In the most recent Christian headlines it would seem Jenninfer Knapp has come out of the closet. According to Christianity Today, the singer/songwriter has been in a relationship with her partner for “almost eight years” and cites her lifestyle choice as one of the many straws that drove her away from full time songwriting for seven years.  It’s a good article but the following words from Jennifer were the ones I found most profound:

During my college years, I received some admonishment about some relationships I’d had with women. Some people said, “You might want to renegotiate that,” even though those relationships weren’t sexual. Hindsight being 20/20, I guess it makes sense. But if you remove the social problem that homosexuality brings to the church—and the debate as to whether or not it should be called a “struggle,” because there are proponents on both sides—you remove the notion that I am living my life with a great deal of joy. It never occurred to me that I was in something that should be labeled as a “struggle.” The struggle I’ve had has been with the church, acknowledging me as a human being, trying to live the spiritual life that I’ve been called to, in whatever ramshackled, broken, frustrated way that I’ve always approached my faith. I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.

Knapp always been one of my (few) favorite “Christian” singer/songwriters and I’m looking forward to her latest.

Our church recently started a new multi-site congregation in Fenton (about 30 minutes south of the main campus). We’ve had the chance to check it out and we really like the more intimate feel that comes with fewer people, more like 250 than the 1200+ at the other campus.  Everything is done in the same way: worship, special music, offering and announcements but the sermon is delivered via a large projection video.  Aside for the fact our speaking pastor is a Herculean ten feet tall now (on screen) it actually seems quite natural to have a message delivered via video.

As a disclaimer: If you went to the main campus and the Auditorium was full you would be directed to an overflow area where the service would look identical to the one we are experiencing at the new site.  Since being late almost always means the auditorium full Cara and I have become quite comfortable in this setting, not to mention the fact you are allowed to drink coffee in the overflow area…

My real thought on this post is where multi-site churches fit into the landscape of the American church.  So far we have had a pleasant experience and have found MORE community at the satellite campus due to it’s size and because there are only two services, compared to the five offered on the main campus. We run into more friends, see the same faces and have the freedom to drink coffee and mingle a bit more.  That said I can easily understand the downsides, we are less connected as a whole church and leadership runs the risk of not understanding the unique needs of many locations. I can also easily see the problems that big egos could have in the direction of a multi-site church, becoming a one man show versus a equal distribution of talent and responsibilities.

So, has anyone else been a part of a multisite church? Did you enjoy it or did you come to find out there were massive holes where you hoped there would be community?

I’ve heard about these “Town Hall Meetings” and seen how they’ve been sensationalized by both sides but when I see this I just have to ask: What is wrong with people?

I’m not sure what is going on with the kind of fervor behind these outbursts.  We may disagree with people but to tear someone apart because you can begs to ask a much bigger question.  I can’t say this is really about “politics”, in fact I think “politics” is a flimsy facade that many folks are simply hiding behind. Healthcare and Economic stimulus’ aside, part of me wonders if the prices of reality TV and the readily accessible information (opinions) that live on the web are finally taking their toll on us.

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

- Mother Teresa

“I understand what you’re saying and your advice is valuable, but I’m going to ignore you completely.”

This weekend the babe and I finally got the chance to see one on the films we’ve been waiting for since we first heard Wes Anderson was taking a crack at a Roald Dahl book (My favorite was “The Witches”).  Part of what seems to be an increasing number of children’s book adaptations from young and heavily stylized filmmakers, Wes’ Fantastic Mr. Fox takes us to the places that Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are only dreamed of (You can find my review for that film here).  While not as flashy as this year’s earlier stop motion wonder Coraline, it takes a decidedly retro approach to the style and what we get is less experiment and more a believable backdrop to the (a)typical Anderson quirkiness. Wes’ use of stop motion animation not only caters to every idiosyncrasy of his imagination, look no further than the badger mural in the picture above, but the dialogue,  the soundtrack and the pitch perfect family dysfunction in Mr. Fox are, well… Fantastic.

The movie is best described as a collection of meticulously designed scenes, each of them threatening to overwhelm the viewer but always in a way that is clever enough to push the story forward. In fact the reason the film is so good is this approach to filmmaking that Anderson pioneered with Rushmoore and played to hard in The Life Aquatic. What was a demanding and cluttered scene in live action becomes a beautifully crafted testament to his own handiwork and imagination, with many inside jokes along the way for those with a keen eye.  Though the trailers put me off on the idea of an entire feature length film in this retro-esque stop motion style, after the first ten minutes I had failed to notice it at all and by the end on the film I found it enjoyably quirky, which I guess was the point all along.

Like all “Andersonian” films this one takes place is it’s own exclusive world but one that brims with father/son angst, a search for significance and the highly nuanced neuroses that plague his characters.   At many times Mr. Fox feels like an animated version of The Royal Tenenbaums but what keeps it a from being a repackaged film is the perspective that Anderson frames it in. Whereas Tenenbaums was, very simply, a child’s interpretation of an adult story, the drama in Mr. Fox is an adult’s view into a children’s story which makes it so endearing.

Go see it, sit back and enjoy. I guarantee you will walk out with a smile.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A little while back Cara and I were headed out for coffee on a Saturday morning when we noticed some commotion on the corner a few blocks from our loft.  We’re getting more comfortable with “city life” and it’s always interesting to see so many diverse people interacting in such a small space. In the county people typically avoid anyone not “like” them, here people have no choice but to run into people who aren’t “like” them.

So we investigate a bit more and see that the folks on the corner are protesting. Protesting what: a union? healthcare? Obama? No, abortion. The reason they’re on this corner is because that is where the clinic is; a few blocks from where we eat sushi, down the street from where I get my haircut and on the way to our favorite Saturday morning coffee place.

All of a sudden this place, these people are in my neighborhood. I’m no longer in the grandstand, I’m on the same street.

I don’t really want to talk about abortion and faith but where I do want to stay is in a place that sees those things and is fully aware of where we can be, in the neighborhood.  Too often we (I) devise ways to make these real situations entirely theoretical or overly simplistic and in doing so we lose something in the adaptation; I think we lose love.

The song in the beautiful video above talks about unrequited love, knowing that something isn’t felt by the other person. (It also reminds me of Willow) I’m not judging the folks outside the clinic but I want to use them as a tool for introspection: am I showing people love? Not romantic love but something that transcends that, am I reaching out to those that need that voice, that reassurance or am I becoming another one of their scars?

Do we examine our motives constantly and always seek to show love of do we get caught up in the comfortable game of being “right?”  By being “right” am I ceasing to “love?”

Something in your voice,
sparks a little hope
I’ll wait up for that noise
your voice becomes my home

So. On a lighter note I’m trying *really* hard to get back into this blogging thing, despite my tendencies to write absolutely nothing and rarely comment on anyone else’s blog… For your own entertainment check out this week’s episode of This American Life. They run into my friend Cole and get his thoughts on spending the evening in a Chik-fil-a parking lot with folks smitten by a certain chikin sandwich.

If you’re in St. Louis this weekend be sure to stop by the Mad Art Gallery in the Benton Park neighborhood as Cara is having another craft show

“The Eden story is certainly not a morality tale; like any paradise myth, it is an imaginary account of the infancy of the human race. In Eden, Adam and Eve are still in the womb; they have to grow up, and the snake is there to guide them through the perplexing rite of passage to maturity. To know pain and to be conscious of desire and mortality are inescapable components of human experience, but they are also symptoms of that sense of estrangement from the fullness of being that inspires the nostalgia for paradise lost. We can see Adam, Eve, and the serpent as representing different facets of our humanity. In the snake is the rebelliousness and incessant compulsion to question everything that is crucial to human progress; in Eve we see our hunger for knowledge, our desire to experiment, and our longing for a life free of inhibition. Adam, a rather passive figure, displays our reluctance take responsibility for our own actions. The story shows that good and evil are inextricably intertwined in human life. Our prodigious knowledge can at one and the same time be a source of benefit and the cause of immense harm. The rabbis of the Talmudic age understood this perfectly. They did not see the “fall” of Adam as a catastrophe, because the “evil inclination” (yeytzer ha’ra) was an essential part of human life, and the aggression, competitive edge, and ambition that it generates are bound up with some of our greatest achievements.”

Karen Armstong - The Case for God

Ever.

I’m not saying that we can’t learn/teach/preach the Bible, but that we can never grasp all of the truths contained within. It’s just too big and many of the concepts are meant to be wrestled with, not simply answered and checked off our to do list. Let’s take a look at the book of Genesis for example, Genesis 1:27 from the New International Version:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

So God created “him” or God created “them?” Or God created “Man” so where did “female” come from?  Tricky yeah? Maybe we should try another translation, maybe the New American Standard:

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Other than a correction of the word “He” (capitalized in reference to God) it doesn’t really help us all that much… One more? Ok, how about Today’s New International Version:

So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Ok, so it looks like the only one that even makes since from a logical perspective is the last, right? Which gets to why I’m writing this post.

This week the translators of this last version (Today’s New International Version) were basically forced to say that “decisions surrounding the release of the NIV inclusive language edition and the 2002 revision, Today’s New International Version (TNIV), were mistakes.” Keep in mind that this was also the only version of the above verses that didn’t put us in a logical dilemma, not theological mind you, but logical.  The language that was in question is the so-called “gender-inclusive language” (seen above). Another example of this language would be in when Jesus spoke

about seeing a speck of sawdust in “your brother’s eye” yet not seeing the plank in your own eye, Luke 6:41-42 in the NIV text uses the word “brother” four times. But the TNIV leaves “brother untranslated once and otherwise renders it “someone else,” “Friend” and “the other person.”

As a part of this “announcement” Zondervan said that it would no longer publish this version of the bible and that they would be working on a revised 2011 edition removing the “divisive” language found it the most recent version.

William Merrell, a Southern Baptist Convention media spokesman, told the Washington Times “No one is authorized to treat the Bible like Silly Putty.” Though seemingly Merrell had no problem with the bible remaining a logical fallacy in Contemporary English he seems to think that changing the word “man” to “human beings” is an offense to all of Christian theology. The TNIV also received heavy criticism from Focus on the Family’s James Dobson and Jerry Falwell among others.  In other (less notorious?) circles the TNIV has been praised as one of the best translations available, including D. A. Carson and Mark Strauss both New Testament professors at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Bethel Seminary West, respectively.  Carson and Strauss even went on to write entire books commending the move to a “gender inclusive” language. Two other theologians, Gordan Fee and Douglas Stuart articulate in their book “How to read the Bible for All it’s Worth” (also published by Zondervan, ironically?) “We would venture to say that the TNIV is as good a translation as you will get.”

Be very careful to note that they don’t say “perfect translation” but “as good… as you will get.” The real truth here is that there is no “perfect” translation. Because the bible was written/took place over a period of several thousand years/cultures/and languages there are things we are going to miss when we read it in English in our air conditioned houses with The Beatles playing in the background.  There’s just too much context to put into each sentence.  Keep in mind that whenever you’re reading “the Bible” you are in fact reading someone’s interpretation of the Bible.  There is no such thing as simply “reading the Bible” you are interrupting it as you do so through the words of someone who interpreted it before you. Everyone brings their own interpretation to God’s Word. Interpretation is needed and necessary. (Rob Bell speaks to this in his book Velvet Elvis which I highly recommend)

Fee and Stuart go on to comment on this eternal question of translation, what good is the most theological and technically articulated interpretation of the Bible if no one can read it?

“Our view is that the best theory of translation is the one that remains as faithful as possible to both the original and receptor languages, but that when something has to ‘give,’ it should be in favor of the receptor language–without losing the meaning of the original language, of course–since the very reason for translation is to make these ancient texts accessible to the English-speaking person who does not know the original languages.”

So what do you think? When’s the last time you looked at a woman in church and called her your “brother” in Christ….

For more check out Denver Seminary’s take on it here

10. “So I talked to your dad last night…”
9. “I lost my phone number. Maybe through a purposeful relationship, we can find out if I’m supposed to have yours.”
8. “Your Bible…or mine?”
7. “We’re perfect for each other. Our parents have so much in common!”
6. This one comes right out of the book of Song of Solomon, “You’re so, so, how can I say this biblically? Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing…Your hair is like a herd of goats running down a mountain!”
5. “Do your feet hurt? ‘Cause you’ve been running through God’s plans for me all eternity long!”
4. “Let’s get our siblings together and go out sometime.”
3. “I can’t wait to see what you look like at 50.”
2. “Your modesty’s showing.”
1. “My parents are back in town. Wanna come over?”

For the record, my wife and I courted. So there.

No not the blog, the wife and I are moving much closer to the heart of St. Louis!

Ironically, for the last two decades I’ve been trying to get out of school and now we’re going to be living in one, weird I know.

The Eugene Field School was built as an elementary school in 1901 and landed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The building was designed by William B. Ittner and was iconic of the Colonial Revival Style of the early 20th century, it got it’s name from the St. Louis born children’s poet, Eugene Field, who wrote “Little Boy Blue” and ”Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”  (After a bit of digging I found out that Tennessee Williams attended Elementary school here and that we’re only a few blocks from T. S. Eliot’s childhood home)

In 2005 the building was renovated into loft living space, the unit that we have is part of what used to be the kindergarten room.

From the moment we walked in we loved it!

There will be more pictures hopefully soon, needless to say, we’re both pretty excited!

“There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of themselves in various styles… but there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage in conscious mischief — a beauty with which you can never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you.”

- George Eliot (1819-1880)

Pen name of Mary Ann Evans English novelist.