Tagged: Blogging
Damely, A Review of Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, by Dane Ortlund
Evangelical Christianity has a problem.
We say the canon is closed, but then we keep writing and writing and writing. And encouraging to write and write and write. And read and read and read—everything about the Bible, but never the Bible itself.
Mr. Ortlund’s, or Pastor Ortlund’s, book was given to me last birthday by a good friend. We went to Seminary together. I told him I’d let him know how the book was after I read it. He clearly loved it, so this was an awkward setup for someone as critical as me. He knew that going in. I agreed because I thought I could use some light Christian reading and figured it couldn’t be terrible. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t even close to terrible.
But it’s for women. Dames.
Check out these sentiments:
We don’t use a word like benevolence much today; it means a disposition to be kind and good, a crouched coil of compassion ready to spring.
Or, …my swirling internal world of fretful panicky-ness arising out of gospel deficit…
The felt love of Christ really is what brings rest, wholeness, flourishing, shalom—that existential calm that for brief, gospel-sane moments settles over you and lets you step in out of the storm of of-works-ness.
(My bold.)
No man feels like that was written to him. We all just acknowledge that the Pastor has to include some girly stuff in order to satisfy the publisher, who knows that men typically don’t read anyway. But the book was filled with these and more. Too many. Nobody speaks like that, nor should they. It’s insulting. “Crouched coil of compassion ready to spring”. Sheesh. No need for gender-reassignment surgery here. Just learned what it feels like to be a woman.
Here’s even more truth. The introduction lists a few “who this is written for” descriptions, and the one (only one) that made me decide to go through with reading it was, “…suspect we have disappointed him [the Trinity].” That’s not feminine, neither is it far off from ideas floating around “upstairs” as my step-son says. So I read on.
But I confess that I never really thought the book was for me. And I still don’t. The Bible is for me. This type of book is not.
The problem with these books is their existence itself. You don’t need someone to come up with analogies to the Bible’s analogies in order to understand how to walk according to the Way. You really don’t.
I repeat: the canon is closed.
I have this argument with my wife often too.
The canon is closed. The minute someone creates a recording of what they said, some preacher/teacher, they’re implicitly suggesting that they are as inspired as the authors of the real Bible.
By contrast, I write these posts for me. I don’t believe they can help you in any way that meaningfully would be help. That’s partly because I don’t believe you need my help. You definitely have never asked for my help.
If anything, my theologically-oriented posts may help you understand what makes me tick, but I would never suggest they can help clarify the Bible.
Back to Pastor Ortlund.
If you’re looking for a good spiritual book, most folks would point you to the big ones. Gospel of John, Genesis, early Psalms, Ephesians. Acts is a winner. And that disappoints you. Because that’s not what you’re looking for, I suspect. I suspect that, when looking for a Christian/Devotional book, you’re looking to find a shortcut to the Bible. Bluntly, my gut tells me that you’re looking for a lazy-man’s Bible.
To that search I say: Good luck in your quest. I never have found one. So I stopped wasting time searching and started reading the Bible.
A Midwestern American Man’s Take On Ukraine
I took my two twelve year olds canoeing, here in Minnesota last July. It brought back so many memories. Just being alone on a river and hearing no artificial noise was well worth the price of admission.
Then, as if to further and more certainly confirm that the event was anointed, there was a moment when a bald eagle flew overhead into view.
Can we talk about the bald eagle for a minute? Is there anything good that a bald eagle doesn’t represent? Is there anything good that a bald eagle doesn’t call to mind?
When I see a bald eagle, I might as well see Jesus. Remember that “I Can Only Imagine” Christian song? It even made the Kohl’s playlist? Remember? “I can only imagine/what hmm mm mmhm hmm?…what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you Jesus!? Or in awe of you be still!?” Imagine nevermore. After seeing a bald eagle, I can tell you what seeing Jesus actually feels like.
Awe, then happy, then awe, then somber, then awe, then special, then awe, then at peace, then awe, then blessed, then awe, then talkative, then awe, then warm, then awe, then good.
On a river in Minnesota we saw a bald eagle. It felt good.
Then, to our surprise, we saw a second large bird playfully follow and engage the bald eagle. The second bird had a speckled appearance. It did not have a white head.
When we arrived home, I googled this second bird. It turns out, as you may have guessed, that bald eagles don’t have the white (bald) head until they’re fully grown.
Did I mention that I saw a bald eagle on the river that day? I did.
Truly, when I saw that bald eagle, I saw America.
The bald eagle is America.
The young bald eagle, then, is Europe.
Ukraine is a bald eagle egg.
Should the USA help Ukraine? Sure. We want more bald eagles.
But the USA should not send its own men and women to fight Russia, anymore than the adult bald eagle can get back inside the egg.
It’d be disingenuous. It’d be unnatural.
Ukraine’s real competition, if it were actually a country (I still say, ‘Ukraine is not a country’), is us—not Russia.
One Way I Know I’m Failing As A Father, and One Way I Know I’m Succeeding As A Father
Failing: Afternoon nap time for A- (terrible two’s daughter) and J- (infant son). And their parents.
Son awakes first. Wife brings him to living room where I am lazily reading after a pleasant cat nap. She returns to her nap.
Finally, I get up and go lay near J-.
I beamed with pride as my son rolled around. J-’s movement and posture is a near divine display of inner calm, grace, majesty, and dexterity. And all at such a young age. Impressive, for sure. I also noticed what might prove to be a subtle hint of poopy diaper was released.
To confirm, I moved in and inhaled deeply.
****
Succeeding: Afternoon nap time for A- (terrible two’s daughter) and J- (infant son). And their parents.
Son awakes first. Wife brings him to living room where I am lazily reading after a pleasant cat nap. She returns to her nap.
Finally, I get up and go lay near J-.
I beamed with pride as my son rolled around. J-’s movement and posture is a near divine display of inner calm, grace, majesty, and dexterity. And all at such a young age. Impressive, for sure. I also noticed what might prove to be a subtle hint of poopy diaper was released.
To confirm, I moved in and inhaled deeply.
“First Robot”, or “Explore Space to Deal With Death”, A Review of First Man, by Damien Chazelle
Movie-wise, I’ve still been on a TGM kick, especially at work, and so it was only natural that my boss (also a pilot) was shocked that I hadn’t seen First Man.
“When I heard they didn’t show him planting the flag, I just lost interest,” I explained.
Well, he told me it was just great and must-see viewing for a pilot. “I can’t believe a pilot wouldn’t want to watch that movie.”
So I watched it.
And like all “inspired by real events” movies, they couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
To be clear, there is no record—at any level, to include hearsay—that Neil Armstrong throws his dead daughter’s bracelet into a moon crater.
In the film, we watch, not a man, but a machine train and train and train and then launch for the moon. Maybe the director saw the problem here.
“How can we have a movie called ‘First Man’ and then show that it was a cold, calculating psychopath that NASA launched to the moon?” we can almost hear him asking.
But the answer to this problem is to fix the portrait (or title), not insert a definitively make-believe event.
In short: Tell the Truth!!
From my perspective, I wanted to know—and I thought the movie was wanting to tell me—why Neil Armstrong was the first man to land and walk on the moon. Specifically, why Neil Armstrong was chosen and why Neil Armstrong had what it takes to know that he should be first.
I know I’m better than most of mankind at achieving goals and completing tasks correctly etc. But I also have been around other dudes that I couldn’t hold a candle to. Neil Armstrong seems to have never experienced the latter. He only knew that he was the man. Absolute confidence. Unbridled certainty.
It’s remarkable.
It’s worth a million dollar film being commissioned.
But it’s also worth getting right.
Our culture seems to struggle with the idea that adults still want things. That adults still can have desires. A movie like this bears this out. It doesn’t know what story to tell. The story is not about “look how he couldn’t be both a good dad and a good man.”
Neil Armstrong wasn’t a good dad! Oh em gee! Damn him to hell!
Does anyone else still believe that a good adult can be precisely what a child (and a nation) needs?
Broadening, does anyone else still believe that an achieving adult is precisely what a family and a nation needs?
We’ve become bedazzled by the idea of sacrificing individual achievement in order to help some version of the helpless masses.
Sorry, but my achievements do help them. We don’t need to scrap NASA in order to feed people.
Your desire to stop my achievement is called “envy” and is sin straight from the pit of hell. JS Mill showed me this. You should learn to see it too.
In any case, between First Man and Ad Astra, I’m not persuaded. Men don’t need the death of fathers and daughters to propel them to greatness. They just need…
And that’s it. The heart of the matter. What do men need to propel them to greatness? Do you know?
Public Schools Must Be Abolished
Just a quick note on a recurring theme.
If you don’t have school-age children, then here’s what you’re missing.
Every Friday the administration sends out several “wrap-up”, “week in review” emails, themselves containing links to more content. I read like lightning, and I still would spend more time reading these emails than I would spend on a full week of homeschooling.
What do these people actually believe? Have they written the great American novel? Do they believe the parents are literate at an above average rate? How many adults actually make it through every word?
Public school.
What a waste of time.
Abolish! Abolish! Abolish!
The Bible Is Not Always Clear
The sermon this morning was on James 1:22-25. Here it is.
“But become doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he looked at himself and has gone away, he immediately forgot what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of freedom, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.”
James 1:22-25 LSB
The preacher this morning spent an inordinate amount of time on the “common sense” mirror analogy. To summarize, he said, “Unless you’re a ‘doer’ James is saying it’s like you see bedhead in the mirror in the morning and then don’t fix it. Hearing-only is only seeing the mirror, James is saying. But we want to be ‘doers’, so we have to do something about what we see.”
This interpretation, of what you’ll see is an uncommon teaching, is incredibly flawed. See if you can follow me as I explain why.
Firstly, the mirror is never truth. The mirror is never reality.
Secondly, the Bible is not a mirror. As I was critiquing the sermon on the short drive home, my wife somehow defended the sermon with, “but the Bible is a mirror!” This exclamation was especially saddening as she knows better. To be clear, a quick, but exhaustive, search of the Bible shows that no Bible writer ever expressed as much. Of course they didn’t. It isn’t true. The Bible writers never wrote that the Bible is a mirror because the Bible is not a mirror. (This is because the Bible is true and mirrors are not.)
Thirdly, James plainly says that the hearer-only forgets without the mirror. When apart from the mirror, the hearer-only forgets.
Let’s take an example of forgetting. As a professional pilot, I wear a uniform when I fly. The uniform is what a professional pilot wears. You see me in a uniform, just the same as I see myself in a mirror in a uniform. You see pilots in uniforms, but—and you know this—uniforms aren’t the thing that makes him a pilot.
It’s a good look, the uniform. So I like to see myself in the mirror. “Yeah, that’s me. I’m a pilot. Cool.”
Now imagine that I walk away from the mirror and am unable to get the plane into the sky. Am I still a pilot? Even though I’m in uniform? (We’re still on point three; James’ emphasis is on forgetting.)
I saw the other pilots in their uniforms. I put on one that fit me. But, imagine that for some reason I couldn’t perform the task of flight. I have forgotten who I was/am. As it turns out, how I look has nothing to do with whether I am a pilot.
(Here insert any of your own reflective, superficial, outward traits.)
Fourthly, and finally, mirrors, in-and-of-themselves, are not compelling. Don’t believe me? Hmm. Okay. Then I guess you’re not slightly overweight, not slightly unkempt, good from this angle, and you don’t appear to weigh as much as the scale says. I guess you really do look best on video chat when it’s just your face, your clothes really don’t matter, and you’re only working from home—so no need to look nice.
If mirrors could compel us to change, we’d all look exact like we want to, no matter the cost of achieving it.
James was writing to liars (that includes you and me too). Specifically, he was writing to believers who were undergoing various trials. James believes that he (James) knows a thing or two about how to gain the righteousness of God. And he writes that we don’t gain the righteousness of God by living a lie. Or as James says “deluding ourselves”.
If you think hearing a sermon every week, or your having heard a powerful sermon once in your life, is going to gain you the righteousness of God, then think again.
This short passage is not clear. It is not common sense. It is murky, it is mysterious, and it is deep enough that a lifetime can be spent contemplating it. This is because James is promoting the need for religion. He is promoting the need for repetition. He is promoting the need for repentance.
Why? Why repent? Why repetitively perform good works? Why get religion?
Answer: “To achieve the righteousness of God.”
(Here notice that we haven’t touched on what that is. Maybe some other day.)
Mayor Pete Is A Real Boy
Some of you have no doubt seen the headlines that Mayor Pete put pen to paper regarding his first year with the twin babies.
What most of you won’t have taken time to learn, what the news didn’t report, is that Mayor Pete also, after his year in the Land of Boobies, to his great astonishment, grew a beautiful pair of donkey’s ears.
It is moments like these where I am glad homosexual men are sterile. Seems nature has things under control after all.
Luck or Consequence?
You should remember that I have a step-son, A-. He’s now 12, and he has been in my house for over two years. For right or wrong, most nights, as my wife (his mother) and I lay in bed, about to fall asleep, I recount, let’s say, “areas for improvement” in his day. So many lies, so much disobedience, so much unthinkingness. He’s not hell-bent, but he has severe low self-esteem and until me, has never apparently had an adult teach him anything, let alone the big things. Making matters worse, he’s been guessing wrong and drawing wrong conclusions with his own brain—itself a testament to how incapable a human is to just “get it” without proper breeding.
Anyhow, as you also know, I fly helicopters professionally and of the EMS sort. Recently, I was able to attend a drag racing event as the “on duty”, “fly out the injured driver or fan” pilot. Well, one of the perks of this event was I got to go down to the start line and be as close to the car as anyone, well, anyone except the driver.
I’m telling you, it was like a bomb went off when the lights turned green. I feared for my own life.
In other words, it was awesome.
Later that shift, I flew an actual patient of a bicyclist vs. car event and then I had a long drive home. Long day.
Pretty much went directly to bed. And while there, I’m showing the wife videos of the crazy races and explaining the unimaginable experience of being right there (and having flown in to the event, all while being on the clock) and, because she she knows I like Nascar among other reasons, she says, “Lucky you.”
Full stop.
Lucky me? I’m at the race and being teated as VIP because I’m fortunate?
Sorry, my wife. Maybe it’s fortunate that that shift was open and I was able to fill it. Maybe it’s fortunate that the other helicopter that was supposed to be there was weathered in and we were sent until they could replace us. But the reason that pilots get these uncommon opportunities is pure consequence of consistent application of self-control, obedience, perseverance, attention to detail, service, and the list goes on.
The moment sticks in my craw because of my step-son. I’m the only adult in his life that holds him accountable, that gives him consequences, that tells him unrelentingly that “this behavior caused this consequence” and this means that I’ve created in him a fight. He has all the rest of you just neglecting him, just letting him believe in some bastardized version of “fortune” when it comes to how life unfolds in one corner. And he has me, in the other. I’m strict. I’m probably terrifying. And I talk to him more than anyone he knows. But I’m also alone. Me and my helicopter and my videos of cars exploding off the planet. 9 years of everyone, followed by 2+ years of everyone vs. one man who seems lucky. What do you think? Who’s he gonna choose to stick with?
Good things happen as consequences, and nominal and bad things happen as consequences.
Bear in mind, I’m not saying, I, Captain Pete, deserve good things, deserve good consequences. I am saying that when they happen, it is definitely and certainly due to past performance.
I saw the same images of who gets to be where at sporting events as I grew up that you all saw too. Celebrities and the wealthy have their places in the arena, and so do those of us who prepare for the worst, while hoping for the best.
But enough. I wrote this as a conversation piece. I’m curious, what do you think? Is my wife right? Am I just lucky? Or am I right? Was my front row experience the consequence of past behavior.
Lastly, help a brotha’ out. Give the kids in your, ahem, “sphere of influence” consequences.
Stunted?, A Review of Elvis by Baz Luhrmann
Mr. Luhrmann’s biopic finally made it to streaming and, therefore, ahem, “undocumented” streaming, which means, finally made it to my laptop. I’d been waiting for months—so long in fact that I nearly watched a cam version. In short, I’m glad I waited. There was nothing that I missed by not being part of the initial watch party, and there was plenty that I’m glad I saw in decent quality, both picture and sound.
Skipping to the end, though, unlike Elvis’ at least momentary ability to gain satisfaction on the “love” front, I was left unsatisfied.
The chosen vehicle to deliver Elvis to us is the “unparalleled talent held back by abusing manager”. Despite this choice, the movie and the man seem to cry out that there must’ve been more to Elvis Aaron Presley. He couldn’t have just been “Elvis” because he constantly broke his manager’s barriers. And we all know, or those of us who read lyrics all know, that every artist views themselves as restricted, even in their most untamed seeming creations.
I call your attention to Exhibit A: Tool has a song in which he describes how a fan calls him a “sell out” and then he, MJK, responds, “All you know about me’s what I sold ya, dumbf*^%/I sold out long before you ever even heard my name…” among other fairly harsh truths on topic.
Over here is Exhibit B: Metallica released a collaboration with Lou Reed that was widely and thoroughly panned by critics. I think it’s the last CD I bought at Best Buy. Or second to last. When someone told the drummer that it was very hard to listen to, he replied, “You should try performing it!”
The nicest review I found at the time was written by, if memory serves, someone from Mastodon. He essentially argued, “Good for Metallica.” He said that Metallica is so big that they actually had a chance to release something that they wanted to release, no input from anyone. Sure, he went on, it’s no good. But none of us have achieved or probably will achieve the ability to make truly pure art like they did. (My paraphrase.)
In short, Mr. Luhrmann’s Elvis comes across as merely trope (rare adjectival use) and yet, after what I just saw, Elvis Aaron Presley couldn’t have been so one-sided. The most important thing about him couldn’t have been that his manager held him back if it’s common knowledge to a mid-western kid like me that no musicians are free from stunting managerial oversight (excepting all-mighty ‘tallica, of course).
In the end, it was a decent film, had stirring sequences and the ending was unavoidably emotional. But it didn’t quite do justice to the wiggly flesh exterior, the blood-pumping heart that lay beneath, or the invisible soul that would not be told who to be that I have to believe filled Elvis Aaron Presley—the man I’d want to have met.
On that front, Mr. Luhrmann succeeded. I’d never had that thought before the film. I’d always pictured a Vegas has-been. While I still think there was a sharper image to be portrayed by a film, I definitely had my perception changed. And that is rare these days. So while it’s true that Elvis has left the building, I say, long live the king.
“One Pastor Candidate for Every Five Pastor Openings”
Have you heard this one? I just heard it the other day.
I’ve been generally aware of the “pastor shortage” or, put differently, the “need for pastors,” but the other day after a men’s Bible study, a church member shared this doozy with me.
You see, the local church my family will probably join is between pastors at the moment and it’s been seven months. They have stalled in the search, basically taking the past seven months to write a church profile with only two salient facts in my view: low attendance (50-60 a Sunday) and minimal budget (somewhere around $150k a year).
But now, with only depressing effect, there’s this fact in the mix. Only one pastor is available for every five congregations looking for a pastor, or in need of a pastor.
I say, let’s honor the rumor and explore what it may mean. Like from a God’s eye view. For example, are we saying that God isn’t providing shepherds for His flocks? Seems unlikely. What are some other options?
One other option, possibly the only other option, is that the pastor-less churches aren’t churches.
Boom.
Consider that.
What would that mean? What would we be saying if we concluded that four of five pastor-less churches aren’t “churches”?
I’ve been thinking about this question all week. And the answer, as I see it, is not as surprising as you might guess.
What does it mean that four of five pastor-less churches aren’t actually “churches”?
It means people aren’t religious anymore.
And that fact is not surprising at all. It’s quite mundane really. It’s not even embarrassing. It’s “just the way it is”.
Specifically though, or more acutely, it means that these pastor-less groups, are viewed by men like me (or men I went to seminary with) as uninterested in religion. Instead they’re interested in having their way all the time, and won’t be moved from their opinions.
In the particular church I have been attending, the head deacon was curious about my opinion on whether the flag could be placed back behind the pulpit in the sanctuary. It seems the previous pastor took it down as an early order of business during his tenure.
The point here is not, “What did you tell him, Pete? We are having the same debate.”
The point is, “What man on earth, let alone man of the cloth, man called by Almighty God to preach the Word, wants to debate sanctuary decorations?” That’s not a Christian church problem, that is a personality problem. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
Step 1 of problem solving, Air Force Officer Training School style: Recognize The Problem. The problem here is not a pastor shortage, the problem here is a truth shortage.
The God of the Bible, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe is not afraid to use unpleasant truths to accomplish His will.
The truth is these groups of people long ago stopped being Christian churches. Everyone with children left—that’s the first sign. But more than that, churches grow. They also convert people. If so-called “churches” aren’t growing and aren’t gaining new converts for years, they’re not churches. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s the truth.
In conclusion, don’t put out a “Pastor Wanted” sign if you’re not a church.
And if you’re not a church, then the only public action for your group is prayer. If the “church” won’t pray together, then you’ve learned all you need to know. 1. It’s definitely not a church and 2. your two options then are evangelize or leave.
I say, why not evangelize? Most people are horrible at it and you’ve at least got a ready audience.
As for me and my particular situation, I’m attempting to practice what I preach here. I’m sticking with these folks, who otherwise are not a church, because they’re a ready audience and they need Gospel as much as the next man.
Captain’s Log 