Good News in Egypt.

There is good news for Egyptian women today--Yahoo! news has reported that the country has announced plans to outlaw the heinous practice of female circumcision after a twelve-year-old girl died of complications from the procedure. (Apparently clitoridectomies have been "banned" since 1997, but there is a huge "exceptional cases" loophole.)

I was very happy to read of this. It is quite sad to know that so many women in the world have had such a disgusting thing done to them. The fact is, they have been robbed, oppressed and abused. I would dare to say that this practice is almost an exercise in dehumanization--wicked men are abusing their power by taking away part of women's identities as women.

Thank God that Egypt is taking steps to eliminate female cirumcision. I pray that other countries around the world would follow their lead.

Se7en (Things About Me)

I have been tagged to reveal seven things about myself. Here ya go, Pat:

1. It bugs me when check-out lines have signs that read "Ten Items or Less" instead of "Ten Items or Fewer". Thanks to my college roommate Josh who taught me the general rule: If you can count it, it's fewer. If you can't, it's less.

2. I am addicted to coffee.

3. I started playing the guitar when I was around 14 years old. My dad had his old nylon-stringed guitar stored in the basement. I found it and a book entitled Learn to Play Guitar Like the Monkees, and the rest is history. I now have two electric guitars (a Squire that I never play and an American Series 70s-style Strat plugged into a 50-watt Marshall) and two acoustics (a Takamine usually tuned to open D tuning and a Seagull, which I highly, highly recommend). I want to get a 12-string Seagull at some point.

4. I love to cook. In my house, I do most of the cooking, meal planning, etc. My wife loves me.

5. I would be perfectly happy never shaving again and growing out my beard to Castaway-type proportions. Alas, I do not live in Boulder, so I am content with my goatee.

6. Although I work in corporate America right now, eventually I will be a pastor. I would also like to take a stab at writing, which is one of the reasons I started this blog.

7. I co-direct a Christian distance-running camp every year in the mountains near Estes Park. We bring in kids from all over the region and teach them about Jesus and running. I know we are doing big things for the kingdom of God, although I doubt that I will ever see our true impact. (I know the same is usually true for anyone who ministers to youth.)

Congrats Rockies!

Congratulations to the Colorado Rockies for sweeping the New York Yankees! Keep up the good work, boys!

Hooray Beer!

New Belgium Brewery must be reading my blog. The Ft. Collins-based beer company has become living proof that we don't need more government regulation in order to use our natural resources more wisely. The brewery just built a new bottling plant with some amazing features. According to 9 News in Denver, the plant was built out of reclaimed timber, its kettels use 65% less energy than standard kettles, and it even reuses its waste water. New Belgium is doing its part--voluntarily, mind you--to implement and maintain environmental best practices. Amazingly, the government didn't even have to tell them to do it!

Why are they doing it? It's simple--more and more consumers want to purchase "eco-friendly" products. New Belgium saw this and responded by giving their customers what they wanted. Thus, the beer company sells more beer, pays less in overhead (their new system has reduced the plant's energy bill by $3000 per month), and everyone is happy.
This is a perfect example that perhaps the government shouldn't take the lead in the race to "save the environment" (a concept which I find rather arrogant and androcentric, but I digress). The free market being what it is, when consumers demand X, businesses either make their products do X or shut their doors. Perhaps our lawmakers should give this concept a chance to work--a concept which positively reinforces responsible use of natural resources--instead of rushing to punish those who would dare drive their non-hybrid car to work and back.

Denver $acrifice$ to $ave the Planet.

I recently happened across this article in the Rocky Mountain News. Basically, Mayor John Hickenlooper wants to initiate a “climate action plan” for the city of Denver. Now, I am all for taking good care of the earth (it’s where all my stuff is), but if you have read some of my earlier posts, then you know that this sort of thing troubles me.

Here are some of the main points of Hickenlooper’s plan, as stated in the article:

Denver may ask residents to make personal sacrifices to combat global warming. Ideas being considered:

· Making heavy users of electricity and natural gas pay more

· Charging residents who throw away a lot of trash

· Setting energy-efficiency standards for new construction

· Giving carpoolers and hybrids priority for parking

This is, in my opinion, the wrong way to effect change. Basically, this “climate action plan” becomes an exercise in negative reinforcement. The government will punish you if you don’t live up to their standards (they know better than you, of course). Granted, this plan may force people to change against their will, but perhaps there is a better way. For instance, why not introduce tax incentives? Instead of charging people who throw away a lot of trash, give residents who voluntarily recycle a tax deduction. Reduce the tax burden on those who choose to build or buy energy-efficient homes. People would become environmentally aware overnight of their own volition. (Okay, #4 comes the closest to this line of thought, but what about handicapped people who don’t carpool or drive hybrids? Do they have to park in the “back 40”?)

The government won’t be going down this road, however. In fact, this plan would make it more beneficial for the city if its people don’t adhere to it. Denver will make more money this way. This is similar to the sin tax on cigarettes. The government “wants” people to quit smoking, so it raises taxes on cigarettes, thereby increasing its revenue as more people smoke. How many governments want to decrease their revenue? Likewise, if Denver’s “climate action plan” is enacted, the treasury will increase proportionally to the rate of pollution. Which will the city choose—their environment or their bank account?

Hell is Autonomy.

In an informal "part two" to the last blog, I want to comment on one more thing that Alistair Begg said in his sermon the other day. As part of his discussion on the character of God, he talked about humankind's autonomy. He made the point that God allows us autonomy. We don't have to believe in Him. We can say, "No thanks, I will get through this life on my own," and He will oblige us. He will let us go it alone, and that, said Begg, is Hell. Hell is autonomy. Hell is us getting our own way.

When seen in this light, God doesn't send anyone to Hell--a person goes of his or her own volition. If a person wanted nothing to do with God on earth, why would that change in the afterlife? If you have read The Great Divorce by Lewis, then you know what I am talking about. In it, a bus full of people from Hell drives up to Heaven, and in the end all of the passengers decide they prefer Hell to Heaven. Each would rather hold on to his or her autonomy than submit, even to God.

I can't even will my own heart to beat; how can I claim that I don't need God?

I saw the Lord, seated on a rocking chair...

I heard a great thought today. I was listening to a sermon by Alistair Begg on the radio this morning on my drive to work. He is one of my favorite preachers, and as usual, he did not disappoint.

He took issue with the “benevolent grandpa” view of God. This is the idea that God is the cosmic equivalent of a senile but happy old man who overlooks the bad things we do with a sigh. “Boys will be boys,” he says, and he happily welcomes all of us into the Pearly Gates.

Begg posed a great rebuttal: Would you be friends with a person who never got angry? If a man saw someone brutally attacking another person and did not become angry at the injustice of it, what would you think of him? If you never became upset when someone you love was treated unfairly, what kind of person would you be? If God is “love” without any sense of justice (far be it from a “loving” God to send anyone to Hell), would He be worthy of worship?

Who is the God that you worship?

Truth and Starbucks.

I have been reading through The Gospel According to Starbucks by Leonard Sweet. The basic idea of the book is that the church should take a look at what Starbucks is doing that makes them so successful and appropriate what it can. That is, why do people flock to Starbucks for expensive coffee drinks, and what positive things can the church learn from Starbucks' example? Fair enough; there is no reason the church shouldn’t take that which is good from culture and use it.

Of course, being a seminary student, I must always find some aspect of any book with which I disagree—it is simply a burden I must carry. Sweet, who is a seminary professor, ironically downplays the role of the intellect in the life of a believer. Christianity, he says, is not to be lived out solely in the mind; it is to be experienced. He even goes so far as to say that theological and philosophical debates might do some good in the ivory towers, but they do nothing for the average person. (Never mind that everyone has a theology and a philosophy, no matter how common.) Sweet goes on to format his idea of the Christian life like this:

It seems as if Sweet is saying that the mind and experience are completely distinct from one another. For too long, he argues, the intellectuals in the church have controlled and subdued Jesus. No, he says, to know Jesus you must experience him, and to know the Truth you must experience it. He does briefly acknowledge the role of the mind, but the reader gets the sense that Truth is 95% experiential and 5% intellectual in nature.

I, on the other hand, would describe the life of a believer more like this:

Truth through Jesus serves as the foundation of the faith. The mind and experience, however, cannot be completely separate. Each interacts with and affects the other, and each serves as a corrective to the other. Truth is not found solely through experience or intellectual pursuit. Rather, it is a bedrock upon which both sides are built.

All in all, this is not an attempt to knock Leonard Sweet. There are some good tidbits of knowledge in the book (perhaps I will blog of these later). And I agree with his overall premise. I think he is offering a needed corrective--i.e. let's make church a place where people want to come--but he over-steers the ship. The church needs sharp minds as much as it needs authentic lives. After all, as a wise author once wrote, we are a body.