Randy Greenwald

Received a few minutes ago an e-mail message from a friend in South Africa urging us to pray for an area in eastern Uganda where an outbreak of ebola virus is being experienced. This is personally of interest since a seminary classmate of mine lives as a missionary in the very town where the outbreak has occurred. He and his family are currently out of the country, but some of his colleagues are still there. One has already died from the disease, along with dozens of others since the outbreak was reported ten days ago.

The question which medical missionaries face in such circumstances is whether to stay and care for the sick and dying, at the risk of one’s own life, or to flee.

I sit here in the comfort of my own home, the most critical crisis being a broken stove (more on that, hopefully, later). I blog, but about largely trivial things. I would encourage you, however, to begin to peruse the blog of Scott and Jennifer Myhre. This is a couple seeking to minister the grace of Jesus in the heart of the infected region. This gives us a window into life in the midst of tragedy as it happens on the other side of the world. Read this and pray.

“Don’t panic.” This is the best advice to come from England since “tea is meant to be bitter, like beer is meant to be bitter”. That it was not made famous by a Christian is too bad, but it is great advice.

Everywhere I turn, I encounter more dire warnings and urgent alerts regarding The Golden Compass. This is going to be the most well known new movie release among Christians since The DaVinci Code.

I was handed an article today by Albert Mohler regarding this movie and the books upon which it is based. I was worried that it would be another voice fanning the hysteria.

It isn’t. Mohler clearly states the content and agenda of the books. Of this we should be aware. But he does not recommend a shrill response, but a reasoned one.

He admits that we face a real challenge… but the challenge is not the movie(s) themselves. The challenge is to respond carefully and winsomely to the movie(s).

We should be grieved whenever Christ is attacked and whenever his work is mocked. But we should not panic. Those who do not trust in the providence of God panic. But we should not panic. Christ is still on the throne. He is building his church. And the novels of Pullman shall not prevail against it.

By the way, the tea advice? That was George Orwell. We have Douglas Adams to think for the other.

Many have asked how our meetings discussing race went in November. These have been mention here before, here, here, and here. I’d like to take a few moments to report on those meetings. They were, shall we say, interesting.

Several of us at the church have brainstormed ways in which we can expose an uninterested world to a Christian world view. Most people are NOT going to come to us to hear what we have to say. Is there a way to go to them in a forum in which they are prepared to listen?

In as experiment, nearly a year ago, we sponsored a series of four lunch meetings at a location near downtown Bradenton. We spoke on the subject of work, and we did so from a consciously Christian point of view. These meetings were moderately successful as many of those who came were non-Christians who came because someone else, a Christian friend, asked them to come.

This was moderately successful. So we tweaked our ideas a bit and decided to do this again, on a different topic – the topic of race. Realizing that this was a huge topic, we determined to reduce the issue to that of personal racial prejudice. We approached this from the point of view that we all, as sinners, treasure in our hearts prejudice to some degree, judgments of others based upon our own pride or fear or idolatry.

We held these four luncheons for four successive Thursdays in November.

Was this successful? Judged by our objectives, it does not seem so. But judged on the merit of what was done, it may seem that God had other ideas for these sessions, and was producing his own success.

The sessions were well attended – nearly 25 on one day – but not by those we had set out to address. Unlike last time, few who were invited came. Rather, the bulk of those who came did so as a result of a newspaper article in which Pastor James Roberts and I were interviewed concerning our intentions.

The result was one of the most theologically and politically diverse groups of people I’ve ever addressed. We had Roman Catholics and Unitarians, black Baptists and white presbyterians. We had people who have served on local Republican committees and we had members of local Democratic groups. I wondered whether some of those who had come would have stayed to hear me talk if they had known how conservative I am politically!

What drew this disparate group together was a common sorrow over the racial divisions which exist in our world today. Geoff and I, and Pastor Roberts, did our best to emphasize that these prejudices begin in the human heart. They are at root spiritual issues.

Our audience was comprised primarily of those who believed that they had dealt with their prejudices. And, as our culture conceives of prejudice – white vs. black – they had. But we are never fully free from judgments leveled against others because of their color or culture or status. At least two people came to me after it was all over, one of whom had been jailed during civil rights marches in Mississippi in the 60s, to thank us, as these sessions allowed them to realize the depth of the prejudice they hold against others.

I’m not sure what God intends to do with this. We think that this needs to be seen as a first step in a direction. But to this point w are unclear where God would have us take this next.

Thanks for your prayers!

It’s easy!

It’s fun!

It’s a hoot!

Elf yourself by clicking here.

To see an example click here! (Watch my son, my grandson, my wife, and I dispense with our dignity.)

UPDATE: Somehow in the original post, the example was NOT the one intended, but my niece’s children. I THINK I’ve fixed it.

Introverts refuel by being alone. Extroverts refuel by getting with people. Being essentially introvertish, I’m cloistering for a day or two to recover from a wonderful Thanksgiving Day holiday. As the picture here shows, everyone was with us for the weekend. Adria was here with her fiancé Gamaliel, Matthew with is fiancé Allissa, as well as all the usual local suspects, including a happy reunion with our dear friend Kim Doane from Orlando. People everywhere, and we were blessed.

Thanksgiving Day itself was delightful. We began with a joint worship service with St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church. Yes, one joint service per year does not really remove the segregation that plagues American churches, but it serves as a step towards heart softening and perhaps gives us a longing for a deeper and richer relationship together.

Dinner was satisfying and happy, and shared with our good friends Gus and Adri Espino. We conclude dinner with everyone sharing the things for which he or she is most thankful (written on pieces of paper and shared around the table). One of Colin’s was, “I’m thankful that I was adopted by a Christian family.” We can never quite tell what goes on in that active seven year old brain of his.

This was all followed by our annual family kickball game. I know, a strange tradition, this one. But it serves as a fun way to work off some of the food just eaten and to make room for pie. The teams were divided by gender. The game was called after two innings, with the score…. Well, it would be in bad taste to share the score, but the leading team had about twenty runs ahead of the losing team.

Barb and I at one point looked at all the members of the family and were HUGELY humbled to realize that all of these, all whom we love so much and all of whom we are so proud, have come to us by God’s grace. Just over 28 years ago, there were but two of us. We have a lot to be thankful for.

And I need a couple days to recover.

For what it is worth, here is this month’s Bradenton Herald column from Saturday’s paper. Obviously it is the fruit of our race discussions on Thursdays. These have been very helpful to me.

By the way, the editors of the Herald were either a) so impressed with the column or b) so desperate for front page copy, that they referenced my column on the front page. No doubt that doubled readership – from two to as many as four, I surmise.

In case the link does not work, here is the column (with their headline):

Hear a pastor’s black-and-white confession

It’s time for some confession. I’m white. A quick glance at my picture will confirm this. I’m a white boy who grew up in the ’60s, isolated from the racial struggles of that time. I was so insulated I can name for you all the black students with whom I graduated from high school. All three of them. Freedom marches and race riots were things on TV, not things that mattered to me. In my town, all was white with the world.

More confession: I’m conservative. I’m a part of a church that falls within the conservative, evangelical spectrum of American Christianity. My tradition has had a narrow and limited social conscience. I’m appreciative of the spotlight this tradition has aimed at some serious social ills and grievous sins of our society, but our blind spots have been serious as well. Issues of justice, poverty and race have been overlooked or downplayed. Now we must play catch-up with those in other Christian traditions who have long championed these concerns.

Being so white, so insulated and so distracted has made it hard for me to appreciate the seriousness of racial sin. That former Secretary of State Colin Powell traveling with his new wife from Virginia to New York could find no rest rooms open to him is like something from a different universe. I’ve never experienced such exclusion. Friends who grew up being taught never to look a white man in the eye introduce me to a world that I never visited before.

Things have changed, yes. But I’ve been on the outside and only occasionally looked in. Black and white can use the same rest rooms now. Black and white go to the same schools now. Black men no longer have to look down in the presence of a white man. It’s all cool now, right?

It’s easy to think so. But I know that it is not for me. Racial prejudices are born in the heart, and until the heart is cured of its pride and idolatry, we will always struggle with the temptation to stereotype and exclude others who differ from us. Perhaps it was once blacks and Chinese, Italians or Poles, but our hearts, unless changed, will always move in the direction of separation and exclusion from those who differ from us.

Whenever I have prejudged a black man as unequal to myself simply because of the color of his skin, I have sinned against all black men. Whenever I have made questionable judgments about Hispanics as a group, I have sinned against each individual Hispanic man I meet (one of whom is about to become my son-in-law).

And whenever I have done these things, no matter how subtly and with what sophistication, I have sinned not only against these men and women, but against the God who created them and gave his son for sinners such as me.

Racial prejudices linger within the proud and idolatrous confines of the human heart. I repent, and ask others to repent with me, of the sin that such prejudices produce. And I ask, and encourage others to ask with me, the Savior who forgives me to root out the remaining vestiges of favoritism and mistrust.

I can never stop being white. I long for that day when all that matters is that we are creatures created equal in the image of God.

My guess is that the upcoming movie The Golden Compass will receive a ton of free publicity courtesy of the Christians whose zeal it will be to protest the movie. I understand the dilemma. Hollywood marketing machines will put this movie into the same category as The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia when, in fact, it is in its original conception the antithesis of these films. Christian leaders are concerned that unsuspecting parents will be intrigued by the sanitized version of the film which will be released just before Christmas and will buy their children the books upon which the film is based.

The Atlantic Monthly, no Christian propaganda rag, to be sure, has an article this month about the movie. This article is available on-line only to subscribers, but some excerpts here would not be out of place. The article is entitled “How Hollywood Saved God”. The subtitle is telling: “It took five years, two screenwriters, and $180 million to turn a best-selling antireligious children’s book into a star-studded epic—just in time for Christmas.”

How anti-religious (we would say ‘anti-Christian’) is the book? The article gives us a hint:

This month, New Line Cinema will release The Golden Compass, based on the first book in a trilogy of edgy children’s novels written by the British author Philip Pullman. A trailer for the movie evokes The Lord of the Rings, and comparisons have been made to The Chronicles of Narnia. All three are epic adventures that unfold in a rich fantasy world, perfect for the big screen. But beyond that basic description, the comparisons fall apart. In the past, Pullman has expressed mainly contempt for the books on which the other movies were based. He once dismissed the Lord of the Rings trilogy as an “infantile work” primarily concerned with “maps and plans and languages and codes.” Narnia got it even worse: “Morally loathsome,” he called it. “One of the most ugly and poisonous things I’ve ever read.” He described his own series as Narnia’s moral opposite. “That’s the Christian one,” he told me. “And mine is the non-Christian.”

Pullman’s books have sold 15 million copies worldwide, although it’s difficult to imagine adolescent novels any more openly subversive. The series, known collectively as His Dark Materials, centers on Lyra Belacqua, a preteen orphan who’s pursued by a murderous institution known as “the Magisterium.” Or to use the more familiar name, “the Holy Church.” In its quest to eradicate sin, the Church sanctions experiments involving the kidnap and torture of hundreds of children—experiments that separate body from soul and leave the children to stumble around zombie-like, and then die.

The series builds up to a cataclysmic war between Heaven and Earth, on the model of Paradise Lost (the source of the phrase his dark materials). But in Pullman’s version, God is revealed to be a charlatan more pitiable even than Oz. His death scene is memorable only for its lack of drama and dignity: The feeble, demented being, called “the ancient of days,” cowers and cries like a baby, dissolving in air.

Not real subtle, this.

So how do we respond?

A helpful and cautious answer to that question is posted by Family Life and can be read here. Depending heavily upon the Christian film critic and author Jeffrey Overstreet, this post encourages Christians not to overreact. Overstreet says

“… whenever Christians are linked with movies in the media, you can expect it has something to do with protesting. And it’s already begun. There is such a loud, aggressive protest against ‘The Golden Compass’ happening, that Christians are playing right into the hands of the ugly stereotype that the world has of us; which is that we only wake up and get busy when we’re angry about something.

”For me, I’ve found it much more productive to talk with my neighbors about these movies, ask them to consider what the stories say and whether the stories really have any bearing on reality. In His Dark Materials – which is the name of the series that ‘The Golden Compass’ begins – the way the churchgoers are portrayed are as malevolent, controlling, heartless puppeteers, people who want to rob people of their freedoms and their joys. I think that Pullman is reacting against his perception of the church, and if we come out with our picket signs and our guns blazing, so to speak, we’re playing right into the image of the Church that he is showing people in that series. Wouldn’t it be better if our response to the movie argued with the movie simply by being different, by showing people that Christ sets an example of grace and of dialogue, and argument, yes, but argument with love.“

He notes curiously that Pullman’s diatribe throughout the books is against the church. But he has nothing to say about Christ, and his characters attempt to love and sacrifice in a world in which, devoid of a God, such acts are meaningless.

My understanding is that this movie has been cleansed of any overt content that would hurt it at the box office. We should, as always, be cautious and discerning in our entertainment. And in this case, we should be knowledgeable. But any loud verbal protesting will only be seen by the world as ugly, and help, inadvertently, the prospects of the film.

I think I’ll stay home from this one and watch something harmless, like one of the Harry Potter films.

I do not blog for money or fame. (In fact, as some of you have noticed, for most of these recent days, I do not blog at all.)

Andy Warhol said that in the future everyone would be world-famous for fifteen minutes. In the internet age, that fame can at least be achieved among fifteen people. At last count my internet fame stands at 91. Nothing much to crow about.

So, I do not do this for fame or fortune, and I certainly do not do this in order to have another creative outlet. I write a sermon each week, and generally generate several thousand other words in writing for various projects and opportunities.

My purposes here are much more basic. I pastor a church, and this blog can be an outlet by which I extend my care for this congregation in a way in which others can listen in. My hope is to say things here for which I have no other context, things which, by God’s grace, might be useful and helpful to others.

An example is a post which I am planning on the upcoming movie The Golden Compass. I’ve been asked twice in the past week about this movie. So, people are thinking about it. Others are stirring up a buzz about it. But where and how can I say anything helpful to a congregation that might be looking for some guidance regarding this movie? A blog provides a fluid and accessible context for such content.

However, as any who have tried this will tell you, keeping a blog is time consuming. I have no lack of ideas… I have eight drafts begun of posts and a dozen other ideas scribbled down… but I have posted nothing in the past two weeks. Why? Time.

Perhaps some day I will be able to find where this task falls into the routine of my week and I will be able to be more faithful in posting. But in the meantime consider this the occasional blog, the erratic and inconsistent ramblings of one less-than-famous 21st century pastor.

Tonight my son will don a costume and venture out onto the neighborhood streets to retrieve candy from friendly neighbors. That is to say, he will be doing what I would have forbidden not to many years ago. What’s changed?

I confess to a lot of ambivalence about Halloween. I actually hate the day. I hate the fact that ghosts and witches and devils are displayed everywhere. I resent the invasion of the movie snatchers in the local theaters (this year Saw IV). And, I confess, I’m not fond of shelling out over $20 for candy to pass out to the kids that come by. (Of course, this year I bought PLENTY so that we will have leftovers… and I get to control WHAT we have as leftovers.) I am saddened that our culture gets so excited by a day that fails to really see the evil that many of its images portray.

So what has changed? Just this: from a child’s point of view it is simply the one occasion each year when what he loves to do is allowed and encouraged. A child’s imagination is so ripe, so fresh. A child loves to pretend and to let his imagination take him to another world. And Halloween is the only day where he is not only allowed to do that, but is encouraged to do it in public. In short, I began to see the day as not so much a celebration of evil as a day when my child can have some fun dressing up. I have no fear of his getting into witchcraft because of it. Besides for two years in a row he wanted to dress as a paleontologist. Not much harm in that.

But there is another reason my mind changed. It used to be that on Halloween we would vacate our house to cloister at the church for a Halloween alternative. Our house would then be the dark one in the neighborhood. What did that say to our neighbors? Perhaps it said, “These people have convictions that won’t let them participate.” More likely it said, “These Christians think they are too good for us.” I have found Halloween to be one of those rare occasions where we can wander around the neighborhood, speak freely to all our neighbors, greet those whom we’ve not seen recently, and in general nurture a friendliness that may not be possible on other days. This is one pagan practice that can be clearly redeemed for good.

A good post on this subject is here. Far more reflective and thoughtful than my own, but clearly to the same point.

Tonight, Colin is no longer going to be a paleontologist. Tonight is is going to ‘be’ Boba Fett from the Star Wars movie. And he is thrilled. I’m glad that we can have this fun together.

Tonight begins the 2007 World Series, for some the beginning of the baseball season. And the Cleveland Indians will not be in it.

The Indians have made it to the World Series five times in the past 100 years, winning in 1920 and 1948. Most recently they appeared in 1995 and 1997, losing both times. There is, I understand, a feeling in Cleveland that if the worst can happen, it will. In this year’s American League Championship series, a best of seven playoff to see which AL team would make it to the World Series, the Indians were up 3-1 and had three chances to win that last game. They couldn’t, and now they sit at home and watch Boston do their thing.

This year the Indians won 96 games, the best in baseball. They have, I understand, a great organization from the general manager to the ball boy. Their players are star quality. And they are going home. The worst has happened.

I can sympathize with Cleveland fans. I cheer another team, Hope Presbyterian Church, whose experience can seem at times quite Indians-ish. We have great leadership in some of the best elders around. We have good teaching, and music that is rich and varied. We have some creative outreach programs in place, and our people are warm and receiving. Relationships are being developed and discipleship is happening.

With all this, our attendance does not change. Recently, we’ve seen three people (apparently) come to faith in Christ. One disappeared. Another moved away. God has given us some visitors who have hung around and even joined, while others have had to move away.

So, I join the fans of Cleveland in shaking of heads and bewilderment. But the good news is that unlike baseball the church is not about winning and losing. It is so often about the process. Even when the worst seems to happen, God is in the midst of it accomplishing his winning purposes.

We may never have our World Series ring. In baseball, it is all about the winning. But in the church, it is all about faithfulness.