Cross

As you might have noticed, things look a little different around here. I’m not claiming it’s an improvement — think of it as the beginning of a process.

A few days ago I did the tedious work of moving fortt.com (and cross.fortt.com) to a new hosting provider. In the process, I got easier access to some new tools, including the blogging tool WordPress. Cross had been on Blogger since I started it many months ago, and though new and better blogging technologies had emerged, the hassle of porting everything over proved too large a barrier. Too large, that is, until this week. When I switched to Yahoo for hosting, the  WordPress option suddenly became simple. So I decided to take the plunge.

All of the posts from the Blogger version have moved over here, though the old links are dead — one of the great new features with WordPress, however, is an internal blog search, so if you’re willing to put up with some inconvenience, you should still be able to find what you’re looking for.

In all, I believe it’s a good move technologically. The aesthetics will follow. In the meantime, please bear with me.

Every once in a while life gives us a clear illustration of how hard it is to have faith in a fallen world. Witness the West Virginia mining explosion.

It was heartbreaking. Families gathered at a church rejoice, believing their loved ones were saved. Then they learned three hours later that what they believed to be a miracle was in fact just a tragedy. Twelve of thirteen miners were dead. When they heard the news, some of those who had been praising God in the church moments before were reduced to shouting and shoving, according to news reports.

Often, God doesn’t intervene in the ways we’d like. Natural disasters aren’t averted, illnesses aren’t cured, people aren’t transformed. We want a deity to be something like a Santa Claus or a fairy godmother who, if we’re good enough, will grant our wishes. But if we take that perspective as Christians, we’re forgetting that God didn’t create us and place us here to be the audience for a magic show. He created us for something more.

My reading of scripture suggests rather that we are soldiers in a spiritual boot camp, learning to fight with righteousness when reason says flee, and learning to band together when pain would tear us apart. If we are truly allied to the cause of righteousness, we’ll keep fighting — even in the face of devastating losses and doubts.

No one can blame the family and friends of the miners for the sharp turn their emotions took when they heard the news. But this illustrates the fragility of our human feelings. I pray that those families will find a faith strong enough to sustain them, and to keep them praising God regardless of what news comes. And I pray that my faith will grow also, to be able to withstand such challenges. Even in the face of devastating losses and doubts.

Since it’s two days before Christmas, there’s still time for me to weigh in on the “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays” nonsense.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, pundits nationwide, fueled by the hot air from Bill O’Reilly, have been wringing their hands about the dilution of Christmas. Happy Holidays? Humbug. It’s Merry Christmas to you. How dare you trample on Santa and his reindeer? How dare you neuter an American tradition? This reached its peak (for me anyway) when I read about Sacramento pastor Dick Otterstad slipping into a Santa suit to protest Wal-Mart’s “Home for the Holidays” promotion.

This hullaballoo, my Christian brothers and sisters, is stupid. Wait. Not only is it stupid, it might be irreligious.

Simply put, the American Christian seems to have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas is not about gift giving. It’s not about family. It’s not about being nice, donating clothes, eating turkey, gifting fruitcake or sipping eggnog.

Christmas is a celebration of the moment when God pulled the ultimate fake-out. The King of Heaven entered the world as a mortal man — not with the pomp and flourish befitting royalty, but with a whimper barely heard above the braying of cattle. Jesus did not impose himself upon the world with loud pronouncements or bellicose wrangling. In fact, his near anonymity was part of his message. Who would dare to think that this Jesus, the son of a blue-collar wood-worker, could be the Messiah the world awaited? Who would dare believe that he could bend the hearts of men without using chariots or swords, without using politics or punditry; but instead using a message of love, obedience and self-sacrifice? Christmas is about humility and quiet devotion. It’s a foreshadowing of Easter morning.

We American Christians seem to have forgotten much of this message, for here we are beating our countrymen about the head with the baby’s swaddling clothes. “That holiday sale ought to be a CHRISTMAS sale, dangit,” we seem to say. Apparently we believe Jesus came to earth to score us a bargain. How dare Target or Wal-Mart undermine the cause of Christ?

Last time I checked, there is no Santa Claus — so a pastor dressing up like him to protest Wal-Mart’s sales language is just silly. Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, a celebration that the Church saw fit to hold at the same time as pagan ceremonies heralding the Winter Solstice. That’s right, December was the holiday season before it was the Christmas season.

So if the non-Christian world wants to say “Happy Holidays,” that’s fine with me. I’d just as soon we not land Santa’s sleigh on top of the barn where Jesus was born. And I think it’s time we Christians reflected on the true meaning of Christmas — if we can all quiet down a moment, we might hear that precious whimper above the braying of cattle.

After a long hiatus, I’m quietly bringing back the Cross blog.

For all intents and purposes, I’ve been gone for about nine months. A couple of different factors contributed to my absence: One, I became Senior Web Editor at the San Jose Mercury News, and thus a lot of my online work started happening on the job rather than on off-hours. Two, after being away so long, I didn’t want to come back halfway. I wanted to wait until I was ready to really devote time and thought to this publication. Now I’m ready.

There have been a few interesting developments in the blogosphere since I signed off. Dave Tieche, a onetime contributor to Cross, has gotten traction with his own blog. Josh Shipp, another member of the Tuesday Night Men’s Group, produced a short film and blogged about it. Russell Pierce started a blog. Ben and Jess Van Meter officially declared that they are coming back to California in spring 2006 after their time in Malta.

There have been sad developments as well. The once-funny-and-brilliant writing on the Hulk blog has gone flat and boring. Also, mycathatesyou appears to have run out of creativity.

Then again, given the fact that I’ve been gone for most of nine months, I can’t really talk, can I? But I will say this — I’d rather go silent for most of a year than just ramble on without much of anything to say.

All right, enough with the long wind-up.

I saw something this morning that was cause for one of those chin-scratching moments. Victoria Osteen, the wife of one of the more prominent pastors in the country, was kicked off a Texas plane bound for Vail, Colo. It’s unclear at this point what the problem was. But from early reports, it seems that liquid had been spilled on Victoria’s seat or tray table, and it wasn’t getting cleaned up as quickly as she would have liked. Reports seem to indicate that when she raised a stink about it, the whole family was asked to leave the plane.

Okay, this looks bad.

I’ve never been to Lakewood Church and I don’t know all that much about Joel Osteen and his wife. But this much is clear: If you’re leading a megachurch and selling lots of books, you’re a celebrity. And every little thing you do (or your wife does) — every LITTLE thing — reflects on not just you and your church, but on the values you profess.

So be careful out there, everyone.

Wondering whay I haven’t posted in, like, a month?

I’ve been busy. I became Senior Web Editor of the San Jose Mercury News and jumped right in, building this new entertainment site.

Check it out. Comment there.

This Washington Post column, “When Columnists Cry Jihad,” should be required reading for all of us out here who are thinking about the role of religion in politics. McCandlish Phillips strips away the caustic and self-righteous tone that evangelicals sometimes use, and gets down to facts.

I don’t count myself a member of the Christian Right or the Christian Left (I’m personally somewhere nearer to the Christian Chewy Center, though as a journalist I tend not to discuss such things), so I don’t agree with every point me makes. But I appreciate his defense of Christianity in general. He’s right that many newspapers treat commited Christians as if we are unthinking dolts opposed to rational thought.

American newspapers are largely failing in their duty to accurately report news about religion, in that most of them aren’t reporting nuance and depth. Many religion reporters approach evangelical Christians – or “born agains” as some are fond of calling us – as if they already know what we are going to say. These reporters go to the same stable of politically compromised pastors for interviews and then engage in “fill-in-the-blanks journalism”: They use quotes that reinforce the premise the reporter set out to prove.

How do I know this? For starters, I’m a journalist. I know what’s happening when I see story after story that rehashes the same quotes and characters. It’s the work of a reporter who went out to write a shallow trend piece about a religion topic, not someone who’s really seeking to understand a segment of the community that is poorly covered. As an African American, I’ve seen similar stuff many times before. Anyway, check out that column, and leave a comment here.

This is what I call giving credit where credit is due.

If you’ve seen the coverage of the disappearance of Jennifer Wilbanks of Duluth, Ga., the bride who actually got cold feet and was not kidnapped as family members and authorities feared, you might think it was the family and authorities who’d been had.

They were. But the national news media got snookered worse than anyone.

Think about it. Some 32-year-old woman in Georgia goes missing for less than a week, and it’s all over the national news? What kind of sense does that make? So many people go missing in a given week that it hardly seems reasonable for CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and the rest to have a total freak-out session.

It’s a bit of a strech to post this topic on Cross, but I’m doing it because this story is fundamentally about lies and greed. Wilbanks initially lied and told police she had been kidnapped. And you’d best believe that the reason this got so much national attention is greed: Wilbanks is a reasonably well-to-do, reasonably attractive suburban woman, this had “Laci Peterson Part II” written all over it, and the ratings hounds at the networks couldn’t wait to cash in. Because of their pack mentality, they’ve become part of the story. “After all this national media attention, it turns out she just had cold feet.” Ouch.

If this sounds somewhat cynical, I’m sorry. But seasoned journalists should know better than to blow out a story like this when the woman had been missing for less than four days.

This exchange in the comments on my Terri Schiavo post below is so darn interesting (I think) that I have to break it out into its own space:

randy said…

Why do you insist that food and water are life support? I see on previous entries you have been told repeatedly, she is not on life support yet you continue to claim otherwise. What is up with this “death worship”. Is life sacred? Well if you are a Christian you know the answer. Jesus died for life.He gives value to every life because every life is the work of His hands (Psalm 139:13-14). He gives value to every life because every life is someone for whom Jesus died (1 Corinthians 6:20). God is the author of life. God gives life meaning and purpose. God determines when His meaning and purpose for a particular life is complete. Christians, who stand under the cross on Good Friday and rejoice at the empty tomb on Easter Sunday, should know better than to question whether or not God can work in and through suffering. The darkest suffering of all time—Jesus, suffering for humanity’s sins on the cross—brought about the brightest good of all time—humanity, redeemed from sin and eternal life to all who believe. To deny the power of God to bring meaning and purpose to any life is to deny the power of the cross and the empty tomb.

I responded,

Randy,

Actually I call it “life support” because that’s what the judge called it in his order here. I try to base my characterizations on actual facts, not emotional bait.

As for whether mortal life is itself sacred, here is a definition:

sa·cred Pronunciation Key (skrd)
adj.
1. Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity.
2. Worthy of religious veneration.
3. Made or declared holy: sacred bread and wine.
4. Dedicated or devoted exclusively to a single use, purpose, or person: sacred to the memory of her sister; a private office sacred to the President.
5. Worthy of respect; venerable.
6. Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices.

Life itself is important in that it gives us an opportunity to worship God. It has plenty of potential value, based on our ability to make decisions. (That’s part of what amazes me about this Schiavo ruckus; so many of the people who want her to “live” are death penalty supporters.) Eternal life is sacred; mortal life is a beautiful formality. Consider the overwhelming possibility that insomuch as free will and potential consciousness comprise life, Terri Schiavo has already passed beyond mortal life.

This does not mean that every person who loses consciousness is as good as dead. It is possible for people to go into comas and come out of them. It is possible for people to lose their faculties to the point where they are no longer themselves, and can no longer think or communicate. When that happens, and people show no signs of consciousness, we obey their documented wishes about how to deliver medical treatment. When their wishes are not known, we often turn to their legal guardians. In this case, that’s Terri Schiavo’s husband by law.

Anyway. On the sacred nature of eternal life, 2 Corinthians 5:4-5:

For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Also, I do not believe that Jesus died for mortal life as you refer to it. Man’s mortal life itself was not in danger. Jesus died for our eternal lives, and you have yet to explain how Terri Schiavo’s eternity is at stake in this situation. If you’re trying to explain that, please go ahead.

No one is questioning whether God can work through suffering. But I’m not sure we’re talking about suffering here. Remember: A majority of doctors say Terri Schiavo is not conscious. She has not been conscious for 15 years, and quite possibly never will be. No consciousness = No suffering.

So if you’re suggesting I’m denying the power of the cross and the empty tomb, you are making a rash and foolish statement. You should be very slow to level such an accusation against any Christian. Surely this topic is too nuanced for you to jump to any such conclusions.

Finally, it’s interesting that you quote 1 Corinthians 6:20. It, and the verse before it state:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

I’m not sure exactly what this has to do with a situation where a woman’s brain has been destroyed, leaving her unable to think or function beyond reflex. It is debatable whether an unconscious person is capable of honoring God with her body.

It seems you are arguing that as long as a person’s brain stem is functioning, you’re certain that the person’s soul continues to dwell in the body – even if that person’s conscious life is over. I’m not so sure about that.

I won’t argue it either way. I’m content to question why the pro-feeding-tube people are so sure of themselves, and so set on equating mortal life with eternal life.

My first inclination is to have a problem with this.

From the story, apparently Russell Stover draws the line somewhere: ‘A molded Jesus, for example, would not be a good call and a cross with Jesus on it wouldn’t be a good idea either.’

I guess if it’s become socially acceptable to nibble on pagan fertility symbols such as rabbits and eggs on Easter, it’s hard to make a case against chocolate crosses. But I sure won’t be buying any.