Seriously

Yes, I know they're serious, and even that their rhetoric is pretty tame compared to most of what comes from WorldNet Daily, but even so I think this video would work better as a parody than as a serious message.

For my own part I'm not greatly enamored with either party, or with the vast majority of politicians in general.  But if you want me to vote for Barack Obama, just keep churning out over-the-top garbage like this.

Anyway, as long as we're talking about politics, Rachel Held Evans hits it on the nose with her response to the current convention rhetoric...

Listening

The other day as I was stopped in heavy traffic on Colorado Boulevard (hardly an uncommon situation, as any Denverite with a car can attest), I witnessed something unusual. The driver behind me began maneuvering his large Jeep over the curb until its left tires were atop the narrow median. What did he think that was going to accomplish, I wondered – even if there wasn’t a street sign between him and the turn lane several cars ahead, he’d have to drive on the other side of the road to reach it. The silly things people do when they get impatient, I thought.

A few moments later, though, I heard the siren. An ambulance was coming up behind us, and the Jeep's driver was trying to get out of its way. As it was, the ambulance had to go around us on the other side of the road (which was clear at the moment); with so many cars stopped at a red light with no room to move, it wouldn’t have mattered if I (and the drivers ahead of me) had managed to get up onto that curb. Still, the guy in the Jeep, far from being a basket case, was trying to do what might have been the right thing under slightly different circumstances.

The application is clear enough, even if my illustration seems relatively trivial: Be quick to listen and slow to judge (even with *those* people – in fact, especially with *those* people); the person you’re looking down on might just see something that you don’t. Before you dismiss someone as a sinner (or idiot, or wingnut, or whatever), it pays to be certain that you really do know what you’re talking about.

I Think I'm In Love

I've admitted before that I watch America's Got Talent - and sometimes they have some really cheesy acts that make the the term "guilty pleasure" apt.  But then they have a performance like this that blows me away, and I remember why I watch.

In case it's not clear from the video clip, the strings he's playing on are suspended across the auditorium - he literally turned the entire theater into a musical instrument.

A Random Detour

So many things I could be commenting on, and this is where my mind goes...

(With insincere apologies to REM and a knowing nod to "Weird Al" Yankovic)

Spam in your inbox at home (wait, what’s this?)
Think about the loser who had time to send it
Spam in your inbox at work (what the frak?)
Think about your firewall, wonder how it got through at all

That Nigerian prince wants to give you his dough
This discounted drug will help your member to grow
Your bank account is going to lock down
Wild party girls, they won’t make you frown

So, spam on the phone in your car
Spam anywhere that you are
Spam in your Gmail account
Spam, it continues to mount
Oh, spam.

Miscellany

A few random things that have caught my attention lately...

1. First, a belated nod to this post that nicely sums up why Jon Stewart has become my favorite TV personality.  If only there were more journalists ("serious" or otherwise) like him.

2. Ten Cliches Christians Should Never Use.  Seriously.  Some of these made me cringe even when I was a card-carrying conservative evangelical.

3. Rachel Evans reviews a book I really need to read.  Learning how to read the Bible on its own terms instead of literally has only made me love it more, so I'm happy to see more Christians waking up to the folly of treating it like a modern history book and instruction manual.

4. Finally, this picture, which could also be the motto of the religious right...

Inclusion

Sunday's sermon at Highlands Church, for those who haven't had the opportunity to hear Mark Tidd preach (and even for those who have).  In this message Mark makes his case for the full inclusion of LGBT individuals in the body of Christ.

Food For Thought

The history of theology (Christian or otherwise) is the history of people desperately trying to fit the way things actually are into the way their holy books say they should be.  (Think of the billions of words written in tens of thousands of books on religion "explaining" pain and suffering in the light of God's purported goodness.)  So some people do what Mom [Edith Schaeffer] did: spend a lot of time making excuses for The-God-Of-The-Bible.  Others contrive their theology to make it seem more enlightened than it is: Roman Catholic medieval dogma is rechristened as "Natural Law," Creationism is rebaptized as "Intelligent Design," Islam calls the oppression of women the "protection of women," and so forth.

There is another choice: To admit that the best of any religious tradition depends on the choices its adherents make on how to live despite what their holy books "say," not because of them.  "But where would that leave me?" my former self would have asked.  "I'd be adrift in an ocean of uncertainty."  Yes, and perhaps that's the only honest place to be.  Another name for uncertainty is humility.  No one ever blew up a mosque, church, or abortion clinic after yelling, "I could be wrong."

-Frank Schaeffer, Sex, Mom & God

At the very least, those of us who believe that the Bible is something more than just another book need to be willing to admit that we (and every other Christian who has ever lived) pick and choose which parts of the Bible to emphasize and which to downplay (or even ignore) when formulating our theology.  And that, therefore, we could be wrong about a great many things even if we're right about the Bible's unique significance.

Artful

Princess of China, by Coldplay (with Rihanna)

Not part of my Life Soundtrack series, but I really like the video.  And it's an opportunity to revisit this old post, where I referenced Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which was very likely one of this video's inspirations)...