Tim Keller is the New Francis Schaeffer

My dog's name is Schaeffer. I named him after the pastor-apologist not the beer. If I ever own another dog, I might name him Keller after the apologist pastor, not the... Well, you get the point.

Last night Catherine and I "geeked out" and went on a date to hear Tim Keller speak here in Pittsburgh. I even stayed to get a couple of books signed.

While waiting in line to talk to Tim, I pondered what I might say to him. Should I, for instance, mention that in the early 1990's I used to transcribe his sermons and give them, along with boot legged tapes of his best sermons, to my seeker friends. Should I mention that his "marriage series" based on Ephesians 6, changed my wife and I for ever. Should I tell him that after leaving Redeemer in 1993 to go and do ministry in DC, that I would, largely because of his preaching ministry, go to seminary where I would wind up 15 years later as a church planter in Pittsburgh. Should I tell him that most of the really good ideas that I have in preaching have come from him and Shaeffer and Lewis and other giants. Or, should I just say thank you and not hog the huge line of eager people waiting to thank him for his brilliant understanding of the Gospel and its application to the culture we live in.

In the end, I chose not to "gush." I just thanked him and then we chatted a bit about church planting in the East End of Pittsburgh. Oh, how was the content of his talk? Well, read his new book, The Reason for God if you want a summary. He stuck pretty close to the book. By the way, I noticed a few people recording. If anyone has audio or video of Tim Keller in Pittsburgh, please post it.

Speed Racer: Indy or Just Another Layer of the Matrix?

In a bold move last Friday, I took a much needed afternoon off, leaving Catherine to have a spa day which, believe it or no,t consisted of working on her volunteer stuff for our church plant, Jonah's Call, and making summer plans for the family. My afternoon off included lunch out with my daughters followed by a movie. We saw Speed Racer. Emma was galvanized and Lydia sat on my lap the whole time with her mouth half open. 

I never thought that I would watch a Wackowski Bros. film with my girls before they turned sixteen. However, I had read enough good reviews about this film to take a chance and take them without previewing the movie first. As a "family film" the movie is clearly all about relationships- but in a kind of emo (emotional) indie way more. From a theological-cultural perspective it is conveying a spirituality connected to relationship and being authentic rather than being a "sell out" to corporate culture. At one point, Speed says something like, 'Racing is in my families blood. In fact, in my house, corporate sponsors are referred to as the devil.' Wow, being indie instead of corporate, grassroots and relational, instead of top-down and self-centered, seems like amazing messages to be sending me and my kids. I am all for it... Until, we get to the point in the movie where one of the characters reaches for his "walkie Talkie" and we read, as clear as day, MOTOROLA." So, at the end of the day, is this Warner Brothers Film, sponsored by the major conglomerate, Motorola, a film advocating independent grassroots sports and racers who love their families, or is it a just a corporate film using the "indie label" as a marketing tool to reach a hard to get to segment of hipsters? Are we in the Matrix, or are we free? You decide.

It's Been a Long Time!

I just realized how long it's been since I posted. I have been spending a huge amount of time at jonahs411.blogspot.com and the new website for our new church jonahscall.com. Needless to say, launching a new church has not afforded a great deal of reformedanglican fun.

Just for fun, I went back and checked out a video that David Sadd and Jodie Dorrel and I filmed with Josh Bell and J Howard Duff and his wife Dawn. I came up with the concept of this video for a sermon on the prodigal son. I can't wait to do more of this. Check it out:

Remember the 70's and beware of 2225

When My brother and I were kids, we would go through the JC Penney Catalog and the Sears Catalog and vote on every page. "What is your favorite thing on this page?" It would come down to having to decide between something like the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine or Battleship (g4 hit!), the Blue Hot Wheels 1970 Chevy El Camino SS 454 or the 1972 Red Matchbox Flying Bug, The Evel Knieval's Stunt Cycle or GI Joy with the Kung Fu Grip!

We also had a ritual every year that included reflecting back and remembering what idiotic things we believed about ourselves. For instance, looking at a class picture, Brandon or I would say, "Man, I thought I was so cool in fourth grade. Look at my feathered hair. How gay was that? It wasn't until we reached our twenties that we realized that every year consisted of an accumulation of folly that would only reveal itself after we were done with it.

In twenty years, I wonder how hard people will be laughing when they see pictures of the coolest people's clothing from the year 2008? What's with the furry boots, the shaggy hair, the low cut jeans. Remember parachute pants, hi-tops, moon boots... When will it end?

A recent hysterical blog post from Johnny Virgil's Fifteen Minute Lunch, most likely in response to Rolling stone's Jancee Dunn post about 1975 JC Penney Fodder, has spread to emails and has made its way into a pdf, onto Snopes, and has even morphed into a youtube posting:

From the Montgomery Ward Catalog!

Lost- It is All About Faith

For the past four months, I have been watching Lost, both on DVD and on my PC. In fact, I have been editing old episodes and extracting incredible themes from the show that I will eventually use in sermons. I am not a TV guy. I haven't watched TV in a decade thinking mostly that it is twaddle. But, Lost is different. The show creators Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber really delve into serious spiritual themes and draw from philosophy across the ages. A few of the main characters include John Locke (there is an episode called Tabula Rosa), Daniel Russeau (she hold the institutional memory of the lost inhabitants), and Desmond David Hume.

If you are Lost when it comes to Lost, please do not try to watch the show in some kind of randomn way. With Lost, it is all or nothing and those who try to enter into the shows rich and complex story line without starting from the beginning, will be LOST. However, if you want a really good taste of lost's last three seasons, watch this openning episode of season four. It gives us a 40 minute summary of three seasons. When you are done with that, rent season one on Netflix, or fo and buy it. It is worth it.

More Josh Garrels

Josh Garrels is an amazing artist. I have been playing his new album Over Oceans on a loop. If you loathe "stock" music and want some soul, some groove, some rhyme, some deep theology, some well crafted poetry, all wrapped up in song, check out Josh Garrels. He has an amazing ability to write and sing beautifully.

The Shack Will Be Talked About

I just finished reading William P. Young's The Shack after a friend said, "You must read this book. Eugene Peterson compares it to Pilgrim's Progress. It's that good." The Shack is the story of Mack Phillips' journey into the heart of God as he struggles to deal with the guilt, shame, anger, and rage that cuts into his life after his six year old daughter Missy is abducted and brutally murdered, leaving only her bloody dress in an abandoned shack. A few years later, on an icy morning, God sends Mack a message, asking him to join him at that shack for a weekend. Mack does and the rest of the book allows us to enter into an allegorical world of discussion and encounter with the Trinity, who help Mack to deal with the pain and turmoil of his life. Eugene Peterson exact words regarding the Shack were: “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good! “In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant, the Shack wrestles with the timeless questions, “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” The book is choppy in places and the author stumbles in the early chapters to establish characters, get the story going, and impress us with his writing. However, if you just stick with it, the story has so much heart and is so compelling that you will not be able to put it down. For the first two chapters, I kept wishing it was over. For the remaining chapters, I wished it wouldn't end and found myself bursting into tears and bowing to worship.

The Shack really does read like a kind-of-pilgrim's-progress and a kind-of-systematic-theology. The story is compelling. Yet, at the same time, Young, who is a dad and a guy who holds a regular job out in the rat race, dares to tackle HUGE subjects like the nature of evil, the nature of the Trinity, the problem of pain, the atonement, forgiveness, justice, and the meaning of love.

The fact that Young uses fiction to tackle theological issues is one of the great things about the book. Having gone through its first print and now getting serious attention from Christians and seekers across the world, it is going to cause lots of folks to begin talking about some pretty serious theology. Hurray!

At the same time, one of the down sides is that Young, at times, makes a pretty big mess of some of the BIG stuff. Namely, The Sovereignty of God is very limited in Young's theology and God is often portrayed as someone who loves us very much but just can't do anything to help us at times because he does not want to interfere with our choices. Additionally, he tends to see hierarchies as wrong and rejects any kind of hierarchy within the Trinity and subsequently in human relationships, choosing to believe that total equality is the answer to many relational difficulties. According to the whole of salvation History, God has made it pretty clear that he can and does interrupt our choice making, because he loves us. In fact, he has been known to wage war against his own people because of their refusal to choose Him- He is that jealous for us (See the book of Hosea or Ezekiel 16, for instance). Likewise, the Bible clearly shows Jesus willingly submitting all things to the father and it shows beauty in many hierarchies including the created order, the relationship between God, angels, man, animals, and in the human scheme between man and woman, and man and government.

However, these problems are not a reason to avoid the book. Instead, they are reason to read and think and grapple with big things. Essentially, I would say the book is worth reading mostly because Young really shows us the power of God's Love, as Father, and he does a great job getting us to feel God's love through the power of forgiveness and the beauty of grace. Read it with your mind turned on and, if you have "daddy issues" keep the tissues close.

Strength in Community

This is an incredible video of the struggle for survival between buffalo and lion. Thanks Baxter for pointing out this video.

A Must Read!

I believe that Tim Keller is the most formitable man alive. His new book, The Reason for God is coming out next month. So, pre-order it because everyone needs to read every word Tim says. Yes, I know I sound like I am going over board, but I am not. Tim is just a person who really needs to be heard and read. To find out more about The Reason for God go to Redeemer's site (The Church Tim founded and Pastors)

Heroes

After ten people told me, "You need to see Heroes," I went and rented Season One. What is Heroes? Well, it is X-men for everyday people. Basically, the premise is that a whole group of people across the globe have evolved into super humans over time and now have to deal with the challenges that come from being able to do things like, fly, read other people's mind, teleport, and things like that.

Though some of the plot lines and are a bit shallow and much of the drama is geared toward getting us to simply get excited (release endorphins), there is a very important underlying worldview (that is a view of the world that is driven by a set of beliefs) that is driving Heroes.

The underlying assumptions of this show are rooted in a philosophy called Scientific Determinism which asserts that time, chance, and genetic mutation have allowed some species to macro-evolve, thus increasing their chances for survival and decreasing others chances for survival.

The fact is that now an entire generation has a wildly popular TV show based on the notion that we can and are getting better (well some of us are). I wonder what the overall effect of this will be on the poor, the retarded, the marginal, the genius, and those who reject the notion that we are made in the image of God and are by virtue of being Creatures that a Personal God Created, of incredible value. Just something to think about. Because of the writer's strike, the rumored date of Season Three airing, tonight, is not happening.