Battle of the Bands III

03/26/2007, 1:48 pm -- by | No Comments

So it’s Young Methuselah moving onto the second round of the bweinh.com Battle of the Bands! Here’s the next group, from the most recent Bible discussion.

{democracy:12}

Ask Bweinh! Poll — Sports Teams

03/26/2007, 10:00 am -- by | 9 Comments

It’s a new week and a new Ask Bweinh! poll, brought to you — as always — by Liberty Medical. Did you know that if you have diabetes, Medicare may help pay the cost of your diabetes testing supplies? Wilford Brimley knows, and he won’t rest until you know too. Even — no, especially — if it requires the use of force.

Call Liberty. They can help you live a better life.

Today we asked the Bweinh!tributors (unfortunately, before the addition of Mike and Chloe) for their five favorite sports teams, at any level of competition. You’ll find that those who responded didn’t have much in common.

Rank Team Points
1. Sackets Harbor Indians 8
2-5 (tie) Washington Redskins, New York Giants, Syracuse Orangemen, Philadelphia Flyers 5
6-10 (tie) North Carolina Tar Heels, New York Yankees, Canadian Olympic Team, Baltimore Orioles, Oswego State Lakers 4
Other Houghton Highlanders, St. Louis Blues, San Francisco Giants, Watertown Pirates, Washington Capitals, Mudville Nine, Philadelphia 76ers, New York Jets, Harlem Globetrotters, Washington Wizards, RIT Tigers, Staten Island Yankees 1-3

The Word cannot be spoken

03/26/2007, 8:00 am -- by | No Comments

Our priest exulted, “How wonderful His ways,”
then climbed his pulpit’s Calvary. The tide,
lit by the after-dawn had brimmed the bay’s
calm space, reflecting light on the roof inside.
What boy, by a choir-loft window, could resist
turning to look? A seal swam round a trawler
whose lantern-masts were moored above in mist,
and rippled sparkling water-lap down all her
salt-rust length. Past diesel pumps and dock.
the sun unpicked the nets by the fish-house door
as I watched the seal clamber on Pollock’s Rock.
The mist had almost dissolved and a green pour
of ocean swelled and turned by the harbour stair
while the priest struggled, explaining God’s design,
and the seal shook his watered quaff of hair,
slicked down for Sunday morning, just like mine.

~ Oliver Murray

I am a “struggling priest.” And so are most evangelicals, really.

“Struggling priests” try — usually unsuccessfully — to give words to that which cannot be expressed, only experienced. In Murray’s poem, the priest climbs into the pulpit to “explain God’s design.” And yet the little choir-boy begins to experience God’s design not through the sermon, but through the green pour of the ocean, the play of dawn upon the bay, a swimming seal, and the sights and sounds of people at work. In all this, the boy sees God’s design and thus knows it far more than he would after any didactic sermon. It must be experienced to be truly understood.

Don’t get me wrong. I am no hopeless romantic. I know that words are necessary to fully understanding the gospel. I treasure those who hammered out the core of the faith at Nicaea and other councils. I value those who write great works of scholarship to defend and promote the faith once delivered. I honor those who make their living with words today, through sermons and writing and even librarians who organize these countless scores of words we manage to produce. Heck, I even hope to be a person who uses words to God’s glory.

But we must confess that sometimes words imprison the Word. Sometimes, our words render the Word inaccessible. Sometimes, my struggling to explain God’s Word renders it harder for someone to truly understand the Word. Making it as accessible as possible, as plain as possible, sometimes turns it into something it’s not.

In the language of this poem, for every boy lucky enough to sit outside and watch fishermen, sea, and seals, there are hundreds of people who can see nothing but a struggling preacher and desperately try to make heads or tails of what he’s saying, but end up further from God than when they started.

More broadly, sometimes our struggle as evangelicals to effectively communicate the gospel ends up altering the gospel. Many think of evangelism as making a sort of “sales pitch” for the gospel, drawing heavily on wisdom from the corporate and marketing worlds in order to make the gospel easily understood and digested. While there is something laudable in those attempts, we have often failed to ask the question, “What does trying to ‘sell’ the gospel do to the gospel?” If, in the way we speak of the gospel, we lead others to think it is a transaction we make with Jesus, have we not diluted the call of the gospel to the point it’s no longer recognizable as the good news of Jesus?

Drawing up four spiritual laws and other formulae to “explain” the gospel may just have the opposite effect from what we want: they may just push people away from the good God of light-play and labor, of seals and seas.

Joke of the Day, 3/26/07

03/26/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

What do you call a mushroom that buys all the drinks?

A fungi to be with!

Battle of the Bands II

03/24/2007, 4:12 pm -- by | No Comments

Congratulations to Tunics of Skin, our first Battle of the Bands winner! In order to get caught up by this Wednesday, we’re moving on — to the offered names from Genesis 5-9. This poll will go until Monday afternoon because viewership decreases during the weekend.

{democracy:11}

New Additions!

03/23/2007, 6:09 pm -- by | No Comments

Bweinh.com is honored and pleased to add two new contributors this week: Mike and Chloe! They’re both fantastic writers and I can’t wait to read more from them here. They’ll start participating regularly in the site next week, and you can read a little more about them (and all of us) here.

Also note the new email links on the right sidebar; use them to contact any of us individually or comment on the site in general.

This Just In

03/23/2007, 1:00 pm -- by | 5 Comments

Headline on CNNSI.com — Pro Wrestlers Allegedly Linked To Steroid Ring

Say it ain’t so! Next you’ll be telling me the matches are fixed!

I know America is still only slowly waking up to the reality that mainstream pro athletes use performance-enhancing drugs far more than we once thought. But for anyone still wondering how many pro wrestlers and body builders use steroids, let me help you out:

All of them.

I’m going to go ahead and assume I didn’t shatter anyone’s innocence with that revelation. But let’s revisit the question of our mainstream athletes — what’s going on? Call me jaded, but depending on the sport, I’m pretty sure they’re all using as well. At the very least, I assume anyone accused is probably guilty.

I know we take a great deal of pride in our legal system’s presumption of innocence, but this is not about sending someone to jail, despite the illegality of many of these substances. This is about realizing that tainted nutritional supplements, mishandled samples, false positives, and B12 shots from teammates, although convenient excuses, can’t possibly be responsible every time. In fact, they probably never were.

I understand why we want to believe. Part of the enjoyment of watching these athletes perform hinges on our amazement at their physical abilities, which are far more impressive if they’re natural gifts, not unhealthy chemical upgrades. Sports have also traditionally been imbued with a sense of purity and honor. This is perhaps most true and most troubling in the Olympics; we’re raised to believe in the magic of the Games, but it’s painfully obvious that all the sprinters are doping. We may still want to believe in the records, in the spirit of the Games, but it’s getting more and more implausible. The question is not if they’re juicing, but when and whether they’ll be caught. How long can we even pretend to believe?

Like many sports fans, my disenchantment actually stems from baseball. I was raised by my dad to be a fan of the San Francisco Giants, just as his dad raised him. The first summer I really got into the team was the summer of ’93, the year they had two 20-game winners, a record-setting closer, an MVP masher, and 103 wins, but still missed the playoffs to the hated Braves by one game — the year before the wild card.

It was also the summer of arrival for that MVP masher, Mr. Barry Bonds. We stole him in free agency from the Pittsburgh Pirates, and over the next decade, he almost single-handedly made us contenders every season. He was the best ballplayer of my time, and he played for my team.

But in the late ’90s, at an age when most athletes begin to decline, he saw an otherworldly jump in production, amidst increasing whispers that something foul was afoot. Every Bonds at-bat was a must-see event, every season made me proud to be a Giants fan, even as speculation mounted. As my dad and I clung to our hope and the lack of proof, Bonds kept setting astronomical records, culminating in carrying us to within 5 outs of a 2002 championship we should have won.

Then, in 2003, the BALCO scandal broke, exposing numerous athletes, including Bonds, as probable users. As my dad clung to his last shred of hope that it was a mistake, I experienced a much different and unexpected emotion. I was relieved the Giants lost the World Series; a victory would have been tainted for me.

And so this season I’m left to feel ambivalent about the best player of my lifetime, playing for my favorite team and potentially breaking the most hallowed record in all of sports. With new testing, I’d like to think he’s not juicing now, or that the bulk of his stats amassed before the late-career body change were clean. I still support his case for the Hall of Fame.

But the facts remain — there are people working very hard to stay ahead of drug detection. Athletes can be dirty for years, sometimes even entire careers, and not test positive, so it’s far more likely there are guilty athletes we don’t suspect than that there are innocent athletes we do. I’m sorry, but I’ve just lost my ability to believe.

Battle of the Bands

03/23/2007, 12:45 pm -- by | No Comments

Josh J had an excellent idea to increase interactivity with our Bible study — each week, we’ll have you vote on the best band name from the passage. Here are the entrants from Week 1, Genesis 1-4.

{democracy:10}

Clash of the Titans VII: Youth Ministry

03/23/2007, 9:30 am -- by | 10 Comments

In this corner, arguing for the abolition of modern youth ministry, is Job!

And in this corner, arguing for the value of modern youth ministry, is Josh J!

Telling other Christians you don’t like youth ministry is like slipping up and implying to a woman that she should lose some weight; shocked disbelief melts quickly into scorn. Fortunately, my disregard for such is an orbital blessing of having zero tact — you just get used to people’s disgust.

I’ll preface this harangue by saying souls have been won via youth ministry and that is, truly, the end of the argument. We count such as joy. People have been called to it, some are genuinely and admirably good at it, and much of the unbelieving or disbelieving world is moved by it. And the people I know who do youth ministry are the some of the best believers in my Rolodex. Should any of those souls read this — you know who you are — I trust you won’t see it as a personal attack. I would test your food for you or check under your beds for intruders; I would gladly relinquish any pulpit to your greater gifts. And though I’ve been known to mock youth pastors, I regret that our subculture has lampooned them to a point where their enthusiasm and uniqueness are treated like the Kool-Aid pitcher crashing through your wall.

But I come at youth ministry from a comprehensive viewpoint. I see it as a huge financial expense that produces very little return, treated with special honor though it’s relatively new. In a country as morally orphaned as ours, the desire to tag in for parents incapable of teaching their kids about the gospel and moral living is intoxicating, I know. But this is impossible in the broad sense, a hacking at the leaves, not the root — especially when most youth pastors are emerging from their early twenties themselves. Still the Church throws millions of dollars at the institution because it seems so relevant, obvious and even sexy?

A major problem with youth ministry is that young people develop close personal relationships with their youth pastors, not with Christ. And by definition, this relationship ends, kicking the crutch out from under the teen. I’d be more comfortable with the ministry if pastors acted like shepherds, not buddies filling the hole of good influence for a time.

When I think of what we could do with the funds spent on youth ministry, I get excited. Churches could hire a prison pastor, a pastor for the elderly, a director for service projects. I’m uncomfortable with the fevered sense of inadequacy some bodies feel without a youth pastor, and the depth of our love for this template for success in the face of such a morass of spiritual needs. The preoccupation with youth ministry baffles me.

But in short, I’m a Christian fanboy; I love this faith to death and I’m already in line for the sequel. And youth ministry is my Jar Jar Binks. I don’t like seeing so much money and talent spent on a guild and culture that doesn’t produce the lasting belief or believers to account for all we pour into it.

I know, I know; I’m a pig. But that was a pretty big lunch she ordered.

Full disclosure — I’m what you might call a “professional Christian,” having made the entirety of my adult living working for the church, much of that with youth. But I also grew up exclusively in churches without a professional youth worker, and I believe very strongly in a full-Body approach to ministry.

In many ways, I agree with Job that the efficiency and effectiveness of youth ministry should be frequently evaluated, even scrutinized, just like every other effort of the church, to ensure we are doing what is right. But the idea that a church should not make a significant and concentrated investment in youth fails to measure up logically, Biblically, or even from Job’s preferred viewpoint, the “business model.”

Taking the coarsest argument first, from a business standpoint, it’s pretty much a given that developing product loyalty at an early age is sound business. Even if it involves an exorbitant present expense, hooking a customer early brings a payoff for the rest of his life. Just ask our friends at the tobacco companies (Oh, I forgot, they don’t advertise to minors anymore! *wink wink*). And if you don’t hook him early, someone else probably will, and you’ll have a much tougher time selling him later in life.

If Job wants to know where the urgency and insecurity comes from in churches without an intentional youth ministry, I have a theory — they don’t want their church to die off. Which is exactly what would happen to a group that failed to bring in new, young blood, and is, in fact, exactly what has happened or come close to happening in many churches.

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”

In a world where more and more parents will not or cannot do this, the church must. Certainly every effort should be made to reach the whole family, but for those adults who choose to go their own way, yet send their young off to church, we must step into the gap. The church must stand up and give our youth the best possible opportunity to choose the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I know that I am the man I am today because of the lessons I learned when I was young. I was blessed to learn them in my home, and I take that blessing seriously enough to fight the uphill battle to teach them to kids whose homes contradict them daily.

Do we need to make sure we’re giving our kids the real thing? Absolutely. Do we need to be careful not to segregate the Body? Without a doubt.

But where there are failings in these or other areas, it’s an area for that church to improve, not an indictment of focusing on such a bountiful harvest.

{democracy:9}

Quote of the Day, 3/23/07

03/23/2007, 7:00 am -- by | No Comments

“Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.” – B. Russell

Tony Dungy

03/22/2007, 8:46 pm -- by | No Comments

As I was doing research for tomorrow’s article, I came across a headline about Tony Dungy supporting a ban on gay marriage. Apparently Dungy was accepting an award from a pro-family group and used the occasion to endorse the group’s position on a state constitutional amendment.

But then, after the perfunctory quotes from the shocked and offended, came this:

Dungy is not the first public figure to draw fire for anti-gay comments.

Former NBA star Tim Hardaway apologized twice after responding to a question about his reaction to a gay teammate by saying “I hate gay people.” Actor Isaiah Washington, of the hit television show “Grey’s Anatomy,” sought counseling after using a gay slur when he referred to another cast member. Author-columnist Ann Coulter was chastised for repeating the slur when referring to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards during a speech to a conservative group.

So just to recap — Tony Dungy took a position on a constitutional amendment, a position held by a substantial majority of the American people and validated by the laws of 49 states. In so doing, he specifically said, “We’re not trying to downgrade anyone else, but we’re trying to promote the family.”

And the Associated Press felt it was appropriate to compare him to an insane woman addicted to controversy and publicity, a C-list actor who can’t get along with a co-worker, and a preternaturally foolish basketball player — all of whom either used homosexuality as a nasty insult or declared pure and irrational hatred for gay people.

But I guess that’s fair. I suppose opposition to same-sex marriage is automatically equivalent to prejudice, hatred and ignorance! Thanks, AP! You’ve really opened my eyes!

My Ebenezer

03/22/2007, 7:45 pm -- by | 6 Comments

Sometime last year, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, my car had a blowout while I was driving to a friend’s house with my brother, bweinh.com co-contributor Tom. I eased the Lumina onto the muddy shoulder of the road and we went about changing the tire; he pulled my spare out of the trunk while I put the jack together and started to hoist the car into the air. The lug nuts were protected by plastic covers and I quickly removed them — all but one. Tom and I took turns trying to free it with various improvised tools, but it had somehow become warped and twisted, its threads stripped by the pressure that had wedged it deep into the wheel. It wasn’t until two state troopers arrived that the pressure of being observed gave me the power to finally pull it free.

I stuck the deformed sheath in my coat pocket and headed over to my friend’s house. That weekend I bought a set of new tires, and since I have two winter coats, I didn’t run across the cover again for a few weeks, when I discovered it again sticking my hands in my pockets on a particularly cold trek to school. I left it there for a few days, but ultimately found it too interesting to throw away. I knew I probably wouldn’t keep the car after its inspection ran out in December, so I considered just sticking the lug nut cover somewhere in my files as a souvenir.

Then one day, in one of the more deserted staircases, I noticed a window extended below the floor of the landing I was on — just the sort of thing I love to physically investigate. I crawled onto the windowsill and lowered myself below the floor, where I found another level of the staircase, accessible in only three ways: the windowsill, a locked door at the top of the new stairs (the bottom of the level I had come from), and a locked door directly in front of me. Without a key, there was nothing else I could do, except remember the spot in the unlikely occurrence of a rousing game of law school hide-and-seek.

But I decided to leave a little token of my presence behind — that twisted plastic lug nut cover. I put it on the window, where it couldn’t be reached from the upper landing and couldn’t be seen from the lower landing. I’ll be the only one who sees this little guy, I thought, and every time I go up and down this staircase, I’ll look over and remember a time in late November, as the intense pressure of finals approached, when I climbed into a secret little cave and left myself a symbolic reminder.

A message to myself, a hope that things would get better, a token of accomplishment — something tangible I had done, however small.

An ebenezer, if you will, a memorial stone.

And in the months since, it’s worked out exactly that way, and more so. Every time I walk up or down that staircase, I look, and that weird little lug nut cover is there, and I remember. And I smile. Every time.

More than any other object in that entire building, that piece of plastic has brought me joy, no matter what my mood, no matter where I’m going. It’s my own inside joke. It’s not too much of a stretch to think it might be there next year when I come back, or even a few years from now — that window doesn’t open and there’s no reason why anyone else will even see it, let alone move it. But I’ll enjoy it as long as it lasts.

In what small ways have you made your mark on the world around you?
What secret trail have you left behind?

Ask Bweinh! Poll — Foreign Countries

03/22/2007, 1:00 pm -- by | 5 Comments

Brought to you again by BMW, it’s an Ask Bweinh! poll centered beyond our shores.

BMW reminds you to buy American!

Rank Country Points
1. Australia 8
2. Canada 7
3-6 (tie) Israel, Mongolia, Ireland, Brazil 5
7-11 (tie) Great Britain, Switzerland, Philippines, South Africa, Scotland 4
Other Egypt, Sealand, Mexico, Luxembourg, Argentina, Portugal, Djibouti, Hutt River Province 1-3

Joke of the Day, 3/22/07

03/22/2007, 7:00 am -- by | 1 Comment

How many Roberts Wesleyan freshmen does it take to change a lightbulb?

None. That’s a sophomore course.

How a Gecko Changed my Life

03/21/2007, 7:17 pm -- by | 4 Comments

Television is the media form of the masses. Newspapers are older, the Internet is trendier, but television will always be the outlet of the average American. Television brings news, entertainment, and entertainment news to dozens of households across this great nation. A number of my correspondents complain, however, about the brief commercial interruptions that mar the otherwise sparkling one-way national dialogue. In particular they take issue with car insurance commercials.

Car insurance is the form of insurance that, in my opinion, has had the most impact on American culture. The automobile is the first love of the American male, with the Canadian female a close second, and barbeque rounding out the top three. As such, the car has impacted facets of our society ranging from banks, to car washes, to music, and even the silver screen! Car insurance is what makes the high speed limits and radar detectors we all enjoy feasible in a society where 18-24 year old men are allowed behind the wheel.

With car insurance of such lofty import to the America we all know and love, I declare it to be our patriotic duty to not only watch, but enjoy the Rodney Dangerfield-esque struggle of the Geico caveman. I implore us to mount the edge of our collective seat while the inspiring E-surance superheroine saves the world once again. And I beseech you, the American television watcher, to cheer along with the workmen who restored that Allstate customer’s life from its shambles when an automobile scattered it and itself across her living room. At two in the morning.

United, we can restore car insurance’s trust in itself, and in us. Because, in the words of one much wiser than myself…

“It’s Tina. We’re getting back together.”

« Previous PageNext Page »