From TIME magazine’s article on Brian McLaren:

At a mere 48, McLaren, a nondenominational Maryland pastor, qualifies as elder statesman of a movement called the “emerging church.” Its disciples, mostly 35 or younger and including mainline Christians and Catholics, have in recent years moved from cyber bulletin boards to pulpits of their own. Their goal: to deconstruct traditional church culture yet remain true to Scripture.

Bingo. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

It’s quite amazing that, despite the most meticulous planning, nothing ever goes according to plan. Suffice it to say that I should have prefaced my weekend plans with “Lord willing“.

This morning I woke up at 4am with a virus that, in all sincerity, must have been Satan himself in viral form. Never have I gotten sick to my stomach so many times in an eight hour span (well over a dozen). So, instead of spending lunch with George we spent over 3 hours in the ER of a local hospital getting rehydrated intravenously. Fortunately for me we found a Catholic hospital. I think they must have performed an exorcism while I slept.

Virusdoc, have you come across such a foul demon in your studies?

I tried to visit Len Hjalmarson’s NextReformation.com today for the first time in a long time, but the site is down. Any idea what he’s up to, or if he has a new URL? I always enjoyed Len’s reflections on ministry and life.

UPDATE: He’s back up, and the new site looks great.

In light of the Recotourism project, this NY Times article (free registration required) on changes in tourism after the tsunami caught my eye.

It turns out that it’s not all that bad. Most tourists (unfortunately) stay in expensive internationally-owned hotels, many of which were built strong enough to withstand the tsunami and/or fully ensured.

What will take more time to rebuild, though, is the cottage industry that lives off of the tourists that stay in these expensive hotels. Small business owners and residents are less able to rebuild due to their lack of resources and insurance.

This is where we come in. Your planning brain is needed at Recotourism.org - Take a vacation. Rebuild a nation.

On the heels of this post on materialism, some ways forward emerged after some valuable discussions with my wife Amy and several commenters here.

One way forward is to share your house. Have other people stay with you. The present model of exactly one nuclear family living in a 2,000 square foot house is extremely odd in history’s eyes, and it’s a lot more expensive.

Amy and I were discussing this just a few minutes ago, and it seems that a lot of the materialism problem stems from people seeing their houses as “my house” or their property as “my property.” A missionary mentor, Monte Cox at Harding, spent many years with the Kalinjen (?) people of central Africa. He told us about his realization that his language was so self-centered: He was talking about “getting in my car, going to my church, preaching my sermon, talking to my church members, going back to my house, eating dinner with my wife and my kids, and living my life.” That’s a paraphrase, but it’s also a lot of “my”s.

Language like this has a subtle effect on us. We don’t realize how much we are influenced by our terminology, and how defensive we become about something once we identify it as ours. “Mine” implies “not yours,” which in turn requires security measures to prevent it from becoming yours - security measures we apply, in subtle ways, even to trusted friends.

What about “the car,” “the house,” “the Radiohead album,” about community property? This is what people practiced in some form or another for thousands of years. We have beautiful city parks that we respect as community property. Perhaps we need to see more of life that way.

I think Jimmy and many others would agree that the fundamental problem in the American church that prevents it from moving forward is materialism. This is a problem that must be addressed at many levels.

First, there is the practical matter that American Christians have a lot of wealth and stuff, while people in other parts of the world suffer daily from their poverty. We’ll call this the inequality problem. Regardless of the reasons for this inequality, I believe that we have a mandate to use what we have to help others who have less. I could quote scripture to back this up, but I’m pretty sure that would be unnecessary.

Second is the more complex problem of consumerism, which has reached such extreme proportions that it has become normal for Christians in America to assume that they should spend all their money on themselves or give it to churches that basically provide goods and services to themselves. When consumerism is so rampant, the sole purpose of earning is spending, and giving drops off the radar. Of course it’s also good to invest, but the goal of investing is to have more to spend later. (There are other negative aspects of consumerism, such as the idea that most retail goods should be used for a short time and then discarded, but this environmental and ethical concern is beyond the scope of this post.)

With this attitudinal shift comes a third problem, a desire to protect what we have at all costs. We’ll call this the security problem. This is where wealth and consumerism become the most dangerous, and reach the level of idolatry. Not only do we insist on having a lot of stuff, and using it solely for our own benefit, but we are willing to go to great lengths to protect what we have. We even allow such protective desires to interfere with following the teachings of Christ, especially the Sermon on the Mount (which is worth taking a few minutes to re-read at this point if you don’t see the connection between materialism and Jesus’ teaching).

Now, I could have lifted the above paragraphs from any of a dozen good Christian books written squarely from within the evangelical, suburban camp. I could said these things at any church in the nation and gotten a room full of nods of approval and amens. But the problem of materialism doesn’t really sink in as long as we’re sitting down and talking about discipleship and mission. As long as poor people are external to us, as long as poverty is something other people have to deal with, we will never understand.

Leighton had a powerful post the other day in response to a Christianity Today article on the failure of evangelicals to act visibly different from the rest of the American public. Leighton says we have to do something other than try more of the same. We have to rethink church and rehear the gospel. As a case in point, consider the author of the CT article’s solution to the problem of poverty:

American Christians live in the richest nation on earth and enjoy an average household income of $42,409.17 The World Bank reports that 1.2 billion of the world’s poorest people try to survive on just one dollar a day. At least one billion people have never heard the gospel. The Ronsvalles point out that if American Christians just tithed, they would have another $143 billion available to empower the poor and spread the gospel. Studies by the United Nations suggest that just an additional $70-$80 billion a year would be enough to provide access to essential services like basic health care and education for all the poor of the earth. If they did no more than tithe, American Christians would have the private dollars to foot this entire bill and still have $60-$70 billion more to do evangelism around the world.

Do you really think that the poor would be better off if Americans gave more to their churches? What do our churches do with our money? They spend it on us, because we want them to. The fact that this point is lost on Ron Sider (the author) is exactly what I’m talking about - we have no idea how materialistic we are.

And yet, when it gets right down to it, I can’t go out and call someone else materialistic without being a hypocrite. I am certainly materialistic, and if you’re more materialistic than I am, it’s probably because you’ve had more time to practice. As we accumulate stuff, we develop materialistic tendencies, and this is not something I am taking lightly as we prepare to buy a house.

In short, I am scared that we will all be sucked in unless we do something radical. How in the world can we avoid being trapped in materialism like the rest of our culture, Christians included?

I love my wife very much. She is such a blessing to me, for me, and in spite of me. I’m always the first to admit my faults and shortcomings in our marriage, but she is always the last. She’s beautiful, patient, and gifted in every way that I’m not. She’s spontaneous, I’m scheduled; she’s an artist, I’m a scientist; she’s a servant, I’m a scholar; she’s a nurturer, I’m an adventurer. She writes me poetry, sings to me, and even reads Dostoevsky to me before bed. She’s even trying to be more frugal with our money, which I find incredibly attractive.

In essence, she completes me and I complete her. Ah, the mystery of marriage.

Since drawing up and following a budget isn’t as exciting for her as it is for me, I’ve decided on a different tactic to tell her I love her (and to celebrate her birthday). Guys, feel free to take notes.

Friday, Jan 28: I’m going to leave work promptly at 4:00pm and pickup some roses on the way home. Then I’m going to pack my bags with a good mix of casual and formal clothes for the weekend. Then I’m going to vacuum, cook dinner, and go pick my wife up from work in our newly cleaned car. When we walk into the kitchen I’ll hear, “you cooked dinner!” Cue hug, kiss, presentation of roses, bigger hug, huge smile. I will then inform her, for the first time mind you, that she needs to pack her bags for the weekend and to bring a dress. Cue quizzical look and curious grin. After dinner we will drive 3 hours west to Pittsburgh where we will be enjoying luxury accommodations at the Omni William Penn Hotel. Her favorite snack food will also be provided for the car trip. She won’t know where we’re going until we arrive.

Saturday, Jan 29: The first order of business will be sleeping-in, one of my wife’s favorite Saturday activities. Other than that, nothing is planned in the morning hours. We will then enjoy lunch at the hotel or a nearby restaurant. After lunch we will head back to the room where we will change into appropriate attire to attend a matinee of The Producers at the Benedum Center. The show will be followed by reservations at The Carlton, a classy restaurant and winner of the Distinguished Restaurant of North America Award. Most of you don’t know this, but in August the diamond fell out of my wife’s engagement ring. During dinner, I plan to present her with a new one and reaffirm the promises I made to her on our wedding day. Cue happy tears. The evening will be concluded at Mullaney’s Harp and Fiddle, an authentic Irish pub that is sure to be filled with laughter and music.

Sunday, Jan 30: We will check-out late on Sunday morning and go to P.F. Chang’s China Bistro for lunch and church with George Howell and company. We’ve wanted to try P.F. Chang’s since we ran in their marathon and Pittsburgh happens to be home to one. George and his wife Bonnie are former members of the (Big ‘C’) Church of Christ and seem to have a lot of wisdom for someone like me, though they would deny it. I’m looking forward to this lunch. I have a feeling it will be one of the best church services I’ve been to in a while.

And that’s it. I still don’t know why this is more fun than budgeting but I guess I’ll just have to agree to disagree. But you won’t believe the deal I got on all of this!

(Another non-theological, non-thoughtful post from a busy man. Expect theoblogging Saturday.)

I did our taxes today, and it was looking pretty ugly - we owed over $1000 (again). Then I entered our $16,000+ tuition bill from grad school. That bill turned into an equally large refund. Sweeet. I guess that’s one good thing about outrageous college tuition.

I am including this final sentence because, without it, the title of this post is almost as long as the body of the post, and besides, I wanted to make this point, which is why I am including this final sentence.