I’ve decided to take a break from regular blogging for the next few weeks.  But before then, a Friday list of some worthy Christmas movie choices near and dear to my heart…and two that should be avoided at all costs.

• A Christmas Carol starring Patrick Stewart (1999): A movie about Christmas starring Captain Picard?  What’s not to like?  More faithful to the source material, I think, than some other versions…and a lot of fun.  I particularly like the scene where he stops into church on Christmas morning.  
• An American Christmas Carol starring Henry Winkler (1979): My father’s favorite version.  Set in the United States during the Depression, it is a unique adaptation of the tale…and powerful in its own right.
• A Muppet Christmas Carol starring Michael Caine & Muppets (1992):  Just a lot of fun.  Yes, I’ve only seen it once.  But how can you not like it?

• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946):  Perhaps the ultimate in Christmas films.  A truly American take on Dickens’ masterpiece that is as heartwarming as it is epic.
• A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965):  What’s the real meaning of Christmas?  Leave it to Charlie Brown and the gang to let us know, year after year.

And then there are (at least) two Christmas specials to be avoided at all costs:

• “Merry Extraordinary Christmas” episode of Glee (2011):  With a lifeless plot and relatively empty rendition of holiday songs, one of the worst moments in Christmas history I’ve ever seen or heard.  I might be exaggerating a little, but I did feel like my soul was dying while watching this stinker.  In an homage to truly horrible TV specials of Christmas past, Glee made the very unfunny choice to be so…unfunny.  It’s on Hulu right now, and you can see it for yourself.  But I beg you: don’t.  It’s not worth it!
• The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978):  A special so bad that it gets its own Wikipedia entry.  You might think: Star Wars?  I like that.  How bad could this be?  Very bad, my friends.  Strange guest stars like Bea Arthur and Jefferson Starship, an entire segment filmed in the Wookie language, and more nonsense than you can shake a stick at.  My soul actually did die at some point during my viewing of this montrosity.  Take a look, and shudder:

Merry Christmas, friends!  I may be posting a little here and there over the next two weeks, but won’t be returning to my regular schedule until the new year.

I read an article from Christianity Today yesterday that reminded me of a few things about our world.  The brief piece highlights the new documentary The Road We Know, a film about the AIDS crisis in Botswana.  The infection rate there is the second highest in the world, and some have turned to abstinence as the only sure way to arrest the problem:

In this life-and-death context, The Road We Know profiles seven Botswanan college students who teach that abstinence before marriage is the safest way to prevent the spread of AIDS.

Abstinence?  Yes, we’ve heard of this.  Especially us youth ministry types.  The author reminds American evangelicals that we too have

urged young believers, by way of youth-group talks and paper pledges and purity rings, to abstain from premarital sex. The program and others like it root their argument for abstinence in the logic of payoff: “If you wait for marriage, your future sex life will be hot.”

Ah, yes.  Marketing spiritual discipline by–in a lot of cases–patently lying.  According to the article, it gets even worse: “Unlike True Love Waits, their [the Botswanan] payoff logic has less to do with hot married sex and more to do with not dying at age 24.”

This devastating difference in perspective reveals a lot about our society and the larger world: the realities of disease, global population growth, economic inequality, and the like.

The Occupiers have constantly raised the spectre of “the 99%” of average Americans being overrun by “the 1%” with all the wealth.  Maybe that’s true.  But on a global scale?  According to the calculator at The Global Rich List, even the median American income of $26,364 puts one in the company of the top 9.28% richest people in the world.  Imagine that.  The current poverty line in the United States for a single person is $10,890.  That person is amongst the top 13.12% of the world’s richest.  Astounding.

Try typing in your yearly salary.  A lot of you (myself included) will find yourselves amongst the 1%.  What, then, do we do with THAT knowledge?

Today, two really interesting resources for youth ministry.  I’ve used one of them myself while serving in New Jersey.  The other is a newer tool that has a lot of potential.

The first is a method called “storying.”  Based on the work of Michael Novelli and his book Shaped by the Story, “storying” represents an effort to have adolescents engage the main narratives of the Bible on their own terms.  It is a plan as ancient as it is innovative.

In this model, students are read a paraphrase of a biblical story (Noah’s, for instance) and then asked what they heard and where they saw God.  Various questions are asked, and space is provided in the conversation for their own questions to surface.  As they enter in to this conversational space students have the opportunity to encounter the story of God for the first time (if they’ve never heard it) or in a completely new way (since they are given the freedom to ask questions they might never have before).  No three-point sermons here.  Everything from Creation to the Resurrection and beyond can be a constituent part of this method.

A premium is placed upon students grappling with the narrative of the faith and their place in it.  Novelli’s website Echo the Story explains his method in greater detail and provides some excellent resources for “storying” with your students.

The second resource is a new one by Sparkhouse entitled re:form.  I haven’t had the opportunity to spend much time at all with this, but I hear good things and I like what I see.  Take a look:

Like “storying,” the re:form people seem to place a premium on student engagement of and communal reflection on the material.  At present they have two sets of curriculum: 1) “Traditions” (three separate tracks focusing at present on the history, theology, and shape of Lutherans, Reformed Christians, and Methodists) and 2) “Ancestors” (in their words, “a youth Bible study that explores the ancestors of our faith by exposing the real, unpolished and unexpected personalities of Old and New Testament Bible characters”).  With their creative use of media, it’s like theology and the Bible ala Monty Python.  Classic.

Not exactly.

I’m excited there are such resources available for ministers and teenagers.  With so much flash and bang in youth ministry, these new models ask a great question: what if we just let students engage material and see what happens?  What if we make the bold choice of letting students grapple with the story of their faith tradition or (more importantly) the Scripture on their own without excessive commentary from us?  I think we’ll get a lot more honest engagement, retention, and growth this way. I’m no Mitt Romney, so I can’t bet you $10,000 that this will work with your students.  I will tell you, however, that a “storying” and conversational approach has the potential to revolutionize the way you do youth ministry.  I believe in this stuff.  So make a plan (maybe even starting in January), set aside some time (to do this effectively will take some months), and prayerfully implement this in youth ministry whenever you can.

The big news coming out of this past weekend’s Republican debate was Mitt Romney’s mistake.  Goaded into an exchange with Rick Perry over his record, Romney challenged him to a bet.  Take a look:

Oops.  The effect of this somewhat bizarre flub has further cemented the image of Romney as an out-of-touch, rich, white male.  I agree.  What could possess a person to bet that much money so casually?  Sure, from time to time I jokingly bet someone $10, but even then I hope I don’t have to pay.

Popular criticism of Romney on this point is well-deserved.  But when I thought about it more, I considered that none of the people running for president are really average Americans, at least financially speaking.  According to The Wall Street Journal, the average American net worth in 2010 was “about $182,000 a person—though the average is pulled up by a small group of the very wealthy.”

We're looking at you, McDuck!

The Republican candidates’ net worth (according to Fox Business):

• Mitt Romney leads the pack with $190-250 million.
• John Huntsman is worth $16-71 million.
• Newt Gingrich has at least $6.7 million.
• Ron Paul comes in at $2.5-5 million.
• Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann each have between $800,000 and $2.8 million.

Not one to be left out, President Obama’s net worth is arond $7.3 million.  So no one’s really hurting here.  While Mitt Romney far exceeds the pack in terms of personal wealth, each of the candidates could be considered outside of the mainstream.  The least rich of them (Rick Santorum) is worth more than four times the average American.

This is, I think, the new status quo.  Running for office takes money, and no one for whom $10,000 is a prohibitive amount of money could hope to afford the journey.  Besides that, people in our society who are qualified to be president will likely be highly successful individuals…with wealth to match it.  So, unlike some, I’m not furious that our politicians  are outside the norm when it comes to net worth.  It think the bigger and more important question is, though: do they understand what it is like to NOT be rich?  This is something Bill Clinton (to name just one example) conveyed very well.  The fact that Mitt Romney seems somewhat tone deaf on this point is disconcerting for a lot of people.

How this will play out for the Republicans?  We’ll see in the next few months…

The past week of my Western Civilization III class has consisted of some very interesting student presentations.  The assignment: compare and contrast two films set at roughly the same time in history and analyze their connection to historical events, their skill in representing the facts, and their usefulness as teaching tools.  Whether the films are accurate or not, they provide a great opportunity for students to dig deeper into the story of the past.  On the whole I’m pretty pleased with my students’ findings, and would recommend such an assignment to other college history professors (especially in required general education classes).

We had some interesting results, including:

• A film I’ve never heard of: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.  It is a 1983 Japanese film that tells the story of POWs held by the Japanese during the Second World War.  My student paired it with Bridge on the River Kwai, which made for an interesting discussion.

• Three great pairings: 1) The King’s Speech & The Sound of Music (the rise of Nazism and the coming of WWII), 2) Inglourious Basterds & Schindler’s List (resistance to Nazis and the Holocaust) and 3) Doctor Strangelove & The Manchurian Candidate (Cold War paranoia and commentary at its best).

• Best example of pandering:  My favorite movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  It was paired with the film Downfall, which focuses on the last days of Hitler’s life.  Both films feature der Fuehrer at vast different points in history.

• Most surprising discussion: One student watched Mary Poppins and Around the World in 80 Days and used the films as an opportunity to launch into extended commentary on the height of the British empire, the suffrage movement, the power of the Bank of England, and the effects of the Industrial Revolution.  Pretty impressive.
  

  It's not all fun and games when your lungs are full of soot.

Hearing about all these movies last week inspired me to watch an old one over the weekend.  Motivated by news of the recently released spy film Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy based on a 1960s novel by John la Carre, I took the opportunity to watch an adaptation of his book The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965).  In moody black-and-white, the film couldn’t be more opposite from James Bond if it tried.  In short, a much more realistic depiction of Cold War espionage and possible addition to any course on the period.

So then: which historical films strike your fancy?

The word on the street is that the new Star Trek movie (a sequel to the recent J. J. Abrams film) will be premiering in 2013 featuring the return of a classic villain: Khan Noonien Singh.  “Khan,” as he is more frequently known, was first featured in a 1960s Star Trek episode as a genetically enhanced superman who attempted to take over the Enterprise.  After being defeated by Captain Kirk, Khan and his people were marooned on a planet.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan picks up this story two decades later and brings the two old foes together once again.  Both Ricardo Montalban’s Kahn and Shatner’s Kirk love their overacting…and it is a terrific movie.  It is widely considered to be one of the best of the Star Trek films.  Plus, it features one of  the best Shatner moments of all time:

A lot of Trekkies aren’t too happy with the decision to revisit an old villain for the new movie.  They would, quite simply, prefer a new and more creative villain or storyline.  Normally I would agree, but the Khan story has such potential for being told in an interesting way that I’m excited to see what they do.

The bigger question, though, is whether Star Trek movies need strong villains at all.  Every drama needs its antagonistic force, yes.  But we’re not talking about Mission: Impossible or James Bond here.  This is Star Trek.  Both the movies and the show upon which they were based tended at their best to be about more than simply defeating one particular enemy.

So, then, a look bad at the “bad guys” in Star Trek movie history:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1 star)

• Bad guy: A giant space probe.
• Method of victory: A human being joins together with it on its journey towards self-understanding.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: Zero
• What it’s really about: the human adventure (even though it is a horrid movie).

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (4 stars)

• Bad guy: Khan
• Method of victory: A space battle that leaves Khan’s ship devastated; he then commits suicide by blowing it up.  Ultimate salvation for the crew occurs as Spock sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: Relatively little.  A good space battle, but Khan and Kirk never meet.
• What it’s really about: a meditation on hate, love, life, and death.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (3 stars)

• Bad guy: Hard to say.  Ostensibly a Klingon captain, but it could also be a disintegrating planet OR the problem of Spock’s death itself.
• Method of victory: Clever thinking, the power of friendship, and a fight between Kirk and a Klingon.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: A big fight between Kirk and a Klingon captain.
• What it’s really about: the good of the one outweighs the good of the many.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (4 stars)

• Bad guy: Another giant space probe.
• Method of victory: Bringing whales from the 1980s back to the future.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: None.
• What it’s really about: environmentalism and a celebration of the characters.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1 star)

• Bad guy: Spock’s hippy half-brother, who is more obsessed with finding God than fighting.
• Method of victory: Both the realization that the quest of Spock’s brother will not succeed and Kirk fighting a malevolent alien claiming to be God.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: See above.
• What it’s really about: No one knows.
  

  "What does God need with a starship?"

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (4 stars)

• Bad guys: A conspiracy of hardliners that want to declare war  on the Klingons.
• Method of victory: Outsmarting the conspirators and thwarting their efforts to initiate war.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: One prison fight and a space battle, but other than that not much.
• What it’s really about: The Cold War ending, and with it a generation of Cold Warriors (including Kirk and crew).

Star Trek: Generations (2 stars)

• Bad guy: A scientist who wants to blow up a planet to achieve happiness.
• Method of victory: Believe it or not, hand-to-hand combat featuring Kirk and Picard vs. the scientist.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: See above.
• What it’s really about: An attempt to bridge the gap between Star Trek generations.

Star Trek: First Contact (4 stars)

• Bad guy: The Borg, a cybernetic race headed by their evil queen.  They’ve traveled into the past to mess up Earth’s history.
• Method of victory: Working to restore the timeline and a confrontation with the Borg queen.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: Moderate fighting with the Borg and Picard’s defeat of the Queen.
• What it’s really about: A classic tale of universe rescuing that highlights the unique features of The Next Generation crew.

Star Trek: Insurrection (0 stars)

• Bad guy: I don’t even remember his name.  He wants to steal a planet’s resources and doesn’t care about it’s inhabitants.
• Method of victory: The command staff of the Enterprise defended the planet and Picard fights the bad guy.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: A big space battle and Picard literally fighting the main bad guy all by himself.
• What it’s really about: Anti-imperialism.

Star Trek: Nemesis (2 stars)

• Bad guy: A Romulan clone of Captain Picard.
• Method of victory:  Literally ramming the Enterprise into the enemy’s ship.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: Very little, but the movie attempts to pit the bad guy and Picard directly against each other in a Kirk/Khan way.
• What it’s really about: A ham-handed way to recreate The Wrath of Khan.

Star Trek (3 stars)

• Bad guy: A Romulan from the future intent on killing Spock and destroying the Federation.
• Method of victory: Blowing stuff up.
• Amount of hand-to-hand combat: I can’t recall too much, but the protagonist does cast a long shadow.  Kirk defeats him handily ship-to-ship.
• What it’s really about: The coalescing of the crew and a cool reboot of Star Trek with some important homages to The Wrath of Khan.

The best Star Trek movies (especially from the 1980s) tend to be about something deeper than the surface action.  When a strong villain helped develop the theme upon which the movie reflects, OK.  But in a number of important cases, the “villain” was more of a force or power than an individual that had to be fought.  Therefore, if Abrams and company are using Khan to say something, terrific.  But if they just want to have him and Kirk have a big fight at the end, they are missing what Star Trek is all about.

Well, the results are in…and I have emerged triumphant!  I was at 13 tacos when my student threw in the towel at 11.  I declined to eat anymore, and we gave the rest of the tacos to our classmates.  Kudos to my competitor, Josh Brown.  A scholar AND a gentleman taco-eater.

Final tally: 13-11.  Game over.

I am now officially retired.  Friends: I’m going out on top!

It’s Friday, which means anything can happen.  Today, “anything” is going to take the form of a taco-eating contest.  In a bizarre act of bravado (and foolish sophomoric overconfidence), I have challenged one of my students at Northwest University to just such a competition.

Taco Bell.  Hard shell.  Friday afternoon.

Why?  I don’t know.  OK, I do know: I love Taco Bell tacos, I’ve always wanted to try this, and I’m not getting any younger over here.  You know, one might even say I’m doing this to stand in solidarity with all those youth pastors out there…but then one might also say that’s a bit of a stretch.

I fully expect this to be my first and last such competition, and I want to enjoy the experience in all its tasty absurdity.  I’m sorry, dear readers…but this is going to happen (once).

**Please note: this is not my approved method for youth ministry or the life of the college professor.  This is a not a theologically reflective act.  This will probably make me sick.  But it will, I think, be rather fun.  Especially when I win.**

Vote below to support my student or me.  See the results later on…

In an effort to work ahead and get myself situated for the coming semester, I have the distinct privilege of preparing the syllabus for Church History II (Reformation to Present).  I’m excited because this will be the first time I get to design and teach a class directly in my area of doctoral study and research.  It also brings back a lot of memories for me.  The two-semester Church History course at Houghton College was what first fired my historical imagination and set me on the course I’ve been traveling these past 11 years.  I only hope I can do as good a job as Dr. John Tyson all those semesters ago.

Preparing the class has reminded me of the “old friends” of history with whom I haven’t spoke in a little while.  People like Martin Luther, John Wesley, and others.  I’ve once again been drawn into the story of faith with all its twists and turns, heroes and villains.  I’ve re-introduced myself to my spiritual ancestors that have confirmed I am indeed part of the family.  There’s a legacy here, and despite the fact that it is mixed at times, it’s a “family thing.”

I’ve already mentioned two of the course textbooks I’ll be using: Mark Noll’s The New Shape of World Christianity and Justo Gonzalez’s recently updated The Story of Christianity, Volume 2.  Gonzalez does an excellent job at laying out the main narrative of Church History (especially in the West), while the Noll text  illustrates contemporary world Christianity effectively.  I’m glad to have both books as a part of this class.

A major change has occurred in the historiography since I enrolled in the class as a student over a decade ago: the emergence of global Christianity as a vital factor in the scholarship and teaching of the history of Christianity.  While this represents a pedagogical challenge as teachers attempt to weave the histories of the worldwide faith into a cohesive story, I am hopeful that the class I’m leading next semester can do just that.  In addition to the Noll text, we’ll be using a primary source reader entitled A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, 1450-1990.  Published by Zondervan in 2007, it provides edited source material for each continent that covers ancient forms of Christianity, stories of first contact, western missions, and the growth of new indigenized forms of the faith.  With the glaring exception that Pentecostalism seems largely ignored, I look forward to using it as a complement to the often Euro-centric ways we teach Church History.

I strongly recommend the Gonzalez text (both volumes) for anyone interested in learning more about the story of Christianity.  And if you’re a believer, I think you ought to know this stuff.  The legacy we have is immense, and we need to understand it.  In closing, therefore, some words about the importance of Church History from Dr. John Drury, a colleague of mine from Princeton Seminary.  Enjoy!

10.  It can motivate and inspire our ministry and spirituality.

 How? In particular, inspiring stories of saints.  In general, by inertia.

 9.  Step into a stream of Christian mentors.

Mentors with the best creds are often dead; history gives us access to them.

8.  It affects us whether we know it or not, so we’re better off knowing it.

 Just like family history, the more we know the less it controls us & more it helps us; e.g., caught in debates, patience about certain issues, appreciate it.

 7.  Foster Community with Christians over time.

Usual community; community over space; community over time; identity!

6.  Broadens our horizon of the forms Christianity can take.

We’ll see all kinds of Christianities – compass points, Europe/Africa/Asia.

 5.  To keep us from re-inventing the wheel and to identify dead ends.

Church History is a treasure trove of practical wisdom.

experience / reflection on experience / reflection on another’s experience

4.  The Enemy knows it.

Dan Brown isn’t the e, but the e uses people like him to deceive and confuse.

3.  It helps us understand why Christians behave and believe the way they do.

How? by walking thru the steps of the development of practice and doctrine.

2.  Because Christianity is a historical religion.

Jesus was a historical figure born from a historical people (Israel) who began a historical community of witnesses (Church) which works toward the culmination of history in the coming kingdom of Jesus; aka: the story of the church didn’t end at Acts 28.

1.  Because we serve a Living Lord.

Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of the father; with all its sidetracks and errors, the history of the church is the clearest most explicit continuation of Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation.

In an…interesting article posted yesterday on CNN’s Belief Blog, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council argued that Jesus Christ, in opposition to the Occupy Wall Streeters, was a free-market capitalist.  A friend of mine suggested I offer some thoughts, so here they are.

Perkin’s argument is oriented around a parable in Luke 19.  (This is in general is a good place to start, because Luke talks more about money than the other gospels.)  The parable in question is a familiar one about talents/minas (ancient units of money).  In the story, a rich man calls his servants and gives them each a mina.  Each is told to “occupy” themselves until the man returns.  When he does, he finds that two servants have seen investment returns of 1000% and 500%.  Another servant simply hides his mina while the master is gone and sees no profit.  The rich man is angered with this latter servant for not doing more and takes his mina away and gives it to the servant with the most.

As Perkins states:

The primary purpose of the parable, which appears in the Gospel of Luke, was to make clear to his disciples that the kingdom of God would not be physically established on the earth for some time and that, until then, they were being entrusted with certain responsibilities….From a spiritual perspective, the mina in this parable represents the opportunity of life; each of us is given the same opportunity to build our lives, and each of us shares the same responsibility to invest our lives for the purpose of bringing a return and leaving a legacy. Jesus gave equal responsibility and opportunity to each of his 10 servants.

Here I agree with him.  This story is all about serving God and diligently working as we wait for the kingdom.  But when Perkins says the following, I get a little worried:

The fact that Jesus chose the free market system as the basis for this parable should not be overlooked. When the nobleman returns, after being established as king – a stand-in for Jesus – he calls all his servants together to see what they had accomplished in his absence…

Jesus rejected collectivism and the mentality that has occupied America for the last few decades: that everyone gets a trophy – equal outcomes for inequitable performance. There are winners and yes, there are losers. And wins and losses are determined by the diligence and determination of the individual.

Some would argue that such an approach encourages abuses, the likes of which we have seen on Wall Street. While some egregious abuses have taken place, they are not inevitable or intrinsic to free enterprise.

The parable of the king and the servants endorses the principles of business and the free market when properly employed.

With all due respect to Mr. Perkins, Jesus is not using this parable to talk about economic systems.  He’s painting a picture of spiritual reality.  Communism, socialism, and capitalism in their modern forms did not exist in Jesus’ time, and he was not trying to endorse or criticize one of them here; doing so would at the very least be anachronistic.

Albert Schweitzer once said that all of us tend to make Jesus into our own image, and I fear that Perkins has illustrated the principle beautifully.  I do agree there is a lot about what Jesus teaches and does that has impact in our modern world, but to ham-handedly say that such a parable endorses the free market seems a bit specious. 

Besides, if Jesus is in the business of endorsing modern economic systems, what do you do with the following parable from Matthew 20?

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

If we follow Perkins’ method of biblical interpretation, Jesus might be a socialist too.  Then the Occupiers can have their proof text just like the Family Research Council.  Great.