ken wilson online

“The problem with writing about religion is that you run the risk of offending sincerely religious people, and then they come after you with machetes.” — Dave Barry

That is word for word perfect.  And it’s the reason many, many, and might I add an increasing number of many people are keeping their distance from things like, oh, say, churches.  Because they know this to be true or at least true enough, which is, to say the least, too true.
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Man, do I feel optimistic lately.  Why?  Because of my kids.  They have a different take on the world, and it’s a take the world is due.  We baby boomers have taken things as far as we can with our current Oldsmobile. Our battles lines are firmly fixed, but from their perspective, wearing thin.  Now it’s time for us to listen to their take on the world as much as we’ve been yammering on about ours.  Then, having listened and learned, we’ll be able to see what we’ve been through in a new light and offer, not more information (they can get it faster than we can generate it)  but what they actually crave from us: wisdom, the one thing it takes time and experience and trial and error to gain.

The culture wars are boomer wars.  We inherited them from our fathers who lived in a binary world of good and evil neatly separated by geographic boundaries.  The evil empire was over there, far away from our fields of presumed good. I actually played cowboys and Indians assuming the cowboys were the good guys.  Pick up sides and duke it out; we boomers did it every day all summer long playing baseball in the streets.  May the best side win.  One side fits all.  Side in. Side out.  Are you on our side or the side of our enemies?  Neither, says this newer take on the world before us.  Maybe it’s time for us boomers to sit down, shut up,  and take off our shoes.
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It’s the political season, the golden moment for the talking heads.  I enjoy listening to them.  But I have a request: could we ban “look!”, “frankly,” and “sort of”?   Look seems to be the word of choice for the experts.   They are being asked to analyze the convention or the polls or their dog’s position in the race and they begin every other assertion with “look!”   I want to say, Look! We’re listening already!  We think you have something worth saying or we’d be on another channel. The hosts have asked you to be their guest, and not some other talking head.  Jesus said, “Behold!” but he was special.
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I know these guys. They are young pastors. Many of them are young fathers. And they are sons. It’s the latter that most impresses me. A son is not always an easy thing to be. Because the world is hard on fathers. Mine fought in the Big War, was shelled in the heaviest day of shelling in the Big War, survived injury, came home, went to college, went to work. They didn’t have a clue in those days about Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Men muddled through. His father was gassed in the previous Big War. As I said, the world is hard on fathers, almost as hard as it is on mothers.
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Phyllis Tickle, in her latest and greatest, The Words of Jesus, writes in the introduction about an “actualist” reading of the canonical gospels. Typical Tickle: lay it out and let the readers make sense of it themselves. Or perhaps lay it out as if she needs the readers’ help figuring out what she’s written. Well it hit me like a ton of basement block and I’ve been trying to make sense of it ever since. Not a “modernist” reading of the words. Not a “literalist” reading of the words. But an “actualist” reading of the words.
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I’ve got some thoughtful responders to this blog and it’s one of the real benefits of a blog. You toss your thoughts out there and people respond. You rethink or you go a little deeper in your thoughts, maybe you revise, maybe you come away even more convinced having heard the responses of others. One of my thoughtful responders is Clif and I want to continue from a thought Clif laid down in a comment about the Rush Limbaugh post. Clif indicated that he thinks Christians who listen to Rush regularly do a pretty good job separating the wheat from the chaff. If Clif is right, then I’m probably a little overwrought in my previous post. But I wonder about that. Because there’s a Christian I know pretty well who used to listen more than he does now to Rush, and at least in one case, he didn’t do a very good job separating the wheat from the chaff. And I have a very high regard for the perspectives and discernment of this particular Christian, him being myself.
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Been doing little print and radio interviews related to the release of Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back. It’s a good exercise because both print and radio are looking for colorful and concise little expressions of things that pop up in the book. Like the idea that we need to dig extra hard for Jesus as the treasure buried in the field of religion, owing to the current “trademark infringement on the Jesus brand”–meaning the negative public perception of Christianity among those on the outside of faith looking in. I find myself illustrating this with the popularity of Rush Limbaugh among many Christians in the United States.
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So I need to explain something. I’ve been to the same place for vacation for the past 28 years. I know, boring as the post office. Which is exactly the way I like vacation. Maybe as a result, vacation clears space in my head. Maybe for God to speak. Several years ago, I’m guessing now but 1998 or 1999, I’m praying on vacation and a voice gets through saying, “Pay attention to what I’m doing among liberals.”
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Just getting back from the arctic with various luminaries and a week’s worth of memories to unpack with family and friends. On day five we saw a rare sight at close range: three polar bears on the sea ice after taking a seal for food, with the arctic ivory gull flying around. It was a stunning sight. And a sight that is itself at risk because the ice is melting at a higher rate than expected. We sailed through areas normally shut off from the pack ice, but that’s all changing and it’s the reason polar bears have been placed on the endangered species list. Throughout the trip, I was meditating on Genesis, chapter one: the days of creation.
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There’s a biblical category they don’t tell you about in many seminaries: the category of the moral dilemma. There are moral dilemmas as surely as there are moral certainties. There are situations through which the way forward is not clear, just as surely as there are situations through which the way forward is is indicated with flashing lights, blaring horns, and a helicopter hovering above to draw your attention. Thankfully, the latter, in the realm of moral choices, exceeds the former, but the former exists. King David, for example–read the account of his life and some of the choices he faced, his heart being after God’s heart and all. How after serving for a time, he knew it wasn’t for him to build the temple because he had blood on his hands, and not just Uriah’s. Take Abraham, walking with his son Isaac to Mount Moriah–did what he learn about moral dilemmas in seminary prepare him for the one he was walking into? Can you even read that story without understanding that its dramatic impact makes no sense without the category of moral dilemma?
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