Category Archives: Christianity

The Invention of Lying (and Religion): Relevant Magazine Online

March 4, 2010 – 4:34 pm

Truth be told, The Invention of Lying, the recently released-on-DVD film starring Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner, caught me off-guard. I knew the basic premise, that no one ever lies, or even knows how to, but one man, our protagonist Mark Bellison, learns to lie. I assumed the movie would be funny because of Gervais’ leading role. Some parts were funny, in that cringe-inducing way that Gervais seems to have perfected. Some parts were more crass, or even mean, in a darkly comic way. I did not, however, expect an overtly spiritual bent to the last half of the film. If you have yet to see the movie, I recommend that you buy it, rent it, or stream it, watch it, then come back to this article.   Especially since I’m going to spoil stuff.

Read the rest at RelevantMagazine.com…

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Articles Christianity Television

The Incarnational Lessons of Undercover Boss: Relevant Magazine Online

March 1, 2010 – 10:00 pm

Undercover Boss is a show where the boss of a major corporation goes to work at the ground level of his/her business. The first episode of Undercover Boss follows President and COO of Waste Management, Larry O’Donnell, as he dons the uniform of an entry-level employee at his own company. Larry, a.k.a. Randy, works five different jobs in five separate areas of his company, from recycling remover and landfill trash collector, to garbage truck ride-along and cleaner of port-a-potties. Along the way, he meets and works for the very same people that work for him. None of them know his true identity. Consequently, his employees hold nothing in reserve in regards to their honest opinions on their jobs and their company.

Read the rest at RelevantMagazine.com…

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Christianity

The Primal Scream

March 1, 2010 – 8:34 pm

You’re probably familiar with Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, but do you know its inspiration? From the venerable Wikipedia, a quote from Munch’s own diary, written January 22, 1892:

I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

…an infinite scream passing through nature. That’s terrifying.

It was a year ago today that I wept uncontrollably for everything that was breaking around me. We call it a broken heart for a reason, and I felt as if that muscle inside my chest had been severed, with its separate halves wrenching apart, causing my entire body to split down the middle were it not for the glue of all-encompassing pain. That may sound entirely too melodramatic, but the words I used to describe that day, on the day that it happened, included convulsive, aching, and despair. It was like nothing I knew a human could experience. In retrospect, it was the the darkest valley of this journey.

Munch’s “infinite scream” had passed through me. I fear it must pass through us all, eventually. For me, it was the sudden and brutal realization that I was not the sole creator of my own destiny and that I cannot control the actions or wills of other people. It was hopelessness borne of desperation, awash in bitter tears. It was flailing hands to an uncaring universe, selfish cries of “Why me?!” to a silent God.

But what if that’s only part of the story? What if the “infinite scream” really originated, in part, from the only infinite Being? What if the scream, that unearthly and primal sound that sputtered from my soul exactly a year ago, was God’s rage at the injustice and the pain and the chaos and the hurt and the confusion and the sorrow of the entire ordeal, for all parties involved? What if that’s His infinite scream, shouted at the dawn of time, coursing through our lives at times of utmost despair, echoing throughout creation, a wrenching pain leaving a lasting scar, like a sword to a side of flesh.

My God, my God…

What if His seeming silence… is because He’s been screaming with you?

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Christianity Videos

What’s Your Sabbath?

February 28, 2010 – 10:53 pm

Friend and co-worker and sometimes preacher Kelly Clark talked about the fourth commandment at our TXT3 worship service tonight, and since you’ve read the title, you can probably recall what that commandment commands, but, if you’re still not with us, here it is, from the source (Exodus 20:8):

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

We used a few videos that get to the heart of this rather strange command:

Yeah, it’s that simple, but actually making it a part of your life? I still don’t know what it means for me. I’ve “worked” on Sundays for a long time now, but the Sabbath doesn’t have to be a Sunday. I’ve tried (um, not really) to make Fridays a Sabbath, a day of rest, but I still get lost “going my own way” (see Isaiah 58:13-14), resting, but not exactly making it a day of spiritual rest and renewal. But at least now I’m thinking about doing so.

Kelly gave a few suggestions on the reality of remembering the Sabbath: if your job requires constant mental focus, go do something active; if your work is physically demanding, do something for your mind. If you’re always logged on (and I don’t think he was pointing at me when he said this), then log off for a day. Disconnect. The internets will still exist tomorrow.

But really, it’s different for everyone. So I have two questions for you.

Do you consciously observe a “Sabbath?”
If so, how does that look in your life?

Tags rest, sabbath, txt3 | Permalink | Comment (1)

Books Christianity Quotes

Through the Cross

February 28, 2010 – 2:47 pm

After reading this post many months back, and being familiar with Mike Mason from another of his books, and being in a phase of life where I’m asking big questions, I started to read a chapter or two per night of Mason’s The Gospel According to Job: An Honest Look at Pain and Doubt from the Life of One Who Lost Everything, his personal commentary on the entirety of this ancient and often confusing book. Chapters are just two pages, but they’re worth traveling through slowly, allowing time for digestion. Last night’s reading is worthy of sharing here, now (in which I’ve emphasized a few parts that spoke to me):

What Job realized, in his own way, is that there is no progress in the spiritual life except through the cross. Naturally we are forever trying to avoid the cross, either fleeing from it or else searching for some way around it. But with the cross there is no way around and no going back. We must go through. In fact, every step we take forward as believers must be through the cross. There is simply no other way of advancing. That is why we must learn never to leave the cross, never to take our eyes off it. Daily we must pick up our cross and die to ourselves in order that the power of Christ might rest upon us. For the truth is that we do not die all at once but little by little, and every time a little part of us is nailed to the cross and dies, immediately the grace of the Lord Jesus flows into that dead part and renews it. This is how we live by grace. The power of grace is activated through the cross.

Too many Christians are looking for graceless, fix-it solutions to their problems, and to the problems of others as well. We forget that one of the great mysteries of the gospel is that God did not fix us when He saved us. By grace He simply saved us, warts and all.

- Mike Mason, The Gospel According to Job, pg. 174