A Christmas podcast instead

Finding no new Christmas albums whose recording artists didn't induce a yawn, I decided to download Harry Belafonte's Christmas (a reissue of his 1958 To Wish You a Merry Christmas) from Freegal, but even that disappointed. The performances were so anodyne that I wondered whether someone else had secretly recorded "Day-O" in his place. I'm now reduced to hoping that some record company executive will rediscover Simon and Garfunkel's version of "Go Tell It on the Mountain" from Wednesday Morning 3 A.M. and convince them to reunite for a whole Christmas album. Hey, it worked for Bob Dylan and Christmas in the Heart.

Being as I listen to my podcasts in sequential order and I'm living about 4 weeks in the past (which means no, I still haven't heard the final installment of Serial), I decided to sort out the holiday-themed episodes for this week's listening. The Truth is sort of an old-fashioned radio drama show, except all the sound elements reflect a distinctly modern sensibility. NPR's All Things Considered commissioned them to produce a story to air on Christmas day, and they came up with the truly wonderful "Naughty or Nice." You can wait to hear it on the radio on December 25, or you can download it today. Every minute brought me a delighted smile, and, needless to say, it drives home the true meaning of Christmas.

Which is presents.

The end is nigh (Yuletide edition)

Look, I get the idea of Christmas pajamas, and kind of almost like it. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I gift the curmudgelings a fresh set each Christmas Eve evening, and they've come to look forward to the tradition to the extent that Thing 1 just asked whether he'd be getting pajamas this year. (Or maybe that was dread in his voice. Hard to say.) 

Of course, said pajamas are purchased from the heavily-discounted Christmas-remainder bins at Target sometime in early January, so part of the fun is seeing whether I guessed their sizes correctly from a year out. For those with a different sense of fun and more disposable income, retailers offer pajamas at full price, and there's even Pajamagram, which offers by-Christmas-Eve-guaranteed delivery and pajama sets for the whole family, including cats and dogs.

Including cats and dogs.

When future archaeologists dig up these pictures, they will nod ruefully to themselves and categorize the evidence under "Signs of the Inevitable End."

The devil in green eyeshades

I have recently read two nonfiction Christian books which attempt to persuade the reader to adopt the authors’ positions, and, as is the case with so many of these books, one can’t imagine them persuading anyone but the already persuaded because their arguments are so poorly presented. It’s not that they are entirely without merit; rather, they fail to anticipate objections or consider how their rhetorical style might negatively impress their readers. Odds are very good that you’ve read such a book yourself.

This has reminded me of the great value of a good editor. I note, from their acknowledgement pages, that both these books received any amount of editorial comment from any number of readers during their manuscript stages. Thus, I should clarify that by “good editor” I mean “an editor who doesn’t much care for the author’s position or, for that matter, the author himself.”

Writers are a vain lot: they love and dote on every precious phrase over which they’ve long toiled. They need a hostile editor, one willing, no, eager to say “That makes no sense, and the fact you wrote it suggests that you yourself are utterly lacking in sense.” Writers need to see the holes in their arguments so they can be filled, to be told their style is precious and off-putting so they will write clearly and winsomely, and to be told when they've written a run-on sentence. Writers (and here I grudgingly include myself) need editors with standards so high they can’t be met by anything not directly inspired by the Holy Spirit. Writers need editors who will make them WORK, and then work harder still.

In a now-old Doonesbury strip, Garry Trudeau had a journalist call editors “devils in green eyeshades.” Indeed, and now that self-publishing has become eye-poppingly inexpensive, we need more of them.

Mind your own business

A year (or so) ago now, Doug Phillips, founder and sole proprietor of Vision Forum “Ministries” confirmed the worst suspicions of those of us who found him and his work, well, icky, when it was revealed he had seduced the family’s late-teenage nanny. Yup, ick.

Mrs. Curmudgeon follows these things more closely than I, and forwarded to me a comment she ran across on one of the many blogs devoted to supporting survivors of the emotional and spiritual abuse so often attendant upon the home-everything movement/fringe:

I find it mind boggling that we are being told that the local church, not the Internet, is the place to handle a man’s repentance. These parachurch ministries and gurus use all media available to promote themselves and their causes. Then, when one crashes and burns morally, suddenly they run to the local church to hide. If the “local church” was so important, why did Doug spend almost 2 decades building a ministry outside of it? These men welcome any and all non-local church promotion of themselves…until they are exposed as frauds. Then suddenly they are devout believers in the “local church.” It’s ludicrous. You can’t have it both ways, boys.

This, in turn, puts me in mind of one of my favorite New Testament passages: “But we urge you, brothers, to …aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12). What strikes me, not only about Doug Phillips, but about all the men associated with the “Family-Integrated Church,” is how much they mind the affairs of everyone, everywhere. They are full of advice as to how to run one’s family and/or Church. They seem to aspire to live loudly and publicly so they can be admired and followed.

I recognize I tread a fine line here: after all, I am writing this on a blog which no one asked me to write, in the (admittedly vain) hope it will be read by more than a few dozen people. What man (by which I mean “adult male person”) doesn’t aspire for just a little recognition in this cold, heartless world?

Of course, much the same could be said of the Apostle Paul, whose just-quoted advice was written to a Church in a town where he had stayed only briefly (Acts 17). But I think there’s a profound difference between busy-bodies and Paul (and, I hope, me). Busy-bodies say, “I’ve figured it all out, and if you do what I have done, you can be as successful as me.” Paul said, “I’ve got it all figured out: Jesus.”

So if you’re still reading this, a piece of unsolicited advice: don’t read the blog, buy the books, or go to the conferences of the man who tells you he and his friends are the models for the Christian life. Instead, look for the one who tells you your only hope is being raised up to meet Jesus (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).

Christmastime is beer (2014)

I have to admit that I've become a little fussy with regard to winter warmers. Since the species tends toward malt, caramel, and chocolate notes, and I tend to prefer hop, citrus, and pine accents, even some of my old favorite Christmas beers no longer appeal. Nonetheless, as I just had a glass of Full Sail's "Wreck the Halls" at the Falling Rock Taphouse, I'm reminded that the Christmas brewing season is wide enough to embrace even an bitters-loving curmudgeon. In addition to "Wreck the Halls," I'm looking forward to Pyramid's "Snow Cap," New Belgium's "Accumulation" (still the archetypal white IPA), and the 2014 Sierra Nevada "Celebration Ale."

Christmastime is still beer!

Putting the lie to regeneration myths (sequel to “An open letter to pastors & adoptive parents”)

Pastors and adoptive parents share another experience and learned wisdom which didn’t easily lend itself to the exhortations I gave both groups in “An open letter to pastors & adoptive parents.” They both understand the popular myth attendant on regeneration is precisely that: a myth.

By that, I don’t mean regeneration is a myth. Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:16), and Paul taught that Christians are new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:16-17). This is a work of the Holy Spirit, a new birth by which we obtain the faculty to repent and believe on the Cross of Christ for salvation. Unfortunately, many wrongly deduce from this Biblical truth the faulty conclusion that regeneration fixes people. This is as wrong as an Alaskan summer day is long.

Saved people are sinners. Hooo boy are they sinners. Ask your pastor. You got your socially acceptable sins and your socially unacceptable sins, but everybody’s got a raft of them. Sermons help, and sometimes dramatic pastoral interventions help. But as I like to say, the work of the Christian ministry is the long, slow, tedious task of helping the average Christian to not go to hell over the course of their average 70 to 80-year lifespan. Put them in the grave with the hope of the resurrection, and you’ve done well.

Likewise parenting, and especially adoptive parenting. Kids don’t get fixed. There’s no therapy or intervention or dramatic confrontation that does the trick. It’s more or less the same thing, day in, day out, with little noticeable change or improvement. Lord willing, you wake up one morning and, sometime after the coffee has kicked in, you might notice that the kid isn’t quite as twitchy or annoying as you’d gotten used to him being. But there is always, always, much room for improvement.

The regenerational myth is hardwired into American culture. We believe in the quick fix as an article of religious faith, a creed which is recited by every happily-ending romantic comedy. But it’s not true, and it’s okay to say that. In fact, we need to say that so we can accept the callings God has placed on pastors and parents alike to imitate our Lord’s long-suffering grace and mercy to us.

An open letter to pastors & adoptive parents

I found this blog post on Mrs. Curmudgeon’s Facebook wall, and I appreciated how the author spoke frankly of the challenges peculiar to parenting adoptive children and gladly put those in the context of God’s grace to sinful parents and children. As I read, it seemed to me there are some fairly obvious similarities between pastoral ministry and parenting adoptive children.

Pastors and adoptive parents both bear absolutely no responsibility for the development of the people under their care until they come under their care, and in neither case does that make any difference for their responsibility thenceforth. If the previous pastor turned a blind eye to drunkenness and fornication, the new pastor still has to deal with those sins graciously and forthrightly, just as he can take no credit for the elders his predecessor so carefully trained. An adoptive parent can’t boast in his child’s winning smile, but still has to comfort her through screaming fits night after night. You don’t dance with those who brought you: you dance with those the Lord has brought to you.

Hence, both must operate entirely on the basis of God’s grace through the Cross of Christ. You can’t make a sinner be a good person, whether said sinner is your child or your congregant. You can only pray and try your best to forgive, be generous and open-hearted, and then confess your failure to minister to your child or congregant to a Savior whom you know to be merciful to both pastors and parents. Otherwise, not only will you break, you will break many bent reeds.

Parenting and pastoring, then, are both extremely long-term propositions. I’ve been in my call for fifteen years now, and in all honesty, some of the spiritual progress I’ve been privileged to see can only be measured in decades. (If any in my congregation are reading this, rest assured I’m not talking about you personally. You’ve been growing like a spiritual weed. Okay, maybe that’s not the most flattering metaphor.) Likewise parenting. I like to tell people, and need to tell myself more often, that we’re not raising children, but adults. Whether our children are a constant challenge or joy at this very moment, we won’t know how they’ve turned out until we need them to take care of us in our old age. Parenting and pastoring alike: not a race, not even a marathon; instead, a garden which must be cultivated, pruned, watered and covered year after year, season after season until the Lord calls us to lay all our labors down.

And so two twinned challenges. Parents, but especially adoptive parents, should most understand the challenges and joys of pastoral ministry; pray for and encourage your pastor accordingly. Pastors, more than any other in the average congregation, should most understand the challenges and joys of adoptive parenting, and should consider adopting children.

How an atheist became pro-life

I don't know who first said (or wrote) "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention," but that would be a nice summary of Nat Hentoff's still-ongoing journalistic career. As memories of the American Republic and its Constitution recede ever further into the past, a great number of his columns on cato.org end with something very much like, "I keep repeating: Is this still America? And if not, who on earth are we?" And for this, he is to be ceaselessly praised.

The marvelously titled "Not Only Did Obama Lose (Hooray Constitution), but so Did Abortion," is not simply a celebration of the recent election results; in it, Hentoff explains how he came to "the most controversial position he has ever taken" (and the one which, the cynical amongst us are wont to suspect, was the real reason he was laid off by The now-disgraced Village Voice). He read some books on prenatal biology, and came to the inescapable conclusion that a fetus is a human person.

I bring this up (again) because I know what reasonable people think about people like me. To save time, I've begun explaining to those outside our ecclesiastical circles that "We're not the nice presbyterians; we're the reactionary, knuckle-dragging kind." (Yes, I literally say that. With a smile, though.) That's why I feel compelled to point out that our crazy views on the beginning of human life do not orginate in an irrational leap of faith, but rather in observation and an application of the scientific method. Indeed, the true irrationality is to suppress all reason and conclude, contrary to all evidence, that a person is not a person simply because said person is in the womb.

In other words: if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

A visit from the happy lion

If you don't closely follow news from Europe, you may not know that the greater Parisian metropolitan area is all in a terrified frenzy over reports of a "big cat" on the loose. That reaction is quite unfortunate: we who spend every evening reading classic children's literature know there is no reason for concern.

Continuing education

As is the case for many others, one of the most important lessons I took away from graduate school is that I am not cut out for any higher educational endeavors. Nonetheless, on a recent trip to Berlin, Pa Curmudgeon found an educational institution which makes me wish I had taken a semester abroad.