Dr. John Stackhouse on Christians' Political Concerns

Dr. John Stackhouse of Regent College in Vancouver, BC, is in Cedar Rapids this weekend speaking. He’ll be at Coe College tonight, First Lutheran Church tomorrow night, and then at Noelridge and First Lutheran on Sunday morning. (Visit recminusa.org for more details.)

I got to meet him at lunch today. I was invited to a regular lunch meeting that my pastor has with some musician-types each Thursday, and Dr. Stackhouse was invited to join us all for lunch. He is a fascinating man; seeming to be equally conversant in music, politics, religion, and philosophy, he bantered with the group all the while engaging us in some serious thought.

At one point the discussion turned to politics, and one of the regulars was lamenting that so many people have started to view politics as single-issues; they’ll make their voting decision based strictly on a candidate’s view on, say, abortion, or gay rights. It’s frustrating to those of us who think there are multiple issues that are important. Dr. Stackhouse agreed that it is very difficult; in reality there may be 30 or 40 issues that a thinking person could be versed on, and vote around. What he suggested, though, was that pastors and other leaders should encourage their people to think around a rather short list, perhaps five or six issues that as Christians we should care about.

He only listed two for us:

  • How will this issue affect the poor?
  • How will this issue affect our ability to freely share the gospel?

He suggested that there might be just a few more. What do you think? Is this a reasonable framework around which to decide how votes will be cast? What items would you add to the list?

Tuesday Riff on CCM

So I don’t listen to Christian radio any more, but Becky had it on in the van over the weekend, and on Sunday morning when I started the van to head to church, this song came on, and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve been frustrated with shallow and trite lyrics before, but I think this song takes the cake. To be fair, I’ll quote the whole song:

Some people tell me that I look kind of funny
My nose is red and the braces didn’t work at all
They say the clothes I wear are all out of fashion
I don’t fit in and should be shopping at a different mall
I studied classical piano when I could’ve been playing guitar
I used to drive an El Camino and I’m not even sure it’s a car
(chorus)
I’m not cool but that’s okay
My God loves me anyway
I’m not cool but that’s alright
I’m still precious in His sight
I’m not cool but I don’t care
How I’m supposed to do my hair
I’m not cool but that’s okay
My God loves me anyway

It doesn’t matter if I know all the lingo
He doesn’t mind if I’m not hanging with a certain crowd
Some people still believe in building image
≥ But I am fine and that’s a worry I can do without
I used to wish I was athletic but football was never my game
I met some friends in mathematics but no one can spell my last name

chorus

He says that I am one of a kind
And I don’t have to try to be somebody else
He believes in me and says I’m free to be myself
I can be myself

(I’m Not Cool - Scott Krippayne)

Becky has warned me that ripping on this song will just make me come across as a music snob. I’m probably guilty as charged… but I’ve gotta say something. In no particular order:

First thought: This could be the theme song for all of Christian Radio these days. The music they play is so out-of-date and repetitive… don’t get me started. It’s the same stuff I was hearing on Christian radio when I listened to it back in high school. And I graduated high school in 1995.

Second thought: There’s a fine line between saying “it’s OK if I’m not cool” and saying “I don’t need to be culturally relevant”. I understand what Krippayne is trying to say with the song. It’s supposed to be an encouragement to that poor socially-inept person who feels “uncool” and rejected by their peers. OK, great. But it’s a very short trip from that to saying “it doesn’t matter whether I’m in touch culturally or not”, which is a much shakier proposition. It seems to me that we do need to be culturally relevant; we’re not doing the Gospel any favors by intimating that only geeks and losers believe. Yeah, there’s a balance to be struck, but this song takes me way out past the edge of where I’m comfortable balancing.

Third thought: If it’s really OK to be uncool, why are the words and music written in a style that is attempting to be contemporary? Why not write it as a Gregorian chant or as Uzbekistani folk music or as hideous 70’s disco? Apparently it’s OK to be uncool unless you’re a CCM musician. Then you’ve gotta try to be, but the odds are you’ll fail miserably.

I can’t deny that the basic message of the song (“God loves me just as I am”) is true; it’s really the insipidity that kills me. Let me share, in closing, a song that does a far better job at eloquently sharing the wonder of God’s love for us. Brother Scott, you might take a lesson or two from Andrew Peterson.

What’s that on the ground?
It’s what’s left of my heart
Somebody named Jesus
Broke it to pieces
And planted the shards

And they’re coming up green
They’re coming in bloom
I can hardly believe
This is all coming true

Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
He showed me the day that He shed His own blood
He loves me, oh, He loves me, He does

All of my life I’ve held on to this fear
Its thistles and vines
Ensnare and entwine
What flowers appeared

It’s the fear that I’ll fall
One too many times
It’s the fear that His love
Is no better than mine

It’s time now to harvest
What little that grew
This man they call Jesus
Who planted the seeds
Has come for the fruit

And the best that I’ve got
Isn’t nearly enough
He’s glad for the crop
But it’s me that He loves

Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
The same as the day that He shed His own blood
He loves me, oh, He loves me, He does

(Just As I Am - Andrew Peterson)

Seasons

Yard work isn’t my favorite task; it’s one of those things that gets done because it needs to be done, not because I really want to do it. But there is something increasingly pleasant about the pattern of life as I see it develop year after year. This will be our third autumn in this house, and so the third season of cold afternoons raking until dark, brisk Saturdays cleaning out gutters, and warm cups of tea waiting for me back in the house. When the raking gets long I will take comfort in the knowledge that in just a few weeks all the leaves will have fallen, the bags will have been collected, and all that will remain in this year’s outdoor maintenance is to prepare the snowblower for its season of work.

They say time speeds up as you get older, and I can understand why they say so. Children have a particular way of making time fly. Wasn’t it just yesterday that little girl was born? Today she sits up on her own, sports two teeth, and grabs everything in sight. Wasn’t it just recently I graduated from college? And yet the new grads at work this year look like mere children. When did I get old? What I am starting to see, though, is the joy in the patterns of life across the years.

Laura is old enough to attend Sunday School this fall, and she came up a few weeks ago chattering “day, night. day, night”. She’s learned about all the other things God created, too, but she has been stuck on “day, night”. At night when we pray I’ve been reinforcing to her that we’re praying to God who made day and night, sun, moon and stars (also favorites of hers!), and who made her. At her young age, I’m sure “day, night” seems like a long time; but even now she can start to learn the patterns that God has so beautifully designed for us. And before too long she’ll be out helping rake the leaves, mow the grass, and shovel the snow.

Writing this suddenly I feel old. I can take some short-lived comfort in the knowledge that my 30th birthday is still nearly 5 months off, but I know that it will come all too soon. (Some of my readers will say that 30 isn’t old - humor me for a minute.) I can be content, though, in knowing that the God who designs and upholds the days, seasons, and years has designed them for me, and me for them. And I can enjoy living them and passing the lessons of life on to my little girls. God is good.

Best-laid plans... don't always work out.

Last night I was headed to bed at a relatively early hour, and as I prepared to go to sleep I decided I’d get up and run this morning. I haven’t run much lately, and I need to. This morning was going to be relatively warm, good for running.

Then the Bears staged an amazing comeback and won the football game. I had to keep watching. The game ended at 11 PM, I figured I’d still be OK.

Then Laura woke up at 3 AM. And again at 4:30 AM. She pitched a fit when I told her she had to go back to sleep. I left her in her crib. At 5:00 she was back awake. So I brought her into our bed. She was awake until 5:30 when I finally got up to get ready for work. By 6:20 when I was leaving the house she was finally sleeping. Hopefully she sleeps in a while.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any running done this morning. And I think I’ll be finding something to drink with caffine in it here very soon now.

Children are an amazing blessing. But that doesn’t mean they won’t keep you up at night one way or another. :-)

Thank goodness for the weekend!

It’s managed to be a busy week, but now the weekend is upon us. Finally!

This afternoon Becky and I are headed to the MAC to play some racquetball, then we’ll go (with the girls) out for supper and down to the coffeehouse to hear Billy Heller - first time in a long time to hear him!

Nothing really scheduled for Saturday. Sunday is church and then possibly a babysitter and a date with Becky! Gotta love the weekend.

Gotta run...

I got out for a run yesterday afternoon - probably the first time in 2 weeks that I’ve run. It feels good to be a little bit sore this morning. It’s going to be hard to get too motivated to run these next few days - it’s gonna be cold and windy. But we just got a membership to the MAC (a local gym) so I’ll be using it instead.

Within the next month they should have the satellite MAC complete and open; it’s going to be only about a mile from home. And my good friend and former associate pastor John Wilbur will be co-managing it. Excellent. They are also bragging about individual 19" LCD TVs on every treadmill and elliptical. Almost sounds like overkill… almost.

I guess my 5K race running is done for the fall; the only ones remaining around here are on Sunday mornings. Grrrr. I’ll have to keep busy on the treadmills over the winter and then I’ll be ready for some spring races. I could get into this running stuff.

The Interweb is Fun!

So yesterday after church I posted a recording of Andrew and me singing a song in church.

Talking to Andrew later in the afternoon, apparently shortly after lunch he gets a call from his girlfriend in Portland. She says “hi, how ya doin, have you heard this song before?” And then he recognizes the song she’s playing him… yep, it’s that song we did just hours before. He was dumbfounded. “We just sang that song in church this morning,” he spluttered. Then he realized. I had already posted it on my blog, she had already read it, and she was calling to let him know. Too cool.

Oh, and Heather, if you read this, leave a comment or something to say hi. :-)

Goodbye FeedLounge, Hello, Google Reader!

I’ve been using FeedLounge for several months now (ever since they came out of beta!) as my online feed reader. It has, without a doubt, the nicest UI (user interface, for my non-geek readers) of any feed reader, online or off, that I’ve ever come across. At the time I signed up, none of the other online feed readers were much good; Bloglines was the best of the bunch, but still not great. So I ponied up my $5/month and felt like it was an OK deal.

The convergence fo a few events have caused my thinking to change in the past week. First, I ran across the new and improved Google Reader. And boy, is it improved. There are still a few little things I wish it had (like choosing your sort order - I like to read from oldest to newest), but for the most part, it does everything I want a feed reader to do. Second, FeedLounge has been through a couple of frustrating hiccups this week, two separate issues causing multi-hour downtimes. Third, I’d like to save the $5/month. So, I dumped my OPML file from FeedLounge, imported it into Google Reader, and I’m good to go. I cancelled my FeedLounge subscription this morning.

Now I know Geof will have some comment to post here; he’s been using FeedLounge since the very beginning, maybe even before that; heck, he even had a version of it named in his honor! And I can’t fault him for sticking with it; it’s a great product. But market forces really do work; given the choice of a lower-priced, similar-and-acceptable functionality product, I’ll make the switch.

Gracious Words

In reply to the “controversy” of John Piper’s comments regarding Mark Driscoll at the DG2006 conference, Driscoll has graciously posted an email interaction between him and Dr. Piper. A brief quote:

As far as your comments regarding me, I welcome them but must confess that maybe telling me them before they get sent out to cyber world like fresh meat to feed all my critics would be preferable. Either way, I love, respect, and appreciate you very much and have an open ear for any counsel or criticism from you. Perhaps some day I can take a few minutes to tell you my life story as it may help to explain a bit of who I am and make our friendship even simpler. It was a tremendous honor to be in the company of men I have learned much from over the years and made the celebration of 10 years in ministry all the more memorable. This past weekend was one of the highlights of my life. So, thank you very much and I pray you get some rest after the conference.

Praise God for gracious servants who are willing to openly share their lives with us. Blessings on both Dr. Piper and Pastor Driscoll.

DG2006: The Audio is Up

One of the things the DG folks do right: all the audio from the Desiring God 2006 National Conference is available, online, for free, today. That’s right, no waiting 2 months for an expensive tape set. You can download it this morning.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/EventMessages/ByDate/