Can we agree to disagree?

Is it possible for Christians to agree on essentials, namely Christ's
person and work, and vehemently disagree on matters of social,
political, and public relations? That's a question that's been really
bugging me lately. Did Jesus come to bring peace and harmony and are
disagreements like these only getting in the way? I'm not so sure its so
cut and dry. The book of First John addresses both of these issues and
more. First he warns against those who deny Christ as the Son but he
equally warns that true Christians are known by their deeds. But for
those asking the question he admonishes to Love our brothers and
sisters. There is a lot packed into this little book! There is a time
to overlook one another's faults and bear with weaker members. But out
of love for Christ the work of exposing harmful directives (such as the
suggestion to assassinate leaders, to amass wealth even in shady deals,
to teach women they are naturally weaker and subservient to men, or that
one nation is God-ordained to commit crimes against another) for what
they are: sinful and against Christ's work.

I just posted my comment on Pat Robertson's "Clarification" onto the comments on Blue Christian. It was too inflammatory for my own site here. I'd rather include such skullduggery where it belongs in Jon's corner. Anyway, to comment on my comment, I got heated because Pat appealed to Bonhoeffer. I've spent the last ten years gleaning from Bonhoeffer and to have Robertson misuse him is just plain hurtful.

Amira Haas article

I haven't blogged in a while about the Palestinian situation. Truthfully I feel shame for the distance time and circumstance have brought me from my solidarity with Christians in the Middle East. I still get all the email reports. I'm so bogged down with work and family that I have had no time for anything else. But my heart still beats in time--and breaks over my experiences in Israel/Palestine in 2002. I pray I'll get back there some day, and that the Christians in the West Bank and Gaza will have not all been forced out by the violence. A friend sent me this recent article from Amira Haas, a jewish reporter for Haaretz who has written extensively on life in Gaza.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/616309.html

on a-bomb day i had nothing to say

I was struck dumb on the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Look up Hiroshima on Wiikipedia and read all the pros and cons, that's what i did. I wanted to blog but my emotion struck me dumb. Brian Walsh gave a lecture at Cornerstone Festival in 2003 on Postmodernity and Empire. He said that being postmodern is never being able to get over the Bomb. That historical event overshadows every other action postmodern Americans take. I read this quote from the new 'Ethics," volume 6 in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works project: pg. 77, second paragraph:

"That evil appears in the form of light, of beneficence, of faithfulness, of renewal, that it appears in the form of historical necessity, of social justices, is for the commonsense observer a clear confirmation of its profound evilness."

I read that and I think of the use of the bomb on Nagasaki. Hiroshima was not enough. Somehow Japan wouldn't have surrendered with Hiroshima. We had to drop it again. And what of it all now? Is it even an issue anymore?
I think it should be.

cracklin moth at the hideout

Last night I pretended to be a much younger adult and snuck out to see Cracklin Moth at the Hideout. The Hideout is a notorious bastion of alt.country in Chicago. My friend and I walked west on Armitage and crossed the river bridge by that old steel factory and then walked south on elston to wabansia. What a cool neighborhood! Walking it really adds to the vibe. Toward wabansia all along this old warehouse someone screwed nsync photo frames up with black and white xeroxes of their face. How odd. Anyway once we got to the Hideout I found that it really is that---a tiny hideout. There's barely room to move around in there. The concert started at 10:15 instead of 9:30 and I kept asking "Is there another room here where the show is playing?" Nope. And they have all day concert tributes in this place!
Cracklin' moth was really great. The crowd was groovin and dancing and seemed to really enjoy themselves. The band is tight and Matt's voice really works. Maybe they're the funnest little Chicago alt. country band you'll have heard in a while. Give 'em a listen. cracklinmoth.com There's free songs to download on their site.
Well we got home at midnight and I showered up and discarded my second-hand-smoke wreaked clothes. I was scared Martha would wake up and say "You smell." But she never noticed.
Michael and I would like to sneek out to the Hideout again some night. All right I'm not fooling anybody. I don't sneek anywhere anymore. Anyway, it was fun.

waiting

Limbo. Expecting messages back from more people than I can remember. By
email. The Inbox bolds up. Maybe just maybe this is important. Spam.
#%*@!!!! Its lonely here that's the bottom line. Wilco makes it all better.

be watching

I heard today that all the plenaries and sermons from this year's
Ekklesia Project gathering will be posted in audio for download to the
website soon. Be watching: ekklesiaproject.org

Yesterday and this morning I've been attending the Ekklesia project's conference at Depaul University here in Chicago. The theme this year is "No Other Gods." I've caught two lectures so far on the Decalogue and Empire and sat in on a group discussion in the late morning. I was so nervous yesterday about this thing because I don't have a post-graduate education. Many folks speaking and in attendance are quite notable in their fields and so I had reason to be nervous in their presence. But the whole spirit of the meeting has been so welcoming and open, so down-to-earth and accessible. Let me recommend Ekklesiaproject.org. I'm finding many new friends for the journey and many older brothers and sisters in the struggle who are much more well read and experienced than I!
Bill Cavanaugh gave an Amazing plenary on "The Empire of the Empty Shrine." Here are my notes from his lecture:

William Cavanaugh

The Empire of the Empty Shrine

The first commandment is a flight from the Empire of Egypt. Israel/Babylon. Early Christians/Rome. Correct past mistakes by offering no gods to worship. Novak: respect for the freedom of human conscience. Empty shrine. Democratic capitalism should sweep the shrine clean. Founding fathers would agree with this. Empty openness at heart of DC lends itself to expansion and empire.
Emptiness and openness leads to idolatry. Liberalism in US has been wed with perfect consistency to consumerism.

In order for the US to have an empire we must deny we have one. Central organizing myth is that "we had greatness thrust upon us."
"American Empire" Andrew Basavich
After WWII all we wanted to do was come home. Bush: rid world of evil typical of that myth. Our preferred way of telling the story. Preserves our sense of virtue. Our modesty is preserved in our reluctance to use our awesome power. We didn't choose it it just happened. There must be a strong element of providence (which we can't second guess) to maintain this. Our modesty and reluctance prove our greatness. Main problem with this is that it's false.

Not historically true to believe we've taken stage in response. Teddy Roosevelt "our whole national history has been one of expansion." Under Clinton mantra was openness. This policy is not new.

2 ironies
1. universalism is flag waving nationalism. Because we understand history we are the exception to history. Nation/state becomes the one agreed upon end. That system alone unites all nations. Patriotism lets us ignore class divisions.

2. oscillates between idealism and selfishness. We expect no limits to our conumptive way of life. Jimmy Carter "respond to the crisis with lower expectations."

Ideology of openness. Capitalism is about growth and expansion. The only thing uniting us is our freedom to disagree. Votaire: I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend with the death your right to say it. "Of course that's not my death someone elses."

Our way has a missionary impulse. Give up the idea of the end of history for capitalism. We are on the right side of history. Madeleine Albright, "We have our duty to write history."


With openness comes peace. Now openness brings lack of security. National defense dropped for national security. Now openness itself is a threat to peace from those who would keep us from writing history.

Full spectrum dominance. By some estimates our military spending rivals all other nation's combined. "Those ambiguous situations residing between peace and war."

Technology lets us see through the fog of war. Omniscience and omnipotence are within our grasp. Infinite reach. Infinite justice.
The kind of olympian perspective Homer had given his gods.--Gen. Tommy Franks.

Ascend beyond the particularities of humans. Empty all particular creeds to keep from claiming any particular God.
Fill shrine with National God who sees resistence to Openness.

Part II

Theological critique of Empire.

Ex. 19:5-6 "But you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Chooses to save world through particular history of one people.
Shrine is never truly empty. God is not generic he is of a particular people.

Influential exceptionalism: US is new Israel. Providential fulfillment through one nation. New Testament Israel is the church. Rom. 9-11
1 Peter 2:9, The church is a holy nation. Ekklesia is the parculiar political stance of the church. The Day of the Assembly--Dueteronomic. The idea refers to the whole. Saw themselves as the eschatological fulfillment of Israel. The church is not polis and yet it used the language of citizenship. Christians are questionable citizens of any empire. Loyalty to church is primary.

In America there is no single visible idol. Openness is not a good candidate for idolatry. Its the ineffability of the national god that makes it so powerful. By denying its power we give it more power. That god may not be refused when sacrifice is required. US acts as substitute for church and God. All religion is civil religion to Durkheim. Empty shrine threatens to make a deity not out of God but our freedom to worship God. Worship becomes worship of our collective self. Freedom becomes the one thing we will die and kill for.

You shall not kill.

Godlikeness comes in where State alone can kill. Confess any God you want provided you're willing to kill for America. Kill is in subject not verb. Divide between God and humans. God alone decides. [You] is the command. God is particular so that his work can spread. All have chance to behold and test this new thing. They are not forced. Lofink "Does God need the church?" Ex. 14:14 The Lord will fight for you you have only to keep still. Their victory is through the intervention of the Lord.

Every army thinks it has divine favor. In OT emphasis is on lack of military strength. "Two little flocks of goats." Huge army of Arimeans. Contrast is in the strength of other nation's militaries. OT served as paradigm for early church. Martyrdom becomes the way of victory for early church. Discern God's activity in persecution and weakness. Church imitates Christ by absorbing the violence of the world. If Jesus is the point of history then Christians read history from the point of his life, death, and ress. Find true life by refusing to fear death.

The church is our primary political community. Not triumph of church but repentence. American empire has taken over many of the functions of the church. Missions, catholicity, universalism, all coopted by US empire.

Obedience as liberation.
Liberation as absorbing violence.

Questions:

What about church as leaven in the world?
Reservation: if the church is leaven and something else is bread. Nation is a given, church helps to make it a bit better. Avoid that.
Bread must be the body of Christ. Proclaim the different kind of community with is a political reality.

Economics of church vs. empire.
Part of our task is to create difference economic spaces. Not necessarily withdrawal or seperation. But structures have to be transformed. Create a different economic space not determined by profit but by whats best for all in community.

Church's role: Its not as if the stage is the nation. The tragedy is the nation and the comedy is the church. We work together for a good solution. The church-sect dichotomy is not the only option (Join the Amish or write your congressman.)

Andrew Basavich "American Empire"

There's nothing about divine sanction that can't be used for violence. Yes Xianity has produced violence but the greater problem is in secular ideologies that do violence for the empty shrine. Our secular violence is rational, secular, muniative. "Regrettably, we need to bomb them into the higher rationality."

The nation is the truly sectarian body that divides the world's body. The church unites members or potential members of Christ's body.


--------------------------

Much of this is no doubt cryptic but maybe you'll like it.

some things i just can't blog about

Some things are too personal to blog about. When mom gets cancer. Mom and Dad separating and reuniting. A kid in therapy. Addiction and recovery. More has been happening in my life lately than I can possibly cipher for the future. Just know that life in your thirties makes you more adult than you really want to be. And older friends assure me it only gets thicker over time. One friend told me I'd probably reinvent myself (I guess that means vocations) three times before I'm fifty. Inside I still feel in many ways like that kid I was coming of age at sixteen. I'd spend hours upon hours in this recliner writing down all my feelings and listening to music. That was the only way I knew to cope. That should say something to me about the way I feel people perceive me. The ones I know love me I don't worry about. The ones I feel I piss off I just try to ignore and hope they don't come around. Either way I'll just be about my business.  How the last three sentences fit with the one prior I don't know. I just write what I feel.

I finished Flannery O'Connor's "The Violent Bear It Away" recently. What a weird ending! I can't quite decide what's happening. Is Tarwater a ghost? Is it all a vision? I looked it up in Jill Baumgaertner's book but see nothing about the ending. She mentions Tarwater being raped though. When did that happen?

At old town folk fest

At old town folk fest watching Alejandro Escovedo do his craft. Amazing

Peanut Butter, aka Raggitt as we sometimes call her, is so much bigger now two months later. This is her on the day we brought her home. Martha says she's at least twice this size now. I think three times!

With God On Our Side

"Barbaric" screamed the headline of the Chicago Sun Times this morning.
A mimic I suppose of the Governor's words of comfort after the subway
killings in London yesterday. Condi signed a condolence book. Blair and
Bush said our resolve is strong. We all feel better. Buddy Miller is
singing "With God On Our Side" on my Itunes. A few lines struck me a
different way just now. WWI: the singer doesn't know why we're fighting.
After WWII the Germans are forgiven, though six million Jews are dead,
but yes, they now have God on their side. Then its the Russians. The
question is where does it stop? Yesterday innocent die from "Barbaric"
acts and our leaders offer comfort by saying "This is what we're
fighting for." And as long as we're fighting we have God on our side.
This tangled weave of violence, assurance, war, and now more terrorism
beg the questions: Why Me, Why Us? Why Death? Who will protect us from
ourselves? Its easiest not to think about it at all. Personally I'm
irritated by our leaders. They offer assurances because that's their job
but do any of us really feel safer? I hate the spectacle of the news
after such acts. I hate the helpless passive gaze forced upon me. Christ
be between me and all this news. Christ be with all the victims and yes
with the perpetrators. Christ give me strength to feel. Christ give us
hands and feet to do something. Give me just one thing to do today to
counter that abhorrent act. And every recent abhorrent act between
humans that is far less than human be it in conscious warring or
otherwise. One simple thing please.

my fest experience

Its the last day of the week in which I retreated to Chicago from a week and a half of tent living in Bushnell Illinois. I suppose I am that much richer, more patient, and more eager for Parousia because of the experience. I'm glad I will not be loading and unloading trucks and minivans for another year. Trucks bearing all the wares of my trade and that of everyone else who works in this building. All the writers and artists I see year round in passing on their ways to the delapidated bathrooms here on second floor. Some emerge from their windowless offices from hours of staring into their 15" monitors just to stand where there are windows and remember that they still speak with human voices and see daylight. [If they ever read this we'll have more to talk about. Or maybe they won't want to talk anymore at all for fear you'll hear about it!]

Its a wonder that I and these pretend to be outside dwellers for over a week once a year. Its a wonder that we inhale the dust of Illinois cornfields and burn our skin with the sun and then freeze ourselves upon nightfall inside temporary dwellings of vinyl and barely metal zippers. Maybe we do it because it makes us feel like anything is possible with a truckload of ice and water and per diem enough to make us smile. Some of us spend the entire year in preparation for that one week (or four days for others). This year I fell into the week with 1000 and 1 other things pressing.

On the other hand, the Fest is about conversations otherwise not had with folks from all over the world. This year I'll mark in my memory one lengthy conversation with a young man about Existence, Evil, Spiritual Encounter, and the Effect faith has on a person. His questions and my poke at answers changed me. Bolstered my faith. The reality of an all powerful God who loves me and desires a relationship with me never ceases to be a tender and moving subject. The fact that I grew up a believer and that faith has always been my life theme has not kept me from utter failure, addiction, and betrayal of all I love. That part of my narrative makes my testimony a tricky delivery, but a bittersweet joy nonetheless.

I mark this fest as a victory in the resistance of temptation. I kept the personal conversation going, did not withdraw and isolate from my fellows, and I am stronger for it. Lust, despair, anger, and discouragement plagued me as usual but I can honestly say I reached out to God and my brothers and with their help stayed faithful. Yeh, desperately faithful.

We brought our house rabbit down with us. She (Peanut Butter) managed to stay cool and get exercise and be lots of fun. Martha and I took the kids to the beach at the man-made lake down the hill. I got in at least twice and splashed around. Back at the campsite for at least two days I got some quality reading in. I read "I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer" which I got on inter-library loan, and "Karl Barth's Theological Exegesis" by Richard E. Burnett which I still hope to review later this year. Later I purchased from my own store "3 by Flannery O'Connor" and began "The Violent Bear It Away." Somebody tell me if that's OK to read first. Though I don't really care. The byline about devoted prophets killing folks out of love for God was enough to make me pick it up. Though that must happen at the end. Anyway. . . .

Martha is amazing in her tenacity and patience for camping. Everything was carefully packed in bins and she managed to remember everything our family of five needed and pull off providing tents for the rest of JPUSA as well. We couldn't have managed without my good friend Michael. He was a real trooper in the back seat with the kids on the way home. My three year old was so much trouble! I often asked how could something so cute and tiny be such a royal pain!?! Darling--rascal--darling--rascal. I was stopping the van so much to deal with her on the way home that it felt as if we'd never arrive.

Well there it is. And I've relived it all just for you. Feel special.

a little theological reflection

All right, I'm gonna stick my neck out here and offer a little of what I've been reading again this morning. By way of explanation the thoughts in the following paragraph were part of a spiritual search I was on a number of years ago. As a teen I began reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth's name kept popping up. When my wife and I moved to Chicago I had more study time on my hands and I began mining our huge library downtown of its Bonhoeffer collection. One day I stumbled on this book After Fundamentalism by Bernard Ramm and it was like finding a key to the prison of so many of my doubts about what I believed, the chief issue being Apologetics. My spiritual awakening took place in the late 1980s and at the time Apologetics and Evangelism were joined at the hip. I may be wrong but I suspect that the vast majority of Evangelicals are still so situated. But when I read Hume, Voltaire and Neitzche, and took their positions seriously, I realized that Apologetics so situated with Evangelism just doesn't work. Its an obfuscation of the Enlightenment. Ramm calls it obscurantism. Now this is not to try to shatter Thomas Aquinas or the classic arguments for God's existence. Its simply to say that to think that reason forms the basis for Evangelism is to not see the big picture. America has nearly 230 years of experience with Evangelicalism. To say that Christianity is the only reasonable choice is to claim that all rational arguments in opposition are denying the obvious. To me that is not a conversation starter. Well my lead-in is now longer than the quote:

"One of Barth's basic presuppositions with reference to the truth of the Christian faith is that if something external to the Word of God is necessary to establish the Word of God as true, then it is greater than the Word of God. He states this in many ways and in many contexts. Or, one could say that it is a very weak Word of God that needs external supports. Barth's maxim is that what establishes is greater than what is established. But there can be nothing greater than the Word of God. Therefore the Word of God establishes itself. If the lion needs gophers and rabbits to announce his kingship, then the lion is no longer king of the beasts. Barth takes as axiomatic that it would be very strange if Christian could believe the faith only if there were external assurances for it. If Christianity is tested for truth, then the test is greater than Christianity."
[from Bernard Ramm, After Fundamentalism: The Future of Evangelicalism, Harper & Row, 1983., pg. 61.]

To me Lee Strobel is the case in point here. His maxim (with his books The Case for Christ, The Case for a Creator, and his TV show on Pax ) all claim to want to dialogue with Mainstream America. Instead what he does is misrepresent all opposing views, tell the reader or viewer what he believes they want to hear (his opinion) and then draw a straight line from his point of view to Jesus. His testimony is that of having been a liberal radical atheist who wanted to attack Christ to becoming a far right wing conservative because of the facts. I surmise there's more to his story. This is the essence of Apologetics and Evangelism gone wrong. To me what is really being said is: "If Christianity can't be made to suit an agenda (mine) then it can't be true." I say that any real survey of worldwide Christianity shows that Jesus is much too colorful and influential for different reasons than to be fit into any one person's box.

Ok, with all of that said, there are many good and honest folks involved in Apologetics and Evangelism. And Karl Barth's deemphasis of Apologetics was quite honestly his own form of bias due to his background.  Political conservatives coopting the Apologetic conversation form no final reason to completely disregard a place for Apologetics. CS Lewis is a great example of a Lay apologist as is Josef Pieper. Various contemporary Christian philosophers all do a good job. But I think even these would shy away from claiming an epistemology (how we come to faith) that is all encompassing.

Choosing Not to Cuss

On Choosing not to Cuss:

Does it really offend you Holy Spirit when four letter words fall off my
lips? Why? Is it because you're so easily offended and moralistic? Is it
because you're too good for me? Does the music I listen to offend you
because it is not Praise? Is your favorite station WMBI? Are you
offended by all the rest? Holy Spirit are you too holy for all of us
here in Chicago? Is Benny Hinn really your kind of man? Why are you not
offended by his greeting every morning? ("Good Morning, Holy Spirit" was
an old book by him.)

These questions reveal a bit of bitterness in me, its true. Why this
rash of interrogation? Because I've been wrestling lately with the
question of profanity. I don't cuss because it doesn't suit me. But
profanity reveals a deep anger and bitterness in me that is very close
to my heart. That's scary to be sure. But how else can the fear and the
rage be pronounced? Its how my neighbors express themselves and I find
it tempting. Less sinful than smoking or drinking or whoring to be sure.
Its only tempting deep inside me.

Holy Spirit I know you're not too dainty for my world. Not too quaint,
not too small. I offend you because you love me. My faith I fear is
quaint, dainty, small, maybe even handicapped. You are strong and bold.
You cut through all the crap to the real me. You are no doubt offended
not by the language but by the force inherent in the ribold rejection of
your Ways. The language reveals the bitterness. And so, as I do every
day. I surrender my emotions Father God, Jesus Lover of my soul, Sweet
Holy Spirit. I am broken. You are the cure. Have your way with me. I
choose not to cuss. I surrender. Because you are strong. I am the weak
one. Cussing is a false armor for my conceit. A false armor for the fear
and rage. It makes me sound big, creates a front which does not suit me.
Christ be between me and all others this day. Between me and the words I
speak. Christ you are the only Significance.

gonna tell stories

I'm burning a disc of my favorites from "Down to the Promised Land," an
old compilation of artists on Blood Shot Records here in Chicago.

Just to demonstrate how weird I am, I'm also peering at "Myth and
Christianity" a paperback copy dated 1958, by Karl Jaspers and Rudolf
Bultmann. I collect these kind of books and surround my writing space
with them.

Now I forgot what I was gonna say. Somebody just called me and I can't
return to what I was gonna right about. I hate it when that happens.
Thanks a lot Michael. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Oh yeah:

I'm in a place of limbo in my life right now. But I've always been in
limbo and that's what I want to write about. I'm 31 at this writing. I'm
ten years married with three little kids. I've got work that really
interests me and friends (and a lover in my wife) like I've never had in
my life. That's a lot to be thankful for and as good a place to
recollect as any. Edward Siad wrote a book called "Out of Place" during
a time in his life when he thought he'd be dying soon. The book is
wonderfully mundane to me in many ways. As a professor of English and
Comparative Lit at Columbia University and as perhaps this generation's
most well know and vocal American Palestinian or Palestinian Expatriate
you'd think his memoir would surround his political coming of age. But
in a beautiful way he just told the truth about his boring childhood.
Well I'm not near as interesting as Edward Said to so many people. But
someday I'm gonna lasso my story (lasso?, yes country music does that!)
and tell it.

It'll be full of crazy stories about a guy a knew trying to kill a roach
that crawled into his ear with a Qtip.

Another about a guy taking a big swig of piss that had mysteriously
found its way into the refrigerator. Now that's a story. I can imagine
my six year old girl's reaction to that one. I'd never live that down.

Calling my dad out off of a construction site to tell him if he's gonna
vent on my wife-to-be he's gotta go through me. Then telling him he is
downright evil.

Picking up a sledge hammer and smashing a watermelon off of my friend's
head because I think he's acting too stupid. Getting angry at him the
same way my dad did at me that month previous.

The shock of learning the following week that that friend died in a car
accident. The shame of never being able to say sorry.

Lots of stories. Too little time to tell them now.

Been readin' lately

Well Alright I've been book tagged by Blue Christian Jon and now with an obnoxious glare I'm going to admit to what I've been reading lately. Now I read for different reasons. Some books like The Man Called Cash by Steve Turner I read for sheer pleasure. Then I walk around boring everybody with my knowledge of the odd doings of a personal hero and legend but nevertheless old and now dead guy, Johnny Cash. If I were my son I'd think I was strange, but that's another story.

I recently prided myself in finishing On Love from Faith, Hope, Love by Josef Pieper. It makes up more than half the book. Faith and Hope take up like 40 pages each but Love must be closer to 140 pages. I counted the other night but now I can't remember. Anyway, there's reading and then there's READING and Pieper makes you feel every page. If you don't know Josef Pieper I'll just say he's a classically trained Thomist whom I really enjoy. I began with his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power which a Catholic friend gave me years ago. Well it was so timely and well put that I asked Jon about Pieper's book on Eros that he'd mentioned was so good. [The first self-proclaimed Thomist I encountered scared me to death. I was studying in the St. Louis public library on Locust and this Aquinas student just kept bringing photocopies of books and laying them beside me telling me to read. And I kept going from floor to floor trying to hide until he'd find me and say "check this out" until I finally said "I'm not interested please stop!" But I digress. ] Pieper's fresh introduction to Aquinas and Classical thought makes me want more and more. Though I'm full for a while with On Love thank you very much. I ordered Pieper's The Four Cardinal Virtues to sell at the Fest on the advice of a trusted friend here. I've got to buy a copy of Faith Hope and Love soon so I can mark up my copy of On Love and use it in some memoirs someday. There's a lot of clarification of what Love is and isn't that I've never seen hashed out anywhere else. I did read Lewis' The Four Loves and Pieper quotes him a lot. But Pieper quotes all the important writers, philosophers, theologians, and pundits of love from the 20th century and then sits back and profoundly lets it all make sense, or sometimes make questions. Either way I really had fun. There should be a quote somewhere about how some folks like me can't really understand things unless they're explained in little forty page philosopho-speaks by guys with German names. Then after sheepishly agreeing with whoever gave the quote I'd swear never to be like that in real life.

I've been skipping around through The Secular City by Harvey Cox. The chapter on sex was very good for the most part. Boy that sounds weird. Just picked up The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul two days ago and I'm heading into chapter two. Its one of those books I just start nibbling into thinking "there's no way I'm really gonna finish this." And then I just keep reading and reading cuz its good.

The book that has become my life lately is titled (today):
From Tannenbaums to Handel's Messiah: A Chicago Christmas by Jim Benes (to be released in the fall of 2005). If you've seen Chicago Christmas, this is the revised and expanded version. I told Jim a few months back while peering over the stacks of papers and photos that filled the 4x10' table "Man, I feel like I'm entrusted with your life's work." To which he replied "Oh please, its just a hobby gone awry." I laughed. Then I hung up and cried over the work to be done.

books I'm not reading: The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel, The Left Behind Series by Lahaye and Jenkins, Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen.

That's what you get for book-tagging me.

Here's the List of Books I'm bringing down to Cornerstone Festival this year. In addition to money for CDs and Tshirts please bring money for lots of good books! By buying these books and used books you'll be supporting the good work of this good-little-nonprofit-that-could. Shameless merchandising. Shameless. I'm shameless. Cuz I still wouldn't mind working here next year. One foot in front of the other.

Asterisks are next to books you get 15% off for if you say you are attending that seminar.

Speaker Books, Course Related Material, Generally Good Reading

A Long Obedience in the Same Direction - Petersen, Eugene
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on - Miller, Donald
*Bravehearts: Unlocking the Courage to Lo - Hersh, Sharon A.
Breaking Free: Understanding Sexual Addiction and the healing power of Jesus - Willingham, Russell
*Death Comes for the Archbishop - Cather, Willa
*Denial of Death - Becker, Ernest
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel - Wind, Renate
Field Guide to Narnia - Duriez, Colin
Four Cardinal Virtues - Pieper, Josef
Four Loves - Lewis, C. S.
*Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional etc. - McLaren, Brian D.
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It - Wallis, Jim
Gospel According to America: A Meditatio - Dark, David
Into the Region of Awe - Downing, David C.
*Last Word and the Word After That: A Tal - McLaren, Brian D.
Life You Save May Be Your Own: An Americ - Elie, Paul
Long Loneliness - Day, Dorothy
Mere Christianity (HarperCollins) - Lewis, C. S.
*Mom, I Hate My Life!: Becoming Your Daug - Hersh, Sharon A.
Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose - O'Connor, Flannery
*New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Fri - McLaren, Brian D.
*Pensees (Revised) - Pascal, Blaise
*Propaganda - Ellul, Jacques
Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity - Winner, Lauren F.
*Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of H - Nouwen, Henri J. M.
Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: W - Sider, Ronald J.
Screwtape Letters - Lewis, C. S.
Searching for God Knows What - Miller, Donald
*Story We Find Ourselves in: Further Adve - McLaren, Brian D.
Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutio - Inchausti, Robert
Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith o - Yankoski, Mike
*Anarchy and Christianity - Ellul, Jacques
Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters - Staub, Dick
Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritu - Winner, Lauren F.
I Loved a Girl: A Private Correspondence - Trobisch, Walter
Living Like Jesus: Eleven Essentials for - Sider, Ronald J.
*Singleness of Heart: Restoring the Divid - Williams, Clifford
Subversion of Christianity - Ellul, Jacques
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe- CS Lewis
Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise Blood/T - O'Connor, Flannery
Tolkien Reader - Tolkien, J. R. R.
*Works of Love - Kierkegaard, Soren
*Life of the Mind: A Christian Perspectiv - Williams, Clifford
*Purity of Heart: Is to Will One Thing - Kierkegaard, Soren
Signposts in a Strange Land: Essays - Percy, Walker

Cornerstone Press Titles

Growing With My Garden: Thoughts on Tending the Soil and the Soul - Rolland Hein
Hammers & Nails: The Life and Music of Mark Heard - Matthew Dickerson
C.S. Lewis: Mere Christian - Kathryn Lindskoog
The Harmony Within: The Spiritual Vision of George MacDonald - Rolland Hein
Christian Mythmakers, 2nd Edition- Rolland Hein
Flannery O'Connor: A Proper Scaring - Jill Peláez Baumgaertner
Finding The Landlord: A Guidebook to C.S. Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress - Kathryn Lindskoog
Wind of the Journey: Poems - Irina Ratushinskaya
*The Responsibility of the Christian Musician - Glenn Kaiser
More Like the Master: A Christian Musician's Reader - Kaiser, Card, Peacock, et al
Selah: A Guide to Music in the Bible - Donald Thiessen
The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins, and Science Fiction - Mike Hertenstein
Selling Satan: The Evangelical Media and the Mike Warnke Scandal - Mike Hertenstein and Jon Trott
Orphan Girl: The Memoir of a Chicago Bag Lady - Marie James, as told to Jane Hertenstein
Home is Where We Live: Life at a Shelter Through a Young Girl's Eyes
Organic Faith: A Call to Authentic Christianity - Ron Mitchell
Dinosaur Journal: Making Sense of a Young Son's Death - Curtiss Mortimer
My Son, My Brother, My Friend: A Novel Letters - Dale C. Willard
Beyond Belief: Cartoon Confessions of Faith - Roger Judd