Jimmy Fallon @ Emmys

He's the best at music impressions. He does a great job here taking on Elton John, Boys II Men, and Green Day:

God, the Gospel, and Glenn Beck

From Russell Moore:

A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they’ve heard the gospel, right there in the nation’s capital.

The news media pronounces him the new leader of America’s Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America’s Christian conservatives have no problem with that.

If you’d told me that ten years ago, I would have assumed it was from the pages of an evangelical apocalyptic novel about the end-times. But it’s not. It’s from this week’s headlines. And it is a scandal.

Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, of course, is that Mormon at the center of all this. Beck isn’t the problem. He’s an entrepreneur, he’s brilliant, and, hats off to him, he knows his market. Latter-day Saints have every right to speak, with full religious liberty, in the public square. I’m quite willing to work with Mormons on various issues, as citizens working for the common good. What concerns me here is not what this says about Beck or the “Tea Party” or any other entertainment or political figure. What concerns me is about what this says about the Christian churches in the United States.

It’s taken us a long time to get here, in this plummet from Francis Schaeffer to Glenn Beck. In order to be this gullible, American Christians have had to endure years of vacuous talk about undefined “revival” and “turning America back to God” that was less about anything uniquely Christian than about, at best, a generically theistic civil religion and, at worst, some partisan political movement.

Rather than cultivating a Christian vision of justice and the common good (which would have, by necessity, been nuanced enough to put us sometimes at odds with our political allies), we’ve relied on populist God-and-country sloganeering and outrage-generating talking heads. We’ve tolerated heresy and buffoonery in our leadership as long as with it there is sufficient political “conservatism” and a sufficient commercial venue to sell our books and products.

Too often, and for too long, American “Christianity” has been a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it. There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barabbas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.

Leaders will always be tempted to bypass the problem behind the problems: captivity to sin, bondage to the accusations of the demonic powers, the sentence of death. That’s why so many of our Christian superstars smile at crowds of thousands, reassuring them that they don’t like to talk about sin. That’s why other Christian celebrities are seen to be courageous for fighting their culture wars, while they carefully leave out the sins most likely to be endemic to the people paying the bills in their movements.

Where there is no gospel, something else will fill the void: therapy, consumerism, racial or class resentment, utopian politics, crazy conspiracy theories of the left, crazy conspiracy theories of the right; anything will do. The prophet Isaiah warned us of such conspiracies replacing the Word of God centuries ago (Is. 8:12–20). As long as the Serpent’s voice is heard, “You shall not surely die,” the powers are comfortable.

This is, of course, not new. Our Lord Jesus faced this test when Satan took him to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory. Satan did not mind surrendering his authority to Jesus. He didn’t mind a universe without pornography or Islam or abortion or nuclear weaponry. Satan did not mind Judeo-Christian values. He wasn’t worried about “revival” or “getting back to God.” What he opposes was the gospel of Christ crucified and resurrected for the sins of the world.

We used to sing that old gospel song, “I will cling to an old rugged cross, and exchange it some day for a crown.” The scandalous scene at the Lincoln Memorial indicates that many of us want to exchange it in too soon. To Jesus, Satan offered power and glory. To us, all he needs offer is celebrity and attention.

Mormonism and Mammonism are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They offer another Lord Jesus than the One offered in the Scriptures and Christian tradition, and another way to approach him. An embrace of these tragic new vehicles for the old Gnostic heresy is unloving to our Mormon friends and secularist neighbors, and to the rest of the watching world. Any “revival” that is possible without the Lord Jesus Christ is a “revival” of a different kind of spirit than the Spirit of Christ (1 Jn. 4:1-3).

The answer to this scandal isn’t a retreat, as some would have it, to an allegedly apolitical isolation. Such attempts lead us right back here, in spades, to a hyper-political wasteland. If the churches are not forming consciences, consciences will be formed by the status quo, including whatever demagogues can yell the loudest or cry the hardest. The answer isn’t a narrowing sectarianism, retreating further and further into our enclaves. The answer includes local churches that preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and disciple their congregations to know the difference between the kingdom of God and the latest political whim.

It’s sad to see so many Christians confusing Mormon politics or American nationalism with the gospel of Jesus Christ. But, don’t get me wrong, I’m not pessimistic. Jesus will build his church, and he will build it on the gospel. He doesn’t need American Christianity to do it. Vibrant, loving, orthodox Christianity will flourish, perhaps among the poor of Haiti or the persecuted of Sudan or the outlawed of China, but it will flourish.

And there will be a new generation, in America and elsewhere, who will be ready for a gospel that is more than just Fox News at prayer.

Rigatoni with Shrimp, Calamari, and Basil

No fresh calamari at the grocery store so I just added more shrimp. Very tasty!

Ingredients

• 1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled, deveined, divided
• 14 ounces cleaned calamari (bodies only; tentacles reserved for another use), divided
• 12 ounces rigatoni pasta
• 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 3 cups thinly sliced leeks (white and pale green parts only; about 3 large)
• 3 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• 1 8-ounce bottle clam juice
• 1/3 cup frozen peas, thawed
• 4 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1/2 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese or Parmesan cheese plus additional (for serving)
• 3/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil, divided

Preparation

• Place half of shrimp in medium bowl. Slice half of calamari crosswise into 1/3-inch-wide rings and place in small bowl.
• Coarsely chop remaining shrimp and calamari; place in processor. Using on/off turns, blend until shrimp mixture is finely chopped. Transfer to another medium bowl.
• Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally.
• Meanwhile, heat 5 tablespoons oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add leeks, garlic, and crushed red pepper; sauté until leeks are tender but not brown, about 5 minutes. Add chopped shrimp mixture; stir until shrimp and calamari are just opaque, about 2 minutes. Add clam juice and peas; simmer until flavors blend, about 3 minutes. Stir in 3 tablespoons butter. Season with salt and pepper. Set sauce aside; cover to keep warm.
• Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter with 1 tablespoon oil in medium nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add reserved whole shrimp and sauté 2 minutes. Add calamari rings to shrimp; sprinkle with salt and pepper and sauté until just opaque, about 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat.
• Drain pasta; return to same pot. Add chopped shrimp and calamari sauce, 1/2 cup cheese, and 1/2 cup basil and toss to blend.
• Divide pasta among 4 bowls. Top each serving with sautéed shrimp mixture; sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup basil. Pass additional cheese separately and serve.

Music Deal of the Day

Can't beat Ray LaMontagne for $3.99

Ryan Adams - Dear John

One of my favorite songs....great version of it.

Thought for the day...or everyday.

"If thou dost more rely upon thine own reason or industry, than upon that power which brings thee under the obedience of Jesus Christ, it will be long before thou become enlightened, for God will have us perfectly subject unto him, that being inflamed with his love, we may never transcend the narrow limits of human reason."

Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Can't wait for this album

Produced by T Bone Burnett and has Neko Case singing on a few of the tracks. The first single is awesome. I've always loved the Wallflowers but Jakob's career never took off as a solo artist. That being said, he did have some pretty big shoes to fill...

Abandoned School

Took a drive today to see what I could shoot....class was not in session:

What I'm reading

After watching the documentary Food Inc., I'm fascinated by the way we eat and why. If you haven't seen that film, it will open your eyes to where our food comes from, why we eat it, and why most of the things we eat are not good for us.

Crazy Heart

Go see this movie. Jeff Bridges gives one of the best acting performances I've ever seen. He plays a broke, has been country singer whose life seems to be headed for a train wreck. It's a story about redemption and one mans search for it. Oh, and the music is great.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Good video, especially in light of my first post about judgment. Greg Boyd is one of my favorite speakers. He puts things so simply and is not afraid to challenge tradition. Some of his sermons on politics and the church are pretty eye opening. Enjoy...

John Mayer clip

You gotta love this...John Mayer lets an 11 year old kid from the audience play a song with him......then gives him his guitar. Apparently the kid was holding up a sign asking if he could play with him. And he does a pretty good job!

Judgment

Recently, I was reading this book called unChristian. It conducted surveys and gave statistics regarding peoples' perception and idea of Christianity. Sadly, the news was not good. The book is a great eye opener and everyone should read it at some point. But in a nutshell, the perception of Christianity out there is not like the Christlike radical love that Jesus shows us in the New Testament. We have somehow gotten people to think that we are judgemental, anti-gay, religious hypocrites. Isn't that what the Pharisees were? The Pharisees were a religious and political movement of ancient Israel. The word Pharisee is derived from the Hebrew word perushim meaning "set apart". The Pharisees may have been right about how to live their lives, but were very good at pointing out the plank in other people's eye rather than their own. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said some wonderful things about judgment that I think that we can all learn from:

"When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service."

"Every day man dies the death of a sinner, he cannot raise himself up above any other man or set himself before him as a model, for he knows himself to be the greatest of all sinners. He can excuse the sin of another, but never his own."

If we continually look at ourselves as the worst of sinners and focus on taking the plank out of our own eye rather than worrying about the speck of dust in other peoples eye, we can turn around the perception of modern day Christianity. We can turn it from being like the Pharisees into the radical servant-like love that Christ displayed in every situation.