Perceptions from a Pewboy

Back in 2003, Rolling Stone magazine (issues 925 and 926, July 2003) featured an article entitled “The Killer Elite”. The author of the article, a reporter by the name of Evan Wright, had spent two months in 2003 traveling with a Marine reconnaissance battalion in Iraq. This particular battalion, populated by young, courageous, and well-trained soldiers, was at the forefront of the charge toward Baghdad.

In the article, the author spends some time addressing the role of the military chaplain who was a part of the battalion. The chaplain believed that it was his primary responsibility to help the soldiers to cope spiritually and emotionally with the almost incomprehensible horrors of combat. On Easter Sunday of 2003, that chaplain held a worship service in a barren field in Iraq. About fifty Marines were in attendance. One Marine, new to faith, chose to be baptized at that worship service. When the chaplain poured the baptismal water over the soldier’s head, the rest of the Marines applauded. The chaplain believed that the baptism boosted the collective morale of the battalion and served as powerful evidence that the Holy Spirit was moving even across the sands of Iraq.

Later that day, however, when Sgt. Brad Colbert, the team leader and one of the most respected Marines in the battalion, heard about the baptism, he became angry. In fact, the article maintains that, when Colbert heard about the baptism, he could not conceal his outrage: “Give me a break,” Colbert exclaimed. “Marines getting baptized? This used to be a place of men with pure warrior spirit. Chaplains are a goddamn waste.”

Jesus, I suppose, will always be looked upon as a dangerous threat by all those who are more invested in the kingdoms of this world than they are in the kingdom of God. Think about it. King Herod saw Jesus as a threat to his throne 2,000 years ago. Current-day soldiers occasionally see Jesus as a threat to the “pure warrior spirit.” Perhaps such conflict is inevitable. Jesus, after all, came to inaugurate a new kingdom, and new kingdoms, it seems, are never established without considerable resistance.

As the presidential race goes into high gear, I find it particularly urgent to remind myself of which kingdom it is in which I have my primary citizenship. It is a kingdom that is governed, but not by Republicans or Democrats. It is a kingdom that is protected, but not by Marines. It is a kingdom in which a single baptism is more threatening and unsettling than an M-16 rifle.

I saw an interesting film on Cinemax the other day. The film, released in 2006 and entitled “The Last Kiss,” creates a rather unsettling and multi-layered cinematic portrait of young men and women attempting to come to grips with issues of commitment, betrayal, parenthood, and covenant. It is not a great film. Nevertheless, it creates some memorable on-screen moments.

One of those moments revolves around the following words, spoken by an older and wiser patriarch to a younger man who has recently cheated on his girlfriend with another woman. This younger man begins to talk about how much he loves his girlfriend. The patriarch interrupts him with this significant observation:

Stop talking about love. Every idiot in the world says he loves somebody. It means nothing. What you FEEL only matters to you. It’s what you DO to the people you say you love. That’s what matters. It’s the only thing that counts.

It was a moment that compelled me to reflect upon how frequently I over-romanticize love, allowing it to become little more than a self-gratifying inner warmth and a euphoric means to emotional self-aggrandizement. After all, I throw around the word “love” with an almost devil-may-care nonchalance. I say that I love my wife. I say that I love my parents. I say that I love Jesus. But I also say that I love homemade vanilla ice cream and the new Batman movie. Maybe the patriarch from the movie is right. Maybe “every idiot in the world SAYS that he loves someBODY,” or someTHING.

In the parable of the great judgment, Jesus tells us that, whenever we have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, and visited the prisoner, we have, in actuality, done those things to Jesus himself. “‘Truly I tell you, just as you DID these things to one of the least of my brothers and sister, you did them to me.” (Matthew 25:40) It is almost as though Jesus is saying to us, “Stop TALKING about love. Every idiot in the world says that he loves somebody. It means nothing. It’s what you DO to the people you say you love. That’s what matters. What really counts is whether or not you dared to see my face in the faces of the people around you and then did something tangible to minister to their need.”

Perhaps Jesus is telling us, in other words, that love is not authentic love until it moves beyond what is felt to what is done. Authentic love, in other words, is love incarnated; love in motion and action; love demonstrated in the form of tangible acts of mercy and compassion.

Anyway, it was a nice cinematic moment in “The Last Kiss.” It made me want to love better.

In a lecture entitled “New Perspectives on Paul,” (delivered at the 10th Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference in August of 2003), scholar N. T. Wright offers this persuasive reading of the Apostle Paul’s soteriology:

I begin where Romans begins – with the gospel. My proposal is this: When Paul refers to ‘the gospel’, he is not referring to a system of salvation, though of course the gospel implies and contains this, nor even to the good news that there now IS a way of salvation open to all, but rather to the proclamation that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth has been raised from the dead and thereby demonstrated to be both Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord.

‘The gospel’ is not ‘you can be saved, and here’s how.’ Rather, the gospel, for Paul, is ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’…And, since the gospel is the heraldic proclamation of Jesus as Lord, it is not first and foremost a suggestion that one might like to enjoy a new religious experience. Nor is it even the take-it-or-leave-it offer of a way to salvation. It is a royal summons to submission, to obedience, to allegiance; and the form that this submission and obedient allegiance takes is of course faith.

What I appreciate most about Wright’s reading of Paul is his recognition of the fact that Paul’s doctrine of salvation is grounded, not in a conceptualization of a linear system or a dramatic religious experience, but in the cosmically-significant resurrection of Jesus Christ and in his comprehensive Lordship over all creation.

In my own preaching, I confess that I am prone to reductionism concerning the salvation that God has made possible in Jesus Christ. All too often, I reduce that salvation to a matter of intellectual propositions, epigrammatic platitudes, and pietistic behavioral instructions which, if embraced, will enable people to “get saved” (so to speak) or “to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.”

Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not suggesting that salvation in Christ is not a deeply moving religious experience or that the Lordship of Jesus is not something that can be personally and individually held. But the problem with so much of my treatment (and the church’s treatment) of salvation is that, when we limit ourselves entirely to a theological nomenclature like “getting saved,” we reduce salvation to yet another possession that is ours to claim, use, and even manipulate (which, I suppose, is capitalistic hubris at its most ecclesiastical). Likewise, when we make salvation solely about “knowing Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior,” we reduce salvation to a purely individualistic accomplishment (“I come to the garden ALONE…”), thereby diminishing the communal emphasis that Scripture always seems to see as being connected to the Lordship of Jesus.

Again, I want to be very clear: I believe that salvation in Jesus Christ is deeply personal, and it certainly demands a decision on the part of individual sinners. But, if Wright is correct in his reading of Paul, then we are compelled to recognize the more comprehensive nature of the proclamation that Jesus is Lord. It is a Lordship that covers, not only individual souls, but entire communities of believers. (How might such a recognition help us to see the church, not simply as an institution, but as the community that Christ is saving and sanctifying on a daily basis?) It is a Lordship that encompasses, not only human beings, but all of creation. (How might such a recognition help us to reflect theologically on the matter of environmental care and the treatment of animal life?) It is a Lordship that depends primarily, not on our decision to embrace or reject it (as important as that decision is) but upon the profligate grace of an incarnating God who refuses to allow history to remain random and unredeemed.

All of this might be more than you want to tackle as the weekend begins. I can certainly appreciate that. But I simply wanted to give a “shout out” to N. T. Wright and his willingness to see in Paul a broader and more comprehensive soteriology than the church often preaches.

Two days ago, I experienced a conversation concerning the recent continuing education conference that I attended in Wyoming. The conversation (which I share with the permission of the person with whom I experienced it) went something like this:

Friend: I heard that one of the Indigo Girls was speaking at that conference you attended.

Eric: That’s right. Her name is Emily Saliers. She and her father, Don, spoke to us about music and its spiritual significance in the human pilgrimage.

Friend: I had a hard time understanding why you would go to a conference like that?

Eric: Why’s that?

Friend: Well, she’s a lesbian, isn’t she?

Eric: Uh…yeah.

Friend: I didn’t think that United Methodists approved of homosexuals.

Eric: Well, that’s not entirely accurate. The teaching of the church has to do with the PRACTICE of homosexuality and its incompatibility with the kind of stewardship over our sexuality that Scripture demands. So, its not that we don’t approve of homosexuals (as though we believed that those with homosexual orientation were somehow less reflective of the image of God than heterosexual people). What we stand against denominationally is any sexual practice that dishonors our bodies and the One who created them.

Friend: But, isn’t the Indigo Girl a PRACTICING homosexual?

Eric: To tell you the truth, I didn’t ask her.

Friend: I think she is. And if she is, why would you go to a conference like that?

Eric: I went because I was deeply interested in what Emily had to say. She is a professional musician, a superb songwriter, a creative thinker, a relentless pursuer of justice, and a significant voice from the artistic community. Irrespective of her sexual orientation and the degree to which she practices it, don’t you think that she might have something important to offer to a preacher and musician like yours truly?

Friend: But, in the Bible, doesn’t Paul tell us to stay away from sexual sinners? I thought he told us not even to have dinner with them.

Eric: Well, that’s true. In the fifth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul says that the Christians in Corinth should not break bread with sexual sinners, idolaters, slanderers, drunkards, or extortioners. But don’t allow the letter of that law to blind you to its spirit and intent.

Friend: Say more about that. I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.

Eric: Well, Paul was very much concerned with the ongoing development of the Corinthians’ discipleship amidst a culture that was unfriendly to the Gospel. In such a setting, he naturally placed an emphasis on the urgency of preserving the integrity of the church’s witness and the danger of developing a bread-breaking intimacy with people who are stronger in their sin than we are in our righteousness.

Friend: Yeah, that’s what I mean. Paul told us not to break bread with sinners.

Eric: But don’t lose sight of the fact that, throughout his ministry, Paul demonstrated an unwavering willingness to “become all things to all people” by developing acquaintances with all types of “sinners” (including a group of idolaters at the Aereopagus with whom Paul shared intimate moments of conversation and theological discourse). Apparently, Paul believed that his own faith was secure enough to handle interaction with the idolaters and other sinners of this world. In fact, Paul described himself as the chief sinner, meaning that he recognized the unworthiness that he shared with the very sinners he was attempting to save.

Friend: So, what’s your point?

Eric: Well, my point is that, a “letter of the law” reading of the Apostle Paul might prevent me from going to a conference like the one I just attended. But a recognition of the spirit of Paul’s ministry (and, more importantly, Jesus’ ministry) opens the door to a discipleship that is strong and secure enough to handle an engagement with the stories of people’s lives—even the stories told by gay men and women.

Friend: So, you’re saying that you want to be the kind of Christian who, like Paul and Jesus, is willing to relate to all types of people.

Eric: I’m saying that I want to be the kind of disciple who is more passionate about tasting the Bread of Life in strange places than I am about preserving the artificial purity of my private spiritual dinner table.

On Sunday, I will leave for a special continuing education event at the Ring Lake Ranch (near Jackson Hole, Wyoming). The event is entitled “SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING: Music and Spirituality Crossing Over.” The facilitators of the event are Don Saliers (a professor of theology and worship at Candler School of Theology) and his daughter Emily Saliers (who is one half of the popular music duo known as Indigo Girls). The event is described as a unique opportunity to explore the spiritual bridge that postmoderns have built between the music heard in the clubs on Saturday night and the music heard in the churches on Sunday morning.

I will not be taking my computer with me, but I look forward to unpacking the event with you when I return next weekend.

By the way, are any of you fans of the Indigo Girls? I have enjoyed their music for years.

I find myself thinking about sports metaphors today. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the Steelers are playing their first pre-season game tonight. Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that my morning devotions revolved around Second Timothy 2—a portion of Scripture that illuminates the urgency of endurance, which is a subject that always generates athletic imagery in my mind.

When I was in middle and high school, the rhythm of my year was dictated by scholastic sports. From August until November, I played on the school football team. From November until March, I wrestled on the School’s wrestling team. From March until June, I ran track.

In high school, I played football at about 185-190 pounds. I would lose about 10 pounds throughout the football season. Then, when wrestling season began, I would lose another 15 pounds in order to be able to wrestle at the 167 pound weight class. (My dream, by the way, was to be a 6′4″, 250 pound linebacker at Penn State. When I was still 5′10″ and wrestling at 167 pounds in my senior year of high school, the dream began to dissipate!)

During wrestling season, losing weight was never all that difficult for me because of my larger frame. But the lighter wrestlers often struggled with their weight loss, simply because they didn’t have as much body mass with which to work. Our 118 pound wrestler, for example, always found it difficult to make weight. One day, during the weigh-in before a match, he was a pound and a quarter over his weight. The referee gave him forty-five minutes to shed his “excess baggage.” So, the 118-pounder put on a sweat suit (plus an extra sweatshirt), turned on all the showers in the locker room to their hottest temperature (thereby making the locker room into a steam room), and proceeded to jump rope in the locker room for twenty-five minutes. He lost a pound and a half of water, made his weight, and was given permission to wrestle in that night’s match. By the middle of his individual match, however, he found himself completely depleted of his energy. He wrestled well during the first period. But, by the middle of the second period, it was all that he could do brace himself on the mat so as not to get pinned. He couldn’t even initiate a move by the middle of the third period. At that point a teammate of mine who was sitting beside me leaned over to me and said this about our 118-pounder: “He might have made his weight today, but he sacrificed his endurance in the process.”

Cardiovascular and muscular endurance are essential in most sports. They cannot be sacrificed if the athlete hopes to perform well. In much the same way, according to Second Timothy 2, spiritual endurance cannot be sacrificed if our discipleship to Jesus Christ is to be something durable and authentic.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way: “I endure all things for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus…If we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:10-12). What is discipleship according to Scripture? Well, it is many different things. But, as this scripture makes clear, discipleship is, among other things, a test of our endurance. It is not a test designed to cause us to stumble or fail. But it is a test designed to produce faithful and enduring disciples of Jesus Christ whose lives foreshadow the eternity that they will spend with him.

The Greek word for endurance in this moment of scripture is a word that calls to mind a refusal to flee when circumstances become difficult and an eagerness to abide with the One we have chosen to follow. That kind of endurance, says the Apostle Paul to his dear friend Timothy, is part of the very essence of a durable and authentic discipleship.

I find myself personally and deeply convicted by this scripture. It is a scripture that brings me to my knees and compels me to acknowledge that, all too often, I settle for spiritual sprints instead of spiritual endurance. I settle for the quick emotional high produced a special worship service or a particular church program or an inspiring concert while avoiding the kind of consistent daily prayer and spiritual training that produces the kind of endurance that Scripture describes. Far too frequently, I allow my discipleship to be reduced to a spiritual sprint through an order of worship or a list of pastoral duties instead of looking upon my discipleship as a marathon that encompasses the entirety of my life.

Perhaps some of you are familiar with that condition—the condition of settling for short and infrequent spiritual sprints instead of a lasting spiritual endurance.

Hello, citizens of Gotham City! Remember me?

Tara and I had a wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating time away. It was our first trip to Alberta, Canada, and both of us are of the opinion that we encountered some of the most majestically beautiful scenery that we had ever seen.

This was our hotel:

You can understand why we had a hard time leaving.

Now, let’s get to it.

“The Dark Knight” has jumped to the top of my list of favorite superhero movies. I think that it stands as a stellar cinematic achievement.

Even if I had never read a single comic book, I believe that I would have found in “The Dark Knight” a beautifully crafted, deeply unsettling, and relentlessly intense piece of work.

By the way, here is my current top-ten list of what I consider to be the best superhero films ever made:

1. “The Dark Knight”
2. “Spider-Man 2″
3. “Batman Begins”
4. “Spider-Man”
5. “Superman”
6. “X-Men”
7. “Superman II”
8. “Iron Man”
9. “X-Men 2″
10. “X-Men 3″

Here are some of the reasons why I place “The Dark Knight” at the top of the list:

First, as you have been hearing from many film critics, Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is nothing short of mesmerizing.

Ledger’s Joker joins the ranks of Hannibal Lecter and “Seven’s” John Doe as one of the most horrifying, intelligent, and electrifying screen villains of all time. Unlike Jack Nicholson’s over-the-top portrayal of the Joker in 1989’s “Batman” (for which I never really cared), Ledger’s performance captures the nuanced madness of a villain whose commitment to the creation of chaos and disorder has become a life-force. For Ledger’s Joker, a bank robbery is never about the money. Rather, it is about creating an atmosphere of terror in which people are compelled to leave behind the illusion (or, if I may, the “joke”) of their preconceived morality in order resort to their primal urge to survive at all costs. The villain that Ledger brings to the screen, in other words, is not driven by the accumulation of ill-gotten booty. Rather, he is driven by his conviction that, if people are confronted with chaotic terror often enough, they will abandon their veneer of civility and become their true barbaric selves. Ledger’s Joker sees himself as the necessary instrument of this revelatory chaos. In his own words, he’s not really a monster. He’s just “ahead of the curve.”

Second, I also appreciate the way in which director Chris Nolan honors the complexity of the Batman-Joker relationship. Nolan consistently resists the temptation to reduce the relationship to a simplistic “good guy-bad guy” dynamic. This is an important achievement because, in the comic book narrative, Batman and the Joker are trapped in a symbiotic relationship, the common link of which is a shared psychosis. The only difference is that their psychosis is grounded in different obsessions. The Joker’s psychosis is fueled by an insatiable desire for chaos. Batman’s psychosis, on the other hand, is fueled by an equally insatiable desire for justice and order.

The film does an excellent job of illuminating the complexity of this hero-villain relationship. If one watches the film with a commitment to understanding its characters, it eventually becomes clear that, in a strange way, the Batman and the Joker actually NEED one another. In a world of confused identities, their struggle serves to remind them of their primary purpose and reason for being (hence the Joker’s sarcastic borrowing of Tom Cruise’s line from “Jerry Maguire” in his dialogue with Batman: “You complete me”).

Third, as dark a film as it is, I found myself inspired by its rather high view of the integrity of the God-given human spirit. Without spoiling any of the climactic plot moments, I will simply say that the film dares to give human beings credit for being able to rise above the self-serving barbarism that the Joker believes is at the heart of the human pilgrimage.

Fourth, Christian Bale IS Batman. It is as simple as that. With all due respect to Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and even Adam West, Bale has redefined the character in all the right ways. He is a good actor completely invested in a very complicated role. Granted, his gravelly “Batman voice” sounds a bit too forced this time around. But he seems to capture the passionate darkness of Batman as easily as he nails the privileged playfulness of Bruce Wayne. Furthermore, Bale seems more than content to allow Ledger to steal many of the scenes. A lesser or more insecure actor may have been tempted to match the manic energy that Ledger uses in his portrayal of the Joker. Bale, however, has the artistic sense to recognize that, by staying out of such a competition, he can better create a brooding foil to Ledger’s hyperactive villain.

Fifth, the supporting cast (including Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, and Maggie Gyllenhaal) is outrageously good. Several moments in the film (some poignant, others chilling) are made exceptional, not necessarily because of the script, but because of the thespian acumen of such remarkably gifted and thoroughly invested actors.

Sixth, the film brilliantly maintains a sense of darkness and foreboding without becoming oppressive in its tone. Some critics have said about the film that it is not “fun” enough for a summer blockbuster. My response: Hey, it’s Batman versus the Joker, for crying out loud! An epic struggle like that can be nothing other than dark! If you want laughs, go see “Pineapple Express” or “Mamma Mia!”

Seventh, in their choreography, the fight scenes are as athletic as they are artistic. After watching Christian Bale’s Batman fight, you’ll think that all previous Batmen seem geriatric in their combat skills.

Eighth, the film employs a bold willingness to move Batman from the pedestal of “hero” to the nebulous realm of “anti-hero.” He is, after all, a “dark knight,” meaning that, although he does not kill, he is not at all opposed to crossing a few lines, maiming a few thugs, and breaking a few bones. Postmoderns, it seems, tend to prefer anti-heroes in their literature and film. Perhaps postmoderns have come to understand that heroes are more believable and accessible when they have a little bit of dirt on them (and a little bit of darkness within them). At any rate, the cinematic journey from gleaming hero to dark knight is worth the price of admission.

Finally, I loved the film’s emphasis on sacrifice. Throughout the film, romantic fulfillment is sacrificed for vocational integrity. Personal advancement is sacrificed for the maintenance of justice. Normalcy is sacrificed for a willingness to embrace uncommon challenges. Even one’s personal reputation is sacrificed for the maintenance of a city’s morale. This consistent manifestation of the theme of sacrifice serves as a spiritual undercurrent to the film’s narrative. The film’s action means more because the audience knows that the action is undergirded by the character’s willingness to let go of something precious that he or she would prefer to keep.

Here ends my review. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to reload my utility belt and fight some crime.