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I’m a sucker for the Olympics.  I’m not sure why, but for several weeks every two years my evenings consist of my wife and I sitting on the couch and watching an evening full of events.  Like every Olympic year, NBC rolls out a whole shlew of stories featuring athletes and their emotional struggles that led to them being the athletes they are today.  Very rarely do I hear stories of an athlete’s faith.  I know it’s probably not to the fault of the competitors, but more likely editorial decisions at the peacock network.

Anyway…I came across this video featuring Chad Hedrick. He’s a USA speed skater who won the bronze in the 1000m race in Vancouver (to add to his gold, silver and bronze from Torino in 2006).

In the video, he talks about his faith as an athlete and how it can be perceived by others.  He says:

I have guys from the media talking to me all the time and I tell them I want to have a great time, make special memories with my family, and if I go there and give 100 percent and it’s not enough, I know God has a path for me, and that‘s the path that I’m going to follow. They interpret that as: I’m soft, I’ve lost my competitive edge, I’m not very confident. But they really don’t understand; and I’m hoping throughout the Olympics and Vancouver that they see that I am still very competitive, and that you can be a Christian and still be a competitive person.

How about you?  Can it be tough to balance being a Christian and being competitive?  Does knowing if an athlete is Christian change to way you root for them in an event?

(This video came from the website Beyond the Ultimate which has a list of Christian Olympians and features their stories.)

Leading up to this year’s Super Bowl, there was some controversy about a pro-life ad from Focus on the Family.  The commercial featured Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow and his mom Pam, who  talked about her decision not to have an abortion (without actually saying the word abortion).   Pro-choice groups criticized CBS for accepting the ad, which was the first “political” ad the network ever approved for the big game.

So what did you think?  Was the ad effective?  Did it live up to the hype?

(Reminder: Quick Thought comments should be short.  Maybe a few sentences but no more than 100 words or so.)

The recovery community has a saying, “expectations are preconceived resentments”. The angrier or safer people feel the freer they become to share their resentments and many of these resentments are against God. Usually these resentments are based upon some history of hurt. God’s providential governance of the universe appears overly haphazard and risky and we quickly complain that if we were given God’s power we could out perform his management choices. We are more than uncomfortable about God’s record of providential management and this leads to doubts about God’s existence, goodness, and power and sometimes explodes into outright rejection.

While we complain about God’s providence we experience, we can fairly easily embrace notions of natural evolution as being somehow good. While we’re uncomfortable with God’s governance over our personal or communal narratives we’re more comfortable imagining his evolutionary management of the development of life on planet earth. Despite liking to think of ourselves as being animal friendly, giving to the ASPCA or choosing eggs from free range chickens over those raised in cages, we’re surprisingly non-judgmental towards evolution for the wholesale massacre of the majority of living species that have ever called this planet home. Somehow I can’t let God off the hook for not stopping a painful episode in my life but I can easily give him a pass for the enormous historical destructions wrought by asteroid strikes or volcanic eruptions. What does this say about the biases expressed in my evaluation of God’s rulership?

Tim Stafford has a personal blog and lately he’s been doing a wonderful summary of some of John Polkinghorne’s work. Polkinghorne is one of those rare figures who is an expert in both Christian theology and physics. I find his thoughts engaging and stimulating. Stafford quotes Polkinghorne as asking why couldn’t God choose to create life through “the shuffling explorations of possibility, which we choose to call ‘chance.’“ [Beyond Science, 77]. This is a really good question and when I think about it I notice that this is exactly the kind of process we see in Biblical stories. In the Bible God works his way through history through events that look risky, direction-less and purposeless like we find in nature, even using creatures as willful, senseless and unpredictable as ourselves. Yet somehow through the writings of this library of texts drawn together over centuries, a thread emerges that speaks of purpose, redemption, joy and glory. Sometimes the path seems so haphazard and strained that we throw up our hands imagining we’re reading purpose into the texts, at other times it seems crystal clear and miraculous.

One of my children has been playing a computer game called “Uncharted 2”. In it an adventurer/thief navigates an exotic and dangerous world searching for lost treasure from Marco Polo. I’m amazed at the skill of the programmers in this game. At any moment the player seems to be able to express complete freedom, exploring, running, climbing, fighting, yet as you play the game you realize that the developers have you progressing along a well thought through path towards a very specific destination. Your freedom appears unlimited yet because the game designers have mastery over this universe they are very subtly leading and guiding along the way. As I watch the game unfold I begin to imagine how God works through seeming chaos, chance and human agency while also moving towards purpose and fulfillment.

The reason the recovery community asserts that expectations are preconceived resentments is because they want us to recognize our self-serving biases which are in fact self-defeating. If this is true of our expectation based judgments towards each other, how much more is it true of our evaluation of God’s rulership. When I see order and beauty coming out of seeming chaos in nature, when I see glory and joy coming out of seeming lostness in Biblical stories, when I see how even human world sub-creators can engineer this into computer games, it helps me believe that God’s providence may also be true and good in the chaos and confusion of my own unfolding story.

Last week, I watched every episode of Conan O’Brien’s The Tonight Show, all of David Letterman’s monologues, two full episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and various viral bits from other shows. But the thing is: I never watch late night talk shows except for bits I find online. So why did I watch? Why was I drawn into all the drama of the NBC late night debacle?

I’ve been trying to answer that for myself.  I read an entry on NPR’s Monkey See blog where writer Linda Holmes put the matter well: “These are late-night shows that most people don’t watch; it’s the difference between two relatively similar hosts doing relatively similar things, neither of whom has been setting the world on fire lately, so … who cares?”

Great question. Reading through the possible draws that Holmes identified (we all relate to inner-office tensions, we love a common villain, etc.), I found that none of them really seemed to be what truly resonated with me. And it took me until this morning to put my finger on why I cared. Without being too dramatic, I think it boiled down to my innate desire for justice. Someone was being wronged, an underdog was fighting for his life, and I wanted the wrongs righted. I wanted to see “good” prevail. Could this red-haired David take on the Goliath network oppressing him?

Of course, there are greater injustices in the world (and in our neighborhoods). However, this was a pursuit for justice, a quest for fair judgment that was safe and far less uncomfortable than watching news footage from Haiti or fighting modern slavery. Just like why I love underdog sports movies and action movies, I want justice done, I want the little guy to win and I long for justice—but self-tellingly in a safe, tidy way.

How about you? Did you get sucked into NBC’s late-night skirmish? If so, what drew you in?

Like many music geeks, I spent the idle moments of the last month or so ranking and re-ranking my favorite music that came out this year. A lot of factors can make an album stand out for me—music serves a lot of functions in my life. It’s a soundtrack for bus rides and reading, writing and grading sessions and cooking and internet surfing and, well you know. It’s also how I serve my church leading worship and an important part of how I connect to God. It’s the only arts culture I really keep up with, I don’t see a lot of movies or read many novels.  The music that I appreciate for these various purposes is often pretty different, and I think that’s ok.  Two albums that I liked this year as part of my indie music soundtrack, though, also made me think about what it means to be Christian, which is a lot for one album to do. I thought I’d tell you about them.

The first is The Life of the World to Come by The Mountain Goats. I’ve heard a few of this band’s previous albums, and detected some references to obscure bible stories and passages.  In this newest album, lead singer and songwriter John Darnielle makes his engagements with the bible explicit. Each track is named with a bible verse. Some songs have the words of the verse in them, some are meditations on the story or belief the verse represents. Some would fit on a CCM album, others in any low-fi indie pop mix.

The songs I liked best are the ones where I had to look up the verse and figure out what it had to do with the song. Many of the songs gave me a new perspective on the parts of the bible they responded too.  This album approaches the bible with respect and freshness at the same time, and the songs have a raw emotion in the vocal performance and acoustic instrumentation that make the stories feel more immediate and contemporary. A great example is “Genesis 30:3” which seems like a typical pained love song, until you look up the passage and discover it’s about Jacob and Rachel’s infertility.  I might add “Ezekiel 7 and the Perfect Efficacy of Grace” to my advent playlist in the future, it ends the album on an eschatological tone.

The second has gotten more press: David Bazan’s Curse Your Branches.  I don’t think I would sing one of these songs in church, but it nonetheless made me think about faith quite a bit. I’ve paid some attention to David Bazan since my days at Calvin College, which was a frequent tour stop for his band Pedro the Lion. His music has always had Christian themes, but with a rougher edge than you might find on your local Christian radio station.  Bazan now calls himself agnostic and some of his disillusionment may come from his rocky relationship with Christian fans. This album witnesses many of his struggles in life and with faith.

Though interviews indicate that Bazan himself does not consider it a Christian work, it does resonate with some of the parts of the bible you won’t find on an inspirational poster, like the Psalms of Lament and Ecclesiastes or Job. In fact, the last song on the album “In Stitches” references Job and suggests Bazan’s inability to leave God despite his anger.

David Dark’s comment in a fascinating review helped me reconsider the biblical tradition. Dark said, “If we are referring to the deep strains of complaint and prayers and tirades against conceptions of God in the Bible—yes, then in that way he’s in your Christian tradition. But I disagree that he’s an advocate for the biblical.” In this way, Bazan’s album breaks my heart and makes me see the bible in a new light. Not bad for music.

The Vatican doesn’t think much of Avatar. And frankly neither do I.

When the film opened in Italy, the Vatican offered a review.  A Philadelphia Daily News columnist covering the release wrote:

The Vatican newspaper and radio station are criticizing James Cameron’s billion-dollar 3-D blockbuster for flirting with the idea that worship of nature can replace religion – a notion that the pope has warned against. They call the movie a simplistic and sappy tale, despite its awe-inspiring special effects.

There are only a few really big ideas of what the world’s all about. One God, no God, many gods, and variations therein. North America has historically been dominated by monotheism and the great questions of divine presence (or lack of it), but this story has fallen out of favor in our culture.

Rather, as surprisingly Christian and theologically reflective piece by Russ Douthat in the New York Times points out, Hollywood’s themes are increasingly old-school pantheistic paganism. From Star Wars to Pocahontas to Avatar’s “All Mother” force, the themes reflect an ancient worldview of divinity in all things and harmony in the cycle of life/death.

I hesitate to say this change is a loss for Christianity, since that would assume that the movies ever did reflect a truly Christian worldview (more likely Hollywood has been spewing a jumble of vaguely monotheistic bits that generally suggests God likes us and all, but we’re mostly on our own, so let’s stick together). Rather, I’d suggest the diversity of stories gives us a chance to more clearly articulate what is and is not the Christian story, much as Douthat has done.

Clearly, Avatar is glorious eye candy. It’s a spectacular visual experience second to none, and groundbeaking in it’s 3D techniques. It deserves many technical awards. But what finally soured my opinion of Avatar was the story itself, filled with stereotypes, cliches, and re-hashed film conventions.  It was Pocahontas & Ferngully rolled up with action sequences from Aliens. When the visual technique wore thin, I was checking my watch and waiting for it to be over. Once again, it seems narrative is everything.

So did you see paganism in Avatar? What other big big stories do you see in which films? Is the diversity of religious worldview in Hollywood films a loss for Christians or a chance to set our story apart?

(Editor’s note: We’ve had several of our contributors write about Avatar.  The links to the other posts are here and here.)

A while back, I read about an interesting experiment on PhilCooke.com.

Worried about the real motivation of TV evangelists, Mary Hutchinson, a veteran in direct mail and fundraising, tested several TV ministries by sending them $20 and a letter asking how to accept Christ.

“After 45 days, I had heard from more than 95% of them,” she wrote to Cooke. “But sadly, less than 25% addressed my question about salvation in a direct, easy to understand manner. If we are really about evangelism, how could this be?”

Reading about Hutchinson’s experiment reminded me of my own exercise this fall: watching 3 hours of primetime programming a night on Trinity Broadcasting Network for a full week. I wanted to get a first-person understanding of what TBN’s all about. Like Hutchinson, I certainly witnessed that money is indeed important to the several TV evangelists who’d supplement their televised sermons with hard sales pitches for their books, CDs, or DVDs. Hey, I understand needing to raise funds and wanting to get your message out, but these sales pitches were often just the tip of the iceberg when it came to mixing money and ministry.

While I’ve long heard claims of prosperity gospel teaching on TBN, I saw it confirmed in my week of watching. Many pastors paying to air their programs on TBN taught that God provides blessings—in the form of material and money—to those he favors.

One pastor on Benny Hinn’s program suggested I’d get a special “financial anointing” if I bought a specific Bible he’d printed. Joel Osteen disputed claims that he’s a prosperity minister—but declared he also isn’t a “poverty minister.” (I think Paul was one of those. And Jesus, too.) Other shows, like Creating Your World with Dr. Mark Chironna, weren’t clearly about seeking riches, but instead focused on using faith to be successful—sort of a Bible-based motivational self-help speech.

What I found most troubling was the message that God would look more favorably on me—and maybe love me more?—if I did certain things. On an episode of Behind the Scenes, TBN co-founder Paul Crouch led a study of John 15:1-10. He said that unanswered prayers are a result of not bearing fruit for the Lord. “I have an easy way for you to be a fruit bearer,” he said. “Pick up your phone” and give to TBN. His wife, Jan, added that God “will meet every need you have.” In other words: God is not answering your prayers because you need to do something. And that something is donating to TBN.

I heard this message at the wrong time. During my week of TBN watching, I was coincidentally going through a tough time of personal loss—a time where it was clear that weeks of desperate prayers had not been answered the way I wanted. And so, hearing it suggested that my prayers would be answered if I’d only given money to TBN, or done anything, burnt deep. My prayers go unanswered because I haven’t done enough for God? God will not bless me if I don’t pray enough, give enough or do enough?

That’s not the God I know. In fact, doesn’t this sound a lot like the argument that suffering and blessing fall differently on the righteous and unrighteous made by Job’s misguided friends?

One of the tough parts of my TBN watching was knowing what to believe out of the mouths of these fellow Christians. I was getting a lot of information and interpretation, but could I trust the source?  After all, when a host equates her excitement for the second coming with her excitement for DVD she was selling, I can’t help but question authenticity and sincerity. And so, I forced myself to “test everything” (1 Thess. 5:21) as I watched. I worry some TBN viewers are not as discerning.

I am happy to report, though, that my fifteen hour TBN experiment ended on a good note. On an episode of Praise the Lord, Paul Jr. started the show by saying, self-knowingly, “Tonight, I’m not offering any CDs or DVDs, but just talking about a man, Christ Jesus.”

Before one fateful week this fall, I’d never watched a minute of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). All I knew was what I’d read, heard or glimpsed while channel surfing—headlines about mixing money and ministry, a reputation for being cheesy, a talk-show set with golden thrones, and some woman with big pink hair.

I was intrigued by the network, though, when I read that according to Nielsen ratings, TBN is the most watched religious channel in the U.S. (it also reaches 74 other nations). The 36-year-old ministry claims to serve an average of five million households every week during prime time. Well, make that five million and one, at least for one November week when challenged myself with a Julie/Julia-type experiment to watch three full hours of primetime TBN programming for 5 straight nights.

A snapshot of my week: I laughed aloud at something cheesy and unintentionally funny 10 minutes into my first hour of watching. On night two, I spotted the pink hair. By night three my wife decided I was officially crazy because I wasn’t giving up this experiment. She’d often walk by me on the couch and shake her head. On night four, I paused the DVR to run upstairs. When I came down, my wife was watching TBN on her own—and without being forced by any silly dedication to an experiment.

Yes, I was happy my week of forced viewing was over when I completed those 15 hours on Friday night. I’d seen some cheesy stuff. I’d listened to pastors who certainly mixed money and ministry.  But I’ll admit that I was pleasantly surprised by some programs. I liked Precious Memories with Bill Gaither (Tuesdays, 9:30/8:30c), which aired a Johnny Cash documentary, and Kingdom Connection (Mondays, 9/8c), featuring sermons of Jentezen Franklin, a talented storyteller. I enjoyed Ancient Secrets of the Bible (Wednesdays, 9/8c)—specifically, an episode about the alleged 1917 Virgin Mary appearances in Fatima.

It became clear very early on to me that while most of TBN primetime is pay-to-play, the network’s two self-produced shows, Behind the Scenes and Praise the Lord, showcase what can work best on TBN. Praise the Lord, a variety program of music and interviews, featured thoughtful guests with admirable stories and Behind the Scenes gives viewers a background look at the network with interviews of those involved.

What these two shows had in common was simply telling the stories of God’s people. On Behind the Scenes, Paul Crouch, Jr. (subbing for his father), conducted two inspiring interviews: One with an 82-year-old woman who parachuted out of a plane to raise awareness (and money) for a TBN affiliate, the other with a former Muslim (now Christian) who discussed evangelism in an intelligent, respectful way. Moments like this are the true heart of TBN—a passion to share Christ with the world.

Do you watch TBN? Why or why not? What shows do you like? What have you found there that troubles you or supports your faith?