The opening scene is a grey-brown winter day on a New England estate, a mom and kids running across the lawn, while the cameras zoom into the English Tudor mansion towering in the background…through the window, the rooms, and on grey face in the shadows. It’s a recognizable actor, the dirty cop in Scarface. He cost a pretty penny, it’s not low-budget, I think.

He comes out of the dark shadows and looks out the window at his wife and kids, waves and smiles, then blows his brains. They didn’t pay too much for that appearance.

 
They killed him in the first few minutes

It gets more paranoid. “Not every conspiracy is a theory,” is the slogan. What gives it an edge is the loneliness of the main character. His wife and child were killed in 9/11. He works in a nameless spy agency, against unknown enemies, and his only friend dies in a train wreck, but it maybe it was a murder, who knows?

It strikes me these writers understand the loneliness that runs so deep inside, and the fears, anger, worries, memories we cannot share.

We forget how widespread the loneliness is. The nightmare of it is in dealing with the paranoia alone.

The name is paranoid. The Rubicon is a river near Rome marking a boundary no Roman legions could pass without Senate approval. It was the Senate’s safeguard against a coupe by ambitious generals, like Julius Caesar, the general who did cross the river and named himself Rome’s first Emperor. In their infinite wisdom, the Senate did not anticipate that someone might just lead his legions across the river anyway, and who could arrest him?

"But nobody has crossed the Rubicon for a thousand years!" a startled Senator exclaimed. They trusted the mysterious power of tradition to control minds, which usually works, until a Caesar appears. What is that power traditions hold?

Jesus Christ did the same thing, but different. He too rejected the religious traditions that lock people’s minds, but Jesus actually won against the guardians of tradition. Julius lost.

The Senators secretly drafted a new resolution to close the Rubicon loophole by stabbing him in the back (30 times) as he entered the Senate chambers—without his legions. They can always get you, if not this way, then that. It sounds paranoid, but not once you meet someone like Brutus, the mind behind the conspiracy. 

Julius never saw it coming.  "E tu Brute?" were his last words. Every first-year Latin student knows it means, "You too, Brutus?" Despite his brilliance and courage as Rome’s greatest conqueror, who could out-think, out-maneuver and destroy the best armies in Gaul, he could not see betrayal in the heart of his best friend.

When traditions are challenged, people like Brutus get terrified beyond reason. He jettisoned his loyalty to Julius because he was more loyal to Roman tradition, so he assassinated his friend.

Funerals make great paranoid events.

Jesus faced the same fanatic traditionalists, and they too conspired to murder him in an illegal “trial” held secretly at night, breaking many traditions to preserve the traditions Jesus threatened. Yes, it is inconsistent, but it worked—for a few days. In their infinite wisdom, the Sanhedrin did not anticipate the resurrection, like the Senate did not anticipate the Rubicon loophole, but how can anyone anticipate a resurrection? (Well, they did have Isaiah’s prophecies from centuries earlier.)

Jesus won against the Titans of tradition through his love, whereas all the legions and fear commanded by Julius could not hold the loyalty of Brutus and the Senate. The disciples of Jesus remained faithful and they loved him and died for him. They lost all the security of their Jewish identity when Gentiles swarmed in the Jesus Movement, and they were rejected by countrymen, neighbors, sometimes families and friends. Jesus bred an amazing loyalty that even surpassed the security of cherished traditions.

This is how to win against conspiracies and enemies of all kinds:

I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. John 15:15 (NLT)

…He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. John 13:1 (NLT)

It’s the paranoia. The writers of Rubicon touched the paranoid thing deep inside everyone, whether we know it or not. Paranoia creates the rabid fanatics of tradition, like Brutus and the Senators who would assassinate Rome’s best general to preserve tradition. People cling to dead, institutional religions because they feel safe, although bored to death. People keep working dead-end jobs because they feel safe, and people tolerate gross sexual abuse in families because they fear losing the security of a family, despite the abuse.

Paranoia is everywhere, in everyone, and Hollywood makes good money with Slasher films and dramas capitalizing on it. Madison Avenue markets paranoia, like the fear of bad breath, rejection, new car safety features, and they create a host of new fears that now rule the modern mind.

The Rubicon writers nailed it: “not every conspiracy is a theory.” Conspiracies surround us, everywhere. Friends talking behind friends backs, parents who plot how to catch their kid doing something, the whispers between kids, and even at school and work the administrators conspire how to control their underlings. The motivation for our Constitutional freedoms of the press and speech is the defense against conspiracies.

Paranoia is everywhere

Loneliness intensifies paranoia. In a loveless world, paranoia rules. In God’s world, love rules. That’s the difference between the worlds of Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ.

1. It is not a four-letter-word;
2. it is not a real word (it is a compound of two words);
3. the embedded cussword is spelled with two “m’s”, not “mn”.

Is this not silly? Such are the mental gymnastics the Cuss Police must hurdle in the quest for cuss-free perfection. Although Jeremiah wrote an excellent article about this issue at the NeoZine, I’ve come to understand the real struggle is between the Cussword Canon and the Urban Dictionary.

“Allow Me to Introduce Myself”

Allow me to pierce my own ego publicly before proceeding with this dirty-word business by acknowledging my own legalism and self-righteousness. I have dragged Christians away from their faith; I have committed shameful and even criminal acts; I have actively campaigned against the One who saved me, stumbled Christians, abused my good parents, and the list goes on.

With such a history, I know what it’s like to play the self-righteous Christian, condemning others with vitriolic rage for sins far-less damaging. I cannot assign all that dirt to “my misguided youth”, because it was God’s grace that rescued me from folly, not the so-called wisdom of age.

With that in mind, please understand there is no ground for me to claim superiority over the Cuss Police, my fellow-Saints. My own hypocrisy enables me to see others struggling with it. I was given a piece of freedom, so I freely offer to pass along the liberty of God to any Saints burdened with Cuss Police responsibilities.

This week at the Xenos Summer Institute, certain young provocateurs wore shirts declaring, “CUSSING IS NOT A SIN!” Clearly they were baiting the Cuss Police, but not to antagonize or insult—if cusswords covered their shirts, they would be antagonizing, yes.

Their shirts stated a doctrinal position, just as other shirts at XSI carried slogans and causes ranging from poverty relief to women’s rights. The discussions triggered by their pro-cussing-cause seemed friendly enough. Their willingness to listen was evident.

Kay Arthur took the bait, a keynote speaker. My son Kyle was wearing that shirt, and Kay grabbed his arm and quoted scripture, “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.” This 76-year-old saint was kind and relational, and allowed Kyle to explain he was not advocating taking the Lord’s name in vain. (There is a difference between swearing and cussing.) Her intentions were good and her efforts to understand were honorable, even if she was baffled.

“I felt he needed to know what he was actually doing,” Kay told me later. I thanked her for this highly-justified cause (he does need to know what he’s doing).

Later, in her teaching, Kay said, “I don’t give a damn!” (Someone claimed she said “bitch”, which I don’t know.) Interestingly, her slip-up escaped Cuss Police censure because it was an appropriate and judicious use of cussing. It seemed like natural speech.

The Cussing Conundrum

Here is the cussing conundrum: if Kay Arthur cussed, if the Cuss Police didn’t notice, and if we all employ an “appropriate and judicious use of cussing” at times (do we not?), why is it still a big bugaboo? The shirts worn by those provocateurs seemed strident at XSI only because Christian ethics are woefully culture-bound to the 1950s and out of touch with the changing world, and I can prove it.

BUT FIRST, please be advised: language can be devastating and cruel when it takes the forms described in Ephesians 4:32 and 5:2, where it says our speech should not be degrading. (See Jeremiah’s article for details.) Loving Christians must be differentiated from the unloving world in their speech.  Christians should be the last people on earth to degrade God or Jesus by treating their names like trash. And any language—cusswords, gossip or railing judgments—which degrades the loving Christian witness is foul stuff.

Hopefully these caveats make it clear we should never advocate the indiscriminate use of violent, degrading, or sexually-abusive language. Christians cannot act like drunken sailors looking for a fight (apologies to any navy people, like you, dad, if you’re reading this—it’s just an expression).

What escapes the notice of culture-bound Christians are the changes in English since the 60s. I am old enough to remember when cusswords were used for pugnacious reasons by violent people. Today cusswords are also used as friendly slang words, and not abusive words. (A polite example might be, “Hey, Mo Fo!” But please don’t use that indiscriminately…it can result in a black eye, depending on the recipient.)

Canonized Cusswords?

[Note: for those unfamiliar with church-words, 'canon' means 'church rule', or 'church standard'. 'Canon Law" refers to the body of decrees and papal bulls made by Institutionalized Christianity through the ages. 'Canonized' means some church council made some rule about something, somewhere, at some time, and it's supposed to carry a pompous, implicit threat. ]

All cusswords are vernacular, meaning they are slang, and not part of formal English. Slang words in all forms are inappropriate in educated, cultured discourse or public speaking venues, (nobody says, “Hey, y’all!” in a public speech)  and this truly confuses Christians who normally speak in cultured discourse, and therefore believe any cussing is inappropriate.

But Christians overlook the online Urban Dictionary, used by the profane (non-religious) world. It carved a popular niche untouched by the Oxford English Dictionary, the usual friend of Christian parlance.  The Urban Dictionary defines vernacular, and because slang changes so often, this Internet dictionary keeps pace.  So the Urban Dictionary is the place to understand the cussing world, not the Oxford dictionary, which can only standardize English, and avoids slang.

Since cusswords are vernacular, by definition, the vernacular can turn cusswords into non-cusswords.

It is that simple.

There is simply no biblical list of cusswords, period. This is not a doctrinal debate, people. The frustration for the Cuss Police is the complete absence of any authoritative list of violent, abusive, foul, or obscene words. As soon as such a list is produced it will become quickly outdated as slang changes. Not all the words change their meanings quickly, but the list itself is a moving target. This is the absurdity of canonized cusswords.

Rather than lists of “dirty” words, God gives us principles of loving intercourse (cultured minds understand the clear meaning here–use the Oxford dictionary). Since loving intercourse is “the goal of our instruction,” the Bible says (again, using the Oxford dictionary).

What those friendly provocateurs should have written on their shirts was this:

“CUSSING IS NOT A SIN,
USE LOVING INTERCOURSE INSTEAD!”

Now that slogan would provoke far more interesting conversations, because the Cuss Police would get confused about which dictionary or cussword-canon defines intercourse! (Do you know?)

Weightier Portions

Christians stuck with a cussword canon are probably not doing a good job of interacting with the changing world, because the culture has no such canon. It is understandable when really old Christians like Kay Arthur, my mother, and others from the WWII generation fall behind in the changing world. They may never appreciate the fine use of slang (although Kay is making remarkable strides).

But for those of us highly-engaged with the contemporary world, cuss-phobia is clearly addressed by the Bible:

When I am with the Gentiles who do not follow the Jewish law, I too live apart from that law so I can bring them to Christ. But I do not ignore the law of God; I obey the law of Christ. 1 Corinthians 9:21 (NLT)

It means drop the religious lingo around non-Christians. It is bad enough when Christians carry a cussword canon from the 1950s, but quite another thing to impose the outdated canon on non-Christians. Not only does it guarantee alienation, it is a clear violation of scripture.

Some Christians think cuss-phobia is a testimony for Jesus, which is ironic, if not tragic.  In reality, non-Christians chuckle about cuss-phobic Christians.  Christians get teased when they “slip” and cuss not because their witness was blown, but because they deserve to get ribbed for excessive pickiness and cuss-phobias.

When reaching out to non-Christians, we do not act lawlessly, but “I obey the law of Christ,” Paul says. It means we stand firmly on God’s definition of love, and maintain a loving, relational disposition as our witness. Imposing outdated vernacular standards on non-Christians is neither loving or relational.

Christianity Today recently published an article about the “Lord’s name in vain” issue, where the writer makes the profound point this injunction concerns not merely using His name in expletives, but the need to honor His name:

As with all commandments, we keep them not just by avoiding certain behaviors but also by doing good works. So we are reminded to pray, praise, and verbally give thanks to God for his goodness and to call out to him in times of trouble. We must work to ensure proper teaching and employ God’s name in defense of truth and goodness. Hemmingway, Vainly Naming the Name

Being Different

The power of the Christian voice is evidenced by our divergence from the surrounding culture. This is repeated often in the Bible, but I love the original version of this concept:

Leviticus 11:44 (NASB) ‘For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth.

“Consecrate” and “holy” simply mean “different.” This is so cool: stay away from “the swarming things that swarm…” He sure knows how to picture it!

There is a godly and ungodly way to “be different” from “the swarming things.” The Godly difference should be attractive, “the aroma of Christ,” where, “They will know you are my disciples by your love.” Non-Christians are drawn away from “the swarming things,” so degrading and oppressive. We cannot add to their burdens Christian cultural stigmas wrapped in the pretense of cleanliness.

The ungodly Christian difference is poisoned with hypocrisy, and non-Christians are both confused and repelled by it. Christians must repudiate this reputation for hypocrisy and petty morality, so “you shall not make yourselves unclean.”

Paul offers tremendous insight to this issue:

Likewise urge the younger men to control themselves.  Show yourself in all respects a model of good deeds, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.”

Radical stuff!

No, I’m not kidding (very much).

Bow Wow Beach - the crime scene

Bow Wow beach is a little fishing pond in Stow which was recently opened up for pooches to poop on the sandy beach and frolic in the water scaring the fish. It seems  innocuous enough, but beware! Lurking beneath this doggie haven are the simmering tempers of crazy pet-owners waiting to burst against innocent fishermen (and boys).

The last time I went there with Connor, my 14-year-old son, we were trounced-upon by five red-faced, livid dog owners shrieking at us for endangering the lives of their dogs! Their rage went from non-existent to mob violence in a flash.

It started with a livid (BIG overweight) grit striding quickly towards Connor and I with his (BIG overweight) wife and white poodle in-tow:

“Are you crazy? What do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know fishing is not allowed here?” he was shouting at us as he approached.  “I am on the Parks and Recreation board, and you can’t fish here!”

“But it was the Parks and Recs people who told me I could fish here,” I said, holding a worm in mid-air, frozen by the sudden outburst.

“That’s a lie! Who told you that?” he yelled. (By now he was in front of me.)

“Brian Kelly…” I started to say, but the man’s (BIG) wife suddenly put her face about 12 inches away from mine (not exaggerating) and yelled, “ARE YOU GOING TO LEAVE OR DO WE HAVE TO CALL THE POLICE?”

Then another HUGE grit (about 6′ 5″, 350 lbs) suddenly appeared from behind: “Who do you think you are? You can’t fish here! It’s posted ‘No Fishing’ here!”

“There’s really no reason to get angry, I’m not trying to cause any trouble here,” I said, trying to calm these imposing figures down. Connor was shell-shocked, his mouth was open.

“Call the police,” the fat man said to his fat wife.

“I’m calling the police,” she said as she pulled out her phone.

“You’re endangering these dog’s lives,” the biggest gallute said. “Wonder if one of your hooks hooked our dog?”

“But that’s why I’m fishing away from the dogs,” I said (they had approached me, keep in mind).

“Are you going to leave or do I have to break that pole?” the biggest, fattest grit of all said as he lunged at my son to grab his pole. Connor ducked and ran to me.

“Connor, let’s get out of here,” I said, packing up our stuff.

Another man (not fat) appeared from behind me, “You can’t fish here!” he said. I noticed another woman (thankfully, thin and smallish, the only one I could probably survive a blow from) appeared behind the line of fat, big grits. She was showing her support by nodding her head quite energetically.

“It’s not illegal to fish here, and it’s not posted ‘no fishing,’” I said as we were walking away.

“I’ve called the police,” the fat woman said.

“Good! I hope they get here quick!” I said, and took Connor’s hand, leaving the park.

But amazingly, they all followed us out of the park with their dogs! By now I thought we were possibly not going to make it to the car. This was a mob action underway. I though of African-Americans who once lived in fear of lynch mobs just like this. I could see how mob action can get crazy without any provocation at all. I was a little surprised to see it from a “pooch mob.”

When the cops showed up, they interrogated me, ran checks on my license and car, sternly forbade me from smoking my pipe (we were standing in an open parking lot), and finally told me to leave immediately. Even though I explained the insane scenario, the violence, and asked for police protection, they continued to harass me and said little to the mob waiting in the background (lawbreakers–all of them–without leashes on their dogs,  I might add).

I told the cops fishing wasn’t against the rules. “The rules are posted right over there,” I said.

Guess what they said?  “You go online and find where it says you can fish here.”

I was flummoxed. “But, you’re allowed to fish iunless it’s posted otherwise,” I said. “Right?” (And, of course, it was not posted “No Fishing” at Bow Wow Beach).

“You need to go on the Parks and Rec site to find out if you’re allowed to fish here,” the cop said.

“But how can I find a rule that doesn’t exist?” I asked. “Aren’t we allowed to do things unless the law says otherwise?” Not according to this cop. He was grabbing his billy club by now, so I just thanked him and left.

But now I know better: having talked with my Parks & Rec connections, we are allowed to fish. So fish I must. And at Bow Wow Beach, too!

“But why fish there?” It’s a good question. The answer is simple: it’s stocked regularly, but nobody dares to fish there because of the pooch owners, and this is probably the best fishing spot in all northeast Ohio! Normally I don’t reveal my secret fishing holes, but in this case I think my chances for survival will increase if more fishermen show up at Bow Wow Beach.

So if I disappear, or if my body is found swinging at the end of a rope at Bow Wow beach, let it be known beforehand: I am a victim of Bow Wow Beach pooch violence.

Go read about Bow Wow Beach at their Web site here.

We don’t need silly Facebook to see this super-RSS feed, of course. It’s available at www.go.neoxenos.org/keith.rss .

So Mr. Kyle (not Kyle, my son) pointed me to the Social RSS on Facebook application which does the Facebook part.¹ Speaking of Kyle my son (not Mr. Kyle), did you notice his facebook page is www.facebook.com/biblestudy ? That address seems rife with potential…

Hey NeoBloggers! You all have RSS feeds at your blog:

• the RSS feed for your articles is http://yourblog.neoblogs.org/feed/
• the RSS feed for your comments are at http://yourblog.neoblogs.org/comments/feed/

Just replace “yourblog” with…guess!

And finally, here is the prodigious output from it:

1. Technical note: I used Yahoo pipes to collate, sort, and massage the RSS feeds.

Kyle goes up to receive his award

Christians aren’t supposed to be big braggarts, or so they say, but can I make a big hullabaloo about my son Kyle’s scholarship and award ceremony? I certainly never received any scholarships or award ceremonies throughout my academic career, and neither did my scurrilous brothers, so maybe I can cheer up old grandpa & grandma this way – there’s still hope for the McCallums after all! (Darelene was High School valedictorian, so the Termans probably consider this normative.)

Carries himself with aplomb.

Much like his mother, Kyle carried himself with respect and decorum throughout the 90-minute ordeal while chiding the old man occasionally for disruptive behavior.

A disruptive old man.

He won a Michael Taylor Public Relations scholarship based on academic achievements, his portfolio, and an essay they read to the crowd. I couldn’t help but hear, “I grew up in a home that valued communication…” Maybe that line didn’t win the scholarship, but it sure won a place in his old man’s heart!

With fellow-recipients, the blonde immediately drew a broad Kyle-smile!

]]> http://remonstrance.neoblogs.org/675/feed/ 1 http://remonstrance.neoblogs.org/641/ http://remonstrance.neoblogs.org/641/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:15:15 +0000 kmccallum http://remonstrance.neoblogs.org/641/

It wasn’t the blossoming sunset that stunned me so much;
not the orange-red flower opening across the sky, nor the orb of shimmering gas;
not the petals of fire sprinkled over the waves;
not the ocean swallowing it all.

It was in the mirror I saw majesty,
a burst of glory passes, I nearly missed.

It was my youngest son Connor I saw in the side-view mirror, an adolescent with a collection of processing-disorders. (Corpus Collosun  Norton-34, I’m told.) I saw him tenderly walking on stones with bare feet. His arms were raised and waving as he kept his balance on tip-toes. His hands held and waved shoes in the air.

“What a knuckle-head,” I thought fondly. “My son.”

My sweet knucklehead.

A van passed Connor, backed-up, and a rear door opened. Justin, my great college disciple, jumped out and hoisted Connor like a bag over his shoulders and disappeared into the van. I kept staring when it was an empty dust cloud. I was frozen inside the beauty of God. I nearly missed it.

The exploding colors ahead and the dust cloud in the side mirror left His fingerprints in my heart. What pierced me deeply was a flash of compassion for a silly, barefoot boy.

Insane Resentments

The power that surrounds us! Who could live without God’s kindness? How many times we miss it. Worse yet, how many times we see only a dust cloud and dismiss God’s compassion, or worse yet, lash back because it still isn’t enough compassion?

This is not trite. Some burdened with ingratitude stumble into a dark pit and may never escape, so deep is the despair:

Because they neither acknowledged God nor gave thanks, God turned them over… Romans 1:26

Worlds are created, orbits set, and the heart is encircled with resentments. They swirl and collide and form complex insanity. “What is happening to us?”  we ask each other. “Our humanity is dying,” we respond, secretly.

Is it really so difficult to give thanks to God?

God “turned them over” to the gravity of aloneness. Drifting from God is hope diminishing and disorder increasing. It is random collisions of hearts choked by resentment, creating more resentment. So ugly are resentments, nobody dares advertise them, nobody warns, then unsuspecting others taste the poison. Pass it on.

Yes, this is insanity. Poison bred among unreal demands and ignorant demands, God says. We may disagree, but our view is clouded. Who dares question the reality of their own resentments? Quite the opposite, resentments obsess us whenever we dare consider them. Obsessions with unreal, ignorant demands. So useless, so insane.

Beautiful Gratitude

But God never lets go without leaving fingerprints inside the heart—a memory, a moment, a good cause for hope in Him. Mostly He touches the world through His Body. That community is where a selfish, lost pagan named Justin was transformed into a compassionate heart towards an irrelevant boy named Connor. I see it all the time: “the older will serve the younger,” God said.¹ It isn’t by chance, it isn’t natural, but it is His beauty at work cleaning poisoned hearts.

The Body of Christ

There is a young girl in our ministry who recently opened her heart to Jesus. When I met her I was overwhelmed by her story so filled with tragedy it was impossible to grasp. But it was her thankfulness that stunned my heart.

Her tragedy made TV news. A judge was compelled to put her and five siblings up for adoption when neighbors complained and Children Services discovered the neglect and squalor of these suffering children. The children were compensating, with the older ones caring for the young, but of course it wasn’t nearly enough.  The state was forced to cut their last threads of love because nobody could adopt so many kids at once.

When their estranged aunt saw the news story, she realized it was her sister’s children. So the aunt with her husband adopted all six children and preserved their last thread of love–their love for one another.

At this point, merely six years old, this little girl made a vital connection with life. She knew this was the kindness of God at work, and she began attending church services whenever she could tag along with someone else. Now in college she tagged along with her Christian roommate to the Identity Project where she found Jesus, the Savior who kept those shattered children together long ago.

Thankfulness prepared her heart. How did she find thankfulness in that station? The answer is beyond my understanding, but I did understand I met a courageous soul when I met her. So many other souls I’ve watched floating into the darkness where resentment thrives!

In my Connor’s young life worlds are forming orbits and circling his heart with thankfulness and hope or fate and bitterness. If can I pass any wealth to Connor, it will be the beauty I saw tonight.

1. Romans 9:12. A prophecy concerning Israel and Esau, but I use it as a poetic picture of discipleship.

Keith Before

Keith After

I owe San Francisco a deep, heart-felt debt: that city was the cauldron (boiling pot) that drove me to smoking weed!

The characters, musicians and revolutionaries working out there fomented a social revolution that was in full swing as I entered High School at my most-vulnerable age. My “older brothers” in the revolution knew what they were doing when they burned American flags and torched the universities, but us High School kids were clueless, and we just did all the drugs! (Well, not me as much as others I know, like Jim Swearingen, below…)

Jim and Bill at our 30th HS reunion - still jamokes (both got saved & Jim is leading an inner city ministry in Buffalo, believe it or not).

Is it time to pay back a debt to Berkley? Sure, why not?

Christians carry a torch of Revolution far more terrible in its implications (in a sweet way) than any revolution arising from those universities! No, I’m not kidding–read about it at the NeoZine. One favor deserves another…

Oh, what a struggle of prayer, correspondences, discussions, and angst, and sometimes I feels like I’m staring down a lion’s open throat to contemplate such a direction for our ministry. (WTF are we going to do there, smoke weed?) Yet things are moving.

Grab a torch! This place needs some light!

As Elaine Stedman recently wrote to me, “Aslan is on the move!” She has a good point. If you remember the movie, things started heating-up when he was on the prowl (in a nice, spring-like fashion!).

I found an old Xenos friend is prominently placed in the administration at Stanford university–But wait! Are we even interested in a university ministry? I guess so! (He started that job about the same time I began corresponding with Lambert & Elaine.) And he writes, in part:

Of course I remember you Keith. I would be happy to get together when you are out this area. Alas, we are housing a new grad who is doing an internship at [Ray Stedman's old church], so I can’t offer you a place to sleep…

Ain’t that a hooter! We really aren’t looking for a place to sleep, dude! (Thanks for the consideration, though.) But we are looking for a good place to torch!

And then they put me in touch with this sharp-minded, heavy-hitting sorta dude named Doug Shearer. While reading his Web, I find this written by Sita, Doug’s wife, and suddenly it all makes sense…

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”  Doug and I and our three kids moved to Berkeley in 1971 to share the good news with the thousands of young people seeking love, peace and meaning for their lives.  They flooded the San Francisco Bay Area with “flowers in their hair”…

Christian leaders, California-style?

These people were at the center of the Jesus Freak movement, which also spawned our Columbus ministry. But there’s more:

We rented a large home where several young girls moved in to be discipled.  Brothers and Sisters houses were established to provide an escape from the drugs, sexual excesses and spiritual darkness that prevailed on the streets.  Families took in new believers who were transformed into “fishers of men” by returning to the streets the next week with us to share the good news with others…

Ministry houses in Berkley!? It sounds all-too familiar, doesn’t it?

Take It To the Streets, Baby!

Street musician & minister at SOS Ministries

Reading the front page of Doug’s Web site is like reading our own conversations lately, even to the extent of sharing an abhorrence of Calvin’s legacy! There’s also some pretty radical dudes associated with this effort, like the “Fireball Ministries” (!?) dude named Paul Coca who has “‘been doing street ministry for over twenty years” and “provides about 70% of our music out on the streets.”

I wondered why Lambert kept sending me to “street ministries” (I do look a little ragged and rumpled, but give me a break! I’ll get a hair cut!), until I realized that street people out there are quite different than street people out here! “All the nuts roll West,” as native Californians say, and they’re referring to all the young drifters and roamers looking for something after graduating from High School buy a van and go to California and fill the streets. Oh wait… that’s like…our favorite age group, isn’t it?

It reminds me of this song right here (the musicians came from San Francisco, too!):

Volunteers of America!

(Click the link to listen)

Go to the SOS Ministries page or read Doug’s “Appeal to My Generation” and you’ll see their call for “Volunteers of America” to join the fight!  Christians are abandoning the tough places. Why? It feels like you’re looking down a lions’ open throat! But it’s all good–step aside, Mr. Coca, and make room for the Scottish Keith…

An older, more-mature Keith hits the streets!

How will they feel about a band of crazy Cleveland dudes coming out there with “torches”, tromping all over their playground? (We’ll try to be civil, of course.)  Doug responds to my inquiries:

What an exciting e-mail.  We share so much in common – including some long-time friends, Lambert, Elaine, and, of course, Ray.  It would not only be my pleasure to meet with you when you’re out this way, it would also be my honor.  Let’s stay in touch. In Christ, Doug.

Yes Doug, let’s stay in touch! Cleveland is coming your way!

(Just don’t tell him about the Cleveland bottle incident at Browns stadium…this and the Drew Carey Show pretty much explain Cleveland.)

Umpires (and players!) almost get 'stoned-to-death' with bottles...only in Cleveland!

Why do I feel this way when I hear B. McLaren talk about sissy revolution? It's not very nice.

Every so often I run across a cool brother or sister the Lord uses at the most-opportune time to give me a sense of direction. In this case, it was my new friend Lambert Dolphin, from the West Coast, near San Fran.  In a series of correspondances concerning our ambition to incite authentic Christian Revolution to the West Coast (as opposed to that creepy, sissy stuff McLaren & Co. yap about), I wrote to him summarizing my position. His answer was most warm and welcoming.

My Letter to Lambert

My dear brother-in-Christ:

As you probably know, I’m agitating Revolution, and there is much evidence of  our Savior’s kind favor towards this effort. He continues to bring young, gifted, zealous Christian converts to us from among the “Lost Millennial Generation”. I feel such a deep, heart-rending burden to get these rather uneducated (but terribly excited) brothers heading the right direction—heading into “The Fight” rather than away from it. The poison of “Personal Peace and Prosperity Christianity” is so lethal and pervasive among older Christians!

You mentioned earlier that you thought I was an evangelist, and while this is possibly true, the undeniable truth is that I’m an agitator. (Is there such a spiritual gift? I hope so, because I certainly have it, whether it’s a gift or a curse!) I’m afraid I’m the Abbie Hoffman-type (lots of hot & acerbic air), and I need to be surrounded by the Jerry Reubin-types as organizers.

So this is why we must come to Berkley and foment Revolution. And I think Our Savior is grieved about Berkley and the darkness surrounding it.

And so Lambert responds:

Howdy Keith,

Back in the late 1930s my mom got her first washing machine. It had a rotary, vertical agitator that worked fine on small loads but bogged way down on coveralls and heavy stuff.

Yes, churches DO need Agitators like you. But the situation is so bad I wonder if small foot-ball sized nuclear bombs might be more effective? That might reveal the black hole at the center of a good many congrtegations?

The polarization in the Church of Laodicea these days is amazing to me. Jesus is outside knocking. He would like to be invited in. Many of the Lord’s closest followers are also outside the assemblies just as Jesus is.

This seems to me to be paving the way for the final form of the church—the harlot church of Revelation 17. For the first time, Jesus tells his followers to just plain leave.

Not all churches are Laodicean of course. Churches like the other six depicted in Rev. 2-3 are to be found in the world around us as well.

The folks I know in Laodicean churches have a vague sense of stress and distress, but little awareness of the huge changes in the world scene which started happening about a year ago.

By all means Agitate! I think the reality is that only a remnant of professing Christians in this country is serving our Lord in such a way that the Spirit is breaking into the world through these people.

I listened to Dallas Willard’s Q&A sessions in Menlo Park at least three times with great interest, http://mppc.org/toughquestions. He is a prof of philosophy at USC and is used to faculty members students. He talks about the near-total ignorance of what the Bible says, or our need to read it all, and to begin to act on what we hear. “If you plan to go to heaven, go now,” he says.

It seems to me that God is still very much retraining evil in the world. What we see is more really ugly stuff breaking loose through around the edges, but I think most people live in denial of the “wrath that is to come.” Movie attendance is way up. The people I know who are surviving economically are usually keeping a low profile. Times like these make more and more of the Bible appropriate, timely, applicable but hearing truth and not acting on truth, leaves one worse off than before.

It is nice to hear from you my brother. I think there are several subjects I wanted to bring up, but right at the moment I can’t think of them.

Shalom,

Lambert

Billy Graham, 1949
“When God gets ready to shake America, He may not take the Ph.D. and the D.D. God may choose a country boy …
God may choose the man that no one knows, a little nobody, to shake America for Jesus Christ in this day, and I pray that He would!”

And Then?

So Lambert then proceeds to give me some contacts and further instructions on how to establish a beachhead there at Berkley. I am most-earnest in my prayers that something very concrete and wonderful will come of all this!