When I was young, probably my single favorite movie was 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper. It still holds a very special place in my heart. My favorite scene is the part when the Muppets are planning their scheme to break into the Mallory Gallery and stop the theives from stealing the Baseball Diamond. At one point, all the Muppets are talking at once, advancing their own theories, discussing, bantering, clamoring for attention - the noise gets to a level where Kermit the Frog yells “QUIET!”

Everyone stops talking except Janice (the lead guitar player of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem), who is caught mid-sentence. “…So I said, ‘Look, mother! It’s my life, oo-kaay? So if I want to live on the beach and walk around naked…’ [She realizes everyone else is staring at her] Oh.”

I finished reading Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives Monday night. It was a really enjoyable read, overall. I’ve always liked the “point/counterpoint”-style books, where I get to peek into the minds of various people, and see how people with different worldviews approach a problem. I like the atmosphere of mutual respect, admiration, and “agree-to-disagree” that authors generally provide for one another.

Such was definitely the case with this book. The authors, ranging from “conservative” to “liberal”, mainline to evangelical, and a host of other cultural and spiritual differences (although more than one stated his/her dislike for such labels), found common ground in discussing missional, incarnational theology in a postmodern world, and freely expressed their concerns without chasing rabbit-trails, resorting to ad hominem attacks, mischaracterizations, or bad faith arguments.

This goes for all the authors, that is, except Mark Driscoll. John Burke, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, and Karen Ward seem to be having a really productive exchange - challenging each other, presenting new perspectives, discussing ways of “being” in the world, the role of Christianity and Christians, how to relate to unbelievers and people of different faiths, etc. - and then Mark would come in, guns blazing, blasting someone for not espousing his version of orthodoxy. Mark has always been a big fan of “man’s man” metaphors - I imagine he pictures himself as William Wallace in Braveheart: “I’m going to pick a fight.”

At first, this made me really mad (see, for example, my earlier post) - I wanted to yell at Mark for being unfair, for using logical fallacies, for nitpicking abstract theological “issues” (penal substitutionary atonement, eternal literal hell, plenary biblical infallibility) and ignoring the real substance of the other authors’ statements about collaborative theology, the importance of community, incarnational ministry, and the realities of living in a post-Christian, pluralistic society. After continuing to read it, though, I stopped being mad/offended. I realized the dynamic of what was going on in this discussion: Mark Driscoll was simply not having the same conversation that everyone else was. He wasn’t absorbing what the others were saying in order to respond thoughtfully; he was in full battle mode, looking for errors to expose. It stopped being a tragedy, and turned into a farce. Any admission by him of missional living, or of the centrality of praxis in the life of a church/Christian, was absolutely tangential to “theology” in the abstract. He made it abundantly clear that that was his topic, and he wasn’t going to be sidetracked by what anyone else was saying.

As the book went on, I took him less and less seriously. He was so far afield from the conversation everyone else was having, he may as well have been saying “…So I said, ‘Look, mother! It’s my life, oo-kaay? So if I want to live on the beach and walk around naked…’ ”

Mark Driscoll as Janice the Muppet.

I thought I was pretty clever coming up with “muppet theology”, so I googled it. Yes! Only two prior hits!

“Gonzo, Divine King of the Muppets, Most Benevolent, Guardian of the Blue, Patron of Frilly Head-Antennae” - oh my…
(BTW, it doesn’t work in Firefox - IE Tab that sucker).

My friend Christian is living my dream. After months of hardwork he has brought his own web startup company to the world. SimpleSpark.com, is “cool stuff for your life online”. Or, in other words, it is your one stop shop for find that perfect web app (I can see Justin drooling already). Want a web app related to rss, parenting, beer, calendars, dating, maps, photos, or blogs? Done.

Now granted, I’m a little biased since Christian is a friend of mine, but Simple Spark seems freakin’ sweet. Personally, I like being able to browse the categories to see apps for things I never would have thought of (really, a webapp that specializes in providing reputation and customer feedback systems for businesses and professionals? Who would have thought?). It’s also a great source of ideas for young upstarts like me.

I’m still playing with it, so maybe I’ll add more thoughts later in the comments. Check it out and let me (and Christian) know what you think. I’m pretty sure he’s got RC on his RSS reader.

OK, not the most important cause in the world, but it may be worth a few seconds of your time to fight the man.

On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which oversees sound recording royalties paid by Internet radio services, increased Internet radio’s royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry’s future.

At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America, the CRB ignored the fact that Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays, and multiplied the royalties even further. The 2005 royalty rate was 7/100 of a penny per song streamed; the 2010 rate will be 19/100 of a penny per song streamed. And for small webcasters that were able to calculate royalties as a percentage of revenue in 2005 – that option was quashed by the CRB, so small webcasters’ royalties will grow exponentially!

Before this ruling was handed down, the vast majority of webcasters were barely making ends meet as Internet radio advertising revenue is just beginning to develop. Without a doubt most Internet radio services will go bankrupt and cease webcasting if this royalty rate is not reversed by the Congress, and webcasters’ demise will mean a great loss of creative and diverse radio. Surviving webcasters will need sweetheart licenses that major record labels will be only too happy to offer, so long as the webcaster permits the major label to control the programming and playlist. Is that the Internet radio you care to hear?

As you know, the wonderful diversity of Internet radio is enjoyed by tens of millions of Americans and provides promotional and royalty opportunities to independent labels and artists that are not available to them on broadcast radio. What you may not know is that in just the last year Internet radio listening jumped dramatically, from 45 million listeners per month to 72 million listeners each month. Internet radio is already popular and it is already benefiting thousands of artists who are finding new fans online every day.

Action must be taken to stop this faulty ruling from destroying the future of Internet radio that so many millions of listeners depend on each day. Instead of relying on lawyers filing appeals in the CRB and the courts, the SaveNetRadio Coalition has been formed to represent every webcaster, every Net Radio listener, and every artist who enjoys and benefits from this medium. Please join our fight for the preservation of Internet radio. link

Go here to do something about it. I sent an email to my representatives. My House rep, Jim McDermott, replied via email (wonky spaces in original):

Dear Justin:
Thank you for writing me about the recent Copyright Royalty Board’s dec is ion to ra is e music royalty rates. I believe these increases will be a significant burden on Internet based music sources and that the retroactive nature of th is dec is ion could be seen as excessive. Consumers and art is ts benefit from Internet radio which offers diverse musical material by art is ts who do not receive commercial radio airplay.

Unfortunately, these new royalty rates are so high that most small Internet radio stations and noncommercial webcasters do not have the resources to pay them and thus will be forced out of business. At the same time, art is ts and copyright holders will receive neither exposure nor royalties from these failing stations. In the past, I have supported leg is lation that required the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel to establ is h fair rates and terms, and I will continue to support solutions that help Internet radio stations stay on the air.

I appreciate hearing from you on th is is sue, and hope you will continue to share your views with me.

Sincerely,
Jim McDermott
Member of Congress

OK, so you missed Earth Day and didn’t do anything to love the planet you’re with. Happens every year, right?

This year, start doing something after the fact. Start with switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Photo by Dano

There is now very little excuse for not replacing your incandescent light bulbs (see more tips here) with compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs. They only cost a few dollars more, and they last quite a bit longer.

The big savings, of course, is in electricity costs. A package of bulbs I bought today states that the 13-watt CF bulbs will save $45 each in energy costs over the life of the bulb, compared to an equally bright 60-watt incandescent bulb. The pack of 6 bulbs was about $8, or $1.25 each. Even if the $45 estimate is high (based on $0.12 per KWH), the savings would be massive - up to $280 per pack.

I put in about 15 CF bulbs today, which will ultimately save me about $500 (based on local energy prices). Total cost: $18.75. Net savings: $482.25 (or so). Not bad for half an hour’s work.

This is one of those incremental projects that you don’t really feel the impact of, since most people do it gradually. We’ve had a few CF bulbs for years, since we lived in Searcy (our college town), but have never replaced all of our incandescents. We still had at least seven ceiling can bulbs that hadn’t burned out yet, and had replaced some incandescents with new incandescents. We have never noticed our bills going down, probably because the people living here impact the energy usage more than the type of light bulb, but also because we haven’t made a complete switch. Trust the math - you’ll save money.

Here are all the bulbs I got rid of today:

I decided to go cold turkey and not wait until they burned out. It’s a bit wasteful, but I’d rather save the energy than get a bit more life out of inefficient bulbs. I’d been stocking up by buying a 6-pack of CF bulbs each time I went to the home improvement store (which has been a lot lately, now that we’ve been working in the yard), so it was easy to switch.

Do it. Buy a pack each time you go to the store. When an incandescent burns out, replace it with a CF. If you feel ambitious (and have $100 lying around), replace every bulb in your house.

Today is April 22, celebrated since 1970 as Earth Day.

Some tips to do your part:

Replace all the incandescent light bulbs in your house with compact fluorescents. If it’s been a while since you tried CF bulbs, try them again - they’ve gotten cheaper, closer in color to incandescent bulbs, and quieter. Make sure you take them to a recycling station, as they do contain heavy metals that shouldn’t go to landfills.

Recycle. Duh, right? But I know there is at least one person in the audience today who has not yet accepted recycling as their personal obligation and duty. Won’t you come forward, while together we stand and crush our cans?

Stop drinking bottled water. I think bottled water is the worst habit Americans have formed since petroleum dependence. Every bottle uses precious energy to create (or re-create, if made from recycled materials), and every bottle is made of, yes, petroleum. Bottled water travels in trucks rather than pipes - guess which one uses fossil fuels? Try filtered water instead, from your fridge or a $30 Brita filter, which will pay for itself in no time. Get yourself a Nalgene bottle (if your employer or alma mater hasn’t already given you two or three) and start refilling.

Drive less. Walk, carpool, and take mass transit (if it exists in your area) more. Plan your trips, and resist impulsive car trips to the store for a single item; do all your shopping in one trip.

Fill the dishwasher all the way before running it. Radical Congruency co-blogger Daniel is the absolute master of this art. More dishwasher tips.

Turn off all the extra rinse and heat boost settings on your dishwasher. Use the most conservative settings possible, and the least detergent you can get away with. Experiment and see how low you can go and still get clean dishes.

Don’t hand-wash your dishes, except for the big bowls, pots, and pans. Hand washing uses six times more water than a dishwasher (see also). When you do hand wash, do so intelligently - let the water from a small dish run into a bigger dish, and dump soapy water from one dish into another rather than down the drain.

Ask your employer to install water-free urinals in the men’s room. Lots of places in Seattle have them, and they don’t smell at all.

Collect rainwater from your downspouts in buckets, and use it for watering plants.

Install low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators. The City of Seattle gives out the latter for free.

Recycle other people’s lunch containers if they’re going to throw them out. Take it home, give it a quick rinse, and put it in the recycling bin.

Ask for a plug-in hybrid car. You can’t get one yet, but keep asking.

Buy less stuff. Shop at thrift stores. Give things away rather than throwing them away.

Buy local food. It uses less gas getting to you.

Think and care.

What are you doing? What tips do you have?

BoingBoing points out that this wickedly incisive essay on the 9/11 tragedy applies equally well to the Virginia Tech shootings:

Of course the World Trade Center bombings [Virginia Tech shootings] are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson to us all; a lesson that my political views are correct. Although what is done can never be undone, the fact remains that if the world were organised according to my political views, this tragedy would never have happened.

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.

Not only are my political views vindicated by this terrible tragedy, but also the status of my profession. Furthermore, it is only in the context of a national and international tragedy like this that we are reminded of the very special status of my hobby, and its particular claim to legislative protection. My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events.

Countries which I like seem to never suffer such tragedies, while countries which, for one reason or another, I dislike, suffer them all the time. The one common factor which seems to explain this has to do with my political views, and it suggests that my political views should be implemented as a matter of urgency, even though they are, as a matter of fact, not implemented in the countries which I like.

Of course the World Trade Center attacks [Virginia Tech shootings] are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency.

It would be a fitting memorial. link

So, of course, gun control is up for debate again, as are many other policy issues. The shooter purchased his guns legally, throwing fuel on the anti-gun fire.

We live in a different world now, the argument goes, and guns have no place in the hands of ordinary citizens. We don’t need militias, and we don’t need guns in the hands of ordinary citizens - so we don’t really need the Second Amendment. On the other side, concealed-carry advocates argue that this could have been a much smaller incident if VT allowed licensed people to carry guns on campus (a practice it had recently banned).

I do not wish to suggest that any particular policy could have prevented this tragedy. It does, however, give us an opportunity to think about how sensible our policies are.

For the record, I am in favor of closing the “gun show loophole.” I don’t know that further regulations will make any difference in human well-being.

What do you think? I will ask that we honor the dead by not invoking them crassly in this discussion.

[Of course, video games could have been the cause, too - let's not forget the broad range of agendas that can be promoted in the aftermath of a national tragedy]

UPDATE: I didn’t finish writing this post the other day, and today I opened some mail that had been sitting on the table for a while. I had membership offers - nay, membership cards, with instructions on how to pay the fee to actually sign up, for some hunting magazine and the National Rifle Association. I have no idea how I got on the NRA’s mailing list, but they’re offering $10 off membership. I may join just for the irony.

I hate it how, whenever we have a national tragedy, journos just eat it up. The TV stations make logos for it, and slogans like “Massacre at Virginia Tech” that become ominous jingles as the anchors and announcers repeat them as a story unfolds.

We’re watching Dateline NBC now (for the first time ever), and the exploitation of the V Tech tragedy is enraging. Matt Lauer is just getting too much mileage out of it.

They take every aspect of the story and make it into an entertainment event. They interview grief counselors and find out how that works. They pull out footage of previous shootings. They interview paramedics and enlighten us about their work. It’s all for entertainment and to create viewership for the network.

The other people who infuriate me when we have a tragedy is the “expert” morons who get on the tube saying how this could have easily been prevented. Their hindsight is perfect, and they get to promote themselves as experts every time an unpreventable tragedy happens. There’s a guy on Dateline now talking about how they should have sent in a massive anti-terrorism response team after the first two people were shot. Come on. We’re going to send in the ATF or the army or whomever every time there’s a shooting? Ten thousand people are shot to death each year in this country. We can’t treat each incident like an act of terrorism as this guy is suggesting.

The other thing I hate about the “if only” experts is that they implicitly blame everyone involved. If only the campus police had done something different. If only the email had gone out sooner warning people to stay in lockdown. None of this was foreseeable - who could have known a campus shooting (like the one that happened in Seattle a few weeks ago) would turn into a massacre?

I say, mourn with those who mourn, and stop exploiting them for publicity and our need to know.

If that weren’t enough, they’re now doing a story about a guy who survived the Columbine massacre but lost his sister, Rachel Scott. Emotional aftermath and all that. Ugh. “Soon, even prayer was no match for the terror…”

Ever since Jesus Camp came out (and well before then too, to a lesser degree), there’s been a lot of criticism of churches and Christian movements that use religious or warfare metaphors. Rare C of C pacifist (and college buddy of mine) Greg Kendall-Ball has quite a few posts that deal with this topic, including this one.

I personally consider it unwise for Christians to use military metaphors and language when talking about their faith, given the current state of world affairs. However, I don’t consider it creepy or wrong.

One reason I consider such terminology unwise, though, is that people will misunderstand it, or at least use it to badmouth Christians. Two examples come to mind - Jesus Camp, the 2006 documentary on a pentecostal children’s camp, and this Rolling Stone article on Ron Luce’s Battlecry youth movement.

In Jesus Camp, the emphasis is on training kids to be “warriors for the Lord,” which is language I think most people from an evangelical background are familiar with (Daniel first mentioned the film here). The filmmakers take pains to portray the woman who runs the summer camp as some sort of dangerous freak hellbent on brainwashing children - not exactly a balanced portrayal. I found nothing in the film even mildly disturbing - hokey, perhaps (e.g. the kids in camouflage pledging allegiance to the Christian flag as well as the US flag), but not at all worrisome.

I wasn’t familiar with BattleCry until reading “Teenage Holy War,” an article by Jeff Sharlet in this month’s Rolling Stone. The subtitle of the article reads:

Jesus is really, really pissed — at Hollywood, at the media, even at most Christians. But BattleCry, the nation’s largest and most radical youth crusade, is recruiting a new generation of Christian soldiers to fight back. link

Battlecry leader Ron Luce says the military language is intentional, to call young people to bring about change in our culture. Nightline has a pretty good story on BattleCry, which you can currently watch on YouTube (8 minutes). If Luce’s use of military language is intentional, Sharlet’s is doubly so - he clearly intends to portray this movement as dangerous and disturbing, and to associate it with the literal jihad occurring around the globe.

Sharlet selectively quotes Luce:

“This is a real war,” Luce preaches. When he talks like that, he growls. “This is not a metaphor!” In Cleveland, he intercuts his sermons with videos of suicide bombers and marching Christian teens. link

Uh, those aren’t Christian suicide bombers, and the marching Christian teens aren’t exactly carrying guns. Yes, to Luce it is a real war, but not one fought with violence. Far from it.

Is the war on AIDS creepy? The war on poverty? Let’s recognize when we’re in a serious struggle to overcome something terrible, and let’s recognize that these struggles are worth engaging in. We must recognize when the term “war” is used metaphorically, and never confuse it with real wars that are happening around the globe.

But for people like Rolling Stone’s Sharlet, it’s not the language that poses a threat; it’s the power. These youth movements are influential and growing - Luce has preached to more than 12 million teens in his career. And he is leading teens to oppose things that Sharlet doubtless values. It’s a culture war, and Luce has a powerful war machine at the moment (though Rolling Stone is quite a war machine itself in this regard).

In this vein, a commenter at Rolling Stone says (sorry, no direct permalink):

How do you feel about separation of church and state? I don’t think that most militant christians present a threat of violence. The religion has evolved beyond that stage (I hope). The threat they represent is a kind of majority opinion that represses other views. Their antagonism towards others who don’t share their views is well documented. The problem is that when you think you have a direct line to God, you are willing to take on anything–science, the justice system, public policy–to ensure that your perception of God’s will is carried out. These outfits purposely train and This with no historical context, no understanding is a recipe for oppression. We live in a secular society. If you want it to be a theocracy, go found your own country. Don’t ruin ours.

The RS article does not specifically accuse Luce’s movement of trying to make America into a Christian theocracy, which I would find far more troubling. Luce is simply trying to get teens to be a force for good, and I can’t agree with the commenter that the alternative to having a religious nation is having a secular nation. We clearly live in a pluralistic nation and society, with many religions, subsets of religions, and anti-religious people, and that’s the way we all want it. But I bet it’s scary to see tens of thousands of teens weeping and raising their hands in worship and knowing they’re going to vote against you when they grow up.

Finally, you can’t blog about Christian military metaphors without mentioning Onward Christians Soldiers:

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.

At the sign of triumph Satan’s host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers, on to victory!
Hell’s foundations quiver at the shout of praise;
Brothers lift your voices, loud your anthems raise.

Like a mighty army moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.
We are not divided, all one body we,
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

What the saints established that I hold for true.
What the saints believèd, that I believe too.
Long as earth endureth, men the faith will hold,
Kingdoms, nations, empires, in destruction rolled.

Crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

Onward then, ye people, join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices in the triumph song.
Glory, laud and honor unto Christ the King,
This through countless ages men and angels sing.

What do you think? Is military language, even when used symbolically and with clear opposition to actual violence, inappropriate for religious use?

You can read the whole Rolling Stone article in this Flickrset (the links above are to an excerpt).