Ever wonder what hanging out with author Don Miller would be like?
You know — the infamous guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What and others…
Tripp and Tyler find out…
Enjoy!
(HT Travis Mamone)
Tag: Don Miller
Crazy times
I gave in and joined a couple discussion on Facebook over the weekend about faith and politics.
Several folks whom I consider good friends (and still do) made comments that basically said if you vote for any candidate that supports abortion, you need to really question your salvation and faith.
That really bothers me. But I really don’t want to delve into that here.
For the record, I’m pro-life. Always have been and likely always will be. And I also hope that my pro-life stance doesn’t end with birth of a child. I hope that it goes from conception to the grave. Am I caring for that baby after it’s birth? Am I advocating for quality of life and freedom and justice for that baby as he or she grows into adulthood? Am I advocating that the child will be free from oppression?
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I will also add that my pro-life stance doesn’t always agree that “life” is the ultimate answer. We tend to think it is. We tend to think that prolonging life is the ultimate goal of medicine. But just because we have the technology to keep a person alive via machine – doesn’t always mean that we should.
But I digress.
Anyways, I wanted to share a couple different views on the election. Two different “Christian” authors have shared some of their thoughts on the election.
This first video is a video of John Piper who shares his thoughts on the unusual challenges this election presents. Such as Sara Palin as VP. Can a woman be “commander in chief?” And what about race and what about abortion? Shouldn’t Barack Obama be concerned about the 12 million unborn babies who have been killed in the U.S.?
Beyond the initial comments, I think Piper makes some great excellent points.
We don’t live for politics. We don’t base our confidence about the future on who gets elected… Let those who vote or do politics do it as though they were not doing it. Which means there is a type of engagement that is not all consuming… We’re not here fully. We have a foot in heaven and a foot on the earth. We are citizens of two kingdoms. This is not our main home. This world is passing away… We know this system is disappearing. We shouldn’t be so worked up about our opponent getting elected that it will undo his life.
The second point of view is from Don Miller. He shares his journey from being a Ronald Reagan Republican to a Barack Obama Democrat.
My Journey from being a Reagan Republican to an Obama Democrat.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church along the Gulf Coast in Texas. It was a suburban church nowhere near a bus line, protected as it were from most demographics that didn’t have our common interests. Those interests were embodied in the Republican Party, then led by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan captured our attention with an anti-communist, anti-atheist message, that was easy to understand, emboldening the American people against a clear threat , that of nuclear war and a godless communist regime. Reagan rode that same horse his entire career, even as an actor while President of the Screen Actors Guild, taking stands against blacklisted actors and directors thought to be sympathizers with communist ideology. The Democrats, on the other hand, were squishy, hard to understand, and believed life was complicated. They sounded intellectual and suspicious.
So take some time and dig into these thoughts, these world-views. Do they line up with yours? Does it matter?
I keep going back to Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw’s thought, “What matters more is not who you vote for on Nov. 4 but how you live on Nov. 3 and Nov. 5th.”
Another world is possible!
And one final thought, especially for those of you who haven’t voted yet, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy Adams
UPDATE: @kevinhendricks adds to the Piper conversation on his own blog :: should we pray for the church to suffer?
Donald Miller at the DNC Convention
Emergent Village shares the video and text of Donald Miller’s (Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What) prayer of benediction at the DNC Convention in Denver last night.
Here’s the video:
The full text and background story is at emergent village.
related:
emergent village
SSL :: christian conservatives could bolt from GOP
SSL :: bone of my bone. flesh of my flesh.
SSL :: more on searching for God knows what
The Gospel according to William Shakespeare
I just finished Searching for God Knows What.
Where to begin? Wow. You’ll just need to buy the book and read it for yourself. Seriously – just click the link and buy it straight from Amazon. It’s easy. They’ll ship it right to your home or office.
But enough of that. You’re interested in the title to this post – otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.
I feel like maybe I’m spoiling the book here, but in the final chapter of Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller suggests that the poet and playwright William Shakespeare may have been more of a prophet that we’ve given him credit for.
Granted I would say prophet is probably a strong word – but I can agree with modern day preacher (for his day).
Continue reading The Gospel according to William Shakespeare
Christian conservatives could bolt from GOP
The NY Times reports:
Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.
It’s interesting to me to see the “you’re either with us or against us” ideal of many conservatives on the abortion issue and others. Don’t get me wrong, I’m against the practice as well and honestly I’m not a Giuliani fan, but this article really makes Don Miller’s point in “The Search For God Knows What” that much clearer.
Miller argues that we view life as riders in a lifeboat. He tells of a question an elementary teacher asked his class (I’m probably butchering this since I don’t have the book in front of me), “If a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor and a cripple are stranded in a lifeboat and one of them must be thrown overboard to keep the lifeboat afloat, which one do you choose?”
Miller remembers people arguing for various people right away – as if one person somehow is more valuable than the other.
Miller continues to point back to the lifeboat illustration throughout the book and just last night I read his thoughts on the war on popular culture between the “godly moral right” and the “godless immoral left” (my words not his).
It seems that many Christians want to rage war against everyone who don’t measure up to their/our moral standards – yet we can pick and choose which moral standard(s) we want to hold them to.
Miller makes the point that if we’re really “waging war” against someone the only option is to either handcuff them or kill them. Doesn’t sound very Christian to me. Yet we wage war against others as if to prove that our side is really better than their side and that somehow we, or the person we chose deserves to stay in the lifeboat.
My boss and I talked about this lifeboat phenomenon a couple weeks ago and he made the observation that in reality, as Christians the answer should be – we’ll jump out of the lifeboat. I agree, “What greater love has any man than this, that he lay down his life for his brother.”
What are we saying to the lost when rather than showing them love, we simply bolt and say we want nothing to do with them?
‘Bone of my bones – flesh of my flesh’
Interesting thoughts/questions I wondered about while reading Genesis 1-3 this morning…
Gen 1:26-28 says God created man and woman, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” — on the 6th day of creation. Yet it isn’t until Gen. 2 that scriptures actually tells us about the creation of Eve. I wonder how/why that is? Does that signify the seven days took a lot longer than a literal seven days? Maybe 100 years for each day or 1000 years for each day?
If you read Gen. 2:15-24 it would appear that things happened in this order…
Adam was created. God told him not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.
God realized Adam was alone. (v. 18)
God told him to get to work. Adam set out to name all the animals (probably not a short-term task). “So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” (v. 20)
I bet as Don Miller suggests, in his book, “Searching for God Knows What” it could have easily taken 30-40 maybe even 100 years to name all the animals on the earth. I wonder if he named all the fish in the sea too? Did they all swim up next to the shoreline so he could name them?
Adam stays busy working “But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” (v. 20)
Seems like God realized Adam’s needs long before he did. I wonder when it hit Adam that he was lonely and needed human companionship.
I wonder if God was sitting there just waiting for that moment to arrive. Then He leans over and says to the angels gathered around watching things on earth in great joy – “Ha. See I told you Gabriel and Michael — I knew he’d realize his basic need in life is for companionship and relationship. He just had to get out and see the world a bit.”
Miller says that he bets Eve felt really loved.
Adam had longed for a companion. He didn’t even know what that would mean but when he saw Eve he said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
I bet Eve felt treasured because Adam had never lusted after another woman. Never abused another woman.
Never mistreated another woman and he was craving her presence even before she was created.
She was exactly what he was looking for.
Reminds me of our search for Christ. Before meeting Christ, we don’t know we’re even looking for Him. But we search and search and carry on with our work until suddenly we realize there’s something missing. We’re missing out on something bigger than us. Then once we find Him — we realize He’s exactly what our soul needed.
Anyways — just some thoughts — additions/comments/clarifications?