Eliacin tagged me (though actually Steve beat him to it), so here goes. Exclusion and Embrace was the closest book; here’s page 123, 5th-8th sentences:

Forgiveness is no mere discharge of a victim’s angry resentment and no mere assuaging of a perpetrator’s remorseful anguish, one that demands no change of the perpetrator and no righting of wrongs. On the contrary: every act of forgiveness enthrones justice; it draws attention to its violation precisely by offering to forego its claims. Moreover, forgiveness provides a framework in which the quest for properly understood justice can be fruitfully pursued.

While I tend not to tag people, let’s try Helen, Jimmy, Aaron, and Daniel. Steve has already tagged Eugene, Eliacin already tagged Pat, and Pat already tagged Thomas.

Here is my daily effort to deepen the debate on the 2008 Presidential race:

In this debate, Hillary just has that “My husband was President and I want to continue the dynasty” crown thing going on. Or maybe it’s just an NBC logo. Either way, it looks funny over her head.

I posted rather gloatingly a few months ago that Left Behind Video Games, publisher of the horrid Left Behind: Eternal Forces PC game, is not doing too well. Their stock is currently at about the same point - 10 to 20 cents per share - and they’ve lost $26,000,000 this year. I think the premise of the game and the company is deeply flawed, so I’m not shedding any tears over its poor performance, though I’m sure there are many good-hearted people who lost money on what they considered a faith-based investment, and that’s a shame.

That’s not the reason for this post, though. It appears that the company’s founders are still around and are keeping themselves busy not with publishing more video games, but with sicking their lawyer on people they don’t like. Today, I became one of those people.

I received two separate letters via certified mail telling me to remove this post and this post, as well as their comments. I’m not sure whether they found this post, in which I post Lyndon’s own words correcting some of the mischaracterizations that appeared in early reviews, which my post was based on. At any rate, they’re not happy I still have anti-Left Behind: Eternal Forces stuff on my site, and they sent me a nasty letter telling me to take it down.

It reads, in its entirety:

The Law Offices of Gordon D. Katz
452 Brookhurst Ave.
Narberth, PA 19144
PH: (610) 275-9000, Fax: (610) 672-9789

September 20, 2007

radicalcongruency.com
2907 S Byron St
Seattle, WA 98144

RE: False information posted on your site about the video game LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces

To whom this may concern:

I represent Left Behind Games Inc., the developer and publisher of the LEFT BEHIND series of video games. Your organization hosts a website that has information posted about this game. Unfortunately, there are many statements on your website which appear to be false and misleading. This type of misinformation may cause significant and irreparable harm to Left Behind Video Games Inc. and must be removed.

Left Behind Games Inc. generally supports free speech in the media and understands how important it is to have various opinions presented for public consumption. It will not, however, tolerate the publication of information regarding its products that is false or misleading.

Left Behind Games Inc. is demanding that you immediately remove any and all information contained on your site about the above stated game that is false and/or misleading, including any such statements or commentary and the responses thereto. This includes posted comments made by others in the context of reading the incorrect or misleading statements.

If you do not comply immediately, the company will be forced to pursue additional legal action which will include claims for damages, costs of suit and attorney’s fees. This may subject you and your organization to significant legal and financial damages.

If you need to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact my Administrator on this matter, Robilyn Lyndon at (951) 816-0901.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Very truly yours,

Gordon D. Katz, Esq.

I’m no lawyer, but I can play one on TV as well as the next guy, and I can tell this letter is nothing more than sore-loser bullying.

First off, I understand that LBG is not too happy their game got bad initial reviews, and they tried admirably to recover after the demo was released. Jeffrey Frichner, the company’s president, even left some comments here in his company’s defense. I listened carefully to what he and the newer reviews said, and responded at length here.

But you simply can’t go around suing people who say things about your product that you don’t like. All of the initial misinformation I posted on this site was corrected with follow-up information, which is easy to find by searching for Left Behind: Eternal Forces using the box at the top of the page.

What’s more, I made it very clear that I was speculating in much of what I said in my post, and I gave links to the sources I was using. There was no playable demo at the time, and when one became available, I posted my new findings. I did not, and will not, delete the original posts and comments, even if they don’t shed a good light on Left Behind: Eternal Forces.

Second, Mr. Katz, Left Behind Games does not publish a “series of video games.” There’s just one game, plus the expansion pack. I think you need more than one title, or at least a few games with the same name plus a roman numeral, to call it a series.

Third, Mr. Katz, you know very well that if we took this to court, your client would be the one to pay my legal fees, not vice-versa. If ever there was a frivolous lawsuit, this is it. The posts on this site are not slander, and not libel, and I have taken great pains to be fair as more information became available in this matter. If you can tell me exactly what basis you have for suing me, perhaps I will further consider your request.

Otherwise, stop bullying people with your fancy letterhead and get a client with a real case.

I was at Rite Aid on Rainier the other day, and saw a Hummer 2 parked in a handicapped parking spot, with no rearview-mirror hanger or license plate indicating that the driver of the vehicle was, indeed, handicapped. Jerk, I thought. I recall seeing a similar scene in a photo in a blog post on Metafilter or somewhere a few months ago, with people debating whether it was photoshopped.

I took a phonecam pic, but was in a hurry and didn’t save it properly. However, the next day, when we were in Spokane for a convention, I saw another one (this time, only overlapped rather than fully parked in the handicapped space):

Not only do you have an obnoxiously big car, but you have to park it overlapping a space reserved for people with disabilities?

Other Hummer 2’s parked in handicapped parking spaces:

• Here
• Here
• A whole Flickr group devoted to people flipping the bird to Hummers

And then there’s this guy, a physics genius who blew up $5 million worth of Hummers in California and is serving an 8-year sentence.

Oh, Hummers. What have you done to us?

Just saw this on BBC news - looks like they’re a day late for Blog Like It’s the End of the World day.

Check Technorati for more post-apocalyptic goodness.
(Update: If you’re seeing this in a reader multiple times, I’m sorry. Curse me for not previewing!)

Seattle humorist Matthew Baldwin has written an excellent piece for Flak Magazine on starting a game night. His recommendations ring true for creating a welcoming, low-key event that people want to come back to. Joe Myers, take note!

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).

The milk chocolate Jesus sculpture will not be displayed after all. How then shall we celebrate his Resurrection?

A showdown led to the meltdown: apparently the statue was “anatomically correct,” which many Catholics and others found offensive. The gallery canceled the showing.

Filed under: NArt

I am not all that impressed by an artist who uses 200 pounds of chocolate to offend people, which is a pretty big way to get massive media attention. You can then whine about censorship and people being overly sensitive, thus establishing yourself as a bold freethinker.

How about a 200 pound chocolate bible? Church building? Baby Jesus? There’s something about Jesus’ frailty and full humanity that makes him a popular target for provocative works like this.