Theology or Americanology?

There are many things about the American church that totally turn me off. I’ll get into those in later posts I guess, but the reason why I’m writing tonight is to ask you, whoever you are and for whatever reason you are reading this, what do you think is true theology? What do you think is religion that Jesus Christ would approve of? For that matter, what parts of our Christian culture are truly about following Christ and what parts are about being an American? Has your belief system conformed to your culture instead of informing it?

That said, I firmly believe in the message of Jesus Christ and that His message will transform your life and your eternity. Of that I have no doubts. What I doubt is whether or not the churches you and I go to are always teaching us how to be more like Jesus, but instead are often teaching how to be more like good little evangelical Americans. Think it over.

~Jason

(btw, I <3 my church I think it gets it right more often than most of the other places I have been in the past. This isn’t an indictment of my pastors or church body, but more an observation about our American Christian culture.)

So You Think You Can Dance?

Well, I know that I can’t. I think its my hips. I just don’t have the hip control to make dancing look natural, so I generally stay off the dance floor. However, despite my general disdain for reality television, I really like So You Think You Can Dance. The performances are really fantastic and dance is one of the few visual arts that hasn’t been totally over saturated by our culture.

In fact, I feel like, for once, the people on a reality TV are getting famous for something. Let’s be honest here, the people on American Idol have been mostly underwhelming. Everyone on MTV’s shows are picked because they are either rich and stupid or so emotionally retarded that they’ll constantly churn out “good” television. On SYTYCD (sadly, a terrible acronym), these performers are really talented and are genuinely challenged by a wide variety of styles.

Of course, there is one annoying spot in this otherwise excellent television program: Mary Murphy. She’s the shrill, nasally judge that likes to scream and is always too harsh if she doesn’t like something and too excited when she does. Also, on Wednesday night’s show she looked like someone had attacked her with a Bedazzler. She needs a new wardrobe. Good thing the Nigel is the best and most balanced stodgy British judge on the American reality television circuit, otherwise it might make even a show full of talented people not worth watching.

For the record, the favorite couple in our house is Twitch and Kherrington. She is not only phenomenally talented, but she is SO hot to boot. Unless she seriously gaffs someplace along the line, I fully expect her to be in the top four. Twitch has a good shot to get into the top four as well. He’s talented, he’s surprisingly good at partnering and he’s more likable that just about anyone on that show. However, the humble and gentle nature of Joshua might put him into the top two guys instead, alongside the obvious choice Will.

Yes, I still hate reality TV and you’ll never convince me that the vast majority of it isn’t inane garbage preying on the stupidity of America… but I can confidently say that So You Think You Can Dance is worth watching.

Criminal Racket

I work in an industry that creates media and I get paid based on people paying for entertainment products. I understand how piracy can be detrimental to the health of industries like mine. I also understand how morally and legally murky the waters are around the concept of file-sharing. There are some incredibly fine lines between legitimate sharing of entertainment media and illegitimate theft of goods. Sadly, the fact is that technology has completely outpaced the law and the judges that preside over cases involving technology rarely have the kind of expertise necessary to make a sound judgement. I doubt that the issue will be resolved any time soon. 

That said, the RIAA and the MPAA continue to demonstrate that they are far more like criminals than the people they randomly sue over alleged file-sharing incidents. According to this article , the MPAA is arguing that they don’t need any proof to extract payment from individuals suspected of file-sharing. As far as they are concerned, since technology allows people to mask their identity and avoid detection during file-sharing activities, suspicion alone should be enough to allow them to seek as much as $150,000 in compensation.

They are essentially asking the courts to write them a carte blanche when it comes to extracting money from people they “suspect” of stealing their copyrighted material. If you don’t think that’s absurd, think about what our legal system would be like if the cops could pull you over for driving a nice car and arrest you because they “suspect” you could have used this car recklessly. Or to make the concept even more crystal clear, imagine that your school, church or home office has a wireless network that is either open to the public as a service or is accessible through some other means. If some random person not affiliated with you or your organization uses this wireless network to download copyrighted material and the MPAA happens to be (illegally) monitoring network traffic, they don’t need to prove it was actually YOU who stole their goods to force you to pay $150,000 in compensation for their “lost revenue.” 

Absurd? Absolutely. But that doesn’t seem to stop the MPAA from making the argument in court. They want the ability to ignore privacy law, monitor private network traffic, use malware as a weapon against consumers and then extract money from anyone they please? Now who’s the criminal? 

Life Update Jun 19th 2008

I’m kicking it Mark Artrip style for this update and hitting you all with some bulletin points since I don’t have the time to write all this in greater detail.

• Went to Maryland for Father’s Day and had a fantastic time at my parent’s new beach house on the Chesapeake. We picked crabs, fished off their pier and enjoyed beautiful ocean vistas. A house on the water has been my dad’s dream for as long as I can remember so I’m really excited for them. Also, I suddenly really want to get a boat.
• My brother Aaron moved down to NC last week. He’s staying with us until he finds a job and his own place. He is the first of many people we intend to move to North Cackalacky.
• We’re dog-sitting for Dave and Kara while they get married and go on their honeymoon. Maggie will be with us for about two weeks. Last night we actually got her to play, which was a big step for her, but she still doesnt’ particularly care for Drake.
• Drake has not had a seizure since we started him on his medicine six weeks ago. Please pray that this medication continues to work for him and that he can have a normal doggy life.
• Casey is studying to get her personal training certifications. Hopefully by the end of the summer she’ll be doing that full time and can let someone else do the front desk stuff.
• I’m currently playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates on my Nintendo DS and I’m pretty surprised to be enjoying an RPG. Of course, I’m still playing Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii.
• I got sick last weekend and missed the big brew day my buddy Matt planned. Hopefully next month I can pick up my turkey fryer and some ingredients and make something new.
• Work has been busy and there have been a lot of random meetings recently, but I can’t complain about getting paid to design video games. I’m also working with some really important companies and brands in the industry right now, so I’m definitely getting top tier resume-building experience.
• God is good, all the time.

That’s all for now.

~Jason

Don’t Get a Dog…

… unless you intend for it to be part of your family and you are willing to make personal sacrifices to make that a reality.

I will admit that my wife and I are a little crazy about our beagle. His name is Drake and he will be two years old on August 14th. Yes. We know his exact birthday. I told you we were a little crazy about him. He gets 2-4 walks per day. We wrestle and play chase with him around the house. We take him to the dog park on the weekends. Sometimes we let him sleep in our bed. We love him and we feel like his presence enriches our lives. We are more active and we don’t let activities take over our evenings because we can’t be away from him every night of the week. He makes us feel happy when he comes and says thank you for a meal with some kisses (yes, he really does that). We have a real family relationship with him and we think its beneficial for all of us.

Drake is not, however, the perfect dog. If we leave our cook books uncovered or the accent pillows on the couch down while we are gone, there is a very good bet that they will be chewed on when we get home. He destroyed some plants in my garden this year and sometimes he’s just got too much energy when I’m tired from a day of work. He has also had two seizures this year, so we’ve had to pay for some expensive vet visits and he’ll be on medication for the rest of his doggy life. So he takes effort, money and proper care to keep as a pet. We are well aware of these things and yet we believe that the benefits of keeping him far outweigh the costs.

We also have to consider Drake’s best interests as well. When God told mankind to have dominion over the earth in Genesis, it wasn’t a gift to be ravaged. It was a responsibility to be managed. If Drake doesn’t have a positive lifestyle, then we aren’t really keeping him as a pet or a member of the family. In that case, he becomes a toy that we use when we feel like and ignore otherwise. This is not a healthy way for people to treat animals and not a healthy attitude for us to have in general. Instead, it is selfishness and a destructive attitude to have towards the earth given to us for stewardship. Even if you don’t believe the Bible is true or that God is real, I would argue that this is still a negative and destructive pattern of behavior considering what it shows about our attitudes towards other living creatures and the limited resources on our planet.

That said, the people that get a dog and ignore it really piss me off. There is a house in our neighborhood where the family keeps the dog in the garage or in his kennel in the garage all time, at least as far as I can tell. No matter when we walk by, day or night, this poor animal is in the garage and barking at everyone and anything going by. It’s lonely and the people that own it should be ashamed of themselves. I hear stories like this all the time from shelter workers we meet at the dog park. People surrender dogs to the shelter and say they “just couldn’t handle the dog” or it was “too destructive.” Sometimes they come right out and say the animal was in a kennel most of the time and whenever it was out, the family couldn’t handle it. Gee, I wonder why?

Dogs, in case you’ve never seen The Dog Whisperer or read a book about them, are social animals. They might have been bred to be very different from their wild wolf ancestors, but they still think in terms the pack and their relation to others. Not only were they bred to be companions, but the breeds we know and love were mostly bred for working or some specific utility that most families don’t know or understand. So not only do dogs require companionship and social interaction to be healthy, but they also need exercise to satisfy their inbred urges and desires. If you fail to provide these things, you can fully expect the dog to become neurotic, aggressive, destructive and all the other bad traits that you can associate with dogs. It’s your fault. Not theirs. You are mentally and physically destroying the animal by taking it into your home and then failing to provide more than food, water and shelter. Children don’t become productive members of society without training and attention, so why would we expect dogs to be vastly different?

So don’t get a dog unless you are prepared to socialize it, exercise it, give it affection and deal with the expense of your time, money, love and effort. You are being selfish and cruel by failing to meet the dog’s social and mental needs. If you are a Christian, I would argue that God expects you to treat your animal like a responsibility and not a toy if you are going to be a good steward of the blessings He has put into your life. That said, if you do want to get a dog, please go to a local shelter or rescue and not to the pet store. There are lots of awesome animals that need a home and that puppy in the store is going to end up with someone anyways.

Juno

I finally got around to watching Juno last night. Casey borrowed the DVD from someone at work and we spent a couple hours on the couch watching it together. I know it won all sorts of awards and whatnot, but we had heard mixed reviews from friends in our own age bracket. Between the people that thought it was the funniest thing they had seen in the last year, the people that thought it was culturally relevant look at teenage pregnancy and the people that thought it was kinda boring, I wasn’t sure if it would strike a chord with me. But we had the DVD and a little time to kill, so we popped into the Xbox 360 and watched.

My thoughts? It was funny, clever and managed to not be a total waste of my evening. I didn’t think it was groundbreaking and I don’t think its an “important” film. It was just an entertaining movie. The dialogue was Whedon-esque in its pacing and clever vocabulary. The characters were likeable and felt more like real people than the flat characters we usually get in movies about families and teenagers. Juno’s parents, in particular, were really excellently played.

I don’t know if I can recommend it to everyone, but Juno ended up being better than I expected. If you are interested in the film but haven’t checked it out yet, it could be an entertaining use of some hours that you might have to kill.

Websites I Use Every Day

My brother Patrick suggested that I do a post like this when we were on vacation together about a month ago but I forgot to do it until now. Below are a list of websites I visit every day or frequently enough that I find them of equal value as the ones that I hit each time I sit down at the computer.

Digg.com – I browse digg every day for news, humor and news that doesn’t hit my television. I also get a healthy dose of geek culture. If you have never visited this site, I highly recommend you check it out. Users submit stories that are ranked and promoted to the front page of the site by “diggs,” which are basically a digital thumbs up for the article. Using the power of a huge network of social users, only the best stuff tends to float to the top. That’s not always the case, but its true often enough that I get a lot of quality content every day by checking digg first.

Facebook.com – I tried MySpace but never really got into it. The page layouts full of animated gifs, songs, picture galleries and other nonsense are just too annoying for me. Facebook is a much simpler format and I can control what comes at me through my personal feed. I’ve found a lot of old friends there and I even like some of the little game applications.

Wikipedia.org – The bane of teachers all over the globe, I happen to be a huge fan of wikipedia. It’s the power of social knowledge that makes information free to everyone. Studies have shown that wikipedia is every bit as accurate as traditional encyclopedias and are able to contain far, far more information. Don’t believe me? Try looking up an obscure comic book character like Thunderstrike in your Encyclopedia Britannica.

Google.com – I use Gmail as my email provider, link up with other writers using google docs and search for information using the main google webpage. Google is also one of the most innovative and socially conscientious companies on the planet, giving me good reason to support them on many levels.

Penny-Arcade.com – the beating heart of the gaming world online, Penny-Arcade has a hilarious comic, an insightful blog and hosts the best consumer gaming convention in the country. They only update on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I never miss a day.

Infendo.com / Gonintendo.com – for my Nintendo news and information

Smashboards.com – Super Smash Bros is my favorite gaming series and it helped me launch my career in the gaming industry. I am still active with this massive forum of fans and tournament players and I visit just about every day.

Comicbookresources.com – I have always been a closet comic geek and this is the best site on the net for comic-related news and information. One of the goals I have set for my life is to write a comic book and have it published. I hope that when that happens, what I write is worthy of a mention or two on their site.

ihasahotdog.com – because I like dogs and I don’t like cats. I don’t really check this every day, but its good for a laugh when things are slow at work.

I use a ton of other sites as well, but none of them as regularly as the list above. I have truly become an information junky over the last few years, being constantly connected to the web and these sites satisfy my cravings.

Gramma’s Stroganoff

If your family has a recipe for beef stroganoff, you have probably realized that no one makes it quite like the one you remember growing up. The definition of beef stroganoff, a russian dish, is simply a meal made with beef served with a sauce that include sour cream. It’s popular all over the world, but comes in so many varieties that someone in Brazil or Norway would probably turn their nose at your beloved version of the dish. In some places it includes tomato sauce, in others mustard. Sometimes it is served with just the meat and sauce, while others serve it over noodles, rice or potatoes. Everywhere you go, the recipe changes and while you might like the new varieties you try, there’s a good chance that you still fondly remember the style you grew up on.

My grandmother cooks a beef stroganoff that the family reveres as the best on the planet. Whenever we get together for a holiday or vacation, one of the required meals is stroganoff and Gramma will end up cooking a vat just to feed all of us. It’s a very simple variety of beef stroganoff, made with ground beef, cream of mushroom soup and a few other secret touches that I won’t reveal here, which she serves mixed with extra wide egg noodles. I have been eating the stuff for as long as I can remember and it is absolutely one of my favorite dishes in the world.

The first week of May the Rice’s got together for a few days at the beach in Nag’s Head and keeping with tradition, our final meal together was a huge batch of stroganoff, thick cut italian bread and salad. I quizzed my grandmother over the recipe while we ate, but my uncles told me that no one can make it “like Mom.” Their wives had tried and couldn’t quite capture the magic. Undaunted, I listened carefully to her instructions and decided to give it a whirl myself.

Yesterday I cooked up a batch with a pound of ground turkey (a healthier alternative to the beef) and the same extra wide egg noodles Gramma uses. To satisfy Casey’s low-fat demands I had to make a few minor alternations, but after tasting the final product I feel like I’ve finally landed on a reasonable proximity. It still didn’t quite match Gramma’s masterpiece, but it was close enough that I can add it to our regular cooking cycle and enjoy the results. Hopefully I can continue to refine the recipe to perfectly match the family standard and pass it down so our version of the dish isn’t lost to the fogs of time.

Now if I only I could learn how to make Gramma’s potato salad…

In Memory

My Aunt Paula went to be with her Lord last Tuesday after fighting pancreatic cancer for nearly 18 months. She was a wonderful woman that was loved by everyone who knew her. She passed away in her home in Delaware at 3:10 PM in the presence of her husband and children. She will be greatly missed until we are all reunited in heaven someday.

At the funeral yesterday the family handed out little cards with information on how to donate to pancreatic cancer research. Only 5% of patients diagnosed with this type of cancer live longer than five years and even fewer make it all the way to remission. If any of you have a little expendable income this month, please consider donating in Paula’s name at the site linked below.

http://www.firstgiving.org/prayersforpaula

On Frogs and God

1 Corinthians 1: 19

For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

This is a verse that I have pondered ever since I read it for the first time years ago. I try not to be a proud person, but I take at least a little pride in being intelligent. I find a little bit of my self-identity in seeking wisdom and gathering knowledge. I have also had enough random misfortune in my life and been restored by God’s blessings enough times that I firmly believe that my wisdom is far, far lower than God’s and I need to trust Him in every situation.

Just like every human being, despite knowing all of that, I still wrestle with life’s difficult questions. One of my aunts is in her fifties and slowly losing a battle with cancer. She is a wonderful woman, a good mother and one of the pillars on which her family has constantly leaned. She doesn’t deserve to be in so much pain and possibly die so young. God is in control of the universe. He’s sovereign and supremely powerful. If he chose to do so, he could heal her. In fact, our family has been fervently praying over her for over a year and He is still letting her get worse. I am frustrated. Her father, my grandfather, who only just started attending church late in life, is angry with God. This will be the second of his four children that he is likely to outlive.

I thought about all of this last week while I was mowing my yard to prepare for our vacation. I didn’t want the grass to grow out of control during my absence and risk getting a nasty-gram or a fine from the neighborhood association. After mowing most of the yard I switched to the weed-whacker to trim the fence-line and somewhere along the way I nailed a big bullfrog and chopped its spinal cord in half. I didn’t even notice the thing until I was walking back towards the front of the house and saw something moving in the grass. The frog wasn’t actually moving, but I could see its lungs and heart pumping through the wound in its back. It would be dead within a few moments.

I instantly felt guilty for having killed it. What did it do to deserve death? It sat in my grass, ate a few flies and had no idea that a machine of destruction was bearing down on it. It wasn’t really a fair way to die and I had no means of communicating to the frog my grief that I was responsible. I also had no way of communicating to the frog the responsibility I had to tend to my lawn. In my world, it would have been irresponsible and (as far as the neighborhood association is concerned) immoral for me to ignore my yard and not go out and mow. In the world of the frog, I was just another predator bent on ending its life. My world is on such a bigger and more complex scale that there is no way the frog could ever understand the difference between us and the purpose of its death.

When that last thought went through my head, so did a verse from Isaiah. In chapter 55, verses 8-9, Isaiah writes:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the Earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

And in a moment God used a Frog to show me just how small and incapable of understanding Him I really am. No matter how much compassion I felt for the frog or how I tried to explain it to him, he could never understand me in any other term than murderer. My morality and responsibilities were just too far beyond what he was capable of understanding. Likewise, God tends to all of reality and has made decisions that are far, far beyond my ability to comprehend. No matter how much He loves me, no matter how much compassion he feels for me, God will still act according to his wisdom because He is so far beyond me. And, I will probably never understand it all.

So seek wisdom and keep praying, but don’t expect that the world will ever be as orderly as you wish or hope. Scripture says God causes the sun to shine on the wicked and the righteous. There is no formula we can apply to get everything right. In the end, we have to trust that God’s plan is so much higher than ours that the things we see as defeat, God counts as victories. Find the humility in your insignificance and let God direct your steps. If you need anymore convincing, let me give you more context to that verse from 1 Corinthians.

“18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

God used a lowly frog to shame my wisdom. I have no right to be a proud man. I am content in my insignificance and I hope that the only things I find to boast about are the righteousness, holiness and redemption I find in the Lord.