No, it’s not because he lost. Losing is part of playing, he had a great season, blah blah blah. I don’t really follow football – nothing against it, just doesn’t grab my attention.

I am concerned for him. He has, whether he meant to or not, become a very public image for American Christianity. Pop-Christianity has elevated him to “Christian Celebrity” status, which means that Sunday schools across the country now have a new hero to point the children to, pastors have another sermon illustration, and aspiring Christian athletes have another role-model.

And this is a problem.

Americans love celebrity. I imagine an embarrassingly large percentage of our time, attention, and money go to various elements of celebrity culture like a bunch of cats hitting the neighborhood catnip bong – aggressively and ferociously. American Christianity is no different, and it is really one of our more unique features. It is also extremely unhealthy.

Tebow has, unwittingly, been placed in an impossible situation. While Christians love to create faithful celebrities after whom we may follow, it also places an incredible amount of pressure on that poor soul. And we tend not to be very forgiving when that person messes up. Not “if,” but “when.” Remember how Mel Gibson was our hero when he Made Passion? One DUI and a few racial slurs later…

All that to say, it’s great to have people that inspire us. Please remember that Tebow is human, and when he says something stupid, has a moral lapse, or simply has a bad day and tells the cashier at the store what he thinks of her mis-priced beans in a very unambiguous way, lighten up. All our heroes are human.

In any case, there was one quote by the author of the book, Thomas Mates, that particularly made my skin crawl:

The principle thing is the idea of being politically active, which Jesus refused to do and Paul didn’t do. All of the key figures in the New Testament are renowned for going to their deaths without putting up a fight. Jesus fought to clean up the church, not city hall. No one is told in the New Testament to beat or join the Romans.

No, no, and a very loud, frustrated NO. Jesus (not to mention Paul) was highly active politically, but we will fail to see how if we assume that politics is always like what we experience in modern, western America. Taking a look at the life of Jesus through first-century eyes, we see a doubly radical political figure whose death was inevitable.

Consider this question: Would Rome (and its delegated officials) be interested in killing a wandering “spiritual leader” who taught about” spiritual realities” and wanted his followers to do “spiritual things?” Of course not. Itinerant spiritual wanderers are about as threatening as a hamster who has no teeth. At worst, he would be mildly amusing.

But Jesus was executed as a threat to the empire, and Rome reserved a special method of death for these types – crucifixion. So the question is, why? What was so political about his teaching?

Take, for example, Jesus’ famous statement (from Matthew 22), “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God’s the things that are God’s.” As separation-of-church-and-state Americans, the meaning seems clear: The political realm is separate from the religious realm. However, we must understand the historical context to really feel the sting of Jesus’ rebuttal.

Jesus was asked whether it was lawful to pay the tax to Caesar. This was a very sore point for the Jews, God’s chosen people, as they were in subjugation to Rome and were forced to pay tribute. During Jesus’ lifetime (6 CE) there was a revolt against Rome, lead by Judas of Galilee, specifically in opposition to a tax census. For you New Testament geeks, this is mentioned by Rabbi Gamaliel in Acts 5. The Romans, doing what they do best, killed a lot of people as they put down this rebellion, which certainly would have been in the collective memory of the people witnessing the life of Jesus.

If Jesus says no, it was not ok for them to pay the tax to Caesar, then they would have a clear admission by Jesus that he was an advocate of Judas of Galilee – which they could use to get him killed by the Romans. If Jesus said yes, however, then he would have committed a certain kind of blasphemy. On the coin in question, written around the face of Caesar Tiberius, would likely have been written: Caesar Tiberius, son of the Divine Augustus. That would imply that Caesar was the son of a god and therefore divine – quite the crime within monotheistic Judaism. Also written on the coin was the statement that he was the “High Priest,” which in Roman civil religion, he was.

So Jesus can’t say yes, as that would be agreeing that Caesar was divine and violate the Jewish understanding of who God is, but saying no will get him arrested immediately. So what does he say? “Give me a coin.” Oddly enough, one of his interlocutors has one, and Jesus makes him identify the face on the coin. It was Caesar’s, along with all the titles I mentioned above. So what does Jesus mean when he tells them to give to Caesar what is his, and to God what belongs to him?

Think about it. Caesar is claiming to rule the world, and he holds the title of “divine son of a god.” He claims total dominion. So does God. Jesus’ response forces his questioners to face the reality that these two “realms” aren’t mutually exclusive, and in fact, they are diametrically opposed. This is a very dangerous political statement to make, and one that will likely get you killed if you say it loud enough.

Which leads us to our own times: Who is really in charge around here?

Here is the full beard. I look like I spend waaay too much time alone.

This is my favorite style. 19th century British gentleman, like a boss:

I call this the hard-ass handlebar (I look like an idiot):

And to top it all off, the porn ‘stache. Dear God, I look awful with a mustache.

I don’t have a final pic clean shaven, but I have to say, when I got rid of that big beard, I did feel like a new man. I think this will be a tradition for a long time as it was a great way to add a little more of the experiential to Easter. Next year, I hoping an army of men from my church will grow beards with me.

I am so ready for my beard to go away. I can no longer eat chips and salsa without needing to change my clothes and scrub my face – salsa goes everywhere. Bagels and cream cheese? That ends in disaster. Cheesy, cheesy disaster.

I started letting it grow wild for Lent as a new tradition. A few guys are doing it with me, and I hope next year we will get a small army of scruffy-faced Lent observers.

Martin Luther wrote these words: ”Original sin is in us, like the beard. We are shaved today and look clean, and have a smooth chin; tomorrow our beard has grown again, nor does it cease growing while we remain on earth.”

For me, a beard like this is a sign of repentance. It itches, gets in the way, and generally annoys me. And, I did not even ask for my wife’s input for this post – you can imagine what she might say.

However, I’ve noticed that I am anticipating Easter more this year than in the past. Yes, I want this stupid beard gone, but that has created a bit of energy in me as Holy Week approaches. When I shave for Easter, I will feel like a new man. And since I believe in the Resurrection of the dead, that’s what it is all about, right? A new man indeed…

Obviously, my heart goes out to his family. I didn’t really know anyone that knew my friend and didn’t like him. He was absolutely brilliant, but he was so kind that you would never know it unless you got him near a computer. Then you would realize that his brain functioned on a different plane – he was *that* good as a programmer and thinker.

What I can’t help but think about right now is how much I hate death. I absolutely hate it.

Whether I am mourning and grieving along with everyone else, I am ministering to the family and friends of the deceased and officiating a funeral, or even if I am just doing the music for a memorial service, I am always struck by how much I hate death.

It was never really meant to be this way. Death is a curse on humanity. Granted, it is a deserved curse… but it is a curse nonetheless.

My fear is that, in our attempt to alleviate the pain we feel when someone we know dies, we try to explain death away. “It’s natural – just a part of life” or “God took them home” or “God wanted them in heaven with him” or some other nonsense. The Christianized versions of these statements aren’t actually Christian. Did you know that? The concept that God brings people up to him in heaven and that is where they reside forever doesn’t come from the New Testament. It comes from Plato and Socrates.

The Christian response to death, and my response to my friends death, is that I hate it. A lot. I feel sad and angry.

Now, that isn’t the end of the story, of course. Just like when Jesus died, that isn’t the end of the story. It’s odd that we call Good Friday good, when in fact it was a dark day for humanity. In and of itself, there really isn’t anything good about it.

But then Sunday comes, and there is Resurrection. New life. Physical life. The literal reversal of death itself.

That, my friends, is death redeemed. What is powerful about Christian spirituality is that I can call a bad thing bad. Death is bad.

But God redeems, just like he did on Sunday…

I don’t intend to give you a brilliant psychological/therapeutic remedy for pain in our lives. Your best bet would be to talk to the ‘resident counselor’ for that. There is, however, an important part of our spirituality that speaks to struggle in our lives, and even though it is somewhat subversive to how our culture tells us to think during the dark times of life, I have found that it is always well appreciated.

Suffering is suffering. Struggle is struggle. Pain is pain. Ignoring it will not make it go away, and positive thinking by itself will not change the fact that we hurt. Be honest about it. As I began to get used to life as a cancer patient, I found a lot of strength is saying “terrible” to someone who asked how I was doing. It felt good because it was the reality of the situation, and it usually frightened the person that asked. An honest, raw answer is not very common in polite conversation.

But but but….

There is more to the story. The power in Christian spirituality that I hinted at above does not come from us moping around all the time telling people how terrible life is. That kind of brutalizing view of life is all too common around us, and it never represents the full picture. Neither does our faith have us pretending that everything is “peachy.” Sentimentalized living is a fairly empty existence. Instead, the Christian life is all about Redemption. Our God redeems. As I struggled with cancer and the depression that came with it, I noticed that a byproduct developed: a strong relationship with part of my family with whom I had not generally interacted during my adult life. And until insurance and related issues were resolved, the manufacturer of the chemo drug that saved my life shipped it to us for free. At $3000 a month, that was a significant help! In other words, God redeemed a tremendously difficult time in my life, because that is what He does.

I love explaining this to people, because the idea of redemption is so attractive. During the dark times in life, honesty and the hope of redemption reaches out to people in powerful ways. Outreach is all about living, after all…

It features:

• Tischendorf’s 8th edition Greek New Testament (with Morph Tags)
• Strong’s database
• Intuitive parsing for passage lookup
• Copy functioning for the Greek Text (great for reports and research), using Mac native Unicode.
• Lightweight (approx 2.5mb download)
• Minimalist UI
• Automatic Updates.

I figured, ‘eh, why not,’ assuming it would just crash when it got to Illustrator. But as I was getting back to working on some photos, I noticed the absence of the crash notice.

I checked, and it worked. I was astonished. 

But wait, that was only updated to 13.0.1. The latest is 13.0.2.

Since I was getting adventurous and hopeful – off I went to try and update again. I waited, hoped, did my sacrifices, etc…. Worked like a charm.

It runs/launches much faster, too. Did this work for anyone else? Does anyone have an explanation?

I do not intend to prove you wrong. But there are other points of view – not particularly antagonistic to science – that are rarely heard.

I don’t think we have to split faith and science dualistically. When splitting like this takes place, the result is immediate polarization, and any attempt at communication breaks down into shaking fingers furiously at one another. Then, all anyone can do is shake harder…or make a fist and shake it, because that’ll show ‘em.

[Science is] a method, a way of finding this knowledge. Observe, hypothesize, predict, observe, revise. (emphasis mine)

Defining science as a method is well put. It amazes me how rarely people understand that concept, and in an ideal situation, anyone trumpeting under the banner of science would first have to submit to this method. Granted, I do not like talking about science totally in this way, merely because “submitting to the method” reminds me of some freaky cult – which isn’t science. Engineering, maybe, but not science.

Baseless insults to engineers aside, there stand at least two huge barriers in the way of finally putting an issue like this to rest. From the way I see things, the first problem is in the fact that both sides’ uppity-ness has little to do with the conclusions made and more so in the assumptions about the other party’s assumptions. (what an obnoxious sentence)

If a person has grown up in a spiritual culture that makes a big deal about the Earth being flat, and then a scientist comes along and points out that it is, indeed, round, that person’s entire life becomes shattered. So when Chuck Darwin started spending too much time looking at finches and comes to some astonishing ideas that result in even more astonishing conclusions, does that force any implications on others in a non-scientific realm?

Maybe – or maybe not – but the immediate knee-jerk by everyone opposing C-Dawg might indicate that they merely assumed an imposed-conclusion about their spirituality. Plus, if those who aren’t scientists feel threatened and want to respond to science-based claims with their own science, do they violate their existential integrity in doing so? I say yes. Scientists can say that humanity descended from purple boogers shot from the nose of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but to what degree would that effect the notions of spiritual revelation? And if I decide that it does effect my religion, am I still religious by attacking back with more science?

There’s the rub.

The second of the huge barriers I mentioned is the strange polarization that has come to plague our intellectual realm. The one point on which scientists and creationists seem to agree is that we must choose one or the other.

Why?

Why not both/and?

Scientists might say that using both/and violates the methods on which their work rests. Theologians (conservative Christian, typically) often say that without a literal 6-day creation, then systematic theology states that “faith in Jesus” suddenly reduces to vanity.

I think the problem is that I can at least understand what both sides are saying. Spiritually, I have gained more out of life than I would have thought possible (though that is not necessarily the goal), and yet my fingers tap-tap-tap on the keyboard of my MacBook Pro – a pinnacle of science (fan-boyism aside).

Westerners love the comfort of either/or.

Tension that comes from both/and can be unsettling.

But somehow I think that the both/and tension might be the best way to go…

It works just fine, of course….