truth

More Than You Can Handle

By Paul Koch –

Deep down I have always been a fan of doing hard things. Not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy just lounging on the beach or getting in an afternoon nap. Rather, I believe if we simply default to the path of least resistance, to the easy and simple, we miss out on something important. For it is often in the strain and the hard of work of life, both work and play, that we find the greatest means to shape and build our character. I love going hiking in the mountains, having to work hard to make it just over the next pass. The tired legs and aching back make the expansive views even sweeter. I like taking my kids for little day hikes up in Arroyo Verde Park and when they begin to complain about how tired their little legs are, that’s when I tell them we have to go over just one more hill (or more likely two). It is that final press toward victory that makes the journey so rewarding, and you can see it in their faces when they smile under the shade of a tree and talk about how far they went.

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Antichrist goes to Church

By Paul Koch –

“This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” – 1 John 4:3

According to St. John, the spirit of the Antichrist is already among us. It roams about the world seeking to devour the saints of God. It is cunning and selective in its attacks. It doesn’t have to look evil or dangerous or ugly. In fact, it will most likely feel pleasant, look attractive and even righteous. There seems to be profound truth to Baudelaire’s verse, “The devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” For then your guard is down, your senses are dulled, and the Antichrist enters the sacred and holy spaces to do his work.

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Listening for the Past

By Tim Winterstein –

At one point in the documentary Karl Marx City (streaming on Netflix), the narrator (Matilda Tucker) translates two German words for dealing with memories. The first is Erinnerungskultur, or the “culture of remembrance,” and the second is Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or “the process of coming to terms with the past.” These are fitting terms for a country that seems to have more than its share of recent past with which to come to terms. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to watch this film so soon after seeing Hitler’s Children (which I wrote about here).

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The Bible Is Not Yours

By Bob Hiller –

A few weeks back, I was scrolling through Twitter in order to feel good about the world (because why else is anyone on Twitter?) when, lo and behold, I found a tweet I disagreed with! OK, have you picked your jaw up off the keyboard? Good. So, here’s what got me going. A rather popular and provocative author, Rachel Held Evans—who I suppose would be considered a part of the “evangelical left”—sent out this tweet: “We don’t have to cede the Bible to the fundamentalists.” At first, this statement got me all riled up. The arrogance of such a comment was, I thought, rather breathtaking, as though the Bible was a piece of property which we are all trying to control. But then it got me thinking: Who does get the final say over what the Bible says? Fundamentalists? Liberals? The church? My denomination? Who controls the Bible?

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You’re Surprised?

By Jonathan Holmes –

I don’t go on Facebook very often. If I do, it is usually to find jokes and other humorous tidbits, or the occasional theological writing that a friend has posted that might be worth reading. Besides, The Jagged Word, of course. However, not everybody trolls Facebook for the same reasons I do. What, you’re surprised?

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A (Not So) Wild Story

By Tim Winterstein –

On the one hand, Wild Wild Country (six parts on Netflix) is about as strange a religious story as there is in the United States. On the other hand, it’s not very strange at all. The divisive nature of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (a name I would be okay never hearing again), the completely opposite stories told by the Rajneeshees and everyone else, and the weird, magnetic pull of the Bhagwan’s personality make this a compelling story. It’s salacious, with the (accurate) rumors of a sort of sex cult, but it doesn’t seem that the Bhagwan was all that involved in the sexual aspect of his commune, as you might expect a sex cult leader to be!

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Disney and the Death of the Difficult

By Paul Koch –

Sometimes it seems as if I’m living in some sort bizarre parallel universe, where the things I learned from my childhood, the things that have helped defined me up to this point no longer seem to matter. Or perhaps a better image would be that of a modern-day Rip Van Winkle. I often find myself wandering through my world, confused by what I see and unsure of how we got here. Perhaps I was asleep while everything was changing, or I didn’t keep up with times. Perhaps I didn’t really care. And now I’m at a loss to explain just what the hell is going on.

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Forgetting the Emotions of Easter

By Cindy Koch –

Yesterday, you stepped right into the most emotional time of the year for any Christian; Praise songs and prayers, tears and guilt, suffering and death, celebrations and shouts for joy. The week leading up to Easter Sunday tells the epic story of our Lord Jesus Christ. The transition from happiness to despair in this single week leaves us exhausted, but also satisfied. This story is important. You can feel it.

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Passion and Temptation

By Tim Winterstein –

It’s Holy Week, so what else would I be doing but watching two films about Jesus’ last few days? Two long movies. Two movies that inspired controversy and discussion and debate. Two movies that present two different Jesuses. And frankly, I don’t care if movies want to use different devices to try to understand the most divisive, explained, written-about person in history, Jesus of Nazareth. I have trouble understanding people who protest religious movies (or any movies for that matter). The only thing such protesting serves to do is draw attention and publicity to movies that might otherwise (and sometimes rightly) fade away into the oblivion of thrift-store DVDs. It is exactly for these sorts of protests that the phrase “all publicity is good publicity” was coined. Roger Ebert’s 4-star(!) review barely even touches the film itself, acknowledging “that this entire review has been preoccupied with replying to the attacks of the film’s critics, with discussing the issues, rather than with reviewing “The Last Temptation of Christ” as a motion picture.” (That, for Ebert, is a confirmation of the film’s greatness.)

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Watching Extinction

By Paul Koch –

On Tuesday, I read news that the last male northern white rhino had died. Named Sudan, the rhino is survived by two females, and while scientists have hope for in vitro fertilization to save the species, the outlook isn’t very promising. The head of the wildlife conservancy that was caring for Sudan had this to say, “It’s very sad to lose Sudan because it shows clearly the extent of human greed and what sort of impact humans beings can have on nature. If we don’t take care of what we have, we will definitely continue to lose it, particularly lose other species that are currently endangered.”

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Sorting Ourselves Against One Another

By Graham Glover –

I spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill these days. Sometimes I interact with Members of Congress, other times their Staffers. A lot of time I just watch. But no matter who I’m talking to or what I’m observing, the one thing that is blatantly obvious, even to the political outsider, is how divided the people are who make up this place. While our institutions aren’t broken, our people clearly are, and it’s not getting any better.

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Ricky Bobby Christianity

By Joel A. Hess –

Like many simple-minded fools, I love the movie Talladega Nights: the ballad of Ricky Bobby. Next to the scene when he first speaks publicly and doesn’t know what to do with his hands, I love the baby Jesus prayer he gives early in the movie. He begins the prayer, “Dear sweet baby Jesus” and continues with “tiny infant Jesus” and “use your infant powers.” His family is annoyed by his obsession with baby Jesus and tells him that Jesus is a grown man. Ricky Bobby says, “I like the Christmas Jesus best, and I’m saying grace. When you say prayers, you can say what you want…” Of course, his buddy Cal says, “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt.” One of the kids adds, “I like to think of Jesus as a ninja.”

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Competing Visions

By Tim Winterstein –

From February 2–9, the Spokane International Film Festival celebrated its twentieth year, holding screenings of documentary and narrative features, as well as shorts blocks from around the world, including a Best of the Northwest program featuring local filmmakers. The festival opened with Benny and Joon, a 1993 film that was set and made in Spokane, which—I’m somewhat ashamed to admit—I had never seen.

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This New Year I Look Forward to Failure

By Joel A. Hess –

I have a couple resolutions for this year—a couple goals, a couple plans. Don’t listen to those Christians who confuse fatalism with the theological truth that we are perpetually sinners living by God’s grace. Just because we live by God’s grace in regard to our relationship with Him does not mean that it’s wrong to work at improving ourselves, our community, or our relationships with others. In fact, we have been freed and are led by the Spirit to do just that!

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Winning with Jesus on Twitter or Our Worthless Religion

By Bob Hiller –

If there is anything we know about rhetoric on social media, it is that it is well-reasoned, thoughtful, and constructive. I’ve found Twitter, for example, to be a safe space for people to share views and exchange ideas. Slow to judge and quick to build the best possible construction, even of one’s opponents, that’s the name of the game. Social media has done nothing if it hasn’t elevated the level of discourse in our society.

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Here We Still Stand

By Paul Koch –

Hanging on the wall of my study is a framed image (like the one above) of Luther standing before the Imperial Diet at Worms. Across from him is the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and on a table next to him are many of his works. He had been summoned there to recant of the things that he had written and turn from his heresy. Every Lutheran pastor knows the story well, the story of his defiance in the face of power and influence, the story of his unshakable resolve to make a stand. It is a story we know well for it is our inspiration when times are tough, when the deck seems stacked against our preaching and teaching of the Word of God. It is good for us to remember how Luther stood tall that day, to recall that he said:

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What Would It Take for the Reformation to End?

By Graham Glover –

This past year has seen a number of articles, blogs, podcasts, books, documentaries, sermons, classes, etc., about the upcoming anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. No matter what “side” you think was right or how you understand the particulars of the people and events that transformed the Western Church and much of the world’s history, there is undoubtedly something out there for everyone to resonate with as we consider the events that took place 500 years ago.

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