary society?
Where do megachurches fit in this landscape?
What is your reaction to the idea of a "temple to atheism?"
How should Christians respond to such projects if they are built?

Why sanctions against Iran represent love in action

2012-02-03T13:31:52Z

Posted on 02/03/12

In an effort to dissuade the government of Iran from working toward the production of a nuclear bomb, the American senate is considering legislation that would intensify American sanctions against Iran, which already include embargoes against certain imports and exports, and legal consequences for doing business with certain Iranian companies and banks. In a Friday speech, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of possible retaliation.

If our political decisions are moral decisions, to be guided ultimately by love for our neighbor, are sanctions against Iran the kind of loving action that Christians should support?

Political decisions, which must mobilize the moral support of large numbers of citizens, are seldom subject to a simple calculus of love. And yet these decisions must be made, and they must be loving.

I would, with tempered enthusiasm, argue that sanctions against Iran are loving in this instance, and I support them.

A nuclear bomb would put Iran’s enemies and neighbors at greater risk of war than they are at present. To diminish that risk, and to protect Iran’s neighbors from the consequences of a nuclear bombing - and the people of Iran from a retaliatory attack - is a loving end to pursue.

Bombs are tools of war, and so Christian just war teaching is relevant to our question. A just war is an act of love, seeking to limit the power of evil governments, protect the innocent and establish a just peace. For a war to be an act of love, it must meet the criteria of just war teaching, which include the principle of last resort: before a proper authority engages in a war, it must exhaust the other means available to establish or protect a just peace. Sanctions are among these means.

Sanctions can be effective - not on their own, but alongside other tools available to practitioners of the arts of diplomacy. The felt effect of sanctions was one prompt nudging the white supremacist regime in my native South Africa, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, to negotiate a transition to a constitutional democracy including all South Africans.

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But sanctions have side-effects. They also hurt those who are not directly at fault for the political circumstances they are intended to change. Sanctions against South Africa could have destroyed the jobs of black South Africans as easily as those of whites; embargoes and sanctions against Iran might harm both those Iranians who oppose their government’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon and those who support it.

It is difficult to persuade all of Iran’s trading partners to participate in sanctions; some countries depend on their trade with Iran (primarily in oil) for their own citizens’ economic well-being, while not being directly at risk from an Iranian nuclear attack. And Iran has issued as a counter-threat the closing of a major sea-way, which would disrupt international trade and hurt working people in a great many countries.

And yet - despite their side-effects, and admitting the difficulty of crafting and calibrating them to do more good than harm - it would seem to me that preventing another nuclear bomb from being at large in our world is a loving purpose, and that sanctions are a loving means, short of war, with which to achieve that purpose.

(Photo of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

The good that comes from reading about Horrible Things

2012-02-02T07:00:57Z

Posted on 02/02/12

One of the first Holocaust novels I read was Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, which tells the story of 10-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her family as they rescue Jews from Nazi forces in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was too young to grasp World War II’s immensity - the international impact, the strategic sweep of Hitler’s deception. But I was thrilled by the narrative in my hands. On the cover, Annemarie - with her short, white-blonde hair and light eyes - looked a bit like me.

I now know that over six million Jews perished in the Holocaust, a statistic that will forever haunt the world’s conscience. Only recently, though, did I read an estimated WWII death toll considering all of its elements - from the camps to the bombs to the battlefields.

This figure is 66 million dead.

I read it in a book much different than the historical novels of my youth - a 560-page text called The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History’s 100 Worst Atrocities.

Rather than offer a fictionalized or first-person view of our world’s most violent chapters, this giant, chronological resource ranks them by body count. The history of violence begins with the Persian War (480-479 B.C.) and ends with the Second Congo War (1998-2002). In every event at least 300,000 were killed. WWII tops the list.

The author, Matthew White, isn’t a multi-degree scholar; he’s a librarian, blogger and self-termed “atrocitologist.” White bends the encyclopedia-entry formula by adding quirky categories, first-person asides and playful terms. Mongolian conqueror Genghis Khan, for example, is called “the absolutely baddest badass in human history.” This is no tame school textbook.

I’m still working my way through Horrible Things. Already, though, I sense possible criticisms it may receive - and not just for the disputability of its data, which White frequently acknowledges. I suspect some may be irked, even offended, by the very concept of ranking atrocity. After all, as White rhetorically asks in his introduction, “Aside from morbid fascination, is there any reason to know the 100 highest body counts of history?”

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If I hadn’t actually read White’s book, I may have been among those to dismiss his approach as unreasonable and/or disrespectful. But by three or four chapters in, I recognized its surprising … nobility. I believed that White is, as he says, writing in part to emphasize “the human impact of historic events.”

“Yes, these things happened a long time ago, and all of those people would be dead now anyway,” writes White, “but there comes a point where we have to realize that a clash of cultures did more than blend cuisines, vocabularies and architectural styles. It also caused a lot of very personal suffering.”

I deeply relate to White’s desire to be the voice of ordinary people suffering in extraordinarily horrific events - not in a prescribed format, but in his own unique way. Horrible Things has challenged me to see both the stories and the statistics of human suffering as crucial to understanding the bloody, broken reality of our world. As with Lowry’s Number the Stars, I admire White’s book as an attempt to account for and show honor to the lost. This is how I am reading each page - each staggering curve of tragedy in this original, thorough and peculiarly readable book.

And when the sheer enormity of lives lost overwhelms, I can hold on to Psalm 147, to which the title of Number the Stars pays tribute. I can pray and lament to a God who counts and names all creation, and who equips His children with ardent senses of wit and of justice.

May He lead us through even these painful legacies with immense, intimate hope.

(Montage of paintings depicting the 100 Years' War courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Does Pinterest promote consumerism or community?

2012-02-01T07:00:43Z

Posted on 02/01/12

I’ve been dabbling in the world of Pinterest. If you don’t know, Pinterest is like an online bulletin board. When you find things you like on the web (mainly pictures and videos), you pin them to one of your boards. Like other social media tools, you can follow friends and get a feed of what they’re sharing, too.

When I was talking with a friend about Pinterest, he told me it looked like another way for people to foster greed and materialism by seeing and posting things they want, but probably couldn’t afford. But for me, an insider if you will, I see a place much different, one that’s less about promoting or purchasing and more about sharing your culture.

In a time when Facebook is feeling less personal and Twitter seems to foster self promotion, Pinterest feels like a tighter community. There are practical ways where people are trying to help each other. Many of my friends use Pinterest as a way to share recipes or ideas for craft projects. My wife finds particular interest in the DIY tips for saving money. Instead of paying for these expensive cosmetic face wipes, she found a much cheaper option she can make at home. Or instead of going out and buying some decoration for the house, there’s a cost cutting way to make it yourself.

Of course, like anything online, there is that aspect of wanting what you can’t have. Maybe it’s a picture of a trip you can’t afford. Or it could be coveting pictures of a house you know you’ll never have. And as businesses start to make their way onto Pinterest, the consumerism side of us could start to consume Pinterest. But right now even the stuff I see that’s out of my reach doesn’t feel like something I’m longing for. Instead it’s more like inspiration and a look into what my friends think is cool. The things they share give me a better feel for who they are and what they like. It’s less about wanting and more about seeing things that inspire my friends.

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I think the next wave of social media is going to be less about broadcasting and more about tighter communities. As a friend of mine recently said, the future of social media is more about an intimate sharing experience with a smaller group of friends. That’s what I also like about another social media start up called Path. It’s a smart-phone app that limits your friends to 150 people and also limits the ways you can share information. The idea is to more openly share your life with the people you care about the most. It’s about digging deeper instead of putting up the social media facade that everything is going great. It’s less about pretending to be someone you’re not and more about just sharing your life.

As Christians, isn’t that what we’re really after? Isn’t it Biblical to be in a closer-knit community where we can share our lives, good and bad, so we can support each other and ultimately grow closer to Christ? Don’t we want to learn more about each other and the things that inspire us?

Social media alone can’t do it. But I think when it’s used in a more personal, authentic way, it better helps us better understand each other, our cultures and how we can best help each other. It helps us live in closer community.

Liam Neeson, killer wolves and the curious preachiness of The Grey

2012-01-31T06:59:46Z

Posted on 01/31/12

Is it possible to be preachy about a lack of faith?

Doubt and anger are the twin themes of The Grey, yet the adventure movie hammers them home with all the obviousness of a fire-and-brimstone sermon. It's a fine film - gloomy, tense and with ambitions beyond its killer-wolves conceit - but a little subtlety would have made its spiritual angst far more interesting.

Liam Neeson - the soreness having subsided from his recent string of action films - muscles up again here to play John Ottway, a member of an Alaskan oil-drilling team who's responsible for shooting the wolves that regularly attack the men working in the field. It's grim work, which the film acknowledges in an early scene of Ottway standing over a recent kill, a hand on the beast's side as it raises and lowers with its final breath.

Things don't get much cheerier from there. The next day, Ottway and a number of his rough-and-tumble coworkers are departing the outpost by plane when the aircraft suddenly, horrifically, goes down. A handful of survivors emerges from the wreckage to find themselves stranded on a barren Alaskan wasteland. Well, barren except for the bloodthirsty wolves.

Director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) deserves credit for making this much more than Piranhas on Ice. The wolves are a haunting presence, never more so than during the sequences in which you can only hear, not see them. (Or barely see them; the picture's money shot is one of glowing eyes slowly emerging from the darkness that surrounds the survivors' faint campfire.) At its best, The Grey uses the wolves as a metaphor for the doubt that stalks Ottway's every thought, for the sort of bitter anger that can threaten to consume us all.

Ottway's anguish is tied to his wife (Anne Openshaw), a figure we see only in enigmatic flashbacks (some of which are artfully woven into the crash scene, lending it both a visceral and emotional wallop). Already mournful about his marriage, for reasons we don't immediately learn, Ottway's faith is further shaken by the crash. Hasn't God given him enough to bear?

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It would be better if that question remained unspoken, but The Grey feels the need to declare it, repeatedly. And so we get at least two scenes of declarative prayer, as well as an awkward campfire conversation in which Ottway and his fellow survivors take turns espousing on the validity of having “faith" (this scene really could have benefitted from a wolf attack). The movie's climax involves a desperate Ottway shaking his fists and screaming at God. He's essentially a snow-bound Job.

It's a dramatic moment, all right, and Neeson gives it his best growl. But I prefer a bit more mystery. My favorite scene comes much earlier, when Ottway takes his rifle to a forlorn corner of the outpost and sorrowfully places the barrel in his mouth. At the last moment, wolves faintly howl in the background, distracting Ottway from his fatal task. It's a riveting, enigmatic scene, one that - without being obvious - communicates bitter truths about what it means to lose courage, to lose faith, to doubt.

How churches and states are cooperating on adoption

2012-01-30T12:07:50Z

Posted on 01/30/12

Our nation’s foster-care system is in crisis. Thousands of children “age out” of foster care each year without ever having known the love and support of a forever family. Birthdays are forgotten. School performance drops. Social workers are overwhelmed and lose hope of the possibility that the children in their care will ever know anything more than the shuffle of the system as they bounce from home to home.

However, as the foster care crisis continues, there is a growing movement of churches seeking to answer God’s call to care for the orphan. Due to efforts such as Focus on the Family’s “Wait No More” campaign and the Christian Alliance for Orphans’ “Orphan Sunday," followers of Christ have begun to explore adoption as a tangible expression of their desire for justice, concern for the vulnerable and appreciation of their role as children adopted into God’s family.

As believers gain interest in adoption, their first question is, “Where do I begin?” The unfortunate truth is that many will never pursue the answer to that question. Estimates show that although about 30% of Americans have considered adoption, only 2% have actually completed the process.

So what is the problem? First, even in the best circumstances, adoption can be a long and arduous process. There are classes to attend, fingerprints to submit and interviews with social workers. Prospective parents question their ability to care for a child who may have experienced trauma and a great deal of loss. Are they too old, too young, too poor, too busy?

All these questions and more can take the curious churchgoer from a place of compassion to a place of inaction, not because of a lack of concern, but a lack of understanding, support and accountability.

Recognizing the need to connect people with tangible resources, several church-based ministries are building the bridge between followers of Christ and the state. For example, in Colorado, faith-based organizations such as Project 127 have created a system that plans to eradicate the need for long-term foster care in their state within the next three years. The C.A.L.L in Arkansas has worked with local child-welfare agencies to provide state-approved, foster-care training within the church setting, which creates a long-term, supportive network for families. To address the needs of foster youth in their state, Oklahoma has recently joined the trend with their 8046 Campaign, a partnership between government offices, local churches and faith-based adoption initiatives.

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While the collaboration of church and state may seem difficult to some, others see great potential. Regarding her work with communities of faith, Dr. Sharen Ford, manager of permanency services in Colorado, simply states, “We have the kids, they have the families.”

Although the specifics of each partnership may vary, one of the most important aspects is that there is a healthy, respectful collaboration between the state and the church in which the common goal is providing quality solutions for children. Another key element is that the roles of both parties are defined yet complementary. For example, in many cases the church will recruit prospective parents and the state will train those parents and match them with children. The church then serves as a community around adoptive families, offering the ongoing supportive care that is essential to newly developed families. Ideally, with the church serving to provide long-term support and continually recruiting new families, social workers can focus more energy and resources on supporting at-risk families, thus decreasing the amount of children who enter the foster-care system in the first place.

While the foster-care crisis is far from over, these unique partnerships provide a sense of hope. The collaboration between church and state is not only possible, but can be highly effective in providing long-term security for our country’s most vulnerable citizens.

(Photo courtesy of iStockphoto.)

Seeking justice for Syria

2012-01-30T01:58:31Z

Posted on 01/29/12

On Saturday, the Arab League finally recused itself from what had become a perfunctory observation of atrocities in Syria. At least 80 people were killed in recent days, and the United Nations estimates that at least 5,400 people have been massacred by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the last 10 months.

Is it time for military intervention? Could Western Christians justify such involvement? Should they be calling for it?

The Arab League’s Secretary General, Nabil Elareby, blamed Damascus for the spike in bloodshed, saying the regime has “resorted to escalating the military option in complete violation of (its) commitments” to end the crackdown. He said the victims of the violence have been “innocent citizens,” in an implicit rejection of Syria's claims that it is fighting “terrorists.”

Backstopping this criminal tyranny is Damascus’ rejection of the Arab peace plan and, more significantly, Russia’s threat to veto at the U.N. Security Council to protect Syria.

And still, though it seems a callous and brutish thing to say, there is no just case for intervention in Syria - yet. Hope lies in the unification and recognition of a fractious Syrian resistance.

A just intervention, or a just war, is an ancient inheritance of Christian political thought, from Augustine, through Aquinas and forward. Christians have always struggled with the twin moral call of charity balanced by the realisms of their day: what can practically be achieved, with limited resources, in often tragic circumstances.

Just war is a way of faithfully calculating a terrible process of global triage. And just war demands, a la jus ad bellum, that the justness of an intervention, of any military action, must be judged not merely on moral outrage, right and true as that outrage may be, but on the probability of success and the exercise of prudent proportionality. Justice can never be predicated on short-term sentimentality. It must have a long game.

The long game in Syria looks bad, maybe worse, after intervention than before. Parallels abound between Libya and Syria, but Syria is not Libya. Syrian opposition is divided and weak. Unlike the Transitional National Council in Libya, which gained fast international recognition, the Syrian National Council (SNC) took seven months to form and has received almost no recognition. The fracture is endemic in mixed calls from the SNC for Western intervention, first in favor, then denounced, then called for again. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), an armed resistance, has on its own terms called for a Western campaign. It is not the only armed force. Scores of rebel brigades, not beholden to either the FSA or the SNC, struggle on in the urban jungle of Syrian resistance.

There is no front line between opposition and Assad forces that can be separated by air power, no armored columns driving along empty desert roads to be targeted by the West’s deadly drones. Syria’s killing fields are dense urban environments, nested in a region with extremely high probability for spill over into Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Syria’s staunchest ally, Iran, is in its own ill-fated game of brinkmanship with global powers over its nuclear program.

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A no-fly zone, or any exercise of air power, would mean enormous collateral damage, in both civilian lives and infrastructure. Syria’s anti-air and military generally have not defected en masse like Libya’s. And if, from the ashes of a Syrian intervention, Assad were to be overthrown, there is very little enthusiasm today that one of the many competing factions could practically dominate. More likely, fringe groups currently allied with the regime would seize control of convenient strongholds and Syria would be gripped in a civil war, becoming a harbor for Hezbollah, the Kurdistan Workers Party, Iraqi pro-Iranian forces and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, agents of which are already embedded with Assad’s feared Fourth Armored Division. Syria would become yet another proxy war zone.

“Damascus has scandalized every Potemkin effort at reform or negotiation,” says Michael Weiss in Foreign Affairs. Assad will find no peace in the international system, but 23 million Syrians still might. For that to happen, before a just war or responsibilities to protect can be exercised, a galvanized Syrian opposition must take form. A post-Assad future is possible if the international community - especially the Security Council, the Arab League and the people of Syria - work to form a beachhead of goodwill for a united, globally recognized resistance.

Military intervention today appeals to the soul, but not to the senses. This doesn’t mean ignoring a slaughter, but it does mean working prudently, multi-laterally and - especially - indigenously to support, not manufacture, a united cause of Syrian freedom.

(Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Arrott/Wikimedia Commons.)

Sledding crows and our anthropomorphizing God

2012-01-25T22:45:39Z

Posted on 01/25/12

It's hard not to smile when you watch the viral video, posted below, of a sledding crow. The crow seems to be playing, snowboarding down a sloped roof on a jar lid! The giggling delight of the children and their parents, overheard as they record the video, is contagious. Surely God was laughing at this little avian exhibition as well.

But do crows really play? Or was this crow just engaging in a creative way of dislodging some food from the lid of that jar? Often we human beings anthropomorphize animal behaviors; we read ourselves into a cat's attitude, a dog's begging or a crow's amazing downhill run. But is a crow really capable of the advanced thought and behavior of play? I'm not sure we can ever know for sure.

Still, why wouldn't a crow play? In a crowish way, of course, even as bear cubs play in a bearish way and trees rejoice and clap their hands in a treeish way? God seems to have no problem anthropomorphizing creation. In the book of Job, God talks with Leviathan. A few chapters earlier, lightning bolts say to God, "here we are" and stars sing at creation's advent. (These references can all be found in "Engaging God's World" by Neal Plantinga.)

In Job, God seems to have an intimate and almost playful relationship with His creation. Why wouldn't all things in the cosmos play back; in a way that is in accordance with their kind? If all things were created through and for Christ, then surely all things are meant to bring Him glory. Everything in their own way.

And maybe our anthropomorphizing is just our way of apprehending the playful worship that's happening all around us. By empathetically incarnating, we enter into the world of other created beings. For all we know, the crow could be doing the same thing back toward us.

As I think about how I engage God's world, I anthropomorphize all the time. All week long snowflakes have been dancing outside my living room window. Wintering sparrows have been singing songs to each other to keep each other warm. Arctic winds have been howling and the night planets - Saturn, Venus and Jupiter - are silently voicing their orbital truths.

I am made in the image of an incarnating, anthropomorphizing God. When I delight in what He's created, I co-delight with Him and experience His smiling presence.

And as for that sledding crow? There's only one who really knows what he's thinking, which was God's whole point when He answered Job's existential questions with the mysteries of creation.

Maybe our anthropomorphizing is a way to help us appreciate and love creation as much as God does. And maybe a sledding crow is just a beautiful gift from God; a playful creative display for a couple of kids and their parents (and millions of Internet viewers). An anthropomorphized parable of joy.

Jobs, Steve Jobs and the State of the Union

2012-01-25T02:49:59Z

Posted on 01/24/12

President Obama’s State of the Union speech focused in large part on the troubled global economy and the way forward for America. His emphasis was on the continued maintenance of the “American promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college and put a little away for retirement.”

President Obama decried corporations who outsource jobs to other countries and the countries that welcome those jobs as two of the biggest threats to the continued viability of the American dream. First, the president promised to make it more costly for companies to move “jobs and profits overseas” by adjusting the tax code. Second, the president vowed to form a Trade Enforcement Unit “that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China.” The president’s faith in the American worker was clear: “Our workers are the most productive on Earth, and if the playing field is level, I promise you – America will always win.”

But in casting global trade in terms of a simple win/lose proposition, the president missed a wonderful opportunity to show that Americans need not be made better off at the expense of other countries. During the speech, Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of former Apple executive Steve Jobs, sat as a guest of the First Lady. And as it turns out, there are some important lessons for us to take to heart from Steve Jobs’ success as an innovator and technology magnate. Few would argue with the fact that Apple products have made the lives of millions of Americans more productive and enjoyable. But Jobs’ own insights belie the president’s mandate for American business leaders, which amounts to: “Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country.”

As the New York Times reported earlier this week, early last year the president inquired of Steve Jobs why over 150 million iPads, iPhones and other products sold by Apple last year were made in other countries. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” Jobs reportedly said. The president’s State of the Union speech made it seem as if the lower costs of labor and tax avoidance strategies are the only reasons that firms send jobs offshore. But according to the Times, “It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.” The reality is that a complex of factors, including the cost of living in America, worker expectations, collective-bargaining realities and educational shortfalls have combined to put America, at least in some cases, at a competitive disadvantage. This is a disadvantage that has nothing to do with getting “tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas.”

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It is a disadvantage that goes to the heart of what makes companies like Apple successful. As “a current Apple executive" said in the Times story, “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” If American workers can help companies provide the best services and products, then companies will come here and hire them without presidential prompting. But if workers in China or India can help these companies fulfill their purpose, then those companies will create jobs in China or India. The only way to truly promote global development is to allow companies to determine what is best for their own products and customers.

This is a critical issue for Christians seeking to live justly in a global society. The president’s basic message advocated forms of protectionism, seeking to favor American companies at the expense of workers in other nations. The president wants to see “millions of new customers for American goods in Panama, Colombia and South Korea.” But if Americans want other nations to be free to buy their products, the basic morality of the Golden Rule (as well as economic common sense) holds that Americans should likewise be free to buy products made in other nations. And as the success of the iPhone in America shows - and as Apple executives put it - “it is a mistake to measure a company’s contribution simply by tallying its employees.”

This is the real lesson that Steve Jobs teaches us about jobs and our true state of the union.

(Photo of President Obama with director of speechwriting Jon Favreau courtesy of Pete Souza/Whitehouse.gov.)