U2 by decade

Here are a few,
oversimplified, grids for looking at the canon of U2's work:


1980s: simplicity
1990s: complexity
2000s: the simplicity on the other side of complexity

-------

1980s: innocence
1990s: innocence lost
2000s: innocence regained..(or wanting it back)


-------

1980s: light
1990s: light viewed from darkness
2000s: light and dark viewed from light
----
1980s: direct
1990s: indirect
2000s:directly indirect

1980s: rock
1990s: roll
2000s: rock and roll

----
which is very different that the typical Squeaker-fundy take on the trajectory:

1980s: faith (if they ever really had it)
1990s: apostate (if they ever really had faith)
2000s: faith again (if they really have it)

"Evil encroaches in tiny footsteps on every great idea"

"Evil encroaches in tiny footsteps on every great idea.

 And evil can almost outrun most great ideas, but fïnally, in the end, there is light in the world.

 I accept God chooses to work with some pretty poor material. 

But I’m much more amazed by what people are capable of

      than I am by what they’re not capable of, 

which is to say evil doesn’t surprise me...

Just because I often find a way around the darkness doesn't mean that I don't know it's there. 

 I just try to make the light brighter."

-quote by

B. Vox, 

who once sent a Phillip Yancey book to Noel Gallagher of Oasis

George Carlin: Religion is BS

Like most George Carlin, it is rated R (full of the F-word etc) , 

sometimes blasphemous/ sometimes prophetic...

especially when the topic is:

 "Religion is B.S."

"Can't we just skip the begging part and go right to submitting to  God's will?"

" church is a special building in which we gather once a week..... to compare clothing"

Ten Commandments:

Bench Outside the Box

"By planting the flag outside the walls and boundaries of the church, so to speak, the church discovers itself by rallying to it---this is mission."

-Hirsch, "The Forgotten Ways," p 236

This beautiful park bench;
and the house behind it,
is the highlight of our neighborhood.

Actually, the saints who live in the house behind the bench are the highlight of the neighborhood,
which is precisely the point.

The bench was placed on the prominent corner lot as a prophetic act/blessing/gift/gatekeeper/mission to the neighborhood. I have seen high-schoolers (clean-cut as well as gangster-looking), and senior citizens sitting on it; taking a break on their walk home; and journey through life.

Even though my family and I walk by it almost daily, I consider it almost too sacred to sit in.

Folks stop for a smoke, a prayer, to people-watch, to drink gin...

The Tongan and I once were pretty sure we caught some angels sitting on it one Sunday morning.

It is a Godsend.

It is surely the most prayed-over bench in our city.

Maybe even the most blessed pew in town.

It might even be the postmodern version of Finney's "anxious bench."
"Tear the curtain down; Pull the altar to the ground.." as St. Mike Roe and the 77s once prayed in a church..uhm bar I was visiting...2:20ff in this clip.

Of course the bench has to be screwed into the ground; the original bench was stolen.

But that didn't deter the mission, or the gatekeeping family.

This is church "as God wants it"; planting the flag outside the walls. Not as a gimmick; not as a sneaky, cheesy, sexy evangelistic strategy to get those butts into pews.

But to get those butts blessed, even if they never enter a "church building."

Which they already have...

PS The mom of the house asked the ginsters to kindly take their empty gin bottle with them as they left...that's not an unreasonable rule for a church that plants its flag and bench outside the boundaries and box.

PPS. Of course this is the same family who did THIS with their house at Eastertime.

PPPS. Some of you are savvy enough to figure out where this holy site is, and go to Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth and see who's sitting in it now.

"When the sun beats down and I lie on the bench...."

-Genesis, "I Know What I Like" ...4:45ff below

The bliss of exclusion is a seduction

"The bliss of exclusion is a seduction that needs to be resisted."
-Catholic writer Mary Gordon

By the way, the spoke these words at an event hosted by a school that "Catholics are not allowed to teach at; neither are members of most other Protestant denominations. Faculty members are required to sign three confessional creeds -- the Heidelberg Confession, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dordt -- which include the doctrines of predestination --God has predetermined all events--and election--God has chosen some to be saved from eternal damnation and others not)."

Culture Makers Preview

The intro and first two chapters of Andy Crouch's highly anticipated new book, "Culture Makers, "about "how we can become cultivators and creators of culture, not just critics and consumers of it" is available here.


Kudos to IVP for this unusual step; they will even release three more chapters onine in a few weeks...all this pre=publication.

Andy says:

Read. Enjoy. But there's one other thing I'd like to ask you to do. Find at least one way to share this PDF with others. Post about it on Facebook. Blog about it. Forward the link--or the whole PDF file--to your small group, your pastor, your six best friends. (Yes, you can do this completely legally--see the last page for the details on what you can and cannot do with this PDF.)
Then, if you don't mind, post on the wall at Culture Making (Facebook Page) to tell the rest of us what you thought and what your friends thought of these opening pages.
link

Bibliophiliacs in a Barn...

There are so many reasons to love this "CBS Sunday Morning" video.

It's a feature about an amazing couple (he's a farmer; she's a PhD) who run what likely is the largest bookstore in the country;
an estimated million books,
with no ads and no sign ...
in eleven buildings, of which the main one is a converted cow manure shed...

...all in an incredibly unprime location in the middle of...
well, you must watch it:

Thanks to Brother Maynard/
As a bonus, here's another episode of CBS Sunday morning, this time covering the Porn Awards...the host Bill Geist even met Craig Gross of XXXChurch, giving away "Jesus Loves Porn Stars" Bibles..here

"What is the Bible trying to do to us?"

From the University Presbyterian Church (Fresno), pastored by someone you need to know:
website

Dr. Chris Erdman, our Senior Pastor says: Today, it seems to me that "what is the Bible trying to do to us?" is not the first question we bring to the Bible (if we come to it at all). There are signs that this is changing among us at UPC, if the way our elders are now reading the Bible in their ministry teams is any indication. But by and large, the American church is asking different questions. I identify these questions according to three major varieties:

Questions of the refrigerator variety: is there something here that I can consume and feel satisfied?

Questions of the pharmacy variety: is there something here I can take that will make me feel better?

Questions of the life-preserver variety: is there something here that I can use to pull myself out of this mess I'm in?

Now, these on the surface one can hardly argue with these questions. They come from very real needs we all have. But at UPC we recognize how different these questions are from the single question we place at the top of the list: "What is the Bible trying to do to us?" We recognize that the typical questions put "I" as the subject who acts on the Bible as the "object" and that that gets things all wrong theologically. Instead, when we ask, "what is the Bible trying to do to us?" we are putting God and we are putting ourselves in the right order. The Bible acts on us just as God acts on us. The Bible seeks to form us just as God formed us from the soil of the earth.
-Link, click the "spirituality" tab

Not (Just) About Dogs...and hangovers

If you don't know The Frames, you are long overdue. Check this out, with links to Pastor Steve Stockman's interview with singer Glen Hansard.

The disarmingly innocent story that Hansard pastorally tells about the D-Fer the Dog, at least the way he tells it on the phenomenal live CD, (see a different version in the video at top here) always gets me...

...Not because I am a cheesy sentimentalist, but because the segue from that stand-up comedy story intro into the delightfully devastating song is holy juxtaposition, non-sequitur sequitur that shouldn't work, but works..

This is much like how Bono self-effacingly (in this video)diffuses...and thus spotlights.. the serious-grief in


the "gospel song," "In a Little While." This song was never "just about a hangover....before it became gospel song." And
The Frames song in discussion was never about a dog.

The Frames song "What Happens When the Heart Just Stops," can be...well, hearstopping.
And grief-healing kickstarting.

Which means it starts your heart while you sing about it stopping.

That is naked gospel.


Connect it to holy grieving, lament, and

"Soundtracking Grief and Missing Jesus."

Here's another version of the Frames song without spoken intro):




Also calls to mind how Roger Waters ("Praying with Pink Floyd"), in a priestly-pastoral mode, allowed his audience/congregation to cathartically enter into holy grief and ownership of their human weakkness..or something like that, Check it out:

"Are there any paranoids out there tonight? Anyone who worries about anything? Are they any weak people out there tonight?...This is for you...."

Even though the "Clap! Enjoy yourselves is perhaps sarcastic, and in context of the CD from which the song comes, nihilistic ("annihilating nihilism and cultural masturbation" ...

What a call to worship/reality/grief/God.

And the opening hymn it is the invocation for is "Run Like Hell".
Watch it:


Heartstopping.

Artist or Billboard Painter

The line :

"he said he was an artist...

but he really painted billboards"

to me always captured the whole dilemma of the gospel and culture:

• We may we are new wineskin/emerging/freelance, but aren't we really just creating ads?
• Isn't "art for sale" an oxymoron?
• Do we, by default, preach/teach/heal like we have something to sell? Isn't it often sex?
• etc etc
  

The line is from an obscure and haunting B-Side song from Joshua Tree-era U2,

"Walk to the Water." It was likely never finished; and what the lyrics are about is your guess...

but that one line to me is a wake-up/shake-up call when I meet the young women in the 22nd pews and thrift stores.

I am an artist....or do I just paint billboards.

There is no compromise in literally doing both for a living, like Mark DeRaud (podcast here),

but if it happens to us pastor types, we are "two-souled" commercial televangelistas.

We have sold our soul (both, actually) for a bowl of Jacob's oatmeal; and traded our art for empire and industry. That's "sublimation, not elevation," as Bono and the Chasidic rabbis would say.

Next thing I'll want is my name on the sign, parking space.

We need some detox, adbusting and prophetic U2 to call us back to form and norm.

The usual remedy when we get caught with our priorites and panst down is just do the same stupid thing....only louder. The very next line in the song:

He said he was an artist
But he really painted billboards
In large capital letters
Large capital letters

!

and then:

He was telling jokes
Nobody else would listen to him

(If that isn't me...and many preachers....)_

But why is it that "secular" sources like Fast Company publish articles to help us; like an article, "Sex vs. Ethics": (see also Bottled Water: It’s All About the Sex Appeal and How Companies Have Sex):

"If you want to sell something, Charney says, appeal to people's self-interest."

(Fast Company, June 2008)

That's seeker-sensitive. It's selling sex and self.

The catch is we are all in a sense selling art. Beth Maynard mentions, in passing, "U2 have been producing art for over 25 years". So have I.

Eugene Peterson, in the context of an interview about U2, offers, "This is what art does, it gets beneath or within essential aspects of our lives."

But how do we sell it; knowing that simultaneously, "we've got to give it away."

Paul McGuinness, U2 manager, comments about the secret to art being keeping ones sexuality and politics in creative tension. (Great quote, bet Beth can find it...It was on the "Soundbytes" section of atu2.com)

The artist/billboard line also reminds me of a parallel juxtapostion in the obscure backwoods U2 repertoire:

"I wanted to meet God,

but you sold me religion."

(Hear/watch it/read about it...and weep.... here).

Religion sells (ask Tim Keller and Len Hjalmarson).

It has to sell.

I have no idea what to think about this "end-times" preacher!!??:

And don't get me started on "Christian billboards." (though I like this one). Neal Peart was right, again: It all "echoes with the sound of salesmen," not the one thing pastors need:

silence.

SO..

after two minutes of silence...

Here is the song:

the line is at 0:50ff in this video (which is not an official U2video, but lets me post the song)

"We are .. artists... I wish we were comedians. We would probably have more effect…Anyway, for all this: imagination!..To tell our stories, to paint pictures…Because we have fallen asleep in the comfort of our freedom. "
-Bono

"Every artist is a cannibal....."
-The Fly

They don't know what you're doing
Babe, it must be art ..

They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix
You're a star "
-U2

Tony Jones: Emergent Ethos and Vibe

Here's a clip of Tony Jones on "Think," addressing (of course) What is emergent?

Apparently some are upset (of course) that Jones suggests that "Emergence is not so much a doctrinal position as it is a vibe or an ethos....scaffolding." And the emphasis is allowing all to participate, wikistyle. The catch, he says, is the church corporate (definition 1: as in group/Body ) or corporate (definition 2: as in company/hierarchy)?

I guess that is doctrinal: Do we believe that Jesus has a body on earth?

Us.

But shouldn't they be thrilled that this current shift is "only" about structure, form, style, ethos.

It's an experiment in vibe, as The Violet Burning once did musically.

Hey, as wishywashy as "vibe" might sound, that's all we have to work with in the universe, according to string theory..

"In rediscovering the gospel of salvation by faith and grace alone, Luther started to reform the Church through a reformation of theology. In the 18th century through movements like the Moravians there was a recovery of a new intimacy with God, which led to a reformation of spirituality, the Second Reformation. Now God is touching the wineskins themselves, initiating a Third Reformation, a reformation of structure.' Wolfgang Simson

Gee, next thing you'll tell me is the critics don't get/like Trucker Frank, either.

Oops, that seems to be the case...here.

I had better quit, I am using too much "them" (vs. "us") language..(:

The Need to Measure/Oppress

Are these two short clips related?

Len Hjalmarson on the Gospel, the Center and Certainty..."about certainty and salvation, and our need to measure and 'know' where someone is at in contrast to faith and pilgrimage."
(also see set theory):




Tim Keller at a Veritas Forum, on "Religion is a Problem in the World", including the three steps from faith to oppressing others who are unlike you (uh, also see set theory):

The Sex of String Theory & 3 Questions for her...

Dialogue at the 1998 gathering of Pastors Promise Keepers Atlanta...largest gathering of pastors in one place in history:

Rev. Kevin ("Topless Beach Bum"..story told in " God, beach and breasts" ) Clancey:
"Is this the Fourth Great Awakening, or just a bunch of pastors getting together?"

Me: "Yes."




As we move even more into this current, and unsettling churchwide Reformation/Reorientation/Awakening;
it is obvious we have lots to learn from the current and unsettling Reformation/Reorientation/Awakening
in physics.

Same thing; mas o menos.

The attraction of string theory (the scientific theory, not the band) is that it offers a practical paradigm for a potential "Theory of Everything," something that even a literal Einstein glimpsed, but could not reach in his lifetime.

Maybe Brian Greene and gang are Joshua to Einstein's Moses.
Hmmm, "subtle is the Lord," indeed.

To get a sense of string theory via Brian Greene, you can "watch" his book" The Elegant Universe") on YouTube?PBS here;

or for a hilarious quickie,

see his hilarious quick interview with Stephen Colbert here below.
String theory is also cool enough to

(cartoon credit)

have "her" own MySpace (become her friend, or she may vaporize you into a black hole) website. And whether it's (she's) right or not, it may be "not even wrong."

As Karl Marx once said, and as Jesus...independently of Marx (: .... seemed to tell me,
"Nothing is more practical than theory, (and nothing is more theoretical than practice)."

But you may know the apparent dilemma; as summarized by Greene:

For many years, physicists found that the central obstacle to realizing a unified theory was the fundamental conflict between the two major breakthroughs of twentieth-century physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. Although these two frameworks are typically applied in vastly different realms-general relativity to big things like stars and galaxies, quantum mechanics to small things like molecules and atoms-each theory claims to be universal, to work in all realms. However, as mentioned above, when the theories are used in conjunction, their combined equations produce nonsensical answers....Calculations...simply show that the combined equations...have gone haywire."

-Brian Greene, "The Fabric of the Cosmos," p. 16

I am guessing I am not the first to ask (but can't hurt to ask) if that apparent haywire is actually "OK"; or to be expected....or not truly haywire. What of the "nonsense" answers actually and ultimately make sense, or are super-sensible/suprasensible/surrational? If there are indeed multiple dimensions, might there not also be parallel ways/means of doing math, so that these "nonsense" equations only "tilt" the pinball game because of the way we are looking at them?

What if the "fundamental conflict" is not fundamental/foundational at all, but only relative..in a quantum kinda way, of course (:

Studies in synesthesia and nueroscience suggest much that appears fundamentally non-sensical

makes more sense than common sense.

A reading of "The Divine Voice,"an amazing theological acoustemology, might even suggest that the primacy of sound would connect with superstring theory (summarized by Len Sweet as "the universe at base is music" ...or sound. See Sweet's seminal "Summoned to Lead"). We need to interpret data through sound sense..pun intended..more that common sense...

or "math as usual" sense.

Comic relief:

Q.Did you hear the one about the constipated mathematician?
A. Yeah, he worked it out with a pencil.

Second question...in light of the following thoughts by Greene...and just replace "third revolution" with "third reformation," small/quantum" with "small Kingdom gatherings" and "large/general relativity" with "large Kingdom gatherings", "independent" with "apostolic networks", etc:

If I were to hazard a guess on future developments, I'd imagine that the background-independent techniques developed by the loop quantum gravity community will be adapted to string theory, paving the way for a string formulation that is background independent. And that's the spark, I suspect, that will ignite a third superstring revolution in which, I'm optimistic, many of the remaining deep mysteries will be solved....I believe that such a (union)...between general relativity and quantum mechanics would yield a gratifying resolution..."
-Greene, 491

...Why in the world (universe?) don't we appropriate the findings of physics even more? In any number of areas imagined above...and also including time travel (a basic definition of The Kingdom in Hebrews 6:1-4..see "THE KINGDOM’S RETROACTIVE RETROFUTURE: SEND ME MORE ARROWS")
Thank God for Kester, Len H., Len S. and tribesters. But the tribe must increase! And embrace Margaret Wheatley and Bono the physicist...

...and Bono's friend Christopher Nolan!

Why in the...heck/hell/quantum dimensions...did the non Christian physicist have to write the book "The Physics of Christianity"?!

THAT's emerging, baby.

Third question:

If you have been brave or bored enough to read this far, aren't you ready for a bad string theory joke (click here)..or the video, "Can String Theory Detect God?" ..one person's attempt to put (Scriptural) chapter and verse to string theory):




"If my thesis is correct...Christianity will become a branch of physics."

-Frank Tipler

Domitian Games in Revelation ?

Anyone have evidence on this Domitian Games/Revelation theory? Tenuous? Probable?

---------------------------

From "Velvet Elvis-Repainting the Christian Faith:"


The first chapters of the book of Revelation follow a sequence of events of the Domitian games, held in honor of the caesar who was in power at the time Revelation was written. Domitian would address the leaders of the various provinces, then his choir of twenty-four would sing worship songs to him, and then there would be a horse race. John is writing Revelation to people who had seen the Domitian games; they know exactly what he is referring to. He wants them to see that Domitian is a fake and Jesus is the real King.

The writers of the Bible are communicating in language their world will understand. They are using the symbols and pictures and images of the culture they are speaking to. That's why the Bible has authority-God has authority and is present in real space and time. The Bible is a collection of stories that teach us what it looks like when God is at work through actual people. The Bible has the authority it does only because it contains stories about people interacting with the God who has all authority.

The point in the book of Acts isn't the early church. The point is the God who is at work in and through the early church to change the world. When we take the Bible seriously, we are taking God seriously. We believe that the same God who was at work then is at work now. The same God in the same kinds of ways. The goal is not to be a "New Testament Church". That makes the New Testament church the authority. The authority is God who is acting in and through those people at that time and now these people at this time.

The point is to ask, what is God up to here, now?
------------------

From James Graves:

"Our passage has much to say about the human proneness to animal and angel escapism.
First, I need to say a word about the format. You should note, by now, a curious form in
the churches addressed. Not only do the various churches get to hear read other people’s
mail (don’t we all like that!), the churches are first praised before they are charged and
challenged. Some scholars believe that the address to the churches follows
closely the model of the way in which Domitian, a Roman Emperor,
addressed the various regions of his empire. During the Domitian games (clever
title) each region of the empire would be addressed: “To this city: you are hard working,
dedicated and loyal. But I have this against you. You do not pay all of your taxes, report
all your earnings, etc.” Churches would surely recognize this pattern as a reader unfolded
the scroll and read the first few chapters of Revelation. “To Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamum…and now, Thyatira.”
-Joshua Graves, link,
-----
Johnny:
In order to read of him in the book of Revelation, we have to have the records of Josephus and other ancient, historical writings which speak of him.

The entire book of revelation is a depiction of the Olympic Games and every role, including the Emperor, is there playing the part. John changes the roles from the emperor to Jesus and from the athletes to the followers of Jesus. The 24 elders in Revelation were a heavenly depiction of the actual 24 elders of the emperor.

Those who read Revelation in the first century would have immediately recognized the correlation between John's eschatological, heavenly signs and people in contrast to the Olympic Games where the emperor is the god of the games and Jesus is the God of the universe.

Again, we won't know this unless we read the writings of antiquity which tell us the history behind the text.

For anyone interested in more information on this subject, please go to http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=5548

Be sure to listen to the audio file on the site listed above, which is a teaching by Ray Vander Laan.

-Johnny, link
--

Ray Van Der Laan audio

--

Domitian's greatest passions were the arts and the games. He implemented the Capitoline Games in 86. Like the Olympic Games, they were to be held every four years and included athletic displays, chariot races, but also oratory, music and acting competitions. The Emperor himself supported the travels of competitors from the whole empire and attributed the prizes. He was also very fond of gladiator shows and added important innovations like female and dwarf gladiator fights.

-Wikipedia

Sin Less Boldly

"Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous.
It should be left to the congenitally sinful,
who know when to play with it,
and when to leave it alone."
-H L Mencken








shirt for sale

Social Nets Work

Yes, I am on Facebook.

Yes, I am on MySpace.

Yes, I am on Linked In.

Et tu?

Y tu?



Social networking has recently been raising issues parallel to church issues:

Open sources applications,

walled gardens (bounded and centered sets),

and the role of art,
ads
and the place of profit.

See these recent articles in USA TODAY
and The Economist...

See also Stephen Shields' "Social Networking for the Church"

Quien es Jesus?

"Who's Jesus?," the kid asked me.

what does the sign say to you?

This church sign in our neighborhood is worth a thousand words or captions.

Create some.

The story is:

The building currently is home to Grace Community Church...
but the building (and therefore the sign) formerly belonged to Calvary Church of the Nazarene..

but occasionally the left hand side of the sign falls off, revealing half of the old sign underneath

And it looks like a church split...or church merger.

Calvary was primarily Anglo; Grace is primarily African-American.

Bonus: The pastor is even cool enough to ride a motorcycle to church.

Video: St. Guinness Defies Death to Preach in SexShop in Peru

"Uh..I have been flying for almost forty years, and not only was that turbulence not normal, but it was a hundred times worse than I even knew was possible."

Honestly, it wasn't until later that I told Tom (St. Guinness) that whole truth. We Christians..especially pastor types...just aren't that good at telling the whole, authentic, truth (which is why some sheep, and maybe even God, prefer the Nine Inch Nails gig to church, as Bono once preached in an audio found here.)

St. Guinness and I were seated next to each other on a plane from L.A. To Dallas.
This was not even the flight to Peru, yet; let alone the hours bus ride up the Andes where I lost my lunch and found my faith..(uncensored story told here).

All was smooth. St. Guinness was on the first leg of his first mission trip.

Then it hit.

If you remember the intro narration to "The Six Million Dollar Man," you can recall the frantic voice "She's breaking up, she's breaking up!" as the plane's turbulence did its number.

Here is the actual video of our adventure...uh, sorry, here is that "she's breaking up" TV intro..but as you watch 0:14-0:35, this is pretty much the same thing.

The flight attendants frantically tried to keep everyone in their seats.

Strangely, but as is common in episodes like this, it was deathly quiet as the plane violently shook.

All we heard was a voice in front of us, as a passenger asked his seatmate,
"Is this normal?"

We heard no answer, and had our answer.

Did i mention this was Tom's first time flying?

That we had to coax him into the trip with a faith-promise that the plane trip would be a cinch?

Tom is a white guy, but he turned (in biblical language) "whiter than any launderer on earth could bleach him"

I faked a calm pastoral confidence and convinced him we would be okay.

It's called living by faith.

Lying, i mean.

Strangely, it was also deathly quiet as we filed out of the plane. The flight attendants and pilots were nowhere to be found.

When we caught up with another gal from our group in the airport, we white guys, hair and tattoos still standing on end, asked her, "Man, how did you manage that turbulence??!!"

She genuinely and calmly replied,
"Oh, I just figured if it was my time to go, I'd be with Jesus."

I wanted to punch her.

She was a better pastor than me.

All that to say..

Without giving the devil too much credit (he does work for God, however...see "The Devil is God's Devil"..)
..often when we are called/drafted into a life-changing missional adventure,
we get sifted/tested on the way.

Our dreams and Uzziahs die, we are sent into wilderness and vertigo, but we come out stronger. And faithfully wear our Annie Dillard crash helmets and spiritual armor.

Knowing that if it's indeed our time to go, it's time.

Even though we had to talk Tom out of the Dallas airport mens room with a promise (hoping it wasn't a lie) that nothing remotely similar would happen the next plane..

That means, we did the normal Christian thing, and made a promise in Christ's name that we had no authority to make.

We lied like a cathedral.

We almost had to buy St. Guiness a Guiness or eight.

He would have settled for Ripple and sleeping pill.

Tom passed the sift/shift and the test.

His flying colors were glorious in Peru.

To prove it, I have finally been able to upload a bit of video of Tom giving testimony in Peru.
Note is hair is no longer standing up a few days later after the turbo-turbulence.


You can even see a clip of him toying momentarily with entering a "Sex and Growth" office shop to..uh, share his faith. (Watch it at 6:45 ff in Part 2 below) His hair IS standing on end in this clip.

PS. You will also find that this boy can pray,play axe...and dance!

PPS: The next year's even wilder adventures are on video here

PPPS: At the end of clip 2, you can see that our church down there is literally across the street from a brothel...I actually am brave/dumb enough to pan the camera from the pulpit while Pam from our group is teaching, to the brothel window, and back again.

PPPPS: Tom claims I, his pastor dude, gave him the "half the peace sign" hand gesture one day on this trip. I don't see it on the video, so it didn't happen.

Part 1 (the opening joke is due to the Peruvians nicknaming him "Tarzan"):



Part 2:

Women in Leadershift: Rob Bell & Peruvian alpaca-herderettes

Half of what I know about women in ministry I learned by watching this amazing little pastora in the Peruvian Andes, and how she masterfully, humbly and biblically lead her flock of hundreds
from behind. (See her in action at 1:34...and note she had no fear of death, witness what "they" often do to female pastors at 0:15 to 0:44!!)


All that to say:

This article on "Megachurch goes Egalitarian," about how

Rob Bell,
Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids,
and their "Aeropagus Meetings"

implemented a new official statement on women in ministry is a case study in navigating shift. It raises questions all over our multiplex map:

church polity/government, role of the pastor, diffusion of innovations,

and the book that apparently rocked Rob Bell :
Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis.

Read the article, and then decide if
you

need some token women...

Fat Barbie and God Art

With reviews like these:

"I couldn't tear myself away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on this superb site."—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, and The Language Instinct.

"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."—Richard Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow, Climbing Mount Improbable, River out of Eden, The Devil's Chaplain, and The Ancestor's Tale.

"I've recommended your site to a number of friends and colleagues who've bemoaned the dearth of sites with any literary/scientific muscularity. Keep up the wonderful work."—John Allen Paulos, Professor of Mathematics at Temple University, and bestselling author of Innumeracy, Beyond Numeracy, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, Once Upon a Number, and A Mathematician Plays the Stockmarket.

"3QD is always interesting--you (and your other contributors) have a fine eye for good writing in both the arts and the sciences, which is a very rare thing indeed."—Rochelle Gurstein, author of The Repeal of Reticence, and frequent contributor to The New Republic, Salmagundi, and American Scholar.

"3 Quarks is a daily must-read for intellectuals of all stripes. It is perhaps even smarter and better and more comprehensive than Arts & Letters Daily, the de facto gold standard of the smart set on the internet."—Laura Claridge, former Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, and author of Romantic Potency: The Paradox of Desire, Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence, and Norman Rockwell: A Life.

"Mighty interesting website! I've added it to my favorites."—Daniel Dennett, University Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, and author of Content and Consciousness, Brainstorms, Elbow Room, The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Kinds of Minds, and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays.

"Just wanted you to know I’m one of many who reads and enjoys 3 Quarks....almost daily."—David Byrne, musician, former lead-singer of the Talking Heads, artist, intellectual.

"It is a great honor to be mentioned in one of my two ONLY portals to the internet—and the world, since I do not read newspapers. My discipline, to avoid drowning in information, is not to cruise the web outside of these two points. I tried many sites; yours has CHARM."—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. [The other site NNT is referring to is the excellent Arts & Letters Daily.]

..is it any wonder that the blog, "Three Quarks Daily"":

On this website, my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating. We want to provide you with a one-stop intellectual surfing experience by culling good stuff from all over and putting it in one place. In other words, we are what has come to be known as a "filter blog". And we try not to be afraid of challenging material

hosts some powerful posts, like this one, turning us onto prophetic subversive artwork like:

Fat Barbie

and covers things that "Christian blogs" should cover, like

God Art

How about a double bill: Foxboro Hot Tubs/Dalton Brothers

From the band bio page of The Dalton Brothers:

Biography: Dalton Brothers

Descendants of a legendary family of Wild West outlaws, the Dalton Brothers have overcome their family's tarnished past and troubled reputation to forge a splendid --albeit largely unrecognized -- career in the "wild west" of the country music industry.

The Dalton Brothers are made up of brothers Luke, Duke, and Alton, and their sister Betty. Today, they all tend to the Dalton family ranch in Galveston, Texas, with the exception of Duke who has a 3-bedroom apartment in Dallas. The Dalton's came together in the late 1960s under the leadership of Dallas Schoo Dalton, who quickly realized his talents were needed behind the scene as the band's sound and equipment manager, a position he still holds today. Dallas was instrumental (no pun intended) in helping the Daltons land a 3-show stint as an opening act on U2's massive Joshua Tree world tour in 1987. (Dallas' brother -- also named Dallas -- is guitar technician for U2's The Edge.)

(Betty -- on the left -- and Alton are pictured at right. Luke and Duke are very reluctant to allow themselves to be photographed.)

Alton and Betty Dalton

They've taken their inspiration from many of Country's seminal artists, including such legends as Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Loretta Lynn. But they're quick to credit one of the all-time greats, Hank Williams, Sr., as the spark that lit their country music candle. It was Williams who reportedly told the brothers, "You can go far with country and western, not that rock and roll shit." Today, the Daltons honor Williams' memory in concert with an updated version of his 1949 Top 10 classic, "Lost Highway".

But the Dalton's current success is due...
read all

Once in awhile,
for various reasons,

bands (particularly because they are too famous; and occassionally becasue they are not too famous) assume an alternate persona/personality/reality..

taking on another name, and recording or even performing under that name.

The most famous/infamous example for many of us was this 1997 appearance by "The Dalton Brothers," caught here opening for U2. The catch is they were U2, and they fooled even some of the brightest U2 fans.

More recently, The Alarm pulled a fast one. I saw this band in 1983 open up for U2..at least I assume they weren't really U2 with wigs (:

They were amazing. As I said in my review, in a lot of ways I am still living off this concert.

But by 2004,they were....well, as old as I was. So they hired some young bucks to lip-synch their new single in the video; and distributed the video/single as by "The Poppyfields."
It was a hit.

More recently, in an open secret, it's no secret that The Foxboro Hot Tubs are...well, take a listen: