The Barista Sharpens His Talons

Stopped off for coffee Saturday and spent a moment chatting with the two baristas. One was a young guy, still in HS, taking concurrent enrollment at Community College.

He plans to attend Oklahoma Baptist to be a youth minister. We talked about the ins and outs of my alma mater. Classes, the dorms, the cafeteria, all of this was fascinating to him from my perspective, even seventeen years later.

He was rather proud of the jump start he was getting on his degree by taking classes now. He took special pride in telling me about the Comparative Religion class he was taking at Community College.

"After all, how will I ever beat anyone in a debate if I don't know the other
side?"

*Sigh* Yes, Sparky, and after you "beat them", they'll really want to accept your message. They'll know we are Christians because we beat 'em!!!

My First Trip To Jesus Camp Where Shorts Are Allowed

I landed tickets to the premiere of Jesus Camp Wednesday night. A look at their website shows no wide release date and that the night I saw the movie seemed to be its first round of premiers. Score one for the Bible Belt.

Here's the synopsis:

A growing number of evangelical Christians believe there is a revival underway
in America that requires Christian youth to assume leadership roles in
advocating the causes of their religious movement.

JESUS CAMP, directed
by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka), follows Levi, Rachael, and
Tory to Pastor Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire" summer camp in Devil's Lake, North
Dakota, where kids as young as 6 years-old are taught to become dedicated
Christian soldiers in "God's army." The film follows these children at camp as
they hone their "prophetic gifts" and are schooled in how to "take back America
for Christ." The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that
recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's
political future.

My own upbringing touched the very edges of such experiences. Although my church experience was not in the Pentecostal tradition, I spent four years attending a Christian school run by an Assembly of God church.

Twenty-plus years ago, conservative politics were a smaller part of evangelical doctrine. I remember a chapel service in school and talks in church about abortion. The only mention of homosexuality in those circles was a homophobic youth minister who used the word "fag" like it was written in Scripture (in a fascinating sidebar, his wife approached me after I spoke at Dad's funeral half jokingly asking me to speak at both of their funerals. I wonder if he'd want my memory mentioned?). We didn't chant"Pray for righteous judges!" or welcome cardboard cutouts of the President at our worship services like these young people do.

Still, Becky Fischer, the children's pastor profiled in Jesus Camp, maintains that she is not training kids for political action. Her aim is only to "...teach our kids what the Bible has to say about life and how we are supposed to respond to it as Christians.". She cites Scriptural backing for every political message she gives to her campers. I won't argue these specific points except to say that for every political message she finds in the Bible, I could find others that support care for the poor and social justice that would run afoul of her cardboard cutout worship icon. I suppose we all find politics in Scripture, we just choose to emphasize different passages.

What my upbringing did have in common with the "Jesus Campers" is the Born Again experience. Salvation is depicted as an all at once, emotional, easy experience that once and for all brings the forever clear presence of God.

In the half-full theatre, most of the movie goers responded to the film as though it was a comedy. How could this be real?

I couldn't laugh. I know that it's real. I've been to the edges of this content. I just found myself thoughtful and a bit sad. Fischer calls the kids at her camp a "key generation" to Christ's second coming. I remember when my generation had a similar title.

I remember too my generation growing up. With few exceptions, we all had some sort of faith crisis, a way that the simple answers we were given as children didn't cover our lives any longer. Some of my contemporaries gave up on faith when those questions went unanswered. I thought of my own faith crises--because despite the fact that my faith somehow generally outlives spiritual crisis, I still find myself wrestling with God.

So what happens when this "key generation of Jesus Campers" hit their crises and issues of faith are no longer simple? I take that question from the film more than any other image or quote. It makes me hope for reasonable, nuanced faith to flourish.

So the movie is important. It's part of the world you should see if you have not. If you have seen this part of the world, think it through again.

Edited to add--Rev. Dan has posted clips and more opinions on Jesus Camp here. Well worth the click.

Ok, first some business: I am fine. Except when I am not. Then, I am not fine. I can't envision any advice that would fix this situation. There just isn't a solution. Your comments of sympathy and advice are kind, but honestly, I can't take this path in the way any of you have. Email conversations on this topic are welcome, but let's comment along other topics. Thank you for understanding. With that, the news.

Dear me, there is a world outside of the Bible belt!! I am at Smith College in Northampton, MA and have a list of HUGE differences!! Catastrophic differences that make me wonder if I might be able to do without great big iced down peach teas and cokes and MOVE!!!

• One can walk to anything in this town and even with temps in the 90's and insane humidity, I am quite the happy pedestrian. Did you know it's state law here to yeild for pedestrians? Geez, at home, anyone not driving an SUV is a pedestrian.
• There are two movie theatres in town and both are art houses. Mmmmm......movies.
• I'll risk sounding like Ellie Mae Clampett here, but I saw me a play last week that was reviewed by the New York Times! And I mostly agree with the review!
• The food service guy in our tiny dining hall reads Food and Wine magazine. Often.
• The grafitti says things like "Biophillic Revolution!"
• and yes, Virginia, there is yarn.

Expect additions to this list...it's quite an experience. Meanwhile, you might read my new friend's view of the experience.

And The Greatest Of These Is What?

Taken from a bumper sticker seen on the way home from school:

Three Things That Keep Us Safe--God, Guns, and Guts!

I am wondering, are these ranked alphabetically or in order of importance? If they are in order of importance, is said importance ascending or decending?

I won't argue the substance until this is clarified for me.

Stuff I Am Really Hearing Right Now As I Type On The WiFi

• "My dream is to travel. I mean, God has just given me this gift, you know? I have a real love for hotels!"
• We moved here from Tuttle when I was a kid and I just look at Oklahoma City and go 'Get saved!'."

While I wait for them to say more, I will recount a recent conversation with mom. It's not a full entry, but good filler while I wait for more silliness...

Mom-I bragged on you at a wedding I worked at the Church.

Educat-Yeah?

Mom-I did. The flower girl was two and just wouldn't walk down the aisle. She just wouldn't. She wouldn't even carry her basket. I told them what a good job of walking down the aisle you did when you were two years old in Aunt Becky's wedding!

Educat-(hearing the Debbie Downer "wah-wah" in the background) Gee. Thanks.

I'm getting nothing over my shoulder now. They're recalling great Falls Creek sermons they have heard and I just can't get there.

So that's all.

New From The Leader in Cruci-Fiction!

Please be a joke, please be a joke, please be a joke.

The Most Segregated Hour

One of our afternoon presenters today was Rev. Dr. Wilson Fallin, a pastor and history prof who wrote a book about the role of the African American Church in the Civil Rights movement (wouldn't it be great if I linked to it here? Wouldn't it be great if I had enough energy to after a 14 hour day and early departure for Selma and Tuskeegee tomorrow?).

I was able to ask him what he thought about our tendancy to self segregate ourselves in worship and his answer is worth quoting here.

"I don't trust the white Church. They aren't speaking out about
anything."

You Got Some 'Splainin' To Do!!!

I haven't had much time, but I think it's important to talk a bit about my interview in the OKC Gazette (it's at the bottom of the web page, last article).

Before I left town for CONA, Greg and I did a quick phone interview about the resolution recently passed by the SBC asking that parents examine the curriculum of their child's school for morally objectionable material. I was out of town when the issue came out, but have talked quite a bit about it since returning home. I have been asked why I sounded so angry and my mother tells me she was given a hard time at Church.

So let's talk....

Am I angry? Yeah, a little bit. I am a bit angry that the people who raised me and educated me are are hinting that I might not be fit to teach their children. It hurts a bit that parents have to be told by a Church body to take part in their child's education.

Another question that has arisen is did Greg portray me fairly. Yeah, he did. Greg is a friend and I trusted him to present the story without making me look like a loon (any looniness I exhibit is unrelated to my thoughts on the SBC and Public Education). I think he did. I take issue with the photographer for portraying me with multiple chins, but his job is not to take glamour shots.

But you know what? So much good has come from the article. I had a call while I was gone from a friend of a friend who thanked me for representing my view so well and how grateful she was for my willingness to speak. I had an email from a former student that was very kind, and today one of my fellow mentors at this institute saidto me "you know, I am pretty conservative, but after I read what you said I couldn't argue with you. We are commanded to love." But that wasn't even the best story.

Our first event of this week's institute was a mentor brunch at a local, Gazette-carrying establishment. The first thing my favorite mentor (an incredibly well read, gentle man who happens to be a church of Christ elder and is still usually up for a beer) said to me was "I can't wait to show this to John, he will be so proud!"

John is the father of some college friends of mine who pastors a Baptist church in a small, Eastern Oklahoma town. John loves to talk Theology. He also loves to salt slugs (I am fully aware of how irrelevant this is, but it's the funniest thing to see him head out to the garden with a salt shaker and an evil grin). He asks my friend about me even these twelve years since I have been in his family's life. He is also the only pastor in town who would bury a man with AIDS when he passed a few years ago. If I lived in John's tiny town, I wonder if I might still be Baptist, at least his kind.

I think that sums it up for me, the people I am proud to know are proud of me. For me, that's mighty good stuff.