This one took a while

For this week, I want to refer everyone to a post that I began thinking about back in mid-December, before Christmas. It has taken a while for me to finish, but I wanted to make sure that my sources were right. The post is entitled "Meditations of an Ex-Protester Protesting Evangelical Protester-ism."

The post is not directed towards any one person or group of people beyond those represented by the poll numbers on plugginonline's website.

I hope it is challenging and encouraging for you. Please feel free to voice your ideas, even if they contradict mine. That's partly what a blog is for!!

in our Lord,
John Buerger

Meditations of an Ex-Protester Protesting Evangelical Protester-ism

Wow. What a dorky title. For some people it will come across as too academic. For others it will look oxy-moronic, since I have referred to myself as an "ex-protester" but have told you up front that I am, in fact, protesting by writing this blog post. For others still, it just sounds dorky. I think I'm in the latter category, myself.

("Mama Schrag, please feel free to let me know how dorky it is.")

Before I explain what this blog post is about, let me quickly note what it is not about. First of all, this is not a "coming out" post, admitting to all readers that I am a liberal. To think so is just not true. I am not theologically liberal nor do I agree with everything on the liberal political platform either (although they sometimes have some good points to make).

This post is also not about evangelical Protestantism, as a distinctive, historical movement within Christianity. Much has been said, could be said, and, hopefully, will continue to be said about how much of what passes for contemporary evangelical thinking is far from the theology of the Protestant Reformation. But this post is not specifically about that either (although some may find some indirect correlations). Maybe another day.


No. This post is about "Protester-ism," a word that I either made up or heard someone else use and thought was cool enough to steal. I'm not sure which, yet. I have thought about trying to define this word, but have chosen not to. Hopefully you will get the picture of what it is after you read the rest of the post. If not, please post a comment.


As a youth pastor, I believe that part of my job is to keep up on what is going on in culture. This is accomplished in a lot of ways. One of those ways is reading movie reviews written by Christians and non-Christians. One site that I look at occasionally is http://www.pluggedinonline.org/, a site maintained by Focus on the Family for the purpose of reviewing movies, books, TV shows, and other media.



On December 17, 2007, I logged on to that site and found that the folks at Focus on the Family had taken a poll of their readership. The poll sought to measure the evangelical community's response to the recent movie, "The Golden Compass," based on the book by Philip Pullman. Much of the evangelical community has been up in arms lately (especially Focus on the Family) over this book because of its purported anti-God theme. Evidently, the main characters in the story are led to believe that the best course of action at the end of the movie is "to kill God." (To me, the idea of killing God is hardly offensive, simply because of how non-sensical it sounds. It's like calling a square a circle, or saying that two plus two equals seven. I think that it is an idea so absurd that we should not choose to dignify it with anger). (For more, read Focus on the Family's review of this movie at http://www.pluggedinonline.com/thisweekonly/a0003516.cfm, accessed last on January 15, 2008).








The poll that pluggedinonline took read like this:




Your family's approach to "The Golden Compass:"



We will avoid it because of its messages: 70%



We will avoid it because we're not interested: 14%


We'll see it and discuss its messages: 8%



We'll see it; it's just another fantasy movie: 8%

Now, the results of that poll bother me. Let me tell you why. This poll bothers me, not because I think every Christian has a responsibility to see "The Golden Compass." I think that the 14% who don't want to see it simply because they're not interested in the genre or the story-line are perfectly justified in choosing not to spend their money to see the movie, just as any one of us may not choose to pay to see an opera, a hockey game, or some other form of entertainment that fails to capture our interest. The numbers that bother me in this poll are the 8% at the very bottom and especially the 70% at the top.

The 8% at the bottom bother me because they fail to take into account the fact that every movie, book, piece of music, and TV show has some kind of a point. These forms of media are the dominant art-forms of our day and art forms communicate messages....always. Even if your piece of art is going out of the way to not communicate a clear message, that, in itself, is a message. You're simply communicating that you're tired of making serious points with your art and that pure entertainment is somehow more important at the moment. Like it or not, that is a serious message that carries serious implications. Communication always happens--sometimes even by those trying not to communicate at all. We need to get used to it. We need to start engaging our culture by learning how to interpret their messages. We need to stop leaving it to our pastor or favorite Christian author. We need to learn to do it ourselves, as well. It's not just the job of Christian leaders and theologians to look at cultural messages through a biblical grid. It is the job of Christians. We will never evangelize or minister to a culture we refuse to talk to.

The 70% of the poll-takers at the top bothered me the most. They bother me for the same reason as the 8% mentioned above, only their position has even greater weaknesses, in my opinion. These weaknesses go far deeper than the decision to watch "The Golden Compass." In all actuality, I don't really care who sees the movie and who doesn't. I am much more concerned with the heart-attitudes and the wrong-headed theology that is represented by the "Evangelical Protester-ism" of the 70%.

The thinking of the 70% is that the best way to change culture (including the film industry, in this instance) is to protest. If we just create another wall, another strong tower in our own evangelical sub-culture, and we all climb to the top of that wall, look down on those bad film makers and tell them that they are naughty, we will have done our Christian duty. And what better way to tell them that they are naughty than to keep from giving them our money? In fact, if we go and see the movie, and give them our money, doesn't that make us naughty?

One problem with this thinking and strategy is that we don't (and really, can't) apply it across the board. How many Christians will keep from buying a movie ticket to a film that they wish to protest but will turn around and spend a lot more money at Gap, Target, Wal-Mart, JC Penny's, and a whole host of other franchises that support all kinds of social agendas with which we disagree? If I buy some gas at Chevron, take out a loan at Bank of America, buy a hamburger at Sonic, or sell something on eBay, does that mean that I support these companies and their decision to support Planned Parenthood? (see http://www.fightpp.org/ for more; accessed on January 15, 2008). I don' think so. I think it just means that I want a hamburger or that I want a low-interest loan on my house.

And I'm pretty sure that Sonic, although feeding me a hamburger and keeping me alive another day, doesn't think that they're actively supporting a pro-life youth pastor, either.

Unless we're all willing to be Amish (and I'm not), we're probably going to have to realize that our money just has to go to people that don't look at the world the way we do. No where is this more obvious than paying our taxes to our secular government. But...wait...didn't Paul tell me to pay taxes? Yeah. He did (Rom. 13:1-5).

Another problem represented by the thinking of the 70% is the belief that we are somehow doing our Christian duty by protesting. Why are we surprised when a reportedly agnostic person, like Philip Pullman, declares that he hates Christianity? Do we really not believe our Bibles? Christ and His disciples told us over and over again that the world will hate us, because it hated Christ first (Matt. 10:22; 24:9; Mark 13:13; Luke 21:17; John 7:7; 15:18; 17:14).

The real problem is not that the world hates us. The real problem is that we hate them. When we tell them that we are not willing to listen to their ideas, that we are not interested in engaging them in conversation, that we are not willing to be their friends in any capacity, and that we really are only willing to love people who are already like us and who live in our little evangelical sub-cultures, we are sending the world a message that sounds much more like hate than Christian love. When we turn to "Evangelical Protester-ism" as our chosen method of engaging our culture, we have chosen a method that poorly represents the core of our faith.

Yes, as Focus on the Family points out, Pullman hates C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia." Why? I don't know for sure. I've never spoken to Pullman, myself. Maybe he hates talking Lions. Maybe he hates trees that can move and maybe he really likes winter instead of spring. Or maybe he really doesn't like the message of the Gospel.

But I really wonder if he has truly been given the opportunity to hate the Gospel. I say this because the message he hears through the evangelical community that refuses to have anything to do with his book or his movie is definitely not the message of the Gospel. Call that message whatever you want. But we don't dare call it the Gospel. Maybe Pullman does hate evangelicals. But I doubt he hates us for the same reason that Christ said the world will hate us. And that should shame us.

Don't get me wrong. I really don't care whether you go see the movie or not. This blog really isn't about "The Golden Compass." If you were led to think it was, up to this point, I apologize. I haven't communicated clearly, then. What I care about is that we learn to listen to the culture. Not because I think they have found a way to God or because their sources of truth are better, more "edgy," more hip, or more accurate than the eternal, God-breathed words of Scripture. I think we should learn to listen to them for the same reason anyone decides to listen to someone else. We should listen to them because it is how you show love. We should listen to them so that when we engage their ideas in conversation or debate, we actually know what we're talking about.

And if we are scared that watching "The Golden Compass" or an episode of Oprah will ship-wreck our faith and make us want to kill God, then we really need to question whether we are Christians in the first place....or at least whether the pastors we listen to and the books we read are written by Christian leaders who love us enough to help us understand our faith and take us deeper in our relationships with Christ instead of just selling us pop-psychology, self-help for a price.

Have I seen "The Golden Compass"? No. No I haven't.

But if you have, I would love to hear your impressions and interpretations of it.

More on protesting "Evangelical Protester-ism" later....

A World War 2 "Kick"

Yep. It's happening. I'm officially on a World War 2 kick (hereafter to be referred to simply as "the kick"). I've been on such a "kick" before, but not this bad. I think what makes this current "kick" so potent is the time and resources I have to really study what happened in our world from 1933-1945--something I have not had during the last four years of seminary.

(I also think Ken Burns' series entitled "The War" on PBS also got me going...not to mention the new WW2 strategy game I've been playing lately).

Anyway, the latest chapter in my "kick" was the purchase of an illustrated book called The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Chris Bishop and David Jordan. It is a fairly in-depth account of every major event involving the Nazis from 1933-45. It is a large, fascinating book with many pictures and over 100 maps. I did a double-take when I looked at the price-tag in Borders yesterday...only eight bucks on sale! I had some left-over money on an old Borders gift card so I bought it...

And a latte.

As I read this book, I am so fascinated by the people who lived during that time...for a variety of reasons. First of all, I am quite fascinated that an entire nation of people could ever follow a short, really loud guy whose native language ensures that every other word will result in large amounts of saliva being flung in a ninety degree arc in front of him. Maybe they liked the mustache.

Name: Adolf Hitler. Interests: I like small, furry animals; lazy days by the beech; Sunday afternoon drives in a Panther tank; taking trips to places I have conquered; and mustaches that look I like I forgot to wipe my upper lip after drinking some chocolate milk. If interested: Please contact Herr von Ribbentropp or Hess. If you survive the trial based on ridiculous, trumped up charges we like to use to convict people we dislike purely based on their ethnicity, maybe we can go out on a date. I haven't conquered India yet. That might be something fun we could do.

But then I am reminded of the social situation in post-World War 1 Germany. These people were ready to follow anyone who promised to restore their national pride, help them escape from the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and fix the economy so that a loaf of bread could cost less than $20. This doesn't excuse the incredible atrocities of Nazi Germany or the part that the citizenry had in empowering those atrocities. But it does make me pause and ask the question, "If I had been living in Germany in the 1930s, would I have been caught up in the pageantry, display of world-class power, and the gratifying, unifying feeling of extreme nationalism?" Quite honestly, the answer scares me. I don't think I want to know the answer. I guess I would hope that the Lord would help me run into someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer in such times as those. I would need someone to help me drop my sword...someone to help me suffer for righteousness. That would be tough. I love my sword and I hate suffering.

Anyway, I have a lot more to say about WW2. Gotta go for now...

Do I Qualify as a Star Wars Nerd?

Okay. So I admit it. In the last month I have seen all six episodes of the Star Wars epic and read one Star Wars novel. Does that make me a Star Wars Nerd?

Notice that there is a need to capitalize "Star Wars Nerd" because such a title actually does refer to a certain class of people. I've known some of them. They usually have posters of Darth Vader on their wall, life-size replicas of lightsabers somewhere in their room, and even figurines of prominent Star Wars characters on their shelves.

Darth Vader's confrontation techniques at work.

One guy I used to work with was actually proud enough of his addiction to Star Wars that he had several figurines on his desk at work. As the supportive co-workers that we were, we used to get to work early and put all of the figurines in crazy positions before he got there. We had Obi-Wan Kenobi doing a Michael Jackson moon-walk, Princess Leia doing some serious kissing with a stormtrooper, and Han Solo doing certain kinds of aerobic exercises that would challenge most Pilates experts. In his desk drawer, this guy also had several Star Wars magazines, complete with full-length articles going into incredible detail on people, places and events that will never exist, yet treating these items as though they were part of the daily news of which all human beings should be aware. The common consensus in our office was that my friend was a hopeless Star Wars Nerd. Indeed, he was a Nerd Supreme.

But what about me? This has become a very important question for me, as of late. Those people who know of my recent viewing of the movies have begun to wonder. People are talking. Phone calls have been made. Investigations have been launched.

All of this has caused me to ask the question, "Why does the part of me that likes Star Wars, like Star Wars?" I frame the question this way because there are several parts of me that do not like Star Wars.

For one thing, I think the acting is deplorable--especially in the first three episodes. Any movie where the dialogue in the most dramatic, romantic scene includes the statement, "Oh Anakin. Hold me. Like you did on Naboo!" cannot expect to win any Oscars. Any director or producers who think that a useless creation like Jar Jar Binx should have been permitted to even be spoken allowed in a writers' meeting, don't deserve any filming awards. And, in general, it is hard to take a movie seriously that has no problem resting the entire weight of a saga on the dialogue and actions of several puppets. It can leave you waiting for Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy to show up for a lightsaber duel.

On second thought, that would be kind of fun to watch. My money is on Miss Piggy. All the way.

However, I have decided that I like Star Wars for the central themes involved. Sure, I like the great graphics and exceptional coreographed fight scenes (especially in the first three episodes). But ultimately, I like the story-line itself. Don't be fooled. The story is not about Luke Skywalker. It's not about Obi-Wan Kenobi. And it's not even about liberal democracy's fight against tyranny.

It is about Anakin Skywalker. It is about redemption.

It is about the rise of a man who had great promise (kind of like like the creation of humanity). It is about the corruption and fall of that Jedi (kind of like the eating of forbidden fruit and the love of the creation that surpassed the love of the Creator, committed by our parents). It is about the consequences of that Jedi's fall for himself and the rest of the galaxy (kind of like the groaning of the creation around us in the form of disasters and the food-chain). And it is about how that man is eventually redeemed from his fall by an unlikely agent--a person descended from his own line (kind of like Christ's descension from Adam).

That's why I like Star Wars.

And I like the lightsaber fights.