We just saw the film, End of the Spear. This is what Christian film making should be like. The story didn’t focus on the Westerners, it focused on the Waodani people (formerly called the Acka Indians, but that was a term learned from the Waodani’s foes and was an insult.) Steve Saint is not stoic, he wrestles with the death of his father and with reconciling with the man who killed him.

There was so much to love about the film. It wasn’t heavy-handedly Christian. In other words, they didn’t have to speak Christian-eze (or I guess it would be “Evangelicalian”), the fact that they’re missionaries is not pushed, and the reason for them pressing to reach the Waodani was because the military was threatening to invade their territory. Why are these things good in a film? Because if it was couched in all of those Christian tips-of-the-hat, it would play only to Christians. As it is, it is accurate and true and accessible to non-Christians.

From a film point of view, it was beautiful. We spend a lot of time with the Waodani and begin to understand their culture. It wasn’t glamorized at all. Their simple way of living was beautiful but their warrior ways were not tamed down at all. Spearing people was the way of life, it was strength and survival. When Nomi, one of their warriors, converts the rest of the men are amazed that this could happen to a warrior.

There were visual clues to tie characters together across time for us. Children in the jungle carry a parrot and then when we see them again ten years later, the parrot is there. There were great visual clues that kept things and people in order for us us. The filmmakers didn’t treat us like idiots, they help us follow the story without doubting we can. This is an independent film and one Hollywood could learn from. As I said, the brutality of the Waodani was not glossed over but it wasn’t glorified either. It was used appropriately for telling the story.

A great companion to go with this film would be Steve Saint’s talk at last year’s DGM conference. Hearing the story from Steve’s perspective was wonderful. He researched the death of his father and discovered that it couldn’t have happened. The Waodani only attack when they have superior numbers and superior weapons. The knew that the missionaries had guns and they feared guns. They only attack when they have the element of surprise. As the warriors ran across the river one of them tripped and dropped their spears making a very loud noise alerting the missionaries that they were being attacked. As Mincayani (the lead warrior) told Steve Saint about the attack later, he said he didn’t understand why they attacked. Steve determined that if God had not intervened, they would not have attacked. But it was because of the contact and the murder that they tribe was opened to further contact.

Another helpful resource would be the documentary film Beyond the Gates of Splendor. They show a few clips of at during the credits.

Go see this film.

The next story they need to tell is the story of John G. Patton.

So the MacWorld Keynote speach is done and over with. We got Intel-based Macs six months early which are faster than light. Big deal. We finally got FM on an iPod. So? We got widescreen DVD on iDVD. Humph. What we didn’t get (other than 24″ and 50″ plasma screens with Bluetooth and Airport) is the iAuto. It was supposed to be the first flying personal vehicle. It was going to cost $1,200 and run on dryer lint and clean the air as it travels and come with a built in iPod, espresso machine and liposuction unit.

Is that asking too much?

A little while ago, I lamented the notion of “high threshold membership” as possibly just an appeal to brand loyalty. What is the alternative? If the threshold for membership is set really low, it could be perceived as being as easy to leave as it was to come. My thought is that if you make it really easy for a person to join the message that is unintentionally communicated is that membership is not highly prized and it is a fairly disposable thing. Literally, “easy come, easy go.” This is typically the model of membership in church-growth oriented churches. While it is desirable for the front doors to be wide open to allow people in, they are also wide open to allow people out.This isn’t to say that church-growth oriented churches don’t care or don’t notice when people leave, the point I’m trying to make is what message is unintentionally communicated by this approach.

The problem is that both of the approaches I’ve listedI don’t pretend to exhaust the possible approaches to membership here, I’m just hitting on two popular ones. are based on the wrong models. In the olden days, there was one or two churches in a town or village. You didn’t have a choice to go church shopping because transportation was not rapid or easy. You went to the church you lived close to. Membership was a serious thing then for a few reasons. First, the sense of community that existed back then meant that most people wanted to belong and part of that “belonging” meant the local congregation. Second, membership was important because it could be given and denied. While we’re used to abuse of this kind of control, I don’t believe it was as prevalent back than as it is now. The reason was because everyone from the pastor down took it quite seriously. When a person evidenced salvation, they were admitted to membership. When they sinned unrepentantly, they were excommunicated. These things meant something in a small community. The option didn’t exist to walk down the street to Church Y and press on.

Both of these things would have been true not just in the West after the Reformation, but also in the early church as being out meant that you were cut off from the entire Christian community. During the Middle Ages in the West, things got muddied but if you were excommunicated from the Roman church you were pretty much cut off.The confusion was over what you could get excommunicated for. Sin was a pretty minor offense but if you dissed the King, Bishop or Pope, or failed to pay your taxes, you were in trouble.

‘Membership’ more than a name on a roll and it is more than brand loyalty. It is commitment and relationship. Membership exists because of our unity in Christ. Playing games with ‘membership’ is not the answer.

So what does it all look like now? In our self-actualizing, consumer-oriented, market driven culture, how does church membership work? Are our only options porous membership, high-threshold membership, or no membership? Consumerism is the water in our fishbowl. It is the atmosphere we swim in and we’d be foolish to think it didn’t affect us. It certainly affects our views of membership. The PDF I cited in my last post on this subject correctly noted that “People ‘hold membership’ in stores like Blockbuster or Sam’s Club. I got my Wegman’s Shoppers Club card by putting my name and address on a form. The discounts keep me coming back. We carry this way of belonging into the church.”

So if the discounts the author receives from the Wegman’s cardWegman’s is a grocery store chain in NY, PA, MD, NJ, DE and VA. I looked it up. keep ’em coming back, what keeps a person coming back to church? A membership card? Deep discounts on salvation? No, I think on this issue my thinking is most starkly formed by something I heard Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan say during a talk on the church’s vision. Tim said something like “Don’t come to this church because you like the preaching. Come to this church because you share the vision.” I think Tim is spot on here.

The way America works is consumerism. Emergent churches want to buck that trend. Fine. I have my reservations in regards to Capitalism and I think it is an unhealthy attitude in the church of Christ. But as I’ve said, it is the water in our fishbowl, what are you going to do?

Well, what I think you can do about it is not evaporate membership or make some artificial high level to attain it. Teaching about commitment and unity is important. People should commit to a body and stick by that commitment. Americans are particularly bad at sticking to commitments for very long. We need to have our thinking on this reshaped by the Scriptures. I fear that the other methods and models are still bound by consumerism.

The other part of the answer is relationships. People will stay together because they are bound together, bound to each other. Because they share the love of Christ together. In this way, membership should be easy to initiate. A person showing up at church with an interest in what is going on should be welcomed by the people. Hospitality may be listed as a spiritual gift, but it is also a command to all Christians (Rom 12:13, Heb 13:2. & 1Pt 4:9). I fear that we can use the notion of it as a spiritual gift in order to neglect it.

‘Membership’ more than a name on a roll and it is more than brand loyalty. It is commitment and relationship. Adding a name to an official list is not a bad thing nor is setting some standards, but in the end, membership exists because of our unity in Christ. Playing games with ‘membership’ is not the answer.

Not that you’d notice though. Most of the changes are below the surface. I upgraded to WordPress 2.0 today. It was mostly painless but I felt kind of uneasy deleting almost all of my website. Weird feeling deleting everything I’ve worked to bring together.

The changes aren’t really visible on this side of the curtain, but behind it there are some really cool updates. The majority of the work on WordPress 2.0, I’m told, isn’t even visible to me. It is all beneath the hood where I daren’t dabble.

There was a recent announcement that WordPress had struck a deal with Yahoo! which sent fear into my soul. Yahoo! has a way of dorking up just about everything they get their grubbies on. Fortunately, that isn’t the way it is working. Yahoo! won’t own WordPress, they want to be a first class *cough* *cough* blog hosting service and so they want to offer the good stuff. WordPress and Moveable Type (I guess they struck a deal with them too) are the good stuff.

So that’s my adventure in WordPress today! Enjoy. Not that you’d notice at all. Readers a always like that.

First, they aren’t a “church” they’re a “Christian center”. Second, their pastors are the husband and wife team of Walter and Cindy Hallam. Isn’t it great that God gave them both the gifts and calling to the pastoral ministry? Even though women are not allowed in that role? Third, if you attend you get entered in a raffle to win a house!

The rational for the house giveaway is “Biblical”:

“This year, we are going to be able to bless someone with a brand new three-bedroom home,” says Pastor Walter Hallam. The Bible says in John 14:2 that there are mansions in heaven for us, and that Jesus has prepared one for each of us. So, Pastor Hallam came up with “Home on earth, Mansions in Heaven,” as a theme for the church’s annual watchnight service.

Ugh. That’s based on a bad translation and then taken to mean the wrong thing. How cheesy can you get? “Home on earth” is right! Consider Hebrews 11:13 “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.”

If you click on their “Live Broadcast” link there is an ad for a CD set titled “How to be Irresistable to God”. Kind of puts the doctrine of “irresistable grace” on its head doesn’t it?

Gosh, there is just so much wrong with this it makes my head spin!

A week ago I dropped my Powerbook!! It broke the hinge and my mouse fell and broke also. I ordered a new mouse yesterday and it arrived today. It is a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 4000. This is a small, 4-button mouse. Left and right click with a scroll wheel. The scroll wheel clicks, scrolls left and right. The horizontal and vertical scroll is pretty cool. The forth button is a tiny button that is well placed so you don’t hit it on accident. By default, it is a zoom button but I remapped it to do Exposé. The tracking on this mouse is much better than it was on my Kensington PocketMouse. The Kensington cost a bit more, was slightly bigger and had poorer tracking. Like the Kensington, though, the dongle goes into the mouse to turn if off and prolong battery life. Where the Kensington had a door that the dongle slid into (which is what broke) the Microsoft moust has the dongle clip into a slot in the bottom. A more robust design.

The mouse is something that Microsoft has done well all along. My only beef is when they have too many buttons in places you can’t avoid hitting. Kind of like this.

Shiira Project is a web browser for OS X that I just came across and figured I’d give it a whirl. It has the things I like from Safari, FireFox and (yes) IE for Mac. Customizable buttons (FireFox), fast rendering and good RSS handling (Safari), a web page chache and a drawer that handles all the different options (IE for Mac) and tabbed browsing (Safari and FireFox). It rocks!

That is not to say that it is perfect. It is still developing so there are somethings it doesn’t do. Java is still pretty quirky and it doesn’t remember passwords and stuff. It has tremendous promise thought.

We all know that the judge in Pennsylvania shot down mentioning Intelligent Design in the classroom. I have a few thoughts on the whole issue. Here is a PDF of the ruling.

First, the battle is being fought in the wrong place. We needn’t be trying to introduce ID in the classroom (even by mentioning it in a one minute statement) while the majority of the scientific community totally rejects it. With that kind of momentum against it, it is too hot an item for a court to give it a decent hearing. Also, I really hate politicizing the classroom. It is horrible for the children who are supposed to be taught there. Know what is being taught in the classroom and tell your kids the truth at home.

Second, why on earth are we expecting the courts to decide what is and what is not good science? This is another reason I believe the battle should not be fought in the schools. It is a technical, academic issue, not a legal one. Consider the judge’s comments:

Science cannot be defined differently for Dover students than it is defined in the scientific community as an affirmative action program, as advocated … by Professor Fuller, for a view that has been unable to gain a foothold within the scientific establishment. – p. 70-71

See, he is looking to the “scientific establishment” to determine what is appropriate science to be taught in the classroom. Get ID a fair hearing in the scientific community and you can begin to introduce it to the classroom.

Third, one of the problems with ID is that is seems to be “finding God in the gaps.” This is a problem with the entire creationist argument. It unwittingly adopts a naturalistic approach to the world and then tries to plug God into the gaps of our understanding. The net effect is shrink the domain of God’s providence to the boarders of our understanding. Before we understood gravity we thought God moved things. Once Newton understood gravity God was made to take a step back. ID does the same. Again, from the ruling:

ID is at bottom premised upon a false dichotomy, namely, that to the extent evolutionary theory is discredited, ID is confirmed. – p. 71

Expert testimony revealed that just because scientists cannot explain today how biological systems evolved does not mean that they cannot, and will not, be able to explain them tomorrow. – p. 72

Irreducible complexity is a negative argument against evolution, not proof of design, a point conceded by defense expert Professor Minnich. (2:15 (Miller); 38:82 (Minnich) (irreducible complexity “is not a test of intelligent design; it’s a test of evolution”). Irreducible complexity additionally fails to make a positive scientific case for ID, as will be elaborated upon below. – p. 72

This is a bad maneuver to use in public. It makes it sound like the scientist is winning by explaining away the gaps.

Finally, I don’t think ID ever had a chance of getting a fair hearing. The ground rules are written such that only naturalistic explanations are even entertained. The possiblity that naturalistic explanations might not be accurate or true is irrelevant. Consider:

In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere. – p.49

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research. – p. 64

While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science. – p. 65

Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify. – p. 65

It is notable that defense experts’ own mission, which mirrors that of the IDM itself, is to change the ground rules of science to allow supernatural causation of the natural world, – p. 67

What has happened is that science has been redefined as naturalism, some believe for the best. Miracles are excluded by definition. Creationism of any sort is excluded by definition. It is as if the scientific community has enclosed themselves in a bubble. ID didn’t have a chance because the playing field was never a fair one.

One interesting thing I learned from the ruling is that the school board sent out a newsletter explaining why ID was being introduced. Judge Jones quoted (misquoted?) some of it in the ruling as proof that ID is not science. It seems that the school board may have shot themselves in the foot with that one.

In a very large sense, this is no laughing matter. It turns out that there are unsafe levels of mercury in tuna. Again. This was a problem in the 70s and sadly it is back. Mercury is a very bad thing to be poisened by.

Okay, now for the old joke. Did you hear that Ford is recalling the Mercury line of cars? Yea, it turns that they have unsafe levels of tuna in them.

Joost Nixon is the brother of a friend of mine from California and an internet acquaintance of mine from a few years ago. I met him when he had moved to Idaho to work for Credenda/Agenda. Since then, Joost has moved to Spokane and is pastor of Christ Church there. One of the ministries of Christ Church is St. Anne’s Public House, an excellent audio resource. The whole thing is a Christian analysis of the culture we live in. Even more, it is free. You can download it or get a free CD.

This month’s theme is incredibly timely: rest. In the holiday season we get so busy and stressed that a study in rest is just what we need.

Buried in there is a commentary from Joost on Bono. Joost says that his efforts to ignore Bono routinely fail. Mine too. Bono is such an enigma to me that he seems to press into my thoughts more often than I expected. Joost has some very good and helpful observations about Bono’s spiritual success and failures. I think Joost has put Bono in perspective for us.