Amy frequently mentions that it is no longer winter, and thus it is time for a new banner image here at Radical Congruency.

The current banner (hit refresh if you still see snow) is from this Thomas Hawk photo, which is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

If you need a banner image, check out Flickr and look for CC-licensed photos.

Lukas pointed me to Steve Pavlina’s fascinating experiment with polyphasic sleep, in which you sleep for 20-30 minutes every four hours.

Perhaps the holy grail of caffeine geeks everywhere, polyphasic sleep allows you to get by with only about 2-3 hours of sleep per day, spread out in six equal REM-heavy naps. Apparently the REM element is critical, and is brought about initially by sleep deprivation during the 7-10 day transitional period.

I’ve never been one to get enough sleep, since there’s always something else to do. And I don’t plan on getting any less busy any time soon. I will have a few weeks off when school gets out this summer, so I’m considering giving polyphasic sleep a shot.

There isn’t much (or even any) research on the health effects of long-term polyphasic sleep, though apparently there isn’t any drowsiness or sleep-deprivation symptoms after you adjust to the naps. Most of the famous people (e.g. Buckminster Fuller) who have tried it eventually went back to a normal (monophasic) sleep schedule because the rest of the world shuts down at night and expects you to be awake during the day.

If you get a decent lunch break and work an 8-hour day, you can pull it off while working a full-time job. Steve Pavlina works from home, so that wasn’t a problem, but he found it difficult to spend time with friends and family, so he gave it up after more than 5 months.

My challenges would be:

• Giving up caffeine (interferes with the naps)
• Knowing how to spend all that extra time productively (e.g. not blogging!)

Thoughts?

Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute and his family have recently decided to live at least one year without a car after the untimely passing of their Volvo. Alan has been blogging about his new experiment on The Daily Score, the Sightline Institute’s blog. (Incidentally, The Daily Score is the best Pacific Northwest environmental blog out there.)

It’s no secret that I would one day like to follow in Alan’s footsteps and Andrea and I are slowing shifting our behavior to allow it. I think following and learning from Alan’s successes and mistakes will be invaluable. It’s too bad there aren’t any more resources available.

Visit The Daily Score to walk in the footsteps of a carless family of five.

Car-less In Seattle
One Mile from Home
The Year of Living Car-lessly

Via BB, a star-studded, 80stastic anti-drug music video:

Ironically, the video stars Lyle Alzado, the NFL defensive lineman who later admitted to steroid use, as well as Whitney Houston, who has apparently not stopped the madness as far as cocaine is concerned. Oh yeah, and Nancy Reagan (still drug-free at age 85).

More info

A short film is being made in memory of Kyle Lake:

From Tony Jones, National Coordinator, Emergent-U.S.

So many of us continue to miss Kyle Lake. All the time people talk about “tragic” deaths, but his death truly was tragic. And Julie and I grieve to think of Jen and the kids. But Kyle also left a beautiful legacy of life, and a film to that end is just wrapping up — it’s a tribute to Kyle’s life and his faith, and I strongly recommend it. And, all of the proceeds will help fund his children’s college funds. Here is some more information from the people who are putting this together…

There is no doubt that Kyle Lake, former pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, TX, lived life to the fullest. Both his inner and outer beauty will be remembered by all of us. “Kyle’s Film” is a project that we are doing to honor the life and ministry of our friend. Kyle’s last sermon was surprisingly very cinematic in its nature. Not only did it detail appreciating beauty in the ordinary things, but engaged a sense of inspiration and an eerie comfort in the wording. With this project, we are not elevating Kyle to a level of worship and admiration, but rather we are celebrating the beauty of God that was seen through Kyle’s life.

This spring, we began production on “Kyle’s Film“, an interpretive, impressionistic, and cinematic short film based on Kyle’s last sermon. We filmed everything in 35mm (which is the Hollywood standard for productions and used the same film stock as many recent films- Capote, Crash, etc.) and transferred everything to high definition. Right now we’re working on post production and working with some of guys from the David Crowder Band for an original score. For the second half of the film, we are focusing more on Kyle’s life through video and pictures of him and his family etc. We should have everything finished up towards May, and the running length should be around 10 minutes for both parts.

We are in the process of also setting up a way for people to pre-order the completed DVD when it is done in May. Congress Clothing will be handling the ordering process through their website, and all the proceeds will be donated to the Kyle Lake Memorial Fund, which will go towards his children’s college tuition. You can find all of the information about the film on our website, www.kylesfilm.com, which has a trailer, links to our production blog, and the pre-order page. We hope this film will show Kyle’s message of loving God, embracing beauty, and living life to the fullest to as many people as possible.

www.kylesfilm.com

Jeffrey Frichner, president of Left Behind Games, has responded in a comment to my thoughts on the game:

I have personally known Troy Lyndon for over 10 years and I know that he desires nothing more than to reach our youth for the Lord. We have personally(Troy Lyndon and I) led video gamers to Christ by engaging them with the very thing they are passionate about…video games. No one on this blog knows Troy personally and yet they offer their opinions of him. What Troy really needs are your prayers.

Suppossedly, over 70% of teenagers leave the church after high school and over 92% of kids are playing video games. Where are the “christian” video games? Why isn’t church relevant to our kids? Concerning the world, we understand that video gamers are an underserved market for values-focused Christian products. At Left Behind Games we are committed to providing Christians and non-Christians alike with opportunities to consider matters of eternal importance through the thought provoking content in our games.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey S. Frichner
President
Left Behind Games Inc.

Jeffrey-
Thank you for stopping by. I was hoping we would hear from you. I would like to apologize for my over-the-top negative characterization of Troy (here), which I shall leave intact only for the sake of owning up to what I have said (unless you would rather I remove the antichrist bit).

I agree that the loss of interest in Christianity among young people is alarming, and I too am looking for ways to reverse the mass exodus from the church that we observe among teenagers and 20somethings.

I too am interested in promoting Christian values through media. However, I question the values we are actually teaching through a game in which Christians kill non-Christians. If we are mistaken that this is an aspect of the game play, I would appreciate your clarification.

Speaking as one Christian to another, I am sure you realize that the Christian Right is not viewed favorably by others in our society. While conservatives have attempted to spin this as a culture war, or as rejection of God by non-Christians, I think it’s something else.

There is a growing sense that this type of eschatological fervor is harmful to the witness of Christ in the world, and even directly harmful to non-Christians. This is not a matter of the inherent offensiveness of the Cross. No, the concern is that eschatology-driven conservative theology does not have the salvation of the world in mind, but rather its destruction (and indeed, many could rightly be accused of delighting in this impending destruction).

For a long time, this wasn’t really a problem. The bible indicates that the world will, at some point, be destroyed, and there’s no reason to be caught unprepared. Today, though, we are living in a different age. Most people do not believe, as many of our forebears in the 19th and early 20th centuries did, that the end is near.

Taking any kind of pleasure - indeed, expressing anything but horror - at the destruction of others is just about the most offensive thing Christians could possibly do these days. Stronger and stronger parallels are being drawn between Christians with this attitude and the religious terrorists who have gotten so much press lately. In both cases, a reward is purported to await those who do God’s will, regardless of how many people it harms. I don’t think we want to justify those parallels in such explicit fashion as a video game in which the faithful murder infidels.

Is it too much to ask for Christianity to have a do-no-harm policy? Can we at least make an attempt to represent ourselves as something other than killers and harbingers of doom? The world needs hope, needs Christ. If video games can help with that mission, go for it, and God bless you. Otherwise, I cannot help but believe that you are sending a very, very distorted message about the nature of the Gospel and of God, even by the standards of a committedly premillennial eschatological framework.

I would be interested to hear how Left Behind Games sees this issue. Thank you for writing.

In Mark Driscoll’s article in Criswell Theogical Review’s edition on the Emerging Church, he defines 8 key issues in the emerging church conversation. I have responded over at Emergent What?. Please comment there if you are interested.

I posted this several years ago, but thought I’d bring it up again since the emerging church conversation has heated up in recent months.

From Brian McLaren’s The Story We Find Ourselves In, paraphrased unless in quotes:

1. Substitutionary Atonement - God’s wrath, directed at us because of our sin, could only be satisfied by the death of Jesus (who replaced the OT sacrifices with his perfect self-sacrifice).
2. Ransom - because of our sin, we belong to Satan, and God buys us back with the death of Jesus, then turns the tables on Satan with the Resurrection.
3. Christus Victor - we are dead in our sins, destined for the grave, but Jesus’ death and resurrection triumphed over death itself, enabling us to be made alive with Christ.
4. Perfect Penitent - we are all in need of repentence (God will forgive us out of the goodness of his heart if we do), but we can’t really repent perfectly - we always hold back, we always fall into sin again. Jesus is the perfect penitent (or “repenter”) in our place, and so secures our forgiveness (CS Lewis’ favorite theory, according to McLaren).
5. Moral Influence - Jesus’ self-giving love, expressed in his death on the cross, leads us to love God and love others fully, giving our lives back to God.
6. Powerful Weakness - by becoming vulnerable and submitting to death on the cross, Jesus shows us God’s love for us, as well as the nature of His Kingdom (sacrifice, not violent victory).
7. Embodied Betrayal - our sin is a betrayal of God, and he showed us that in the only way adequate - through his physical torture and death at our hands.

Which of these contain elements of truth? Which rely on misconceptions? Are all of them partly right? Which has the most potential for helping us understand the Christ-event today? Which have been adopted or at least acknowledged by specific theological traditions?