Bill Maher and Religulous

Last night we watched a documentary called Religulous by Bill Maher. I think I have seen this guy before, but didn't really know what his shtick is. I guess I was hoping someone would mount a real argument against the tenets of faith and see if they could knock them down. I left before it ended.

I was disappointed. Maher himself is more interested in listening to himself feel superior. He interviewed all variety of goofballs and then actually Frances Collins, who is the originator of the Human Genome Project, but edited the interview so ferociously that it basically was just Maher talking. Then on to the goofballs and a bunch of clips of snake oil salespeople (who have existed for all of eternity, but now we can see over and over thanks to TV), disgraced televangelists and movie shorts.

But in no way can I improve on what Frank Shaeffer wrote about Religulous and Bill Maher. Found here, and worth a read because it is also funny.

Here's some Schaeffer asserting the well known tenet that Maher's form of Atheism is not only akin, but ostensibly equal to fundametalist thinking.

The New Atheists' books provided a context for Bill Maher's movie Religulous, the most blunt instrument imaginable. Maher's documentary expands what Harris started in his book The End of Faith. Harris begins his book with a scene of a young Islamic terrorist in Jerusalem smiling as he commits suicide while blowing up a bus full of innocent people. In Religulous, Maher gleefully includes many more images of look-how-crazy-God-makes-everyone, religion-inspired violence. The Harris/Maher message is as clear: the world would be better off without religion.

There is another message in the Maher/New Atheist oeuvre: everyone must think in categories stripped of allegory. Forget the idea that perhaps one may hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, say that none of the stories in the Bible happened as written, but that they are true in more subtle ways than mere historicity, or that we're nothing but jumped up chimps, but are also connecting to a deeper reality when we say, "the Lord is my shepherd" and hope that he is.

The New Atheists don't seem to "get" grown up allegory any more than the fundamentalists of the Religious Right do, let alone literary imagination. And both the Religious right and the New Atheists also seems oblivious to serious religious thinkers from Confucius to the Sufi poets, from Reinhold Niebur to one of Reinhold Niebuhr's biggest fans; President elect Obama.

Maher's world contains no Pastor Deitrick Bonhoffer (martyred for trying to assassinate Hitler, and who defined the intellectual and theological terms for resistance to state tyranny based on Christian ethics), or the intellectual man of letters and convert from atheism to the Roman Catholic Church, Malcolm Muggeridge, let alone an awareness of the prayers written by the "atheist" W.E.B. Du Bois for his students, a poignant demonstration that faith is not so easily abandoned.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/president-obama-bad-news_b_141342.html

Surprised by life

A poem I found from Pam Ferguson, who is what I hope to be when I grow up.

A link to her here.

(Confessions of middle age)

I have been surprised by life.

I never thought I would reach middle age
and in the blink of an eye I’m 55.
I still catch glimpses of myself as a 16 year old,
a 20 year old, or a 40 year old.
I see where I came from, where I have been,
people from my past and sometimes
I see my life through their eyes.

And I am surprised.

What an amazing amount of experiences I’ve had in my 55 years,
some good and some bad.

I’ve seen the pygmies dance.
I swam in the Indian Ocean.
I gathered seashells on Zanzibar Island.
I’ve been to the source of the Nile.
I’ve seen the whirling dervishes in Khartoum
and a riot in the middle of Kampala.

I walked where Paul and Silas broke free from prison and I stood at the Acropolis where Paul told the Greeks about “the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and doesn’t live in temples built by hands”.

I’ve eaten grasshoppers and termites,
rattlesnakes and crocodile.
I’ve smelled the blossoms of a coffee orchard,
incense from sandalwood, frankincense and myrrh
....and open sewers, burning trash, rotting flesh,
drying fish and camel dung.

I’ve awakened to the Muslim call to prayer,
applauded communion with Catholics in Africa,
worshipped in opulence with Greek Orthodox,
and in silence with Quakers on three continents.

I’ve heard the explosions of land mines and
gunshots fired in celebration, in fear,
in anger and in rebellion.
An AK 47 was aimed at me as thieves stole our car
and I was held hostage in my home by an escaped prisoner.

In spite of the good and the bad and the many surprises of life,
I discovered an unexpected peace in middle age.

Of course there are regrets.

I never experienced the joy of childbirth.
I spent too much time in sin and selfishness.
I’ve ignored my creator too many times in too many ways.
And I know there is much in life that I have not experienced
nor that I have lived as fully as I was capable,
loved as much as I could or forgave as much as I know God intended.

I am surprised those regrets aren’t the focus of life now.

Middle age always brings questions of

“who am I?”
“What have I given my life to?”
and “for what (and my whom) will I be remembered?”

I’ve yet to discover many of the answers.
But I am surprised I no longer fear the questions.

I’ve confessed that I never thought I would reach middle age.
I think I’ve always thought I would die before I got this “old”.
Now I am catching glimpses of the rest of my life.

What a joy to realize I’ve learned
material possessions matter less than relationships;
obedience is more satisfying than success;
and the highest calling in life is
to make a difference in the world for Christ.

Middle age is a wake up call to use
the time I have left to love unconditionally,
give unselfishly, make right what I’ve wronged,
cherish what time I have with the man I love,
and to use every waking moment to live and walk with God
and to grow in my love for God with each passing day.

Middle age is a gift. I am surprised.

Missing the ritual a little

Listening to a not overly exciting podcast from NPR's Speaking of Faith on a roadtrip, the speaker was talking on a subject that I am keenly interested in. The spiritual lives of children.

One thing she brought up was the role that ritual plays for kids. How it can help to organize in their minds important events, how it shows them the importance of these celebrations. They build strong memories around these times with their parents and family.

I can say it is very true in my own experience. I remember the Catholic church my mom took me to with great clarity, mostly because I had no idea what the significance of any rituals meant.

And for a second I lamented the lack of ritual that we currently implement. I wondered if it would just leave all this stuff and amorphous blob of God info in her young mind. Don't laugh.

I had the following conversation with her

Who is God?
He is the Father of Jesus the Christ.
Who is Jesus the Christ?
He loves us.
What is a Christ?
It means God loves me.

Her answers blessed me.

At that moment I realized something else entirely. Another conversation happened maybe.

How do I make ritual for my child?
You don't.
Will it be bad that she doesn't have it?
You aren't the one in charge here, so you need to quit worrying about this.

What my young daughter teaches me about God.

A couple weeks ago a nice guy talked in front of the church. He talked about (let's see if I can reiterate a sermon from 3 weeks ago) how God limits himself for us because he loves us.

The image that he gave that I took away was the pictures that children draw that we put on our fridge. We put them up there not because they are Rembrandt's, but because we love the little people who made them.

I am trying to be brief, but the idea is that there is more to our relationship with God than being perfect in His eyes. Because we never will be. The important thing there is the love.

With my sweet daughter, we go through things. She learns new things at an astonishing rate. Sometimes good, sometimes less than good. Recently she has mostly overcome her fear of getting her face in the pool. For me, seeing her do that was HUGE, because I have never managed to become much of a swimmer and water still inspires a degree of anxiousness for me. For my husband, this is not a problem, he is an easy swimmer. He has conquered the water. We have made a BIG DEAL out of her dunking and her putting her face in the water.

And she has overcome some dawdling things she used to do, she can clean up her room, she works better in the kitchen with me, she can wash the windows (handy for when she has painted them with yogurt)...

But lately we struggle with kindness. Part of the problem is sleep. If she is the least bit tired, it is almost impossible for her to be nice. Visiting grandparents, family members presents a particular problem as there is little to no opportunity for naps. So my family, who seldom gets to see her, often gets the full brunt of her worst side.

It pains me. And her dad.

She makes faces, denies hugs, and has a whole array of ways to show herself to be short, snippy, bratty and generally unpleasant. It makes me want to keep her home.

But surely as she has learned many many other things by sheer perseverance, I am heartened that we will go along and soon she will hear me reiterate this enough that we will have a breakthrough.

And sometimes I feel like it is this way in my spiritual life. A weakness (oh, and there are enough, aren't there?) will show itself eventually, and it will just keep presenting itself. Over, and over, and over...

Until eventually it will slowly, slowly begin to sink in how to supplant a bad thing with a good thing, or at least, a neutral thing. S l o w l y.

And soon, a new habit will emerge.

But like my lovely little daughter, who learns so much faster, it takes time. Luckily, it seems to me that that is one thing that God has.

Hmm, interesting

A christian satire online magazine? I remember reading this for the first time when I had just become a Christian and being relieved that Christians had am irreverent sense of humor.

The Wittenburg Door.

Shane and Dietrich.

This is Shane Claiborne. And more about this fellow.


This is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

So when was it that I was reading some Shane Claiborne? I just remember that for about a 3 week period it seemed like he was everywhere, on Speaking of Faith, at George Fox, and in my hands as I read the Irresistible Revolution. Bumping in to people who were reading it... and some part of me heard that monastic call.

And another part of me said, "but wait, I have 2 kids and a husband and well, I can sacrifice myself, but kids need a mom,"

And so I stored it in a place in my brain that makes notes of things, things like the call of a Christian is to truly sacrifice what you have and follow Christ. I apologize for not quoting scripture on this one, but it wouldn't be hard to do. The call doesn't say accumulate wealth for retirement, live in a nice house and take your kids to swimming lessons. So there is this fundamental question. How does this all look for the likes of me? Am I like the guy who asks Jesus who his neighbor is in order to try to get out of the "Love your neighbor" command? So turning this over in my head.

Shane points out the parable of the rich man who all but boasts that he has kept all the commandments and now what more should he do.

Jesus tells him to sell all he owns and follow him. Rich man leaves crestfallen. He asked and the answer came. He has only 2 choices now. Obedience, or not.

And this same passage is coming up in Bonhoeffer now, The Cost of Discipleship.

My faith doesn't call me to a life of comfort. And yet, and yet...

Why does this keep coming up? I am at once excited and mortified by the message. I am afraid of the sacrifice. The shakeup. I wonder if it isn't that I do all I can in my current position. I was so pleased this week when a mom I invited to VBS brought her daughter. She was a Latina from El Salvador. I was happy she came. It's so small, but is this it?

The Cost of Discipleship, J and I read some in the car as we drove a long distance. We discussed alot. It was really really wonderful. I appreciate so much when he shares in my inputs.


This is Reinhold Niebuhr.

It isn't an *easy book*. He has been reading Niebuhr and said that was pretty dense and the 2 were on par. It is packed full. One could likely read it several times. It is the kind of book for which I long for a book club.

I am still reading the Madeleine L'Engle, but she is like a sweet easy fluffy candy by contrast.

Talking about the book is easier than talking about the message it contains, which so far is about as subtle as a brick up side my head.

And while I stumbled around to pretty up this post, I found this guys blog which looked moderately interesting.

Finishing the Shack and starting Madeleine L'Engle

Last year at some point I put down the Shack.

It was too much for me. I am wary of popular Christian lit to begin with because it always seems to have the subtlety of a freight train. Anyway, a reliable source told me that I really should finish it. It has taken almost a year, but I did it.

And it was worth it. It was one of those books, however, that if you tell about it, it instantly sounds corny, far fetched, spacy or other slightly undesireable qualities. So I will leave it at "it turned out to be worth it" It was a good book to read before going to bed, it said things that seem like they needed to be said about God.

J and I have been going back and forth about the meanings of the words "doubt" and "wrestling". I say wrestle, he says doubt. When he says doubt to me, initially its no biggie, but when he doubts so much I start to narrow my eyes a little and wonder what's up. So we have the conversation again, about doubt vs. wrestling. And then I go pray for him. Haha, just kidding. But not really.

So as I was leaving the library with my old looking copy of Brothers Karamazov, a book I should have read a Looooooong time ago, I say "Circle of Silence by Madeleine L' Engle. And it pulled me in. And so far, I am so pleased. I was turned on to this author by the same person who recommended The Shack.

I will write about what she says next time when I am a little further along, but it is nice to be reading a female voice again. It is always nice to share a perspective with the author.