Month: November 2009

As much as I’m curiously interested in watching this movie, and the trailer makes it look really “hip/trendy”, it also seems to miss a point. It’s being screened in Chicago soon, if you’re interested in checking it out with a context that offers a bit of discussion/digestion of it. It’s also on Amazon by now, if you’d rather others not know you watched it, or can’t drive to Chicago….or a combination of those two.

It’s a documentary/movie about a story of dialogue happening between world-famous Atheist author/speaker/etc. Christopher Hitchens and world-famous evangelical author/pastor/etc. Douglas Wilson. Based on the trailer, it seems to be a 90-minute back and forth and rebuttal about whether or not Christianity or Atheism makes sense, and is good for the world, etc. I haven’t seen the film, so obviously I can’t tell you any of the redeeming qualities, or about the ultimate message/context it provides for being a great resource of some sort.

All I can do here, is point at the concept behind such a thing even happening…and ask…really?

Now, with Christopher Hitchens I can understand. Such a project and undertaking makes perfect sense. Possibly even purposefully drawing Wilson out to have him participate in something that seems to go against much of what Christ spoke of.

But Douglas Wilson being a part of this? I haven’t read his books, but I’m weary anytime one person represents the whole Christian body in a public way like this.

Maybe my concerns are without foundation. Maybe Wilson’s goal is to reveal how nonsensical following Christ is. Perhaps his purpose lies in revealing there is no worldly logic or good and easy explanation for why someone should believe and follow God’s Kingdom.

May we remember, as we come into dialogue and living situations with those of other or no faiths….to love. To offer grace and mercy, and Truth from a loving heart. To live freely, and enabled by the Holy Spirit. To attempt to explain the Hope that we have, and offer it to others who are bound by many of the chains of our world.

But may we also remember that chains do not often fall off through a theological or a-theological debate where we attempt to prove why all of this “makes sense” or is “economically or physically or etc….attractive” in the light of other paths this world has created.

Check out this appearance on CNN for an interview with both of them after the movie is made. As people who follow Christ, let’s take less paths that look like this….k? 🙂

Lately the theme of Kingdom as valuing the one over the ninety-nine (Luke 15) has been running through my brain. Like, what does that look like beyond the shepherd and sheep analogy? I don’t think we’d very easily accept many of the situations I can come up with:

1. A pastor learns an elderly person from his church really needs to be prayed with, and has requested them as the one to pray with. Even though it’s Sunday morning, and service is about to begin, they walk out and leave service in the hands of whoever grabs the microphone first.

2. Someone who is very successful at their job as a __________. They make quite a bit of money, and have a life that requires steady employment at that job in order to keep the wheels spinning, house heated, and food on the table. There comes a brief moment where they see unhealthiness in their home, and are faced with continuing to work at the pace they have, or spend time seeking healing for family…come what may with employment.

3. There is a pre-school class with 30 or so children in it. There is one teacher, and she realizes a student is missing. The rest of the school is off today for teacher inservice. She leaves the classroom unattended, and begins to roam the halls in search of the missing 4 year old.

4. I have about 99 things I need to do each day that are required. They’re practical. They matter. If I don’t do them, my day, or my job, or my relationships, or my family, etc….would be impacted negatively. But something comes along…not an assignment for work, not an opportunity to make money, etc. But an opportunity to build the Kingdom in a unique way, by giving of myself. I think I’m called to do the one, even if it leaves some of the 99 behind.

5. Okay, now you try and create one…

I love being a dad. I love even more being a daddy. But I worry both as a father, and especially as a father of three girls. This world is not very good at coming together to raise females in a healthy way. In fact, most places…even the ones considered to be “fun” or “innocent”, want to take advantage of, sell things to, and teach my daughters as much untruth as possible.

Chapter 9 of Donald Miller’s newest book is surprisingly good and captures some really good stuff, for him not being a parent himself. You can read it yourself for the specifics.

But the essence of it talks about how we as parents who know the God-given identity of our children, have a responsibility to tell a story with our family that captures and lives that out. How if we’re simply existing day to day, even if we’re growing and learning….but not purposefully living out a Kingdom story together, children will look elsewhere for their story.

I love my daughters. I want them to know who God has made them, and who God has called them to be. Not in a strict, demanding they have to follow these rules and walk this path. But in a free, God has released them from many of the chains of this world, and they’re made able to live/exist differently by His Spirit.

But if I desire that for them, and for my wife, and my family as a whole, I need to be purposefully looking for ways to illustrate that is the story we are living. Experiences for my family, and for my girls, where they exist in that way, and develop their identity as a character in that story.

May God guide me in experiences of love, grace, mercy, sacrifice, etc; and may I seek them out purposefully as someone who is called to not simply exist within a story, but to help tell it by the Spirit of God, and to know where this plot is taking us…