***GEEK ALERT***

For those of you who, like I, enjoy Star Wars perhaps a little too much (don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me!), you might be interested in knowing that George Lucas has approved a Star Wars TV show that should premiere in May 2005. The article about this is here.

More Marching Band

In today’s issue of Sports Illustrated On Campus, there was an amusing article about great moments in band history. It was a true/false quiz (which was kind of annoying), but I have distilled the following list of humorous, true, band moments in history:

• 1941: The University of Chicago disbands its marching band–two years after having disbanded its football team.
• 1967: During a nationally televised game against Harvard on ABC, the Princeton band intentionally spells out the letters NBC.
• 1974: On Children’s Day in New Haven, Yale’s band dedicates a halftime show to birth control.
• 1981: The Brown band visits Columbia, in New York City. During the halftime show the band forms the “I [heart] NY” symbol. Suddenly three saxophone players don stocking masks and begin mugging their fellow performers while other bandsmen pretend not to notice.
• 1981: During a postgame performance a few members of the Stanford band reportedly urinate on the field.
• 1989: After a dean is named at Columbia, band members blockade his office, refusing to disperse until he accepts a list of 10 demands. Among them: “Write a glowing law school recommendation for [the band manager].”

This article isn’t up on Sports Illustrated’s web site, but last week’s cover story about the murder of the Husker soccer player, Jenna Cooper, is here if you missed it.

Ezekiel 33

Today, my Bible reading plan brought me to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, Ezekiel 33. Here’s a quick run-down of why it is so meaningful to me.

• Verses 1-9: It is a challenging and sobering thought that we are responsible to communicate our knowledge of Christ with those who don’t know Him, although we obviously have no control over their response. Paul, toward the end of his life, said that he was innocent of the blood of all men, because he never shrunk from proclaiming the gospel to people. Ezekiel, though, had already received this challenge from God when he was first commissioned.
• Verses 10-20: God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but wants all to turn to Him. We really need to see people who are lost as just that–as people who need a Savior just as much as we do. Still, our God is a just God, who must ultimately meet those who reject His grace and mercy with the wrath their sins deserve. (Paul explains this as well in Romans 2:1-16.) And remember, it’s not that God did not demand justice for the sins of those who trust His Son, but that God met His Son with the wrath that should have been put on us.
• Verses 21-22: As soon as Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, God lets Ezekiel speak again (previously, Ezekiel was only able to speak when God was directly speaking). This concept was one of the biggest motivating factors in beginning my policktical fast. The idea is that God wanted nothing of Ezekiel coming from Ezekiel, because otherwise that might corrupt the pure message of God. I realized that much of what was coming out of me was not God’s pure message (the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ), but a lot of party-line rhetoric, some of which having dubious Scriptural roots, even though it might not have been outrightly contrary to Scripture. In the process, I built walls between people of different ideologies that were a hindrance to the gospel, since I might have been giving the impression that to be a Christian, they needed to vote for exactly the same people I would vote for. Thus, I had to get rid of it, at least for a little while.
• Verses 23-33: When I first read this, I didn’t really know how to tie it together, so I will instead quote the thoughts of D.A. Carson in his For the Love of God:

  So the news arrives: Jerusalem has fallen (33:22). Ezekiel is now released from the silence God earlier imposed: he can converse openly and can say things other than what was given to him as a prophet. But all that he says in the rest of this chapter are more words from the Lord. He has two themes. (a) Regarding the people left among the ruins of Jerusalem, they are ever the optimists. They think they will reestablish themselves, even though they have not renounced their sins. So God will continue his chastening until there is only desolation, so that they will learn that he is the Lord (33:23-29). (b) As for the exiles whom Ezekiel addresses directly, they have learned to enjoy listening to him, as one enjoys listening to a gifted orator–but they have not learned to repent.

  Where are the closest analogies to such stances today?

There are a lot of challenging ideas here for only being a 33-verse chapter!

Deep Thoughts

brew

Originally uploaded by ahansen54.

Inspired by Bethany’s multi-tasking post, I decided to use the same format to share some thoughts.

-My dad is taking his Junior High small group to play poor man’s paintball with wrist rockets on somebody’s land tonight. I advised him to make sure and get safety goggles for everyone rather than merely safety glasses. This wasn’t possible. In light of this, I advised him to make sure the kids sign waivers first. I’m pretty sure he didn’t take my advice. If this post is removed tomorrow, it’s because we’re being sued.

-I listened through Romans and Galatians (as performed by Max Mclean) today at work, and realized how much theology I don’t yet understand. Much about the relationship between the law, sin, Christ, and the covenants was confusing.

-Sometimes it’s disheartening being friends with Ben. No offense, Ben. He’s been working diligently all week preparing for our Theory of Knowledge test tomorrow, and I have yet to really start. I know, different study styles, bla bla. What it really boils down to is that I’m a slacker.

-My oldest brother stole an antelope in Wyoming this morning. That’s pretty cool. He’s going elk stealing later this week. (Don’t worry, he eats what he steals). I’m generally not a wild game fan, but I might have to give this stuff a try. [Note: Please read the comments below before taking this story too seriously. Also, that's a deer in the picture, not an antelope.]

-I just finished off my last Henry Weinhard’s Vanilla Cream Soda. Man, that’s good stuff.

Why It’s Cool To Be A Calvinist

I found these amusing. Note: This is a JOKE, and not meant to insult anyone. (Although I think it contains some valid criticism.) Also note: the list seems to mistakenly equate Presbyterianism with Calvinism. Dispensationalists and other non-Presbyterians can be Calvinists as well (as I think Calvinism generally refers to soteriology). You Presbos feel free to prove me wrong on this in the Comments.

Calvinism’s 10 reasons

It’s way cool to be a Calvinist

1. Calvinists tend to wear wool and cotton (comfy!). Dispensationalists (and fundies) tend to wear lime-green polyester leisure suits.

2. Calvinists can drink.

3. Calvinists can smoke.

4. Calvinists can make fun of those who don’t.

5. Dispensationalists are into prophecy conferences where they talk about Star-Trek eschatology and the mark of the Beast. Calvinists have conferences on “life and culture”, art, social justice and other high-brow things like that. Afterwards, we go to the local pub and talk about philosophy over a pint of Bass ale and make fun of dispensationalists.

6. Calvinists have close ties with Scotland. And Scotland is very cool. You know — Sean Connery, the movie Highlander, Bagpipes, the Loch Ness Monster, Glenlivet 18 year old Scotch, men with skirts, Brave Heart, etc.

7. Calvinists think they are smarter than anybody else.

8. Calvinists are out to prove number 7.

9. It is more socially acceptable to say “I go to Grace Presbyterian Church” than to say, “I go to Washed In The Blood Worship Center”, “I go to Sonlife Charismatic Believers Assembly”. Or to say “I go to Boston Berean Bible Believing Baptist Bethel”; or to say “I go to the Latter-Day-Rain Deliverance Tabernacle Prophecy Center, Inc.”. It’s equally heinous to say “I go to the Philadelphia Church of the Majority Text”, or to say “I go to the Lithuanian Apostolic Orthodox Autocephalic Church of the Baltic Union of 1838″.

10. Ultimately, I am a Calvinist because I had no choice in the matter.

This list came from this site.

DN Extravaganza

Some of the important news of the day from our beloved college newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan:

• Apparently, Rep. Tom Osborne (R-Neb) has switched houses in Congress to be in the Senate without my knowledge (is that even legal?). This is news to me, because I haven’t been paying attention to such things. Here’s the headline of the DN today: “Osborne near rocket explosion: Senator unharmed after incident” (my emphasis). As you can see, it wasn’t really a political discussion, so I felt it safe to read. I couldn’t find a link to the story on the DN’s web site, but maybe I’ll try to get this scanned and put up on my blog soon.
• The next article that caught my eye was one entitled: “Phishing trolls for personal information as latest online scam” This brought to mind the story of how Ben, upon receiving an e-mail purportedly from eBay, signed up for identity theft by giving out his social security number, his checking account number, the user ID and password to his eBay and PayPal accounts, as well as his mother’s maiden name (which is needed to get new credit cards and bank accounts). Ben later said that he did, in fact, have warning bells going off in his head, but he just hit the “Manual Override” switch because, after all, who would try to steal someone’s information and use it for ill-gotten gain?

That’s pretty much all for the DN today, but I thoroughly enjoyed it!

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Update:

I forgot to mention that the reason Ben’s story is funny is because he never actually lost any money, and (so far) no one has tried to get a credit card in his name or anything like that (Ben put a fraud alert on his credit report). I didn’t want you to think I was sadistic or anything, but since no one got hurt, it is really funny!

Anyway, I also forgot to provide a link to today’s letters to the editor. Most of the time, I don’t read them, because what do I care what people with too much time on their hands write? (Don’t think about that too much.) Anyway, read the insightful letter titled: “WWJD? Probably practice safe sex.” I love his logic:

1. Assume “hypothetically” that Jesus sinned.
2. Would it not make sense, that, if Jesus sinned, that he would do it in a “responsible” manner?
3. For example, if Jesus murdered someone, would he not do it in a humane (rather than torturous) way, and would he not clean everything up afterward?

Bravo, Mr. Griess! You have proven…nothing!

Unbelievable.

A more Orthodox Christianity?

Continuing my series of posts on Winner’s Girl Meets God, the next subject I would like to broach (and probably the last, unless I think of anything else) would be that of Orthodox Christianity. This is not so much in the sense of the principles contained in the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed, but in the sense of the rituals and practices the Christian Orthodoxy has promoted over the centuries. Winner is herself Episcopalian, and her book is structured through a year of her life, each section of the book being a new season of Christianity. She does this largely because her former life as an Orthodox Jew was structured around the festivals and calendars of Judaism.

In the denominations in which I grew up, there was something of a fear about celebrating anything other than Thanksgiving, Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter. For example, we never observed lent, I never attended an Ash Wednesday service, and I only now know what the Maundy in Maundy Thursday means because she explained it in her book (it has to do with the Last Supper). I am now wondering why we didn’t.

Before reading this book, I would have given a pat answer that would be something like, “Rituals can take the place of a relationship with God. Remember, Christianity is the only world “religion” that is not about man’s trying to get to God (religion), but is about God’s attempt to get to man (relationship).” As I read this book, though, I wondered if my Christian life (which is largely a routine of when I get up to read the Bible to pray, when I go to church, when I meet with other believers to fellowship, etc…). Furthermore, how different really is each service I attend from the last one–there is a very “ritualistic” pattern of worship, announcements, more worship with perhaps a special program on some ministry or other, a sermon, and a little worship to top the whole thing off. What’s more is that I take comfort from this pattern of the service. I need the ritual of the worship and the teaching to be reminded of who God is and to be taught what God wants from me every week. Is that a bad thing? If not, then what about more rituals, as long as they are designed to continually remind me about the nature of God and the nature of His commandments?

Of course, there is a point where ritual takes over, but are we anywhere close to that dividing line? Furthermore, is it a bad thing to be prepared for Easter by the Lenten season? I have always been skeptical of what people were giving up for Lent, because (a) I knew a lot of people who quickly broke their fasts; and (b) even if they could stave off temptation for that time period, they were always back at whatever they had given off–so what was the point? Now, though, as I am giving up politics for forty days, I realize that the purpose is not so much on giving something up (if you should give something up–for example, a specific sin–that surrender should probably be permanent), but it is more about replacing what you are temporarily giving up for time in the Word, in prayer, and doing other things that perhaps don’t have quite such a hold on your life.

Winner also talks about the “icons” (posters) of Jesus she has around her room. She writes several times about the conversations she has with different depictions of Jesus (for different moods she is going through–one Jesus may look encouraging, another may look forgiving, and another may look powerful). To me, this raised a few more warning bells than the stuff about Christian holidays and church service rituals, because this seems to teeter on the brink of breaking God’s commandment against idols. Still, because we know pretty much everything we know about relationships from what we’ve learned with flesh-and-blood people, it seems like it would be comforting to at least have an artist’s rendering of Jesus to talk to. As I said, I am quite a bit less sold on this idea as I am on the idea of rituals in Christianity, but it was certainly something to think about.

So that this post doesn’t get too long (and so I can get back to my homework), I’m just going to post the rest of the ideas I gleaned from Winner’s book about this subject in bullet-point fashion:

• Using a Book of Common Prayer–the book of Psalms also, in a way teaches us to pray, and we certainly pick up ways to pray from some of the good Christian music we listen to (like Derek Webb’s “I Repent”), so why not have an organized book of topical prayers? Might they be good guidance for our prayer life, or should we try to “rough it” and be taught by the Holy Spirit?
• Confession–the Bible tells us to confess our sins to one another, so why not make a regular practice of it to a pastor? This, of course, is not for actual forgiveness (we as Christians have the authority to go straight to the throne of grace because our High Priest is Christ Himself), but it seems like it could be useful for accountability, support, and prayer in the areas of our struggles.

Finally, I want to point out that it is possible that all these things are externals, and if one denomination practices one of these sorts of things, we should praise God for how He is working there without feeling the need to adapt our denomination to do the same thing. As long as we are following Christ, perhaps the how’s and the when’s and the what’s aren’t so important.

Praise

Having written my earlier melancholy (but hopeful) post, things may be starting to look up. I just got an e-mail from a wonderful, faithful client of mine (for those of you who do not know, I am a parliamentarian–the information is a bit out of date on that web site, by the way), perhaps needing a professional opinion for her organization. This is a good thing (it means that I might be able to pay off a bit more of my credit card bill this month than I had planned on doing!). So, whether this is the turning-point for my life to move upwards, or whether this will fall through and there will be many difficulties yet to come, I do want to praise the God who is orchestrating all of it, whether good or bad (from my perspective, of course–from His, it’s all good!).

On Literature

Well, my faithful blog readers (i.e., those of you who have sloshed through some of my deeper, weighty, and just plain long posts, who are still reading my blog now), I am considering writing a novel. Now, don’t whisk away to Amazon.com just yet–I still have to actually get this future bestseller on paper (or, at least on the hard drive of my computer).

What I am interested in knowing (and this will require reader participation) is what you most appreciate about the books that you most appreciate. Is it a quick-paced plot? Good, descriptive imagery? A deep delve into weighty issues?

I have a story for a book in mind (literally–it will be based on an actual dream of mine) which I will describe in a future post. For now, I am interested in what people are interested in when they pick up a book to read it.

My date with a Messianic Jewess

I read Lauren F. Winner’s Girl Meets God this weekend. I loved her insights into the relationships between Judaism and Christianity. Her thoughts about politics challenged my conceptions of what a Christian should be. Also, she’s an extremely good writer, if you can stand memoirs.

This probably won’t be an extremely long post, but I wanted to give you a general idea of what I thought about the book. First, if you do not like books written in the style of a memoir, you probably won’t like this book. Still, it has extremely strong organization for a memoir.

Second, the most valuable part about reading the book was learning about the ties to Christianity from Judaism that I never knew about. She was always comparing some holiday in Christianity to a holiday of Judaism, and she knew quite a bit about the symbolism from each.

The only thing I was disappointed with was how she sidestepped seemingly important issues. She only mentioned homosexuality once in passing with no value judgment, and I was wondering what she thought about that. She never even mentioned abortion. As I mentioned earlier, she is one of the more liberal Christians I have read from (culturally and somewhat politically, but not theologically), so I was wondering what she thought about such moral issues.

So, I give the book a four out of five stars. I highly encourage you to find time to read it, but it wasn’t quite profound. And, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I read this book on the suggestion of another reader. If you have any book suggestions, let me know!