Victor Hugo Tried to Tell Me

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eggs face Victor Hugo Tried to Tell MeOr, “How I came to have cyber egg all over my face”

Confessions of someone who posts on Facebook before sitting on hands and engaging brain.

VICTOR HUGO said, “History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.”

When it comes to figures of the past, time has a way of mediating the negative and positive snapshots of a person’s character and life to give us a fairly accurate portrait of what and who he or she was; to give as honest a portrayal as possible of the “eternal man beneath the momentary man”.

I am neck deep in alligators right now with just such a project: sorting through the good, the bad and the ugly of people who lived over 400 years ago and hopefully coming up with an interesting yet accurate final portrait. Multiple hours of research went into delving deeply into source material, reading long passages of tedious and quite frankly boring 16th Century prose and reading some good and some painfully biased biographies before ever writing one word.

The point is that I have taken great pains to ensure my account is well researched and free from the bias of a 21st Century man looking backwards at someone lost in the mist of the 16th Century. So one would think I could do an even better job speaking of someone who is a contemporary, of someone whose portrait is still being painted with their own living words and actions.

One would think.

But when I posted a link to a story at National Review, titled Air Force Chaplain Awarded Bronze Star for PowerPoint Teaching Proper Sensitivity for the Koran, I failed to look beyond the momentary man to find the eternal man. In my best military dad’s righteous anger I read the article in about 60 seconds and then posted what I thought about it on Facebook 10 seconds after that.

After all, our youngest son was awarded the bronze star for valor in combat. As a convoy commander in Iraq a few years ago he was involved in a deadly firefight and nearly lost his life. That’s what soldiers get bronze stars for, not PowerPoint presentations. How dare this Lt. Colonel accept such an award for punching some keys on a computer?

So I sat down to write this post and give vent to my impressions of such a travesty. Thankfully I took a breath and paused to do a little more research and fact checking. Only then did I realize that, to my shame, the snapshot of Lt Colonel Jon Trainer offered in the National Review and repeated by a myriad of copycats including yours truly on Facebook did not offer the whole picture.

And then I read this:

I contacted LTC Jon Trainer Tuesday afternoon, something no other policy analysts or commentators had done, to discuss the matter with him directly. I also contacted field commanders in Afghanistan for comment on the PowerPoint he developed. …. continue reading

My opinion hasn’t changed about the way our government is devaluing acts of true heroism but I am slapping my own hand for raising it before I knew what I was talking about. This age of cyber everything has created an avalanche of words, the majority of which are worse than useless. Shame on me for adding to this mountain of garbage that passes for meaningful commentary.

I am once again reminded of C.S. Lewis admonition to writers: know exactly what you want to say and be sure you say exactly that. Anyone else care to confess to speaking before you were sure of all the facts in a matter? Please, I really don’t want to sit here all by myself in the time-out corner.

Remembering The Blind Side?

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Remembering The Blind Side?

Considering Michael Oher is now wearing a Super Bowl Ring and his biography is a a part of Lifeway bookstore’s catalogue I thought it was time to revisit the most visited post at Dare to Look in 2012.

I’m not sure why this one received over 1300 visits in less than 10 hours but it apparently struck a chord. In case you missed it, here it is again.

 

Did Lifeway Get the Blind Side?

Since 2010, Florida pastor Rodney Baker has been on a crusade to remove an “offensive film” from Lifeway Christian bookstores and as of last month he succeeded. You might ask, what manner of ungodliness did this chain of Christian bookstores operated by the Southern Baptist Convention promote? The answer will probably perplex many of you.

The pastor of Hopeful Baptist Church in Lake City, Florida submitted a resolution to the Southern Baptist Convention, demanding that Lifeway pull The Blind Side. Grossing over $34 million in its opening weekend, that film was nominated for Best Motion Picture at the Oscars and won Sandra Bullock an Oscar for Best Actress.

Weeks before the denomination’s annual convention, LifeWay decided to pull “The Blind Side” from its shelves. A Lifeway spokesman stated that this decision was done to make the resolution unnecessary. In fairness to the trustees of LifeWay, the timing could not have been worse. The SBC’s convention was to meet in New Orleans and the body was about to see its first African-American president, New Orleans’s pastor Fred Luter, elected. Understandably, controversy was not something anyone wanted.

Not surprisingly reactions to LifeWay’s decision have been mixed.

 

The Detractors

Some like New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas best known for his biographies on William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer mused about the negative image to the world at large such a decision would offer:

I’m kind of upset. A great movie was pulled from the shelves of a Christian bookstore chain,” he said on the July 5 program. “Look, I’m as concerned about cultural messages as anyone. I’m a father. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this – and the wrong way definitely includes the permanent state of umbrage that many Christians seem to exhibit. They seem to have confused being salt and light with being curmudgeons.

Others such as Rachel Held Evans took the action as occasion to bemoan the steps authors must take to be considered by Christian publishing houses.

Christian bookstores have a chokehold on the Christian publishing industry. And this chokehold not only affects the inventory you find on Christian bookstore shelves, but which books are contracted by publishers, what content gets edited in the writing and editing process, and the degree of freedom authors feel they have to speak on their own blogs and platforms. As a result, the entire Christian industry has been sanitized, while its best artists look elsewhere for publication.

The Defenders

Marty King, communications director for LifeWay, was quick to say that the staff had “carefully and prayerfully” reviewed all of it products and applied standards approved by the chain’s trustees. To illustrate their decision-making process he brought up LifeWay’s inclusion of the movie Amazing Grace:

We carry movies like “Amazing Grace”… [which] includes scenes with language some would deem inappropriate for their children’s ears and actions not suitable for everyone’s viewing. But the film is about man’s struggle to understand God’s justice and find redemption.

The Distractions of Legalism

So why did Pastor Baker target The Blind Side and not Amazing Grace? It’s not for me to judge motives so I’ll leave that to him to explain. The irony of this whole situation is that a lesser-known film, To Save a Life, not only remains on Lifeway’s shelves but receives heavy promotion. Not only can you purchase the DVD at the chain but there’s also a book and a group activity kit aimed at teens to boot.

So what’s the irony? To Save a Life is not nearly as well made as The Blind Side and the acting was certainly not Oscar worthy. In fact, about the only thing the two films share is a PG-13 rating. Words that The Blind Side uses sparingly come in generous portions in To Save a Life.

LifeWay has every right to sell whatever it wants to sell and not sell what it doesn’t want to sell. This is America last time I checked. I understand the constraints such an enterprise faces in trying to please everybody. But I also see illustrated here the seminal problem with legalism. Legalism is more about trying to be the Holy Spirit than pleasing God.

We look for ways to banish one non-profane movie while justifying the presence of another. We pass resolutions about all the easy things to fight while avoiding the weightier eternal matters. How else can you explain LifeWay booting The Blind Sidewhile selling Joel Osteen books like hotcakes? That’s the same Joel Osteen who told agnostic Larry King before a national audience that he couldn’t say how one gets to heaven. Last time I checked – no resolutions about that one.

A movie is made that describes in realistic yet tasteful terms how an inner city castaway is embraced and loved by suburban evangelicals. For once the Christian characters in such a film don’t end up being pedophiles or serial killers, Hollywood recognizes the quality of the film, and a few words disqualify it!

Remembering The Blind Side?The Bottom Line

By way of disclaimer I’ve been affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention since birth. My father was a pastor of Southern Baptist churches and I received my education at a Southern Baptist college. I was present along with 43,000 other messengers in St Louis in 1987 when we chose to stem the tide of Neo-orthodoxy and teachings that denied the authority of Scripture in our schools and institutions.

So with that out of the way I just want to ask one thing of my fellow believers and Baptists. The question is not profound nor is it nice. And, unfortunately, people will be bothered by how I word this question more than Joel Osteen’s theology.

And that question is … “What the hell are we thinking about?”

 

A Deconstructing Recipe for Cooking History

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image2 A Deconstructing Recipe for Cooking History

A MINOR CONFESSION of mine is that I have been known to watch cooking competitions on TV. Shows like Top Chef, Chopped, and even from time to time Hell’s Kitchen have for the most part replaced O’Reilly and the nightly news. Don’t ask me why; I could ask the same question of people who watch golf.

A common requirement of the chefs on such shows is to “deconstruct” a popular dish. The idea is to take something like turkey and dressing, break it down into its basic components, and then come up with something “hip” and “new”. You know, sort of like the way history is treated these days.

Consider the current assault on Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, and more recently Ronald Reagan in pop culture and among so-called journalists. A recent op-ed piece in The New York Times, for example, went to great lengths to paint only the dark side of the author of the Declaration of Independence.

The provocative title, The Monster of Monticello, went out of its way to point out that Thomas Jefferson never worked to do away with slavery. According to the writer, destroying families didn’t bother Jefferson because the Monster of Monticello believed blacks lacked basic human emotions. “Their griefs are transient,” he wrote, and their love lacked “a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.”

Similar negative portraits of Winston Churchill have been featured as of late with mostly accurate yet incomplete quotes such as:

“I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”

“It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.”

Dr. Suneel Dhand, a direct descendent of the people Churchill raved against, calls for a better balance to our views of men like Jefferson and Churchill in a recent article in the International Business Times.

Dehand warns against the trend toward deconstructing history in order to come up with recipes more friendly to modern perceptions. He writes, “As hard as it was, I found that I could not ignore Churchill’s heroic qualities.  I may have to constantly balance these against his views and acts against my ancestors, but he undoubtedly deserves to be held in high esteem for his service to his people and country.”

Looking backwards at both Jefferson and Churchill through the lens of our comfortable times, according to Dehand, is a fatal flaw. He points out:

Just as Winston Churchill’s finest hour came during World War II, so too was Thomas Jefferson’s in the founding of a new nation. And had it not been for the likes of Jefferson, who stood up bravely against a mighty king and empire, there may not have been an America for us to be so free in today.

When I wrote Things Still Don’t Make Sensea couple of years ago, I confessed my own confusion with the contradictions I saw in my grandparents as I grew up through the tumultuous years of Martin Luther King and the Evers brothers. The truth is, they were children of their times that only the times and more like them could ever correct. However, deconstructing their lives or those of Jefferson and Churchill serve only to make fools of us all. My grandparents and figures like Jefferson were fallen men and women, beset by hearts that were desperately flawed. Like all of us.

Orwell understood the negative power of deconstructing history. To destroy a people’s history is to control and ultimately destroy them. The job of a writer of history is not to construct or deconstruct but rather to sort. But sorting through the lives of men like Jefferson and Churchill requires more than trying to prove one’s own point. It requires a willingness to see them honestly, admit their failures, all the while refusing to allow their achievements to be diminished by their weaknesses.

So whose life do you see being deconstructed these days? Does it matter?

I’ll be on the Fringe Tonight

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image1 Ill be on the Fringe TonightMost serialized stories on television die of self-inflicted wounds: no new ideas, old ideas posing as new ideas, no story arc, favorite stars leaving for greener pastures. Fringe is not one those shows. It has grown, survived loosing its way at times, and offered a complete story in five years. This in spite of the fact that FOX is legendary for ruining its own Sci-Fi creations. Anyone remember Space Above and Beyond? And of course there’s Firefly.

I know, many of my regulars here don’t watch it and that’s okay. In fact I kind of relish the idea that this story of how one man’s obsession with saving his son by playing God literally rent the heavens in half will be shared by a faithful few like me – a few million that is.

Since, I’ve had the flu and need all my neurons working at full capacity to keep up with an intricate story arc being brought to conclusion in a few hours, here’s what I wrote about the show almost two years ago.

……………………

WHAT SWEEIPNG EPIC tells the story of star-crossed lovers, Peter and Olivia? Separated since childhood they are reunited through a series of events that at first promise hope and happiness but ultimately the couple seems destined for tragedy. Is this a new novel by best selling author Karen Kingsbury or Francine Rivers? Perhaps Dee Henderson is finally reentering the Christian fiction arena. Or maybe this is sophomore author, C.J. Darlington’s break out novel.  My guess is only a few of you have your hand raised, confident you have the right answer.

The correct answer is that Peter and Olivia are the creation of Hollywood wizard J.J. Abrams of LOST fame. For those of you who are too busy watching Biggest Loser or making the phone companies rich by punching in your choice for American Idol there is a quiet success that airs every Friday night on FOX by the title of Fringe.It’s a superbly written, acted and executed story that involves alternate universes, a bit of time travel, some odd visitors called Observers and what appears to be the fast approaching end of everything. In brief it’s science fiction.

“But I hate science fiction,” many of you will retort. Are you sure? The monumental cross over appeal of epic stories like the Star Wars saga prove that millions who never read or watch science fiction don’t hate science fiction. They hate science fiction for science fiction’s sake. Give them science fiction that is well made and contains the elements basic to human nature and they will, in large part, give it a shot

When you peel away the genre, the author’ s voice, the prose and get to the core of all great stories you find the same common elements: isolation, love, failure and redemption.

Ever since the Fall these have been the basic elements of the story of mankind. So what does that have to do with the title of this article or a couple on some quirky show on television?  The truth is I don’t really hate romance. After all, I’ve been married to my best friend for 36 years and have never once forgotten our anniversary. What I hate is romance for romance’s sake. Why? Because romance for romance’s sake is the worst kind of fiction. In short – it’s fictional. True romance only means something when set against the backdrop of everything else that makes us human.

image thumb1 Ill be on the Fringe TonightFringe uses the platform of a story about two worlds coming apart at the seams to tell an even greater story. It is the tale of two empty souls overcoming insurmountable odds to break free of their isolation and commit themselves to each other. Along with it is the story of a father desperately seeking reconciliation with his son and redemption for his disastrous failings. Isolation – Love – Failure – Redemption.  I think what many people find troubling about a lot of modern romance is how devoid it is of those elements. Then again, so are novels and movies from many other genres.

Come to think of it, the average “so-called” Christian worship service suffers from the same two dimensional shallowness. Praise songs and great sermons  without the foundation of a biblical understanding of the nature of man and the nature of God try to tell the greatest story ever after first ripping the heart out of it. What should be the most powerful love story ever heard becomes a cheap romance only fit to rush to the second hand book store and trade in for another.

Give it to Fringe for trying to tackle the themes of isolation, love, failure and redemption with a lot more passion and depth than many a Sunday morning worship service. Does it fall short? Of course it does. At best, all fallen man can do is ask the big questions and Fringe does that with excellence.

So why I do I hate romance? Because it should be Romance with a capitol R. May we all learn to tell stories that lead people to ask the big questions about those common elements of the human condition. May we live our lives so they ask us how they can answer those questions.

Confessions of One Who Cursed the Darkness

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image Confessions of One Who Cursed the DarknessAS WE ENTER THIS NEW YEAR, many are cheering what a few like me lament. I confess that, in the past, I chastised those who were pessimistic about the future of this great country. But it is time for me to acknowledge the obvious; the times they are changing and as far as I can see, not for the better.

In the weeks and months after Hurricane Ivan a few years back nature proved it is ruthlessly efficient at making formally hidden flaws painfully obvious. Long-standing buildings that appeared structurally sound could no longer mask poor and under-code design. Once seemingly invulnerable oaks betrayed by their hidden secrets of internal disease and rot joined their less noble pine brethren in a common grave of burning debris. The relentless winds simply hastened the inevitable.

Mike Duran, in the aptly titled In Which I Throw in the Towel, was one step ahead of me when he wrote:

“My conservative friends, we are fighting a tide that has turned … We’ve reached the tipping point. The liberal intelligentsia’s control of academic institutions, state-run education, the courts, the entertainment industry, and the mainstream media has become insurmountable. We may nurture a strong remnant, but be advised, we will never, ever, control the national conversation. Again. We are the minority. We are the dissidents…”

Storm winds of cultural and societal change have indeed revealed fractures and flaws some of us didn’t want to admit existed beneath our very feet. Those of us of Biblical faith are indeed the loyal minority, but is that really a new thing? Is it really the surprise so many within the faith community feign it to be?

John S. Dickerson in his soon to be released The Great Evangelical Recession makes a convincing case that orthodox Christianity had become a minority position in American culture long before Roe v. Wade, Same Sex Marriage laws, and free condoms in public schools. Through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, even as the Jesus movement gained steam and mega churches sprang up across the land, disease had already introduced itself deep within the root system of our churches, society, and government.

Like many in the late 70s, I listened to and admired Cal Thomas. And now, like him, I confess my starry eyed foolishness in believing there ever was any such thing as a Moral Majority. Once a central figure in that movement, Thomas sees things far differently now. Looking back on that era he writes:

“We were going through organizing like-minded people to ‘return’ American to a time of greater morality. Of course, this was to be done through politicians who had a difficult time imposing morality on themselves.” Thomas then notes what I and too many others failed to embrace at that time. “No country can be truly Christian. Only people can.”

Neither liberal nor theological coward, John MacArthur tackles head on the church’s foolish attempt to change culture either through legislation or supposed majority rule. Consider MacArthur’s words from Why Government Can’t Save You: An Alternative to Political Activism:

“Rather than demanding our rights and creating for ourselves a world where we feel safe and accepted, we need to see the deep spiritual needs of the world and concern ourselves with offering people hope through Jesus Christ … Above all, the believer’s political involvement should never displace the priority of … the gospel because the morality … that God sees is the result of salvation and sanctification.”

Does this mean I no longer have opinions about what should be happening in Washington or the local mayor’s office? Not at all. But it does mean I have found a certain peace in embracing my minority status. There’s just too much to do and too little time to do it to lose sleep over what Augustine called “the city of the world.”

I know there are those who read these ramblings of mine who are not followers of Christ. Even some of you who are believers don’t have my misgivings about the direction of our culture. Others, deeply troubled by the state of current affairs, are determined to fight the good fight of changing the public conversation. I wish them well but wonder if that energy couldn’t be used in better ways.

As for me the gloaming time is past. I am quite certain that night has fallen on the Baby Boomer fantasy of spirituality by legislation and the supposed redeeming influence of the institutional church. Now is the time to shine my light in the darkness rather than curse or rail against it.

And … there is a strange and wonderful peace about accepting this place of dissidence. I still want to see the city of this world a better place. But even when it appears to be at its best, I know it is ultimately what D.A. Carson calls a “brutal illusion”. At its best, this world is still at its worst.

In this city of the world those who follow Christ will always be in the minority, a band of holy rebels raising weapons of truth like firebrands in the darkness. Help me Lord, to embrace this noble calling to go outside the camp where Christ is. To be nothing that He might be everything.

Sharia Law: It’s Not Science Fiction

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image6 Sharia Law: It’s Not Science Fiction

We struck and then we hid. We talked peace while planning destruction. We used our own brothers’ suffering as fuel against those who were more sympathetic of such things. We sowed discontent.

Kerry Nietz – A Star Curiously Singing

In his trilogy, The Dark Trench Saga, author Kerry Nietz paints a startling picture of a world dominated by a global fundamentalist religion. The main character is a lowly technician who has served at the will of his masters since the age of ten, that obedience insured by a surgically implanted and state approved conscience. Unwilling to simply educate or propagandize their servants into submission, this world’s rulers have invented a surgical implant that virtually assures it.

While we are never told the name of this all-pervasive religion, Nietz leaves little doubt what he modeled this future world after. “But that’s just Science Fiction,” some will say. Anyone who has read much of the genre know that such stories often serve as a magnifying glass on what is already happening or soon will happen around us. The quote from Nietz’ novel was from one of the agents of the world government explaining how Sharia Law came to be the law of the world.

So do I have your attention now? The idea of the Islamic rule of Sharia Law being accepted in Western countries is not science fiction at all!

The courts have become the tip of the spear in Islam’s march into our country. One of the main avenues Muslims are now using to express their identity is in the courtroom. And with each victory in our liberal courts second generation Muslims and converts are becoming more and more confident in asserting their legal rights for Sharia.

But the war for the American concept or religious liberty may well have already been lost on the most strategic battleground of all, the educational system. In his soon to be released, The Great Evangelical Recession, John S. Dickerson notes that Islam is already viewed far more favorably on many college campuses than evangelical Christianity. He quotes a study done by Jewish and Community Research that asked 1200 university professors if they had “unfavorable feelings” toward various religions.

Less than one in four college and university professors have negative feelings toward Muslims, but a majority of them have negative feelings toward evangelical Christians.”

In the minds of American college and university professors, Muslims are a more peaceful and preferred people than Christians.

Sharia law is the most radical and intolerant system of government on the face of the earth? In countries that enforce strict Islamic standards there is no freedom of conscience, no freedom of speech, and no equality for women or non-Muslims. Don’t be fooled by the unrest spreading across the Muslim world. The people in Egypt and Libya are not rejecting Sharia Law; they are rejecting despot rulers who hoard everything to themselves. One need only look at the Taliban in Afghanistan to see what happens when everything breaks down and the people look to someone to restore order.

This is not a defense of the current state of evangelical Christianity. There is plenty of work to do on that front! Nor is this an indictment of Muslims as a whole. They are no more fallen than any other human being on this planet. This is simply a call to consider whether this snippet of dialogue from a piece of fiction isn’t coming to life all around us:

“We struck and then we hid. We talked peace while planning destruction. We used our own brothers’ suffering as fuel against those who were more sympathetic of such things. We sowed discontent.”

Philip K. Dick wrote a near-reality bit of prophecy called Minority Report in a drug induced and quasi schizophrenic haze. If that could happen then surely it would be wise to pay attention to the chord Kerry Nietz, who obviously is seeing things quite clearly, has struck concerning Sharia Law.

Edwarda O’Bara was No Fairytale

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image5 Edwarda OBara was No FairytaleMy teenage years were tumultuous to say the least. Between 1967 and 1969 I stood by the graves of my grandfather, two brothers, and my father. As a 12 year old I entered seventh grade fatherless and to some extent motherless as my mom grieved for the man and a life she would never know again.

And the world wasn’t in much better shape. Vietnam was at its height and my generation had already pronounced those who parented us a total failure. My peaceful Mayberry world now rocked to the strains of Grand Funk Railroad and Jimmy Hendrix. And the lockers of Pineville Jr. High School were vibrating from head shots to opposing races in the midst of forced integration.

Why couldn’t my life have been quieter, less dramatic, more settled? Perhaps a life like that of Edwarda O’Bara, the girl in the picture. She never was forced to move three times in one school year. Nor did she have to worry when the Russians might dispatch intercontinental missiles our way. And, as the years progressed, she didn’t have to watch in disappointment as Richard Nixon resigned. Edwarda didn’t even have to watch in horror as the twin towers fell on 9/11 and I wondered what would happen to my youngest son just enlisted in the Army.

Writers are prone to look for a story in everything so what’s the story here? How did some girl named Edwarda luck up and miss out on all that drama? Was there some kind of twist in time, some rip in the space-time continuum in 1970 that allowed her to avoid all the craziness in the years of my life that began just before the decade of the 70’s?

Not a speculative kind of person? Then perhaps this girl’s story is a mystery. Maybe she disappeared under veiled circumstances and rumors still abound as to what became of her. Or maybe her story is a romance. Perhaps she was in an accident while on a high school trip to Europe. In a fugue of amnesia she wandered off alone into the heart of Paris and eventually came under the care of a wealthy wine magnate who fell in love with her. By the time she regained her memory she had no desire to return to America and lived her life in seclusion with the man of her dreams ever since.

Or perhaps there isn’t a story to find in the life of Edwarda O’Bara. Perhaps her life IS the story. Perhaps the fact that in 1970, a 16 year old Florida girl with dreams of one day becoming a pediatric physician slipped into a coma from which she would never return tells a far grander tale than any work of fiction.

And what story could possibly be more interesting or gripping than some Robert Ludlum or Vince Flynn thriller? How about this:

In the early hours of January 3, 1970, Edwarda O’Bara woke up shaking and in great pain because the oral form of insulin she had been taking wasn’t reaching her blood stream. She was rushed to a hospital and as she lay in her bed, she turned to her mother, Kaye O’Bara, and pleaded with her to stay near. “Promise me you won’t leave me,” she begged.

And for 42 years a mother and the rest of her family kept that promise. During those years, first her father and just five years ago her mother, gave their all for their daughter and died leaving the promise to others to take up. And then this week, the Miami woman who some called the Sleeping Snow White, the world’s longest coma patient, died at the age of 59.

There are stories all around us. At first glance they may seem mundane and unworthy of attention. But in truth, fiction is a much more boring than real life. Fiction has a plot. If you read mysteries or romance much you began to see the formula most follow. They’re still fun to read but not nearly as surprising or profound as we often give them credit.

But life is far more complex, less predictable, and less formulaic. One day a smiling girl just setting out in life has her picture taken. It is a picture of hope and promise. And then out of nowhere everything changes.

And here I am with a wife of 37 years, two fine adult sons, and three grandchildren. Here I am so glad I lived through every one of those wonderful, awful, exciting, boring, promising, disappointing years with my eyes wide open. So how about you, what’s your story?

Did Jesus Die for Klingons?

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Jesus and Klingons Did Jesus Die for Klingons?

 

SOMETIMES an article like this requires a disclaimer. I am an unabashed follower of Jesus Christ and an unashamed lifelong Science Fiction junkie. You heard me right. From before the time I could walk I heard the old old story of Jesus and His love. And from the time I could pick out my own books from the book mobile I devoured anything about the stars.

By the time I was ten I had already read every word of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series and Edgar Rice Burroughs was a friend long before his stories made their way to the big screen as John Carter. And in more recent times I even confess to having watched the 14 episodes of Firefly more than once (okay more than three times). Should anyone care about why these stories captured my imagination you can read more about that in Fiction and the Story of Life.

With that out of the way (unless you younger ones are still trying to figure out what a book mobile is) I turn my attention to a report issued by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. It seems the Pentagon spent $100,000 on a workshop that included a session entitled “Did Jesus Die for Klingons, Too?”

The session was part of the 100-Year Starship Symposium held last year in Orlando, FL. That event was hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA is the advanced research arm of the Pentagon that’s known for sponsoring way-out-there research. The seminar focused on the implications for Christianity if intelligent life were to be found on other planets.

To lend authority to the symposium a couple of theologians along with Lavar Burton (Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge) and Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) of Star Trek fame were called in. From there attendees discussed and debated what effect the discovery of alien life would have on the tenants of the Christian faith.

What this had to do with defense is a mystery to me. But then again I feel the same about the swimming patterns of gold fish which received its own chunk of Department of Defense change.

In light of recent revelations in the CIA and elsewhere however, Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post may be right that considering Jesus and Klingons makes more sense than a lot of other things connected to the DoD. He writes:

“After all, we are but dust. Man’s life is but the blink of a gnat’s eye. We are but the weird, whitish substance that appears at the corner of the cosmos’s lip when the cosmos is yelling. Why should we not, while we remain here, try to gaze into the deep, to answer the questions whose fulfillment will enable us to know our own souls? In fact, why do we build tanks at all? Let us have more workshops instead, where we untangle questions like … How does God feel about George Lucas’s recent sale of Lucasfilm to Disney? Does Ecclesiastes affect the crew of the Serenity in any way? Can tauntauns become Calvinists?”

But in all seriousness, there is a reason I like Science Fiction. Too often Christians who write fiction turn their stories into a polemic to persuade. In other words they preach a sermon. There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s just not the best medium for it. Fiction is far better suited at asking questions. And no genre asks questions better than Sci-Fi.

A couple of years ago I had a chance to interview Stuart Stockton and Kerri Nietz, both Christians who write outstanding Science Fiction. They agreed that the kind of fiction they write provides a perfect platform to ask big questions that leave people searching for big answers.

So why not give the answers in their stories? My guess is because if they tried we would end up with “Did Jesus Die for Klingons – The Sequel.” The better thing is to just tell a great story, weave in a theme if it fits, and send readers off with questions that are best answered in a different forum: like a sermon, or the Bible, or the life of a true believer.

So, “Did Jesus Die for Klingons, Too?” Check out Ephesians 1 and see what you think. Odds are you may still have a question mark or two. Perhaps some answers are reserved for the final frontier. You know the one beyond the veil of this life.

The Veterans in Our House

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image4 The Veterans in Our House

OUR HOUSE was a finalist in the annual Best of the Best at FaithWriters a few years ago. It is my tribute to our veterans and a reminder what the place they should have in our minds and hearts. Men and women like Mr. Clark, who was real person who gave up much that we could have more.

 

“Come on in and sit a spell.”

I paused at the door of Mr. Clark’s pond house and willed away the expression of amusement I could feel trying to force its way through the very pores of my face. Truthfully, no one would have blamed me if I had entered laughing my head off. Clark’s house was a two room affair sitting on stilts in the middle of his little catfish pond. Steel cables ran at crazy angles from two sides of the cabin in opposite directions and were staked out in the fields beyond the water’s confines. It seems Clark hadn’t counted on the poles his house sat on shifting and the cables were his vain attempt to keep the place from tilting crazily one way or the other.

“Grab a chair,” the grizzled man muttered, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

As I pulled up a lawn chair I knew instinctively this was one of those experiences I would write about one day and no one would believe. No one, that is, except those who were lucky enough to be allowed into Clark Dobb’s inner sanctum.

There he sat in his faded black Naugahyde recliner in nothing but his boxers and too worn t-shirt. He and the chair were fused into one lump of Mississippi August sweat making it hard to tell where furniture ended and man began. He never turned to welcome me. There were more important things at hand. Things like the cane pole he held extended out the window next to him and Saturday afternoon wrestling on an ancient Philco black-and-white two feet in front of him.

Between a two pound channel cat and the three hundred pound Masked Assassin he found time to share with me bits and pieces of his life experience, his suspicions about the “government”, and his ponderings on eternal mysteries. Clark was the son of share croppers, the great-grandson of a Civil War hero, and the great-great grandchild of Scottish Highlanders. What he owned had been gained through sheer determination, and the pain in his back was thanks to three years in the Pacific theater during World War II. And the wisdom he possessed … it was more surprising than anything else I experienced that day.

I discovered later that others in the community thought Clark to be a bit “touched”. After all, he owned hundreds of acres of prime timber land but you couldn’t tell by looking at him that he had more than two dollars to his name. Then there were his infamous projects: his failed attempt at raising a new super strain of South American worms, his short-lived excursion into the recording industry, and of course, his cockeyed pond house.

As I started to leave he set his pole down; “Could you do me a favor before you go?”

I smiled; “Sure thing.”

He pointed toward a faded flag that hung from the roof outside. “Could you take her down for me? It’s going to rain and I don’t let nothin’ desecrate her. I know that seems foolish but the old USA’s been good to me, and that’s the least I can do for her.”

The longer I lived in that community the more I realized one couldn’t judge Clark Dobb’s by his shabby exterior. For every dollar he had lost in some crazy venture I discovered he had given two to others in need.

Travelers passing by that pond house only saw a strange old man living amidst a hodge-podge of junk. But not me. I saw a living illustration of the country he fought for, put up with, and loved. A country of wonderfully insane contradictions. A place where we foolishly waste fortunes on South American worms while at the same time give even more to those who only dream of attempting something so bold. A place where the greatest of intentions are held in place by the slimmest of hopes. A place where a few are even willing to die to ensure others the right to ridicule those who died for them.

I guess travelers passing by our house see an eclectic accumulation of half-realized dreams, failed endeavors, and accidental successes. They see a house seemingly pulled in all directions at once. And perhaps some are even right when they say we are a bit touched. Even so, it’s our house and we still believe in the colors that hang from her eaves.

Twilight of a Democratic Republic?

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image2 Twilight of a Democratic Republic?As the sun rose this morning, it’s light shown on a nation where to some it seems a new and better day is dawning. For others it was followed by a night that they believe will only return darker than ever over the next four years. And then there are those, like this writer, who wonder if this nation isn’t destined to languish in an uncertain twilight for generations to come.

The Scots have a term more appropriate for where Americans woke up this morning. It is called the “gloaming.” It is a time that comes twice a day not once. It is that time before sunrise and after sunset; a time when darkness is either fading or approaching – a time of uncertainty.

History is filled with such periods, such times of gloaming. Well over 2000 years ago the prophet Daniel told of the rise and fall of successive seemingly invincible governments. In a vision from God, he spoke of the power of the Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, all who would be swallowed up by the yet to appear Romans. Each came to times of gloaming – the time they emerged from the haze of history to ascend to power and the time they slowly faded away into the darkness.

Neither type of gloaming is an easy time. Nations ascending to power seldom do so without conflict and sacrifice. Those fading away into the twilight are almost always marked by selfishness, hedonism, and denial. Which time of gloaming we are in is a matter of interpretation. And too often, that interpretation depends on whether or not one is on the current winning side.

But to all kings, presidents, parties and voters, Daniel speaks through time to remind us that it is God who “removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21). We like to think we hold such an absolute power of self-determination that we put that man in office or we drove him out. Even when some acknowledge God’s rightful place as the ultimate determiner of power and authority they too often declare Him to be on their side if they are victors. And if they are losers they see Him as somehow against them.

None of this is to say we are not responsible as individuals and citizens to do all we can to ensure as peaceable and effective a government as possible. Christians are told in Romans 13 to “be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” But this is not as clear cut a mandate as one might suppose to simply obey certain men or women because they are in power. The form of governance God has allowed us is one of self-government. Like it or not, in the system established through Providence in the United States of America, we are the government.

We are a Democratic Federal Republic. As such we have both the strongest and yet most fragile form of rule possible. Our form of government depends on strong leaders determined to do the right thing even when opposed by the majority. At the same time this government depends on a proper understanding and application of democracy by the people. That includes the ability written into our Constitution to have a peaceable revolution every four years.

Yesterday, we were granted the ability to replace the President, Vice-President and along with them a Cabinet that determines the day to day direction of this country. We also had opportunity to shift the balance of power in both the Senate and House of Representatives. It was a Constitutional and many would say God-given right to revolt without need of violence.

But Democracy is the fragile part of the equation. In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic 2,000 years ago:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

John Adams, Founding Father and the nation’s second President warned: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

I doubt many see this as High Noon with the sun shining brightly with promise all over this land. It is a deeply divided land, and not one divided over single divisive issues such as states’ rights and slavery prior to the War Between the States. This is a land fractured by a myriad of special interests and generational divides. Something is broken any way you look at it.

Only time will tell which phase of the gloaming we have entered but that is where we are.

This article is a reprint of one written by Tim George for Off the Grid News 

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