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A Balanced Diet

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:03 +0000

Table of contents for Time to Weigh In

A Balanced Diet

Download a full manuscript of the talk here.
Download the Discussion Guide here.

If there's one thing our culture prizes, it's our rugged individualism. The quintessential American hero has always been the loner conquering the Great Unknown. Whether it was Daniel Boone or Davey Crockett, John Wayne's cowboy riding off into the Sunset, or the contemporary superheros like Batman or Superman, the people we prize, the person who best embodies our sense of who we are is the powerful individual.

What that really communicates is a fundamental understanding of who we are as people.

Deep in the bedrock of our cultural subconscious is an assumption that the smallest, most basic stable unit of society is the Individual. That essentially, big groups are just big groups of individuals. That we don't actually need anyone else to live a full, heroic and healthy life.

Consider how thoroughly we've all bought into this story. We don't have too many cowboys anymore, but we still love the idea of the powerful individual. Whether it's climbing the corporate ladder or having the best kid on the sports team. How many of us hated group projects because you knew if you wanted a good grade you would have to do all the work? (How many of us loved group projects because that other person would do all the work and get a great grade for you?)

We think in terms of me (possibly including my immediate, nuclear family) - choosing where to work, where to live, where to travel on vacation.

At the end of the day, when everything else is stripped away, it's just me and mine, riding off into the sunset.

But according to the Scriptures, that's not actually healthy. According to the Scriptures, the Myth of the Lone Ranger is dangerous. Pursuing the life of the lone, rugged cowboy, the powerful individual is actually toxic to us. Far from being the healthiest choice we can make, living a solo life is unhealthy, unbalanced.

That'll surprise even those of us who grew up in the Church. I grew up hearing all the time "You don't have to go to Church to be a Christian." We were told over and over all we really need to be a Christian is Jesus. Trusty Bible strapped to my side, I was challenged to ride out into the rugged, untamed World, afraid of nothing, equipped to conquer those godless heathens, just me and God.

Too bad that's not at all how God created us.

For the rest of the talk, join us on Sunday, download the manuscript or check out the podcast!

Don Draper Stole Our Imaginations

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:00:17 +0000

Everyone wants to be beautiful. In our world of gyms and plastic surgery and beach bodies that's not a surprising statement.

No one ever stops to ask, "What does it means to be 'beautiful'?"

We all know the quick, easy answer to this question: Beauty is having a slim, muscled physic. The right hair, the right clothes. We all have a clear picture of what Beauty looks like.

But Beauty isn't an absolute value. It changes from culture to culture. We might learn that from watching National Geographic or marveling at paintings of Renaissance "Beauties" who would be considered homely today.

In fact, our silicon and plastic picture of Beauty is relatively young. Before about a century ago (give or take), Beauty was abstract, mostly the stuff of metaphors. It was the advent of print advertising that brought about our contemporary conceptions of what is Beautiful.

The Ad Man stole our imaginations and and replaced them with Barbie dolls. Why didn't we notice?

The rest of this post is over at Faith on Campus's Sex & the Soul Blogathon!

It will appear here in full next week. Until then, head over there and join the discussion!

Midnight in Paris

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Table of contents for Best Picture 2012

The Help
The Descendants
Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's new film features Gil (Owen Wilson), a very successful Hollywood screenwriter who dreams of being a novelist. Gil's first novel features the owner of a nostalgia shop featuring 1920s memorabilia.

We meet Gil in Paris with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents. While Gil hopes the romance of the city will inspire his writing, he really pines for Paris of the 1920s. Walking back to his hotel one night, Gil learns that at midnight at a certain intersection, a car will arrive that can transport him back to his idealized Golden Age.

Gil meets idols like Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Dali. He believes this Past will make him the writer person he wants to be.

His time in the past illuminates Gil's present unhappiness. Whatever originally drew him and Inez together, they have no chemistry and little in common. Her parents despise him and no one champions his dream of becoming a novelist. Gil and Inez grow further apart as Gil spends more and more time in the past.

Gil meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), Picasso's young mistress, and their relationship quickly blossoms into something powerful. His fascination with the past intertwines with his growing obsession with Adriana.

Who can blame him? Gil has the chance most of us only dream of: he can escape the discontent of his Present. He can choose "the Good Old Days" of the Past.

But when Gil and Adriana discover that the magical Midnight corner works in the 1920s as well, when they travel back to the 1890s, to the Belle Epoque, Gil learns that those who lived in the "Good Old Days" don't share his (mis)perception.

Adriana considers the Belle Epoque the Golden Age of Paris. She has idealized the 1890s as thoroughly as Gil has the 1920s.

Gil remarks to her:

If you stay here and this becomes your present, then pretty soon you'll start imagining another time was really the golden time. That's what the present is: It's a little unsatisfying because life is a little unsatisfying.

Changed, Gil rejects his idealized past. Adriana, however, chooses to stay. He leaves her and returns to the present.

Rejecting the romanticized Past enables Gil to take control of his Present.

All along, Midnight in Paris has seemed a bit too much like a fairy tale. The characters are one-dimensional. The plot points are contrived. Gil's revelation comes too easily. But in the end, that's the point.

All of us are tempted to idealize the past. But pining for the Good Old Days can anesthetize us to our responsibilities in the present. Just like Gil, we often lack the courage to change our circumstances, blaming our misery on "these trying times". Midnight's simplicity is an excellent vehicle for its message:

Nostalgia becomes a drug that dulls us to the beauty of the life happening around us.

In the end, Gil rejects the nostalgia that's paralyzed him. He takes responsibility for his choices and changes his life. It's not exactly "Happily Ever After", but Midnight's challenge to us is unmistakable.

Bottom Line: A morality tale warning against the dangers of nostalgia, Midnight in Paris challenges us to take responsibility for our lives. To embrace fully life as it is now.

YOUR TURN: Did you like Midnight in Paris? Do you agree with its take on nostalgia? Where do you see this in your world?

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generosity

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:00:49 +0000

Table of contents for reNEW

Download a full manuscript of the talk. Download the Discussion Guide.

Generosity is about giving away resources that we have. And as a whole, we’re a very generous people. But I bet that you’re like me. I bet most of us would like to be more generous. With our money, with our time. With our talents, gifts, skills or hobbies. But… something holds us back. There’s some reason – and it’s different for all of us – that we say, “I can’t”.

Generosity is really a question of priorities.

That if we explore our “buts” our “I can’ts”, then we learn what we really value. Today is an opportunity for honest self-reflection. Let’s begin with this question: What do I want? We all want something. We all want lots of things. We want as a function of being human. We were created as wanting machines. Can anyone in here say they’ve never wanted anything? Of course not. So let’s think together about what we want for a minute. We want food (different foods for all of us). We want safety and security. We want entertainment (again, different for everyone). If we dig, at the bottom of all these is a desire for a full, meaningful existence. We want to feel like we matter, like our life has value. All of our wants and desires are really an extension of this deep, fundamental, existential need. It’s not wrong to want. Desire is a morally neutral thing. It’s powerful, but neutral. What matters is how we direct our desires.

Have you ever asked the question, What do I want to want?

How do you decide what you want? How do you aim your desires? That’s certainly not a question we usually ask. Most of us probably thought our desires just happened. That they’re an uncontrollable force that’s just there. I like asparagus and you like broccoli and that’s all there is to it. I’m a book person and you prefer movies. I like baseball and you like football. Ohio State fans are naturally brighter than people who pull for Michigan. But that’s not true. Desire is shaped. It’s formed. And we ought to be very careful and intentional about how we shape our desires. Because most of us have misshapen, misformed desires.

According to the Scriptures, the purpose of wanting is to point us back to God.

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Ides of March

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

First, can we all agree that the poster for this film is one of the greatest of all time? Seriously.

If you've been to the movies this year, chances are, you've seen Ryan Gosling. In Ides of March, co-starring, written and directed by George Clooney, Gosling plays 30-year-old Stephen Meyers. Stephen is one of Governor Mike Morris' (Clooney) chief presidential campaign staff members.

A political movie called the Ides of March… this has betrayal written all over it.

What unites Stephen and Morris are their optimism. Morris is a democrat candidate - he's pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. He calls loudly for alternative energy sources and is an atheist. He's also committed to running a clean race. No dirty ads or tactics, no selling cabinet seats. A race of integrity.

And that's what inspires Stephen. We learn that Stephen is something of a prodigy. Already recognized as one of the best in the country, he's had offers from many candidates. But he doggedly supports Morris because he believes in Morris.

Stephen's and Morris' idealism comes to a head in the Ohio caucus.*

As the Democratic primaries get more and more cutthroat, both Stephan and Morris find themselves compromising more and more. Morris reluctantly green lights an ad campaign to attack his competitor, Senator Pullman.

Meanwhile, Stephen takes a secret meeting with Pullman's campaign manager, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti). Duffy offers Stephen a job on his campaign, but Stephen refuses outright, reasserting his total faith in Morris.

Duffy warns Stephen that his optimism is naïve. He'll eventually end up corrupt and jaded, just like the rest of them.

Stephen involves himself with a young intern, Molly Stearns, who also happens to be the daughter of the president of the Democratic National Convention. When he learns that a one-time late-night tryst between her and Morris left her pregnant, he quietly arranges an abortion and fires Molly from the campaign.

Meanwhile, Morris' campaign manager (and Stephen's boss) Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is trying to negotiate the support of a Senator Thompson for Morris. Thompson wants a cabinet position in return for the votes he can guarantee. Morris is still unwilling.

Both Stephen and Morris see these compromises as small sacrifices they must make to get Morris in office. Ideals can't be implemented if you're not in office.

Despite all he's done to protect Morris, Stephen's world begins to unravel. After Stephen drops Molly off at the clinic, he confesses his secret meeting to Zara. Zara perceives Stephen's duplicity as a betrayal and fires him on the spot. When Molly hears that Stephen's been fired, she apparently commits suicide by overdosing.

Stephen goes to Duffy to accept his job. Duffy politely refuses at first, but when Stephen presses him, Duffy finally confesses that he played Stephen. Stephen's skill made him a threat, and Duffy knew that Zara would fire him just for meeting with Duffy. So Duffy arranged a meeting and took Stephen out of the equation all together.

Stephen is left abandoned and friendless, facing a career that seems over before it really began.

Stephen threatens Morris with exposing his affair and abortion. Morris fires Zara names Stephen his new campaign manager. Stephen also forces him to sell the cabinet seat to Thompson, as it's now the only way Morris can win.

Morris' acquiescence is the last step in both men's journey to the bottom. Duffy's prophecy turns out to be eerily accurate: Morris has become the candidate he swore he never would. And Stephen is supporting a man he no longer believes in, running a corrupt, compromised campaign.

Ides of March is a brutal critique of our political system.

Everyone wonders why there're no honest politicians. According to the film, it's because principles and ideals won't get you elected. If you want the office, you have to play the game. And the game is backdoor deals and compromise.

So in the end, who was really betrayed? Stephen, Morris, the people they want to represent. Our ideals. Take your pick. I couldn't help but think of the Obama and McCain we met before they got their nominations, before they had to play the game. How much their rhetoric changed once they'd both become Party men.

We wonder why nothing changes in our country? Ides of March points to the system itself. It's broken, poisoned. And it breaks and poisons anyone who joins it, anyone who participates in it. In that sense, the American political system betrays us all.

Bottom Line: A tragic, incisive exploration of the road to the White House. Ides of March begs the question: Just how sustainable is this broken system?

Your Turn: What did you think of Ides of March? Do you agree with its pessimistic take on our political system?

*Yup, a lot of this was filmed at Miami University, about an hour from my house! That and all the references to the various Ohio mascots - Buckeyes and Bearcats, added an extra layer of fun to this film.

prayer

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:00:57 +0000

Table of contents for reNEW

Download a full manuscript of the talk. Download the Discussion Guide. Download a guide to Spiritual Practices.

If there's a more complex and confusing practice than prayer, I'm not sure what it is. Just about everyone prays at some point in our lives. It's a natural human response - especially in times of crisis - to reach out for someone bigger than we are. But at the same time, so many of us feel that our prayers are ineffective. How many of us in here could admit that prayer has been something that frustrates us? That we can't focus, or we feel ineffective?

Wouldn't it be kind of nice to have some sort of Prayer Hotline?

Our problems stem from our assumptions about prayer. Our culture reserves prayer for times of crisis - who can forget that in the wake of 9/11 even secular businesses hung signs that read "Pray for America"? When loved ones are sick, even more mundane scenarios - praying when we need a job or promotion, before a sports game, when we didn't study for a test.

Our prayers assume that God is out there, up there somewhere doing something else, and we have to get his attention.

We tend to treat prayer like a magic spell: if we say the right combination of words while assuming a proper posture, then God will hear us, notice us and come down to us. But it doesn't have to be that way. There's a better way to pray, a better way to engage in what God is doing in our world.

We can use prayer to order our lives, to take control of our schedules and submit them to our King...

Download or listen to the full talk for the rest!

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The Prayer Hotline

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:37:38 +0000

A skit we wrote and recorded for our week on prayer. You can hear the recording here: Prayer Hotline

Hello! Thank you for your prayers. In order to help process your prayer more efficiently, please choose from the following menu options. Listen carefully, as some of our options have changed.

Para escuchar este menú en español, pulse el número 2 ahora.

For urgent prayer needs, press 1 now.
For illness or death, press 2 now.
For traveling mercies or to place a hedge of protection, press 3 now.
For marital strife, press 4 now.
For interviews, promotions and exams, press 5 now.
For punishment or to have enemies smited, press 666 now.
For patience, please hold until the end of this recording.
For unspoken requests, press 7 now.
For a great parking spot at the store, press 8 now.
For blessings on your future, or the future of a family member, including extended relatives, press 9 now.
For all other requests, or to speak to a saint who can help you refine your prayers, press 0.
To hear this menu again, press star.

[Button is pressed]

Thank you for your prayer! Your prayers are very important to us! God is currently answering other prayers, but stay on the line and your prayer will be answered in the order it was received. There are currently
[break into automated voice] 140 million
[Back to normal voice] prayers ahead of yours. Your expected wait time is less than
[back to the automated voice] 2 hours.

[Cue Hallelujah Chorus]

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

If you like horror movies, then you've seen the one with the college kids that go for a weekend in the woods, only to encounter evil hillbillies who terrorize and slaughter them. But what if the whole thing was a big misunderstanding? What if the hillbillies are actually loveable, bumbling buddies just trying to get away?

That's the question posed by Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, a horror film that's more silliness than slaughter. The film opens on said typical group of college kids headed to the woods for the weekend. We're quickly drawn to tall, dark and handsome Chad, the obvious leader of the group, who clearly has his eyes on blonde beauty Allison (Katrina Bowden). They're passed on the road by a couple of scary-looking hillbillies in a beat-up old truck. They encounter these same two when they stop for gas and beer.

From that moment on, every encounter between the college kids and the two hillbillies - whom we learn are named Tucker and Dale - is a hilarious and barely plausible misadventure. It turns out that Tucker and Dale are actually normal everyday guys who've just purchased a vacation home. Just like the college kids, they're on their way out of town for the weekend, just to have a good time. Every interaction increases the kids' suspicion of the duo, unbeknownst to Tucker and Dale.

From the college kids' perspective, it's easy to see how Tucker and Dale come off as maniacal and threatening. But there's much more to the story...

Tucker and Dale arrive at the cabin and their euphoria over what the cabin will be blinds them to what it clearly has been: some sort of crazed maniac clearly called this home at some point. Meanwhile, the college kids have set up camp and are telling ghost stories around the campfire. Chad tells them about a crazed killer who used to live in these very woods. It doesn't take much imagination to guess where he might have lived. According to Chad's story, the killer once captured a married couple and killed the husband. His pregnant wife, however, escaped.

Ghost story finished, the kids decide to do what all college kids do next: skinny dip! As they all make for the lake, Chad hangs back to try to seduce Allison. When she rebuffs his advances, he storms off and she's left to catch up. While the others swim further up the bank, Allison climbs a rock in full view of Tucker and Dale, who are fishing in their boat. They all startle each other, and Allison slips off the rock, hitting her head and falling into the lake.

Tucker and Dale paddle over to help her, and only now to Allison's friends take note. They see the two menacing hillbillies from the gas station dragging their unconscious friend into their boat and paddling away, as one yells out,

Hey college kids! We've got your friend!

Needless to say, Tucker and Dale's saving intervention is not perceived as helpful by Allison's friends.

The next day, Allison awakens in the cabin to find Dale nervously tending to her as she recovers. Tucker, meanwhile, is continuing to work in and around the cabin. Allison quickly realizes her friends' mistake: Tucker and Dale are not savage, scary hillbillies. They're kind, relatable and normal guys who just happen to wear flannel.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have an opportunity to communicate this to her friends before they mount a series of rescue missions. Hilarious, twisted hijinks ensue, and one by one the college kids die increasingly gruesome and totally accidental deaths.

Tucker, Dale and Allison are baffled by what seem to be bizarre suicides. Chad, meanwhile, has gotten more and more malicious. As his friends die around him, he concocts increasingly elaborate, dangerous and cruel plots to revenge himself on Tucker and Dale. For what?

It turns out that Chad's mother was the one kidnapped by hillbillies. Chad harbors a deep-seated hatred for hillbillies, and this a perfect excuse for him to get some vengeance.

Fortunately, it turns out that Allison - whose romance with Dale is blossoming - aspires to use her psychology major to bring about peace. She wants to become a negotiator, helping to achieve world peace. She finally manages to get Chad and Dale to sit down together to talk this all out.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Chad's rage has blinded him to reason. He ends up destroying the cabin and killing the rest of his friends. Tucker and Dale escape, but Dale returns to pursue Chad, who's kidnapped Allison. He's holed up at the Abandoned Saw Mill, as lovely a setting as any for a final confrontation.

Dale and Allison manage to overpower Chad long enough to hide, and discover an old newspaper that reveals the truth:

Chad's father wasn't killed by the psycho hillbilly. Chad's father was the psycho hillbilly.

Faced with the truth that he is half-hillbilly, Chad flies into an even-more-murderous rage. Dale and Allison are finally able to overpower him, and he falls to his death. Though the police are never able to find a body…

The End?

Somewhere along the way, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil turns into a hilarious, gruesome morality tale.

Instead of Christians and Muslims, or Americans and Immigrants, we get College Kids and Hillbillies. And instead of holy wars or hate speech, we get over-the-top, slasher-flick-style death. The gratuitous gore makes the whole story too silly to take seriously. This is a by-the-numbers, uber-predictable slasher flick that subverts the conventions of the genre to get us thinking. You can't ask for more than that from most movies. To find it in a slasher flick is a surprising joy.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil reminds us that it's always better to talk before we shoot. Or stab. Or dive into a wood chipper. Or attack someone with a weed-wacker. Or throw gasoline on someone. Or… well, you get the idea.

It's profound without being preachy. It's about how hatred blinds us to truth, how miscommunication is easier than you think, and how easy it is to demonize the Other who's a lot more like you than you think. It's worth your time.

Bottom Line: If you're a fan of slasher flicks, you need to see Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It's a lot smarter and a lot funnier than anything I've seen from that genre in years. Oh, and it's really gory too.

Hometown Prophet by Jeff Fulmer

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:00:00 +0000

The Scriptures promise that in the latter days, God's people will prophesy. So what happens when God start sending visions Old Testament-style to a rather unlikely fledgling follower living in the buckle of the Bible Belt?

Under Jeff Fulmer's guidance, Nashville's recent historical events take on an apocalyptic tone. The results are explosive.

Peter Quill is a 30-year-old man who's tried to seize the American Dream and failed. Defeated and aimless, he's just moved back in with his divorced mother to lick his wounds. Never an overly-spiritual person, Peter suddenly and inexplicably begins having dreams that turn out to be prophetic. Though they start small, soon Peter's predictions draw more and more media attention, until he's an unwilling star of Nashville's religious community.

Hometown Prophet succeeds because Peter is such a normal, likeable guy. He's got some insecurities, life hasn't gone his way. But when push comes to shove, Peter makes some tough choices. Unlike the protagonist of many explicitly Christian novels, Peter feels like someone we know.

Hometown Prophet's religious tone is appropriately confrontational, and refreshingly complex.

If you're going to tell a story about an Old Testament-style prophet coming to the contemporary American Christian South, said prophet is going to have to be confrontational. Peter confronts the Nashville Evangelical Establishment with increasing courage and fire. His dreams call attention from everything to environmental issues to how Christians love those of other religions (::ahem:: Islam).

Watching Jeff slowly become the courageous and confrontational prophet is an engaging treat.

Of course, if you're going to be an Old Testament prophet, you'd better be ready to face some opposition. And this is the one place Fulmer took the easy road. Though Peter does face some strong opposition, his enemies don't live up to their foreshadowing. In the end, Peter's happy ending seems too easy, to neat.

Prophets, after all, aren't supposed to get happy endings.

But that's a small quibble, and truly not the point in any case. Fulmer has given us a thought-provoking narrative look at the state of Evangelicalism. Because Fulmer fills the story with events based on actual, recent Nashville happenings, Peter's quest feels immediate and urgent. None of the villains are wholly evil, and none of the heroes totally pure. And so we find a world in which the old prophetic challenges to the religious establishment are as fresh as ever.

Bottom Line: An entertaining, well-written and quick read that leaves you with something to chew on. Hometown Prophet is well-worth the few hours it'll take you to finish it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Speakeasy as part of their book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

worship

jrforasteros@gmail.com (JR. Forasteros) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:00:39 +0000

Table of contents for reNEW

You can download the Discussion Guide here.

When you get right down to it, a lot of what happens on Sunday mornings in church gatherings is weird. Nowhere else in our culture to people get together in a room and sing a bunch of songs at each other, then listen to someone talk, collect money, and so on.

Our regular, weekly practices make Christians unique. But why do we do them?

It's interesting - when the earliest Christians started meeting together in homes, they had to come up with a name for it. Nothing like it had ever happened before. So they chose a word that was already used in their culture.

They called their gathering times liturgos. It's where we get our word "Liturgy", which is how some churches still describe their worship.

Liturgos literally means "work of the people". It referred to actions wealthy citizens did that benefited the whole community. So if they paid for a road to be built or hosted a set of games, those were liturgos. It's amazing that the earliest Christians called their worship liturgos. That means that when they gathered and entered that heavenly throne room together, they believed their worship wasn't just about the people gathered in that space.

They believed that their worship benefited the whole community. What happens in the worship space is good for the world. And that's still true today.

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