Reclaiming The F Word

Ditch That Sermon

I'm a little behind in my blog reading and so I almost missed the interesting conversation sparked by The Lutheran Zephyr a week or so ago. He preached his first ever paperless sermon - after an excruciating preparation process - and reported that: 

It Is Well With My Soul

I'm teaching a class all day, everyday at the Lutheran seminary in Chicago this week. The title of the class is "Being & Doing Church in the X-Box Era." In the syllabus, I introduce the class this way:

OK, here’s my bias: Even and maybe especially in the midst of our changing culture, I believe theology matters. Many people who love Jesus, care about the church, and feel called to lead the church into mission in God’s world, get impatient with talking about this stuff. They just want to do it. Some of these people are my best friends. But I believe there is a deep connection between what we do and why we do it. The more articulate we are about what we think and what we know and what we believe, the more effective our actions will become. Transformation happens when people discover new categories, concepts, and language (or rediscover old ones!) that make sense of their experience, their lives, and their world. Just ask Martin Luther about this. Or Karl Marx. Or Jon Sobrino. Or Rosemary Radford Ruether. Or Jesus. So, you want to lead God’s people in mission in the midst of this X-Box culture?!? Well, what are you going to tell them? What language will you use to help them more deeply understand what God is up to? What theological categories will you use to help provide a framework for your work together? What biblical images will you turn to for motivation, direction, and encouragement? How will you answer the hard questions when they come up? How will you make decisions in the midst of confusing situations? How will you lead?? That’s what this course is all about. What actually happens in this course, though, is entirely up to you. We’ll read a couple of different authors and books together. We’ll spend time in Scripture. We’ll do a lot of talking, trying to sort this stuff out together. But the goal isn’t for you to figure out what our authors believe. It isn’t to figure out what I believe. The goal is to figure out, more deeply, what you believe; and to be able to express it – in word and deed – in a way that is authentic, inspired, and life-giving.

It was all catchy enough to get a nice size group to register. And we are having a roller coaster ride of a week together. It's been fun. But it's also been exhausting. 

Our reading list included these books:

A Friday Funny

PZ Myers is a biologist, U of MN prof, and blogger who broke the story on this side of the border about a couple of pesky Toronto college students who took all the books on the "Bibles & Bible Studies" bookshelf in their local store and quietly reshelved them in other areas i.e. Fiction, Humour, Sexuality, Erotica, Cuisine, Parenting, Mental Disorder, Parapsychology and the Occult. They left one book standing on the Bible Study shelf: Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation" calling all reasonable people to embrace a worldview sans god.

(Un)Holy Redundancy?

What percentage of our churches TALKED about the Holy Spirit this past weekend, in celebration of Pentecost Sunday, without actually EXPERIENCING Holy Spirit power? I have no idea but I'd guess a fairly big one.

How come?

Law & Gospel

I'm attending the annual assembly of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA (where lots of cool stuff is happening) this weekend. In the bishop's report, she introduced us to the confirmation class of Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, PA. Their "Law & Order" parody gives a funny take on the ten commandments. It's a little long but it gave me a smile. It might give you one, too, on this Saturday morning. Enjoy!

Happy Good Friday

It's always disturbing, of course, to hear the crowd shout "Crucify him!" but it's never a surprise. And that's not just because we already know how the story goes.

May The Force Be With You

I'm convinced that one of the biggest reasons mainline Christians have basically disappeared from the public faith conversation is that our theologians have made the whole thing way too complicated over the past several decades. (I mean does anybody know what Moltmann or Pannenberg were actually saying??) Our pastors come out of seminary so theologically tongue tied they can barely string three coherent sentences together (I've done those exit interviews, myself); and, once let loose in the pulpit, they nervously cling to their sermon manuscripts afraid of getting something "wrong." Our layfolk run the other way if somebody starts talking about religion or the Bible for pretty much the same reason. What they've learned has either been inadequate or incomprehensible.

Are We Ready?

Everywhere I go, I see people reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, or The End of Faith by Sam Harris. My hunch has been that even people who believe in God are so sick and tired of the loud-mouthed, mean-spirited, often dangerous radicals that march in the armies of both fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity that listening to a sermon by an atheist feels like taking a walk through a cool summer rain. Cleansing, somehow. Mind-clearing.

People really are ready for something different.

My Day With The Eel Pouters

I'm just back from a long weekend in God's country, a solidly red county in the middle of blue state Minnesota; Cass County, to be exact. Had to travel along the Purple Heart Highway to get there, past a memorial to "unborn children." Cass County, rated "strongly Republican," is well below the state income average by about $10,000 but according to open secrets tied for 11th place among Minnesota counties in terms of dollars given to the GOP during the 2006 election cycle. On Super Tuesday, according to US Election Atlas, Cass County Republicans went for Romney with 37%; Huckabee came in a close second with 33%.

This past weekend was the 29th annual Eel Pout Festival in the Cass County town of Walker, Minnesota. This "family" festival draws folks from far and wide. Last year the popular "Polar Plunge" raised over $25,000 for the Walker Community Youth Center. It all takes place out on Leech Lake where, for a handful of dollars, you can buy eel pout nuggets or a fur hat (with or without the tail still attached). You can catch a ride on an ATV-pulled sofa/chariot, compete with your gang in the rugby on ice tournament, or race your friends across the ice-covered lake in a stock car. You can bring your snowmobile and zip past the long, long line of ice houses competing for first prize in decorating...or you can walk through it, like I did...thinking that it'd be, well, fun.

But, beware, if you're planning to put the Eel Pout fest on your list of things to do next year: A "family fest" in "family values" country can be a harrowing experience for the unprepared.

Things That Really Tick Me Off About Christianity Today (#2)

In a backward countdown of the "Top Five Things That Tick Me Off About Christianity Today," here is #2: