I watched Lars and The Real Girl last night.  I don't want to give any of the movie away, but I think it should be sought out.  Don't be scared off by the life-size doll.  It's not what you think.

In the past two movies I have seen, Driving Lessons and Lars and the Real Girl, religious communities are central to the protagonist's life.  In Driving Lessons the hypocrisy of the community almost destroys the protagonist.  The opposite happens in Lars and the Real Girl.  The community of faith saves Lars from destroying himself.

The answers to Lars' problems are not textbook.  Lars is an individual who needs specialized care.  The movie forces us to consider that mental illness is reedemable, and that the cause of mental illness, whether chemical, biological, genetic, or environmental, is not important.  As the doctor/psychologist ("they need to be both up this far north") says to Lars' brother: it is Lars' problem to deal with, you just need to be there to help him out. ... more

Some guy named Frank Viola wrote a book called Pagan Christianity in 2002 and no one cared it did not make many waves. Apparently, he sold George Barna on the concept in the first edition and it is being reprinted with Barna's name on the front.

From Out of Ur:

Viola argues in his preface that the "practices of the first-century church were the natural and spontaneous expression" of believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit that were "solidly grounded in timeless principles and teachings of the New Testament.quot; Regrettably, he maintains, most practices of contemporary churches—including everything from having a professional pastor to meeting in a church building—are at odds with New Testament teachings. Worse yet, those extra-biblical practices were adopted from pagan culture. This is unsettling, Viola sympathizes; but it is also "unmovable, historical fact." The remainder of the volume is an argument from Scripture and church history to support this thesis: "the church in its contemporary, institutional form has neither a biblical nor a historical right to function as it does."

... more

Sitting in class at Rutgers a strange thing has been happening: the local Episcopal church has begun ringing its bell hourly.  This is my fourth semester there, and this is the first time I have noticed it, and for me it is taken for granted---I have always belonged to a church that has bells, electronic or (gasp!) the real, metal bell.  I have fond memories of being catapulted into the air as I held fast to a bell rope, and then descending slowly back to earth again.

The new bell ringing has been granted with a subdued disdain, a nuisance perhaps, by many in the Rutgers community.  It interrupts their thoughts, is loud, and seems out of place.  For some, it might sound like their cell phone alarm, and they are aggravated by a reminder that is not personal.

And that is what I think the biggest shock of the ringing bell is: it is not individual but communal.  We have become greedy for time and bend it to our will by personalizing it.  We don't get up at dawn, we get up precisely when we set our alarms, and when that fails we have snooze buttons to personalize our whims further.  We have individual calendars and individual phones to mark time for us individually.  It is almost as if the time-space continuum has become personalized.

But then the bell tolls, and it tolls for all to hear.  Time becomes a communal event.  Six times during class: 5:30, 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, 7:30, and 8:00 PM the bell chimes a song that reminds everyone that they are existing in time together, and that it is passing for all of us.  It also reminds us that we can do nothing to stop it.  The bell cannot be turned off, it cannot be silenced---it will ring whether we want it to or not. 

Time is an interesting thing, as anyone who has gazed at a Dali painting will realize.  But I think the egomaniacal artist was correct in the way Time passes as a melt instead of grains of sand in a timepiece.  The grains of time do not dissipate without a trace, they leave a film, an ooze, a mark on our lives as they pass through our fingertips.  And when a bell rings, it does not pour like sand it oozes like a melting clock---it stops us in our tracks---and we reflect on what happened in between each toll.  Time has the ability to drift away unnoticed in a 24/7 age of instant access, but when a bell tolls it makes Time seem finite, and that scares us just like a surrealist painting.

O God, let us remember that Time is in your hands, and we are but a short breathe in the history of the cosmos. ... more

Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed is an excellent book.  It begins beautifully and I imagine Scot's main message of loving God and others will resonate with most readers as I found it impacting.  The Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 "... Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength ..." and Leviticus 19:18, "Love your neighbor as yourself" combine together in Mark 12:30-31 form McKnight's "Jesus Creed". 

This post on Out of Ur, McChurch, ruined my Friday.