Wired Parish Blog

A Reason to Subscribe

Tim Bednar over at Turtle Interactive taught me a cool trick using FeedBurner.

I connected my blog feed to del.icio.us; so when I bookmark something in del.icio.us it splices the link and my comments into my blog feed.

What that means is that once a day, blog subscribers get a list of links I've bookmarked for that day.

That generally includes interesting articles on technology, leadership, and ministry; cool apps; new music that you can't live without; etc.

So if you want to look over my shoulder, subscribe to the blog feed, and I'll keep you on the cutting edge of cool. :)

Subscribe to Wired Parish. You'll feel better about yourself.

Terrell Owens and Jay Kelly Team Up

I cried I laughed so hard when I made this little connection:

The publisher of my first book was BenBella Books, a small independent publisher in Dallas. They actually do some really, really good work--my book notwithstanding.

Turns out this is the exact same group that published Terrell Owens' children's book, Little T Learns to Share. I knew T.O. had a children's book, but I had no idea BenBella published it. I assumed it was a major publishing house, but nope, it was my dear friends just down I-35 from the Wired Parish compound.

That has the makings of a great trivia question for my grandchildren.

Under the Banner of Heaven

Got a book for Christmas from my friend Ted. John Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. It explores Mormon fundamentalism. While it includes a great deal of history on the rise of Mormonism in general, it gives the majority of space to the violence, misogynism, and just general theological weirdness of fundamentalist strains of Mormonism.

Fascinating book, but quite hard to read on a number of levels.

At any rate, I'm cruising along reading when I was astounded by the following passage:

'As history, moreover, The Book of Mormon is riddled with egregious anachronisms and irreconcilable inconsistencies. For instance, it makes many references to horses and wheeled carts, neither of which existed in the Western Hemisphere during the pre-Columbian era. It inserts such inventions as steel and the seven-day week into ancient history long before such things were in fact invented. Modern DNA analysis has conclusively demonstrated that American Indians are not descendants of any Hebraic race, as the Lamanites were purported to be. Mark Twain famously ridiculed The Book of Mormon's tedious, quasi-biblcal prose as 'chloroform in print,' observing that the phrase 'it came to pass' is used more than two thousand times.

'But such criticism and mockery are largely beside the point. All religious belief is a function of nonrational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism. Polls routinely indicate, moreover, that nine out of ten Americans believes in God--most of us ascribe to one brand of religion or another.  Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible, say, or the Qur'an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.' (Bold mine.)

Okay, several things:

1. I dig Krakauer. Loooooved Into Thin Air. I have great respect for him as a journalist.

2. The first bolded section above is a really uncharitable (and uninformed, I think) view of the relationship between faith and reason. ALL religious belief is a function of nonrational faith?? Really? Impervious to critique and criticism? Really??? I've been in and around quasi-fundamentalist circles long enough to know that is true in many contexts, but there are worlds of difference between 'many' and 'all.'

 

Krakauer's portrait does not at all reflect the world my friends, partners in ministry, and I inhabit.

3. To suggest that the veracity of The Book of Mormon is on par with the Bible is just patently silly. None of the The Book of Mormon has been historically verified. None. You're hard pressed to find anachronisms in the Bible, and there are mountains of commentary on legitimate reasons for the ones that exist. The inconsistencies in the Bible are either apparent and not real (e.g., two accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot) or they are immaterial (e.g., contradictory troop counts in the Old Testament). They are not the sorts of inconsistencies that are foundational to the theology of the document (e.g., non-Hebraic ancestry of Native Americans).

And while he may be right when he says that more ancient texts like the Bible have an advantage over The Book of Mormon in terms of their being harder to refute, virtually every historical reference in the Bible has either been verified or is still an open question. Are there any that have been dis-confirmed? I'm sure there are claims that there have, but I'm unfamiliar with what they are.
This is NOT the case for The Book of Mormon. Not even close.

I'm not an inerrantist; so should an anachronism or inconsistency within the pages of the Bible appear, it would not destroy my faith. So it's not like my faith's on the line in with this discussion. That said, there's just no way Krakauer can make the claims that he does here.

The implication is that The Book of Mormon and the Bible are near-equals in terms of their reliability. That's simply not true, and unfortunately, it calls Krakauer's objectivity about matters of faith into question.

How (Not) to Speak of God

Just finished an interview with Irishman Peter Rollins re: his new book How (Not) to Speak of God. If you're a wiredparish.com subscriber, you'll get it in a few weeks.

I was profoundly moved by this book and by the interview. I got to the end and thought, 'I don't know what to say . . . I don't have the words to express how this is impacting me.'

Brian McLaren wrote the foreward, and I actually called him before the interview to say, 'Help! I'm interviewing Rollins in an hour, and I don't want to screw it up! Give me some great questions to ask!' Alas, I got voice mail. Thankfully, Greg Horton was available to give me a little ammunition. Between his suggestions and my own fumbling questions, I think we did okay.

(Actually, we did exceptionally well, but that speaks more to Peter than to me.)

I won't try to detail the book here. I'll let you read the reviews yourself and listen to the 'cast when it's live. (At the very least, you need to check out the Irish accent when he repeatedly says 'painted on the canvas' in a way that makes it sound like he's saying 'peeing on the canvas.' Brilliant.)

But let me recommend STRONGLY that you read this book. It will challenge the way you see God, faith, yourself, the world . . . in some dramatic ways.

I'm a different person after reading this book.

highly recommending reading from mark batterson

mark is the pastor of national community church in d.c. he definitely falls into the category of if-you've-never-heard-of-him-you-will. mark's extremely creative, high energy, and--i'm just going to say it--a hoot. (i don't think i've ever referred to anyone as a 'hoot' before. may not ever again.)

his new book hit the shelves monday. it's called in a pit with a lion on a snowy day.

i guaran-darn-tee you that when people mention it, they'll refer to it as 'okay, i can't remember the exact title, but i know there's a pit and a lion and snow. and it's really good.'

i've read through the first chapter or so, and so far i'm very impressed. the deal is that many, many pastors can be great communicators (mark definitely is) but terrible writers. mark does both exceptionally well.

here's a description from the book (minus the annoying capital letters):

'your greatest regret at the end of your life will be the lions you didn't chase. you will regret the risks not taken, the opportunities not seized, and the dreams not pursued. stopping running away from what scares you most and start chasing the god-ordained opportunities that cross your path.

'in a pit with a lion on a snowy day is inspired by one of the most obscure yet courageous acts recorded in scripture (II samuel 23.20-21):

'benaiah chased a lion down into a pit.  then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.

'unleash the lion chaser within.'

i'm a risk-taker by nature; so this book makes me want to run through a wall. if you're vibing for a motivational read that will inspire you to get off your tail and do something significant, this is a great pickup.

seth godin

here's a pretty solid summary of seth godin's the big moo. it's a fun blog post to read.

jesus of suburbia

i interviewed mike erre, author of the jesus of suburbia, for a future episode of 'between the lines.' mike's the teaching pastor at rock harbor church in costa mesa, ca. (mike took time to emphasize that costa mesa is NOT l.a.)

three thoughts:

1. outstanding book. it's released in early october (i read a review copy) and very, very much worth picking up.

2. outstanding speaker. i downloaded one of mike's sermons from rockharbor.org. i strongly suggest taking a listen. as my friends will attest, i'm notoriously hard on preachers/speakers; so i dispense compliments very carefully and very rarely. this cat's the real deal.

3. anyone willing to name his first book after a greenday song is a friend of mine.

i'll give you a heads up when the 'cast runs.

rock on,

jay