theo|digital

It’s been a week of rather important political speeches.  Some quotes.

“People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power.”
~ Bill Clinton, DNC speech (transcript)

Clinton’s speech had a lot of finger wagging, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen him, and now I recall why they said he was such a good orator.

“And Barack stood up that day, and he spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about the world as it is and the world as it should be. And he said that all too often we accept the distance between the two, and we settle for the world as it is…”
~ Michelle Obama, DNC speech (transcript)

Well done speech, but nothing amazing.  She didn’t come off as arrogant and so it was considered a political win.  This part, though, reminded me a lot of kingdom theology, “now and not yet.”

“John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell – but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.”
~ Barack Obama, DNC speech (transcript).

Come on, Barack.  It’s more complicated than that and you know it.  Cheap shot.

“Well, it’s always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn’t get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why the ship is built. Politics isn’t just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons.”
~ Sarah Palin, acceptance speech as John McCain’s Vice-Presidential pick (transcript).

She’s the new, most interesting one of the bunch.  I assumed McCain wouldn’t nominate an “old white guy.”  He needed to be able to take away the idea that voting Democratic was the only historic option.  I’ll be curious to watch this woman futher.  She’s definitely vulnerable to the experience attack… even more than Obama.

ps – go Illini!

For the Lord is the one who shaped the mountains, stirs up the winds, and reveals his thoughts to mankind. He turns the light of dawn into darkness and treads on the heights of the earth. The Lord God of Heaven’s Armies is his name! ~ Amos, eighth century BCE (Amos 4.13 NLT)

Who is God? The one you recognize as the Hurricane Controller is also the One who, by definition, pulls back the curtain of his heart for his creation to know. Who is God? The one who reveals.

Did Tom Brokaw, on live MSNBC coverage having a conversation with Brian Williams, just call Barack Obama, “President?”

Speaking of Michelle Obama’s upcoming speech tonight, he mentioned that maybe it’s a little overhyped ahead of time. That we’d have to actually “hear what she has to say, or what the President has to say, for that matter…”

Unless he’s curious about what Bush is saying tonight at the Democratic National Convention, I think he misspoke and told us a little about his vote…

Well, I’ve been back in Chicago a full week now, and it feels like about 24 hours. Rapid change does that—seems to numb our sense of the passage of time.

To honor that, I will now spit out a paragraph straight from the Top Ten List Of What Generally Not To Do On A Blog. This is mostly cathartic purging, so feel free to duck and cover.

The week has been: Sunday night: arrive and crash. Monday: realize I’m in Chicago. Hang out with Tim and Em and Ty and Laura. Tuesday: Mourn not being in Colorado cause everything feels sticky. Turns out to be “humidity.” Have 3 hours lunch with Mark G. at Swedish bistro and catch up. Try to register for final class I need, a directed study with McKnight. Wonder where my bed sheets are. Wednesday: academic nightmare where my advisor changes, my directed study doesn’t go through, and I try to re-figure out my academic plan. In the evening, run to Jewel in city traffic to pick up extra chips for the welcome-back community cookout. Smile a lot. Thursday: welcome-back breakfast with seminary people. Still try to figure out my academic plan. Worry a lot. See my friend Dan visiting from Colorado. More academic worrying. Get appropriate new paperwork turned in, and head to suburbs for See The Family time. Friday: Naperville with grandparents and Aunt’s birthday, etc. Saturday: back in time to help with Seminary Retreat which actually isn’t a Retreat but is still a somewhat enjoyable worship time plus meet new people plus eat a huge lunch event. Saturday evening: actually stop living out of the suitcase and start moving into new bedroom. Take break to watch Arrested Development with Ty and Laura. Sunday: pretend I don’t have a Sabbath schedule yet and move into new bedroom more. Can now see part of floor. Celebrate found bed sheets. Attend Seminary Convocation involving The Organ and the Organist (plus awkward reading the names of new students that aren’t actually in attendance). Hors d’oeuvres. More new students. Take break staring at wall. Share beer with new friends. Monday: wake up in stunning realization that the first day of class is here, and you’re still not sure where you are. Attend Old Testament II (parallel structure), seminary chapel, seminary announcements, Starbucks, set up information fair, participate in information fair, catch up with seminary friends, turn in forgotten directed study paperwork from the summer, and sit down to recall that you haven’t updated your blog in over a week.

And done. (my apologies)

Brian McLaren and Catholic theologian Lisa Cahill are among those featured in this new ad introduced by evangelical “left” group Matthew 25. I’m pretty cynical about advertising trying to promote authentic messages in the first place, so that doesn’t help me along. But I’m sympathetic to the message. Overall, I think I’m reserving judgment.

“The most integral and involving time sense imaginable is that expressed in the Chinese and Japanese cultures. Until the coming of the missionaries in the seventeenth century, and the introduction of mechanical clocks, the Chinese and Japanese had for thousands of years measured time by graduations of incense. Not only the hours and the days, but the seasons and zodiacal signs were simultaneously indicated by a succession of carefully ordered scents.”

“In the Renaissance the clock combined with the uniform respectability of the new typography to extend the power of social organization almost to a national scale. By the 19th century it had provided a technology of cohesion that was inseparable from industry and transport, enabling an entire metropolis to act almost as an automation. Now in the electric age of decentralized power and information we begin to chafe under the uniformity of clock-time. In this age of space-time we seek multiplicity, rather than repeatability, of rhythms. This is the difference between marching soldiers and ballet.”

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man : Critical Edition

My friend Ben recently pointed out David Brooks Op-Ed in the NYTimes explaining the postmodern’s instinctive reaction to hype.  Plus, he says “organic skate sneakers.”  Wonderful.

In order to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of.

Read the rest…

Meanwhile, I’ve just left the high country, pausing just long enough to watch a Rockies game at Coors Field (while successfully avoiding actual Coors), and then head hurtling down (cf.  hurdling down or even hurling down) toward the sticky Midwest at speeds to thrill the heart.  Enroute, I visited both my old friend John, my other friend John, and my friends Eric and Amanda.  Sweet.

The following is a new ad from the McCain campaign. It feels like movie trailer, and not-so-subtly teases Barak Obama’s fame, a message they’ve been working on for several weeks. But the interesting part of the ad is that I’m pretty sure it’s a veiled communication to Left Behind-reading Christians, who are looking for an anti-Christ, like villain like Nicolae Carpathia. It’s the kind of things that would be understood by conservative evangelicals, but wouldn’t mean as much to other viewers, and I’m guessing that’s intentional.

The part that disturbs me most about “antichrist” language used by some Christians is not just how it doesn’t seem to be supported in scripture (the only references are in 1 John 2, where John clearly defines anyone who denies Christ is God as, as the word suggests, an “anti-Christ”), but how it calls into suspician things of God like increased world justice and world peace.