Guest Geek

I have been reflecting and praying over whether or not to begin blogging again—and what form it would take if I did—for a pretty long time.  One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with this blog and to explore theology from a geek perspective is the simple fact that I know I'm not the only one out there!  In fact, in the wake of the Aurora Colorado mass shooting at the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, I had the honor of reading a thoughtful and appropriate geek response on Facebook. I immediately asked the young man who wrote it if I could repost it sometime. Well, Brendan has gone one step further and revised it one more time—and so he is the first (and hopefully not the last) of my guest geek bloggers! So without further ado, here's Brendan's response to the Aurora Dark Knight shooting:

I have always been a Batman fan and, for a time, I held that childhood innocence making all the world appear bright, rosy, and uncomplicated. There was perhaps one event, more than any other, that changed that. When I was still very young, I asked my mom a question one night as she was tucking me into bed. I had just been playing at my best friend's house and a sudden doubt was gnawing away at the back of my mind.

"Are bad guys real?"

I wept when she told me the truth, although even then I thought she meant people like Mister Freeze and the Joker, people who could not be caught, people who always escaped.

I never asked if Batman was real.

In Aurora, Colorado, a supervillain became real. He walked off the screen and slaughtered people for believing in heroes, people who, if they were anything like me, had spent years waiting for this film and paid far more than the price of a ticket just to see the beginning.

Nowadays, I don't need to ask if heroes are real. Batman is not my favorite superhero because he's smart or strong or honorable: it's because he's human. There's a quote in the Dark Knight Rises: "the point of Batman is that he can be anyone." The world does not have anymore superheroes than it has supervillains, but one man with a gun can do more harm than any hero can repair, though so many try. It is up to the everyday heroes, the little heroes living their lives as courageously as they can to make a difference. Christian Bale going to the hospital where the victims were being treated is just one example of an apparently small (and very important) heroism, but Batman does not stand alone. Everyone needs to stand against acts of terror and violence like this and do their part to show that bad men do not control this world: the heroes do.

Thank you, Brendan.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
012813

1984

So, I recently ran across this article on Wired concerning a high school in Texas kicking out one of their students for refusing to wear her student ID.  So why was Wired covering the legal battle?  Because at first glance, the heart of the story was radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology.  You see, like many state-funded schools, their budget is tied to their attendance.  Requiring their students to wear RFID badges allows the school to count every student in the building as present—not just the ones who were in their seats when the teacher was looking, but also the ones in the guidance office, or making out in the stairwell, or smoking in the bathroom.

I have to admit, when I scanned the first paragraph of the piece, I expected to see words like "Big Brother," "invasion of privacy," or "treated like a beloved family pet."  The last thing I expected to see was the phrase, "Mark of the Beast."  As soon as I saw those words, I had to read on, even though I had several knee-jerk assumptions.  The first assumption was that somewhere in there would be the kind of Biblical interpretation that sets my teeth on edge.  The second was that I'd see at least one book of the Bible misspelled.

As it turns out, I might have only been half right.  I did indeed see a book of the Bible misspelled.  Again.  I freely admit that this irritates me to no end.  The Bible is widely considered to be one of the most, if not the most, widely circulated book, well, ever.  How hard is it to lay ahold of a copy, crack it open, and read the words "The Revelation of John" or, simply, "Revelation?"  Singular.  One revelation to one guy.  Not, in other words, "Revelations."

There, I said it, I feel better now.

Where was I?  Oh right, Biblical interpretation.  The phrase "Mark of the Beast" comes from Revelation, one of the most commonly abused books of the Bible.  It describes a vision—a dream, if you will—and it has all the illogic and fantastic imagery you would expect.  I don't know about you, but I don't tend to take dream imagery literally.

I once had a dream that a friend had been buried alive and that I had a shovel.  Was the dream true?  Yes.  My friend needed my help.  Was she literally buried alive somewhere?  Of course not.  The dream requires interpretation because it's a dream.  The same is true of Revelation.  This is one of the reasons why I say that I take the Bible too seriously to take it literally.

So when I see that someone is taking a moral stance on an issue based on their interpretation of the situation being "the Sign of the Beast," I'm concerned that they are of the "literal and inerrant Word of God" school of interpretation.  But as I said before, I felt the need to keep reading.  It turns out that the young lady was siting Revelation 13:16-18, which reads:

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

So, numerology aside, this seems to be a warning against allowing yourself to be cataloged, so...  I might actually be with the student on this one.  I mean, it's not a warning that I would apply to the census or a student ID, but I would stand against Senator Kelly's Mutant Registration Act. And as a proud American citizen I uphold her right to refuse based on her sincerely held religious beliefs.

Now, if only the media would stop portraying all Christians taking a stand based on their beliefs as the vocal lunatic fringe, maybe we could all get somewhere with this.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
012113

360 vs AR-15

I mentioned in my previous post that I went to seminary, got my MDiv, and that I am an ordained pastor serving in the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ.  I didn't always live and serve in Pennsylvania, though.  My first two calls were to churches in the same Association of the Connecticut Conference as Newtown, Connecticut.

So please understand that what I am about to say isn't a knee-jerk reaction to yet another slanderous shot at one of my favorite pastimes.  Furthermore, please know that this isn't the first thing I thought about the whole tragic mess, let alone the last.

The truth is, the Bible flip-flops quite a bit on the subject of killing.  Especially in the Hebrew Scriptures.  The  Sixth Commandment seems pretty straightforward, "You shall not kill." (Exodus 20:13)  Then again, some translations say "You shall not murder."  So, there's that.  Then there's the whole debacle where Saul didn't kill enough people and livestock.  (I Samuel 15)  But then again, David is harshly punished for stealing his neighbor's wife and arranging to have him killed.  (2 Samuel 11-12:23)  And so on and so forth.  So what should I, as a good Christian, believe about killing?  Well, as far as the law goes, I use the interpretive lens that Jesus gave us:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’(Matthew 22:34-40)

In other words, all of what the law instructs us and everything the prophets told us can be summed up in those two laws.  Or, as I learned it at Silver Lake, if we just do three things—love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself—then you'll have a great week!  (or life, even!)  Saul failed to love God.  David failed to love his neighbor.  I'm still not sure what that means for people like Arnaud Amalric who clearly believed that God wanted him to kill the Cathars.  Except that I should note that he's most famous for allegedly saying, "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."  (Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His.)  Or as it is often misquoted, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out."

Personally, I believe that what violence accomplishes best is creating more violence and that the best way to break the cycle is to simply stop.  Just stop.  On the other hand, I can't in good conscience say that the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 were wrong to rush the cockpit.

Which finally brings me to the National Rifle Association and their reaction to the Newtown mass shooting.




I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the idea of protecting schools with armed guards.  I'm certainly more in favor of trained people (like the police, Secret Service, and other law enforcement personnel that Wayne Lapierre references in his address) than I am private armed citizens taking it upon themselves to protect our schools.  I'm certainly not at all sure that armed guards would actually do anything to dissuade the people that he's referring to when he says, "...our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters.  People that are so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons, that no sane person can ever possibly comprehend them."  And I'm quite sure that armed guards are not, if you'll excuse the phrase, a magic bullet.  Just ask Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy, Neil Gardner.  Just ask anyone stationed at Fort Hood on November 5th, 2009.

I believe that there is no magic bullet.  No one clear answer.  Maybe part of the answer is armed guards.  I don't know.  Maybe part of the answer is restricting access to guns that can fire 5 bullets a second.  And yes, I have read the Constitution.  So if you can prove that you're a member of a well regulated militia, we can talk more about your right to own an assault rifle.

So, I probably wouldn't even be writing this if it Lapierre hadn't gone off on video games—I won't even dignify the slam on popular music with a response, after all, that's so twenty years ago.  But blaming video games for violent behavior has become standard response, despite Lapierre's claim that the media is working to hide the idea.

I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe he really believes that video games are the root cause of human violence.  Unfortunately for him, the claim has no basis in fact.  According to the FBI's 2011 Uniform Crime Reports, violent crime has gone down over the past 10 years.  Video game use has gone up in the same amount of time.  If video games caused violent crime, wouldn't violent crime have gone up in that amount of time?

Ok, so, that's just the piddly research I could do over the course of an afternoon.  What does the Journal of Pediatrics say?  Oh.  It finds no support for a causal link between playing video games and violent behavior.  Well, what about Criminal Justice and Behavior?  Oh.  Playing violent video games isn't a significant risk for future violent criminal acts.  Well, what does the United States Supreme Court say?  Oh.   "Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively."

Please hear me.  This a more important issue than just irritating nearly every 35 year old in the country.  The fact that it is simply untrue that video games are the root problem here means that bringing it up is worse than dishonest.  It's unhelpful rhetoric serving no other purpose than to rile people up. It's a cheap pop and it has no place in the discussion of something as sad and holy and important as the memory of those who have died and the mourning of those that were left behind.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
011413

Helm, Warp One Engage!

Hello World, my name is Josh and I am a geek.  I'm also an ordained minister serving in the Penn Central Conference of the United Church of Christ.  I have a BA in Philosophy and Religion and a Masters of Divinity degree.  And I mention this only to point out that I've spent an awful lot of time thinking systematically about God and faith and what I believe.

Did you know that there isn't just one theology that all Christians ascribe to?  I'm aware that consistent news coverage of the Westboro Baptist Church and other, ever so slightly less extreme Christians may lead you to believe otherwise, but it's true!  There's Feminist Theology and Womanist Theology (yes, there is a difference). There's Liberation Theology, which is a Latin American response to poverty. There's Process Theology, which has some similarities Quantum Physics—if I understand either of them correctly. There's even Queer Theology, which comes out of the culture and community of our queer brothers and sisters in Christ.

These various theologies have come about because we cannot think about our relationship between ourselves and God from a neutral position—we think about that relationship from our own perspective.  Our own personal experiences will always shade our understanding of God.  And this is a good thing!  You see, God is so much bigger than we are, that we couldn't possibly wrap our minds around God's entirety.  But if we add my experience to your experience to Martin Luther's experience, to Bono's experience, and so on and so forth, we come a little closer to understanding God more fully.

So...  that begs the question; what culture shades my understanding of God?  And if I'm honest with myself, when I read Mark 13:1-2, for example:

As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ Then Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

 The first thing that pops into my head is this:



And that's just one example.  So somewhere along the line I came to the conclusion that "geek" is probably the best term for the culture that I most closely identify with.  And of course there are many, many shades of geek—but I believe that they have enough overlap that geek is still the best overarching term for what I'm getting at here.

So that's what this blog is going to be about—thinking about God from the perspective of Geek.  A Geek Theology, if you will.  My hope is that my geeky musings here will foster discussion and—ultimately—add just a little more to the pile of experiences of God so we can all understand the Deity more fully.

Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
010713