April 18, 2007

Under Authority

During our time at Center Hill, we also attended the Little Country Church that's been there since time out of mind. My grandparents have been on the church board for 20 years. My great-grandmother helped found the church and was their church pianist for years and years.

But I noticed...some oddnesses. Nothing in particular, but just the difference between a church that clearly and faithfully teaches Scripture as the authority for every facet of life and a "good, traditional country church."

I love my home church and the clarity of the teaching there: that the pastor and the elders endeavor to teach Scripture as the authority, not themselves as the authority or some good book as the authority. No: Sola Scriptura for all of us, even the pastors.

What a good reminder that we are all under authority.

...submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:21

Here's that verse in context.

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February 27, 2007

Plastic Face, Spoiled Pets, Inane Interview Questions, and a Whole Lot More! All for the low low price of 3 easy payments of 22.99 plus shipping and handling! Call in the next 10 minutes and get a free spray bottle to make your purchase even more conven

Another morning trapped in the laundromat. I didn't have my book, I forgot to put my Bible back in my bag, and all the magazines in the car I've read too many times. What's a girl to do?

Watch the TV and think about the shows.

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I caught the last 45 minutes of the CBS early show. I was in and out of the laundromat at the beginning of my stay, so I missed out on the first few newsy blurbs they did. But here are some of my reflections:

--Why do TV interviewers always ask such lame questions? Think about it. I'm not going to give examples because that would limit your memories of this phenomenon, but it seems like they learn in journalist school to ask obvious questions. Examples? Ok. Here are just a few: "And then, when you were hiding in your classroom while the gunmen walked by, were you afraid?" or "And when you came back to the wreckage of your trailer after the tornado came through and destroyed everything for a two-mile-wide swath, were you devastated? How did you feel?" or "Why do you think you're friends with each other? Why has your friendship lasted so long, through all the changes in your lives?"

Yes, that was the gem this morning. "What is it about each other that makes you friends?" How is the interviewee supposed to answer that in a 1.5 minute segment?

--Why do we spend so much money on our pets? Why buy doggie treats that you can dip in doggie icing before you give it to your doggie? Why buy an automatic tennis ball thrower? Why buy a motion-sensitive dog bowl that will play a recording of your voice when your doggie puts his snout down to eat out of the dog bowl? (It'll be as useful as saying hello to your doggie over the phone. Ever tried that trick? The dog doesn't get it!) Why do we spend over a billion dollars a year on doggies and pet toys? Here's clue, it's either for the pet or for us...and the pet doesn't care.

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And then there were the 45 minutes of 700 I had to tolerate. Blessedly, it wasn't a whole hour. But 45 minutes was enough.

They begin with news reports, and their lead story was VP Cheney's attempted assassination yesterday in Afghanistan. (According to Pat, it was the militant irrational terrorists that made the attempt. Love the adjectives, Pat. Good choice.)

Soon after their lead story (I was folding tee shirts, so I didn't write down exactly what order the stories came in) came a story about a Muslim in Tulsa who wrote a letter to the editor of Tulsa's local paper which spoke out against American mosques funding the Middle East terrorists. (At this point I thought, Oh good, a story about an American Muslim who's not a crazy stereotypical terrorist. But, no. I made that conclusion waaaaay too soon.) After his letter was printed, he was nearly assaulted the next time he went to worship at his mosque. One witness described the account similar to the account the main guy gave, but that witness preferred to remain anonymous. Other people who were willing to speak on camera told the CBN crews that the main guy was not being honest. (There was a little discrepancy there, as you can see, but the emphasis and subtext were clear. It's obvious who was telling the truth! Obvious!) The main guy and CBN's analyst both emphasized the fact that the Tulsa imams were angered by the letter to the editor and its content: that American mosques are funding Middle East terrorists.

(Ok, I thought, a bit of a different take on the news...a story about fractures and differences in an religious ethnic group that we Americans tend to believe are one monolithic religion...maybe a story that points out that not all Muslims are terrorists...and so on.) If they had left the story as it was, there could have been hope. But then [cue Jaws music] Pat decided to commentate. He spun the whole news report by saying "See? We do have reason to be worried. Muslims in America are just as dangerous, and even more militant, than Muslims in their home country! They are the enemy!"* Oh, Pat. (That really made me steam. Why did he have to speak up and spin the news report that way?? Grrr.)

And after the Oscars and seeing all the wonderful, brilliant actors who have also put a huge amount of effort into maintaining wrinkle-free skin (did you notice Peter O'Toole and Clint Eastwood? And while I'm on the subject, has anyone looked at Regis's face lately? They all look plastic, like a male Barbie, with too-tight skin. There's a look they get that yells "plastic surgery!"), I noticed Pat's got that ageless, plastic-y, too-tight look going. I wonder how old he is. Is he one of those characters on TV news programs that everyone just smiles at, pats on the head, and goes on with the real work after he passes by? Because I have to say, if it weren't for his non sequiturs, his commentaries, and his interpretive, random remarks, 700 would not be that bad.

It's just too bad.

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* Pat's quote is a paraphrase...but I guarantee you that he said the words "They are the enemy" in his little speechy bit there. Oh, Pat.

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February 13, 2007

700

Hm. Read this list then read the deduction:

The Dude is teaching an interim class about pop television (so many kids signed up that he has to teach a morning session and an afternoon session!), specifically the way Christians are treated in the media. I've been thinking about it and discussing it with him quite a bit lately.


-If you know next to nothing about economics and stocks and whatnot, and you turn on Bloomburg television, you're going to be bored and confused.
-If you ever go to a dinner party as a friend of a friend and most everyone there engages in shop-talk, discussing their boss and jobs and workplace, you'll feel excluded and slightly hurt.
-If you don't have any context for the gospel and the kind of gift Jesus offers, and you turn to the 700 Club just to hear Pat Robertson call you to repentance for your sin, you'll be offended and confused.
-All 'they' know about Christians and Christianity is that folks like Pat Robertson exist. ('Isn't he that guy that hosts the 700 Club? He made that foolish and foolhardy comment a few months ago (anyone remember what it was? I know it was something bigoted or something).')

--No wonder that we all turn them off if this is all they know about us. We're not all like that, but how will crazy liberals ever know that?

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* Health and Wealth Gospel: the erroneous, even heretical, belief that Jesus wants us to be wealthy. In reality, that teaching is not found anywhere in the Bible and is thought of to be promoted by black sheep who actually want to mislead people away from the truth of the Gospel.

** Legalists: those who are trapped into false comfort by obeying rules upon rules upon rules. In reality, most of the rules taught by Legalists are actually cultural expectations not Biblical commandments.

*** Hermeneutics: the systematic study of the Bible. One of the rules of hermeneutics is that we should interpret a passage based on its genre. If it's a book of poetry, it's not meant to be literal; if it's history, it's not meant to be a textbook; if it's instructional, it's not meant to be a fable or a parable. The beginning of the book of Revelation (oh, and it's singular, not plural!) says that the description to follow is composed of signs and symbols, and so we shouldn't interpret it literally, but figuratively, like figures of speech aren't meant to be literal (I didn't really eat a horse).

**** Global Trends: a required course at Covenant College, whose goal is that the student will have a basic understanding of the forces of modern economy, politics, foreign policy, and how they interact to cause the current events we hear about (and those we don't hear about) in our news reports.

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February 09, 2007

Her True Story

I just finished watching the 4-hour long "Diana: Her True Story." (Aired on WE Women's Entertainment. Don't you just love to watch, like slowing down for a car accident?) It was made in 1993, just after Charles and Di announced their separation. Knowing how the story ends--divorce, her hooking up with Dodi, her death, those sons losing their Mummy (I stayed up and watched the funeral in 1997. Did you? I cried! That card on the flowers on her coffin, remember? "Mummy"), and his marriage to Camilla (I don't like her, by the way)--is so poignant and just makes me sad.

I know full well that it's a TV movie and made for drama. (It should be aired on TNT, the network for drama!) But it's awful to have watched the two of them use the intimacy and trust and privacy of the marriage relationship to do nothing but hurt, abuse, and injure the other.

Being married is like having nuclear power. You can set a bomb off in your spouse's life so easily, even in the best of marriages.

But to use that power to deliberately hurt the other...it makes me sick. Sick to my stomach. Charles (that jerk. I don't like him either) went out of his way to hurt and humiliate Di, withholding a husband's most valuable asset--his love and support. Poor Di had such a shock of a life-change in becoming part of the Royal Family, and he did nothing to help her. Ick. And Di! She reacted out of immaturity and sinfulness and shamed and humiliated and disrespected him. They acted and reacted and reacted and reacted and everyone around them suffered.

Now, The Dude and I aren't perfect! We know it. We have our land mines and blind spots and weaknesses, but we try. We both grew up in homes where our parents worked hard on their marriages and succeeded! I can't wrap my mind around the kind of hurt people sustain from living through a civil-war-marriage...and the hurt of growing up in a family whose parents hate each other also makes my mind explode. (Like trying to understand quantum theory..."Dr. Petcher, you're telling me that someone who shines a flashlight at me who is traveling .99 the speed of light will actually shine the light at me yesterday? Someone who travels to Alpha Centauri at .99 the speed of light will return in 80 years but won't have aged, at least not to us? What??")

I wish fairy tales were true. I think fairy tales, like the ones The Brothers Grimm et al wrote down for us, are just symbols or caricatures, but real success stories don't leave out the flaws and the sweat and the pain of actual struggle. Because real success takes a hell of a lot of effort, you know! And it takes (gulp) death to self and true self-sacrifice.

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