In addition, the local chief of the homicide unit stated that: “It has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with his anger and frustration, apparently. . . .The wife of the defendant has indicated it was his intent to kill (Jessica’s) father. We’re still investigating motive, but the family says it’s very clear that the motive was not religion.”

While it is true that part of the step-father’s controlling behavior did include trying to force his step-daughter to wear a head-scarf, Geller goes far beyond what is reasonable by claiming that there is “overwhelming evidence” that it was an honor killing.

Voices like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are very dangerous, particular for Christians and conservatives–people who are prone to having a very low view of Muslims.

First, grossly, negligently, and cruelly exaggerating evidence in order to call a murder an “honor killing” distracts from the very real and horrible reality of honor killings, abuses, and misogyny done in the name of Islam.

Second, these exaggerations from influential bloggers fuel racism, hatred, and xenophobia. If you have any doubt about these, read some of the comments they receive on their sites.

Third, these voices are quite popular among Christians.

If we want to have a chance at ministering to our Islamic neighbors, sharing the Gospel with them, meeting their needs, and loving them as ourselves, we have to treat them with respect. We can begin respecting them by reading, sharing, and supporting commentators and bloggers who speak truthfully and in love.

Dead Can Dance

The duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry has often been lumped in with the “goth” scene, but their music transcends such easy classification. Though they began as a Joy Division-esque post-punk outfit in the early 80s, their discography saw them weaving medieval, renaissance, and neo-classical sounds together with sounds and instrumentation from Asia, Africa, and South America. And at the core of their enigmatic music, there were the voices: Gerrard’s heavenly, operatic vocals and Perry’s earthy baritone. The duo parted ways after 1996′s Spiritchaser: both members went on to solo careers, and Gerrard gained further attention thanks to her numerous soundtrack contributions, including The Insider, Gladiator, The Passion of the Christ (though it was later withdrawn), and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The duo announced last year that they’d be releasing a new album in 2012, as well as embarking on a world tour. In preparation for that, they’ve been releasing EPs of material culled from various concerts over the years. The third EP is now available on Dead Can Dance’s website, and features an especially gorgeous rendition of the traditional Irish ballad “The Wind That Shakes the Barley”.

If you want to hear more of the duo’s music, numerous compilations have been released. I’m partial to Dead Can Dance (1981–1998), which features four discs (three CDs and one concert DVD) of material from throughout their career. If that’s a bit too daunting, then Wake provides a nice two-disc overview of the band’s career.

The Mary Onettes

I’ve mentioned The Mary Onettes in passing in some previous “Grace Notes” entries, but never written about them specifically. Given that they’re set to release a new EP later this month, I thought now would be a good time to correct that oversight. The Mary Onettes rose to acclaim a couple of years ago with a slew of EPs and albums that found the quartet harnessing every good and golden sound from 80′s new wave, synth-pop, and post-punk (e.g., yearning vocals, orchestral synths, chiming guitars, mopey melodies). Sure, The Mary Onettes’ influences were pretty obvious — e.g., The Cure, New Order, The Jesus & Mary Chain, A-Ha, Echo & The Bunneymen — but the quartet so fully embodied their influences that their decades-old aesthetic ended up sounding new and exciting all over again. Their newest single, “Love’s Taking Strange Ways”, finds the band muting the 80′s influence somewhat, and one can hear some slight influences from producer Dan Lissvik (formerly of the acclaimed “Balearic House” outfit Studio).

If this piques your curiosity, then be sure to check out some of their older material, such as this Soundcloud set.

Saint Etienne

The term “guilty pleasure” is often used to explain away those CDs, movies, books, etc., that would normally bring us shame and derision if we ever claimed to enjoy them outright. And at first blush, Saint Etienne would seem to be prime “guilty pleasure” material with their dance club-friendly tunes. But with Saint Etienne, the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. From their exquisite melodies and retro arrangements to the avant-garde flourishes that pop up throughout their albums, from Sarah Cracknell’s lovely voice (my friends and I had a term for her kind of voice: “phone book voice”, as in, “I’d buy an album of her just singing through the phone book”) to their lyrics touching on middle-class malaise and existential ennui, Saint Etienne’s music is pure pop music on a whole ‘nother level. They have a new album, their first in seven years, coming out later this year, and the first single (“Tonight”), can be heard below.

For a good introduction to Saint Etienne, track down a copy of Smash the System: Singles and More. The compilation highlights the group’s numerous singles, including their break-out hit, a dance-house cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”.

The Superbowl is upon us. For your pastor and the staff, that means the headache of trying to figure out how to keep all your church family happy without looking like sell-outs concerning the importance of the local church gathering.  Most churches have some sort of regularly scheduled service on Sunday nights, it might be a preaching service, some kind of discipleship or prayer service, or perhaps community groups. Something in the regular life of the church is going to conflict with the Superbowl this Sunday. What ought the church to do?

It may seem that this Sunday’s game is of mega-importance, it is the “Super” Bowl after all, but really it is a fixture of American pop culture. It has gotten so big that advertisers can’t wait to air their multi-million dollar commercials, so they are ‘pre-releasing’ them on the internet to get more bang for their buck. (Seinfeld! Ferris Bueller! Woohoo!) The Super Bowl is a pretty big, multi-billion dollar entertainment extravaganza. How can a Sunday night church service hope to compete with such a juggernaut? And should it even try?

How should the church handle this? Isn’t it true that sports in the United States have become an idol for many people, even Christians? Isn’t it true that people invest way too much of their identity in the success and failure of their favorite team? If this is the case, perhaps the church shouldn’t bow to this Baal, and they should have their regular service and ignore the hype. After all, there are those who do not care about football. There is an 80% chance that the guy who does not care is from Canada, but still there are those people at church.*

And yet, the church doesn’t want to seem cold to the hobbies of its members. After all, some enjoy football in a non-idolatrous way. Football is not a sin. It can build up the positive themes of team work, camaraderie, and teaches the importance of repetitive and difficult practice. Plus, there is the fact that if the church steam rolls ahead without a thought, those who love football are going to be absent. Should the church just ignore those folks and move on? Or should the pastor talk to them to see if their attitude about football is wrong? The church could avoid this awkwardness altogether by simply cancelling the Sunday night service and letting people do as they wish. But what message does that send?

Another way churches deal with the Super Bowl is to completely embrace it. They recognize it is an important part of the culture and schedule a party around it. They make it a big deal and invite friends from the community. Sometimes, a half-time devotion is given. In it, the person usually makes note of the fact that who wins the Super Bowl is not of great importance in comparison to one’s relationship to Christ. Everybody is happy! Well, except the folks that like the Budweiser commercials. Usually some guy is designated the “remote guy” and his job is to fast-forward through all the GoDaddy commercials and other such risque advertisements.

I trust that your church loves Christ, His Word, and is jealous for His glory. We don’t want anything to overshadow him, and frankly the attention the Super Bowl gets makes us a little jealous because Jesus deserves as much and more.  But yet, we do not want to be sticks in the mud at worst, or miss an opportunity to rub elbows in a fun way with the community at best. Every church has to navigate between sending the wrong signal about the importance of the teaching that happens at the Sunday night service, and the great desire to be the type of church that folks want to be a part of.

So here is the real answer, and it so happens that this is also a great question: Why couldn’t the NFL had made this easy for us and called it “Super Bowl Saturday”?

________________

*I’m kidding. I realize that the percentage of non-Canadians who don’t care for the Super Bowl is higher than 20%. I made that stat up. It is probably closer to 28%.

Cultural Vegetable of the Week: The Age of Innocence (1920)
Vegetable Equivalent: Iceberg lettuce
Nutritional Value: An example of how “progressive” thought hides its own reactionary impulses
Recommended Serving Size: Read slowly and steadily over a month; garnish with Martin Scorsese’s workmanlike adaptation if desired

Edith Wharton wrote The Age of Innocence in 1920, but she set the novel fifty years earlier. Wharton traffics in the style of Henry James more than Theodore Dreiser, but this novel’s prose is brisk and lean in a way that James’s rarely was, if ever. Wharton often turned her gaze toward the New York social elite from whence she sprang, and The Age of Innocence is about a definitive moment in that set’s evolution. The 1870 setting suits Wharton because her literary roots are as firmly planted in the soil of sentimentalism as they are realism. No one will mistake this book for McTeague. In the novel’s protagonist, Newland Archer, we get a synecdochal protagonist for the privileged upper class, a man who feels himself at once superior to, and barred from what he wants by, social mores. The novel’s tone is thoroughly ironic, as Archer continually misreads as progressive the very traits that consign him to the status quo.

The novel satirizes not just its characters but their entire social scene. Wharton’s characters spend countless hours in evening wear attending operas or social engagements hosted by New York’s most prominent families. At one of these early operas, Wharton takes the time to comment on the performance:

She sang, of course, “M’ama!” and not “he loves me,” since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

Just who set such “an unalterable and unquestioned law” in place remains a mystery. A labyrinthine and arbitrary code is all that remains.

Archer is intelligent enough to recognize the staged quality of each of these affairs. He has just become engaged to the most beautiful girl in his set, Mae Welland, who for Archer represents the innocent woman in the novel’s titular age. Archer’s problem is that he is both attracted to and repelled by Mae’s innocence.

[W]hen he had gone the brief round of her he returned discouraged by the thought that all this frankness and innocence were only an artificial product. Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.

This passage establishes the novel’s chief tensions. In terms of plot, Archer finds himself more drawn to Mae’s world-wearied cousin, the already married Countess Olenska, than his own fiancée. In terms of form, the passage juxtaposes terse insights with longer, more complex sentences. In terms of the novel’s themes, Archer realizes how arbitrary and highly constructed the seemingly “natural” rules of his society are.

Archer makes a characteristic mistake in attributing Mae’s constructed purity to the women in her life. Archer would like to imagine that men like him would handle the question of feminine propriety differently. Though Mae’s father is alive, it is her aunt, Mrs. Manson Mingott, who holds the purse strings and real power in the Welland family. But Archer is far too modest. It is the behavior of he and his cohorts that maintains the social structure necessary for such “factitious purity.” Archer’s peers are philandering husbands, the crooked banker Julius Beaufort and the social commentator Lawrence Lefferts. While despising the way these men duplicitously deal with their wives, Archer closely resembles them in his desire for two lives, a superficial one that will satisfy high society and a clandestine one where he can find a woman with thoughts of her own. The passage’s central irony is that Archer knows and resents what he is supposed to want yet cannot see his desire for the tainted Olenska as similarly affected by societal forces. Mae is not the simpleton Archer imagines, and an open relationship with Olenska would not bring Archer the happiness he thinks it would.

The novel closes at the dawn of the 20th century with a solitary Archer walking back towards his hotel room. In the intervening time, he has become a dinosaur. The social mores that still consume his thoughts have long been forgotten by a new generation, particularly his own children. He once thought himself progressive; he is now unescapedly passé. He too was guilty of a factitious purity, one that manifested itself as an ironically innocent view of transgression.

Branding strategy is all about precise target definition with custom messaging developed to reach that particular group of people. It works. That’s why most brands, companies, and organizations do it. But there is a danger in becoming ultra-focused on the specific preferences of the target while disregarding the preferences of the market at large.

Case in point: Burger King.

Seth Stevenson’s article at Slate details Burger King’s use of a narrowly targeted campaign to its “‘superfans’ — meaning young dudes who eat fast food on a near daily basis.” Focusing upon this smaller target, Burger King employed the creative services of agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky to produce the creepy, plastic mask-wearing King and — according to Stevenson — other “campaigns that valued provocation above substance and casual cruelty above inclusiveness.”

Ouch. But double ouch for Burger King, for sales have dropped. Stevenson wonders “if actively ignoring, and even offending, every other demographic category in America might be unwise for a nationwide brand that could potentially find solid customers among women, children, and men who don’t wear Ed Hardy T-shirts.”

This has me wondering about Christian-based messaging that is intended for our target but is seen by the market at large. Are we like Burger King, targeting our Christian “superfans” without regard for others who hear our message? With better messaging, we could potentially attract Christ followers among those who don’t wear WWJD gear.

Scriptures tell us there will always be opposition to the grace of God found in Christ Jesus. No matter how we communicate, some will be offended by the Gospel.

I’m not suggesting we water down the Gospel or shape every church event for newcomers. I am proposing, however, that Christians should be aware that our message reaches more than our superfan base, and we could be more mindful of the argot, tone, and message we use. Fellow CaPC writer Alan Noble says it well in his column this week:

“If Christians (myself very much included) would consistently and seriously pursue adopting habits of speech that befit our calling, I am convinced that we would honor God before the world, win over enemies with our love and reasonableness, and divert time away from unprofitable debates and controversies so that we might devote ourselves more to loving our neighbor and fulfilling the Great Commission.”

Scriptures teach us to “let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6) and to “let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

By the way, Burger King has switched ad agencies. They learned the hard way that targeting a message to your superfans doesn’t mean that they are the only ones listening.

Lana Del Rey, aka Lizzy Grant, may have been the most talked-about music story in 2011. That is, outside another infamous young singer who fired up debate over ethics and music earlier in the year. And yes, I’m talking about Rebecca Black.

The two don’t often get put in the same sentence, but in my mind there is a real and serious connection going on between the two. While Rebecca Black mostly just gave a lot of people a lot to laugh about, I took her role in our culture pretty seriously back in August when I wrote an article insisting that were we in some way partially responsible for her. After all, we are the ones who have the consumed cultural products that have somehow encouraged Rebecca Black, her parents, and the Ark Music Factory to believe she could succeed.

In some ways, I could understand the outcry over Black though. After all, “Friday” is absolutely hysterical. But Lana Del Rey? Did people have good reasons to be offended by the fact that Lana Del Rey wasn’t as “indie” as they had thought? If it wasn’t for Rebecca Black, would people have given any thought to the fact that Lana Del Rey wasn’t the singer’s real name and that she may or may not have gotten lip surgery and that she may or may not have been “engineered” by producers and agents to trick hipsters?

It’s as if, all of a sudden, we have become hyper-aware of how the music we listen to was made — as if we have become concerned that it had been made by underpaid workers in an assembly line in a Chinese factory. Don’t get me wrong: I think this new sense of awareness is something we should be thanking the “Friday” and Ark Music Factory incident for. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves either — it’s not like Lana Del Rey is any different than most other artists out there, whether they consider themselves “indie” or “mainstream.”

Marketing, branding, image, and production are not just afterthoughts in our musical culture — they are the bread and butter and they always have been. What would “Like a Rolling Stone” have been outside of the hippie movement? What would “Smells Like Teen Spirit” be without the 90s grunge movement it was part of? A band or artist doesn’t need to be signed to Interscope Records to care about stuff like what kind of clothes they wear, how long their beards are, and where their political/spiritual beliefs fall. That is why you won’t read many music reviews that talk a lot about music theory or technical performance skills.

The simple truth is that songs cannot simply be removed from their cultural context as if they are some kind of organism on a Petri dish in a science lab. Nor should we want them to be.

If you have a story to tell, videogames might not be the best medium for you. I essentially agree with Will Wright (lead designer of Sim City and many other successful games) who says, ”Games are not the right medium to tell stories . . . video games are more about story possibilities.” Before you list your the top 5 story-driven games that changed your life, think for a moment about what it is that you like about those particular games and what those games ask you to do.

When we sit down to watch a movie–we expect to be passive, when we sit down to game, we expect to participate in the action. We expect that what we do “in game” is going to matter. We like to play games because they engage us in ways that other media can’t. That does’t make games better or worse than books or movies, it just makes them different and I think the best games emphasize this.

Consider Bioshock, one of the greatest narrative-heavy games in recent memory. What makes playing Bioshock a memorable experience? It is not so much Andrew Ryan’s monologues or Atlas’ radio messages so much as it is a combination of those elements and your own experience of the world being spun by them. The “story” of Bioshock exists somewhere in between the expositional narrative being laid down by Ken Levine and company and your unique participation in it. Andrew Ryan is undoubtedely one of the great characters ever envisioned in a game. However, were it not for the hours spent defending ourselves from crazed splicers swooping down on us from the ceiling, learning how to best handle each Big Daddy, and determining what to do with the little sisters–Rapture would not come alive to us. The contrast between Ryan’s vision for Rapture and it’s actual state might be seen but it would not be experienced.

In fact, what makes Bioshock‘s story particularly memorable is that the game’s narrative breathed new life into the idea of the silent protagonist. Bioshock asks us to do a lot of seemingly mindless shooting but in the game’s climax–all that mindless shooting  makes sense. So many games require mindless shooting that it is all too easy to take such actions for granted–Bioshock highlights this and gives such actions weight and consequence.

On the whole, Bioshock isn’t particularly dynamic in terms of player choices. There are really only two: either save or harvest the little sisters. And yet everyone who plays the game will have a markedly different experience in the world depending not just on how they interacted with the Little Sisters but based on every move, bullet, and plasmid. Their experience will be colored by every sign they stop to read, every corner into which they wander looking for supplies, and every window out of which they look to take in their surroundings. Bioshock is a special game because of the tremendous detail devoted to each of these elements such that most everything the player does contributes to bringing Rapture to life and making the player feel like an essential part of that world.

So if a game is going to attempt to tell a story, it must do so in a way that significantly involves the player in its telling. This is why most game stories are terrible–because the mechanics (namely what you spend most of your time doing in game) do not add anything to the story itself–they are mere tack-ons or fillers to transition us from one piece of expositional narrative to another.

When Will Wright says that “games are not the right medium to tell stories” and that games are more about “story possibilities,” I think the Sim City creator highlights what makes games special. The best games give us a sense that we are making our own story and our place in that story is absolutely essential. Games engage us most when we assume a key role in that story’s telling.

A running theme in my column last year was the various ways in which the church has wrongly adopted vicious and self-interested discourses and rhetoric which are so popular in our country. Charity is seen as people-pleasing or being “PC.” Complex issues are reduced to simplistic caricatures and fiercely defended. Opponents are mocked. Giving offense is a badge of honor. And opposing perspectives are summarily dismissed.

I’d like to add another item to this list of ungodly conceptions about how Christians should speak:  Our duty is to tell the Truth and share the Gospel, and nothing else. So, we should not be concerned with what people think about us.

To help clarify what I want to talk about, here are a few variations of this belief:

If you care what people think about you, you’re being pragmatic and will probably compromise your faith.

We’re told the world will hate us, so there is no sense in being concerned about how others perceive us, especially the ungodly.

Some Christians have been so brainwashed by “political correctness”  that they are worried about hurting people’s feelings rather than telling the Truth.

We are to be God-pleasers, not people-pleasers.

A few weeks ago, I was shocked to come across a passage in Romans that I believe radically challenges this view of how we ought to interact with people:

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

(Romans 12:16-18 ESV)

I had a number of reactions to this passage.

First, how antithetical this is to our tendency towards arrogance and disregard for others, particularly online. Truly, how often do we consider whether or not our words will promote harmony? Our culture delights in and rewards those who spread controversy, but do we? Should we? There is currently an entire sub-culture in Christianity that subsists on criticizing and stirring up controversies, all under the name of “discernment.” At Christ and Pop Culture we try to ensure that we discuss issues that we believe are important to and for our readers, but I’m sure we’ve also fallen at times to the temptation of spreading controversy over promoting harmony.

Second, note Paul’s warning about repaying evil here. Perhaps you don’t feel that you “repay evil for evil,” but it is quite common for Christians to justify their political party or politician or a mocking portrayal of an opponent by saying, “Well, the Other Side does this all the time.” Isn’t this the kind of logic that Paul commands us to reject?

Third, what struck me most about this passage is the command to “give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” Not only does Paul command us to spend time considering how others will evaluate our actions, but he even calls us to act on their evaluations, to do what will be “honorable in the sight of all.” So, although we should not be seeking the approval of men, we ought to do what is good or honorable in the opinion of all, when possible. I think that this idea has many implications for how we speak and act in the world. We might ask ourselves:

Can I tell the truth in this circumstance without offending this person, or is there a less offensive way to say this?

Can I speak out against this political ideology so winsomely that my opponents will admit that my actions are honorable?

Can I correct this brother or sister so that all people see my love for them?

Can I share the Gospel to this person so that they and other unbelievers agree that my methods are good and honorable?

So often, we allow the rightness of our cause (or the perceived rightness, as is all-too-often the case) to justify all kinds of arrogance and disregard for our neighbors, but Paul calls us to use actions and words that befit the rightness of our cause.

If Christians (myself very much included) would consistently and seriously pursue adopting habits of speech that befit our calling, I am convinced that we would honor God before the world, win over enemies with our love and reasonableness, and divert time away from unprofitable debates and controversies so that we might devote ourselves more to loving our neighbor and fulfilling the Great Commission.

Naming a child is perhaps one of the most personal and one of the most challenging decisions that parents face. There are a number of factors to consider—tradition and novelty, spelling and pronunciation, familial and ethnic heritage, relationship to surname and sibling names, and meanings. Then there is the reality that while name changes are possible, most of us keep our first names for our entire lives, making an offspring’s nomenclature an important legacy.

We see this kind of naming throughout the Bible, where angelic visitors dictate the names of important figures like John (“God is gracious”) the Baptist and Jesus (“Yahweh is salvation”) himself. Consider, for instance, the names of Hosea’s children, a son called Jezreel after a valley known for its bloodshed and a daughter Lo-ruhamah to mean “the Unloved.” While most parents I know don’t face the pressure of God dictating their children’s names to make theological points, it’s clear that the practice of naming carries tremendous responsibility.

For much of U.S. history, naming trends remained fairly mainstream, with a small pool of names serving the vast majority of families. Yet increasing diversity, greater desire for uniqueness, and more exposure (in the digital age) to naming fashions means an ever-expanding list of possibilities. It might seem like an anything-goes era, but governments throughout the world still regulate (to varying extents) the choices allotted to parents. Take, for instance, the New Jersey couple who lost custody of their son, named Adolf Hitler. Or note that in Massachusetts, names are limited to forty characters (much less generous than New Zealand’s one hundred), all of which must be letters in the English alphabet.

All of these regulations serve as reminders that children are not solely the property of their parents. They belong to their parents, the state, themselves, and God. Finding a name that pleases all of those parties can apparently be quite tricky, but the effects of a naming decisions—whether orthodox or eccentric—can last a lifetime.

I do not believe that it is the job of the church to tell someone how to vote. That’s too easy, and it is terrible discipleship. The goal of the church is to make people good disciples of Jesus Christ, and election time presents us with an opportunity to help people be better disciples by thinking through difficult choices. This primary presents us with a humdinger of an opportunity to do just that.

Think of how complicated this is for an evangelical ”moral” voter. We have in one corner Mitt Romney. He has a reputation as a bit of a RINO, and he makes himself sound conservative enough to be appealing. Also, Mitt is a Mormon. Evangelicals rightly wonder about the implications of electing a man to office from a religion they consider a cult. But then, on the other side, you have the serial adulterer Newt Gingrich. He is a smart man, and he seems to pass the conservative muster, and he’s a converted Roman Catholic. While that’s not evangelical, it is more acceptable than Mormonism. But this is the guy that left a wife dying of cancer to marry a woman who he would later cheat on for six years and leave for a third wife. What makes a man more untrustworthy, two divorces or one heresy? Do we have to choose between adultery and Mormonism?

It’s at this difficult place that people come to me and ask how I will vote. Whatever their quandary may be, they want to know how the pastor has it worked out so they might vote “correctly.” That’s not fair to me or them. It’s like going to school having barely prepared for a test, and then looking over at my paper when you get flummoxed to copy my answer. Everyone ought to have to agonize over the choices before they cast their vote. That isn’t simply for the sake of the agony, but through the process of personally prioritizing what is important to us as a human being who is a Christian, we become better disciples.

That’s why the church ought not say, “Vote for Candidate X.” I do not believe that there is always a correct choice in the voting booth. Even if we elected a born-again evangelical who could bring goodwill like Billy Graham, he might be a bad President. Jesus is not running this term, so the decision is hard.

So what ought we to expect from our church and its leadership with regard to politics? Let them be versed in the issues, and let them give their opinions with the caveats galore. When I tell someone how I will vote, I tell them why. It is normally due to prioritization  of the issues, and frankly, those will differ between even the closest brothers. And make sure you let them know that there really is no right answer. This is a fallen world, and we are a frail people. Even the President is subject to our follies.

Besides, we’re waiting for a King to appear. These Presidents are just there to maintain order until Christ returns. That is the focus of the church, to declare to others that a King is coming who will rule the world in justice and equity.

Cultural Vegetable of the Week: Inglorious Basterds (2009)
Vegetable Equivalent: The beet
Nutritional Value: A cinematic lesson in ethical causality
Recommended Serving Size: All in one sitting, preferably while drinking a glass of milk and eating apple strudel with whipping cream

 ”I’m gonna give you a little something you can’t take off.” – Lt. Aldo Raine to Col. Hans Landa

Since the new millennium began, Quentin Tarantino has been obsessed with revenge. Why? My guess is the aftermath of 9/11. The emotional dynamics of vengeance have taken international center-stage, particularly with the US’s reaction to the attack on the Twin Towers.

I’m not sure if Tarantino can explore those dynamics any better than he has in this film.

Hitler has been the basic yardstick for evil for the past sixty-plus years. The Holocaust is the crime of the 20th century. The film’s startling conclusion works not only because its characters have animus towards Hitler but because the audience does too.

In this way, Inglorious Basterds works through the ways film/art/cultural representations play an active role in defining how we live in the west. When Slavoj Žižek praises cinema as ideology at its purest, as the art form that teaches us how to desire, he is talking about films like Inglorious Basterds. We get to think through the logic of revenge using recent history’s most incendiary test case.

The film features Tarantino’s chapter-based style, with each section presenting a morality drama. We see characters presented with the choice of saving themselves and letting others die or sacrificing themselves with the possibility that such a sacrifice will still not save anybody. Every choice is loaded, and no choice comes responsibility-free.

The thing that I admire most about the film, having seen it four times now, is that it enforces moral responsibility.  Milton Friedman advocated the economic principle, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Basterds shows us there’s no such thing as a free moral choice. Ideas and actions have consequences.

I felt this most acutely in the tense tavern scene. The scene is dialogue heavy as both the Allied characters and audience keep praying for the scene to end. The camera lingers on drinks and cigarettes, on the happy faces of the Nazi officers and the anxious faces of the disguised Allied soldiers. Minute upon minute passes by, the tension mounting the longer the Nazis and Allies who are posing as Nazis drink together. Quickly, things escalate and suddenly we have a British officer and a Nazi officer pointing guns at each other’s testicles. The British officer wants to take the Nazi officer outside with him, but the Nazi officer refuses. He says that if the Allied officers are to live, they will have to kill every single Nazi soldier in the tavern, including the enlisted man who became a father five hours ago. No free lunch. The stakes are huge, Hitler and the end-of-the-war huge. There will be collateral damage. Any plan that doesn’t account for that is blatantly deceitful, not only to others but to one’s self.

To alter slightly Aldo’s above remark to Hans Landa, vengeance is the moral decision you can’t take off. That’s what Aldo’s swastika carvings are all about. The Nazi soldiers will go back home, take off their uniforms, and pretend like their war experience never existed: the Nazi scar on their forehead prevents them from making that denial. This also goes for the Basterds themselves. It’s important that everyone but Aldo and Utvich get killed in the line of duty.

Tarantino ups the ante of this revenge flick even more by setting the film in 1941 and 1942, a detail I had missed in earlier screenings. This means that while the US would have started fighting (post-Pearl Harbor), the US would not have lost a majority of its men in either Europe or Asia. The film’s ending means D-Day is unnecessary. More than that, it probably makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki unnecessary.

The film’s success is directly attributable to its willingness to engage with the ideological and aesthetic possibilities of cinema itself. War never found a better proponent than film, particularly during the aftermath of World War II (cf. Vonnegut’s ruminations on this fact in Slaughterhouse-Five). For those who think Inglorious Basterds is simply a mindless propaganda film, note that the entire concluding chapter represents/critiques that simplistic kind of (and reaction to a) film, i.e., the mindless shoot-em up that glorifies jingoism and a “nation’s pride.”

I don’t think the film is morally irresponsible or needlessly vengeful. It shows that revenge bears deadly fruit. It insists on actual guilt and actual punishment. It is not a film about moral contingency. It is a film about moral culpability.

On Tuesday, the 2011 Oscar nominees were announced, and it seems that one of the year’s pet themes is nostalgia. But if it is nostalgia we’re interested in, then we could look to a few of the other nominees for “best film”, rather than The Artist. Admittedly, I’m confused as to why this little film is being celebrated so effusively. Yes, nostalgia — by definition — feels endearing in itself, because it is seeking to alleviate a kind of homesickness. What, however, is the object of our nostalgia? Or, put another way, what makes us feel at home?

By virtue of the fact that this question matters, I’m more interested in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris than I am The Artist. Aspiring novelist Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is in love with Paris — the only problem is he has a fantastical love for 1920’s Paris, which was a magical time-gone-by in his eyes. In short, he longs for a place and time that is not his. Allen, in an endearingly dreamy display, brings Gil’s romantic imagination to life. Of course, what Gil soon finds out (I won’t ruin the details) is that over-exuberance for a time-gone-by — as if it is superior to one’s own — is folly. Our belief in what can make us feel at home can be misplaced.

A more comparable work to The Artist is Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, a wonderful film that is also nostalgic for moviemaking in its love for film preservation. Scorsese’s motion picture, which is also better crafted, has more to offer beneath the surface. Hugo, an orphan boy trying to survive and find a place and purpose for himself in the world, finds solace in the hope of his life’s narrative circumstances. He recognizes that if he is to find “home,” he must pursue the mystery that is set before him. Through little revelations, he is piecing together a story that will make sense of his life and give his identity a sense of stability. Whereas The Artist’s movie nostalgia seems primarily concerned with alluring romanticism and renown, Hugo’s movie nostalgia seems to concern itself with a childlike faith.

Yet, in the aftermath of the award nominee announcements — and its focus on film’s dealing with nostalgia — I’m all the more intrigued with, what I termed in my review, the “nostalgia for the absolute” in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. My personal pick for best film in 2011 provides countless topics for discussion, but I’m still drawn to the film’s use of dream-like memory that Jack (Sean Penn/Hunter McCracken) conjures in the aftermath of his own family tragedy. Good and bad memories from his youth function as a bridge-way on his return-path to “home.” But while Jack’s memories take him back to his youth, his nostalgia is ultimately one for the “absolute” as he tries to find the way of his mother and brother: the way of Grace.

Ultimately, The Tree of Life’s nostalgia is a forward-yearning: a memory-infused hope that makes sense of the past’s hurts and losses. It does not ask us, like Allen’s film, to be nostalgic for the now, but it does give us reason to feel presently grateful. For this reason, when it comes to this year’s Oscar nominees for best film, I’m most grateful for the strange and profound nostalgia offered in The Tree of Life and less taken with The Artist’s relative triviality.

Although I haven’t the knowledge or viewing experience to comment on the films up for consideration this year at the Oscars, after Trent Reznor’s surprise victory last year, I had high expectations going into the award season this when it came to the music. Even though Best Original Score isn’t exactly the most talked-about category, film scores deserve a lot more attention than they are often given. Before I get started, I suggest checking out the entire oscar list here. Here are the nominees that I’m concerning myself with:

Best Original Score:

The Adventures of Tin Tin – John Williams

The Artist – Ludovic Bource

Hugo – Howard Shore

Tinker Tailer Sailor Spy – Alberto Iglesias

War Horse – John Williams

Before I complain about scores that got the big snub, I’ll give you my predictions and hopes for the category. To get right to the point, I’m really hoping for a win for Ludovic Bource for his work on the The Artist. I haven’t seen the film yet, but after listening to the score and reading a lot about the film, it is, without a doubt, the most creative and beautiful use of score out of the five. Here is a film who’s very existence depends on the score that the relatively unknown French composer Ludovic Bource has crafted and the whole thing just oozes with style and that classy 1920s sound. Bource already picked up the win from the Golden Globes, but if Hugo or War Horse end up gaining any momentum for bigger Oscar categories, I could easily see the Academy awarding Howard Shore or John Williams’ more traditional-sounding scores.

But don’t think that I haven’t got my list of Academy snubs. Personally, I absolutely adored Trent Reznor’s score for 2010′s The Social Network, but was not nearly as impacted by his more recent work on Girl With The Dragon Tattoo so I’m okay with that not having made the cut. The real scores that I missed on the list are the Drive soundtrack by Cliff Martinez,  Alexandre Desplat’s Tree of Life score and both of Jonny Greenwood’s scores for We Need To Talk About Kevin and Norwegian Wood.

Jonny Greenwood is one of the strongest composers alive right now, but has been constantly snubbed by the Academy — so not a lot of surprises there. Drive, however, is a different case. Because Drive was not even shortlisted for Best Original Score, I have a feeling it was disqualified for the few songs by other artists at the beginning of the soundtrack. To me, the fact that a technicality could keep Martinez’s score from being recognized alone shows to how much the Academy is living in the dark ages. Martinez’s work on Drive is powerful and borderline revolutionary — it’s what should have been the followup to Trent Reznor’s win last year.

My feeling is that there are these incredible artists out there who are finally making their way to scoring films and giving them brilliant musical touches that traditional composers have been thus far unable to do. So many of these “traditional” scores could easily be switched around to other films — whether its the big sweeping themes of John Williams or the intense action-sequence drones by the likes of Hans Zimmer — many times it’s just a composer switching from “epic mode” to “romance mode” to “intense mode” with very little thought going into what the film is actually trying to do. Don’t get me wrong, I like these composers just as much as anyone else. But with two nods to John Williams, I can’t help feel like the Academy is stagnating.

I’m of the persuasion that the way we recognize and receive a medium like music or film is as important a cultural product as the art itself — in other words, things like the Grammy’s and the Oscar’s tell us a lot about the culture we live in. As a music fan and film score nerd, I’d hate to see the Academy go in the way of the Grammy’s and become another self-congratulatory celebration of the safe and the predictable.

A few of my personal favorites:

#thatawkwardmomentwhen you say “Goodbye!” to someone but you both walk off in the same direction.

#thatawkwardmomentwhen a really nice lady is helping you, and you say, “Thank you, sir.”

#thatawkwardmomentwhen you don’t know if you should hug someone or not.

#thatawkwardmomentwhen you pull the push door even though it’s clearly signed.

#thatawkwardmomentwhen someone is doing the dishes, and you slowly put another dish in the sink.

We live in an age of awkward; it’s almost an epidemic. Blame things like social media or texting and the inherent passivity of these acts . . . blame a culture that fosters a later-stage adulthood in accordance with changing social norms surrounding education or marriage and family . . . blame helicopter parents who coddle kids and raise them disconnected from their peers in front of television screens. Blame one, blame ‘em all, blame something else. Whatever the tipping point, a heightened sense of awkwardness is present in our interactions. We seem obsessed with “awkward.”

My sister referred to it well in a conversation as “a terrible force that breeds immaturity,” our feelings of awkwardness being rooted in a self-sustaining cycle of unsupported conjecture and personal insecurity. These feelings seem to show up at all the points where self-awareness collides with real people in a real world, people whom we often have a hard time understanding. Our insecurity butts up against a funny look received or an ill-put phrase heard, and then our imaginations run wild with the infinite possibilities of how many ways the other person might not like us. (I’m starting to suspect that this snap of neuroses occurs for both you and me at the exactly same moment, though I have yet prove it. I mean, I could just ask you about it, but that’s… awkward.)

Briefly, how should a Christian respond to an age of awkward? To be fair and complete, sometimes awkwardness can be a good thing. Discomfort with people or situations can sometimes provide us with much-needed intuitive insight and aid us in decision-making (i.e., pay attention to the red flags). Sometimes. But the vast majority of the time, awkwardness becomes an excuse and a fetter.

We often avoid dealing with difficult situations with people, putting them off because it’s too awkward. The Christian is never given an excuse to not love others, and loving others well requires emotional bravery. But too often we let awkward kill our ability to care for others. Awkward then becomes a fetter. We fear not being thought well of by others, because we know that, deep down, we’re wanting. But we almost always fail to apply the concept to everyone else — we’re all wanting. The times we braved the waters of awkwardness and realized that everyone’s in the same boat were gloriously freeing moments, but we forget them so quickly and are back to being bound by an invisible chain of awkward.

So what can we do with awkward? We can Tweet about it, accept and laugh about it, then move forward into the foray of relationships with boldness, accepting a few dings and dents and rejoicing in the victories of intimate connection with others. There can be no community without passage through awkwardness, and real community is always worth it.

Videogames’ interactive nature requires that they tell stories differently than any other medium. Of course given the medium’s short history there is no shortage of games that have tried to adopt the storytelling methods of longer standing mediums like books and movies. Before gameplay visuals reached high definition resolution, games were constantly setting aside interactivity for visual impact. This is why games like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid 2 invested so intently in their cut scenes. The result was that many games most significant narrative moments were taken out of the hands of players. This is unfortunate because what makes videogames unique is their tendency to invite the player to participate significantly in their story. We could hope that such tendencies are being phased out of videogames, but games like Uncharted 3 seem to indicate that many game developers are not yet comfortable letting games be games. This isn’t to say that cut scenes have no place in games but rather that sole reliance upon for the advance of a narrative represents neglect of videogames greatest asset–namely interactivity. This begs the question–how should games tell stories?

I won’t pretend to be intelligent or learned in game design enough to know games can best tell stories.  What I can share with you, however,  are some ways in which games are currently telling stories admirably. 2011 saw the release of number of excellent examples of smart, intuitive, and interactive stories, so in a short series of posts, I intend to highlight some examples of smart and meaningful storytelling in games.

The most obvious example of great storytelling in games from 2011 is The Binding of Isaac. While the basic premise of the story is laid out in the games opening video, it’s the world of the game that brings Isaac’s story home. The game is a loose modern retelling of the Biblical narrative of Abraham taking Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him per the Lord’s command (Genesis 22). In the game, Isaac’s deeply religious mother, who has an unholy fascination with charismatic christian television, receives a vision from the Lord telling her to sacrifice her son. Isaac discovers her plans and takes refuge in the basement of their house.

Isaac is a rogue-like, meaning the game is different every time you play it–every dungeon is randomly generated as are all the items you find as you progress. This is where Isaac’s story comes alive. The items you pick up tell the story of an abused and neglected little boy. “Brother Bobby” and “Sister Maggy” are ghost-like drones that follow you and mirror your actions doubling your abilities. Who are these drones? Perhaps Isaac isn’t the first of his family to be threatend by his mother. Find the “paddle” and Isaac will immeidately be able to run faster reminiscent of a child running from an abusive mother. When you find the “coat hanger” it lodges itself into Isaac’s head and allows him to shoot his weapon faster which happens to be his own projectile tears. If I am to survive I must pick up this coat hanger–I need an improved weapon but as I pick it up, I can’t help to consider what that coat hanger represents for Isaac.

Item pick ups are essential elements of rogue-like games and yet The Binding of Isaac manages to take this essential element and infuse it with significance.  At times, the game is deeply unsettling but this is appropriate. There is nothing pleasant about child abuse. The Binding of Isaac tells a powerful story, not by foisting cinematics or lengthy exposition onto the player but by simple letting the player explore Isaac’s basement and discover the various objects long discarded there. Isaac  respresents a stellar achievement in storytelling by taking something as simple as “powerups” and using them to shed light on the troubling world in which a young boy lives.

-If you made a lot of money and obeyed government tax law, that reflects negatively on your candidacy.

-If a gigantic company paid you money to give them advice about maneuvering in governmental circles, and that company later needed a bailout because they followed the same bad business practices everybody else was following, that reflects negatively on your candidacy.

-If you cheated on your wife–well, two of your wives–that reflects negatively on your candidacy.

-If you get angry about people questioning you for cheating on your past two wives, that reflects positively on your candidacy.

-If you think each problem is new and should be thought about in a somewhat different way each time, that reflects negatively on you.

-If you fired someone, ever, that reflects negatively on your candidacy.

-It is bad to be a successful businessperson.

-It is bad to be a career politician.

-If you were a successful businessperson who then became a successful career politician, that’s bad.

-If you are angry at the media, angry at your fellow candidates, and angry at your party leadership, that reflects so positively on you that you might just be a frontrunner.

I’ve heard it suggested recently that we are essentially made up of two things: our memories, and the predictions that our minds make on the basis of those memories. In many ways this is true of a presidential candidacy, as well. It takes on a character of its own, rooted in its history, its actions, and the collective predictions and expectations of those who vote for or against the candidate. Sometimes, like Obama, the storytelling power of a candidacy is so powerful it can’t help but fail to fully deliver. Other times, as in the case of Romney, even things that were once thought of as positive qualities are turned into negatives.

Too often we allow ourselves to be caught up in gut reactions, jerked here and there by the most recent or loudest argument.  But wisdom would suggest that we carefully consider what a person’s history tells us about them, and that we choose someone for whom doing the right thing in the critical moment is a life pattern rather than unsubstantiated rhetoric.

This week, Modern Family broadcast a controversial episode in which two-year-old character Lily drops the “f-bomb” (http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/01/18/modern-family-f-word/). The ABC sitcom airs Wednesdays at 9pm (at least in EST), but the episode raised the ire of protest groups before show-time even rolled around. Both the Parents Television Council and a student-organization called The No Cussing Club objected to the toddler’s role in the storyline. To be fair, actress Aubrey Anderson-Emmons doesn’t actually say the f-word; she says “fudge,” and only through the bleeping and visual editing in the final cut can viewers determine that her character curses.

The incident raises for me a lot of chicken-egg concerns about the relationship between the media and its audience. While it’s common to hear that examples of violence, sexuality, and foul language in the media promote similar behaviors in reality, I think it’s fair to ask what kind of audience supports programs like that in the first place. To what extent are audiences passive or active in the shaping of media, which, ultimately, must please the viewers in order to survive? As much as I don’t condone violence or foul language or a lot of the sexual content that exists in the media, I also don’t expect the media to act as my moral compass; television programs like Modern Family exist to entertain audiences and make money for networks, not to provide moral instruction. How much are shows like Modern Family influencing our culture, and how much are they mirroring it, if perhaps with better writing and more comedic fodder?

Given that the show airs at 9pm and consistently features mature storylines, it seems obvious that it’s a program intended for adults. I’m not saying that using the f-word is a good idea, that media watchdogs and viewers don’t have a right to protest, or that the narrative is in good taste. But the show isn’t called “Model Family,” it’s called Modern Family, and this episode fits with the provocative tone of the entire series. It can be an opportunity for reflection on media standards, but it can also be a chance to ponder our roles as media audiences and, for parents, as vastly more influential role models for our children and their language usage.

Last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day when we offer a gesture towards admitting to our country’s horrible history of racism and acknowledging the courage of MLK to oppose it. As nice as that is, I can’t help but think about the way many Christians still think about race and racism. Things I’ve heard, read, thought, or said in the church:

“If they want to improve their lives, they should stop being so lazy and arrogant and get to work.”

“Our government is the real problem. If we just cut these people off from the welfare they are abusing, they would be forced to do real work.”

“Their culture is immoral. It promotes promiscuity, violence, substance abuse, disrespect of authorities, and playing the victim.”

“Their problem is that they don’t stop talking about ‘Racism’ as if it’s still an issue. Racism is done. Only hillbillies are racists these days.”

“Black people are making white people racist by stereotyping all of us as racist and taking our jobs and education and school-grants. Just treat everyone equally and racism will be gone!”

In other words, the church has an incredibly serious problem, which is itself a part of a national problem of immense proportions: Many of us assume that racism and racial discrimination are no longer significant issues in our society, when in fact they are. For example:

An incredible percentage of the Black male population of the US is incarcerated.

According to one study, white men make 11% more hourly than black men, even when you take factors like education into consideration.

As if that weren’t bad enough, black unemployment is usually around twice white unemployment. Yeah, you read that right. Think 8% unemployment sounds bad? Try 16%.

Have a traditionally black name? It could be harder to find a job.

Are you a black woman? You will probably not get married, in part because many elegible black men are in jail.

Young black man in New York? You’re probably going to get stopped and frisked by the police. Try not to look suspicious. And remember to respect and trust the police.

We could go on, but you get the point. Much of contemporary racism is structural. It has to do with our school systems, the media, hiring practices, unconscious (or conscious) racism in business, racial profiling, the decline of marriage, single-parent homes, etc. Yes, there are still plenty of people who are consciously and openly bigoted, but I suspect that the majority of discrimination that a black person in the US experiences comes in the form of unacknowledged institutional racism.

I believe that the racial discrimination facing black people in the US is easily one of, if not the biggest problem in our country and our churches. I know, you want to say our biggest problem is the economic crisis, but when you consider unemployment, the wage gap, cost of incarceration, and social programs for the poor, I have to think that discrimination is also costing us a lot of money and productivity. Racial discrimination is a destructive force in our society which profoundly hurts everyone, but particularly the victims of abuse.

. . . . . . . . . .

With these concerns, it was with great excitement and joy that I received the news that John Piper was to publish a book on racism: Bloodlines: Race, Cross and the Christian.

This is the kind of high-profile exposure that we need to make the US church recognize institutional racism and take action. I was even happier when I saw that Piper began to give his book away. Unfortunately, it seems that while Bloodlines calls attention to racial inequality and the importance of racial reconciliation, it does so without accurately representing structural racism or presenting a reasonable solution.

Dr. Mark Mulder, associate professor of sociology and director of the urban studies minor at Calvin College, published a critical review of Piper’s book at Comment. He claims that Bloodlines has three major flaws. First, Piper “seems to have no sense that whites have more culpability than African Americans in this race/racism equation.” Second, Piper downplays the role of institutional racism by emphasizing personal responsibility. And third:

“[B]ecause he does not understand structural racism—Piper actively promotes the ‘miracle motif’ as the antidote to racism in the U.S. He argues that the answer to racism ‘is not government help or self-help, but the gospel of Jesus Christ’ and that ‘what is needed is a miracle.’ In essence, Piper asserts that conversion to Christianity is the only hope for the race problem. Such an attitude demonstrates an extreme obliviousness to the insidious nature of modern racism.”

Mulder concludes: “Yes, as Piper elucidates, the gospel gives powerful hope and impetus for reconciliation. However, racial justice also necessitates that Christians be committed to actively addressing the insidious structural nature of racism.”

Although I have not had the opportunity to read Bloodlines yet, if Mulder’s review is accurate, I have to agree with him that Piper’s solution ignores the reality of institutional racism. However, I think Mulder ultimately undervalues the role of the Gospel in racial reconciliation.

The Gospel does more than give “powerful hope and impetus for reconciliation”; it demands our humility, self-sacrifice, love for our neighbors, and hunger for forgiveness. I agree with Piper that the Gospel must be at the center of any attempt of racial reconciliation in the church. But I also agree with Mulder that the Gospel must motivate us towards critiquing structural racism, as opposed to only looking to change some attitude inside of us and our neighbors.

. . . . . . . . . .

I have no specific suggestions for how the church in the US ought to proceed with facing modern racism, but I do have a few general ideas:

1. Educate yourself. If we can’t acknowledge that institutional racism is real, we can’t do anything about it.

2. Begin with the Gospel, with Christ’s ultimate work of reconciliation and what it means for our neighbors. Allow that to humble you, to expose your pride and prejudices, and to embolden you to love ever more.

3. Read the thoughts of Anthony Bradley, one of my favorite voices in the PCA, on how we can love the city and minister to minorities. Bradley, I think, gives us a good place to start.

Lord willing, the church will lead society in racial reconciliation, and in so doing will reveal itself to be Christ’s disciples by loving one another. And there are some hints of it already happening.

Update 01/23/12

Just to be perfectly clear: I am grateful that Piper wrote this book and I agree with him that the Gospel must be at the heart of any attempt at racial reconciliation.

Update 01/24/12

I had this chance to read over Piper’s chapter on the structural vs personal approach to racism in the US, and I think I understand Mulder’s point a bit better. Piper clearly asserts that structural racism exists and must be addressed, however, he favors personal responsibility by devoting more time to pointing out the flaws in some failed attempts to address structural racism. So, to be clear, Mulder’s problem seems to be that Piper tries to be “fair” by giving structural and personal approaches equal time, but he ends up privileging personal activism when the emphasis ought to be on structural changes. Here’s Mulder again:

“The weight of social-science evidence consistently demonstrates that racial inequality in the U.S. has more to do structural discrimination than with personal responsibility.”

“Piper rightly asserts that Christians finding their ultimately identity in Christ would be a significant step toward reconciliation. What he gets wrong is his assumption that that would qualitatively change residential segregation, employment discrimination, and impoverished school districts.”

To my amazement and relief, our Wednesday night study was at least as full as the one before, and the discussion was lively. What was the difference? Everyone, except one person who ordered the book themselves, had bought the book electronically. That includes myself. For the first time ever, I am teaching a book study from an electronic device.

The convenience for me as a teacher is notable. I can highlight passages with a touch, and enter notes on the highlighted passage with equal ease. I can bookmark pages I want to return to with a flick of the finger. I can swap from the book we are studying to the Bible with ease. In the iPad version of the book, the author has videos embedded at the beginning of some of the chapters explaining his thoughts. That sort of thing astounds me. Imagine if you had a copy of Augustine’s “Confessions” wherein Augustine himself gave you a little intro to a few of the chapters. Mind-blowing, isn’t it?

This summer, if God wills, I will be heading to Tanzania to teach a pastor’s conference. Is it possible that my little e-reader is the only “book” I will need to bring? If I have it, I can bring an entire library without over-stuffing my suitcase. The potential there is incredible, when you think of it.

I suspect that we will begin to see more and more e-readers instead of thick Study Bibles on Sunday mornings. The only drawback to this that I have found is that it is sometimes easier to thumb through pages than it is to sort through a e-reader’s Bible directory. In book studies, it is difficult for us all to get on the “same page” when I single out a quote because the font size and read that you choose will cause the “page number” to vary. (In the future, will we still call them “page numbers”?)

I believe that this trend of using e-readers instead of books is only going to grow. Does this help the church? Yes, I believe that it does. It makes it easy to access more good literature, it will make books cheaper to own, and if book “sharing” becomes more common, that will make it even better. Also, imagine giving an e-reader to a pastor overseas. You could literally ship him an entire theological library in one device. The money you spend on the device will be far cheaper than the cost of shipping a physical library. Most of the classic works are either free or only cost a dollar.

My advice at this point is to rejoice that we have such technology, and that we should begin thinking carefully about how we as a church might take full advantage of it.

Cultural Vegetable of the Week: Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Vegetable Equivalent: An onion, mostly because it is multi-layered, but also because it might make you cry (but only from laughter)
Nutritional Value: Witnessing the birth, development, and decay of an obsession
Recommended Serving Size: As much as you can in as little time as you can, so as to mimic the breathless search at the novel’s heart

I have an obsessive relationship with knowledge. Once something is stuck in my craw, I pick at it with every sharp, pointy object I can get my hands on. Ten bloody hours later, I’ve extricated the offending mote, but at what cost? The search is often captivating, but it’s never clean.

This novel accurately captures that thrill and deflation. In fact, it encourages obsession. It’s short, so you can read it quickly. In content, it’s a kind of mystery novel, so you are tempted to figure out the puzzle that leaves the novel’s central character flummoxed.

The novel’s central character is Oedipa Maas, Californian housewife, and if the name doesn’t strike you as unnecessarily strange, then perhaps a list of the novel’s other dramatis personae and their corresponding occupations will: Wendell “Mucho” Maas (radio disc jockey), Dr. Hilarius (German psychotherapist), Mike Fallopian (advocate for the Peter Pinguid Society, an extremist group that finds the Birch Society too leftist), Ghengis Cohen (a prominent LA philatelist), and Randolph Dribbette (theater actor and director with a penchant for obscure Jacobean revenge tragedies). These and more are crammed into 180 pages, with plenty of room to spare for jokes about pop culture staples like Perry Mason and the classic radio program The Shadow as well as vocations like “used car salesman” and “psychiatrist.”

Because this novel is about the search for knowledge — whether it be of the self or the world — the names and details listed above are temptations for the reader to mimic the novel’s plot. The novel is about nothing if not about “plot,” with an equal emphasis on that word’s two meanings: 1) a story’s action and 2) conspiracy.

A brief attempt, then. Pierce Inverarity (yes, that’s his name) is dead. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. Oedipa Maas, Pierce’s former lover and current wife of KCUF radio DJ “Mucho” Maas, finds herself appointed co-executrix of Pierce’s will. While attempting said execution, Oedipa stumbles upon a mysterious organization known as Tristero and its chief manifestation: an underground postal system. Suddenly, she detects the system’s icon — a muted post horn — everywhere she looks. She follows the system’s trail from a performance of a Jacobean revenge play to a gay bar in San Francisco, from the bed of dying man who wants Oedipa to send a letter that bears the underground mail system’s stamp to the back porch of the English professor who edited the Jacobean play that started Oedipa’s journey. The novel begins with Oedipa learning of Pierce’s death and ends with the auction of Pierce’s estate. The novel’s title refers to the lot number assigned to Pierce Inverarity’s stamp collection. A philatelist’s dream, the collection contains several examples of Tristerean postage.

Oedipa has uncovered an alternative America. Beneath the veneer of mass culture (the novel’s ubiquitous television shows, rock songs, and movie clips), there lies a seemingly disparate but interconnected world of business, art, and scholarship. Like her classical namesake Oedipus, Oedipa searches for the truth. When someone finally says what she’s been afraid to admit — that the entire Tristero thing might be Pierce’s practical joke or a skein of unrelated oddities — Oedipa collapses under the weight of all the evidence she’s accumulated. We do too. The novel evokes the illuminating, exasperating, and (yes, even) boring moments of an honest to goodness search, one that is both intellectual and religious. Fittingly, we see her on the threshold of belief and in the throes of crippling doubt.

Oedipa never overtly interprets what’s happened to her. She tells her story but tries to leave its meaning implicit or simply absent. I won’t. The novel demonstrates how tempting the search for knowledge can be and how such a quest is inextricably bound up with our own mortality.