Best sign I've seen from the Rally to Restore Sanity:

(H/T The Daily Dish).

"Once upon a time there was a peas­ant woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a sin­gle good deed behind. The dev­ils caught her and plunged her into the lake of fire. So her guardian angel stood and won­dered what good deed of hers he could remem­ber to tell to God; ‘she once pulled up an onion in her gar­den,’ said he, ‘and gave it to a beg­gar woman.’ And God answered: ‘You take that onion then, hold it to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Par­adise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is.’

The angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her; ‘Come,’ said he, ‘catch hold and I’ll pull you out.’ And he began cau­tiously pulling her out. He had just pulled her right out, when the other sin­ners in the lake, see­ing how she was being drawn out, began catch­ing hold of her so as to be pulled out with her. But she was a very wicked woman and she began kick­ing them. ‘I’m to be pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours.’

As soon as she said that, the onion broke. And the woman fell into the lake and she is burn­ing there to this day. So the angel wept and went away."

--Grushenka's fable, from The Brothers Karamazov

I hope you've enjoyed a week of Halloween-themed posts. Death, monsters, ghosts, vampires. It's been quite a week.

I started the week with some thoughts about how Halloween allows us to collectively process our fears about death. I think this is particularly important for children.

The picture here is Aidan, age 10, dressed in his Halloween costume for this year. He's going as the Grim Reaper. I'm not too keen on the costume. It's kind of freaking me out. But he's excited about it.

Interestingly, Aidan is the child of mine that has the most death anxiety. It hits some kids particularly hard. Many of you parents can tell stories of the day your child first "got" what death was all about. You're tucking your kid in at night and she asks, "Mommy, are you going to die one day?" What can you say? You can't say no and you don't want to say yes.

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In his book The Secular Age Charles Taylor talks about how, over the last 500 years, the world has become disenchanted. Five hundred years ago the world was enchanted, full of supernatural forces, witchcraft, and ghosts. A world full of thin places, where the border between this world and the Other world was porous and leaky. People then could become demon possessed or afflicted by magic. The night was full of occult menace. Black cats were bad luck.

Things are much different today. We live in the aftermath of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. We are moderns. Science and technology now rule. With electric lighting the night has been banished. Our cities never sleep. So there's no room for monsters. Medicine and psychiatry have pushed witchcraft and demon possession offstage. Worrying about black cats is superstitious and irrational. Ghost stories are just that. Stories. Fictional tales to scare the kids around the campfire.

But one night a year the world seems to become re-enchanted. Halloween night feels different. That night is spooky and menacing. For one night a year we go back in time and become medieval again. That's what makes Halloween so interesting. It's the last vestige of the Dark Ages. Smack in the middle of our disenchanted modernity.

To see just how disenchanted our world has become consider how science and medicine have chased the supernatural out of places that should be immune to disenchantment. Take our stories about magic and vampires. Surely these stories remain locations of enchantment, even if only in our imaginations? And yet, even these stories are becoming disenchanted. How? Consider this post I wrote a while back about the disenchantment in Harry Potter and vampire movies:

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To bring you some smiles on hump day, one of my more whimsical adventures as a college professor: Ghostbusting with some of my students.

(And if you've read this post before do read to the end as I've added some material that might be of interest.)

I've always fantasized about putting the following ad in the Abilene Yellow Pages:

Richard Beck, Ph.D.
Experimental Psychologist and Paranormal Investigator
Do you believe your house is haunted? Had an encounter with a ghost, poltergeist, or apparition?
Then call us at 1.800.I GOT BOO

I could then spend weekends with a group of fellow-volunteers meeting all kinds of interesting people. I mean, how fun would this be?

Two things make me qualified to be a paranormal researcher. First, I have experience. A few years ago, during a summer session, I was lecturing on the difference between science and pseudoscience. While doing the compare and contrast of the two I stated, as an example of pseudoscience, that paranormal research has all the trappings of science (e.g., high-tech equipment) but it really isn't science. This led to a conversation about ghosts. Well, here in Abilene we have a ghost light in Anson, the Anson light, which is found in the small town of Anson just north of Abilene. You drive to Anson, hang a right at the only light in town, hang the next right and then take a right at the graveyard. You go down a dirt road about a mile until you reach a crossroads. At the crossroads you turn around facing the way you came, back toward the graveyard down the road. You then flash your lights and wait...

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I'm blessed to have a very understanding and tolerant congregation. Of me at least. Over the years the Highland Church of Christ has allowed me to teach a variety of classes on some unusual subject matter.

For example, a couple of years ago our Adult Faith minister asked me for the title of a class I was about to offer. The conversation went a bit like this:

"Hi Richard, what can I use as the title for your upcoming class?"
"Ugly."
"Ugly?"
"Yes, Ugly. One word. Ugly."
"Okay, what is a class titled Ugly going to be about?"
"Well, we tend to think of things as right versus wrong, good versus evil. Those categories are pretty clean. But a lot of the time what we call 'evil' is really just 'ugly.' And ugly isn't always evil or bad. In fact, God is often found with the ugly. So, I want to think about Christian mission aesthetically as well as morally and point out locations of divergence."
"That sounds like a great class but will the title Ugly get that across?"
"Perhaps not, but I really like the idea of a class titled Ugly."

Eventually the title became Toward a Theology of Ugly. Which isn't all that illuminating, but it was a compromise.

Perhaps the strangest class Highland let me do was a class entitled Monsters: The Theology of Frankenstein, Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies. It was great fun and very successful. The success of the class was largely due to the gracious and thought-provoking participation of three friends--Bill, Dan, and Kenny--from the Art/Design and English Departments at ACU.

This post and the posts that follow (just follow the links at the end of each post) recap much of the material we covered in that class:

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Next Sunday is Halloween, a holiday that professionally, religiously, and personally intrigues me. In light of that, this week I'll be reposting some content from my archives to create a Halloween-themed week.

In defense of Halloween, below is an article I wrote for ACU's student newspaper The Optimist a few years ago:

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In Chapter 4 of John Dominic Crossan's Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography he considers the accounts of Jesus' healing ministry. I'd like capture here a bit of what Crossan says about Jesus' healing of lepers.

Again, Crossan doesn't believe these miracles happened exactly as recounted in the New Testament. He does believe, however, that Jesus was known as a healer and exorcist. So Crossan seeks to find a way to reconcile his skepticism about Jesus having supernatural powers with Jesus' 1st Century reputation as miracle-worker.

Now, I'm not really interested in quibbling with Crossan on this point. I'm interested in his take on the miracles because I think his analysis is helpful whether you believe in miracles or not.

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Last weekend I attended ACU's Digital Academy, a gathering to help ACU faculty learn some things about communication in a digital age. This weekend's focus was on digital photography and took place in beautiful Gruene, TX.

In between lectures and assignments I wandered into an antique store and found a phrenology head. I brought the head back and showed the group, excited about this purchase for my office. As I was showing off my find we were moving into a session where we'd be working on portraiture, so our teacher, ACU professor Nil Santana, sat me down in Gruene Hall (the oldest band hall in Texas) to take a picture of me with my phrenology head:

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A while back I wrote about my rebuilding interest in bible translations. But a recent article by Daniel Burke asks: Are there too many bible translations out there?

Burke writes:

However, some Christian scholars wonder whether too much Good News can sometimes be a bad thing, as a major new translation and waves of books marking the 400th anniversary of the venerable King James Bible inundate the market this fall.

The assortment of translations and "niche Bibles" (think, "The Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing Edition") sow confusion and division among Christians, invite ridicule from relativists, and risk reducing God's word into just another personal-shopping preference, the scholars say.

There are so many bibles out there that shoppers of the Good News seem to get overwhelmed. Burke:

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A few weeks ago I finished reading John Dominic Crossan's book Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. I really enjoyed it. I know that Crossan is a provocative thinker in many quarters. Crossan's involvement with the Jesus Seminar and his thoroughgoing skepticism regarding the miracles recounted in the New Testament irks Christian fundamentalists. Within the academy the opinion seems to be that Crossan too often goes out on a limb. He's not a cautious thinker, he takes risks, frequently offering interpretations with scant evidence.

But here's the thing: I like thinkers who take risks. Damn the footnotes, just tell me what you think. Provided, that is, you let me know when you are going out on a limb. And Crossan does this in the book, he tells you when he's skating across thin data. Also, as someone who struggles with religious doubt, I get Crossan's reluctance to take the miracles at face value. So I was interested in how he approached those accounts. He doesn't simply dismiss them, but he does recast them in ways that are, at times, interesting.

Overall, then, there are some really interesting moments in Jesus: A Revolutionary Life, observations that illuminate the gospels that I would like to remember. So, in light of this, I thought I jot a few notes about some of the parts of the book that interested me.

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I wrote a poem this week.

Here it is. Don't make fun of me. Sharing poetry is kind of a vulnerable thing to do.

Well, for someone of my limited talents it is...

Have a blessed weekend. Grace and peace.

Snow Angel

I know this looks strange to you
what I'm doing
like I'm drowning...or swimming
...or having a seizure,
possessed by some Spirit.
I am making a snow angel.
Moving arms up and down:
the wings.
Moving legs side to side:
the robe.
I've been practicing this my whole life,
with mixed results
depending upon the year.
But I am perfecting this tracing
the more winters I see.
Trying, on this cold earth,
to conform to a pattern.
And when I'm done
I'll rise up
and look back
at an emptiness
that is my self.
A hole that was dug,
now holding
no one.
And I'll turn toward home--
where there is food and warmth and joy--
leaving behind
in this fading light
a shape.

I found this testimony by Fort Worth City Councilman, Joel Burns, to be profoundly moving. And the fact that it occurred in Texas is stunning to me.

Insofar as the Christian community has created a culture where gay children commit suicide because of teen bullying...well, God have mercy upon our souls.


(H/T The Daily Dish)

For those who closely follow theology blogs you likely know that the Karl Barth blog conference is going on over at Der Evangelische Theologe. On Monday Jon Coutts brought Barth into conversation with the Coen brothers' movie No Country for Old Men (based upon the Cormac McCarthy novel). Brad East was the respondent to the essay. Some very interesting conversation about the movie has taken place at DET as well as spilling over onto other blogs (e.g., see Halden Doerge's take at Inhabitatio Dei).

For my part, I don't know much about Barth, but over the last two years I've been asked to speak in various forums on the ACU campus about the theology on display in the movie No Country for Old Men. Although my reflections aren't of the theological caliber of the posts linked to above, I thought I'd share my take on the movie.

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In light of my last post, Derek Webb's use of profanity in a "Christian music" album (and during a concert at ACU), I was reminded of this observation from Walter Brueggemann in the interview I linked to last week (H/T to Daniel):

Walter: ...I’m just now working on a thing on George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say” and what I’m arguing is that the real reason you can’t say those words is that they remind us that we are bodies, and therefore we are fragile and we're mortal, and we’re going to die...

Dan: I wonder what George Carlin would have thought of a theologian writing on his work?

Walter: [laughing]

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Two weeks ago I mentioned that Derek Webb had a concert at ACU.

I knew it was going to be an interesting evening when he opened with A King & A Kingdom. He went on to sing Freddie, Please, a song, sung in the voice of Jesus, to Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church (who is currently in front of the Supreme Court for protesting the burials of American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan with his "God hates fags" signs).

And, no wall flower he, Webb went on to sing What Matters More, the song the record label forced off the Stockholm Syndrome album.

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My boys are big fans of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. They love reading them with their mom before bed.

Tonight they got a big laugh about the Wimpy Kid's take on a sermon he heard at church:

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I've been reading the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by Christian Smith (with Melinda Denton). The book, published in 2005, summarizes data collected by the National Study of Youth and Religion. During 2002 and 2003 the NSYR conducted a random and national phone survey of American households containing at least one teenager between the ages 13-17. In the spring of 2003 in-depth follow-up interviews were conducted with 267 of the teenagers previously interviewed on the phone. According to Smith, the 2002-2003 research was the "largest, most comprehensive and detailed study of American teenage religion and spirituality" ever conducted. The survey asked questions about the religious and spiritual identities, affiliations, beliefs, experiences, and practices of U.S. teenagers.

So what does the religious faith of American teenagers look like?

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I had an interesting week last week on my campus. For a variety of reasons, both inside and outside the classroom, I spent a lot of time this past week thinking and talking about how liberals and conservatives are interacting with each other on our campus. Unsurprisingly, these interactions often don't go very well. Which is a shame for a Christian campus.

So what's the problem?

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Something to think about heading into the weekend...

Early this week I mentioned Stanley Hauerwas' assessment that American Christianity has become "too spiritual," that the concerns and life of the church have become other-worldly and detached from life right here and right now. The church rarely prays, "Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." Rather, the prayer is "May we get to heaven when we die."

This week I also wrote about 1 Corinthians 13, Paul's soaring call to love. And I wondered last night if this call to love has also become other-worldly and "spiritualized" within the church.

I think it has.

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Last week I posted a podcast--She is Called--about the experience of women called to ministry in the Churches of Christ (my faith tradition). As a part of that conversation at ACU, Dr. Ken Cukrowski, Associate Professor of New Testament and Vice Provost at ACU, gave a lecture entitled A Fly On the Wall: What Elders Are Thinking in Gender Inclusive Congregations.

While the She is Called podcast highlights the experience of women, Dr. Cukrowski's lecture is a nice supplement as his approach is more scriptural and pastoral. The first part of his lecture is here:

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