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.