javanated's Xanga

Javanated Is Moving

Wed, 31 May 2006 20:11:11 GMT

Javanated is moving to blogspot. It’s been a tough decision, and there are several factors involved, but what this means is that those of you who don’t have xanga accounts will now be able to post comments on my page. And I’m hoping that those of you who are active on xanga will stop by to visit me now and again over at the new blog. I’ll still keep my xanga account to comment with, so this site won’t go away – it just won’t be updated again. Enjoy the old posts listed here, and don't forget to check out the new javanated over at blogspot. Thanks and best wishes.

http://javanated.blogspot.com

Random Question of the Day

Wed, 24 May 2006 21:15:30 GMT

Is it possible to add anything to Diet Dr. Pepper without making it taste like cough syrup?

Emergent / Post-Modern: Where To Begin?

Tue, 23 May 2006 22:00:23 GMT

At dinner a few weeks ago, some friends and I were discussing the Emergent / Post-modern church, and the conversation made me realize that I'd taken it for granted that most people (especially if they're under the age of 35) already have a good understanding of what "Post-modern" means in an ecclesiastical context. But in retrospect I know that's assuming quite a bit. If you've been hanging out in some circles, you might be sick to death of hearing about the Emergent church phenomenon; if you're not in those circles, you might have never heard it mentioned at all. My guess is that the majority of people probably fall into that second category.

So after doing a little research online, I found what I thought was a good and brief introduction to the continuing Emergent / Post-Modern conversation at Brian McClaren's website. And if you're interested, I would also recommend Dan Kimball's The Emergent Church as another good starting point, as well as McLaren's own A New Kind of Christian. Thou shalt be in the dark no longer. Enjoy.

The DaVinci Code

Mon, 22 May 2006 21:18:25 GMT

Like a few hundred thousand other people, we went and saw The DaVinci Code this past Saturday. I was really hoping we'd see some picketers, but no such luck. Having not read the book, I didn't really go in with many expectations. The movie itself was alright - not something I think I'd watch again. Ian McKellen (aka "Gandalf") was great as usual, Tom Hanks wasn't as bad as everyone has made him out to be, and the art and architecture in the movie are fantastic (I'm a sucker for the classics), but overall the movie was just your typical summer popcorn flick. Good for matinee price, but I'm not sure I'd be as forgiving if I had paid full admission.

I've heard a lot of people inside and outside of the church readily admit that the movie (and book) are full of nonsense, but quickly note that it is still important in creating and fostering religious dialogue. And I would agree. I thought that DaVinci Code did raise some interesting issues and questions, of which you are free to comment on and discuss - in fact, I'd encourage that. For me, there were two main conversation pieces:

1) What, if anything, about your faith / religion could be changed without it affecting your belief? Does it all have to remain the way you (or perhaps your religious tradition / denomination / background) have always understood it for you to retain your faith, or are there certain items that are "negotiable?" Would anything be different if we discovered that Noah and the Ark didn't really exist? Would anything be different if Jesus were married (as is debated in DaVinci Code)? What are the central aspects of your faith about which you are unwilling to compromise?

2) Without having read the book, it seemed to me that the many of the main premises behind DaVinci Code are born out of the conviction that the Christian church (and perhaps religion in general) has throughout history been too-often concerned with the "wrong things." That the faith has often been used as a tool for oppression, manipulation, hatred, and ignorance rather than love, service, and social betterment. I do think that the Catholic Church is unfairly singled out and maligned in the movie, but if Christians from all backgrounds and denominations are honest with themselves, we do have to admit our past (and even our daily lives) can be rather sketchy.

So what, as people of faith, can we do about this - a widespread cultural conviction that we have somehow lost our way and become increasingly uncompassionate and irrelevant? How do we make sure we are concerned with things that really matter and not get hung up on periphery distractions? How do we make sure that we not use the name of God as justification for our own personal or social agendas? How do we become more inclusive of minorities and celebrate their role in the church, instead of marginalizing those who might look different than we do? How do we build bridges and dialogue within and across churches when in recent years everything has seemingly become so polarized? How do we become a church that is concerned about the persons and things that Christ was concerned about? And is this even possible?

I can't say that have answers for all or even very many of these questions. But for me, being a follower of Christ often means asking difficult questions. Difficult questions about my society, church, and personal life. And a lot of times it also means allowing other people to ask difficult questions of me about those same things.

You might not care for the DaVinci Code or believe the ideas it sets forth, but it is asking all of us - Christian and non-Christian - some very important and interesting questions. And it seems to me that we'd all be a lot better in the long run to at least entertain them.

Lemons

Fri, 19 May 2006 17:46:25 GMT

Thought of the Day: "When life gives you lemons, turn them into a new Mustang"

Congratulations to my friend Garrett on his flippin' sweet new wheels.

(I am captivated, I am...) Syndicated

Fri, 19 May 2006 17:46:16 GMT

And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well

Great news, everyone. Xanga now supports RSS Syndication, which means you can have javanated delivered straight to your MyYahoo or MyGoogle pages by clicking on one of the links below. Does this mean I'll be updating the blog more frequently now? Probably not, but at least you'll be the first to know when I do.

And by the way, the new Dashboard Confessional album comes out June 27. Hurrah.

Make javanated part of your complete breakfast:

RSS Document

Dragon Lady

Thu, 18 May 2006 16:55:49 GMT

Today's OED Word of the Day is:

Dragon Lady
A domineering, powerful, or belligerent woman; (occasionally) spec. one of south-east Asian origin.

I had no idea this was actually a real term. It brings back some great memories from Lubbock High marching band. We used to have a drum cadence and yell called "Dragon Lady," unflatteringly inspired by one of the not-so-beloved principals of school years past. I think she had been gone at least a couple of years by the time my class got there, but I guess old grudges die hard. The LHS school motto is "Once a Westerner, always a Westerner." I suppose the same could be said about Dragon Ladies...

High school was a great time, though in retrospect, it might have been somewhat of a liability to have that many intelligent / mischievous teenagers running around together in public school. No wonder so many of my teachers were either graying or bald.

The Pat Robertson Factor

Wed, 10 May 2006 14:59:12 GMT

I've heard a lot of explanations lately about the rising price of gasoline, but one explanation I haven't heard yet seems to me to be one of the most obvious: the Pat Robertson factor. Surely someone else saw this coming. I mean, advocating the assassination of the leader of an oil-producing nation doesn't really help that much in easing civil unrest. Call me a hippie-loving dove, but I'm just not sold on the idea. Nope, when it comes to the future of foreign and domestic affairs, I'm much more worried about Pat Robertson than I am with Exxon or Dutch Shell. And if you don't agree with me, a grave disaster will befall every one of you...

Belle and Sebastian Concert, Part 2: Commentary

Tue, 09 May 2006 20:52:02 GMT

There’s a great story in Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz that I’ve been thinking about in recent months, a story about him hanging out in the woods for a week with a bunch of hippies. I’m a little hazy on some of the details now, but Miller writes a lot about the love and acceptance that he felt with the hippies, about how there weren’t really any rules or prerequisites for hanging out with them. He just had to be himself, and that was good enough for the hippies. After all, they weren’t planning on being anything other than themselves either. After a week in the woods, he makes his way to a Christian summer camp in Colorado where he’s glared at and treated as a pariah until he finally gives in to the others’ pressures to shave and clean up and stop looking so much like a hippy. It was only then (after he started to look and act like everyone else) that he felt welcome. Miller then goes on to make the very pointed observation that he learned a great deal more about “community” from the hippies than he ever did hanging out that summer at Christian camp.

When I was at the Belle and Sebastian concert a couple of months ago, I met so many people who love music, who think about music all the time, who allow it to form and shape their experiences and memories. They had a love for talking with other people about the music they love, and for sharing with them other bands that they had listened to and really enjoyed.

"Hey, if you like Belle and Sebastian, you might check out Stereolab. They're really good, too." This was the flow of one of my conversations with Cajun Bill, whom I met standing outside the Granada waiting for the doors to open. Cajun Bill was awesome. We talked about faith and music and education and all sorts of good stuff. The music was a common space that we both inhabited, it's what brought us together to that same spot at that particular moment in time, and in some sort of way, I think realizing that we shared this same passion for music allowed us to open up and share about our passion for our faith. At the end of the night, he invited me to visit him and his wife at their church in Lafayette if I was ever in town. And I reciprocated with an invitation for them to visit mine in Lubbock. It was totally cool. Who would have expected this sort of thing to happen at a rock concert?

The whole night left me with a lot to think about. It left me with a confirmed feeling that it's ok to be really passionate about things that aren't overtly religious, if nothing else because they give you common spaces to inhabit with other people. Common interests help strengthen your relationship with humanity and leaves the door open for true community, whether it's with people you’ve just met or have known for a long time. It was certainly cool to see this being practiced in such a dramatic and refreshing way.

And because of my interest in one particular Scottish band, I met other people with an interest in this particular Scottish band. There was sharing, there was joy, there was openness, there was genuine community with a feeling and vibe rivaling that of any sort of spiritual retreat or function I've ever been a part of. And as the conversation spread to other topics, it also spread to other people. More people joined in the conversation and the community. 2 became 3 became 6 became 8. And it was amazing. Vibrant. Life-giving. I’m sure this same sort of experience could have happened at a “Christian” concert, but for me I don’t think it would have been as surprising, as spontaneous, or as refreshing. And I don’t think it would have taught me as much about God or about loving other people. Something about being in community with strangers at a rock concert is completely mind-blowing. For all the hours that I traveled to see Belle and Sebastian, and as great as I thought the show was, the community that I found outside (and that continued inside) was even better.

I am about to make a confession which might be on par with anything blasphemous or heretical I’ve ever uttered (in which case, see the disclaimer on the bottom side of the page – and bear in mind, as I always say, I’m not really a good Christian): I get really bored thinking or doing only religious things all the time. I could come up with loads of examples, but I don’t really want anyone to think I’m trying to harsh on something they really enjoy. The bottom line is that for me, if I just confine myself to doing normal church-type activities (an experiment I have undergone at various times), I find myself having become self-compartmentalized and not feeling like I’ve been completely honest or authentic about who I am. Life begins to have a 2-dimensional quality, and I don’t feel like I’m allowing people to get to know the real me. I’ve put on a religious face that doesn’t very well reflect my actual personality – at least not all the time. I will be the first to admit that I would make a terrible monk. But my guess is that there are other people out there who face a similar predicament.

(Side note: perhaps this is why it can be so hard to really get to know other people in faith communities – collectively, we tend to give ourselves the pressures of trying to measure up to the standards of what we believe, without also allowing ourselves the freedom to be real and unique (and muddled) human beings. Consequently we find ourselves hanging around people long enough to be cordial and friendly, but not long enough that they might start to see the cracks in our strained façade.)

There were lots of Christians at the Belle & Sebastian concert I was at. I know because I met some. But we didn’t introduce ourselves to one another there as Christians, and in a way, I think this might have been an advantage. We addressed each other as fellow fans - people who really liked music, people who had regular jobs and regular lives with regular struggles who probably drove a long way to see the show that night. Sure, there were people we came across who wanted to everyone to know that they were the biggest Belle & Sebastian fan, that they were the first of their friends to discover the band, that they had all their albums and EPs, or had been listening to them the longest. But they seemed to be more the exception than the norm, especially in the little clan that we hung out with that night. There was an overall lack of pretense and expectation. People were just open and real with one another – at least as real as you can be with someone you just met a couple of hours before – and sadly enough, I left for the hotel that night feeling like in one short evening, I had gotten to know the people around us (and let them get to know me) far better than some of the people I have gone to church with my whole life.

But why is that? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since the night of the show. How did this occur, how could it happen? How could random people from different corners of the world meet each other and share in some sort of refreshing, life-giving, almost mystical, feeling of community in the space of a few hours. The answer (obvious as it sounds) is that there was somehow an environment established in which this was ok. It was ok if you just came for the opening band, if you didn’t have all the albums, if you hadn’t even heard a single song by Belle and Sebastian before (which was the case with my friend Garrett who went with me). Everyone seemed to just be glad that you were there, that you were with them to share in this thing that they love so much and were overjoyed to be able at last to experience in person.

It could be that this is a reflection of the band’s music – a music that seemingly inspires either intense devotion or indifference (very little in between), a music that is sympathetic to the loners, misfits, and broken hearts of the world, a music that is at once both realistic and idealistic. My guess, though, is that it had more to do with the particular fans that we shared the evening with. They were just “good people,” as we would say in West Texas. People who wanted more out of life than fast cars and big houses – who lived for ideals, chased dreams, celebrated life, tried to love each other and make the world around them a little better in their own way.

And they also seemed to epitomize something John Fischer wrote about a couple of months ago in RELEVANT (coincidentally in the same issue as appeared a feature on Belle and Sebastian): “What needs to happen now is for Christians to be doctors, lawyers, clerks, teachers, artists – in short, splendid human beings – first, and Christians second” (Issue 19, p. 28).

There were lots of splendid people at the Belle & Sebastian concert I was at. Were they splendid because they were Christian (in other words, as a result of their faith?) Possibly, although I’ve met many splendid people who weren’t Christians, and many Christians who weren’t splendid people. And besides, I wasn’t entirely sure where all of them stood on the whole God-question, anyway. I was too busy enjoying their company, regardless of how far along the road of faith they may or may not have been, regardless of how “clean” or “dirty” they were, regardless of whether they knew all the lyrics to the songs or not. I was too busy finding out what we as Christians might be missing out on, and discovering first-hand how sometimes the outside world does a better job of showing us Christ than we do ourselves.

Theology Quiz

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:23:59 GMT

Thought this was really interesting. Several of my friends have been sharing their results, so I thought I'd be a pal and do the same. What is it about people that makes us so addicted to these things? If only I could somehow harness the mystical power of Survey...

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern

86%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

79%

Neo orthodox

68%

Classical Liberal

54%

Roman Catholic

46%

Modern Liberal

36%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

32%

Reformed Evangelical

18%

Fundamentalist

11%

What's your theological worldview?
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