Category: Longform
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Is the goal to win the argument?
These two tweets showed up on my timeline within 10 minutes of each other this morning. And they highlight a fundamental concern I have with the intellectual defense arguments for the Gospel.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not advocating a check-your-brain-at-the-door version of Christianity. But I think Zahnd is right - arguments by themselves don’t win people.
I mean, hey, the next time a Jehovah’s Witness approaches you at a restaurant or bar you can grab the nearest napkin and sketch out a little grid that will logically completely prove that you’re right and they’re wrong. But if you think that once you’ve done that the JW is going to tear up their Watchtower and come to your evangelical church next Sunday, you’ve got another think coming.
When I look over my own spiritual progression of the past two decades, I’ve never had an intellectual Eureka! moment change my beliefs. (I might almost say that reading NTW’s Surprised by Hope was that sort of experience, but that was more putting words and reason to what I knew must be true but hadn’t heard expressed before.) What has changed me is a long, persistent interaction with other believers over time.
Changes haven’t come by having my arm twisted; they’ve come by others gently taking my hand and saying “hey, I’m headed this way, what do you think?”. Sure, occasionally an earthquake radically moves things in a moment; far more often wind and rain slowly shape new paths where before there were none.
There are a lot of things I’m not saying here, so don’t hear them. I’m not saying that we should never present logical arguments for the Gospel, or that we shouldn’t share it with JWs or anyone else that comes along. I’m glad that there are people who have written great intellectual defenses of the Christian faith. I’m not saying that God can’t or won’t use a direct presentation of the Gospel as the tool to bring someone to faith.
But the attitude of “here’s the diagram you need to know to prove the JWs wrong” greatly neglects the realities of how people change, and instead encourages an attitude of intellectual superiority. Please don’t go out there with the attitude that any unbeliever will suddenly see the light if only you can draw the right back-of-the-napkin diagram.
We of all people should recognize that it is only God’s action to open our eyes that brings us to faith, and that should provoke in us not an intellectual arrogance but rather a great humility.
Some serious time travel going on here
I’ll confess - I did almost all my Christmas shopping via Amazon this year. Amazon is usually bang on with shipping, but they clearly get bogged down in the Christmas rush. Exhibit 1: the tracking on this package of mine from yesterday.
Delivered just before noon.
Left Amazon facility: 7.5 hours later.
But hey, if my choices are have the package get to me on time or have the website shipping info be accurate, I’ll happily accept the fact that the box was sitting on my doorstep when I got home yesterday.
A little piano music for the season
A couple years ago I recorded a little album of solo piano Christmas music. Here’s one of my favorite tracks from it:
You can download the whole thing from the original post if you want. Merry Christmas!
Deliver Us
I’ve felt a need for Advent far more keenly this year than I recall from previous years. Perhaps it’s the tumult of the times - with religious violence abroad and racial tension at home, it is so clear that we need the peace, deliverance, and salvation that Jesus brings now more than ever.
That brings me to Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God. It’s long been my favorite Christmas record; in my estimation it’s one of only two or three perfect Christian records to have been made. Early in the record as Andrew tells the story of Christ, the song “Deliver Us” introduces the longing cry of God’s people for God’s salvation. And the lyrics seem as appropriate today as ever:
Our enemy, our captor is no pharaoh on the Nile Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand Our ankles bear no calluses from chains, yet Lord, we’re bound Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land
Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight
Our sins they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay
These shackles they were made with our own hands Our toil is our atonement and our freedom yours to give So Yahweh, break your silence if you can
Deliver us, deliver us Oh Yahweh, hear our cry > And gather us beneath your wings tonight
[Response:] ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem How often I have longed To gather you beneath my gentle wings’
Come, Lord Jesus.
The War of Christmas
@pegobry with a great post about the subversive and challenging nature of Christ’s advent:
Is there a war on Christmas? No, there’s no war on Christmas. There’s a war of Christmas. Because that’s what Christmas is: a declaration of war. Against all the thrones, dominions, principalities and powers who hold creation in bondage. Saying there’s a war on Christmas is like saying the Germans fought a war on D-Day–of course there’s a war on Christmas. How do we fight this war? Not by yelling at Walmart greeters who say “Happy Holidays.” Not with consumerism. Like Jesus fought his. With increased penance and asceticism and prayer and reception of the sacraments. With corporeal works of mercy. With peace, mercy, some truth-telling, and a very large heaping of loving-kindness. This is our D-Day: this is the most stupendous claim of Christianity.
PEG sounds like he’s been reading his NT Wright. Really good stuff.
I'm not really an opera guy but this is still amazing:
Amazing control, making the ridiculously high notes seem really easy, and putting such personality into the role… brilliant stuff.
Resonating strongly with me this morning:
Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: ‘Give me leave to do my utmost!’
-- Karen Blixen, writing as Isak Dineson, in Babbette’s Feast (1958)
[HT to @DavidDark for the quote]
Winnie the Dude
On the topic of my previous post, I had this Twitter interaction with Stephen Granade:
But then I started wondering… what about Lebowski?
So then I had to do it - casting The Big Lebowski using Winnie the Pooh characters.
The Dude
This one is pretty obvious. Winnie the Pooh himself gets to play The Dude. His laid-back personality is nicely analogous to Jeff Bridges’ beloved stoner.
Walter Sobchak
Based on my Twitter assertion, I’m gonna commit to it. Tigger is the only Hundred-Acre Wood inhabitant with a personality big enough to play a John Goodman character. Think of it as the grittier side of Tigger. You know he’s not always been such a jovial tiger.
Donny
Who’s gonna be the weasely, nervous sidekick to Tigger’s Walter? I think it’s gotta be Piglet.
The Big Lebowski
A large, pompous man with a big attitude? Owl gets to play this role, no question about it. And then to serve his needs:
Brandt
This nervous young assistant (played brilliantly by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Lebowski) goes to Rabbit. You can just see him puttering around straightening all of Lebowski’s photos and trophies outside his office.
Minor Characters
- With Kanga being the token female in the Hundred-Acre Wood, we’ll give her the role of Maude Lebowski.
- Christopher Robin would have to paste on a mustache and work on his Texas accent, but we’ll give him the role of The Stranger.
- And where’s Eeyore in this whole thing? Based on his general outlook on life, I think he’s one of the Nihilists. However, as my friend Andy said:
https://twitter.com/The_Pulpiteer/status/530449494027296769
O Bother, Where Art Thou?
You gotta love this: an artist created movie drawings based on movie title typos found on Reddit.
This one is titled “O Bother, Where Art Thou?”
I’m thinking a Coen Brothers / Winnie the Pooh mashup has potential.